Skeptico

Andrew Brown fails to understand the rules of secular debate

It really is about time the Guardian pensioned off Andrew Brown. Surely his poorly argued articles must be an embarrassment to them – perhaps they could trade him to the Huffington Post, or something. Take a look at his latest post where he claims that Militant secularists fail to understand the rules of secular debate. Really? Who are these “militant” secularists Brown refers to? Here’s how he defines them:

There are three kinds of people in Britain today who might be taken for militant secularists: that is to say people who are not just themselves unbelievers, but have an emotional investment in the extirpation of religious belief in others. There are the adolescents who have just discovered "rationality"; there are gay people who feel personally threatened by traditional monotheist morality; and, in this country, there are parents frustrated by the admissions policy of religiously controlled schools.

Well, I’m not a teenager, a gay person or a parent in the UK so I guess I’m not a militant secularist. But I’m also not engaged in warfare or combat, so perhaps Brown is, inadvertently, partly right for once. But he’s still mostly wrong.

But what about his main contention – how does he justify his headline, that militant secularists don’t understand the rules of secular debate? To find out, you have to read to Brown’s penultimate paragraph. There you will find his argument, which I reproduce in its entirety:

But the militant secularist takes for granted that "the religious" have no access to reason. There can be no reasoning with his opponents. All he can do is to repeat himself more loudly until the idiots understand.

One can only marvel at the vacuousness of that paragraph. What evidence does he offer to show that the militant secularist “takes for granted” that the religious have no access to reason? Well, none. He offers no evidence, not even one example. One could say that he just assumes, or takes for granted, that they do this. And it’s a ridiculous assumption. Just take a look at any atheist or skeptical blog, or any book by any of the leading atheist writers, and see if the arguments presented are based on just taking for granted that the opposition are not rational. On the contrary, you will find thousands of words analyzing the writings of religious apologists to demonstrate that they are irrational. Look at this post – I don’t take anything for granted, I demonstrate that Brown doesn’t offer any evidence (ie is not using reason) to support his contention. If you present arguments to show something then by definition you are not taking it for granted.

To paraphrase Brown’s sub-headline, Andrew Brown just assumes that “militant secularists” assume that 'the religious' have no access to reason – all he does is repeat himself, loudly. The only interesting question arising from Brown’s post, is who the hell is Andrew Brown any why does someone with such a poor grip on rational argument get to have a regular column in a national newspaper?

Dr. Phil Doesn't Understand Psychology

Or he put his knowledge on hold for this show.

After all these years, it still surprises me that people have the same old fake psychic cold readers on their TV shows. From Orac, I learned last week that Dr. Phil was going to have John Edward and Char Marglois on his show January 10. Can the producers of this show not have heard of the lame cold reading tricks these people use to fool their marks? It’s not as if they couldn’t have contacted the JREF for a detailed explanation of how it’s done (along with the information that Edward and others refuse to be tested for Randi’s million dollar prize, under controlled conditions). It’s also not as if there aren’t a number of skeptical web sites that have also explained this in some detail. Six years ago, I wrote John Edward Re-revisited - a detailed analysis of one of John Edward’s appearances on Larry King. In it I explained the psychology of the scam – for example, how the mark will feel the need to “help” the fake psychic, by suggesting answers and accepting misses as hits. And yet this is Dr. Phil. Isn’t he supposed to be some sort of psychologist? Surely, of all people, Dr. Phil should recognize the psychology of the shell game being played. Shouldn’t Dr. Phil, with his expertize in psychology, be the one to expose this racket rather than promote it? Well, except that his wife is obviously a credulous believer (more of that later). And ratings were also a factor – he showed a huge pile of emails from people wanting to get on the show. (Note to the producers – you don’t have to print out emails.)

Still, this would be an opportunity to play Cold Reader Bingo – to see how many regular cold reader tricks are used in a short period of time. Now, I’m sad to report that I didn’t get a complete line with the chart I randomly chose to use, but I did get hits on 12 out of 25 squares – not bad. And although the bingo card is obviously meant to make fun of these cold readers, its purpose is also serious – it exposes the lame tricks that they use again and again to fool their marks. Click on the Cold Reader Bingo link. In addition to the (randomizable) card, each of the cold reader tricks are explained in more detail in that post.

Against my better judgment, I decided to watch the show with a view to breaking down the techniques used. Doing this, I realized how much I miss Larry King. Yes, he would have these bozos on his show but at least CNN would publish a transcript so you could easily compare the guesses with what the mark actually agreed to. Well, there is no transcript that I could find, so I had to transcribe my own version – not word perfect, but good enough to demonstrate what was going on.

I’m going to focus on just three segments in the show:

1. Three sisters who were on first
2. Reading for Dr. Phil
3. Several reading by Edward on the whole audience (although we were only shown readings on two groups of people).

I’m not going to comment on the readings on Dr. Phil’s wife, or the reading on the producer – there was only so much I was prepared to watch, and Dr. Phil’s wife was, well I’ll be polite and say credulous. Also, there was also a numerologist, for some reason, and I didn’t watch that.

In the sections below I bolded the cold reader guesses, transcribed by me – not blockquoted as they’re not exact quotes (I only have so much time to waste on this nonsense, and as it is I had to watch each section at least five or six times to be sure I caught everything), but they are accurate in principle, if not verbatim. My summary of the marks’ answers and analysis, follow the bolded cold reader quotes.

Three Sisters

Three similarly looking, and similarly dressed women who want a reading, are called up to the front.

Margolis: Your Mother is with you, she says you brought something of hers  (with Margolis holding out her hands to mime the thing that was being brought). This is a standard cold reader guess. Most people bring some jewelry, or a watch. One of the women says “yes” and shows a tattoo of her Mother. So this was a MISS, since a tattoo is not something of her mother’s. However the woman accepts this as a hit. Standard cold reader / mark relationship, where the mark will accept a miss as a hit.

Margolis guesses they came together, and they confirm they are sisters.

Margolis (staring at the woman, trying hard to read a reaction): Did she die in an accident… [pause to look for response] a car accident or impact… [pause to look for response] er, er, er, er, er… I did write that piece down verbatim. Watched it five or six times to count the “er”s. Interesting to see the concentration in Margolis’s face as she stares at the woman and tries to guess what happened, expecting the mark to fill in the details. Unusually, the woman just shakes her head, but doesn’t say what happened.

Margolis Who else is Joseph [pause to look for response], Joe.. [pause to look for response], or John? [pause to look for response], John? Straight in with the “J” bingo square. Any name beginning with a J would count as a hit here. Woman confirms John is their step father. Note that the first guess, “Joe” is wrong. (As before, Margolis looking hard at woman to try to read any response.) The important thing to remember here is that any J name would have been accepted by the mark as a hit, and they had forgotten the initial wrong “Joe” guess. (HELLO – psychology 101, Dr. Phil.)

Margolis: He’s living, right? WRONG – he’s dead. (How can they constantly get this basic fact wrong and still have people believe them?)

Margolis: I get the feeling, he is looking up, while she is looking down. Interpreted later to mean that he is in hell, she in heaven. And yet it’s funny how Margolis would know he was in hell, when 10 seconds before, she thought he was alive. Either way, impossible to verify.

Here Edward jumps in and says is there a murder suicide connection? Strange wording. A “connection”? Why not just say, “was it a murder suicide? Lucky Edward: this is a hit.

Edward: Did she get you out of the house? Another MISS. One of the sisters was outside giving horse riding lessons, but the mother did not “get her out of the house.”

Edward: I don’t know if he shot himself, but I’m getting an impact, a blunt impact. Very WRONG. He actually slit his wife’s throat, and (hard to believe, but this what the woman said) slit his own. You don’t slit someone’s throat with a blunt instrument – you need something sharp. Edward was unlucky here – gunshot would probably have been the most likely thing.

Edward: Did you have an intervention to try to get him out? Another MISS. The sisters had moved out a year before, but there had been no intervention.

At Dr. Phil’s prompting, the sisters then explained in detail what had actually happened (ie the bits that Edward and Margolis couldn’t guess, which was most of it).

Summary of hits versus misses:

1. You brought something of hers – WRONG
2. Who is Joe – WRONG
3. He’s living, right? – WRONG
4. Did he die in an accident… a car accident or impact… er, er, er, er, er – WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, and five “er”s also WRONG
5. Murder suicide? – CORRECT a HIT!
6. Got you out of the house first – WRONG
7. Gunshot – WRONG
8. Blunt force – couldn’t be more WRONG – very sharp force, actually
9. You had an intervention – WRONG

Eight wrong and only one right.

Now, I understand that many people will be impressed by the murder-suicide guess. “How could he have guessed that?” they would say. But you have to understand that Edward frequently makes outlandish guesses, for example who died in a plane or car crash? / who has a leg or arm missing? / who committed suicide? / who was shot in a robbery? – I’ve heard all of those and more. It’s always presented as a question (as it was this time), so when no one fits the bill (and it often does not fit) he can quickly move on to the next guess. And the mark will rarely remember the wrong guess. But on the rare occasions he is correct it will look as though he must be real. This is why “Wild Ass Guess” is a bingo card square. But you have to compare these lucky guesses with the more numerous completely wrong ones, to see the pattern of what is really happening. Initially I was quite impressed with the murder/suicide guess; it was only after watching this section about 10 times (I’m not kidding – Edward speaks very quickly) that I realized that everything else they guessed was wrong. Confirmation bias in action: remembering the hits and forgetting the misses.

Dr Phil reading

Char Magolis’s reading of Dr. Phil consisted of names from Phil’s Wikipedia page and a few other articles you can find online, plus a few wrong guesses accepted as hits by Phil and his wife Robin.

First, we have the “hits” that can all be found on Wikipedia:

Do you have a J, Joseph or John connection? Phil confirms his father's name was Joseph. Information available on Wikipedia.

Is there a Steve? Phil confirms Stevens is his mother’s maiden name. Information available on Wikipedia. Although Margolis said Steve, not Stevens. And why would his mother would refer to herself using her maiden name? Would your mother, if she wanted you to know it was her, call herself by her maiden name? Has your mother ever referred to herself, when speaking to you, using her maiden name? Mine never did. Why would Dr. Phil’s mother do that? Why not just say “it’s your Mom, Jerry”? Or some other means of identification only Phil would know?

Who is Jerry or Gerald?  Er, that’s his mom too – Jerry. Information also available on Wikipedia. But why does Margolis not know that this is also his mother? Wasn’t she just talking to her? (There’s a lot of mumbling by Phil about his mother’s brother, who was also Gerry, or something. Not sure why, since it was already a hit with Jerry.)

Who worked with tools? Apparently no one. Although later Robin (Dr. Phil’s wife) is determined to make this obvious miss a hit, by reminding Phil that his father used to be a butcher. “Worked with tools” means a butcher? Quite a stretch. (Note again the psychology of cold reading – the mark is determined to convert the misses to hits. Again Dr. Phil HELLO, are you a psychologist or not?) Also, why would Phil’s father communicate with his son that he worked with tools (meaning he used to be a butcher), rather than just say, “hey, remember I used to be a butcher?” MISS.

Were you in an airplane and there was an engine problem?  Phil confirms a hit, but then we can easily know this would be a hit from this interview:

Dr. Phil has been a pilot since he was 16 years old. He has been through a number of instances on airplanes where his life was in jeopardy... [My bold]

Did you make a go-kart as a child? Robin later confirms this as a hit, because their son had an accident in his go cart. But this is actually a miss, because the question was “did you make a go-kart as a child,” not “did your son have a go-kart accident?” Also we know that Phil and his family used go-karts from this article:

“[Dr. Phil] showed the audience some pictures of his family enjoying ATVs and go-karts…

There is a guess about a cemetery that is a hit, and another one about railroads that is a miss, although Dr. Phil desperately tries to link to someone in his family who might have worked on the railroad.

• Hits from Wikipedia – 3
• Hits from other online articles – 2 (being generous)
• Real hits – 1
• Misses - 1

Useful information – zero.

Audience Readings

John Edward read two groups of women.

First one

Is there a male energy who has passed? Note that “male energy” has now replaced the “father figure” from the bingo card, that he used to use. And of course, someone has a male who passed.

Sagittarius connection? Well, Sagittarius is one star sign out of 12. Edward was talking to three women together, so I in 4 chance of a hit with just these three. Add all their friends, parents, children, almost a racing certainty someone knows a Sag. Turns out, a hit for one of the women. But, why did this woman’s dead husband ask about Sagittarius? Unless he was an astrologer, a strange thing to mention right up front. Why not just say, “I’ve got a message for Judy”? (Or whatever her name was.) The vague “Sagittarius” is preferred by the cold reader because it can fit so many more “hits” than a specific name would.

They tell me to talk about Robert or Michael, or “R” “M”? LOL – two bingo squares in one sentence.

Brain tumor, or something “brain related.” Do you understand? Edward’s favorite trick. He calls on his “Do you understand?” bingo square to get a confirmation (she understands what he said) when it was actually a miss (there is no Brain tumor, or anything “brain related.”) The woman responds with “I am a Sagittarius,” therefore making this section a hit, although Edward has missed completely with “brain related” which is now forgotten.

I repeat – the “brain related” miss is now forgotten by everyone. Only the “Sag” hit is remembered.

“You have my liver.”  This is accepted as a hit, as “a cousin of my husband” donated his liver to someone. Actually it’s a miss, since Edward was talking to the woman’s father. He said “my liver” remember? (A “cousin of my husband”? That’s not “my” liver.) Also, he said “you” have my liver. “You,” while talking to the two women being read (wife and daughter of the dead guy). Edward was trying another wild ass guess. Imagine if the dead guy had actually donated part of his liver to his wife or daughter – wouldn’t that look completely convincing, just like the “murder suicide” wild ass guess of earlier? Of course it would. But when it turns out wrong, Edward salvages it by saying that her father is now with this cousin of her husband. Edward, as always, the expert in turning misses into hits.

Edward talks about the dead guy having left a crucifix down the back of the chair he used to sit in at their home. On Dr. Phil’s website it says they checked when they got home and found a pen under the cushion. The miss of “pen” is accepted as a hit for “crucifix.”

Second Reading

Someone passed during open heart surgery, or in reaction to a surgical procedure.

The mark confirms her grandmother died during kidney surgery – actually a miss for “heart surgery” although he had left open the “a surgical procedure” to make sure he covered all options.

Is there a Sam, Sammy, something “S”. I actually did laugh out loud at this bingo square. Please note two things here:

1. We have now had all four bingo squares for initials: R, M, J and S
2. No other initials (or names, apart from Wikipedia ones) have been called, just the bingo square initials.

This is really so obvious – how can anyone think this anything but just guessing the most statistically common initials?

Something about month of May, or 5th. Bingo again – number 1 to 12. The mark confirms her daughter is Samantha and was born in May. To which I ask, so what? What is the point, why would this woman’s grandmother draw attention to her daughter and her birth month?

Summary

Hits on bingo squares (in no particular order):

1. J name
2. Male Energy (now used in place of “father figure”)
3. S name
4. Wild Ass Guess
5. Any number from 1 to 12 (“5”)
6. R name
7. Accepts miss as a hit (several of these)
8. M name
9. Multiple fishing questions
10. Head Area (I’m counting “brain related” – it’s funny how Edward has evolved different phrasings of these questions. It’s almost as if he has seen the bingo card.)
11. Dead relative is “OK”
12. Do you understand?

Plus numerous wrong guesses. Many accepted as hits; the rest forgotten. Dr. Phil, you need to go back to psychology school.

The Golden Woos #3

It’s the new year, and so time for the third annual* Golden Woo Awards for outstanding work in the promotion of Woo in the previous year. Here are the winners:

[* Except there were no awards last year, so we will include services to woo in the last two years.]

The Egnorance Prize for the scientist or academic who said or did the silliest thing to support Woo

The Woo goes to Professor John Haught, who during his debate with Jerry Coyne (Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?), informed us that “because my wife turned the gas on” is a different level of answer to the question “why is the teapot boiling.” Therefore religion is compatible with science. Which presumably means Haught believes his wife is god. Or at least, that she makes tea using supernatural powers.

The most useless or misleading Woo study

The award goes to Anna Enblom et al for this study on acupuncture. Strictly speaking the study was not useless. In fact it was quite useful for demonstrating that acupuncture is nothing more than placebo. (Although we already knew that.) What was misleading is the way Enblom et al chose to interpret the results, namely by saying that since both real and placebo acupuncture (yes I know all acupuncture is placebo acupuncture – you know what I mean) showed a benefit, acupuncture works. As Steven Novella wrote in Another Acupuncture Fail, “In the real world of scientific medicine … when a treatment works no better than the placebo control we conclude that – the treatment does not work.” For dishonest and misleading wording in both the abstract and especially in the press release, Enblom wins a well deserved Woo.

The Larry King Prize for the media outlet that reported as fact the most outrageous Woo claim

This year’s Larry goes to numerous TV stations for screening the Dr. Oz show. Examples of how steeped in Woo Oz has become are numerous, but as an example he promotes homeopathy. For some reason the video of the show doesn’t seem to play any more, but Oz calls on a Dr. Russ Greenfield who claims that there are “scientific studies” and “some data suggesting it really works.” (Although a lot more showing it doesn’t.) He talks about “essence” which is the “spirit literally of the medication,” although, confusingly, he also says that you “don’t want to use this for stuff that isn’t self limiting.” (Translation – it only works for illnesses that will get better by themselves.) For some reason this show seems to be on ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox, so any one of them can claim the Larry this year.

The Chopra Award for the most drivel containing the most logical fallacies

Named for Deepak Chopra, whose support of woo with nothing but logical fallacies, is above and beyond what can reasonably be expected of any human being. I was originally going to give this year’s award to Bill “the tide comes in and it goes out” O'Reilly, for saying that since we don’t know where the Moon came from, god exists. Well worth the award, in my opinion. But I’m afraid I had to disqualify O’Reilly. You see, good (and by good, I mean bad) though his argument was, he later had Deepak Chopra on his show to support him with it. And the thing about these awards is that they need to be all your own work. Having Chopra on to help you is cheating.

So on reconsideration, this year’s Chopra goes to Michael Egnor (a previous Woo Laureate) for inventing a new fallacy. Not content with repeating at nauseam the mantra “stuff changes and survivors survive” to describe evolution, when called on this obvious straw man, he claimed it was just a colloquialism. Genius! I’m not sure what the exact name for this fallacy is. I think it’s a form of equivocation, but I’m open to ideas. In any case, I don’t remember even the fallacy grand master pulling off a stunt like that, and so Egnor is this year’s worthy winner.

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

The Woo goes to Barbara Loe Fisher for suing Paul Offit and Amy Wallace following their (accurate) article about anti-vaccination nuts, while simultaneously writing that she wants A Fearless Conversation About Vaccination. By fearless, she means fearless for her and her anti-vaccine friends. She’s quite happy if pro vaccine people are in fear.

Now, this incident occurred in early 2010, so (although I am covering two years here) it wouldn’t by itself have been enough to warrant an award. But Fisher is nothing if not persistent, and clearly determined to win the award this year. In November she claimed that wanting the truth to be told about vaccines (and by “the truth” I mean, “the opposite of what Fisher wanted to say) was “intimidation.” Fisher is a totally un-self aware martyr who cries “intimidation” when someone writes letters she doesn’t agree with, but is happy to get her lawyer to issue SLAPP suits while claiming to want a fearless conversation. “Oblivious” and “hypocrisy” are two words that belong in the same sentence as “Barbara Loe Fisher,” and for that she gets this year’s Woo.

The most ridiculous or bigoted act using religion as its justification

In a crowded field, the Woo goes to Michigan Republicans, for amending an anti-bullying bill to allow bullying if the bullying arises out of a sincerely held religious belief or moral convictions. This was a bill that was originally named after a teenager who killed himself after being the victim of anti-gay bullying by Christians. Now, thanks to Michigan Republicans, bullying by the religious is officially encouraged. This is outstanding bigotry and absurdity, of the sort that mostly comes from religion.

That’s it for this year. Please tell me of any I missed in the comments. And any you wish to nominate for next year.

A Wonderful Life - Without Religion

CNN: shame on you. Not for publishing Larry Alex Taunton’s (“Special to CNN”) opinion piece on why the country would decline without Christian belief: My Take: When Bedford Falls Becomes Pottersville. Not per se. But for making it their main story. This was what greeted me when I turned on my screen this morning:

That was right in the middle, up front and at the top, on the home page of a supposedly “news” organization. Hard to miss. In case you can’t read the blurb, it says:

The 1946 classic "It's a Wonderful Life" is a fitting metaphor for a nation absent Christian belief, author Larry Taunton says. Those wanting to do away with the faith should be careful what they wish for, he says.

After a brief summary of the film and a couple of paragraphs of how “voters think America is in decline” he gets down to the thing he believes is causing all the trouble:

Richard Dawkins, the Oxford scientist and atheist provocateur, calls Christianity a “mental virus” that should be eradicated.

The professor should be more careful in what he wishes for. Like many others, he grossly underestimates the degree to which his own moral and intellectual sensibilities have been informed by the Judeo-Christian worldview.

Or alternatively, Larry Alex Taunton grossly overestimates such things. The notable thing about  these ‘oh noes, without Jesus life would be terrible’ pieces is just how little evidence they offer to support their view, and this one is no exception. Look at the arguments presented and marvel that CNN thought this worth publishing:

Jesus Christ said that his followers were to be like “salt”; that is, a people whose presence is felt for the good that they do. As a man or woman’s evil nature is gentled and restrained by the grace of God, there is a corresponding outward transformation of society. The data bears this out. According to the research of The Barna Group, Christians are the most charitable segment of the population by a substantial margin. Hence, any society that is liberally sprinkled with them has a greater concern for the poor, sick, orphaned and widowed - “the least of these,” as Jesus called them.

And yet the USA, of the rich nations in the world is one of the most religious, but has the greatest income inequality. While Sweden and Denmark, the least religious, are the most egalitarian with a comprehensive social safety net. More Than 9 in 10 Americans Continue to Believe in God, so how can unbelief be responsible for the problems Taunton identifies? How does Taunton explain all that? Well, by ignoring it.

(This is precisely what Nietzsche, and Hitler after him, hated about Christianity.)

Except that Hitler was a Christian, and Nazi racial ideology was religious, creationist and opposed to Darwinism.

But Christian influence goes well beyond benevolence: Our laws, art, literature and institutions find meaning in a rich Christian heritage. In his new book "Civilization: The West and the Rest," Harvard historian Niall Ferguson argues that the decline of the West can, in part, be attributed to the decline of a robust Christian presence in Western culture.

Note, not “Niall Ferguson,” but “Harvard historian Niall Ferguson.” Classic appeal to authority without, you’ll note, one shred of evidence to support the “argument.”

Ferguson’s point is largely an economic one, but the inference that Christianity has served to strengthen the fabric of life in the West as we have known it is unmistakable. T.S. Eliot made a similar observation: “If Christianity goes, the whole of our culture goes.”

T.S. Eliot now. Taunton sure loves his argument from authority.

That is just another way of saying that the difference between a nation with meaningful Christian influence and a nation without it is the difference between Bedford Falls and Pottersville.

It may be “another way of saying” it, but that doesn’t make it true.

To summarize, Taunton’s arguments that Pottersville shows us what life would be like without Jesus, were:

• Assertion
• Jesus said so
• Hitler (seriously)
• A Harvard historian said so
• T.S. Eliot said so
• er… that’s it.

Pottersville doesn’t even show us what life would be like without religion, it just shows what life would have been like if just one man hadn’t been born. The other inhabitants of the town were presumably just as religious (or non-religious) as they were before. As I recall, there was not even a suggestion that mean old Potter wasn’t religious. In reality, if we want to know what life would really be like with less religion we only have to look at Sweden and Denmark. And CNN is still the mistrusted name in news.

Philosophy Isn't Logic (Apparently)

Via Jerry Coyne I learn of some Remarkably stupid remarks by a sophisticated theologian. In the New York Times this week is an article about philosopher Alvin Plantinga, headlined Philosopher Sticks Up for God. Well maybe he does, but not with logic. Get a load of this reason why we should believe in god:

Mr. Plantinga readily admits that he has no proof that God exists. But he also thinks that doesn’t matter. Belief in God, he argues, is what philosophers call a basic belief: It is no more in need of proof than the belief that the past exists, or that other people have minds, or that one plus one equals two.

“You really can’t sensibly claim theistic belief is irrational without showing it isn’t true,” Mr. Plantinga said. And that, he argues, is simply beyond what science can do.

Brilliant. Just declare the laws of logic to be completely backward, and… er well that’s it really. If you can’t prove god doesn’t exist, then he does. To which I reply, well Mr. Plantinga, when are you going to repay the $1,000 I loaned you? What, you say, I never loaned you the money? Well, can you prove I didn’t? Because by your logic, if you can’t prove I didn’t, then I did. And I want my $1,000.

You have to marvel at the workings of the religious mind. So certain that god exists that you can just declare it true. That’s what philosophers do, apparently.

He’s no better in his criticisms of Richard Dawkins or Daniel Dennett either:

Mr. Dawkins? “Dancing on the lunatic fringe,” Mr. Plantinga declares. Mr. Dennett? A reverse fundamentalist who proceeds by “inane ridicule and burlesque” rather than by careful philosophical argument.

Proceeds by “inane ridicule and burlesque”? You mean like saying your opponent is “dancing on the lunatic fringe”? Do you ever think about any of the things you say, Mr. Plantinga? Serious question.

The article ends with:

“To call a philosopher irrational, those are fighting words,” he said. “Being rational is a philosopher’s aim.

Then you failed.

Michael Egnor's Straw Colloquialism

I’m a bit late to this one. Over three months late, to be precise. But I came across this this piece again by accident last week, and was reminded how bad it was, and I had to write something about it anyway. Especially as I just found the follow up post (more on that later). I’m talking about Michael Egnor’s defense of Ann Coulter: In which I take up P.Z. Myers' challenge on Ann Coulter and Evolution. The main thrust of Egnor’s post is to reduce evolution (actually just natural selection) to “stuff changes and survivors survive.” Egnor says this shows that evolution is mere tautology.

Before I start, a reminder of the definition of a straw man argument: it’s when you present a weakened, distorted, over simplified or absurd version of your opponent’s argument, and then you ridicule that weakened, distorted over simplified or absurd version of his argument and ignore the actual argument. When you refute the straw man version of an argument, you may to create the illusion of having refuted your opponent’s argument, but in fact you have only refuted your own weakened version of it. For that reason, attacking a straw man argument is fallacious.

OK, let’s look at Egnor’s post. He writes:

‘Stuff changes and survivors survive' isn't a scientific theory

Well, no it isn’t. But then that isn’t what the theory of evolution says. What Egnor appears to be describing is natural selection (which is part of the scientific theory of evolution). The critical piece he’s missing is the bit about favorable traits getting passed to descendants. That bit is essential for natural selection to work. And it isn’t tautology. Here’s a more accurate, although still simplified, description of natural selection:

1. The genetic variation within a population of organisms improve the chances of some organisms to survive longer than others
2. Survivors survive long enough to reproduce
3. The traits that enabled an organism to survive long enough to reproduce, are passed to its descendants.

This isn’t a comprehensive definition. Point #2 should probably be something like, ‘survivors that survive longer are statistically more likely to reproduce.’  Point #3 should say something about the increased probability of passing on the survivor traits to the descendants – perhaps that relatively more of the traits get passed to descendants. Also, it is not just survivors that are more likely to reproduce. A stronger male might reproduce more than a weaker one by fighting off its weaker opponents. The weaker one might still survive, it just might not mate. But I tried to keep my definition as close to Egnor’s version of it as I could get. That way, it’s easier to see where Egnor is going wrong. I think my definition is good enough. But is it tautology?

A tautology is a formula which is true in every possible interpretation. For example, “all bachelors are unmarried.” So Egnor is right that “survivors survive” is tautology. But consider my more correct version of natural selection:

The genetic variation within a population of organisms improve the chances of some organisms to survive longer than others

Genetic variation also reduces the chances of some organisms to survive longer than others. Sometimes it has no effect. Point #1 therefore isn’t true in every possible interpretation and so is not tautology.

Survivors survive long enough to reproduce

But not all who survive long enough to reproduce, get to reproduce. They might still not find a mate, might get frightened off by stronger competitors, or might be sterile. Also, some organisms that survive for less time (without the beneficial genetic variation) still reproduce. Point #2 therefore isn’t true in every possible interpretation and so is not tautology either. Egnor’s error is to say just “survivors survive” (which is tautology) without the “long enough to reproduce” (or the “statistically more likely to reproduce”) part. The scientific theory requires “long enough to reproduce” or “statistically more likely to reproduce” because without that part, point three won’t follow.

The traits that enabled an organism to survive long enough to reproduce, are passed to its descendants

But some traits are not heritable, and so will not be passed on. Also, those that are heritable don’t always get passed on since descendants get their genes from both parents – only one parent might have the “survivor” trait. It is not tautological that any random variable traits get inherited. Point #3 therefore isn’t true in every possible interpretation and so is clearly not tautology.

None of my three points are tautological. And you need all three for natural selection.

At this point I refer you again to my definition of a straw man argument. Compare “Stuff changes and survivors survive” with my three points, and tell me if Egnor’s version isn’t a weakened, distorted over simplified or absurd version. And we know that Egnor is really impressed with this argument because he repeats it 11 times. So add argumentum ad nauseam to straw man.

But (as the infomercial presenters say), that’s not all. PZ replied to Egnor. He ends with:

Every study of evolution is built around specific hypotheses about mechanisms, not dumb blind counts of nothing but the living and the dead, but measures of differential reproductive success against some detailed parameter of their genetics. All those terms Egnor cluelessly throws around — "natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, disruptive selection, diversifying selection, selective sweeps, background selection, adaptive radiation, punctuated equilibrium" — have specific, different meanings, and do not reduce to merely "survival".

PZ doesn’t actually use the term “straw man,” but that’s what he means. But here’s the really funny bit: Egnor replies to PZ in My reply to P.Z.Myers: atheism is a small cup. In this post Egnor really surpasses himself. He has an almost brilliant response to the straw man claim, one I’ve never seen before: he renames it as a colloquialism:

"Differential reproductive success of variants in populations", which means precisely that "relatively more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate". Colloquially, 'survivors survive'.

It wasn’t a straw man, oh no, it was a colloquialism. Brilliant.

Except, when you think about it, not so brilliant. A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday conversation rather than in formal speech. For example, “it’s raining cats and dogs.” The difference between this and Egnor’s “survivors survive” should be obvious. First, I don’t think many people (other than professional creationists like Egnor) use the phrase “survivors survive” to describe evolution. Second, and more importantly, a colloquial expression is not meant to be taken literally. So if “survivors survive” is colloquial then Egnor can’t use it to say that evolution is tautological. It’s as though someone looked out the window, saw it wasn’t literally raining cats and dogs, and concluded that it wasn’t raining. Of course, Egnor wants it both ways. When a biologist points out that “survivors survive” is not what evolution says, Egnor says, well it’s just colloquial. But when he wants to refute evolution, he uses it literally. Egnor needs to make his mind up.

What else does Egnor have? Well, in a masterpiece of cherry picking he refers us to Galton and eugenics (presumably an attempt to link evolution to the Nazis, although who can be sure what he is really getting at?), Haeckel’s faked embryos (irrelevant - early embryos do show many similarities) and Piltdown Man (a known fake from 100 years ago that was uncovered by scientists, not by creationists like Egnor). Egnor just ignores all the evidence collected in the last 100 years or more. I guess on Egnor’s planet, nothing must have been discovered since Piltdown Man in 1908.

Both of these pieces by Egnor are extraordinarily bad – even for him. Usually with Egnor’s posts, you do at least get the impression that there is an intelligent person trying to make an intelligent, even scholarly point. He fails quite often, relying on logical fallacies and ignoring points raised by his opponent (see especially the series of posts by Steven Novella dueling with Egnor on what causes the mind). But you do at least get the sense of an intellect at work, a measured, professional tone, someone who is trying to grasp an argument. But here you get none of that. Instead we have just the juvenile repetition of an infantile misrepresentation of natural selection, as though repetition and assertion were valid arguments if delivered with enough sarcasm. Perhaps that’s understandable when you consider what we now know to be Egnor’s prime source for his knowledge on evolution, namely Ann Coulter:

Well, nobody insults Ann Coulter without a reply from me. I love Ann Coulter (Platonically, of course). Love, love, love. She's basically right about everything, and the only thing I don't like about her books and T.V. appearances is that when she attacks atheists/Darwinists/liberals she's so clever that my sides ache from laughing. I still can't look at a picture of John Edwards without thinking of her name for him: 'Silky Pony'.

I have all of Coulter's books, paper and electronic (so I can always have her insights close). Coulter has more wisdom in one of her neurons than P.Z. Myers and his Pharyngula inmates have collectively in their telencephalons and diencephalons (I know, I know, that implies a materialist reduction of the mind. It's a metaphor).

Read that and consider the caliber of a person who actually believes anything like that. Rational Wiki quotes Scopie’s Law as “In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately ...and gets you laughed out of the room.” I’d like to propose a new law – call it Skeptico’s Law, or Argumentum ad Coultarium if you prefer: “In any discussion, citing Ann Coulter as a credible source loses you the argument immediately ...and gets you laughed out of the room.” It would certainly save you a lot of time.

Stanislaw Burzynski - Another Bullying Quack

You know the story. Stanislaw Burzynski is a doctor in Texas who claims to be able to treat and cure many cancers with “antineoplaston therapy.” Except there is no evidence that he can. When a skeptical blogger wrote about this, pointing out the total lack of evidence for these claims, and the huge sums of money being asked of desperate people wanting to try the therapy, instead of responding with the evidence that his treatment really does work, the bullying quack (or technically a pretend-lawyer claiming to represent him) issued threats to sue anyone who does not immediately remove their posts from the intertubes. Hilarity ensued.

Here are a few recent posts from the best and brightest, summarizing the situation.

1. What kicked it all off: The Quackometer on the false hope of the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer.
2. This was followed by threats by one Marc Stephens, a not-lawyer representing the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer.
3. Orac writes about the threats, and says The Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer is rank pseudoscience.
4. Rhys Morgan, a 17 year old Welsh blogger, wrote about the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer and called Stanislaw Burzynski a quack and a fraud.
5. The blogger referred to above then received threats from the same Marc Stephens, the not-lawyer for the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer.
6. The Quackometer writes about how the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer threatened the 17 year old blogger. He comments, “It is just likely that at 17 years of age, Rhys Morgan has already saved more lives by simply speaking out than Burzynski has in three decades with his fixation on his “antineoplastons.”
7. Orac writes about these additional threats from the not-lawyer representing the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer, and comments “Here's a chance for Dr. Burzynski to prove that he is, as he claims, a man of science. After all, sending an pit poodle like Mr. Stephens out to harass and threaten anyone who criticizes him is not the act of someone who is confident in the science backing his cancer treatment. Sending legal threats to a teenager for having criticized the pseudoscience of antineoplastons, as Stephens has done, is not the act of someone who has the evidence to back him up.”
8. Peter Bowditch of The Millenium Project also posts the threats from the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer. He writes, “One of the people attacked in the email, Dr Saul Green, can't defend himself because he died in 2007, but since when has recognition of facts ever bothered anyone associated with Burzynski.”
9. PAL asks is the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer threatening critics? He writes, “The first decade of the 21th century does not appear to have been a good one for Burzynski, at least as a legitimate cancer researcher. As is usual with people confronted by their own failures, they or their proxies may lash out.”
10. PAL also asks if the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer can do what it claims.  He concludes, “There is nothing on his own website that doesn’t make me uncomfortable.  As far as I can tell from my own reading, there is no public database of his results in treating cancer.  There is no way to verify the hyperbolic claims made by his supporters.  As a physician, I would advise any patient of mine to steer clear of this man.”
11. Steven Novella writes about the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer and concludes “Burzynski’s claims are not credible. His behavior is very atypical, and in my opinion is unethical, with all the red flags for cancer quackery. Potential patients and their families should be aware of these facts and be very suspicious of the Burzynski clinic.”
12. Phil Plait writes about the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer, pointing out that “according to the National Cancer Institute, “No randomized, controlled trials showing the effectiveness of antineoplastons have been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.” That’s a bad sign.”
13. Even PZ gets in on the story about the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer, that he calls the domain of scoundrels and quacks.
14. As does Ophelia (writing about the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer).
15. Majikthyse writes about the clinical trials for sale by the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer.
16. Thanks to Ophelia I discover that Josephine Jones has a list of posts on the Stanislaw Burzynski Clinic antineoplaston therapy for cancer, which at least saves me from any more of this repetition. 76 links – I’m exhausted at 16. Josephine, I don’t know how you do it.

John Haught - Where's The Tea?

John Haught relented and allowed the release of the video of his debate with Jerry Coyne: Science and Religion: Are They Compatible? (Spoiler: Haught says yes; Jerry no.) This was only after Coyne allowed Haught to post this complaint. Haught’s initial refusal, and his lengthy complaint got me to do one thing I rarely do, namely watch an hour and a half long (with questions) video of a debate. Having watched it, I can say that Haught’s complaint directed at Coyne:

…you used the event primarily to launch a sneering and condescending ad hominem.

…is entirely without merit. I watched the whole thing and there was no ad hominem – Jerry Coyne attacked Haught’s arguments only. Haught needs to learn the meaning of ad hominem.

Haught also accused Coyne of misrepresenting Haught’s views, of taking them out of context:

You grossly distorted every quotation you used, and then you coated over your [mis]understanding of these statements with your own uncritical creationist and literalist set of assumptions about the Bible and theology.

The burden of proof is with those making the positive claim, so if Haught wants to claim that Coyne took his quotes out of context, it is up to Haught to show, in context, what the quotes actually meant and that this was different from the way Coyne represented them. In fact, I challenge Haught to take just one quote that Coyne used incorrectly, and explain what it meant, in context. Just one will do. As far as I know, he hasn’t done this anywhere (if anyone wants to post a link to where he has done this, please do). Until he does, we are justified in dismissing this claim without evidence, just as it was asserted without evidence.

There is one part of Haught’s talk that I wanted to examine. Haught is claiming that science and religion are compatible, it’s just that religion has access to some additional “layers” that science can’t access. To explain this, he uses a metaphor of a teapot boiling. You can watch him talking about this in the video, but I found a transcript of Haught’s testimony at the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial transcript where he makes the exact same argument, so to save transcribing the video I’m just going to quote that:

I think most of the issues in science and religion discussions, most of the confusion that occurs happens because we fail to distinguish different levels of explanation. And so what I advocate is layered or -- layered explanation or explanatory pluralism, according to which almost every phenomenon in our experience can be explained at a plurality of levels.

And a simple example would be a teapot. Suppose a teapot is boiling on your stove and someone comes into the room and says, explain to me why that's boiling. Well, one explanation would be it's boiling because the water molecules are moving around excitedly and the liquid state is being transformed into gas.

But at the same time you could just as easily have answered that question by saying, it's boiling because my wife turned the gas on. Or you could also answer that same question by saying it's boiling because I want tea.

All three answers are right, but they don't conflict with each other because they're working at different levels. Science works at one level of investigation, religion at another. And it would be a mistake to say that the teapot is boiling because I turned the gas on rather than because the molecules are moving around. It would be a mistake to say the teapot is boiling because of molecular movement rather than because I want tea. No, you can have a plurality of levels of explanation. But the problems occur when one assumes that there's only one level.

He’s saying that by analogy, “the water molecules are moving around excitedly…” is the scientific explanation while “I want tea” is the religious type of explanation: they’re different but not incompatible, and science can’t provide the latter explanation. The problem for Haught is that his metaphor is self-refuting. Science can tell us about water molecules vibrating, but it can also tell us if the kettle is on because someone wants tea. For example, we could observe the kettle and see if someone pours the boiling water into a teapot and makes tea. We can also check to see of someone drinks the tea or if they just pour it down the sink. In other words, “I want tea” is testable, so it is a scientific explanation. A huge flaw in Haught’s analogy is we know tea exists! Haught still has to show that there are religious explanations for things that are both (a) correct and (b) different from anything science or secular reasoning provides. In other words, Haught needs to show us that the “tea” in his analogy exists. Where’s the tea? Haught’s metaphor may demonstrate that such explanations could exist, but he has given us no reason to suppose that they do.

Jerry also pointed this error out in the Q&A (starting at time 15:05), stating that Haught “hasn’t given us a single bit of evidence” that  these other layers exist. So Coyne did respond to points that Haught made, despite Haught’s claim that he didn’t. So as as an argument it fails, and as a complaint that Coyne didn’t respond, it fails.  And yet, this seems to Haught’s main argument. One wonders which debate Haught was at.

There is just one other aspect of Haught’s talk that I want to deal with. This starts a couple of minutes into the Q&A session, and is so wrong that I transcribed the whole thing. He labels Coyne’s approach as “scientism” and criticizes it like this:

Scientism is the belief, the belief (I emphasize that term) that science is the only road for truth. Science says take nothing on faith as you just heard Jerry say, but it takes faith to accept scientism. Therefore, we shouldn’t accept scientism. The logic of this is so unsurpassably watertight that really once you say that you dismantle the intellectual credibility of everything that Jerry just said.

For someone who criticizes Coyne for not fully understanding his opponent’s position and for getting all his knowledge from creationist websites, Haught sure seems to like criticizing a distorted version of Coyne’s position – a simplistic version that is frequently presented on creationist websites. I don’t know if Coyne ever said that science is the only road to truth – I doubt it, and I certainly don’t think he said so in this debate. I’m pretty sure that Coyne’s position (and mine) is that science has proved to be the most reliable method we know for evaluating claims and figuring out how the universe works. And we do have evidence for that. (How does Haught think we can all watch him on our computers at home? Did the technology for this come from something other than science? Obviously not.) If Haught is claiming that there is a better method, it is up to him to justify that claim. Haught needs to explain his different method for evaluating claims, and provide evidence that it does indeed provide additional, correct information not available to science. If he cannot do this then this is just a fallacious and vacuous appeal to other ways of knowing. And the logic of this is so unsurpassably watertight that unless Haught can explain his other way of knowing (and show that it really provides new, different and correct information) Haught has dismantled the intellectual credibility of everything he just said.

Other reviews of the debate

Choice in Dying has a post Q&A: Haught on God: Bitter, Impolite and Wrong, where he says many of the things I have been saying, only longer.

Baseline Killer Guilty / Allison Dubois Wrong And Useless

After a five-month trial, and seven days of jury deliberation, Mark Goudeau was convicted yesterday in 68 out of 72 counts including all nine “Baseline Killer” murders in Phoenix, AZ. He was caught in December 2006 through the use of DNA evidence.

Also residing in Phoenix, AZ is pretend psychic (some redundancy there – all psychics are pretend) Allison Dubois, of the TV series “Medium” (and more recently “Housewives of Beverly Hills”) fame. Of course Allison, back before Goudeau was caught, couldn’t resist getting in on the act, playing the usual guessing games in the hope that her guesses would be close to the actual person they would eventually catch. As I wrote in July 2006 in Medium guesses about serial killer, Dubois’s guesses were generic, just playing the odds and utterly useless in helping the police catch the killer. Five months later they caught Goudeau, and as I wrote in Allison Dubois no help in catching killer, her guesses also turned out to be totally wrong. Allison Dubois told dumb reporter Bert Sass in July 2006 that the Baseline Killer:

• Is not from Arizona
• Is ready to bolt.. “I would look in California”
• Didn't have a father in his household growing up
• Had a mother he didn't respect but that he, on a strange level, loved and is a little protective of when somebody says something about his mother. It's a love-hate which he has for her…
• Tucks his long hair up in his hat to hide it
• Was in and out of juvenile detention as he was growing up

All completely wrong. (Read Allison Dubois no help in catching killer for the details.)

It is true that an earlier composite police sketch of a possible suspect showed a man with a hat and long hair. But I’m sure Allison didn’t see the newspaper reports of that, oh no.

Also, although Dubois was apparently able to see Goudeau’s non-existent juvenile detention, she completely missed the fact that he had spent 13 years in adult jail, in trouble for a variety of things including charges of kidnapping, sexual assault and aggravated assault in the beating of a woman – information that might have been useful to the police in chasing down a killer/rapist. Assuming you knew such things using your awesome psychic powers.

It is clear we can now say with extreme certitude that Allison Dubois was totally wrong and completely useless in capturing this high profile killer who terrorized her home town for over a year before he was caught.

Now of course, I know that prosecutors sometimes get the wrong person and that innocent people are occasionally found guilty. (And some still claim he is innocent.) But, the thing is, I’ve watched several episodes of that dreary “Medium” TV program that is supposed to be based on Dubois’s actual life, and one thing that happens on the TV show is that if the cops have the wrong person, the TV “Allison Dubois” provides accurate information so that the real culprit is caught and the innocent person freed. In fact, that happens regularly. If Goudeau really were innocent, now would be the time for the real Allison Dubois to lead police to the real killer. But of course, she won’t as she has no such abilities. Her website has no mention of either Goudeau or the Baseline Killings, despite her eagerness to be quoted before Goudeau was caught. And, fortunately, police don’t pay any attention to her anyway, despite what she claims. What a waste of space she is.

More on Allison's awesome psychic abilities

Skeptico on Allison Dubois:

Allison Dubois Reads Newspaper, Tells Police

Medium guesses about serial killer

Allison Dubois no help in catching killer

A walking, camera-strutting, fake-ghost-talking joke

Secretary to the dead

Burden of proof

The Two Percent Company on Allison Dubois

Allison Dubois Week

Allison DuBois - Even More of a Hypocrite Than Previously Thought

Polar Opposites

The Very Confused JB Handley

I haven’t posted for a while, I know – taking a bit of a break. But I had to make one quick post on Handley’s January 5 interview with CNN’s Parker / Spitzer. Click on the video to see the interview (it’s short) or click here for a transcript.

Before I start with what Handley said, I have to say I was pleasantly surprised and quite impressed by how Parker and especially Spitzer went about the interview. None of the usual false equivalence, “telling both sides”, they allowed Handley his say but pointedly challenged him on the facts. Get a load of this exchange:

Spitzer: I say this with overwhelming sympathy for you and for your son, but just listening to you I’ve got to ask the question: there isn’t a single study, and we’ve looked at all the science, that says there’s any causal link between these vaccines and autism. And I know you are saying there is

JBH: But that’s not true

Spitzer: there isn’t a study that disproves it, but there’s no affirmative causal link there. And so don’t don’t you think it would make more sense to look at other potential potential causative factors?

Wow – I’ve never seen this Parker/Spitzer show but perhaps I’ll start to watch now.

But on to Handley. You’ll remember I wrote last Ferbuary in The Two J.B. Handleys, how Handley had changed his story about how quickly after the vaccine shots, the kids regressed into autism. On Handley’s own Age of Autism blog he wrote:

It is exceptionally rare that I hear the story, “my son was 100% fine, and at 2 years old after one vaccine appointment he lost everything.” I have heard that story, but very rarely.

But in the January 5, 2011 interview he says:

I have personally talked to about a thousand parents who all report that their children where that regression took place immediately following a vaccine appointment.

So it’s exceptionally rare but he has personally talked to about a thousand parents who report it true. Hum. I guess when your claims get trashed so many times that you forgot where you moved the goalposts to, you occasionally get confused and contradict yourself.

Jon Stewart Epic FAIL

The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart is generally a very good interviewer, often asking his political guests some of the more difficult questions while remaining courteous and without making up straw man positions. He often asks the questions (and follow up questions) that many real journalists should be asking, and he clearly demonstrates intelligence and the ability to think on his feet and react to what his interviewees are saying. After watching him interview someone called Marilynne Robinson on The Daily Show Thursday (interview starts at 14.33 in) I have to say that in future he should stick to politics and leave science and/or religion alone.

Robinson apparently has a Ph.D. in English and a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and has just released a book called Absence of Mind.  According to Amazon’s product description:

Absence of Mind challenges postmodern atheists who crusade against religion under the banner of science. In Robinson’s view, scientific reasoning does not denote a sense of logical infallibility, as thinkers like Richard Dawkins might suggest.

Already you know you are hearing from someone who doesn’t understand even the basics of that which she seeks to criticize, since science does not claim anything even close to “logical infallibility,” it merely claims to be the most reliable method of investigating reality.  (Once the word “infallibility” is used by someone criticizing science, you know straight off that they will try to conflate science and religion. Only religion claims infallibility.) Of course, that’s just flap copy, but after listening to Robinson’s dopey arguments on Thursday I would suggest that in future she stick to writing fiction and leave any expose of the faults with science to someone who knows what they are talking about.

Robinson starts off the interview with an unsupported assertion (all transcriptions by me from the teevee):

ROBINSON: …people on one side of the argument have claimed the authority of science but they have not construed an argument that actually satisfies the standards of science.

A bold claim. One you might expect her to justify using (say) an argument that actually satisfies the standards of science. Let’s see how she does:

ROBINSON: I don’t think frankly that it’s scientific to proceed from the study of ants to a conclusion about the nature of the cosmos.

And a million scientists went, “huh?”  At this point, Stewart should have asked her WTF she was talking about (he actually just nodded and said “Right”), because I had no clue.  Robinson never explained what she meant either. Proceeding “from the study of ants to a conclusion about the nature of the cosmos”?  If anyone reading this has any idea what she was babbling about, please let me know in the comments.

STEWART: Who do you think is more afraid: do you think science fears religion more than religion fears science, or is there equal mistrust to go around?

The correct answer is that religion fears science – because science, bit by bit, has proved the various claims of religion to be totally wrong. Of course scientists sometimes fear the political power of the religious to muzzle science, to prevent the teaching of science where it conflicts with religious ideas. But science certainly doesn’t fear religion itself.

That would have been the correct answer. Not Robinson’s answer though, which was:

ROBINSON: I’m really not sure about the nature of the controversy because I know lots of religious people that [sic] love science and I know lots of scientists who seem to be completely at ease with religion. It’s the quality of science and the quality of religion that determines the nature of the conversation.

(Sigh.) It is disappointing to hear from supposedly intelligent people, arguments that have been refuted again and again. And for someone who is claiming to challenge postmodern atheists (whoever they are), you would think she could have first spend ten minutes reading a couple of atheist blogs where this question has been patiently answered again and again. I’ll try one more time. Yes, we know that some scientists can be religious. That is because human beings are very good at rationalizing incompatible information. It does not alter the fact that science has proven many of the claims of numerous religions to be completely wrong, which means that science and religion are in many instances, incompatible. Why is that so hard to understand?

Here’s where Stewart goes off the rails:

STEWART: I’ve always been fascinated that the more you delve into science, the more it appears to rely on faith. They start to speak about the universe as if, well there’s “most of the universe is anti matter [sic],” oh really, where’s that? “Well, you can’t see it.”  Well, where is it? “It’s there.” Well, can you measure it?  “We’re working on it.”

It’s a very similar argument to someone who would say God created everything.  Well where is he? “Well, he’s there.” And I’m always struck by the similarity of the arguments at their core.

Wrong Jon, just wrong. The arguments may appear similar superficially, but at their core they are fundamentally different.  (I’m assuming Stewart meant dark matter, not anti matter since “most of the universe” is actually dark matter and dark energy, not anti matter.)

Superficially, it may appear that “God exists” is similar to “dark matter exists” – superficially in that you can’t see either. But is that really the standard we should be applying when evaluating scientific claims? We can’t see something, so it’s faith? I guess Stewart's show must be based on faith too then, since I can’t see the radio waves hitting my satellite dish either.

Examining this less superficially, “at their core,” why do scientists say that dark matter exists? Well, dark matter was initially hypothesized to explain why the rotational speed of galaxies was faster than expected, given the mass of visible matter in the galaxies. Then, having hypothesized dark matter, additional ways of testing this hypothesis were devised – for example, gravitational lensing.  Dark Matter Exists. Dark matter has been tested, and so far it has passed the tests. Furthermore, if some different scientists in the future find evidence that contradicts dark matter, or if they come up with a better explanation for the observations than dark matter, the new explanation will be adopted and dark matter abandoned.

Those are the differences between science and faith, differences that Stewart has apparently not noticed in his extensive delving into science. Science is based on observation of the real universe, confirmed or dis confirmed by experiment, and always subject to revision when better data comes along. Religion is based on the authority of old texts, is resistant to dis-confirmation, and in many cases stubbornly refuses to change even when proven to be completely wrong. But yeah, both God and dark matter are invisible so they both rely on faith. Good insight there Jon.

STEWART: Is it that the human mind has created these two disciplines, each one sort of equally at the mercy of our limitations?

No, the problem is that one discipline is based on reality while the other is not, and yet the one not based on reality is given undeserved respect and freedom from criticism.

ROBINSON: I think it’s also true that until quite recently many great scientists such as Isaac Newton and so on were profoundly religious people.

Again – yes we know. This doesn’t mean that science and religion are compatible. Newton was an alchemist as well. He was wrong about that too.

ROBINSON: …we need the best insights from science and the best insights from religion.

What insights can we get from religion?  Name one – name one insight that we couldn’t get without religion.

ROBINSON: The gladiators from both sides are I think inferior representatives of both sides, and that’s where the conflict comes from.

No, the conflict comes from the fact that many religious claims have been proven by science to be totally wrong, and yet many religious people refuse to accept this fact, insisting that their religious fantasies be given equal (or even superior) credence to science.  Although I do agree that Stewart and Robinson are both inferior representatives in this subject.  “Absence of Mind” – a good description of how both Stewart and Robinson arrived at their arguments. Robinson comes over as a profoundly stupid person – one who has examined this subject superficially and thinks she has something profound to say, but who in reality is merely parroting arguments that would be ripped apart in minutes in the comments section of any one of a thousand atheist blogs.

One more point – I don’t buy the argument that Stewart is just a comedian and so shouldn’t be held to account. He clearly can be a tough interviewer when it suits him: just see his interviews with Bill Kristol, Ron Paul or any number of right wing politicians.  He wasn’t joking when he said “the more you delve into science, the more it appears to rely on faith,” he was making a serious point.

Iran - 2,000 Years Behind

An mother of two has been found guilty of adultery in an Iranian court. Adultery is a crime? Yes, apparently it is in Iran. Sharia law.  We know she’s guilty though because she confessed after being subjected to 99 lashes. Want to know the best part? Her sentence is death by stoning.

Actually no, that’s not the best part. As CNN report in Iranian mother of two to be stoned to death, she’ll be buried up to her chest first:

Ashtiani, 42, will be buried up to her chest, according to an Amnesty International report citing the Iranian penal code. The stones that will be hurled at her will be large enough to cause pain but not so large as to kill her immediately.

Actually The Guardian reports that if the convicted person manages to free themselves from the hole, the death sentence is commuted. Well that's OK then. Although they also say the victim is buried up to her neck, not chest. (Men only get buried up to their waists.)

In a masterpiece of understatement, the US Assistant Secretary of State P.J. Crowley apparently said:

"From the United States' standpoint, we don't think putting women to death for adultery is an appropriate punishment."

Really? You “don’t think”? Not “appropriate”? Christ, what’s wrong with you? How about this is totally wrong on any level no matter what the crime? And according to Amnesty International, there are several other women in Iran waiting the same punishment.

Amnesty International is trying to pressurize Iran to commute these death sentences. One would hope that the State Department could also muster a somewhat stronger response that that of the lame P.J. Crowley.

Doctor's Data Sues Quackwatch

Here we go again. Another purveyor of a questionable medical therapy, when criticized, rather than refute the criticisms with evidence, attempts to silence its critic with legal action. Via Orac, read how Doctor’s Data ignored Stephen Barrett’s explanation of How the "Urine Toxic Metals" Test Is Used to Defraud Patients, and is suing him to have the criticisms removed.

Doctor’s Data’s test, aims to show that a patient has elevated levels of mercury that need to be lowered with chelation. Chelation that is then provided by the practitioner who ordered the test. Unfortunately, the test itself involves first giving the patient a chelating agent that provokes an increased mercury reading. Since this chelating agent is designed to bind with mercury and excrete it in the urine, it is hardly surprising that urine, tested after administering the chelating agent, has higher than normal levels of mercury.  As Barrett pointed out, the reference range that is used to show mercury levels are too high, is based on non-provoked tests.

Of course, Doctor’s Data’s lawsuit is just an attempt at intimidation. We know that because Barrett replied to Doctor’s Data, asking them to identify exactly what Barrett got wrong in his write up, with explanations as to why he had been wrong. Doctor’s Data’s lawyers ignored this request and instead replied only with more threatening bluster. On June 18, Doctor's Data filed suit against Barrett and his related websites, claiming $10 million in damages. They’re also asking the court to instruct Barrett to remove immediately all criticism of Doctor’s Data pending the completion of their lawsuit (which could take years). As Barrett writes:

Very few people provide the type of information I do. One reason for this is the fear of being sued. Knowledgeable observers believe that Doctor's Data is trying to intimidate me and perhaps to discourage others from making similar criticisms. However, I have a right to express well-reasoned opinions and will continue to do so. If you would like to help with the cost of my defense, please follow the instructions on our donations page.

Barrett’s Quackwatch is a valuable source of information about dubious medical practices.  He doesn’t deserve this sleazy treatment from Doctor’s Data. If you are able, please consider donating to Dr. Barrett’s expenses.

The Vatican - Still Doesn't Get It

First some positive news. It seems the authorities in one country have decided that accusations of raping children deserve a proper investigation. Belgian prosecutors this week raided the headquarters of the Belgian Catholic Church as part of their investigation into child sex abuse claims, as reported by the BBC in Belgian Catholic offices raided in sex abuse probe:

Brussels prosecutors were looking for material relating to allegations of sex abuse, a spokesman for the prosecutors' office said.

"This is a case that the Brussels prosecutors' office received recently, containing a statement of facts in relation to alleged sexual abuse of minors by a number of people within the Church," said Jean-Marc Meilleur.

"The object of the searches is to verify the declaration and eventually gather evidence about these declarations."

Finally, the prosecution body of one country at least has decided that professing belief in a magic invisible sky fairy doesn’t mean that you can rape children without the possibility of being prosecuted. Better late than never. Let’s hope that other countries now follow suit.

Regular criminals, when investigated, usually profess innocence at this point, as they are entitled to do.  The Vatican though, sings a different tune. They are shocked, shocked I tell you, that the authorities dare to treat the church as though they didn’t have a special exemption to the rules that affect everyone else.  You just knew this was coming: Vatican 'indignant' over Belgium police raids

The Vatican has expressed shock at raids, including the "violation" of a cathedral crypt, by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse.

Get that? the Vatican is shocked, not that its priests would rape children, but that the authorities would dare to investigate such alleged crimes. Shocked, not that children were violated, but that a bleeding crypt if you please was violated. It gets better:

The Vatican has summoned the Belgian ambassador to the Holy See to voice anger over Thursday's raids.

I hope the Belgian ambassador told them to go to hell.

And just when you thought they couldn’t get any more hyperbolic, one of their men in dresses tells us Belgium raids 'worse than Communist era'

The Vatican has stepped up its criticism of raids by Belgian police investigating alleged child sex abuse, calling the detention of priests "serious and unbelievable".

Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican Secretary of State, said "there are no precedents, not even under the old communist regimes".

He goes on to claim that the priests were held for nine hours without food or drink, which if true would be wrong. The accused deserve to be treated according to the law, which should include the rights to food and drink, not to mention a lawyer. But there are “no precedents” for this? “Not even under the old communist regimes”? Doubtful. I think what he means is that there are “no precedents” for treating the Catholic Church just like any other body that is accused of breaking the law. Which may well be true. And it’s about time such a precedent was set.

Allison Dubois Reads Newspaper, Tells Police

On April 8, 2009, eight year old Tori Stafford of Ontario was abducted and murdered.  Her body was found in a field by a police investigator, just over three months later on July 21st.  A sad and too common story.  But not too sad for the vultures to use it for their own ends.

The vulture in question is (yet again) Allison Dubois.  Eager to gain publicity from this tragedy, she is claiming she helped the police working on the case, as reported in Medium depicted Tori's fate to cops:

“It was amazing — Tori had been missing about three weeks, and I was standing, facing her school, noticing things like the senior’s building next to the school and it was at that moment ... that I told the police officer she had met someone whom she had met before, through her mother, and that she had been lured to her death.”

Dubois recalled she described the terrain where they would find the girl’s body and that two people were involved, including a woman who had been used as the lure.

“That’s the only reason Tori went with her, because she was familiar with her,” she said.

[My bold.]

Dubois’s story wasn’t that far off.  Two people – a man and a woman – were later arrested for the alleged murder of the little girl, and are currently facing trial.  No wonder Dubois is talking about it.

Funny thing though.  On April 22, 2009 (for those playing at home, that would be two weeks after the little girl had gone missing and therefore a full week before Dubois supposedly gave her information to the police) - police released a sketch of a woman who was suspected of having been involved in the little girl’s abduction:

This composite image of a woman sought in the abduction of eight-year-old Tori Stafford, based on the unidentified woman seen in a surveillance video leading Stafford by the hand shortly after she went missing.

The father of an Ontario girl who vanished more than two weeks ago said he “strongly believes” he knows the person in a composite sketch of a woman caught on surveillance video with his daughter, but the girl’s mother says she doesn’t recognize the woman.

So a week before Dubois reportedly told police that a woman (possibly known to the little girl) was involved in the abduction, the local papers reported that a woman (possibly known to the little girl) was involved in the abduction.  Hey, you don’t supposed Dubois saw the picture of the alleged abductor in the press, and simply regurgitated the information to the police, do you?  Nah, couldn’t be.  She must have used her awesome psychic powers.  Because only someone with psychic powers could have known that a woman might have been involved.  Well, either that or someone who had, you know, read the local paper the previous week.

Another funny thing, given Allison’s awesome psychic ability, is that it isn’t all that clear that the abductor was “someone whom [the little girl] had met before,” as Allison claimed.  For example, read this report from CTV Toronto:

Although the suspects know Victoria's parents, police don't believe they knew who their daughter was at the time she was kidnapped, sources say.

Admittedly it's not totally clear, but it does appear that the little girl didn’t know her abductors, and so it seems unlikely that “the only reason” the little girl went with the woman was “because she was familiar with her,” as Dubois claimed.  Also, it doesn’t appear that Allison was much help in finding the body, as she implied.  From the National Post:

Stafford's remains were found Sunday by a veteran police investigator searching on his own in a rural field about 500 metres off Concession No. 6, just east of Mount Forest, Ont., about 130 kilometres northwest of Toronto.

The detective, acting on a hunch, found the bones down a lonely dirt track in a secluded, heavily bushed area across the road from a grey, brick house surrounded by rolling, green farmland.

Just regular police work then.  I guess Allison, despite her undoubted psychic abilities, was no help at all to the police.  Just as Allison Dubois was no help in catching the Baseline killer either.  Well, you can’t say she’s not consistent.

Considering this happened a year ago, I wondered why we are only just in the last few days, hearing about Allison's invaluable help in not catching the perpetrators or finding the body.  So I checked and – funny story - I discovered that this story broke just before Dubois is due to visit Canada for a series of speaking engagements starting Monday May 17th - Toronto, ON - buy tickets VIP almost Sold Out!  $150 a pop (“No one attending the event is guaranteed a reading.”)  Obviously a coincidence.  Interestingly, if you Google "tori stafford" "allison dubois" you get four pages of stories, most of which include the line “come face to face with the image of Tori Stafford” – ie it’s all the exact same story reprinted by different media.  A cynic might almost think that Allison’s publicist had done an excellent job with this non story.  In reality, the only remarkable thing about this is how unremarkable Dubois’s supposed psychic predictions actually were.

Thanks to reader Dean for the original link.

More on Allison's awesome psychic abilities

Skeptico on Allison Dubois:

Medium guesses about serial killer

Allison Dubois no help in catching killer

A walking, camera-strutting, fake-ghost-talking joke

Secretary to the dead

Burden of proof

The Two Percent Company on Allison Dubois

Allison Dubois Week

Allison DuBois - Even More of a Hypocrite Than Previously Thought

Polar Opposites

James Van Praagh Missed Barbara Walters' Heart Valve Disease

Pretend-psychic James Van Praagh is claiming success in predicting Barbara Walters’ recent medical problems.  Get a load of this:

Two years ago, psychic James Van Praagh privately warned Barbara Walters about her health, only to be called out later on the TV icon’s daytime talk show, “The View” – and now, with Barbara headed for heart surgery, he has come forward to Access Hollywood to explain what happened.

“I felt very, very bad for her as anyone would,” James told Access’ Tony Potts of Monday’s announcement that Barbara would undergo heart surgery for a faulty valve. “A horrible thing to happen to anybody.”

However, he explained that he felt the news was “a validation of what I got for her at that time.”

[…]

“I tuned into her and I said, ‘Something is bad with your blood,’” James said of their backstage discussion. “It’s not moving correctly… you have to watch it. It might not be right now, it could be in the future.”

He also told her he sensed issues with her white blood cells and her back.

[…]

“She owes me an apology,” he continued.

Let’s review the facts.  Van Praagh predicts that a 78 year old woman has something other than perfect health – specifically “something is bad with your blood.”  Note: her blood.  She immediately had medical tests done that showed there was no problem with her blood – so Van Praagh was wrong.  Here is Walters from two years ago, explaining exactly why Van Praagh was wrong:

Two years later, doctors tell her that she needs surgery for a faulty heart valve.  Note: heart valve.  Something different.  Van Praagh claims success.  This wouldn’t have been an especially impressive guess even if he’d correctly predicted that a 78 year old had problems with a heart valve.  But he didn’t even guess that.  Check out this list of Blood Diseases and Disorders from the National Heart Lung and Blood institute – nothing about heart valve problems.  And you wouldn’t expect to.  Heart valve problems are not caused by bad blood:

There are a number of possible causes of heart valve disease. These include:

• rheumatic fever during childhood - this disease is no longer common in the UK but still affects people in developing countries
• a congenital deformity which means you were born with a defective valve
• ardiomyopathy - if your heart muscle becomes thickened or dilated, it can obstruct blood flow
• age - as you get older, your valves become less flexible, and more stretched or torn

Van Praagh was wrong.

What we have here is the typical situation where the “psychic” retroactively tries to fit his prediction to what actually transpired.  In Van Praagh’s opinion, he was close enough to claim a hit because (presumably) the heart pumps blood and he saw problems with the blood.  He’s also revising what he originally said – see how he now claims that he said “It’s not moving correctly…”  Check out any source from two years ago and there is no reference to the blood “not moving correctly.”  It’s all “problems with blood” and “an abnormality with her white cell count.” 

Now Van Praagh claims Walters owes him an apology.  Really?  An apology?  Let’s review what Van Praagh actually said about Walters two years ago:

"You don't have to be a psychic to know why Star [Jones] and Rosie [O'Donnell] left the show!

Meow.  Nor do you need to be psychic to predict that a 78 year old woman might have some health problems.  Although I do give him credit this time at least for not scoring a hit on Psychic Bingo – a rare occurrence for Van Praagh, to be sure.

Vatican Excuse Bingo

The excuses the Vatican and its supporters have now come up with to justify its systematic cover up of the rape of children have now officially exceeded the numbers required for a 5x5 bingo card.  Consequently, I give you Vatican Excuse Bingo.  Play it when Bill Donohue is on (if you can bear watching that disgusting slime bag) and you will be finished in no time. 

Explanations:

In the unlikely event that you’re not familiar with any of the excuses summarized on the card, I give a slightly more detailed explanation for each, below.

Long Time Ago

It all happened a long time ago and the church has changed.  No fair to keep bringing it up.

Secular Society

It’s the fault of The secularization of society.  If only everyone was a good catholic and kept his mouth shut, things would be just fine.

Women’s Ordination / Abortion / Gay Marriage

The only agenda of the church’s critics is women's ordination, abortion and gay marriage.

Pornography

With so much invasion of eroticism, sometimes it's not easy to stay celibate or to respect children.  Not easy!

Jews / Liberal Media / The Internet / Satan

The Jews are always behind everything as is The liberal media (ie The New York Times).  Oh and Satan.  Yes he exists.

Like the Persecution of Jews

Criticizing the Catholic Church is just like persecution of the Jews because pointing out that the church systematically covered up the rape of children for decades is exactly like murdering six million Jews. 

(Yes we know this conflicts with the previous point.  We hope you won’t notice.)

Hatred of Christianity

What motivates the church’s critics most of all is a pathological hatred of Christianity. 

Homosexuals

Of course, the real problem is homosexuality not pedophilia.  You see, there is a relationship between homosexuality and pedophilia.  That is true.  That is the problem.

Masons

It’s both the fault of freemasonic organizations that portray pedophilia as normal, and also a conspiracy by masonic lodges and big business to undermine the church.  Simultaneously.

Post Pubescent

It wasn’t pedophilia because the kids (most of them anyway) were post-pubescent.  And they wore sexy short shorts.  (OK I made the last bit up.)

Boy Scouts / Schoolteachers

Employers from every walk of life – schoolteachers, boy scouts – all molest kids.  For example, just this month, Rabbi Baruch Lebovits was found guilty on eight counts of sexually abusing a Brooklyn boy.  (Hey, it’s fault of the Jews again.)

Petty Gossip

It really is.  Petty gossip about raping children and systematically covering it up for years.  So annoying.

Therapy

The priests were not reported to the police because they were being put in therapy instead.  It was the zeitgeist of the day you see.  Everyone did it.

Catholic Standards

At least the Catholic Church has the standard that rape is wrong (even if it falls short of that standard), unlike atheists.

You Didn’t Object

Victims didn’t object - most 15-year-old teenage boys wouldn’t allow themselves to be molested. So why did you?”

Gold Diggers

These so-called victims are just gold diggers – just out to make a buck off the poor honest church.

Radical Lawyers

The liberal media has teamed up with Radical Lawyers to persecute the church.

Parents

Parents and psychologists are to blame for not reporting the sex abuse in a timely fashion.  Because if they had reported the abuse promptly the church would have acted immediately.

No Smoking Gun

Cardinal Joey Ratzinger knew nooothing about it.  Nooothing, I tell you.  Move along now.

Did I miss any?

(Post Script: If you liked Vatican Excuse Bingo, then you’ll love Cold Reader Bingo and Creationist Bingo.)

Frontline - Jenny McCarthy Changes her Story Again

I watched PBS’s Frontline on vaccines last week, and thought it overall pretty good.  Not perfect (what is?) but the numerous howls of protest from the crank Age of Autism blog (I lost count of the number of their posts) and on the Huff Post, should be enough to tell you it hit the right marks.  Orac has a detailed review, The Vaccine War: Telling it (mostly) like it is about the anti-vaccine movement, so I really don’t need to review it in detail.

There is just one thing I want to highlight, though.  It wasn’t on the actual TV program, but on PBS’s full online Jenny McCarthy interview.  It was this:

[Questioner:] How long after the MMR was that first seizure?

[Jenny McCarthy:] You know, a lot of people think, and probably from me saying in some interviews, that it was after the MMR I noticed changes.

I don't think it was just the MMR shot that caused any kind of trigger with autism. I think it was a compilation of so many shots to a kid that obviously had some autoimmune disorders. So I would say maybe a couple of months, a month or so after the MMR, I started to notice some physical ailments such as constipation, rashes, eczema. That was like the first little sign. And then the train just kind of descended from there.  [My bold.]

Jenny is saying that her son’s autism didn’t start immediately after just one shot (the MMR), but that “some physical ailments” of autism appeared over “a couple of months.”  This was just “the first little sign.”  (Note, just a “little” sign at that point.)  But, here’s the thing, as I wrote in The Two J.B. Handleys, Jenny had, only three years ago, stated quite clearly and unambiguously something very different:

"Right before his MMR shot, I said to the doctor, 'I have a very bad feeling about this shot. This is the autism shot, isn't it?' And he said, 'No, that is ridiculous. It is a mother's desperate attempt to blame something,' and he swore at me, and then the nurse gave [Evan] the shot," she says. "And I remember going, 'Oh, God, I hope he's right.' And soon thereafter -- boom -- the soul's gone from his eyes.  [My bold.] 

Note, not “some physical ailments” or just a “little sign” – back then it was “the soul's gone from his eyes” which, I think you’ll agree, is completely different.  Also not over “a couple of months,” but “boom.”  Different story.

Why does this matter?  Well, Jenny, Handley and the rest have been telling us for years that the reason they know vaccines cause autism is that their kids got autism “boom” right after the vaccine was given.  (With Handley it was after a shot containing Thimerosal, while with Jenny it was MMR which never had Thimerosal, but we’ll gloss over that for now.)  Now that Wakefield’s MMR hypothesis has been discredited, and numerous epidemiological studies have failed to find a link with Thimerosal, the only way to keep their vaccines-cause-autism  claims alive is to move the goalposts.  And you see that in the Frontline program – Jenny says it’s not MMR, or Thimerosal, or too many vaccines at once – it’s “all of the above.”  She actually says she doesn’t know what it is that’s causing autism, but she knows it’s the vaccines, somehow.  But the thing is, if they’re now saying the signs of autism appeared gradually over several months, on what basis are they saying vaccines cause autism?  If autism appeared gradually, and not “boom” after one shot, then they don’t even have the correlation (vaccine immediately followed by autism) to rely on. 

And what’s more, they know they’ve changed their story and they know they’ve moved the goalposts.  Why do I say that?  Well, when I wrote The Two J.B. Handleys less than ten weeks ago, I included a link to the interview with the Jenny “boom” quote on Jenny’s own Generation Rescue site, Jenny: Evan's Story.  Check that link now.  Search Generation Rescue for any part of that interview.  It’s gone.  Disappeared.  Never happened.  Not part of the official anti-vaccine history any more.  (And I know Handley read that post and saw the link because he appeared in the comments four days after I wrote it in an attempt to defend himself.)  If you needed any more proof of the dishonesty and intellectual bankruptcy of Generation Rescue and the anti-vaccine kooks, there it is.  Fortunately for us, there is one thing that George Orwell didn’t imagine when he wrote his famous 1984 novel, and that’s the Wayback Machine – the cache that never lets anyone completely disappear inconvenient facts they want you to forget.  Courtesy of the internet, here again is what Jenny said in 2007, Jenny: Evan's Story – “and soon thereafter -- boom -- the soul's gone from his eyes.”  

The hallmark of the pseudo-scientist and the kook, is they they won’t change their beliefs no matter what the evidence, instead they devise ad hoc explanations and move goalposts to accommodate contradictory evidence.  Jenny and Handley have been caught, again, doing just that.  Rather than re-evaluate their beliefs, they just change their previous story so that it fits the currently known facts.  And they try to cover their tracks by deleting the now embarrassing things they said before.  Rather strangely, they fail to notice that, with their new story, there is no longer any reason to link vaccines to autism.  Either autism occurred “boom” just after the shot (and so they can point to correlation), or it didn’t.  Which is it?  They want it both ways.

Funnily enough, there was one thing in that PBS interview with Jenny, that I though she got right.  It was this:

…that night went on Google and typed in "autism." And on the corner of the screen, in the sponsored links, it said, "Generation Rescue." And I decided to click on it, because right underneath it, it said, "Autism is reversible." And I thought to myself, well, this must be a load of crap, because if it was true, why didn't the best neurologist in the world tell me there's something I could do to reverse autism?

Precisely.  And if she’s only stopped right there she could have avoided making a complete fool of herself.

Nailed It

Nailed it so well, I hope Jesus and Mo’s creators won’t mind me reproducing the whole thing:

Fine Tuning Arguments

Suppose someone is rolling a set of two dice.  He rolls a double six – something with a one in 36 chance of happening.  Which is more likely, that the person rolled a set of regular dice and just got lucky, or that he rolled a special set where both dice have just sixes on all faces?  (Let’s assume you can’t see any but the sides that are on the top.)  You might think that since a regular set would produce a double six in only one out of 36 attempts, he is more likely to have rolled the trick dice with just sixes.  But after a moment’s thought you would probably realize that was wrong.  With just one roll of the dice, you would have no way of knowing.  The person might have been rolling the dice all day, and you just happened to come along at the exact time that he rolled the double six.  Of course, you could stay and see if he rolled the dice again, and if he kept getting double sixes then you would suspect there was something fishy going on.  But with just one roll, there is no way you could tell.  You wouldn’t have enough information.

The same would be true if the guy rolled three dice and got three sixes, or four dice and got four sixes, or five dice… etc etc.  If he only called you over to look when he’d got all sixes, you wouldn’t know if his roll had been especially lucky, or if he had spent hours rolling other combinations, and only called you to look when the result was all sixes.  No matter how many dice he rolled at once, or how high the apparent odds against it happening by chance, you wouldn’t know he was cheating just by looking at the result of one roll.  You also wouldn’t know how many other people are rolling dice at the same time, but who are keeping quiet about it because they rolled uninteresting combinations.  At the very least, you would need to see a few consecutive rolls from this one guy before you could form any conclusions.

It seems to me that fine tuning arguments are similar to the dice rolling guy.  The fine tuning argument is this: the odds of “rolling the dice” to get, by chance, a universe where life can exist, are so low that the universe must have been designed.  But the objections to this are the same as with the dice rolling guy: unless we know how many universes there are, and how many big bangs there have been, we can’t know if our particular universe is very unlikely to have occurred by chance or not.  There might be millions of universes.  And if there are a very large number of universes, then the odds of getting one tuned for life, are very good.  And in that case, there are good odds that in at least one of the universes tuned for life, there evolved intelligent people like us who remark that this universe looks fine tuned for life.

Now, you may say, we don’t have proof that additional universes exist, or that there have been several big bangs.  And I say that’s not my problem, it’s the problem of those making the fine tuning argument.  If fine tuners are claiming that the odds of getting a universe suitable for life are extremely low, then it’s up to them to show that this is the only universe that exists or has ever existed.  Their calculations that show the incredibly low probabilities of a universe suitable for life, assume there is and has only ever been one universe.  Why is this?  Because to get the probability of getting any universe tuned for life, they have to multiply their probability of getting one universe tuned for life by the total number of universes.  They never do this – which means they are implicitly multiplying by one universe.  So, before we accept their claim, they first have to demonstrate that there really is only one universe.  It’s their claim, remember?  They have to justify all parts of it, not just the bits they like.   So as part of their own calculation, they must demonstrate that there is only one universe.  As far as I know, no one has ever done this.

I have heard some say that multiple universes violate Occam’s Razor – one universe is “simpler,” they say.  But this argument misinterprets Occam’s Razor.  Occam’s Razor doesn’t say choose the simplest – if it did then “Goddidit” would be the answer to anything, because Goddidit is simple.  Occam’s Razor actually says don’t make up unnecessary assumptions.  We know that universes exist because we live in one.  Unless there is a solid reason to think that there are no other universes apart from the one we see, it would be an additional assumption to insist without evidence that this is the only one.  To be most generous to fine tuners, the best they can claim is that the assumption of many universes is an equal assumption to the claim that there can only be one, and so Occam’s Razor is a wash – you can’t use it to choose one way or the other.  The burden of proof is therefore still upon the ones making the fine tuning claim.

Of course, we don’t need multiple universes to reject fine tuning arguments.  We don’t actually know enough to be able to calculate meaningful probabilities of getting, by chance, the so-called fine tuned constants of this universe.  We can only examine one universe, and can’t really say for sure what would happen if the conditions were different.  Fine tuning arguments are really just god of the gaps arguments – we don’t know why the constants look fine tuned, so we’re going to use god to explain the gap in our knowledge.  Never a very productive way of trying to learn the truth about anything.  Also, we don’t know what kind of life would have evolved if the universe was very different from this one.  Life as we know it might not exist, but that wouldn’t mean that completely different life forms couldn’t evolve.  Again fine tuning arguments say more about the lack of imagination in the people making the arguments than about the truth of the conclusions they are claiming. 

But even if we ignore these flaws, the burden of proof is still with the fine tuners to demonstrate that this is the only universe that exists or has even existed (or at least, that there is only a small number).  Until they do this, fine tuners are like the person pointing to the guy who just told you he rolled several dice and got all sixes, while failing to investigate all the other people in the world and throughout history, who have rolled dice but didn’t tell you the results. 

Additional Reading

Physicist Victor Stenger has many other arguments against fine tuning, including simulated universes with very different values for the so-called “fine tuning” constants.  He also states that multiverses are suggested by modern cosmological models.

Chaotic Inflation, proposed by physicist Andrei Linde, models our universe as one of many that grew as part of a multiverse… – he hypothesizes that the expanding cloud of billions of galaxies that we call the big bang may be just one fragment of a much larger universe in which big bangs go off all the time, each one with different values for the fundamental constants.

Note: this post was initially inspired by this comment by regular commenter AvalonXQ.