Another way to tell pseudoscience from ordinary bad science

Whether it's deserved or not, the general consensus on NASA's revelation of arsenic-based life seems to be largely negative, i.e. that the research was poor or tentative at best, and did not warrant the kind of hoopla the organization made over it; and Felisa Wolfe-Simon has taken a rather remarkable drubbing -- to the point where I've even seen some who condemn the research question whether her treatment has really been fair.

The NASA team didn't always respond in the best possible way, e.g. their rather odd comment that all dialogue had to be conducted via peer-reviewed journals, coming immediately on the heals of a rather splashy press conference they had just held. But one thing they never did was try to sue their critics.

Why you can never be prepared to argue with an anti-vaxer unless you have a WiFi connection

And even then...

Orac reports on a truly stunning display of intellectual dishonesty from the anti-vax movement... yes, truly stunning, even in light of all the other bullshit that has come from that side.

Namely, some dick called Raymond Obomsawin started with this graph of measles incidence in Canada:

We see, of course, a really noisy graph, because as with many communicable diseases, incidence of measles varied widely from year to year prior to the development of the vaccine. Just think of how some years we have a really bad flu season, others not so much. That's just how diseases are.

In a truly shameless display of -- well, it's basically outright lying -- Obomsawin resamples the graph at specifically chosen intervals to construct whatever curve he wants:

Truly, truly shameless.

On a related note, using Dr. Obomsawin's "innovative" data analysis technique, I was able to prove that this whole "recession" business is a myth. The economy is perfectly healthy!

The Federal Reserve is lying to you! (Click on the image to see the rest of the data in that interval...)

Seriously, though, when the dishonesty rises to this level, how do you combat that? The data he presents is "accurate" as far as it goes, and in any case there's no way of verifying that without an internet connection or a trip to the library or whatever. You have to dig fairly deep to realize the lie, and since of course comments are moderated on the website presenting this shenanigans, thousands upon thousands of people will swallow it uncritically.

You cannot be prepared to debunk every single lie they tell, unless you are willing to lie yourself. The best you can do is say, "Well, I don't have any idea where you're getting that, but I know it's got to be either false or a misrepresentation." But then it sounds like you are arguing that you are right because, well, you know you are right.

When the other side is prepared to lie and deceive at every turn, there can never be a fair fight.

Why are otherwise sensible skeptics susceptible to AGW denialism?

First it was Penn Jillette, now it's James Randi. Why do otherwise sensible skeptics seem to be prone to buying into the claims of anthropogenic global warming denialists?

Okay, a sample size of two doesn't necessarily mean anything, but I think there is something to this. In my opinion, the reasons are twofold:

First, unlike most of the "hot topics" in the skeptical community, AGW is goddamn hard to understand. When it comes to creationism, anti-vaccination, alternative medicine, religious and paranormal beliefs, even as a layman I can pretty handily explain why it makes no sense. (On a side note, some of the anti-vaccination propaganda is somewhat harder to debunk, which may help to account for folks like Bill Maher) With AGW, on the other hand, pretty much the best I can do is point out that the vast majority of people with legitimate credentials say it's real, so I have to trust them on it. Of course, it helps that when AGW denialists show the graphs that are supposed to show that warming doesn't track with CO2, I think they show a pretty strong correlation given how noisy climatology data is... but I really don't know very much about the topic, and to be able to guess whether the predictive models are accurate or not, well that takes a lot of knowledge I don't have.

Second, and I think this is important because Randi alluded to this in his statement, environmentalism is a pseudo-religious endeavor for many of its adherents. For those who view it this way, often their goals end up being laudable anyway, but the reasoning is sometimes sloppy or just outright wrong.

"We taught a lion to eat tofu!"

I watched Wheel of Time the other night, which contains several interviews with the Dalai Lama (incidentally, I think the Lama is a bit of a douche... he pays lip service to a lot of good causes, I suppose, but anybody who refuses to deny that they are a god is pretty much an asshole automatically). At one point, Hertzog asks him what his message would be to the world. Most everything he said was positive, but when he talked about protecting the environment, he pretty much summed up exactly what I am talking about: He said the objective was to "keep the environment pure." I had to roll my eyes at that one... And indeed, it seems to me that for a lot of people who support environmentalism, it's not about sustainability or ethics, it's about a metaphysical idea of purity.

A "supersense" of purity is the driving force behind a lot of religious intolerance, it seems. It also feeds a substantial amount of the appeal of alternative medicine: Don't "pollute" your body with those "unnatural" pharmaceuticals. Flush those toxins which are "contaminating" your health. Etcetera.

So should we really be surprised that some skeptics, as soon as they get a whiff of something being associated with a purity campaign, immediately put their bullshit detectors into overdrive -- to the point that it sometimes scores a false positive?

You could even argue that this may have fed into Jillette's ludicrous denial of the dangers of secondhand smoke (which he has since at least partially retracted). When the subject of smoking came up on the denialism blog, I was shocked at how much vitriol some of the commenters had for smokers. It was as if, rather than smoking just being a public health hazard, they thought it was a horrible sin, and that anyone infected with the sin must be an evil despicable person.

I also think a supernatural sense of "purity" feeds into some of the the stricter outdoor smoking regulations... There is no doubt that prolonged exposure to secondhand smoke is hazardous, but it is weird to me that someone who is bothered being ten feet away from a lit cigarette has no qualms about waiting minutes at a crosswalk at a busy intersection. I'm no scientist, but I have trouble believing the former is as harmful than the latter. (Try this experiment sometime: Ride a bike down a fairly busy road where traffic mostly flows at a pretty decent clip, but where there are a number of widely-spaced traffic lights. Smell the air in between intersections, and at the intersections. Mmmmm, that intoxicating scent of exhaust mixed with burning rubber and melting brake pads -- gotta love it!)

So the moral is: As skeptics, we must be careful not to let the smell of zealotry become a primary indicator of trueness or falseness. Though they may be garner the support of superstitious fanatics using fallacious reasoning, AGW and the risks of secondhand smoke are both quite real.

Pros and cons of H1N1 vaccine

Man, this is a tough call.


(Shamelessly stolen from The Daily Show.

Anakin Skywalker is to Orly Taitz as Metachlorians are to Woo

Darth Vader definitely has a better haircut than Orly...

Salon summarizes (and provides unedited audio of) an epic "interview" with birther extraordinaire Orly Taitz in which she recites a litany of insane charges, including:

• ...that Obama had numerous gay lovers in Trinity church whom he has bumped off
• ...that Google is part of a massive anti-Orly conspiracy
• ..that Obama has hundreds of social security numbers

Of course, in one so strong with the woo, it would be shocking if she didn't also share some of the trendy anti-vaccine paranoia. Of course.

Hundreds of servicemen are getting sick from mysterious vaccinations. Taitz wants some answers on why members of the military are required to receive certain vaccinations. "Did you know that there are hundreds of servicemen, that were vaccinated, and have reported serious, severe side effects of vaccination?" I ask her why there are mandatory vaccinations. "I don't know, and we can ask the Department of Defense. There is no reason provided!" Maybe soldiers going into combat may need certain kinds of immunity?

The flu vaccine is contaminated. "There is another concern in regards to vaccinations," says Taitz, "and vaccination against the swine flu." She starts to tell me about contaminated vaccines in the Czech Republic.

It's too bad the interviewer didn't ask her about homeopathy, cold fusion, 9/11, Creationism, Flat-Earth theory, or astrology.

Another Big Pharma Conspiracy!

Jenny McCarthy sez: "Big Pharma is run by Zombie Hitler!"

This time, those evil cretins that run the pharmaceutical companies have gone too far... they have gotten a hold of the measles virus and secretly injected it into a bunch of unvaccinated kids in Brooklyn, in a futile attempt to discredit the courageous anti-vaccine movement!

Oh wait, sorry I think my brain must have been temporarily scrambled by oh-noes-teh-toxinz! What really happened is that a whole bunch of very stoopid famous people (of which Jenny McCarthy is public enemy number one) have managed to terrify parents into forgoing vaccinations -- all while accusing the other side of using fear as a lever -- resulting in a dropping compliance rate, weakened herd immunity, and now there is an outbreak of measles in Brooklyn. It is no coincidence that most of the kids who have contracted the disease are unvaccinated.

Jenny McCarthy sez: "Those kids got the measles because their mothers weren't pretty enough!"

Now, probably none of these kids are going to die. We don't know that for certain, of course, and their odds of dying from measles are much higher than their odds of having serious side effects from a vaccine... but this is a relatively small outbreak. This could be the tip of the iceberg if compliance rates don't come back up.

Good job, Jenny McCarthy.

The Vaccine Meeting

Well well well. So last night, my wife and I went to the vaccine meeting I mention in another post. Here is the blurb for the meeting (with identifying info redacted because I don't want to pick on these people too much..):

Dear Friends,
**** Health Care will be hosting a discussion on Vaccines. The talk will be led by local Chiropractor **** *****, who specializes in Pregnancy and Pediatrics. We know it can be overwhelming with all the anti-vaccine and pro-vaccine information out there. We will discuss vaccine safety, your options, state laws and more. We hope you can join us!
When: Tuesday June 16th at 6:30pm

Now, the mention of being "overwhelm[ed]" by both "pro-" and "anti-" information almost made me think this was going to be, if not balanced, at least somewhat of an equal time style discussion, a la Bob Sears position on vaccines. Of course, the fact that it was being led by a Chiropractor did not bode well... and then I found out that the woman at whose house it was being held makes herbal "potions", so uh... yeah, I pretty much knew this was going to be altie central. Deep into the belly of the beast...

My wife wanted to go because a few moms from her playgroup were going to be there, and two of them were still very much undecided when it comes to vaccines. She hoped I could bring some balance to the discussion, and maybe help them make a better choice. Also, my wife thought she might learn some more info she hadn't heard before. You never know, right?

I really, really, really didn't want to go. I knew my voice wasn't wanted there. I knew they would bring up some things I knew to be false, but couldn't refute -- denialists are bounded only by their limitless imagination, so no matter how well prepared you are, they can always just make something up, and then you have to go off and spend time debunking it. Also, I have a very hard time containing my temper when people say things that are flat-out wrong...

But my wife didn't want to be there all by herself, and she had already promised the other moms from her playgroup that she would go, so off we went...

We arrived with our three-month-old son, just as they were starting. A car parked outside bore a bumper sticker that said "knowvaccines.org" (bah-dump!). A book laid out on a table had a picture of a baby with dozens of needles stuck in him. This did not bode well...

They had just begun going around in a circle and having everyone introduce themselves and why they were there. It didn't take long before it became clear that this was going to be a circle-jerk of epic proportions. Sure, scattered here and there were a few new parents who said they had not made up their minds and that they were just trying to get as much information as possible. But the vast majority clearly already had a strong opinion. There was the guy from England who claimed that he knew a kid growing up who had gotten autism from a vaccine. There was the mother of three whose first two kids had gotten fully vaccinated, and the third had had a reaction to the DTaP vaccine and she basically freaked out and decided all vaccines were evil -- and many other similar stories.

Then there was the couple hosting the meeting, who, get this, thought there was no contradiction between the following two statements: "We don't want to try to convince anyone of anything, we want everyone to make up their own minds with all of the information" and "My kids will get vaccinated over my dead body!" Ummm.... Sorry, but when you make inflammatory statements like the latter, you are trying to convince people. Consider:

Roommate #1: "Hey, can I have some of that pizza?"

Roommate #2: "Dude, that pizza has been sitting out on the counter for a week. There's no way I would eat that shit, that's disgusting."

Roommate #1: "So you're saying I shouldn't eat it?"

Roommate #2: "Oh, not at all! I think you should consider all the facts and make up your own mind whether or not to eat the pizza. We all have a choice!"

Yeah, um.... no.

My wife also got in a good subtle dig at the hosts when they told about how important it was to tell schools that you have a religious objection if you want to get a vaccine exemption. She asked, "So, do you actually have a religious belief against vaccines?" The woman had an answer, but you know, it's good to point out that for the vast majority of folks this religious exemption thing is a lie.

The final story, one that was both heartbreaking and infurating, was by an older woman whose daughter had died of cancer... and she somehow came to blame this on vaccination (if I recall, she was influenced by the writings of paleontologist-turned-vaccine-denialist "Dr." Viera Scheibner). I didn't even know how to react to that -- cancer caused by vaccines?? That's an entirely new one on me. Anyway, this woman ended up participating quite heavily, and it saddens me to say that her pain and her convictions are causing her to basically just make stuff up... More about that later. One story that stuck with me was when she told about doctors telling her they could not discuss the issue with her because her "passion" was getting in the way, which she characterized thusly: "They weren't really saying I was passionate, they were just upset because I had too much information." I wrote that down, and you'll see why soon...

I tipped my hand early by pointing out that the VAERS database includes all adverse events occurring shortly after vaccination, rather than just ones that have been shown to have a causal effect. That made me unpopular pretty quickly, of course, and soon enough I was the center of attention. D'oh...

From there on out, I played the role of correcting inaccuracies ranging from the mundane-but-clearly-wrong (the woman whose daughter had cancer claimed that J. Anthony Morris had been the head of the FDA for several years, when actually he was the chief of vaccines only -- and I suspect they were quote-mining him, although I am having trouble finding good debunking info) to the outright insane -- like the claim that vaccines haven't been responsible for the decline in infectious disease, that it really is just poor sanitation.

This last point leads to one point on which I was unfortunately utterly unprepared: They trotted out this chart, which the chiropractor running the meeting claimed as proof that measles had been mostly cured by the time the vaccine came about. I knew this could not be right, but she insisted it was from the CDC, and numerous other people nodded and said they had seen the chart. Stupid me, I should have asked to see the chart up close, because it shows mortalities from measles, etc., not cases. Well, yeah, better healthcare improved the survivability of measles. However, actually cases of measles declined by 99% after the vaccine was introduced. Stupid me, though, I was unprepared for this bit of trickery, and had to just let it go.

There was a lot of discussion about relative risks, the benefits of vaccines, etc. At one point I said that if people really were concerned about vaccine side-effects, they should "Get vaxed for their grandkids' sake", because if these diseases become extinct in the wild, nobody has to get vaccinated anymore. Hooo boy, I got daggers when I said that one. Wow.

Let's see, what else... oh, the chiropractor got her papers mixed up at one point and said, "I can't find the list of vaccine ingredients". Well! I had just printed out the CDC's list before coming to the meeting (you know, the accurate one), so I was able to trot right up and give it to her. "Oh, this won't work," she said, "because it doesn't list what all these things are" and why they are so terrible. Facepalm! I told her I could tell everyone what each ingredient was, but she managed to find her own list of lies before I got a chance.

First thing she said was that there was anti-freeze in vaccines. What. The. Fuck. As I mentioned over at Orac's blog, I was not prepared for this, because I thought the anti-vax folks had abandoned this canard. I don't recall the name of the chemical the chiropractor said was anti-freeze (it was not one of the usual suspects.. I think it might have been beta-propiolactone?) and I didn't have time to write it down either, unfortunately. I tried e-mailing the chiropractor this morning, and she replied with a bouncing reply-to address to say to call her office. It's on my agenda for later... I suspect she doesn't want any of this in writing...

She also played the formaldehyde gambit, but I parried this by getting one of the crunchy folks there to admit that we had probably breathed more formaldehyde from the outgassing of the carpet of the room we were in than anything in a vaccine.

The lady whose daughter "got cancer from vaccines" told a story about how the individual vaccine doses do not have thimerosal on the ingredient list, but that the large box they come in does, and therefore doctors are lying. I couldn't respond to this one either, but I suspect based on the overall veracity of her information that the poor woman might have just simply made this one up. She also said the Jonas Salk claimed later in life that if he knew all of the damage that would have been done by his polio vaccine, he never would have created it. I thought I remembered hearing this myth once before, so I tried to look it up on my phone... but couldn't find anything. I think she just made up out of whole cloth! If someone has an idea what she was talking about, please let me know in the comments section.

I didn't even get a chance to debunk the thimerosal-autism link, because then the cancer-daugher-lady was on to Andrew Wakefield. Yes, really. She fawned excessively about how "good-looking" and "honest" he was, and his "irresistible British accent", before painting him like a martyr for the cause. When I brought up that he is being investigated for professional misconduct, her response was that they haven't "yet" succeeded in revoking his license. Yeah, great defense...

I was unfortunately unable to pursue all of this to the degree I wanted, because I was eventually asked to be quiet so that people could hear the chiropractor's presentation, since after all, that's what they were there for. This was particularly ironic because the lady whose daughter had cancer had just finished telling a story about how she went to a conference on vaccines and how they eventually started ignoring her questions because she was anti-vax -- and how this showed they really didn't want to hear both sides. Har har har. It was at this point I said, "Okay fine, but don't confuse my being passionate with having too much information." Hey, what can I say, I'm an asshole. At least I'm an asshole for the good side?

It's also worth pointing out that the lady who blamed her daughter's cancer on vaccines talked just as much as I did, and she wasn't the presenter either, and nobody asked her to stop... it's because they only want to hear one side. Which brings me to the one time I lost my cool, and that's when the chiropractor claimed that I had been fed a lot of one-sided information. How dare she. Heh, I don't remember exactly what I said, but I thought it was something like, "That's not true, I've been to Age of Autism, Generation Rescue, all of these places, and I am well aware of both sides of the argument. That is an ad hominem attack. If you're going to say that about me, I'm going to say that about you, that you only have one-sided information." At least, that's what I remember saying... my wife said it basically came across as "I know you are but what am I."

heh, oops... Well, what can I say? I was furious. She had asked me to let her go ahead with her presentation, which is fine, but her parting shot was that I only had one-sided information. What a cheap, dirty, underhanded tactic.

Anyway, even though I am ranting a lot here, I mostly kept my cool, which was good. I do honestly believe that a reason a lot of people go running into the hands of anti-vax is because they hear a little bit of propaganda, get scared, ask their doctor about it, and get an unfriendly and/or aggressive response that just turns them off. The word "bully" is thrown around a lot when anti-vaxers discuss the experience with their pediatricians. While the hardcore anti-vaxers are already lost, the same is not true of many frightened new parents who have just gotten a few tidbits of misinformation. It's important that their concerns are addressed point-for-point, with patience -- even if their concerns are fucking retarded bullshit. heh, oops, I'm letting my temper show through again.

One of the couples from my wife's playgroup left when I was silenced. The husband wanted to hear what I have to say, and I am supposed to look him up on Facebook today. I think the wife was a little mad at me, heh, but oh well, she is cool and I think she is level-headed enough to sort through this stuff.

We had to leave shortly thereafter because my son was getting really fussy, and anyway I couldn't take all that much more. I probably could have done more good by staying, but man, it is stressful being in a room of twenty-against-one! I remember seeing Hitchens do a two-hour debate on this panel that was him and four theologians, and thinking at the time how exhausting that must be. Yep, pretty much.

One of the other husbands caught me on the way out and asked me a bunch of questions. So I guess it wasn't a total loss. If I just planted some seeds of skepticism in one or two people, it was probably worth it. I hope.

I'm sure there's all kinds of crap I am forgetting... There was one point I distinctly remember when the chriopractor was talking, and I was jotting down single-word notes on points I wanted to rebut... and she was spouting false or misleading information faster than I could write! I left with about a page and a half of notes on crap I hadn't even gotten a chance to address... but what can you do? There is a potentially infinite amount of fallacious arguments, and only a finite amount of time for rebuttal. Especially when you are trying to rebut inside an echo chamber.

So anyway, it was, uh... interesting. Would I do it again? Maybe. But only if I had a bottle of fine bourbon waiting for me when I got home...

Update: Apparently my wife's friend who told her about this meeting has already had like eight people e-mail her to complain about my "negative energy". The contention is that it wasn't the content of what I was saying, but that I was interrupting the presenter. This doesn't hold water, though, because the lady whose daughter had cancer interjected at least as much as I did, and nobody had a problem with that...

And anyway, even if I was being rude, I don't really care... If you say something that is provably false to a room full of concerned parents, I'm interrupting you and correcting you, end of story.

Into the Lion's Den...

Tonight my wife would like me to go to a talk about vaccines given by a local chiropractor, and organized by, eh, well, practitioners of "alternative medicine", so you can guess that it will probably not be particularly pro-vaccine.

There is a close association between the nontheist community and the skeptic community in general, and let me tell you, any skeptical person should be incensed at the anti-vaccination movement.  They are spreading dangerous -- sometimes fatal -- misinformation, sometimes even outright lies.  Many worried parents are being taken in by this, and it's causing a drop in vaccination rates that, let me be perfectly explicit here, will result in dead babies.  I hope I'm not being overly melodramatic; this is just the reality of the situation.

Anyway, she wants me to come so I can correct any misinformation that surfaces.  I'm certainly no expert, I'm just a guy with a degree from the University of Google who is a little bit better at telling the bullshit from the non-bullshit than your average Oprah-watcher.  I also have trouble watching my temper when I talk about the anti-vax movement, because it's ultimately a selfish and inhumane position.  So we'll see...  It may be disastrous!