 the
Skeptic's Dictionary Newsletter
48
October 20, 2004
I know that liberty is not America's gift to
the world — liberty and freedom are God's gift to every man and woman who
lives in this world. —George W. Bush
I just want you to know that, when we talk
about war, we're really talking about peace.— George W. Bush
In this issue:
a few changes to the Ramtha, auras,
near-death experience, and Indigo children entries;
psychics on
Wall Street;
kudos for the Bad Astronomer;
the Governator terminates ethyl
mercury;
got God in your genes?;
more on our faith-based National
Park Service;
Kevin Trudeau keeps on ticking;
and summer camp at the YMCA for
little Brights.
What's New
Since the last newsletter, I've updated the
Ramtha entry to include John Olmsted's
review of "What the
#$*! Do We Know?", reprinted with permission of Michael Shermer and the
Skeptic Society. According to Olmsted, the "films’ producers, writers,
directors, and a number of the stars are members of [J .Z. Knight's] Ramtha
School of Enlightenment in Washington." One of the experts in the film is "Mgr Micheál Ledwith, the
former president of Maynooth College who resigned following allegations of
abuse," according to the
Irish Times. I haven't seen the film but apparently Mgr Ledwith is
just one of several theologians or scientists interviewed regarding the
relationship of quantum physics to spiritualism. I've been getting more
mail than usual lately from the
quantum quacks. Maybe it has something to do
with this film. Here's a sample:
You claim there is NO evidence for synchronicity? Well, if you
understood even a bit of Quantum Physics or statistics, you'd understand
Jung's defense. Now, even more is known about the relationship between
synchronicity and Quantum Physics, so you'd better get ready to eat your
words.
John Wheeler of Princeton University (arguably the top theoretical
physicist in the world) has proposed the "Quantum Holographic Theory (QHT),"
described by the top theoretical physicists in the world as the most
exciting theory in more than 30 years, and is now the top contender for a
G.U.T. [??] QHT says that the universe is made of information, that
matter and energy are mere holographic illusions. If this is true, then the
Hebrews, Buddhists, Coptic Christians, Freemasons, and Hindus have all got
it right and you have got it wrong.
Unfortunately, the author didn't bother to inform us as to how quantum
physics or
quantum holography relates to synchronicity
or any of the religions he mentions. Of course, everybody knows how quantum
physics validates
Freemasonry, so I can understand his silence on that one.
***
I posted a note
about an article by Dublin biologist Rowan Hooper published in
The Japan Times Online. Hooper explains the importance of the uterus in
human evolution. He also mentions Richard Dawkin's latest book,
The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution. I've
started reading it and it looks to be another classic from the pen of one of
the great science writers of all time. Dawkins uses Chaucer's Canterbury
Tales as a model, with species playing the role of pilgrims, telling us
their tale from such things as the fossil record, DNA, and the like, as they
"travel" backwards in time to the first living creatures on the planet some
3.5 billion years ago.
***
I updated the near-death
experiences entry after being contacted by a features writer for The
Spokesman-Review newspaper in Spokane, Washington. I did the interview
but have no idea if anything I said got into her article. I was also
interviewed recently by Art Chimes of Voice of America for a weekly science
and technology show called "Our World," which is broadcast to an
international audience. It will be broadcast to listeners mainly in Asia,
Africa, and the Middle East on October 23.
The Skeptic's Dictionary is being
featured in the Website of the Week segment. We'll also be featured on their
website.
***
I posted notices of the deaths of
John Mack,
Jacques Benveniste,
and Betty Hill.
***
I updated the entry on auras
to include a new study by
Dr. Jamie Ward of University College London’s Psychology Department. The
study "documented a woman known as GW who could see colors like purple and
blue in response to people she knew or their names when read to her," a
condition known as emotion-color synaesthesia. Dr. Ward speculates that some
cases of seeing auras may be due to
synaesthesia,
a little understood phenomenon whereby a person has a sensation appropriate
to a different sense, such as "seeing" sounds, or "hearing" or "tasting"
colors.
Synaesthesia is a condition found in 1 in 2000 people in which
stimulation of one sense produces a response in one or more of the other
senses. For example, people with synaesthesia may experience shapes with
tastes or smells with sounds. It is thought to originate in the brain and
some scientists believe it might be caused by a cross-wiring in the brain,
for example between centres involved in emotional processing and smell
perception. Synaesthesia is known to run in families. (News-Medical.Net
)
***
I posted
comments about a strange test done by Richard Wiseman on Natasha Demkina,
the Russian girl who claims to have a paranormal ability to see into
people's bodies and diagnose illness.
***
I posted
comments on several TV programs with paranormal themes.
***
I posted a link to an
article about a study that found some health risks in taking vitamin
supplements.
***
And I revised the entry on the
Indigo children. Some
readers may find evidence of synchronicity between this revision and the
updating of the aura page.
***
Psychics On Wall Street
Ever hear of
Inspired Living Advice Network run by Healing Universe? Neither had I
until I read one of their
press
releases that claims that these days it is not uncommon for corporate
executives, academics, and other professionals to consult a personal
astrologer or spiritual intuitive (psychic or clairvoyant) for investment
advice. L. Barrett Powell, the founder of Healing Universe, notes that
"J.P. Morgan used astrology to guide him and look at how successful he was
in life!" Yes, but he's also dead. Do you think astrology had anything
to do with his death?
Powell says she speaks "with professionals who are Wall Street CEOs,
investment portfolio fund managers, entrepreneurs, presidents and vice
presidents, music industry execs, university professors, radio executives,
well-known winery owners, homemakers, and parents from around the world."
These are mighty busy professionals, but they have time to seek advice from
a spiritual intuitive! Why do they call Powell instead of somebody with real
knowledge? Because she can "help them gain clarity in a decision-making
process" or "make progress on a project."
The press release ends by noting:
Healing Universe's Inspired Living Advice Network launched September 3
and features experienced intuitives who go
by the names of - Oakeru, Shelley, Eve, Nan, Samantha, Jan, Susan, Rachael,
and of course Powell herself. They charge $2.99/minute and offer
astrology consultations,
psychic and Tarot
readings and Runes readings.
I think they left out the name of one of their stars, a Miss Cleo.
Congratulations!
Scientific American has announced the winners of its Science &
Technology Web Awards 2004. One of the five sites chosen by the editors in
the
Astronomy division was Phil Plait's
Bad Astronomy. The folks at Scientific American say that Phil
"has made a career out of gleefully debunking bad astronomy." Actually, he
debunks bad logic and bad beliefs, like the beliefs that Planet X is
on its way to earth and that the Apollo moon landing was a hoax.
Congratulations, Phil! For those of you in Australia, don't miss Phil's
talk to the
Australian Skeptics in Sydney, one of the great cities of the world. I
won't be there but I will be at the
Amazing Meeting 3 (TAM3),
the Randifest in Las Vegas next January 13-16, where you can hear Phil along
with the likes of James Randi, Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer, and many
others of like mettle.
Gov. Schwarzenegger: Better Safe Than Sorry
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a bill (AB 2943)
that will restrict the use of vaccines containing more than trace amounts of
ethyl mercury. He said he did so not because there was solid evidence of
danger but because of a concern that the mercury could damage the
developing brains of fetuses or young children. Of course, there is no way
to prove that it couldn't. To be fair, the governor was just echoing
the concerns expressed by the FDA and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
I've discussed this issue at length before. See
Funk 26.
For more info on the governor's action, see
California To Restrict Use of Mercury-Containing Vaccines for Pregnant
Women, Infants
The God Gene?
The cover story in the October 25 issue of Time magazine is about
the role DNA plays in spirituality and religion. The cover and story give
great play to molecular biologist Dean Hamer's
The God Gene: How Faith Is Hard-wired Into Our Genes (Doubleday
2004). According to Time,
Hamer began looking [for the God gene] in 1998, when he was conducting a
survey on smoking and addiction for the National Cancer Institute. As part
of his study, he recruited more than 1,000 men and women, who agreed to take
a standardized, 240-question personality test called the Temperament and
Character Inventory (TCI)....Hamer decided to use the data he gathered in
the smoking survey to conduct a little spirituality study on the side. First
he ranked the participants along Cloninger's self-transcendence scale,
placing them on a continuum from least to most spiritually inclined. Then he
went poking around in their genes to see if he could find the DNA
responsible for the differences....To narrow the field, Hamer confined his
work to nine specific genes known to play major roles in the production of
monoamines—brain chemicals, including serotonin, norepinephrine and
dopamine, that regulate such fundamental functions as mood and motor
control.
Studying the nine candidate genes in DNA samples provided by his
subjects, Hamer quickly hit the genetic jackpot. A variation in a gene known
as VMA2—for vesicular monoamine transporter—seemed to be directly related to
how the volunteers scored on the self-transcendence test. Those with the
nucleic acid cytosine in one particular spot on the gene ranked high. Those
with the nucleic acid adenine in the same spot ranked lower. (p. 66)
Has the research been published in a peer reviewed journal? Not according
to Carl Zimmer in his review of Hamer's book for
Scientific American.
[Hamer] and his colleagues are still preparing to submit their results to
a scientific journal. It would be nice to know whether these results can
withstand the rigors of peer review. It would be nicer still to know whether
any other scientists can replicate them. The field of behavioral genetics is
littered with failed links between particular genes and personality traits.
These alleged associations at first seemed very strong. But as other
researchers tried to replicate them, they faded away into statistical noise.
In 1993, for example, a scientist reported a genetic link to male
homosexuality in a region of the X chromosome. The report brought a huge
media fanfare, but other scientists who tried to replicate the study failed.
The scientist's name was Dean Hamer.
The Time article raises some interesting questions about religion
and spirituality in relation to science, evolution, adaptations, nurturing,
brain processes, and the like. What it doesn't note is that there is a
strong correlation between being a scientist and disbelief in a personal God
of the Judeo-Christian variety. See
Survey.
Our Faith-Based National Park Service
Last December I wrote about our how our National Park Service (NPS) was
displaying religious symbols, selling creationist materials, and
contemplating adding 'conservatively correct' images to government videos as
part of President Bush's
faith-based everything approach to reality. At that time, the Grand
Canyon Bookstore was selling a book in its science section with the
creationist version of the way the canyon was formed. Here's an update.
On October 13, 2004, PEER (Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility) issued a press release
announcing that the "Bush Administration has decided that it will stand by
its approval for a book claiming the Grand Canyon was created by Noah’s
flood rather than by geologic forces." Apparently, the Administration did
not tell the truth to members of Congress or the public when it said that
the policy was “under review at the national level by several offices.”
According to materials obtained by PEER under the Freedom of Information
Act, no such review took place.
The book in question is Grand Canyon: A Different View, edited by
Tom Vail. "For years, as a Colorado River guide I told people how the Grand
Canyon was formed over the evolutionary time scale of millions of years,"
said Vail. "Then I met the Lord. Now, I have a different view of the Canyon,
which, according to the Biblical time scale, can't possibly be more than
about a few thousand years old."*
NPS spokesperson Elaine Sevy said, “Now that the book has become quite popular, we don’t want to remove it.”
According to physicist Bob Park (What's
New, October 15), the book has been moved from the Natural Science to
the Inspirational section of the store.
According to PEER, in August of 2003, Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Joe Alston
attempted to block the sale of Vail's book but NPS Headquarters
intervened and overruled Alston. NPS Chief of
Communications David Barna said there would be a high-level
policy review of the issue, but the review never happened.
NPS Headquarters, says PEER, didn't respond to "a January 25th memo from its own top
geologists charging that sale of the book violated agency policies and
undercut its scientific education programs." A
letter of protest signed by the presidents of seven scientific societies on
December 16, 2003, was ignored by the NPS.
“Promoting creationism in our national parks is just as
wrong as promoting it in our public schools,” stated PEER Executive Director
Jeff Ruch, “If the Bush Administration is using public resources for
pandering to Christian fundamentalists, it should at least have the decency
to tell the truth about it.”
I don't know. It seems the Administration has been up front about
their faith-based views. For example, when Superintendent Alston, on legal
advice from Interior Department lawyers, removed
some bronze plaques with verses from the Psalms that had been installed on
canyon overlooks, NPS
Deputy Director Donald Murphy ordered that they be reinstalled. According to
PEER, "Murphy also wrote a letter of
apology to the plaques’ sponsors, the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary."
I think that was pretty decent and up front pandering.
***
Quackery of the Hour: Kevin Trudeau
While channel surfing last week, more than once did I came across an
infomercial featuring Kevin Trudeau and his book
Natural Cures They Don't Want You to Know About. I didn't stay to
watch the entire show, but twice I heard him say that you can't get cancer
in alkaline cells and that cancer can be cured by changing the pH of the
cancerous cells to alkaline. No doubt if this were true and significant, it would be the
greatest medical news of all time and Trudeau should have his Nobel prize by
now. I guess there is some sort of conspiracy on the part of the AMA and the
big pharmaceutical firms ("they"?) to keep this knowledge from reaching the
general public. Thank goodness for self-publishing and the freedom to buy
time for TV commercials.
The Associated Press reported earlier this month that Trudeau has been fined $2 million and
banned from advertising product health benefits in any medium by the Federal
Trade Commission (FTC). See Kevin Trudeau
Banned from Infomercials
and
Federal Court Finds
Kevin Trudeau in Civil Contempt.
Trudeau has been making false claims for years about various products,
including
"coral calcium." Apparently, he is not alone in his belief about the
benefits of being alkaline. See pH-health.com
for more of this quackery. For an antidote, see
Acid/Alkaline Theory of Disease Is Nonsense by Gabe Mirkin, M.D.
Secular Summer Camp for Kids
Looking for a summer camp where there's swimming, horseback riding,
hiking—and a class on the myth of God?
Camp Quest is your answer. It's not too late to start thinking about
where to send the kids in 2005.
Founder Edwin Kagin said kids come here for "a vacation from
Judeo-Christian culture."
Steve Jordahl, correspondent for
Family News,
part of the Christian culture, quotes Kagin as saying: "We have interactive
classes on evolution, and on critical thinking and inquiry, and prepare them
to deal with the kind of nonsense being vended in the larger community,"
such as the biblical account of the
flood and
intelligent design.
According to the Camp Quest website,
Camp Quest is the first residential summer camp in the history of the
United States for the children of Atheists, Freethinkers, Secular
Humanists, Humanists, Brights, or whatever other terms might be applied to
those who hold to a naturalistic, not supernatural, world view.
Camp Quest was started in 1996 by the Free Inquiry Group, Inc. (FIG) of
Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
Camp Quest rents facilities from the YMCA at Camp Campbell Gard in
Overpeck, Ohio. For more information, contact Camp Quest, P.O. Box 264,
Union, KY 41091; Phone: 859-384-2324; Email:
Helen@camp-quest.com.
That's not synchronicity; that's irony.
***
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