There Are Four Lights

How much do you know about Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 Step programs? It’s a support group, right? It’s safe to say it’s widely regarded as the most successful recovery program for addiction. Then again, accupuncture is widely regarded as a successful treatment for all kinds of illnesses but anyone familiar with science-based medicine knows it simply doesn’t work. So, why should 12 Step programs be treated with any less skepticism? After all, AA makes claims regarding the causes of and treatments for alcoholism. What evidence, if any, is there to support these claims?

“Undrunk: A Skeptic’s Guide to AA”, by A.J. Adams, seems anything but skeptical. That is, the word ’skeptic’ seems to be used in the “I was skeptical, at first” kind of way…rather than referring to a person who evaluates claims based on evidence and the scientific method. Has AA escaped the attention of the science and skepticism community? Certainly, the 12 Step industry must be one of the most successful quackery organizations out there–embedding themselves into the medical industry as successfully as any alternative medicine woo–and branding themselves as secular more successfully than intelligent designers.

AA and its counterparts (there’s a 12 step program for just about any addiction) are anything but secular. Of course, any program member will tell you that atheists and agnostics are welcome…but the program is chuck-full of religion; only about four of the twelves steps make no use of god or spirituality. Dr. Harriet Hall wrote a great article over at Science-Based Medicine about AA and the lack of evidence for it’s effectiveness: AA is Faith-Based, Not Evidence-Based. Another resource I found is a blog called Stinkin Thinkin:

…[W]hat we’re doing is muckraking, in the time-honored sense of the word. AA and 12-Step is has a monopoly. Sure there are some alternatives, but none of these alternatives are offered in your general addictions treatment facility. And none of these alternatives have the power to lobby in Washington the way that AA does…to get insurance money

There is a group called SOS (Secular Organizations for Sobriety, or Save Our Selves) which provides non-religious support for alcoholism and drug addiction. I found some interesting articles about AA by browsing their site:

AA, as a doctor once told me, is “an evangelical movement about saving souls”. At its core it has a good heart – it wants to save people from their demons. But, as with the death penalty, McCarthyism, the Conquistadors and other such crusades against evil, the pious ambitions of AA make the movement blind to its own hooliganism. As disinterested in individuality as the SS, and unaccountable for its actions as the KKK, AA preaches, bullies and lies to achieve its ends, and it does so with all the righteous impunity of a secret sect. Unlike other religious cults, however, AA’s victims are those who escape from its grip and return to society, their brains so laundered by fundamentalist claptrap that a glass of beer can take on the menace of a loaded pistol. That I eluded such a fate myself is thanks to nothing but sheer good luck – those not as fortunate as I can’t tell us about it, their stools at the bars and chairs in AA inhabited by new people entirely disinterested in tales of the dead ones who went before them.

I know there’s a lot of woo for skeptics to deal with, but I think the 12 Step industry deserves more criticism from the skeptical community. AA isn’t an effective treatment, never mind the most effective treatment for alcoholism, and those suffering due to substance abuse deserve treatments which are evaluated for their safety and efficacy.

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There’s a movie coming out about the end of the world called 2012. It’s based on modern-day myths that the Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012 and that there are scientific facts which support their claims. This is wrong.

The film has some new ads out that look like real commercials for an organization setup to shelter people from the devastation. Unfortunately, there are many woo-artists who have been spreading the 2012 myth for quite some time now. This major motion picture is drawing more attention to this so-called Mayan prophecy.

Griffith Observatory has a nice page on their site which debunks the 2012 myth, here. This is appropriate, since most of the myth’s claims are astronomical (no pun intended).

THERE IS NO PLANETARY ALIGNMENT on December 21st, 2012. Even if there was, planetary alignments WON’T DESTROY THE EARTH.

THERE IS NO GALACTIC ALIGNMENT of our solar system either. Our galaxy is too huge to have a midpoint that you could pinpoint to a specific year.

THERE IS NO MYSTERIOUS PLANET headed our way to destroy us. Government agencies aren’t hiding evidence of a Planet X or Planet Niburu.

Now, here comes the really silly part; guess what? THE MAYAN CALENDAR DOESN’T END IN 2012. Yes…the claim that’s the basis of the 2012 myth isn’t true either. The Mayans never made any 2012 apocalyptic predictions. Part of their calendar ends–which had many cycles–but a new one begins.

So, you probably shouldn’t be concerned about the world ending in 2012. At least, not any more than you do any other year. Our own calendar ends too—-on December 31st. I predict some people may even have a party!

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Hmm, hopefully I’ve mentioned here before that something I want to accomplish in my work is to create characters who are good role models as scientists and critical thinkers and to promote the use of reality-based reasoning and good skepticism. The movie “Knowing”, with Nicolas Cage, accomplishes the complete opposite. Scientists are drunken, miserable, lonely cranks that need to learn how to be happy from those who have blind faith in magic sky people.

The director, Alex Proyas, was quoted saying he wanted the movie to explore different viewpoints, “the scientific viewpoint of the logical construct of the universe and the one of faith, where people see this incredibly complex place we live in and go, ‘Well, how could this have all just happened randomly?’“ (my bold) This is one major annoyance with the film; it doesn’t even know what science is and what viewpoint it has. Again, audiences are getting the misguided message that science claims everything is random and stuff just happens by accident.

The irony is, unlike new age garbage like numerology, scientific theories actually do make accurate predictions for the world around us. Real predictions…not just after-the-fact pattern matching that happens with divination games like astrology, tarot, and psychic readings. You can use scientific theories to accurately launch a small rover into space and have it travel to another freakin’ planet and predict where it should land on that planet, hundreds of millions of kilometers away! Or you can have a theory like evolution, which predicted, about a hundred years before the discovery of genetics, that such a system should exist–it predicted the existence of an entirely new field of science!

Science is all about discovering how the world works and the cause behind the things we see and experience. It is faith that gives empty answers for why the world is the way it is; it’s faith that tells us that the big questions about the universe are infinitely mysterious and beyond our grasp.

And, frankly, it’s a little tiring to see the happy religious characters lecturing to grumpy miserable scientist characters in films and TV. The happiest people I know are scientifically minded and lead their lives free of faith and the supernatural. All the religious and new age people I know are quite unhappy, worry-full people, who always seem to be lost and unsure. Anecdotal, I know…

It’s not hard to see why such a horrible movie is doing so well at the box office. A lot of people are full of doubt, fear, and uncertainty about the future. It’s a comforting idea that there’s a magic solution that can warn us of danger and protect us against the unknown…and the only thing you have to do is keep believing, no matter what the facts tell you.

Just keep listening to the little voices inside your head–they know a lot more than the objective voice of reason coming from your MIT colleague.

Cage, you and your pseudoscience crapfest are forcing me to quote again:

For me, it is far better to understand the universe as it really is, than to persist in delusion, however satisfying or reassuring.

-Carl Sagan

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CBC Newsworld is playing Doc Zone right now with an episode called “Fly Me to the Moon”; “NASA’s 50th anniversary is marked in this documentary celebrating humans’ fascination with the moon”. But what’s with the sudden spoonfull of woo I’m seeing? They’re talking to an astrologer from Toronto (apparently the Moon represents ‘the woman’ because INSERT HIGHLY GENERALIZED STEREOTYPICAL FEMININE QUALITIES) and some guy on a piano is singing “Age of Aquarius”.

Oh, nice…next they’re talking to and about police, nurses, ambulance workers, etc., who believe that crazy(er?) stuff happens during a full moon. They could at least mention confirmation bias. sheesh.

Shame on you, Doc Zone, shame on you…

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Oh how I luvs the Bad Astronomer. I believe I first came across Dr. Phil Plait’s astronomy blog when I was searching the interwebs to check up on a claim by some astrology proponents. It actually wasn’t that long ago when I got my first taste of new agers trying to make astrology sound sciency. I was pretty amazed at how easy it is to disprove all the pseudoscience claims. Thus, began my journey into the world of scepticism.

Though I’m just a hobbyist astronomer, I can turn into a bit of an astronomonster when the subject of astrology is brought up. There is just so much that is wrong about astrology. The first major hint that there might be something wrong with this kind of model is that it was invented by humans who thought the universe was geocentric. That’s basically all it takes to shatter astrology: discovering that our solar system revolves around the sun. But new agers don’t trouble themselves with silly things like laws of physics. Too bad, because Dr. Phil does such a nice job of explaining!

If you do manage to convince them that astrology can’t possibly work (I’ve never been successful), the last argument is that their experience in using astrology works for them. Ah, mon amie, it’s confirmation bias and the Forer effect that create the illusion that astrology works. “The Forer effect refers to the tendency of people to rate sets of statements as highly accurate for them personally even though the statements could apply to many people.” The personality models of astrology are all highly generalized so that each zodiac has pretty much the same chance of describing anyone, regardless of when they were born. It’s simple; the personality models of the zodiac are highly generalized and the personalities of people are highly complex. Of course you’re going to get a match.

It’s really simple to test astrology to see if it actually works in describing people’s personalities based on the month they were born. You simply take the traits each zodiac proposes, but then blind what zodiac (aka, birth month) the set of traits is from, and have people rate how accurately it describes them. If people end up highly rating or being matched with the ‘correct’ zodiac at a rate no better than chance, then it’s clear the model doesn’t work as it claims. This is exactly what happens each and every time astrology is tested.

Confirmation bias is the trick behind making most forms of divination, including astrology, ‘work’. Basically, it’s when we count the hits and not the misses. We do this often because we’re pattern seeking creatures. The example I use most often to describe confirmation bias is the myth that more accidents/births/craziness happens during a full moon. This is statistically untrue; when you compare lunar cycles to rates of crime/accidents/births etc. there are no relationships. But then why do so many reputable sources, like nurses and police officers, swear that this myth is true? It’s because they are just going by the memory of their own experience; they’re only recalling the times where a full moon matched up with a crazy night, and made no mental note of those crazy nights where there was a quarter moon or crescent. This happens in astrology too; we remember the times when the model did work, and don’t make a connection when it doesn’t. We may ignore the times when we met someone who didn’t match up very well with their zodiac, or just focus on the traits of their zodiac that do match with them.

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If there was a prize for the pseudo-science, paranormal, or new age belief which was most harmful, most immoral, or most disgusting it would have to go to alternative medicine. No contest. Any faith based idea has the potential to be dangerous, but faith healing, cleverly marketed with the secular disguise of ‘alternative medicine’ seems to be the most successful, most deceptive, most dangerous, and especially the most profitable. I recently came across a preview for a movie promoting a form of this garbage, Gerson Therapy. The film, titled “The Beautiful Truth” (barf), is a perfect example of the bag of tricks these charlatans use to take advantage those made desperate by illness.

Gerson Therapy is a so-called alternative cancer treatment which uses “…organic foods, juicing, coffee enemas, detoxification and natural supplements to activate the body’s ability to heal itself”. Wow, even Oprah’s wacky Dr. Oz knows that detox diets don’t rid the body’s system of toxins. Diet has no effect on how effectively your body deals with toxins. Now, apparently, it’s supposed to cure cancer.

The movie trailer doesn’t explain what Gerson Therapy is, but it’s full of the typical jibber jabber nonsense of alternative medicine proponents. The most prevalent argument would seem to be that which claims drugs (all drugs?) don’t work and companies are only concerned with making money. I have several problems with this claim. The first would be the huge logical fallacy red flag-you cannot use a company’s motive for profit as evidence that their product doesn’t work. The validity of any treatment must be established through empirical data. Another problem of this argument is how a company is supposed to make huge profit from a product which doesn’t work. It seems we are supposed to believe in some sort of grand conspiracy where researchers, doctors, and medical experts all keep patients in the dark about the complete ineffectiveness of pharmaceuticals so they can scam everyone out of their money.

The idea that the entire pharmaceutical industry is a giant get-rich-quick scheme that the general public is unaware of is, frankly, ridiculous. Huge investments in decades of research are required to get just one drug to the stage where it can be evaluated for its effectiveness and safety. This is not an easy way to make a quick buck. This is where alternative medicine quacks become most infuriatingly deceptive; it is the alternative and natural health product industry which is cheaply and easily making its investors rich. Regulations, certifications, and basic upfront cost to produce these products and services are nearly nonexistent.  I could literally step outside to the nice little forested area across from my northern Ontario home, gather up random leafy-grassy-forest junk, put it through a blender and label it Aunt Sara’s All Natural Organic Energy Supplement and easily sell it. I don’t have to do any research, I don’t have to do expensive trials, and I don’t even have to prove it does anything. The same goes for most of the alternative service industry as well. No one is going to come arrest me if I practice reiki or homeopathy without a license. There is plenty of profit to be made in faith healing without the need to prove your product or service works.

A major red flag when listening to arguments, not just from pseudo-science, but just plain any kind of argument is when the proponent does nothing but attack conflicting arguments. Creationists don’t argue creationism or intelligent design, they argue against evolution. Natural/Organic food proponents don’t point out proven benefits of their products; they highlight fears of genetic modification. Alternative medicine has to attack real medicine because they don’t have any evidence of their own to promote. The major flaw in alternative medicine is that any treatment which can be proven to work as it claims (through controlled trials and proper double-blinded tests) then it becomes accepted as medicine. The requirement for treatments in the alternative health care industry is that they are methods which are unproven. This is not science based medicine; it is religion disguised as health care.

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No, I can’t prove that you won’t spontaneously turn into a toaster. But, in the case of some people, I can certainly wish you will. I’m often disappointed when I mingle within the art world and speak with fellow artists about anything other than art, specifically, science. All that tends to be said is a bunch of wishy-washy gobbly-goop. As a mangaka, I love telling stories, especially the kind of stories that involve magic, spirits, and strange sci-fi phenomena. However, that’s where it ends, for me. I don’t pretend to believe that any of the mysticism, either in my own work or in other books, manga, movies I love, can translate literally into the world we live in. There’s no reason to believe in the existence of spirits, ghosts, demons, deities…or…um, horcruxes. People don’t have psychic powers, they can’t perform divination, and no one can come back in blue-Jedi form (unfortunately). All that fun stuff can only happen within the imaginary made-up worlds in storytelling. But, when confronted with claims saying otherwise, what is a little, non-sciencey, mangaka to do? Eh? Whatcha gonna do, Ms. Grumpy-pants aka closed minded, cold, heartless, evidence-whore?!

The first problem to address is the misunderstanding over what science is. Like the cute-a-licious Michael Shermer says, science is a verb. Science isn’t old men in white lab coats; its critical thinking. If there’s one anti-science argument I hear over and over again it’s that science is biased. Well, gosh darn it, this breaks my little grumpy-pants heart! I think the mistake being made here is the difference between a scientist being biased and science being biased. “Of course, you’re gonna say my homeopathic quantum juice doesn’t work, Mr. Fancypants…you’re a ‘scientist’!” (And we all know that negative energy vibrations from Fancypants scientists interfere with how woo-juice works).

Scientists can be prone to bias, like anyone else, but the scientific method itself is objective. There’s no better methodology one can use to fight against our own personal beliefs, observer bias, and confirmation bias. In the world of art and storytelling, things are based on interpretation and your work is perceived differently by different people because of their own experiences, cultural beliefs, and personal tastes. Two people can look at the same piece of art and hold two completely different and valid opinions about it. So, it makes sense that someone used to functioning in the art world might apply this type of thinking to science as well. However, science is not relative. One of the purposes of the scientific method is to produce results which can be repeated by anyone, anywhere, no matter what their biases may be. Again, I’m just a mangaka, but if I understand correctly, even with Einstein’s relativity-where observers can hold different but equally valid claims based on their frame of reference-the theory itself is not relative.

Perhaps, it would be better if I used the words critical thinking or rational thought instead of ‘science’. I doubt as many people would argue against being rational and I can’t think of many scenarios where one would stop and say “You know, I don’t think this is a claim that you should apply science critical thinking to”. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being exposed to skepticism that I find most valuable is the ability to realize when I’m believing something simply because I want it to be true. Ann Druyan writes, in the introduction to Carl Sagan’s The Varieties of Scientific Experience:

“…science opens the way to levels of consciousness that are otherwise inaccessible to us; that, contrary to our cultural bias, the only gratification that science denies to us is deception.“

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The story of two Gorgia men who claimed to have captured Bigfoot is a little old now, but I couldn’t keep the geekdom inside me any longer. Besides, such master pieces should not be kept from the world~! My original idea was not in comic form–I would love to see a wookie costume frozen in a block of ice in a fake press conference video posted on YouTube to spoof the Bigfoot hoax. But, I’m a mangaka so all I’m (barely) useful for is drawing silly pictures.

One of my favourite podcasts, SETI’s “Are We Alone”, had an episode about the hoax, Skeptical Sunday: Bigfoot Press Conference. What I like most is how the hosts, Seth Shostak and Molly Bentley, explain a lot about what good evidence is and why what was presented at the press conference is considered poor evidence. They also did an excellent job of pointing out how the man speaking to the press was setting up the story so that what would be presented might seem more credible.

Personally, I don’t think it’s absolutely absurd to think there might be a creature lurking in the forests of North America that we don’t know about. However, I think it’s most likely that there’s plenty of alternate explanations for these sort of sightings which are far more probable. I do have a beef with cryptozoology, though. This term for the study of hidden animals triggers my woo-alarm. I can’t see how one can investigate a claim, like a Sasquatch sighting, and be unbiased if they are calling themselves a cryptozoologist. You are naming yourself after your desired result: hidden animals. Don’t regular, plain-old, everyday zoologists find new species? I betcha they do…probably by coming across evidence that suggests there might be a new creature. But, since they aren’t exclusively in the search for undiscovered creatures, they should be less likely to overlook an alternate explanation for what they’ve found.

As for myself, I’m just a mangaka and part-time cryptoboyfriendologist.

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