Are Skeptics Outcast? The world according to Michael....

I have been recently been reading up a lot on what people perceive to be a ‘skeptic’. In my mind, applying logical thought to processes that obtain evidence and giving the evidence rational. To others: Satan. Within the search I came across a website that really peeved me. The Michael teachings are a spiritual website, promoting…books from what I can gather. Although their ‘advanced topics’ section has some ‘interesting’ facts on the ‘7 planes of existence’.

"Michael channels work through many people at this time, and just about anyone, if they possess the proper desire and commitment, can learn to channel them."

Simple enough right? No, it gets more advanced. They can calculate ‘Soul Age’. What’s this you say? They define it as:

"Soul age refers to how a person has grown from experience on the planet, not just too how many lifetimes he or she has lived. No person is "ahead" or "behind" any other, but is simply occupying another place in the continuous circle leading to and from the Tao."

No one is in front or behind you say? Hmmm. Anyway, as you can probably gather my conclusion, the website is just pseudoscientific nonsense, I however, deliberately haven't actually read what they're about and what they do until I have written this blog about their view on skeptical activism:‘The Skeptic Attitude’ towards….well, thinking, one can only assume. They start off by generally listing ‘Positive traits’ and then ‘Negative Traits’, using terms such as ‘argumentative, lack of trust, making things difficult and picks things apart’. Lack of trust in what exactly? As a skeptic, I am not skeptic about everything I hear. I sit through countless lectures where I am bombarded with information, none of which I sit and think ‘I don’t believe any of this until I have thoroughly researched it’. However, when people who don’t know what they are talking about, and cannot get basic scientific facts correct, I do get skeptical, and annoyed. Skeptics do not question everything, I will read things, see things and hear things and think ‘something is off about that, I’ll have a look’.

"They are unconvinced until all the facts are in, and they dislike forming theories until the evidence has been thoroughly examined."

A basic scientific process is the ability to form a hypothesis based on the scientific information already available, the hypothesis is a theory on what should happen in the experiment, otherwise, why do it? Furthermore, why would you form a theory without all the evidence? Evidence is crucial to creating a theory otherwise, are you not just making stuff up? Such as spiritualistic mind and calculating soul ages? A scientific theory, isn't a theory in the sense of the word. It is the application of sound, solid science to draw a probability.

"They are the scoffers, the agnostics of the world."

I cannot speak for everyone out there, but surely the ‘evidence’ part of this blog would conclude that skeptics are atheists? Apparently not, but infer as you wish.

"This Attitude limits the sphere of knowledge that Skeptics believe, and the way they believe it: only objective knowledge is allowed. Subjective insights are not permitted — the subjective insights of others, that is….not considered valid by Skeptics unless they inherently believe in them or they have had convincing personal experience."

This is the sentence that got to me. Only objective knowledge is allowed. Well yes, why would you just take biased information as fact? If I said I was the best in the world at making risotto, would you not think to be a bit skeptical about that? It has come from me. I genuinely cannot see why being biased is a good thing. In a scientific world, subjective feelings don’t really apply. The scientific method really, really doesn’t require any input as to how you subjectively feel. As for the ‘inherited belief’ crap, I have read countless things that have believed to be wrong. I, even, believed in a God at one point in my life. 

"They regard others as strangers, and it takes a lot of time for them to befriend others…lacking in imagination….they see their illusions in the world rather than in their heads….they "project" their perceptions out there."

Just in case you could see through the bullcrap of the paragraphs before they switch it out to insulting. For me, the first sentence is true, I don’t befriend people. Mainly because there is a high statistical probability it will be someone like the person who came up with the Michael teachings, to save myself time and hassle, I just don’t bother. 

We project our perceptions out there, huh? YES OBVIOUSLY. THAT’S WHAT SCIENCE IS, EVIDENCE. PROVE IT.  It’s like going up to someone and saying ‘I can sprout wings of a dragon, prove that I can’t.’ If your response is anything other than: ‘What do you mean prove you can’t? Prove you can’, you have some ridiculously offset thought process that makes you believe everything you hear. As for the see the ‘illusions in the world rather than their heads’, I believe that is the most ridiculous comment I have ever read. They then go on to give a small paragraph what is positive about skeptics, basically saying we make good researchers…

“If you are talking to a Skeptic, better count on being interrogated and cross-examined”

Well…that’s the way I took it anyway.

Then we switch back to the bashing:

…”evil and ugliness even where it isn't — they invent a supply of it to fulfil their demand for it…Whereas Idealists do not appreciate ugliness, Skeptics do not appreciate beauty”

Of all the words in this paragraph, ‘skeptics do not appreciate beauty’ are the ones in which irk me the most. I love science. I think chemistry is beautiful. Perfect even. I think the applied scientific processes which increase our knowledge of the world and its intricacies is outstanding. However, just because I don’t believe that lying on a bed and thinking about a non-existent deity, I don’t appreciate beauty. 

And to end: 

"Skeptics will not use analogies, because they think that nothing is really like anything else, and that there is no such universal abstract connection between things."

Here is some evidence for you, this post on skeptics is stupid and fallacious, therefore it is like bullshit, and therefore it is worthless. So you need to amend that sentence.

So, what exactly is the Michael teaching?

Michael is a group soul, a collective consciousness of 1050 essences who finished all their lifetimes on Earth, cycled off the physical plane, and recombined into an Entity who now resides and teaches from the mid-causal plane. The journey they have taken is the same one we are on, they are just in another plane of existence now.

And I am one of many (I hope) who would be critisied for being skeptical about that, seriously. Another point, before I wrote all of the above, I OBJECTIVELY didn’t read what the Micheal teachings were, in order to PICK APART their PERCEPTION of a skeptic without SUBJECTIVE BIAS. An art form, I have come to appreciate, otherwise I would have just called them pseudoscientific morons and not really written much else....

So why do skeptics get bad light shed on them? Is it because there are fewer than people who spread pseudoscience? I have no friends I know that aren’t skeptical, active or not. Everyone has skepticism in them, some people, including those above; just choose to subjectively apply it to things that they don’t want to believe. That is, picking and choosing morals to substantiate a belief system and crumble another. True skeptics on the other hand, apply it to everything they believe to be slightly off, and sometimes, they are right.

Jack the Ripper Identity - ERROR

Who is jack the Ripper?

A month or so ago the world was abuzz with the identity of Jack the Ripper being ‘conclusively’ found via the used of DNA analysis on a shawl that was found at a murder scene.  If you don’t know who jack the ripper is, one of the very few times I recommend you consult Wikipedia, but consult Wikipedia.  We had the Daily Mail, among many others, telling us the scoop of how the testing of descendants of the victim and of a suspect, Aaron Kominski, identified Jack the Ripper, a mystery that has gone unsolved for many years.

So, is it solved? I myself was skeptical, as a student studying the world of forensics, the articles threw up a few red flags: Dr Louhelainen, an expert in the analysis of genetic evidence from crime scenes made the discovery by extracting mitochondrial DNA and matched it to a living descendent of one of the suspects Aaron Kominski. The shawl itself was obtained from an auction, and was ‘said’ to have been found at the scene and passed on by a police officer. To start with, is just saying something was at the scene enough for a well-respected scientist to just instantly think 'I can identify the killer with no indication that this is that exact item?' claims that large should be met with authenticity. Provence, especially in this case, should be proven. 

Evidence integrity is key to a forensic investigation. That is: Knowing the evidence, securing the evidence and appropriately storing the evidence. Multiple people have handled ‘evidence’ that had then been sold and tested for DNA to find a 125-year-old murderer isn’t going to provide high evidential value, if any.  Not to mention, just because his DNA was on it, doesn’t automatically make him Jack the Ripper. The reason for his investigation in the first place was because of his sexual connection to prostitutes in the area. Personally, considering the stance of where the infomation was published, in this book, it appeared to be a claim used to make money:

"I've got the only piece of forensic evidence in the whole history of the case. I've spent 14 years working, and we have finally solved the mystery of who Jack the Ripper was. Only non-believers that want to perpetuate the myth will doubt. This is it now – we have unmasked him,"

Anyway, there are a lot more skeptical parts within that, but lets skip to the meat: WHERE IS THE PEER REVIEW?! To make a claim, with scientific and technical background, you tend, no, need, to have a peer review to look for errors to throw things off base or see if they are on the right track. Inevitably, people who are familiar with the software used by Louhelainen, peer reviewed his already published work. What did they find? A small error, but an error with massive consequences.  Bloggers familiar with the particular DNA mitochondrial databases showed a nomenclature error made by Louhelainen calling a type of mitochondrial mutation, which was matched between Kominski and his descendent, a 314.1c, when the mutation should have been 315.1c.

"This DNA alteration is known as global private mutation (314.1C) and it is not very common in worldwide population, as it has frequency estimate of 0.000003506, i.e. approximately 1/290,000. This figure has been calculated using the database at Institute of Legal Medicine, GMI, based on the latest available information. Thus, this result indicates the shawl contains human DNA identical to Karen Miller's for this mitochondrial DNA segment,"

 -The Independent 

Had Louhelaninen followed a standard procedure, as a Dr, you’d think he’d understand a peer review is in place to prevent things like this, he would have realised that the frequency match he had actually found following the 315.1c, he would have discovered the mutation is present in more than 90% of the European population, not the incredibly rate 1/290,000 as he claimed.

However, he is standing by what he has said in the book and has reportedly denied to comment.

Conclusion

So it is concluded, that Jack the Ripper is not identified. However, this didn’t appear to be as glamorised in the media as it did before. I, like many other people, have multiple news apps on my phone that push through notifications.  On the day the book with the ‘scoop’ was released, I received multiple feeds about this ‘amazing discovery’. I however, did not received even one, with the correction. I had to hear it on a podcast over a week after it happened. Strange….

Is Cannabis a Cure for Cancer?

I wrote this blog about half a year ago when I worked in a forensic drug laboratory, although I have updated it as I have found information over the last few months. Whilst reasearching something for a project I came across two things: a claim of the increase in THC content by 30 fold and a claim that that smoking cannabis or ingesting 'hash oil', will indeed cure cancer. A little look into those two pretty much showed them to be pseudo-scientific bullcrap. And here is why:

How pure can we get?

“Cannabis is 30x more potent today than it was in the 60’s”

This statement was on more-or-less every single website I had looked on, more so the websites supporting the legalisation of cannabis. It even worked itself into the popular media, gaining its own article in The Independent. The article kindly apologises for it’s backing of the legislation to legalise the drug. However, after reading some ‘statistics’ saying cannabis is 25x stronger than it was at Woodstock, they have ‘reversed their landmark campaign for decimalisation’. A high portion of the websites found when looking at the quote, were those that had forums detailing the cultivation and selling of flowering material, none of which, had a reference or any indication of study to say that the potency had increased 30 fold during the past 40-50 years. Where to start? Is the increase that of an overall average of all the strains of cannabis or just one common strain? Rosenthal has books detailing the breeds of cannabis, for which they give vast information on over 200 popular strains of cannabis. So there’s a start, did they test over 200 breeds of cannabis for their potency? In short: probably not, as that is ridiculously unfeasible.

A systematic review and meta-analysis shows that there is an increase in the measured THC content over the years. I suppose, it would be right in saying, from this study that the potency appears to have increased by around 5 fold, most likely due to more widespread testing. However, with that said, the data could be skewed due to the different types of cannabis itself, the methods it has been grown, the freshness, the packaging, storage, humidity, and genetic features of the plant all effect THC content. The review takes studies from around the world and collates the information, meaning all the factors above have a great influence on the purity, for instance THC content correlated with plants that are grown outdoors in other countries are collated with the strains grown indoor in the UK. Segregating this difference doesn’t appear to have been addressed in the review. It also shows purity as low as 0.4% in 1976 and goes on to say that the purities now are much higher. 0.4% appears to be the lowest recorded, from that the study chose to compare the lowest to the highest, and use that to make their conclusions. This study showed the trend of cannabis potency in the US over 7 years (1980-1997) showing that potency appears to have steadily increased 3 fold from an average of 1.5% in 1980 to 4.8% in 1997.

So why are people claiming a 30 fold increase? Simply because they can, as mentioned, this is done by comparing the lowest THC content of cannabis with the highest. To reiterate Ben Goldacres excellent take on this: Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs, in the 80’s, was propagated with a claim that cannabis was 14x stronger than in 70’s. So, if it was 14x stronger in the mid 80s than in the 70’s, and it is 30x stronger today …is it actually 420x stronger than in the 70s? That requires more THC than actual plant matter, which is, obviously, impossible. The available data doesn’t show any ridiculously large upward trend in the potency of cannabis. The claims made about the strength of cannabis are not supported by the limited amount of data available. To determine the average potency levels of cannabis properly; researchers need to examine a cross section of cannabis plants, unfortunately, from the data I can find, that wasn’t done in the 60/70’s. For this reason, it is not possible to make accurate comparisons of data between the THC levels 40-50 years ago and the THC levels of today.

Cancer is the enemy, but is cannabis the remedy?

Another peculiar claim pertaining to cannabis is that ‘Cannabis Cures Cancer’. Mostly, it is from people just randomly claiming that cannabis cures cancer, with no actual, real information. Digging around yielded little information on the ‘facts’ themselves. Cannabis’ effect in reducing nausea in chemotherapy has had negative results and some positive results in different clinical trials. Obviously, this is after treatment of cancer, nothing to do with the curing or the prevention of the disease. Cancer, unfortunately, is ridiculously diverse, with cancer research stating there are over 200 different types of cancer. Each of which have different genetics, causes, prognoses, pathology etc., so, it is not a disease with one unified treatment course, its like coming up with one unified course for all infections.

Scouring the Internet, I found very little showing a coherent study with conclusive results. There may not be enough studies or studies of a high quality enough to produce a coherent systematic review. A review summarising current knowledge’s of the ‘anti-tumour’ potential of cannabis in breast cancer, suggesting that cannabinoid based medicines may be useful in treating most breast tumours. To most people, that would imply smoking cannabis is going to cure breast cancer. Well, it simply won’t. The preliminary studies are carried out in cell cultures, not clinical trials. Furthermore, it states that the active ingredients must be delivered to the site of the tumour in the correct dosage to cause cell apoptosis, that is, to kill the cancer cells. Smoking or consuming cannabis would never produce a THC level high enough to kill the cancer at the site. Another study once again shows that cannabidol shows a chemo preventive effect on the colon cells. Where? In human trials? No, in a cell culture, of course. The only difference between this and Caffarel (previous) is that it doesn’t describe a dose-response relationship.

 

I have seen opposing arguments saying cannabis isn’t used as treatment because of its’ health effects and a massive government conspiracy to cover up the studies, no, I am not joking. Compared to all the cancer research going on currently, cannabis, as anti-cancer research is very minute. However, this isn’t exactly unusual because more research is plied into more promising compounds with respect to anti-cancer properties is larger because of the clinical success being larger. There is only one clinical trial that I have found. The study (described here) was a phase 1 clinical trial that has gone no further. There is very little convincing evidence on this paper, as there were only nine patients. These results could be consistent with an anti-tumour effect as well as being easily consistent with no effect. Even in this study, the subjects had catheters poked into the site of the tumour, so the THC was being placed directly onto the tumour. It is a direct contact with the tumour site, infusing THC into the brain cavity where the tumour had been, not being smoked.

Conclusion

So, is cannabis really a cure for cancer? Research suggests ‘there isn’t enough evidence to make that claim’. Quite frankly, to me, it is clear it doesn’t cure cancer, at least not on its own and definitely not if smoked. There is some interesting research in the role of cannabinoid receptors acting on cancer and if targeting them with agonists of cannabinoids is useful in terms of anti-cancer therapies (see above). This website shows a stunning amount of trials with the use of cannabinoids to treat the side effects of actual cancer treatments but few to actually treat cancer in itself. As I said, I’ve read of arguments of big pharma and the government hiding the research that shows how amazing cannabis is as a cure for cancer because cannabis is bad, and you shouldn’t do drugs. Big pharma also wants to supress research that would make them billions? Furthermore, if the motive (and let’s be clear, from what I can tell, most of the people arguing this haven’t studied any aspects of science) is to make cannabis legal, that is fine (arguably) to argue, trying to claim that cannabis has medical value, not based on any real science however, is not. Claiming that pharmaceutical companies will lose money on making drugs is a ridiculous claim. Pharmaceutical companies aren't stupid, and they are quick to jump on the avenues for effective treatment therapies. There are always ways to repackage and patent molecules, no matter what they are, which would give them a return on the investment required to develop and test them in clinical trials. To suggest that the cure is being hidden with literally no evidence, is not only ridiculous on the face of it but it’s offensive to the community of dedicated, ridiculously hardworking scientists, to the staff and supporters of cancer research to cancer patients and their families.

A blog to check out for quackery of this ilk is ‘Truth Activist’. A particular article entitled: ‘There is no mistaking it, cannabis cures cancer’. When they aren’t spreading conspiracy theory nonsense, mainly pertaining to the ‘truth’ about 9/11, they feel they need to have a hand in at ‘science’ with their ‘wellrespected’ TV personality doctors. Their published blogs tend to links their sources to forums, using people with usernames like ‘loveweed2k14’, claiming that their mums cats brothers friends dolphin had a bong hit and his cancer was cured, and using that as ‘evidence’. A collection of studies have been very carefully cherry picked to prove that cannabis cures cancer here. However, even more meticulous and well researched is the debunking of each and every single one of those 20 papers by someone who knows what they are talking about here. Check it out kids, and remember, just because it is written down, doesn't mean it's true.

The Food Babe

The Food Babe 

I’ll start by jumping straight to the conclusion; Vani Hari must be the most scientifically illiterate person that there is out there at the moment. Her blog is used to fear-mong the general population, commenting on things she has no idea about. Her field of study is computer science, although, she doesn’t stop talking about chemicals and quoting how ‘toxic’ they are. After reading her blog, one thing very clear: If she cannot pronounce it, it is a ‘known carcinogen’. Vani applies an appeal-to-nature fallacy to her life, that is, if it isn’t natural, it isn’t good for you (or is a known carcinogen to her). It may be no surprise, she is also anti-vax. My first encounter of hearing of her was through her campaign to remove azodicarbonamide from bread in the popular chain ‘Subway’ because the chemical is also used in foamed plastics. She also launched a campaign against Starbucks‘Pumpkin Spice’ because it doesn’t contain pumpkin (think of how consistent that would be in a cup of coffee), but contains some ‘chemicals’, caramel colour to be exact. She really, really doesn’t like that colour I guess? Assuming you have read those links or heard this prior, I am guessing you came to the same conclusion: there is not one scientific bone in that woman’s body. 

Use Microwaves? Pfft. 

One of her particular posts is a ‘popular’ post on microwaves. Yes, the seemingly ordinary household appliance, or the DEATH MACHINE, from what I can gather. Firstly, she seems to have a misunderstanding between life and death, describing food as live. Which, yes, sometimes I suppose it is. However, using a microwave to cook a lobster probably wont yield the best of results. Food is ‘dead’ before it enters the microwave, let alone your refrigerator. If she is ‘cleverly’ applying the word ‘dead’ to ‘cells’ in food, then still, they are already dead.

“The more dead food people eat, the more calories they consume trying to get the nutrition their body so desperately needs”

“Live, healthy, and nutritious foods can become dead in a matter of seconds when you use a microwave”

I don’t want to say eating this ‘dead’ food will kill you, but that’s your funeral. She uses a study from 2003 to propagate the fact that microwaving destroys nutritional content as the study “found that broccoli cooked in the microwave lost up to 97 percent of its antioxidant content”. However, this study states that steaming broccoli also destroys antioxidants. Not only that, it shows that at certain times of cooking, microwaved broccoli was higher in antioxidants than the steamed broccoli. Which is backed up by further studies.

“In conclusion, antioxidant components, such as phenolics, ascorbic acid and carotenoids, in broccoli and antioxidant activity have been shown to be heavily lost during cooking.”

Talk about cherry picking to back up your claim eh? The conclusion shows that cooking food breaks down nutrients and antioxidants, it is unavoidable, however you do it. As someone who is interested in food, and runs a blog about it, you would assume she knows that cooking food, whatever methodology is used, breaks down antioxidants would you not? She then goes on to claim that microwaving food releases carcinogens from the plastic and that ‘plastics release dioxins’, a claim without any merits.

“After all, human cells are made of molecules and molecular bonds are broken and destroyed when exposed to radiation.”

What the hell is she on about? Microwave radiation isn’t energetic enough to break molecular bonds, as it is non-ionising radiation. She really doesn’t even know the basics of chemistry. Furthermore claiming that the radiation from cell phone towers kills millions of birds every year in the same way microwaves kill people. I couldn’t find any study showing this, however, millions of birds do die every year because of cellphone towers lights and wires. 

Water Remembers, Please Don't Swear.

Those are by no means the best (and most hilarious) part of this blog. She goes on to claim a study, without really giving much detail, found blood changes in subjects, causing fatigue.

“The doctor in this study was actually able to cure people who were diagnosed with chronic fatigue by having them literally throw out their microwave.”

The cure for chronic fatigue is to LITERALLY throw out your microwave. I bet they felt the benefits the second that metal hit the curb. It gets better still:

“Last by not least, Dr. Masaru Emoto, who is famous for taking pictures of various types of waters and the crystals that they formed in the book called “Hidden Messages in Water,” found water that was microwaved did not form beautiful crystals – but instead formed crystals similar to those formed when exposed to negative thoughts or beliefs.”

Included with this is a picture of a nice ice crystal. Beautiful in its structure, perfect even. Next to it shows a bit of melted water. Dr Masaru Emoto takes a photo of this water and compares it to another water sample under a microscope. The difference? The second water is water in which he has shouted ‘Satan’ and ‘Hitler’ to, which really does go to show: people will believe anything as long as it is written down.

“For the experiment pictured above, microwaved water produced a similar physical structure to when the words “Satan” and “Hitler” were repeatedly exposed to the water.”

Concusion

The conclusion? Well water has memory. It remembers negative profanities shouted at it and microwaved water is just as evil and vindictive as this ‘Hitler-satanic’ water. These facts may be a bit too hard to digest. Maybe because you are reading this through a screen that’s giving off radiation, killing your ability to comprehend such miracles in this world. Anyway I am off to microwave a potato.

P.S. If Masaru Emoto was at a dinner party, presumably with a drink of water on the table, and they were discussing Hitler does he drink it?