Good Reason

It's okay to be wrong. It's not okay to stay wrong.

Category: foolishness (page 5 of 14)

Homeopathy cartoon

1 July 2010 / / 4 Comments

Beaker has alerted me to this Darryl Cunningham cartoon which is critical of homeopathy. (You may have seen his earlier cartoon about the MMR.)

He points out that homeopathy is ineffective, and dangerous when chosen in preference to real medicine, which (surprise!) is the preference that homeopaths will steer you toward. I like how he explains not only why homeopathy doesn’t work, but also why people feel like it does.

He’s also included a bit about Penelope Dingle. I hope this retelling of her story helps to prevent others from following her course of action.

I confess it still puzzles me why Peter Dingle seems to have no particular qualms about homeopathy. If I’d been through what he’s been through, I’d be trashing it even more than I currently do. But then I’m not overly invested in quackery, so that may be where we differ.

Apparently, it did.

23 June 2010 / / 1 Comment

Great moments in blokeness:

Aussie men shoot each other in buttocks ‘to see if it hurts’

Two Australian men needed surgery after shooting each other in the buttocks during a drinking session to see if it would hurt, police said on Wednesday.

The men, both aged 34, used an air rifle to fire at each other on Sunday. By Tuesday, both were in hospital to have pellets removed from their buttocks and legs.

Criticise them if you wish for mixing guns and alcohol, but you have to admire their commitment to empiricism.

And there’s something else we can learn from this. You notice how one guy shot his friend (doubtless hurting him), but then it was his turn to get shot? This just shows that an experiment isn’t really valid unless it’s replicable.

Ask an atheist: What is god like?

22 June 2010 / / 1 Comment

I sometimes contribute to ‘Ask the Atheists‘. Here’s a recent question.

What is your concept of God in His most crucial essence?

Rather an odd question to pose to atheists, don’t you think? Someone posed the same question to Richard Dawkins once, and he said he found it absurd.

Here’s how I answered it.
= – = – = – = – = – = – = – = – = – =
I’d like to describe the crucial attributes of God, and I’m not going to let a little thing like not believing in him stop me.

First, I’d say that God is intelligent. (Joseph Smith said that, and went on to found one of the dumbest religions of all time.) Because God is so intelligent, he’d be far too smart to invent a dumb thing like creationism, intelligent design, or intelligent design creationism. He’d surely see through the ridiculous charlatanry known as faith healing. He’d also be too smart to need numbskull apologists to defend him using poor reasoning, logical fallacies, and doomed arguments. Maybe they should cut it out.

Apparently, he controls everything, listens to billions of prayers, and (I have heard) is responsible for all the physical processes in the universe. That means he’s a busy guy. So he’d be far too busy to care what people are doing with their naughty bits. He also wouldn’t care about gay people getting married, how low women’s hemlines or necklines are, what kind of underwear people are wearing, or any of a thousand details about food and drink, meat preparation, hair length, language use, or social customs that religious systems concern themselves with for the supposed well-being of their members.

He created the world, and everything that in it is. That includes fossils and rocks that are millions of years old. That would suggest that he wants people to believe that the earth is much older than the 6,000 – 10,000 years that Christian fundamentalists believe it is. Why do they ignore the evidence that comes from the world that their god created? And why don’t they believe the fact of evolution? If he’s the god of truth, shouldn’t they quit trying to ignore facts? Doesn’t that sound like they’re not being respectful to him?

God created a lot of women. I happen to think they’re quite nice-looking, and since I’m created in God’s image, I bet he likes the way they look too. He’d probably be offended if someone tried to cover them in yards of fabric. Or if anyone tried to mutilate their genitals. Or burn them, cut off their noses, or honour-kill them for not being sufficiently obedient.

In other words, from what I can tell of God’s crucial attributes, I think he’d be as disgusted with the attempts of humans to worship him as I am. If he existed, that is.

Homeopathy kills again

9 June 2010 / / 34 Comments

Lately it’s been out-of-stater Meryl Dorey grabbing the attention with AltMed woo-woo in Perth, but let’s not forget that we’ve got a lot of woo-sters of our own.

Peter Dingle is not a medical doctor, but he gives medical advice on his blog. He’s come out against cholesterol-treating drugs. He finds the time to spread uncertainty about vaccines. The stuff he writes isn’t always wrong, but it’s a worry that he tends to cherry-pick scientific reports that confirm his views about natural health, all presented in an authoritative-sounding package. People think he knows something.

Sadly, his wife Penelope Dingle died of rectal cancer, which is treatable if caught early enough. What did the Dingles use to treat it? Homeopathy.

The State Coroner is investigating the death of a Perth woman who died of cancer after refusing traditional medical treatment in favour of alternative therapies.

Penelope Dingle died of bowel cancer in 2005.

In 2007, her family approached the coroner’s court to investigate her death.

The inquest has been told Mrs Dingle was being treated by a homeopath when she developed symptoms from bowel cancer.

Counsel assisting the coroner told the court her condition was not diagnosed until two years later at which point her homeopath told Mrs Dingle her cancer could be cured with alternative therapies.

Mrs Dingle then refused treatment from doctors who told her she had a reasonable chance of recovery if she underwent chemotherapy and an operation.

And Peter Dingle’s role in this? He wanted to write a book.

Ms Brown told the inquest that Jennifer Kornberger, a friend of Penelope’s, told her that Ms Scrayen, Penelope and Peter had made “a pact” that if treatment with homeopathy together with his regimen of anti-oxidants, vitamins and protein drinks was successful, he would write a book.

If I’d been through what Peter Dingle has been through, there’s no way in hell I’d be blithely offering up medical advice, especially with no medical qualifications. Why does he think he has any credibility?

There’s a bright side to this sad story. This time, they didn’t kill a child like usual. Penelope Dingle’s death was terrible, but at least she was an adult who made her own choices. She could have had access to good information if she had wanted it, especially with a supposedly scientifically-minded husband.

The other good thing: One less book about alternative medicine.

Action item: Counter the Anti-Vaxers

1 June 2010 / / 3 Comments

Via Pharyngula and Podblack:

The State Library is hosting an anti-vaccination event tonight, 1 June 2010 with Meryl Dorey of the so-called ‘Australian Vaccination Network’. They’ll be promoting their noxious brand of pseudoscience. Alt-Med is always a problem, but in this case, the stakes are higher. They tell worried parents that they’ll be harming their children by vaccinating them, when in fact the risk of death and disability from disease is much higher without vaccination than with. So more WA kids are going to die as herd immunity diminishes.

Your orders: meet Kylie (along with me and the Perth Skeptics) at the coffee shop at the State Library at 6:00 tonight. Let’s spread some good information.

A good source for info is the Immunise Australia Program.

Bit of consistency, please.

21 May 2010 / / Comments Off on Bit of consistency, please.

God is at it again.

Man tells cops God told him to stroll in the nude

THIBODAUX, La. — A man who told police that God told him to walk the streets naked to save his soul has been arrested. Thibodaux police responded to an obscenity complaint around 2 a.m. Thursday and found Shafiq Mohamed walking nude down the street. When approached, Mohamed reportedly told officers that “America raped him” and added God told him to walk the streets naked to save his soul.

Obscenity complaint? They should have written him into the Old Testament. Haven’t they heard of Isaiah? God told him to walk around naked for three years.

20:2 At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
20:3 And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;
20:4 So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

The cops don’t recognise a literary allusion when they see it. Only one thing to do: teach the bible in schools.

California battles Texas textbook massacre

18 May 2010 / / 3 Comments

I’ve been following the Texas textbook issue with some interest and concern. You know the story: Know-nothing dipsticks have been infiltrating Texas school boards so they can force conservative changes to high school textbooks. The worry is that Texas is the second largest market for textbooks, so other states may get terrible texts foisted onto them.

But California is the largest market, and they may try to thwart such efforts.

California may soon take a stand against proposed changes to social studies textbooks ordered by the Texas school board, as a way to prevent them from being incorporated in California texts.

Legislation by Sen. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, seeks to protect the nation’s largest public school population from the revised social studies curriculum approved in March by the Texas Board of Education. Critics say if the changes are incorporated into textbooks, they will be historically inaccurate and dismissive of the contributions of minorities.

The Texas recommendations, which face a final vote by the Republican-dominated board on May 21, include adding language saying the country’s Founding Fathers were guided by Christian principles and a new section on “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s.” That would include positive references to the Moral Majority, the National Rifle Association and the Contract with America, the congressional GOP manifesto from the 1990s.

Ugh.

I found this comment most encouraging.

But some publishing industry experts say worries that the Texas standards will cross state lines are unfounded.

“It’s an urban myth, especially in this digital age we live in, when content can be tailored and customized for individual states and school districts,” said Jay Diskey, executive director of the schools division of the Association of American Publishers.

I hope other textbook publishers operate similarly. It could control the damage. Or, scarily, it could create pockets of terrible textbooks in areas where demand is significant.

Sex causes earthquakes

20 April 2010 / / 2 Comments

As humans, we naturally want to find the reasons for things. It’s what makes us such inquisitive critters, and it’s done us a lot of good so far.

Except that it also makes us superstitious. Why aren’t the rains coming? We should do something, but what? Pray to a god and starve ourselves? Believe in Allah? How about getting our daughters to plow fields naked? And so on.

If superstition is a normal human tendency, it’s one that can be overcome with a bit of practice. On the other hand, some people like to wallow in it.

Extramarital sex ’causes more earthquakes’, Iranian cleric claims

Attractive women who snub traditional Islamic clothing to instead wear fashionable clothes and apply heavy make-up, caused youths in the country to “go astray” and have affairs, Ayatollah Kazem Sedighi said.

The hard-line cleric said as a result the country, bounded by several fault lines, experienced more “calamities” such as earthquakes, the reformist Aftab-e Yazd newspaper reported him saying.

Iran is prone to frequent quakes, many of which have been devastating for the country.

“Many women who dress inappropriately … cause youths to go astray, taint their chastity and incite extramarital sex in society, which increases earthquakes,” he told worshippers at a Tehran prayer service late last week.

Heh. He said ‘taint’.

“Calamities are the result of people’s deeds.

“We have no way but conform to Islam to ward off dangers.“

Except perhaps to find out what really causes earthquakes, and how to make buildings that don’t fall down. You know, all that sciency stuff.

No word yet if the Iranian government is planning on putting more funding into morality-based tectonics. Perhaps they could also throw a little money toward political volcano research.

Back in your closets

20 February 2010 / / 4 Comments

Sometimes I look at what’s going on in America and I shake my head. I suppose that’s why those bobble-head dolls are so popular there. If you had to all that head-shaking yourself, your neck would break, so it’s nice to have a machine to do it for you.

It seems that having prayer meetings at coffee shops is now a popular and ostentatious way for religious believers to flaunt their holiness.

If I saw that going on, I’d introduce them to Matthew:

6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.

6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

Christians interpreting their scriptures selectively? Shocked I am! Shocked, I tells ya!

Deluded people belong in one of two places: a mental hospital or a church. No need to pester the rest of us with their bizarre and aberrant hobby.

Another great devotional

14 February 2010 / / 4 Comments

I’m here at BYU-Idaho with M. Russell Ballard, a Mormon apostle. Elder Ballard, I was wondering if you could give me some words of wisdom that would help me in my mortal probation.

“I want to try to pull this together, not to frighten you but to wake you up,” Elder Ballard said. “We’ve got to be so solidly anchored in our testimonies of the gospel of Jesus Christ that, regardless of what may come next, we will not waffle; we will stand firm in our belief; we won’t question the doctrines that are part of our belief.”

Not question doctrines or beliefs. Got it.

I do have one question though, and that’s the LDS stand on gay marriage. Why is it so important for us to fuck around with the marital status of other people?

“It’s a pretty simple answer,” Elder Ballard responded. “God created this world and He put Adam here and He gave Adam a helpmate whom he called Eve. They had a charge and a responsibility to multiply and replenish the earth. It is a marvelous and glorious experience to bring forth children and have a family, and that is done between a husband and a wife who are married.”

Um. Do you have an answer that doesn’t involve fictional beings?

“I’m telling you what the Savior said would be the signs of the acceleration towards that day when He shall come,” he said. “We could stay here for a couple of hours talking about all of the prophecies of what will occur in the last days. We’re in the last days — you can quote me on that. And it is moving more rapidly.”

Wow, thanks, Elder Ballard! For a moment there, I was thinking calmly and rationally. Now I’m so scared, I’m ready to believe anything if it just makes the fear go away.

By the way, how long has it been the Last Days? Are we now in the ‘lasty-last days’? Don’t look at me like that, Elder Ballard, I’m just kidding.

So in summary, Don’t question, and be very afraid. That’s all for now. Keep praying, paying, and obeying!

Older posts Newer posts

Meta

© 2024 Good Reason

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑