Occam's Donkey at the end of the decade

Well, Occam's Donkey survived its second year and is set to enter the new decade. I have achieved my aim of blogging about once a week, although it must said that a number posts reflected "blogging light", being digests, or just paraphrasing other views. Be that as it may, I do believe that Occam's Donkey succeeded in raising important issues, especially regarding neuroscience and education. It was again gratifying to find that many posts from Occam's Donkey featured on the first page of Google searches on appropriate key words.

Look forward to more of the same in 2010, but with attempts to spend more time on critical thinking.

May 2010 bring for readers whatever you want.

Shooting down the strawman

Orac from Respectful Insolence is one of my favourite bloggers, but this time he shot himself in the foot. He placed the picture below under the caption "All I want for Christmas is ..., heavy duty firearms."


The picture seems posed and is not representative of parents who are gun owners at all, except maybe a few loons in the mountains between somewhere and nowhere. It turns out that it is a deliberate fake from Motifake, a website that deals in "fake motivational posters", although I accept that Orac may not have known of its origin.

Orac continues with this cryptic comment: "Somehow, I don't think we're in Hammond, Indiana anymore." It turns out that Hammond, Indiana refers to a movie in which a boy desires above all else a Daisy Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.


While Orac is entitled to whatever his views on firearms may be, logical fallacies and suspect reasoning will not help his case. The picture is a typical strawman - it is a fake and misrepresents the views of mainstream gun owners. The link that Orac tries to draw between the supposed assault rifles in the picture and the Daisy Red Ryder from Hammond, Indiana is tenuous, a non-sequitur - the one idea just does not follow the other.

And why should we not still be in Hammond, Indiana? Why should a boy or girl, even in this day and age, not desire a Daisy Red Ryder for Christmas? I would not mind one myself. Why should a father or mother not give one, provided it is accompanied by responsible training and it is used only under adult supervision where the law allows? The values from Hammond, Indiana may be old-fashioned, but should they be?

This quote from Mike Venturino in the American Handgunner magazine says something about the gun culture I ascribe to:

"Also in my gun culture, people don't shoot up road signs, farmer's gates. rancher's cattle, or anything else that shouldn't be shot. People in my gun culture love to shoot, but they shoot at targets of paper or steel, or at legitimate game animals or varmints. Most people in my gun culture love competitions: not because they have to be top dog, but because competitions are their social events. People in my gun culture look forward to breaks in the games' action or the end of the days shooting so they can visit with others. Then they talk about such things as the width and depth of grease grooves in their bullets, or how many lands and grooves their barrels have or what's the best powder for such and such a caliber or gun."

OK, maybe that's a bit over the top, but you get the idea.

Full disclosure: I've been shooting for more than 40 years. I know the situation regarding firearms in South Africa, but based on my contact with American shooters, I surmise that the attitudes of mainstream gun owners are similar. My children have been introduced to responsible firearms use and safety from an early age.

Aide Memoire 7

From ScienceDaily: Dyslexia: Some very smart accomplished people cannot read well.

Jonah Lehrer from Frontal Cortex: ADHD and time.

Vaughan from Mind Hacks: Men are from Earth, Women are from Earth.

From ScienceDaily: Learning by imagining: How mental imagery training aids perceptual learning.

Steven Novella from Neurologica: Teaching how science works.

From ScienceDaily: CIMT may improve arm use in children with hemiplegic cerebral palsy, report shows.

Michael McKinney from Leader Blog: Managers can (and should) be leaders.

From ScienceDaily: Young adults who exercise get higher IQ scores.

From ScienceDaily: Early intervention for toddlers with autism highly effective, study finds.

Respectful Insolence and Neurologica on Deepak Chopra in Deepak Chopra and his Choprawoo translated: "Skeptics, take my ill-informed speculations seriously!" and Chopra Attacks Skeptics.

ScienceDaily: Young Adults Who Exercise Get Higher IQ Scores

ScienceDaily: Early Intervention for Toddlers With Autism Highly Effective, Study Finds.

Bob Sutton: Mintzberg in the WSJ: Get Rid of Executive Bonuses.

Bob Sutton: Jeff Pfeffer on the Misguided Lust for Outside CEOs as Saviors.

Parasites and free will

Robert Sapolski in The Edge:

"The parasite my lab is beginning to focus on is one in the world of mammals, where parasites are changing mammalian behavior. It's got to do with this parasite, this protozoan called Toxoplasma. ...

In the endless sort of struggle that neurobiologists have — in terms of free will, determinism — my feeling has always been that there's not a whole lot of free will out there ...

And it's got to do with this utterly bizarre world of parasites manipulating our behavior. It turns out that this is not all that surprising. There are all sorts of parasites out there that get into some organism, and what they need to do is parasitize the organism and increase the likelihood that they, the parasite, will be fruitful and multiply, and in some cases they can manipulate the behavior of the host."

Much has been written on the dangers of Toxoplasmosis for pregnant women and the fetus. As usual, Wikipedia has a good rundown. While not exactly new information, Sapolski does a good job of spelling out the potential (but speculative at this stage) behavioural effects of Toxoplasmosis infections in mammals, more specifically humans. It turns out that the parasite, through a common evolutionary ancestor billions of years ago, is able to manipulate very specific circuits in the mammalian amygdala that control stress responses to predators. In the case of rats, their natural avoidance and fear reaction to cat urine is replaced by attraction and mild sexual stimulation. Oops ...!

Thinking of a number of tourists the last few years who stupidly (fatally) approached lions in South African game reserves, one wonders whether they were infected by Toxoplasmosis and actually died in sexual euphoria?! OK, maybe that's taking it a bit too far. The important issue remains that this is another possible factor that may be affecting our behaviour and makes free will an ever more elusive phenomenon.

Now, where's that damn cat?

AGW, wouldst thou have false positive or false negative?

Anthropogenic global warming, let me add my bit of hot air to the problem, literally in this case because this is the first post in which I shall use DragonDictate dictation software.

There is little question that global warming is real, the real issue is whether it is caused by human actions, or is just part of the natural climatic cycle. Notwithstanding the University of East Anglia debacle, scientific consensus is that global warming is in fact anthropogenic, caused by humans. I suspect that most AGW deniers are motivated by greed and self-interest, but it can also not be denied that there are credible scientists who question whether humans are the cause of global warming.

A graph with an excellent summary of the different points of view can be found at Information is Beautiful. Hat tip to Sean from Cosmic Variance for alerting me to the chart, which he has checked and believes to be accurate.

In previous posts I explored views that false positives (believing something to be true when it is not) have survival value. In this case less harm will be done if we wrongly believe and act as if global warming is caused by humans, than if believing and acting that it's not. Some corporate AGW deniers would have us believe that economic disaster will befall us if we acted to limit human influence on the environment. They often point to job losses as a likely consequence, yet whenever there is an economic downturn they are the first to retrench staff, citing all kinds of spurious reasons, when all they are interested in are profits, executive bonuses and shareholder value. In the case of AGW I suspect that's all they're interested in as well.

Someone has also mentioned Pascal's Wager in this regard. I believe it has some relevance, if in doubt play safe. If it turns out we were wrong about the anthropogenic part, less harm would have been done than the other way around. The physicist, Robert Park, made the same point about the population explosion, safer to all be Malthusians now.

Aide Memoire 6

Granddad from Head Rambles on The Irish Holocaust.

Steven Novella from Neurologica on Answering Some Autism Questions.

Various posts on Rom Houben, the Belgian man who allegedly recovered from coma and is now communication via facilitated communication: Respectful Insolence 1, Neurologica 1, Respectful Insolence 2 and Neurologica 2.

Neuroskeptic on Deconstructing the Placebo.

Vaughan from Mindhacks on Autism, desperation and untested treatments.

Jonah Lehrer from Frontal Cortex on The Reading Brain.

Bob Sutton on: The Tension Between Getting it Done and Getting it Right

Deric Bownds from Mindblog on The sooner you can sleep, the better you learn.

From ScienceDaily: Cognitive dysfunction reversed in mouse model of Down syndrome.

Steven Novella from Neurologica on Evidence in Medicine: Correlation and Causation.

Jonah Lehrer from Frontal Cortex on The Tiger Woods effect.

Vaughan from Mind Hacks on the Forer effect: You are kind, strong willed, but can be self-critical.

From Bill Cohen on the Leader Blog: Drucker on The seven deadly sins of leadership.

From Neurophilosophy: Dyslexia and the Cocktail Party effect.

Occam's Donkey on Skeptics' Circle

My post on Brain Profiling as a mind myth has been taken up on Skeptics' Circle for 20 November.

Aide Memoire 5

More catching up to do. More ideas for future posts and for readers who may wish to follow up on.

Raymond Tallis on The Humanist: Neurotrash, on the abuse of neuroscience.

Steven Novella from Neurologica: Memory.

From Scientific Blogging: Telepathy and the quantum.

Bob Sutton: Intuitive vs. data-driven decision making.

From ScienceDaily: Poor Start Between A Class And Its Teacher Almost Impossible To Rectify.

From eSkeptic: Sagan and skepticism.

From ScienceDaily: Baby's language development starts in the womb.

Donald Clark from Donald Clark Plan B: Gardner's multiple intelligences seductive nonsense.

Donald Clark from Donald Clark Plan B: Gardner's multiple intelligences and scientific stupidity.

Jonah Lehrer from Frontal Cortex: The personality paradox, on the context dependency of personality and fundamental attribution error.

Jamie O'Leary from Flypaper: Teacher quality the most important (in-school) factor.

Jonah Lehrer from Frontal Cortex: Learning from mistakes.

Steven Novella from Neurologica: A culture of science-based practice, something sorely needed in education.

Donald Clark from Donald Clark Plan B: Future is free, about all the free educational opportunities out there.

Aide Memoire 4

More ideas that readers may want to look at and that I may blog about more extensively in future.

Tracey Allison Altman from Evidence Soup on Martin Gardner, the amazing author of Fads and fallacies in the name of science, as well as books and columns on recreational mathematics.

Bob Sutton on a meta-analysis of the most effective factors for predicting job performance.

Donald Clark from Donald Clark Plan B demolishes Piaget.

Vaughan from Mind Hacks on 40 years of brain research.

From Derick Bownds on Mindblog: Rational irrationality.

From ScienceDaily: Copper bracelets and magnetic wrist straps are ineffective in relieving arthritis pain.

From PsyBlog: How Rewards Can Backfire and Reduce Motivation.

Scientific Blogging on supernatural coincidences.

From Vaughan at Mind Hacks: Changes in illiterate adults' brains when they learn to read.

From Jonah Lehrer at Frontal Cortex: The reversal of neurodevelopmental cognitive deficits in animal experiments, specifically with mice.

From Vaughan at Mind Hacks: The significance of blinking.

From Derick Bownds on Mindblog: The role of dopamine in seeking stimulation.

Brilliant article by Paul Krugman in the New York Times: How did economists get it so wrong?

Krugman's article commented on from physics points of view by Sean and Daniel at Cosmic Variance.

Bio-Strath is at it again

It's examination time in South Africa and the purveyors of products that are supposed to help children improve their results are targeting parents with aggressive marketing campaigns. One of these is Bio-Strath. Their advertising budget must be enormous. We've seen half-page colour advertisements in a number of Sunday newspapers and heard sponsored talks on a dozen radio stations. Their incredible claims are backed by anecdotes and vague references to research. I won't waste time on the anecdotes, but let's look at the claims and the presented evidence.

Bio-Strath generally claims improvement in the cognitive performance of young and old. In this case, they base their claim on a so-called biometric analysis of a cohort of 390 children, Bio-Strath claims 85% improvement in concentration, 88% improvement in resistance (whatever that may be) and 90% improvement in study fatique. These are extraordinary claims and surely require extraordinary evidence (Carl Sagan). So what evidence does Bio-Strath offer? I have had to do some searching and eventually found the abstract, which I have re-produced below:

Is this extraordinary evidence? Hardly. It is a simple survey of feedback reports from parents of children who took Bio-Strath. There is no indication of just how the parents evaluated improvement in concentration, resistance and fatique. Surveys like this are subject to sampling and confirmation bias. As research they are of little value. To use the survey so prominently in an advertisement and to represent it as research is to put it mildly, questionable.

In my opinion Bio-Strath supplies very little evidence to support its extraordinary claims. It's been seventeen years since the survey in question. Had the product performed as claimed, there should have been solid evidence by now.

My previous post on Bio-Strath was entitled Bio-Strath for ADD/ADHD and critically evaluated another deficient Bio Strath study.

Has human evolution turned the corner?

A hat tip to Deric Bownds from Mindblog for this cartoon, which he in turn got from the New Yorker:
As a school principal and South African citizen, some experiences I've had, and observations I've made in the past few weeks, makes me believe that we're rapidly devolving.

In a post entitled The educational leader: what else than a social entrepreneur?, Walter Baets from UCT wrote as follows:

"In many aspects, the successful principal is a social entrepreneur. ... A few thoughts of interest of Charles Maisel on what a social entrepreneur is might explain my argument. A social entrepreneur needs to see things differently, start flipping things around. Entrepreneurship is about seeing, seeing the possibilities. In fact, it is all about learning to look at things differently. A social entrepreneur is not in for maximising profit, but for solving a pressing social problem on a population-wide scale. He or she creates."

In a society where common decency and common sense are increasingly rare and where the lowest common denominator has become the norm (bad punning intended), I'm not sure that I'm up to the task.

Fortunately Robert Frost has encouraging words for every discouraged educator:

"The woods are lovely and dark and deep, but I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."

Aide Memoire 3

Time for an Aide Memoire again. Stuff that I want to note and maybe return to again some time in the future.

From Bob Sutton: On research that shows that people who complain get an unfair advantage, squeaky wheels get oiled.

From Think Differently: On the 10% rule in sport and other competitive environments.

From Scientific Blogging: A "laymen's" meta-analysis of the evidence for homeopathy, using Google Scholar.

From Mindblog: "Shrinking the shrinks", a call for higher scientific standards for training psychotherapists.

From Science Daily: About the lack of an evidence base for much of psychotherapy.

From Scientific Blogging: Another expose of Brain Gym.

From Tom Peters: Try Civility for success.

From BPS Research Digest: Nagging things that prominent psychologists don't understand about themselves.

From Bob Sutton: His Top Ten Flawed, Suspect, and Incomplete Assumptions about Managing People.

From Scientific Blogging: Sit up straight, as mom always told you to do, is good for self image too!

From Scientific Blogging: Smartness in a bottle, another post on the campus use of drugs for cognitive enhancement, in this case Nootropics.

From eSkeptic: Paranormal Wall Street on how failed Wall Street tycoons are turning to psychics for advice.

Are we hard wired to believe or to doubt?

Jeremy Dean from Psyblog poses the question whether the mind's default position if for us to be naturally critical or naturally gullible. He states:

"It's not just that some people do and some people don't; in fact all our minds are built with the same first instinct, the same first reaction to new information. But what is it: do we believe first or do we first understand, so that belief (or disbelief) comes later?"

Deane points out that philosophers Descartes and Spinoza represented opposing views on this. Descartes believed that we understand first, then believe or disbelieve. According to Spinoza, however, we initially believe and only later change our mind when more evidence comes to light.

Who was right? According to Dean, the consensus scientific view is that we believe first and ask questions later. This has an evolutionary survival advantage in that we can more efficiently avoid danger or grab opportunities that present themselves. This view ties in with a previous posting on Occam's Donkey in which I quoted Michael Shermer on the preference of the human mind for anecdotal evidence above scientific evidence. According to Shermer this is due to an evolutionary imperative to pay attention to perceived danger, with false positives (i.e. false alarms) being relatively harmless, but false negatives (perceiving there to be no danger when in fact there is) potentially fatal.

Critical thinking and being skeptical is thus hard work and goes against our natural instincts!

Shermer's original article in the Scientific American can be found here.

The leadership myth

Madeleine McGrath, writing as the guest blogger on Tom Peter's blog, points out the success of Angela Merkel in Germany, despite being lacking in charisma:

"There have been comments on her rather dour and austere demeanor. She is said to lack charisma, with her communication style described at best as calm and measured. She is not perceived as a visionary, and certainly does not have the public profile of the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy. She had an uneasy relationship with the Social Democrats, her previous coalition partners. Some commentators say that the caution she learned growing up in Eastern Europe has led to a reluctance to take risks as a leader. All in all, she's scoring pretty low on leadership characteristics by my reckoning.

And yet her leadership of the German people through this troubled economic period has built for her an enviable reputation as a statesperson who is reliable and trustworthy."

McGrath suggests that in the current world crisis the era of the superstar leader in both politics and business may be over. In her opinion substance is now preferred over style. I agree, but may I suggest that that should always be the case?

Tu Quoque by the Vatigan

The Guardian recently reported as follows on a statement by the Vatigan:

"The Vatican has lashed out at criticism over its handling of its paedophilia crisis by saying the Catholic church was "busy cleaning its own house" and that the problems with clerical sex abuse in other churches were as big, if not bigger.

In a defiant and provocative statement, issued following a meeting of the UN human rights council in Geneva, the Holy See said the majority of Catholic clergy who committed such acts were not paedophiles but homosexuals attracted to sex with adolescent males."

I expect to hear the Tu Quoque ("you too") fallacy from school children, not from an esteemed organization like the Catholic church. How much more damage and misery will it allow a minority of priests to cause before it acts decisively? As the father of an adolescent son, I find the excuse that priests were not paedophiles because their victims were adolescents, offensive.

Quacks, eat your heart out!

To misquote Crocodile Dundee: "That's not a quack, this is a quack!" Your common, garden variety quack can only watch this guy in envy:


The advert, which is typical of many similar ones seen in South Africa, was handed to me at a robot (South Africanism for a traffic light).

Nandos, a South African fast food franchise known for its excellent satirical advertising campaigns, currently has an advert that takes the micky out of quack adverts. I captured it on my cell phone camera:


Don't call me, I'm on my way to Nandos!

Higher incidence of dementia in former rugby players?

The New York times recently reported on a study that suggested a much higher incidence of dementia among former NFL players (similar to Rugby Union) than among the general population - up to 19 times more than the normal rate for males aged 30 to 49. I have not yet seen the actual research and this should obviously be interpreted with caution. I know of no similar statistics for Rugby Union, as played in South Africa. Given, however, the high incidence of concussion in the local game and the cavalier attitude sometimes towards incidents of concussion, it is certainly something that bears looking into.

The significance of unlikely events

At a wedding reception recently, a cork from a bottle of champagne recoiled off the roof, hit the tip of my hors d'oeuvre fork and expertly flipped it into my glass of punch. Now try to achieve this by design; you probably will not get it right in a thousand attempts. Yet such unlikely events occur every day. Throw some paper clips together and try to get them to link. Yet out of every box a number of linked paperclips will appear. Discuss an acquaintance with someone and he or she suddenly appears, as if called.

Are such events significant? The answer is typically no, these are just random events of no significance. The cork had to hit somewhere, it just happened to be the fork. The paper clips just happened to be pushed in such a way that they linked. Your friend just happened to be close when you were discussing him - you are conveniently forgetting the instances where you discussed him and he did not appear.

Such unlikely and probably random events typically have no significance and lead to nothing, but then again sometimes they may. An unlikely event, recognized by you as significant, may become what Nassim Taleb call a black swan. He describes a black swan event as an outlier that carries extreme impact and is only retrospectively predictable. Talib's black swan is therefore not quite the same as the black swan from science, the discovery or event that falsifies a scientific theory and proves it wrong (Popper).

Evidence-based education?

Neurologist Steven Novella over at Neurologica, poses the question why there's not a stronger link between science and the practice of education? Why is there no evidence-based education, analogous to evidence-based medicine?

I have been asking essentially the same question for the past year here at Occam's Donkey. I have pointed out many of the quackeries found in education and will continue to do so, as I've not even scratched the surface.

We have been been working for some time on implementing evidence-based education at the school where I am the headmaster, Muriel Brand School. A page on the school's website deals with what we're trying to achieve:

Policy on evidence supported approaches to teaching and therapy

The school's mission statement reads as follows:

The provision of excellent, evidence supported, special education
and therapeutic treatment to learners with special educational needs.

The school recognises that due in part to the difficulties of research in applied settings, sound empirical evidence for the efficacy of specific therapies and teaching methods is not always available. We believe, however, that given,

1. A coherent theoretical base consistent with current scientific knowledge
2. Congruence between the theory and the practical application of the approach
3. The responsible and transparent implementation of the approach by its practitioners
4. The critical evaluation of available research, even if flawed
it is possible to distinguish between acceptable approaches and those that tend towards pseudoscience or even quackery.

All therapy and teaching approaches used in the school, have been judged according to the criteria above.

In a previous post on evidence-supported practice, I touched briefly on what I meant by that term and why evidence-supported rather than evidence-based in the educational context.

We are not close to there yet, whether evidence-based or evidence-supported. We pay lip service to the ideal, but the reality is that we often fall short. The South African branches of the professions represented within the school - education, the therapies (physio, speech and OT), and to some extent psychology - do not typically insist on a strong evidence base for their activities. Scientific thinking does not feature at all in the training of teachers and did not do so enough in the past in the case of therapists (it seems to be improving). Scientific evidence to support teaching and therapy is available, but is fragmented and not easily accessible at school level. Passive resistance with the unstated objection - "I've always done it this way and it works for me" - is sometimes an obstacle. No, we're not there yet, and I doubt it's different for other schools.

In South Africa, some teacher unions have played a valuable role in teacher development through teacher training. Regrettably, however, they currently do not seem to insist on any form of evidence base for their courses. Two prominent unions, NAPTOSA and SAOU, have for instance supported approaches that in my opinion are total nonsense, namely Mind Moves and Neurolink.

Prof. Faith Bischof (Physiotherapy, Wits University) and I recently oganized a conference on cerebral palsy with the theme of "Towards the evidence-supported management of cerebral palsy in South Africa: Are we there yet?". We were able to get Dr. Charlene Butler as the keynote speaker. She was one of the initiators of the valuable range of AACPDM reviews of evidence in the field of cerebral palsy. Her input was valuable in getting therapists and teachers to buy into the ideal of evidence-supported practice in the field of cerebral palsy. Regrettably, however, the conclusion of the conference had to be that we're not there yet. And in education as a sector? Not even close.

Making sense through argument

In a recent op-ed article in the New York Times, academic Gerald Graff made the point that students who derived most from being at college (more like university in South Africa), were those who made sense of their experiences by constructing arguments. In his article, An argument worth having, Graff pointed out that many students coped with the cognitive dissonance brought about by different lecturers' views, by briefly taking on particular lecturer's philosophy and regurgitating his or her views as required. This process, according to Graff, limits the benefit the student could derive from the intellectual culture of university.

Graff found that the most successful students applied critical thinking to the problem of,

"(cutting) through the clutter of jargons, methods and ideological differences to locate the common practices of argument and analysis hidden behind it all."

He suggested the following steps:

Recognizing that diverse knowledge becomes more useful when turned into arguments.

This should be done by summarizing the arguments and assumptions underlying the views of lecturers

When summarizing, the thesis of an argument should be considered, but also points of controversy.

Using the summaries and the arguments one constructed, the aim would then be to develop one's own considered and expressed opinion.

Graff, of course, is describing part of the process of critical thinking. I see one problem (in South Africa at least), very few students starting out have any understanding of critical thinking or the construction of arguments of this nature. Critical thinking is one the critical outcomes of South African outcomes based education (OBE), but this outcome is seldom aimed at and is rarely achieved. I believe that critical thinking should be explicitly taught. I have found Rationale, the argument mapping software from Austhink, useful in this regard.

Revisiting nonsense

I have covered many nonsense educational techniques and therapies since starting Occam's Donkey almost two years ago. I have not really been doing the recommended activities to increase the blog's popularity and I do not typically get more than 50 hits per day. It has nevertheless been gratifying to find that Google searches on the names of some of the techniques I have been writing about, often find Occam's Donkey on the first page of results. At least some people are getting the message that pseudoscience and quackery are rife in education and its allied disciplines. Caveat emptor.

Here are some of the ideas, techniques and products I've covered. To see posts related to each idea, just type the italics printed words in the search box at the top of the blog home page.

The mind myths underlying many fads and scams

Brain Gym

Mind Moves

Brain profiling and genetic brain profiling

Left brain right brain

BioStrath for ADHD

Betakit Study System

Primitive reflexes

Quantum physics

Quantum Xrroid Consciousness Interface, or SCIO/QXCI

Human Pin Code

Learning styles

Multiple intelligences

Motivational speakers

Those are some of the ideas and techniques I have concerns about. A valid question would be whether there is anything I support? Well, many of the techniques under discussion are promoted as silver bullets that will solve all educational problems. There are no silver bullets in this field. I believe that not all problems can be solved. Those that can be solved are normally solved through hard work directly on the problem, a back to basics approach.

Science based (evidence based or evidence supported) solutions are the best route to go. While there have been recent scandals in the Big Pharma, medical interventions for conditions such as ADHD are still the best. So called "natural products" for conditions such as ADHD are typically ineffective and a waste of money. The most effective "treatment" for ADHD is a combination of medication (typically stimulant) and behaviour modification.

Foot-in-the-mouth disease

I remember as a child the campaigns in South Africa to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease. More common these days are foot-in-the-mouth disease.





Image from the howling latina.



Here are the Top 10 examples of celebrity nonsense from the Telegraph:

George Bush: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, in 2003: "I think that gay marriage should be between a man and a woman."

Donald Rumsfeld, in 2002: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns: the ones we don't know we don't know."

Murray Walker, motor racing commentator: "The lead car is absolutely unique, except for the one behind it which is identical."

John Motson, football commentator: "For those of you watching in black and white, Spurs are playing in yellow."

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, explaing budget plans to lawmakers in July this year: "Total spending will continue to rise and it will be a zero percent rise in 2013-14."

Clinton, in 1998 grand jury testimony about Monica Lewinsky: "It depends upon what the meaning of the word 'is' is. If 'is' means 'is and never has been' that's one thing - if it means 'there is none', that was a completely true statement."

Cantona, 1995: "When the seagulls follow the trawler, it's because they think sardines will be thrown into the sea."

Bush, once again, in July 2001: "I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe - I believe what I believe is right."

Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, on British satirical gameshow Have I Got News for You in 2003: "I could not fail to disagree with you less."

Thank heavens there's no-one to follow me around and record the nonsense I may come up with from time to time!

CP children more affected by H1N1

There are some early indications of a higher mortality rate due to H1N1 influenza among children with cerebral palsy and other neurodevelopmental disorders. The vulnerability of this group of children to complications from flu has been known for some time. The current situation in the USA, according to the report referred to above, is:

"Almost two-thirds of the children who died with swine flu had epilepsy, cerebral palsy or other neurodevelopmental conditions. In a previous flu season, only a third of the children who died had those conditions."

"Two-thirds of the children who died had high-risk medical conditions. Nearly all of them had an illness related to the nervous system, including mental retardation, cerebral palsy, epilepsy and other seizure disorders."

"Years ago experts recognized that children with neurodevelopmental conditions run a higher risk of serious complications from the flu. But the proportion of swine flu victims with that kind of underlying condition is high compared to a previous flu season."

"It's not clear how significant that finding is, because many of the children had other medical problems besides the neurological conditions that had weakened their bodies."

Keep in mind that this report is based on limited numbers of children and that it is too early to draw definitive conclusions from it.

Read the full report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Don't move away, move toward ...

From George Siemens on his blog Connectivism, something that an advisor had told him in his youth:

"... never move away from something - you never know where you’ll end up…always walk toward something - this ensures you end up where you want to be."

Thinking back on my different careers, that would have been good advice early on. More than once have I found myself, or seen others, changing things without a clear idea of where we were headed, often without a clear understanding of the dynamics of whatever we were changing. Matters often ended up in a mess, if not in a disaster. Post-Apartheid South Africa would make an excellent case study in this regard.

Positive psychology revisited

I recently wrote on some concepts from positive psychology in a post entitled On grit, flow and 'vasbyt'. Now an extensive review about positive psychology, entitled An intellectual movement for the masses, has just appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The following quotes highlight some of the issues facing positive psychology:

"The world of positive psychology is vast and varied. The term is not trademarked, after all. Google it and you can find links not only to Seligman's Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania but also to self-styled gurus describing their own "path of self-discovery" and to sites like Enlightenment Central, advertising neurofeedback and "consciousness exploration." A segment about positive psychology on National Public Radio in 2007 still makes researchers cringe: Its prime example of the field was the best seller The Secret, in which the television producer Rhonda Byrne argues that everything in the universe vibrates on a particular frequency; if people attune their thoughts to the same frequency as, say, money, they will attract wealth; ditto love, health, and unlimited happiness."

and

"Researchers in positive psychology are constantly fighting its image as a New Agey, self-help movement, a reputation that has plagued it from its inception and that persists not only in the news media but also among many in the broader discipline. 'The curse of working in this area is having to distinguish it from Chicken Soup for the Soul,' "

The whole article makes for good reading.

What is encouraging is that positive psychology seems to headed for a greater measure of evidence based methodology.

David Cameron on disability

David Cameron's son, Ivan, who suffered from cerebral palsy and epilepsy, died tragically earlier this year. In a recent article in The Independent, Cameron poignantly described his family's experiences and the lessons he learned about disability. Those of us who work with children with disabilities and with their families would do well to take note of his views.

Photograph by Roger Taylor from The Telegraph.

"The first lesson I learned was the importance of early intervention and help. The day you find out your child has a disability you're not just deeply shocked, worried and upset – you're also incredibly confused."

and,

"The second lesson was that life for parents of disabled children is complicated enough without having to jump through hundreds of government hoops. After the initial shock of diagnosis you're plunged into a world of bureaucratic pain."

I quote Cameron's third lesson fully, as it relates to inclusive education versus special schools. South African educational authorities have, somewhat reluctantly, accepted that there is a place for special schools. Overzealous inclusionists, however, often mislead parents with empty promises about support that never happens.

"The third lesson is that we've got to make it easier for parents to get the right education for children with disabilities. So many parents get stuck on a merry-go-round of assessments, appeals and tribunals to get a statement of special needs and the extra help their child needs. There's a structural reason for that. The people that decide who gets specialist education – the local education authorities – are also the ones who pay for it. We're seriously looking at how we can resolve that conflict of interest so that parents don't have to enter into such a huge battle for special education.

Something else that many parents have to fight tooth and nail for is a place in special school. Following the gospel of inclusion, the Government has closed dozens of special schools down in the last decade. Inclusion is great for some, but it's often the case that putting a disabled child in a mainstream classroom is a square peg-round-hole situation. So we're going to stop the closure of special schools and give parents more information and greater choice."

and,

"The fourth lesson is that like all other carers, parents need a break. One of the biggest challenges when your child is severely disabled is finding time to do normal family stuff – playing in the park with your other children, doing the weekly shop, mum and dad going out for a meal."

finally,

"The fifth and final lesson I'm going to share is this. The very painful thing about disability – whether your own or your loved one's – is the feeling that the situation is out of your control. When the system that surrounds you is very top-down, very bureaucratic, very inhuman, that can only increase your feelings of helplessness. So a really big difference we can make is to put more power and control right into the hands of parents, carers or those with disabilities ..."

Cameron concluded:

"This is the support, trust and respect that parents of those with disabilities deserve.

Because we can never forget what an amazing job they do. ... We need to recognise that by staying strong and holding their families together, these parents are doing a great, unsung service to our society."

Cameron's is a voice of reason in a field where emotion and sentiment often rule.

In the DSM-V by popular acclaim?

A campaign is currently on the go to include Sensory Processing Disorder, also known as Sensory Integration Dysfunction, in the DSM-V. It has been launched by the SPD Foundation and claims to currently have about 10 000 signatories. It is accompanied by a campaign to get physicians to support the diagnosis of SPD. This is an extract from the general letter from the SPD Foundation launching the campaign:

"We need your immediate help with an important effort to obtain diagnostic recognition of Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) in the upcoming revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM).

The DSM committee has asked us to provide research showing that doctors would use an SPD diagnosis if it were added to the DSM-V. Showing use by international physicians is important, too, because diagnostic recognition in the DSM will lead to inclusion in comparable international manuals. In response to the DSM committee’s request, we have developed a very short online physician survey (it literally takes a doctor three minutes to complete).

WE NEED TO GET THIS SURVEY INTO THE HANDS OF PHYSICIANS WHO UNDERSTAND AND SUPPORT SPD AS A DIAGNOSIS.

You and everyone you know are crucial to this effort.

If you are a parent, please ask the pediatrician, psychiatrist, other physician (MD), or osteopathic doctor (DO) who treats your child to go online and take our survey. If you are a clinician, a teacher, or another professional, please ask any physicians you know - especially those familiar with SPD - to take survey. They will do this as a favor to you."

The physicians' survey can be found here. It has no control that I could see to ensure that only physicians take it.

Sensory Processing Disorder is strongly linked to two specific therapies, Ayres's Sensory Integration therapy (SI) and Tomatis and Berard's Auditory Integration therapy (AIT). Both of these are controversial, both because of theoretical issues and lack of evidence for effectiveness. SI gained some respectibility because it is widely practiced by occupational therapists. AIT on the other hand (especially the devices used in it), has been widely rejected by professional organisations.

Is Sensory Processing Disorder a valid diagnosis that can be reliably made and has an existence outside of the therapies mentioned? Dr. Peter Heilbroner in Quackwatch does not think so, but there should be only one question - is it supported by scientific evidence? Surely popular acclaim and pressure should not influence the decision?

In closing, I believe that a quote from Dr. Allen Francis's now well-known critique of the DSM-V process, has some relevance to my concern about SPD:

"There is also the serious, subtle, and ubiquitous problem of unintended consequences. As a rule of thumb, it is wise to assume that unintended consequences come often and in very varied and surprising flavors. For instance, a seemingly small and reasonable change can sometimes result in a different definition of caseness that may have a dramatic and totally unexpected impact on the reported rates of a disorder. Thus are false "epidemics" created. For example, although many other factors were certainly involved, the sudden increase in the diagnosis of autistic
disorder, attention‐deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and bipolar disorder may in part reflect changes made in the DSM‐IV definitions."

On grit, flow and 'vasbyt'

Gifted neuropsychologist Jonah Lehrer recently wrote on the psychology of grit in his blog, The Frontal Cortex, and in the Boston Globe. He described grit as:

"(grit is) ... about setting a specific long-term goal and doing whatever it takes until the goal has been reached. It’s always much easier to give up, but people with grit can keep going."

The primary researcher in the psychology of grit is Angela Duckworth. A grit questionnaire is available online. The concept seems to be drawing a lot of attention. The whole spring 2009 edition of In Character for instance, is devoted to the concept of grit. It is filled with entertaining anecdotes (in the best sense of the word) with examples of grit from Einstein to Seabiscuit.

I have seen many examples of what is described at grit in a career in special education. We would have described it as perseverance or "vasbyt" (An Afrikaans term which originated in the Border War, according to the Oxford Dictionary of South African English 'vasbyt': [fas beit] verb. usually imperative, interjection, equivalent of 'hang on', 'grin and bear it', 'keep going' etc. meaning endure). While I consider intelligence a very important attribute, I have often observed children with cerebral palsy achieve through pure grit, despite lacking what is conventionally described as intelligence. Certainly a concept worth looking into.

There are many other similar concepts and one would need to do some clarification and defining. The fields of Positive Psychology and Social Learning Theory may be especially important for this.

A commenter on Lehrer's blog linked grit with the concept of flow, which according to Wikipedia is:

"... the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity."

Other related concepts include resilience, locus of control and self-efficacy.

A few provocative (I hope) questions in closing:

Would Bernie Madoff, who systematically defrauded clients for the best part of two decades, be considered to have exhibited grit?

Lance Armstrong would without doubt be a prime example of grit in action. Should, however, the drug allegations that dogged his career prove true, will it still be considered grit?

What about Carlos Hathcock, who single-mindedly pursued a career as a top target rifle shooter and later as the top American marine sniper (93 confirmed kills)in Vietnam? He later battled burn injuries and multiple sclerosis, but continued to train military and police snipers.

Mostly wrong, but never in doubt

How do quacks and charlatans so easily gain the confidence of their victims? I have long believed that the answer was to found in their ostensible utter confidence in their products. Rarely will these hucksters admit to any doubt about the scientific merits of their snake oil, in fact most could't care less. Hat tip to Tracy Allison Altman from Evidence Soup for pointing me to scientific evidence to substantiate my view.

A simposium of the Association for Psychological Science entitled Often in Error, Rarely in Doubt provided some answers. Don Moore, the chairperson, summarised the conference as follows:

"Excessive confidence in the precision of one’s knowledge is both the most robust and the least understood form of overconfidence. This symposium investigates its ultimate causes. The evidence suggests that overprecision is caused by limitations on the working capacity in human memory, conversational norms, and social pressure."

I would have liked to add greed and gullibility, but that is just my opinion.

A hat tip again to Evidence Soup for the article Humans prefer cockiness to expertise in the NewScientist. Quoting Don Moore, the article points out that people tend to believe the more confident message, regardless even of a poor track record of the messenger. This creates difficulties for scientists who, ethically acknowledging the limits of their knowledge, will always be at a disadvantage against activists and lobbyists.

I would extend this to the medical and educational arenas, where individuals who emphasize the necessity of evidence supported practices will always be at a disadvantage to unscrupulous quacks who ostensibly have no doubt about their scams.

There are also legal reasons for quacks not to admit to any doubt about their snake oil cures (and for critics not to allege that quacks know they're quacks). A case in point is the legal battle about libel between Simon Singh and the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). The key issue is this battle revolves around the word bogus. The judge ruled that in using the word bogus, Singh implied that the BCA knew that their cures were worthless. Read about it in my post UK chiropractors sue themselves in the foot.

Mind Myth 9: Primitive reflexes, a new old fad

If you studied in any field related to child development, you would have learned about primitive reflexes. These reflexes are present in early childhood, but are inhibited and disappear in normal children. They may be retained in conditions such as cerebral palsy and may re-appear after serious brain injury, especially of the frontal lobes. Where significant primitive reflexes are retained or re-appear in later life they are invariably signs of significant brain injury. Persons with athetoid cerebral palsy sometimes learn to utilize some of their retained primitive reflexes to induce more reliable and predictable movements, i.e. the asymmetric tonic neck reflex to induce arm movement.

A new (old) fad has developed around the phenomenon of primitive reflexes. It is based on the old idea that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny (or the development of the individual organism repeats the evolution of the species), the basic idea behind one of the classic 20th century quackeries, Doman and Delacato's patterning. One of Doman and Delacato's aims were to inhibit primitive reflexes in severely brain injured children through long term, intensive therapy.

Now in the 21st century, some modern, controversial therapies claim that physically normal individuals typically still have retained primitive reflexes that hinder achievement and that their particular brand of therapy can correct that unfortunate state of affairs in short order. Predictably, with many gullible educational officials and teachers always on the lookout for a magical silver bullet, therapies that claim to integrate putative primitive reflexes have taken a foothold in education.

This is from an interview in The Herald (Edinburgh) with Professor Sergio Della Sala, Professor of Human Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Edinburgh, on the issue of the newfound popularity of primitive reflexes in quack therapies:

Professor Della Sala adds: "A primitive reflex is a very serious thing - people with cerebral palsy have it. Did they win a Nobel Prize for this? Because someone who could treat a primitive reflex would be in line for one." ...

The professor adds that he is "greatly sceptical" about the science behind it. "Why not report proper studies and proper trials?" he asks.

In fairness to the therapy under discussion, the Institute of Neuro-Physiological Psychology, it seems to have done some research. As Professor Della Sala pointed out, however, where is the evidence?

A range of other therapies have joined the primitive reflexes bandwagon, despite the lack of evidence. These are typically what I would call shotgun therapies, therapies that are so eclectic that they incorporate just about any nonsense ideas into their therapeutic approaches. Those that I have seen include Brain Gym, Mind Moves and HANDLE. In my opinion, all of these are long on claims and short on evidence.

HANDLE is particularly 'comprehensive' and claims to encompass aspects of INPP, Montessori‘s educational concepts, Kephart‘s visual-perceptual-motor programs, Ayres‘ sensory integration and praxis therapies, Bobath neurodevelopmental therapy, developmental optometry, Tomatis and Berard auditory therapies, Irlen‘s scotopic sensitivity screening, Piaget‘s cognitive psychology, Lindamood‘s approach to language learning, the effects of nutrition on neurodevelopment, homeopathy, reflexology, myofascial release, cranio-sacral therapy and energy therapy. With such a hodgepodge of ideas, how can you miss? The therapist should be able to fit any sign (normal or abnormal) the patient/client presents with somewhere in the framework. I wonder whether insurance and medical aid companies will fall for this?

The myth of the creative, right-brained child

I'm getting tired of tilting at windmills. The whole-brain half-wits are at it again. This time they want children to become creative risk-takers, as this is what they believe the job market will require in future. They propose that the way to promote such skills is "... getting the right brain to mix with the left." This of course is Daniel Pink and company at it again.

I wonder to what extent "creative risk-takers" have landed the world in the mess it is in right now. Be that as it may, the reality is that not everyone can or should be a risk-taking leader, not everyone can be exquisitely creative, and fortunately for us, not everyone has the greed to go with these "skills".

Let us also not forget that Pink's view of brain function is a myth and that there is little or no scientific evidence that creativity and risk-taking are specifically right-brain functions.

Germany honours bravery

Der Spiegel reported on 7 June 2009 that for the first time since World War II, Germany has introduced a military award for bravery, the Military Cross. It was awarded to four sergeants of the Bundeswehr for saving the lives of other soldiers and children after a suicide bomb attack. While one understands Germany's reticence in the past, given its terrible history, it was long overdue. Having sent its soldiers in harms way in Afghanistan, it seemed unconscionable not to fully support them, even when engaged in combat.


Images from Der Spiegel.

Feeling validated vs being correct

A recent article in the Psychological Bulletin did a meta-analysis and found that people typically preferred information that supported their pre-existing positions (normally called confirmation bias, but called congeniality bias in the article), rather than correct information that challenged these positions. This tendency is moderated by various variables. This is as expected and reinforces my view that one should use critical thinking techniques consciously to avoid fooling yourself.

Read the article by Hart et al, Feeling Validated Versus Being Correct: A Meta-Analysis of Selective Exposure to Information.

Here is the abstract from the article:

"A meta-analysis assessed whether exposure to information is guided by defense or accuracy motives. The studies examined information preferences in relation to attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors in situations that provided choices between congenial information, which supported participants’ pre-existing attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors, and uncongenial information, which challenged these tendencies.

Analyses indicated a moderate preference for congenial over uncongenial information (d
0.36). As predicted, this congeniality bias was moderated by variables that affect the strength of participants’ defense motivation and accuracy motivation.

In support of the importance of defense motivation, the congeniality bias was weaker when participants’ attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors were supported prior to information selection; when participants’ attitudes, beliefs, or behaviors were not relevant to their values or not held with conviction; when the available information was low in quality; when participants’ closed-mindedness was low; and when their confidence in the attitude, belief, or behavior was high.

In support of the importance of accuracy motivation, an uncongeniality bias emerged when uncongenial information was relevant to accomplishing a current goal."

Hat tip to BPS Research Digest for the reference.

The most elegant description of confirmation bias that I've encountered was from The Times obituary of Thomas Carlyle:

"Though incapable of lying, Carlyle was completely unreliable as an observer, since he invariably saw what he had decided in advance that he ought to see."

On dignity

David Brooks recently wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times entitled In Search of Dignity. He pointed out the importance that George Washington, the first president of the USA, attached to what Brooks called the "dignity code". Washington drew up a list of etiquette rules, Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour and also lived his life in accordance with these rules.


According to Brooks:

"They (the rules) were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward man. Washington took them very seriously. He worked hard to follow them. Throughout his life, he remained acutely conscious of his own rectitude.

In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn’t primarily a military hero or a political hero. As the historian Gordon Wood has written, “Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It was his moral character that set him off from other men."

More of a few of South Africa's public figures would do well to heed Washington's rules, dignity in public life being in short supply these days. How often do we see public figures making spectacles of themselves by behaving with absolute disregard of dignity and decency? But, no names, no pack-drill. I'm sure readers of Occam's Donkey can fill in the blanks.

UK chiropractors sue themselves in the foot

The British Chiropractic Association sued scientist and author Simon Singh for libel because of the following statement he made:

"You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments."

The full article by Singh is available on Svetlana Pertsovich's website, where she placed a copy after the original in The Guardian was removed.

In a recent preliminary hearing at the Royal Courts of Justice, Judge Eady found that in using the words "happily promotes bogus treatments", Singh was implying that the British Chiropractic Association was knowingly dishonest in promoting chiropractic for treating the relevant children's illnesses. This finding exposed Singh to further expensive litigation. This issue brought into focus British libel laws and the danger of those laws for science not only in Britain, but worldwide.

The proper way to silence critics about doubts about the scientific value of something, is to produce the scientific evidence to prove the critic wrong. The abuse of the courts by the UK chiropractic association to settle a scientific dispute and to silence free speech, led to widespread anger. The Sense About Science organisation launched an online petition which soon had more than 10 000 signatories, many from prominent scientists and other public figures. The button to support their campaign appears below.



The affair had an interesting aftermath and it soon became clear that the British Chiropractic Association had sued itself in the foot and disadvantaged even those chiropractors who did not engage in the practices in question. Zeno from Zeno's Blog laid a large number of complaints against individual chiropractors at the British Chiropractic Council for performing actions they had no evidence for. This resulted in another chiropractic association advising its members in a confidential letter to lie low. The existence and text of the letter was disclosed by a disgruntled chiropractor. Here are selected excerpts, hat tip to Josh Witten from The Rugbyologist in his post Chiropractors Scared Siteless?:

"Dear Member

If you are reading this, we assume you have also read the urgent email we sent you last Friday. If you did not read it, READ IT VERY CAREFULLY NOW and - this is most important – ACT ON IT. This is not scaremongering. We judge this to be a real threat to you and your practice.

Because of what we consider to be a witch hunt against chiropractors, we are now issuing the following advice:

The target of the campaigners is now any claims for treatment that cannot be substantiated with chiropractic research. The safest thing for everyone to do is as follows.

If you have a website, take it down NOW."

"REMOVE all the blue MCA patient information leaflets, or any patient information leaflets of your own that state you treat whiplash, colic or other childhood problems in your clinic or at any other site where they might be displayed with your contact details on them. DO NOT USE them until further notice."

"If you have not done so already, enter your name followed by the word ‘chiropractor’ into a search engine such as Google (e.g. Joe Bloggs chiropractor) and you will be able to ascertain what information about you is in the public domain e.g. where you might be listed using the Doctor title or where you might be linked with a website which might implicate you."

Cartoon, slightly changed, from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

On a quick search I could find nothing about the controversy on the British Chiropratic Association website. In taking this issue to court, I believe they've damaged their members much more than any critical article or comment could have. Well done.

Late breaking news: Dr. Ben Goldacre from BadScience has an excellent account of the saga, with a lot of information I did not cover here. He has a specific slant on the issue that I did not cover, but which is critically important. I quote:

"..., while you may view this as a free speech issue, there are also some specific worries raised when people sue in medicine and science.

It is possible in healthcare to do great harm, while intending to do good, and so medicine thrives on criticism: this is how ideas improve, and therefore how lives are saved. The three most highly rated articles in the latest chart from the British Medical Journal are all highly critical of medical practice. Academic conferences are often bloodbaths. To stand in the way of ideas and practices being improved through critical appraisal is not just dangerous, it is disrespectful to patients, ...

Neither the General Medical Council nor the British Medical Association have ever sued anyone for saying that their members are up to no good. I asked them. The idea is laughable."

In one of the comments to Goldacre's blog, Methuselah (?) pointed out that this was an example of the Streisand Effect. This was new to me, but is described by Wikipedia as:

"The Streisand effect is an Internet phenomenon where an attempt to censor or remove a piece of information backfires, causing the information to be widely publicized."

More on the legal issues can be found on the excellent Jack of Kent blog. Some choice quotes from Jack of Kent:

On the quality of evidence a skeptical critic has to provide:

"The BCA are stating that Simon Singh has to meet a far higher standard of knowledge of chiropractic research in criticising the BCA than the BCA itself has to meet in promoting chiropractic in the first place."

Hat tip to Jack of Kent for a quote from Adventures in Nonsense. This quote goes to the heart of how UK chiropractors sued themselves in the foot:

"For some time, chiropractic has managed to get away with being the acceptable face of alternative medicine. With some evidence to show that it helps with lower back pain, and many chiropractors only using the therapy for this purpose, it was seen by many as a legitimate therapy and largely escaped criticism from sceptics.

"That all changed when the BCA decided to sue Simon Singh for libel. In a fine example of the Streisand effect, all the energy usually reserved for criticising homeopaths and reiki healers was redirected straight at those chiropractors making wild and outlandish claims to treat colic, asthma and a host of other problems unrelated to the spine."

Chopra and Oprah, stoking the fire?

I'm wasting way too much time on Oprah, but this is too important to pass by. I'll keep it short though.

My last post was on Oprah and her support for Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination propaganda: Oprah, quacking with fire. It related to an article on Oprah in Newsweek, Live Your Best Life Ever! Deepak Chopra of quantum healing fame has now also weighed in on this issue. As could be expected, he supports her.











Chopra's article is full of errors of fact and logical fallacies, but I'll leave two bloggers more qualified than I am to deal with that. Read Orac from Respectful Insolence in Oprah and Chopra sittin' in a tree..., and Massimo Pigliucci from Rationally Speaking in Deepak Chopra Defends Oprah, Commits Endless Logical Fallacies for more on that.

My concern is more with what Chopra did not say that with what he did say. He advanced a list of red herrings, but said almost nothing about Oprah's support for Jenny McCarthy's anti-vaccination drive. The crucial question is whether he (a physician) supports those who would stop or delay childhood vaccinations?

Oprah, quacking with fire?

An article in Newsweek exposed the extent to which Oprah Winfrey has and is promoting (often dangerous) pseudoscience nonsense on her programme. There was also this recent article in the Readers Digest along the same lines: The Trouble with Celebrity Science. These articles pointed out the inordinate influence she has on more than 40 million avid followers. Here is just some of the nonsense she has given airtime to or supported:

The Secret, wishful thinking at its best (or worst)

Suzanne Summers on using hormones (bioidenticals) and other potentially dangerous techniques to try to stay young

Dr. Christiane Northrup on the unproven dangers of vaccines, thyroid dysfunction in women caused by "suppressing utterances", other quack cures for female problems

Actress Jenny McCarthy on the putative role of vaccines in Autism, urging parents to delay or stop vaccinating their children.

The desperate attempts by some people to cheat ageing are saddening. The efforts of Suzanne Summers are gruesome and pathetic - for Oprah to promote them, unworthy. The effects, however, will only be felt by those sad individuals who put their trust in Oprah's judgement.

Now, Oprah is by all accounts a wonderful person who does a lot of good, especially for women. She is also a very influential person. As such she should be held to higher standards of care and responsibility. Surely she should temper her natural trustfulness (someone less charitable may say gullibility) with a little caution?

The real issue here is Oprah's ill-founded support for Jenny McCarthy and others' claims that childhood vaccinations cause Autism and that these vaccinations should therefore be delayed or stopped altogether. This is what Dr. Harriet Hall had to say about these claims recently in an article entitled Vaccines and Autism in eSkeptic (her views reflect the scientific consensus on this issue):

"The evidence is in. The scientific community has reached a clear consensus that vaccines don’t cause autism. There is no controversy.

There is, however, a manufactroversy — a manufactured controversy — created by junk science, dishonest researchers, professional misconduct, outright fraud, lies, misrepresentations, irresponsible reporting, unfortunate media publicity, poor judgment, celebrities who think they are wiser than the whole of medical science, and a few maverick doctors who ought to know better. Thousands of parents have been frightened into rejecting or delaying immunizations for their children. The immunization rate has dropped, resulting in the return of endemic measles in the U.K. and various outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases in the U.S. children have died. Herd immunity has been lost. The public health consequences are serious and are likely to get worse before they get better — a load of unscientific nonsense has put us all at risk."

Oprah's support of people such as Jenny McCarthy - she's reportedly giving her her own show - is inexcusable. She is quacking with fire.