Brigid Delaney: It started with me accumulating all these experiences. Twelve years ago, I started in Western Australia; I went to a Benedictine monastery in the town of New Norcia—and I stayed at the monastery as a guest and I was trying to be still, and drop into the place, meditate and pray. I found that I just didn't have the foundations, either religiously or otherwise, to be still. So, I started exploring meditation after that in various places around the world.

In that time, I really noticed that an industry was springing up, which is the wellness industry. It caters to these anxieties or things in daily life that aren't making us sick, but they're making us a bit sub par.

Kylie Sturgess: You talk about the treadmill of wellness and something called the “healing crisis” paradox. Can you tell us a little about that?

Delaney: The healing crisis paradox is something that I saw when I was doing a long fast. I didn't eat anything for a couple of weeks as part of a 101-day detox. I had all these symptoms: I was very headachy, really ill, really sore everywhere. That was my body screaming out for food and for nutrients. When I go online and go on these fasting websites, they'd say, "That's your body having healing crisis. It's going back to all these old wounds and repairing them. Don't worry, you're fine, you can keep on not eating.

The treadmill is just the fact that the wellness industry doesn't really have an endpoint. It does promise that we'll be thinner in fourteen days or we'll be able to meditate or something will have changed in a finite period of time, but you'll find that as soon as you've done that programme, there's a new one to do.

Sturgess: You mentioned going online in order to find out solutions as to why you felt so bad. Do you think the online helps or hinders these sorts of processes more when trying to figure out better health?

Delaney: It definitely hinders. Also it gives you a sense of what other people are going through I think. If you're doing something like a fast, you are very alone in your body. You can't necessarily be having a doctor's appointment every day just to describe your crazy symptoms!

So, an online community lets you Google smelly tears, which is what I had at one point. You can find out that if anyone in the world who's fasting has had their tears smell bad! However, we all know that if you get all your medical advice online, it's no better than consulting someone over the back fence who's not a doctor. In fact, it's probably slightly worse because a lot of people online have a certain philosophy to push.

Sturgess: You mentioned trialling these sorts of efforts to improve wellness over quite a number of years—did you see certain trends map up with what was happening in society? At one point you mentioned Brexit for example, and levels of anxiety and maybe that mapping into searches for wellness.

Delaney: A lot of the book was written last year, and last year was a really massive year in the news cycle. You had Brexit and Trump, the primaries, and all that sort of stuff. Of course, there was the Australian election—which wasn't that interesting in comparison!—but it still did add to a sense of “things in flux.” I saw that around a lot of places … Brexit was referenced in yoga classes by instructors walking around saying, “You may see a change but change will come—and you can't do anything about it."

I think the full effects of those social movements, particularity Brexit and Trump, are yet to really settle and hit. They will change people's lives in very dramatic ways. That's still playing out. The anxiety around them, I think did cause people to maybe go to their yoga studio or investigate meditation, or just try and freak out a little less.

Other trends I saw, ten years ago we had the iPhone introduced, which I think changed everything in terms of how we focus. Most people have this little device that is with them all the time, that's a super fast computer, that's constantly pinging with notifications and that really has driven us ... a lot of us a little bit crazy! I think the rise in interest in meditation is connected to the life of the iPhone.

Sturgess: There's a certain irony in the origins of certain practices such as yoga and meditation, being about austerity and being for everyone, but now they're a multi-billion dollar industry. You mentioned how these forms of exercises have become originated from spiritual backgrounds and now we've got a growth of secularism, particularly in Australia, as demonstrated in the last census. What are your thoughts about how it has deviated from those original sources?

Delaney: It's quite bizarre, particularly how big yoga is. It is an exercise now, just physical exercise. That's at least how I practice it. I don't practice it as a Hindu person. I practice it as someone wanting to get more toned. The more I investigated yoga and spoke to people in Australia who were really good yoga teachers, I got a sense of where the spirituality lay in yoga and how they used it. Essentially, a lot of the teachers were using yoga to get their body to a point of fatigue or stillness that they could then meditate properly. The yoga was essentially a part of a meditation practice, which I found really interesting.

A lot of those teachers that I interviewed had had really traumatic instances of anxiety. One guy I interviewed was involved in the after-effect of September 11. He was working downtown. Yoga for him was pretty much the only way he could get rid of his anxiety and allow him to sit and meditate, which is what he needed to do.

For most of us though, we're not likely to have much sense of the spiritual background of a yoga class. We go in our $110 pants to our $30 class, and you'll notice the class is, those classes particularly, I did a lot of this book in Sydney. They stuff you in. You're like sardines in there. You're paying $30. The teacher is not being paid all that much. It's a real, I won't say racket, but it is definitely a real money spinner.

Sturgess: What I really enjoyed about Wellmania: Misadventures in the Search for Wellness—I'm speaking to the author Brigid Delaney—you went and really investigated some of the characters behind the wellness trend. Meeting Bikram of hatha yoga fame; you went to Deepak Chopra: How do you separate some of the negative elements from the positive things you discovered during your journey?

Delaney: I think with Bikram and Deepak is that people do get something out of their product. A lot of people really enjoy Bikram and find it makes them feel great. Bikram as the guy was one of the worst people I ever met. He was horrible. After meeting him and vowing total warfare forever on him, I ended up going to his classes, or his studio, and finding his classes really enjoyable for a period of time.

With Deepak it just wasn't for me. I went and saw him in a three-day conference in Melbourne last year. A lot of people who are Deepak people have followed him for years and years and probably were able to pick up the threads of his message easier than I was. I found him a little bit hard to follow and it wasn't something that I was into.

This is not necessarily Deepak's philosophy but around those circles there is this notion that you create your own sickness, but if you've got cancer, say ovarian cancer, it might be because you've repressed your sexuality early on in life or you were promiscuous, or something. In those circles, there's this extreme mind-body thing where you are blamed for causing your own illness. I thought that was ridiculous.

Sturgess: Ultimately you suggest, “shooting for your own serenity.” I know that must be incredibly difficult for anyone considering the commodification of the wellness industry out there. The book's called Wellmania after all! How worth it is it in the end? How much do you suggest that people go out there and try some of these things, without hopefully hurting their hip pocket or feeling like they're jumping in with quackery?

Delaney: I think the main thing, and I think everyone knows this it's just we don't follow it: just move every day, move a little bit every day. Stretch. Be in nature. Have quiet times in the morning, at the start of each day and the end. Which is essentially meditation.

You don't need to spend $3000 on a yoga retreat, but you can have a holiday where you don't bring your device. That can create some of the feelings of introspection that you get when you go on these digital detox holidays.

I think there are elements in all these things that are really useful—it's just that the market has packaged them up, labelled them, and then sold them back to us at a very high price.

The Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) stresses the importance of promoting teacher leadership in the United States. Here at TIES we feel that our fellow teachers are our own best resources. We are looking for high school and college biology educators who are interested in presenting our TIES workshops to middle school science teachers in their state. Our reasoning is that a middle school science teacher will typically cover many areas of science within his/her annual curriculum, including earth science, physical science, and life science. It is virtually impossible to become an expert in all of these areas, at least not initially. The purpose of TIES is to inform interested middle school science teachers about the most up-to-date concepts of natural selection, common ancestry, and diversity in order for them to confidently cover the topics in their classrooms and fulfill their curriculum requirements. In addition to providing science teachers with innovative professional development opportunities, TIES also has ready-to-use online resources for the classroom, including presentation slides, labs, guided reading assignments, and an exam.

1. We’ve added two more workshops since the update on August 1, including our first workshop in Virginia. That’s sixty-one total!

• September 8, 2017: Nebraska Academy of Sciences/Nebraska Association of Teachers of Science Fall Conference, Younes Conference Center, Kearney, Nebraska, presented by Alan Wasmoen
• November 18, 2017: Virginia Association of Science Teachers Conference, Roanoke, Virginia, presented by Christopher Moran

In 1989, Ralph Rosnow and Robert Rosenthal, two well-respected experts on statistical methods in psychology, wrote the following memorable line: “We want to underscore that, surely, God loves the .06 nearly as much as the .05” (p. 1277).

For researchers in psychology—as well as in the biological and social sciences—this was an amusing statement because .05 is the Holy Grail of statistical significance. It may seem unusual to use religious language when writing about scientific methods, but the metaphor is fitting because, for almost as long as scientists have used statistical methods, achieving a probability of .05 or less (e.g., .04, .027, .004) meant publication, academic success, and another step toward the financial security of tenure. But .06 or even .055 meant nothing. No publication and no progress toward a comfortable retirement.

Rosnow and Rosenthal were arguing that scientists had been overly concerned with a single, arbitrary cut-off score, p < .05, but today their plea sounds a bit antique. In the latest response to the “reproducibility crisis” in psychology (see my December 2015 online column, “Has Science a Problem?”) a group of seventy-two accomplished statisticians, biologists, and social scientists have signed a statement proposing that the criterion be changed from .05 to .005. This may seem like a nerdy technical issue, but the proposed change has profound implications for the progress of science and has ignited a vigorous controversy in the field. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s step back and figure out what this is all about.

The Reverse Logic of Statistical Significance

The idea came from the British biologist and statistician Ronald Fisher, a man Richard Dawkins has called “the greatest biologist since Darwin” (The Edge 2011). Fisher invented many statistical techniques—including the analysis of variance (ANOVA)—and, ever since learning how to use Fisher’s methods, has been the bane of graduate students in biology, psychology, and many other disciplines.

Fisher recognized that you cannot affirm the consequent. Scientists are commonly in the position of wanting to prove that a variable they are interested in causes something to happen. For example, imagine a chemist has identified Compound X, which she believes will promote hair growth in balding humans. She creates a Compound X lotion and a placebo lotion and conducts an experiment on balding volunteers. Lo and behold, the people in her Compound X group grow more hair than those in the placebo group. If her experiment was otherwise well designed and conducted, can she safely conclude Compound X grows hair? Of course not. It might just have been a lucky test, and furthermore no number of positive tests can prove the rule.

Ronald Fisher (1890-1962) Source: Wikimedia

Understanding this, Fisher proposed to turn the question around, creating a straw person that could be knocked over with statistics. What if we assume the opposite: Compound X has no effect at all? This idea is what Fisher called the “null hypothesis.” The hypothesis of nothing going on. No effect. Then, he reasoned, we can determine the probability of our experimental findings happening merely by chance. This is where ANOVA and other statistical methods come in. Fisher suggested that statistical tests could be used to estimate the kinds of outcomes that would be expected due to random variations in the data. If the result obtained in an experiment was very unlikely to occur by chance, then the researcher would be justified in rejecting the null hypothesis of no effect. It would be fairly safe to say something real was going on. For example, if our chemist’s statistical analysis found probability of getting the amount of hair growth she saw in the Compound X group to be .04—meaning that by chance alone we could expect the same result in only 4 of 100 similarly run experiments—then it would be reasonable for her to conclude Compound X really worked.

So was born the Null Hypothesis Significance Test (NHST), and before long it was the law of the land. Fisher proposed a probability (p-value) of .05, and it came to pass that researchers in a variety of fields could not expect to get their articles published unless they performed the appropriate statistical tests and found that p was < .05 (a probability of the null hypothesis being true in less than 5 percent of cases). Point zero five became the accepted knife edge of success: p < .055 meant your results were junk, and p < .048 meant you could pop the champagne. P < .05 was not a magical number; it just became the accepted convention—a convention that Rosnow and Rosenthal, as well as others (e.g., Cohen, 1990) have criticized to no avail. It remains a fossilized criterion for separating the wheat from the chaff. But perhaps, not for long.

A histogram of iris sepal widths showing a roughly bell-shaped distribution. Based on a dataset maintained by Ronald Fisher. (Source: Wikimedia)

Strengthening Scientific Evidence

Statistics is one of those fields that has been plagued by a number of dustups over the years, but this latest controversy over p-values is inspired by the reproducibility crisis, the discovery that many classic experiments—primarily in social and cognitive psychology—could not be reproduced when attempted again. The resulting loss of confidence in research findings has spawned a number of reforms, most notably the Open Science movement, about which I wrote in my December 2016 online column, “The Parable of the Power Pose and How to Reverse It.” The open science approach makes research a much more public and collaborative enterprise and makes the common practice of “p-hacking”—fiddling with your data until something significant pops out—much more difficult.

Then, in July of 2017, seventy-two scientists (Benjamin, et al. 2017) wrote the proposal to simply make the criterion for significance more difficult by moving the cut-off from 5 out of 100 to 5 out of 1000 (p < .005). This would greatly help one of the issues the authors presume to be a cause of the reproducibility problem: Type I error. When we say something is statistically significant, we are simply saying that it is unlikely the observed effect is due to chance. But it’s not impossible. By definition the choice of the .05 significance level means that we are willing to live with a 5 percent chance of an error—saying there is an effect when actually our results were caused by normal random variation. This is a kind of false positive result. For example, if Compound X is useless, our choice of the .05 criterion means that in five tests out of hundred, we would conclude something was happening when nothing was. And when, as is most often the case, we conduct just a single test, how do we know whether ours is one of the five random cases that just happened to make Compound X look like it works? Based on a single test, we really can’t say.

Moving the statistical criterion to .005 would make the chances of a Type I error much lower, which means that the findings that reach publication would be more trustworthy and more likely reproducible. This is a worthy goal, and there is no easier fix than simply requiring a stronger test. But such a change would not be without costs. When you reduce the chances of a Type I error, you increase the chances of a different kind of error with the clever name of Type II. Type II errors are caused when the effect you are studying is real but your test fails to show it. Compound X really can grow hair, but by chance, your test came up nonsignificant: p > .05. A kind of false negative result. The change to .005 proposed by the gang of seventy-two would make false negatives more common, and given the often enormous time and cost involved in modern research, it would mean that important results that would contribute to our knowledge base are likely to die on the vine. Ultimately the progress of science would be slowed.

Perhaps anticipating this objection, the seventy-two authors propose that results falling between the traditional .05 and the new .005 might still be published as “suggestive” rather than statistically significant. Furthermore, the < .005 criteria would only be applied to tests of new phenomena, and replications of previously published studies could remain at .05. But it is clear the change would still have a powerful impact. As someone on one of my Internet discussion groups suggested, this change might make many psychology journals much thinner than they are now. I haven’t checked, but I am fairly certain several of my own published studies would have to be demoted to the “suggestive” category.

The Response

The proposal by the seventy-two researchers is scheduled to appear in a future issue of the journal Nature Human Behavior, but the prepublication copy posted online has already attracted much publicity and considerable comment from the scientific community. Many researchers have welcomed the .005 suggestion, which has been offered by others in the past (Resnick 2017), but there has also been some pushback. Psychologist Daniel Lakens is organizing a group rebuttal. According to an article in Vox, one of Laken’s primary objections is that such a technique will slow the progress of science. It may strengthen the published research literature at the cost of discouraging graduate students and other investigators who have limited resources.

Typically, the most effective way to increase the power of a statistical test and the likelihood of reaching a stringent significance level, such as < .005, is to increase the number of participants in your study. Although the Internet provides new opportunities for collecting large amounts of survey data, consider the difficulties of developmental psychologists who study infant behavior in the laboratory. As important as this work is, it might end up being limited to a few well-funded centers. Psychologist Timothy Bates, writing in Medium, makes the more general argument that a cost-benefit analysis of the switch to .005 comes up short. Research will become much more expensive without, in his view, yielding equal benefit (Bates 2017).

Finally, there is the question of placing too much emphasis on one issue. John Ioannidis is a Stanford University statistician and health researcher whose 2005 paper “Why Most Published Research Findings are False” is a classic document of the reproducibility movement. He is also one of the seventy-two signers of the .005 proposal. But Ioannidis admits that statistical significance is not the only way to judge a study: “statistical significance [alone] doesn’t convey much about the meaning, the importance, the clinical value, utility [of research]” (quoted in Resnick 2017). Even if Compound X produced a significant increase in hair growth (p < .005), the hair growth in question might not be noticeable enough to make the treatment worth using. Under the proposed, more stringent statistical criteria, researchers might concentrate on getting results that are likely to get them over the statistical goal line and pass up more meaningful topics.

Will It Happen?

So how likely is it that the goalposts will get moved and journals will begin to require a p < .005 level of significance? I suspect the probability is low. Not five chances out of a thousand, but less than 50:50. There are good reasons for making this correction, particularly at this time when confidence in social science research is at a low point. But, for a couple of reasons, I don’t think it will happen.

First, because this controversy is relatively new, the objectors are still developing their responses. As the conversation gets going, I suspect we will hear more concerns about Type II errors—real phenomena that will be missed because they fail to meet the p < .005 criterion—and about discouraging young investigators from going into research. No one is in favor of that.

But I suspect one of the biggest sources of resistance will be based in economics rather than in arcane technical and professional issues. It turns out that academic publishing is enormously profitable—a $19 billion worldwide business that, according to The Guardian, is far more profitable than either the film or music industries (Buranyi 2017). A large portion of this success comes from a unique business model in which the product being sold—academic scholarship—is obtained essentially for free. Research that often costs millions of dollars in research grants and salaries to produce is handed to publishers such as Elsevier or Springer for nothing. Even peer reviews of submitted manuscripts are done by researchers who donate their time for free.

Academic publishing is a kind of crazy incestuous feedback loop. Researchers must get their work published in high quality journals if they wish to advance their careers, and scholars and university libraries must pay exorbitant subscription costs to gain access to the same journals. The current system is being threatened by Sci-Hub, a pirated archive of scientific publications, and by a growing number of scholars who are posting prepublication versions of their work online (Rathi 2017). Eventually, all scientific publishing may be entirely free and open, but until that day, the publishing industry will continue to be hungry for material. As a result, the prospect of much less content and thinner journals will not be a welcome thought, and I suspect this attitude will be communicated down the line to editors who must choose whether to adopt the new standard or not. The publishing gods love .05 much more than .005.

References

1. Bates, Timothy. 2017. "Changing the default p-value threshold for statistical significance ought not be done, and is the the least of our problems" Medium. July 23. Accessed August 13, 2017. Available online at https://medium.com/@timothycbates/changing-the-default-p-value-threshold-for-statistical-significance-ought-not-be-done-in-isolation-3a7ab357b5c1.
2. Benjamin, Daniel J, James Berger, Magnus Johannesson, Brian A Nosek, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Richard Berk, Kenneth Bollen, et al. 2017. “Redefine Statistical Significance”. PsyArXiv. July 22. Available online at osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/mky9j
3. Buranyi, Stephen. 2017 "Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science?" The Guardian. June 27. Accessed August 14, 2017. Available online at https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/jun/27/profitable-business-scientific-publishing-bad-for-science.
4. Cohen, Jacob. 1990. "Things I have learned (so far)." American psychologist 45, no. 12:1304.
5. The Edge. 2011. “Who is the greatest biologist of all time?” Edge.org. March 11. Accessed August 13, 2017. Available online at https://www.edge.org/conversation/who-is-the-greatest-biologist-of-all-time.
6. Ioannidis, John PA. 2005. "Why most published research findings are false." PLoS medicine 2, no. 8: e124. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124.
7. Rathi, Akshat. 2017. "Soon, nobody will read academic journals illegally - the studies worth reading will be free." Quartz. August 09. Accessed August 14, 2017. Available online at https://qz.com/1049870/half-the-time-unpaywall-users-search-for-articles-that-are-legally-free-to-access/.
8. Resnick, Brian. 2017. "What a nerdy debate about p-values shows about science - and how to fix it." Vox. July 31. Accessed August 13, 2017. Available online at https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2017/7/31/16021654/p-values-statistical-significance-redefine-0005.
9. Rosnow, Ralph L., and Robert Rosenthal. 1989. "Statistical procedures and the justification of knowledge in psychological science." American Psychologist 44, no. 10: 1276.
10. Vyse, Stuart. 2016. "The Parable of the Power Pose and How to Reverse It." CSI. December 15. Accessed August 13, 2017. Available online at http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/the_parable_of_the_power_pose
    _and_how_to_reverse_it.
11. Vyse, Stuart. 2015. "Has Science a Problem?" CSI. June 18. Accessed August 13, 2017. Available online at http://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/has_science_a_problem.

Photo by Karl Withakay

James Alcock is a professor of psychology at York University in Toronto, Canada. He is also a fellow and member of the Executive Council for the Committee for the Skeptical Inquirer and one of the original faculty lecturers with the Skeptic’s Toolbox.

Susan Gerbic: Hello, Jim. It’s great to get a chance to catch up. We first met in 2002 when I attended my first Skeptic’s Toolbox. That was one of my very first experiences doing anything outside of reading Skeptical Inquirer magazine and various skeptic books. The Internet and social media sure has changed things now, but I still value the things I learned at each of the Toolboxes. They provided hands-on learning, focused on one topic, which is an incredible way to retain information. I know you and the rest of the faculty will be doing a full-day workshop at CSICon 2017 on Thursday, October 26, from 11:00–5:00. Can you tell readers a bit about what they can expect? By the way, I need to mention that attending the workshops requires a separate admission ticket not included in the conference registration.

James Alcock: Basically, this is a “hands-on” session, where the attendees are divided into five or so groups and each group is given an assignment that involves analysis of a research paper leading to the preparation of a summary that is presented to the entire workshop at the end of the day. Ray Hyman will open the session by laying out some guidelines and each of the four other instructors, including myself, will make brief introductions and then be available for consultation throughout the session.

Gerbic: I just watched your 2016 CSICon lecture “Believe It or Not: Can We Always Make a Choice?” That was really enlightening for me. I enjoyed the Isaac Asimov part where his father tells him after a walk in the park that he (Isaac) had learned nothing about trees, only about the labels we give to trees. You said, “Just because we apply a label does not mean we understand it; it hides ignorance.” Can you expand on this thought? 

Alcock: Sure. It often feels as though we have explained something when we can label it.  Take the example of where someone is thinking about a vacation that she took three years ago with her partner and, without any conversation beforehand, her partner asks her just at that moment if she remembers the little restaurant they went to when they were on vacation three years ago. This is of course a striking coincidence, and they are unable to think of any normal explanation, and so they decide that it must be an example of mental telepathy. However, that is not an explanation although they accept it as one. Since mental telepathy is defined only in terms of “communication that takes place without any known channel of communication being involved” and has no independent meaning and cannot be directly measured, then it explains nothing. Their explanation becomes: we thought of the same vacation at the same time and it was a communication that took place without any normal channel of communication, which must be an instance of “communication that takes place without any normal channel of communication.”  This is completely circular, and the label, which seemed to them to be an explanation, is just a label.  This is different from saying that the light came on when I flicked the switch “because of electricity that flowed when I completed the circuit.” This is an explanation because “electricity” has meaning independent of the label.

Gerbic: You wrote a terrific article in 2011 about Daryl Bem’s research, “Feeling the Future: Experimental Evidence for Anomalous Retroactive Influences on Cognition and Affect.” Your response was called “Back from the Future: Parapsychology and the Bem Affair.” It’s hard to believe, but from time to time I keep hearing Bem brought up as having proved something and done good science. What’s the latest on this?

Alcock: That research was so poorly conducted that it does not bear glorification by attempts to replicate it. However, replication attempts have been made without success.  For example, the same journal that published Bem’s research has since published an extensive (failed) replication attempt (Galek et al., 2012, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 103, No. 6, “Correcting the Past: Failures to Replicate Psi”).

Gerbic: In 2003, you published “Give the Null Hypothesis a Chance: Reasons to Remain Doubtful about the Existence of Psi,” which talks about parapsychologists not considering that the null hypothesis is a valid consideration. You talk about how they fail to take it seriously, which leads them to excuse failures and to make excuses for the outcomes.

Alcock: The pursuit of science should be directed at seeking explanations, whatever they are, rather than searching for preferred explanations. Parapsychology is directed at finding evidence that paranormal phenomena exist, rather than at explaining the strange, anomalous experiences that people have from time to time. Parapsychologists show little interest in normal explanations for those experiences because they are committed to finding evidence of the paranormal. Their commitment is such that failures to replicate, rather than suggesting that perhaps there is “nothing there” (the null hypothesis), the failures are reinterpreted in terms of some made-up “effect.”  Therefore, they will say, if one parapsychologist cannot replicate an experiment carried out by another, this does not suggest to them that there is perhaps nothing there or that there are problems with their procedure; instead, they take this failure as evidence supporting their “experimenter effect.”

Gerbic: You’ve been in this game for a while, Jim, and can look back on our history with more perspective than someone who just found this thing called “organized skepticism.” What do you think? Are we making any difference? What should we be focusing on to make a difference?

Alcock: When CSICOP began, and I was fortunate to have been invited to the initial conference where the organization was formalized, there were virtually no sources of critical commentary with regard to the paranormal that could be consulted by the public or media. The scientific world paid virtually no attention to the paranormal, and so newspapers were filled with one-sided accounts of parapsychological breakthroughs. This led to such crazy things as “spoon bending parties” among some American congressmen, the use of “biorhythm analysis” by some companies with regard to vetting their employees, and even at one point the use of horoscopes to help a judge decide on terms of punishment. The world was awash in supernatural/paranormal belief masquerading in the mantle of science. CSICOP/CSI and the Skeptical Inquirer brought about a sea change which led to the development of a large network of skeptical organizations around the world and many publications and books that have focused the cool light of reason on paranormal claims. Yes, this has made a very significant difference. Now, it is very often the case that television reports and newspaper accounts of paranormal claims involve at least some consultation with skeptical, critical sources. In future, we need to try harder to reach the impressionable minds of children, not to teach them what to think, but to help teach them how to think in a critical manner.

Gerbic: On Richard Saunders’s podcast The Skeptic Zone, one of his guests, Chris French, said your 1981 book was instrumental to him. French said, “I kind of fell into this trap myself....I used to be a believer, a true believer until quite well into my adulthood. And it was reading one particular book by James Alcock, called Parapsychology—Science or Magic? that made me realize there was another way of explaining all these unusual experiences, and one that actually made a lot of sense to me! ... I can turn 'round to him [James Alcock] and say, ‘You are the bastard that got me to where I am today! You’ve got a lot to answer for!” Chris French is one of the skeptic bulldogs who has gone on to do amazing things. Who inspired you, Jim?

Alcock: Martin Gardner and his Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science.

Gerbic: I’m very much looking forward to seeing you and the rest of the Toolbox faculty this October.

People, this conference has limited seating and it will sell out, so get you tickets right away, make sure to fly in on Wednesday in order to take full advantage of the Thursday workshops. And I would strongly suggest flying out again on Monday after breakfast, where you will find myself and the other “survivors” sleepily eating our scrambled eggs. For more information about the after-hour doings, follow the CSICon conference Facebook page.

The Teacher Institute for Evolutionary Science (TIES) stresses the importance of promoting teacher leadership in the United States. Here at TIES we feel that our fellow teachers are our own best resources. We are looking for high school and college biology educators who are interested in presenting our TIES workshops to middle school science teachers in their state. Our reasoning is that a middle school science teacher will typically cover many areas of science within his/her annual curriculum, including earth science, physical science, and life science. It is virtually impossible to become an expert in all of these areas, at least not initially. The purpose of TIES is to inform interested middle school science teachers about the most up-to-date concepts of natural selection, common ancestry, and diversity in order for them to confidently cover the topics in their classrooms and fulfill their curriculum requirements. In addition to providing science teachers with innovative professional development opportunities, TIES also has ready-to-use online resources for the classroom, including presentation slides, labs, guided reading assignments, and an exam.

1. We added one more workshop, our first two-day event. This one has been in the planning stages for a while.

   October 27-28, 2017: Two-Day Event- STEM Center, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, GA, presented by Bertha Vazquez and Dr. Leslie Jones

   Some details:
   • One day is for college students studying to be teachers. I have been thinking for a while that TIES should really expand to include future teachers. The second day is for science teachers in the area.
   • Dr. Leslie Jones, a biology professor at Valdosta St and one of our first TTCs, arranged the whole thing, including an auditorium for 250 people on Saturday. Yikes!
   • My travel and lodging is being paid for by CAMP, the College Assistance Migrant Program. Friday evening I am speaking to the Latino students.
2. I finished the American Honda grant for TIES.
3. The Author of the blog “Laughing in Disbelief” saw the Bill Maher clip and interviewed me about the TIES project last Tuesday. He’ll let me know when it airs.
4. I spoke at length with another viewer of the Bill Maher interview. She works for an Education Researchers & Evaluation Specialist. She thinks the TIES project would be a good fit for an NSF grant, the DRK-12 Teaching Strand, at the Exploratory Level, or Design and Development Level: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2017/nsf17584/nsf17584.htm.
5. Still working on New Mexico. There is a conference in Las Cruces in October, proposals are being accepted now. I have four TTCs in NM so I’m waiting to see who wants to go if the proposal is accepted.

Artículo traducido por Alejandro Borgo, Director del CFI/Argentina.

Cuando a Richard Dawkins le pidieron que justificara su creencia en el método científico contestó: “¡Funciona, forros! (1) Cuando la evidencia científica es contundente, uno tendría que ser tozudamente perverso para rechazarla. Pero algunas personas lo hacen; rechazan hallazgos que no cuajan con su ideología. Los llamamos negacionistas. Hay negacionistas del cambio climático, negadores del HIV y del SIDA, negacionistas respecto de las vacunas, de la evolución, incluso de la teoría de los gérmenes. Y existen los negacionistas respecto de las estatinas.

¡Las estatinas funcionan, forros! Pero la percepción pública ha sido manipulada por la desinformación alarmista de los negadores de las estatinas.

Un hilarante ejemplo de la propaganda de los negadores de las estatinas

Los negacionistas respecto de las estatinas se apoyan en “hechos alternativos”; en otras palabras: mentiras. El peor ejemplo de la desinformación anti-estatinas que he visto es una entrevista en YouTube al Dr. Leonard Coldwell. No es cierto nada de lo que dice, y la mayoría resulta muy gracioso. Algunas de sus afirmaciones son tan obviamente ridículas que es difícil creer que harían que los espectadores más ingenuos -científicamente hablando- se tiren al piso de la risa. ¿Quién es Leonard Caldwell? No tiene títulos científicos o médicos y sin embargo afirma ser la principal autoridad respecto del cáncer y que ha tratado más de 35.000 pacientes oncológicos con un porcentaje de cura del 92,3%. Creo que hasta la crédula Reina Blanca de Alicia (N. del T.:personaje de una novela de Lewis Carroll) no se lo tragaría.

Para vuestro entretenimiento, voy a aportar la transcripción entera del absurdo video (2) junto a mis comprobaciones basadas en la realidad, en itálicas y entre corchetes. Para comenzar, el entrevistado dice que un buen número de estatinas han sido retiradas del mercado.

[Un chequeo rudimentario revela que el número de productos que contienen estatinas y han sido retirados del mercado son tres, y dos de ellos son mezclas de estatinas con otras drogas. Las estatinas que componen dichas mezclas permanecen en el mercado, así que la verdadera cantidad es uno: el Baycol, o pravastatina, fue voluntariamente retirado del mercado cuando se comprobó que era de cinco a diez veces más probable que otras estatinas, de ser el responsable de causar una seria complicación: rabdomiólisis]

Cuando el entrevistador le pide su opinión sobre las estatinas, Coldwell dice: “Se trata de asesinos en masa”. [El asesinato es significa matar en forma predeterminada. ¿Acaso cree que los médicos están tratando de matar deliberadamente a sus pacientes?] Siempre termina dañando al hígado [No, las estatinas realmente reducen el riesgo de cirrosis (3)] Baja tu promedio de vida por lo menos en 20 años [¡Sinsentido total! Justamente hace lo contrario, especialmente con los pacientes con alto riesgo de accidentes cardiovasculares] Tu cerebro está hecho de colesterol [¡Sobre todo si sos un cabeza hueca! Para el resto de nosotros, el cerebro contiene muchas otras cosas aparte del colesterol] Las estatinas son drogas que bajan el colesterol. Así que si quieres tener el cerebro del tamaño de una bolita, síguelas tomando. [¿Queeé? Nadie tiene el cerebro del tamaño de una bolita, por ninguna razón; y los cerebros de los pacientes que toman estatinas son del mismo tamaño que aquellos que no las toman] No te mueres por tener mucho colesterol, más bien te mueres por no tener suficiente [No te mueres por ninguna de las dos cosas; te mueres por ataques al corazón e infartos, y reduciendo los altos niveles de colesterol reduces el riesgo de tener esos accidentes cardiovasculares] No existe algo como demasiado colesterol [Sí, existe. La gente con hípercolesterolemia hereditaria muere prematuramente] En una unidad de quemados, usamos de veinte a veintiocho huevos hervidos por día por persona quemada [Eso lo inventó él. Ninguna unidad de quemados hace eso, y si lo trataran de hacer, los pacientes seguramente se rebelarían] porque sabemos que solo el colesterol crea células saludables [¿Solo el colesterol? ¡Qué estupidez! Se requieren un montón de componentes para crear células sanas] Cada célula de tu sistema, el 87 por ciento de la nueva célula, se forma a partir del colesterol [¡No es así! Los lípidos conforman la mitad de las membranas celulares y el colesterol es el 20 por ciento de esos lípidos (4)] ¿De dónde viene este colesterol? Inventaron el número de 250, lo inventaron. [¡No, no lo inventaron! Midieron los niveles de colesterol en grandes poblaciones y hallaron que la gente con altos niveles de colesterol tenían mayor probabilidad de sufrir ataques cardíacos] No hay ciencia, no hay nada. Testearon un par de personas que vivían a la intemperie, tomando en cuenta la basura que comían.[Esto es insultar a la gente que vive en lugares sin techo, y se puede demostrar que no es verdad. Mucha de la información original sobre el colesterol y el riesgo cardiovascular provino de un gran estudio sobre gente que vivía en Framingham, Massachusetts, una ciudad próspera con poca gente viviendo en la calle] y se vinieron con que el promedio es algo así como 250 de colesterol combinado. Y eso es lo que todo el mundo tendría que tener. [Nadie está recomendando que las personas deber tener un valor de 250 de colesterol combinado. El riesgo no se determina por el colesterol total sino por niveles del colesterol “bueno” HDL y el “malo” LDL, y de otras subfracciones de lípidos, así como de los factores de riesgo como fumar y la diabetes] Está todo inventado. [No, está basado en la investigación científica seria] Tengo pacientes que han tenido 600 de colesterol; y es gente saludable, nunca se ha enfermado” [No se ha enfermado todavía Los pacientes con un nivel de colesterol de 600 tiene alto riesgo de sufrir accidentes cardiovasculares y morir, y es una irresponsabilidad que un médico no trate esos valores tan altos.]

Incríble tontería acerca de la sal

“¿Saben de dónde viene el mito? La gente come sal de mesa. La sal de mesa tiene un tercio de vidrio, un tercio de arena y un tercio de sal. Así, el vidrio que contiene la sal de mesa corta las arterias. Entonces están sangrando en forma letal internamente. Entonces, el colesterol va hacia ese lugar y detiene el sangrado. Te mantiene vivo, salva tu vida. El colesterol es el malo de la película porque reduce y, por supuesto, tapona una herida abierta que está sangrando; por supuesto lo hace durante un corto tiempo. Y entonces dicen, ah sí, porque ahora que está reducida, aumenta tu presión arterial, y aquello que aumenta tu presión arterial está causando la reducción. Por lo tanto, es el colesterol el que está causando una presión arterial alta. Oh, es muy interesante”

[Esta es la parte más divertida de toda la entrevista. Piénsenlo. En primer lugar, los tests de la FDA sobre la sal requieren que toda la sal de mesa que se consume en los Estados Unidos tenga por lo menos un 97,5 por ciento de clorhidrato de sodio. Si la sal de mesa tuviera un tercio de cristales, ¿no notarías que hay partículas puntiagudas en la sal que comes? ¿No te cortarías la lengua y la boca? Si tragas vidrio y arena, éstos podrían irritar tu tracto gastrointestinal; pero entonces serían eliminadas en las heces. No hay manera de que puedan ser absorbidos en la corriente sanguínea y llegar a las arterias coronarias. La idea es un ridículo mito urbano que ni siquiera los Mythbusters se lo tomarían en serio. La arena y el vidrio no son solubles en el agua. Si la sal de mesa contuviera un tercio de arena y otro tercio de cristales, disolverlos en agua dejaría un residuo que contendría un residuo indisoluble en dos tercios de la cantidad original. El artículo en RationalWiki de Leonard Coldwell dice: “No tiene apenas la menor comprensión de la medicina y biología humanas, y su comprensíon de la ciencia virtualmente no existe” (5).]

Coldwell continúa parloteando

“De esta manera, las drogas que contienen estatinas son las drogas más peligrosas jamás inventadas [¿Coldwell sabe algo acerca de la historia de la medicina? Sería muy fácil identificar drogas que fueron mucho más peligrosas y totalmente inútiles.] y por favor recuerden que el cerebro está hecho de colesterol. De un 92 a un 99 por ciento de nuestro cerebro está hecho de colesterol [¡No, no es así! Nuestro cerebro contiene un 60 por ciento de grasa, aproximadamente un 25 de ella es colesterol, mayormente en la mielina que recubre los axones de las neuronas (6)] Las estatinas comienzan contrayendo el cerebro. [Ninguna estatina contrae ni reduce el cerebro. De hecho las estatinas pueden tener un rol de protección respecto del desarrollo de la demencia. Un meta-análisis reciente de estudios observacionales mostró que las estatinas estaban correlacionadas con un riesgo significativamente menor de contraer la enfermedad de Alzheimer (7)] Y esto es lo que la gente debe entender. Coman solo un par de bananas con el estómago vacío, a la mañana, y verán como el hígado se pone mejor, muy rápidamente. Funciona mejor. Solo ayuden al cuerpo. [Un non sequitur. No hay evidencia de que comer bananas pueda revertir una enfermedad hepática, y ¿cómo diablos pasa de las enfermedades del corazón a las enfermedades hepáticas?] No necesitan curarlo; no necesitan arreglarlo; solo ayudarlo. Se cura solo. Porque mi afirmación, que dice que no hay fuerzas curativas fuera del cuerpo humano, siempre se vuelve realidad al final del día. No hay absolutamente ninguna fuerza fuera del cuerpo humano. [Nadie afirma que las estatinas “sanen” o “curen” cualquier cosa. Simplemente reducen el riesgo de padecer accidentes cardiovasculares] Así que, cada vez que les digan que hay una píldora mágica [Nadie está sugiriendo que las estatinas son píldoras mágicas; son drogas con riesgos y beneficios, y los beneficios sobrepasan a los riesgos] y ¿saben por que sacan las drogas del mercado? Cuando pasan a ser gratuitas o genéricas y ya no obtienen plata”. [Varias estatinas son de venta libre y se adquieren como drogas genéricas. Ninguna de ellas ha sido sacada del mercado]

Nadie con un mínimo de educación científica y pensamiento crítico va a creer en las afirmaciones de Coldwell. Incluso la gente que no tiene el menor sentido común debería cuestionar la afirmación de que la sal tiene dos tercios, uno de arena y uno de vidrio. Y sin embargo la gente le cree a Coldwell y repite sus falsedades.

This article was originally available in English.
Click here to read it.

Otras fuentes de desinformación

Leonard Coldwell no es ni por asomo el único en promover “hechos alternativos” sobre las estatinas. Joseph Mercola (8) dice “el colesterol NO es la causa de enfermedades cardíacas”. Y “si tomas estatinas, DEBEN tomar CoQ10”. Afirma que las estatinas perjudican numerosas funciones biológicas, incluyendo todas las hormonas sexuales. Dice que 90 de cada 100 personas no necesitan estatinas. Dice que las estatinas son teratogénicas, que pueden causar defectos de nacimiento si se toman durante el embarazo. La evidencia dice lo contrario (9).

Mike Adams, el Soldado de la Salud, tergiversa la literatura y escribe titulares alarmistas sobre los estudios de las estatinas en el sitio web Natural News. Ejemplos típicos: “Los beneficios de las drogas son fabricados”, “Las estatinas carecen de valor”, “Las estatinas causan un debilitamiento muscular del 40 por ciento”, “Bajar el colesterol NO TIENE EFECTO respecto del riesgo de enfermedades cardíacas o de morir”, “Las vacunas contra la gripe son ineficaces para la gente que consume estatinas —y causan daños cerebrales”. Cuando consultas los estudios reales a los que se refiere, encontrarás que sus titulares malinterpretan sus hallazgos. Incluso repite el sinsentido de la arena y el vidrio en la sal de mesa (10).

Y luego está la Red Internacional de Escépticos del Colesterol (THINCS), un grupo que pone en duda el rol del colesterol en las enfermedades cardíacas. Siguen a Uffe Ravnskov, autor de Los Mitos del Colesterol, y a Malcom Kendrick, autor de La Gran Estafa del Colesterol. Eligen a su gusto la literatura científica para hallar estudios que apoyen sus tesis, ignoran los errores de esos estudios, e ignoran la vasta literatura que los contradice. En el Diccionario del Escéptico, Bob Carroll explica cómo usan esas distorsiones y técnicas engañosas en sus argumentos (11).

¿Cuál es la evidencia en favor de las estatinas?

Las estatinas han sido estudiadas exhaustivamente; una investigación clínica de PubMed pone sobre el tapete más de 30.000 artículos. No he podido leerlos a todos, pero los expertos y los artículos de revisión han identificado los mejores estudios. Los comités no solo leyeron todos los estudios pertinentes, a favor y en contra, sino que han evaluado críticamente la metodología y credibilidad de sus hallazgos. Una revisión de Lancet, en 2016, ha sido exhaustiva. Encontró que los beneficios de las estatinas fueron infravalorados. La evidencia no puede ser más clara: las estatinas reducen el riesgo de ataques cardíacos e infartos en el 50 por ciento de los pacientes con riesgos (12). Las estatinas de bajo precio (cerca de 2 libras esterlinas por mes) reducen el colesterol LDL en más de un 50 por ciento. La evidencia a gran escala de ensayos randomizados muestra que por cada reducción de 1 mmol/L en el colesterol LDL con terapia de estatinas, hay una reducción proporcional de aproximadamente el 25 por ciento en la tasa de accidentes vasculares (muertes que involucran a las coronarias, ataques cardíacos, infartos, etc) por año. Bajar el colesterol LDL en 2mmol/L reduce el riesgo aproximadamente en un 45 por ciento. Bajar el colesterol LDL en 2 mmol/L con estatinas durante cinco años en 10.000 pacientes podría prevenir accidentes vasculares en 1.000 pacientes de alto riesgo y en 500 pacientes de bajo riesgo.

Las estatinas pueden ser eficaces no solo por bajar el nivel de colesterol. Las estatinas también tienen efectos antiinflamatorios que probablemente contribuyan a la reducción de accidentes cardiovasculares. Pero los autores del artículo de The Lancet creen que hay evidencia suficiente para establecer una correlación causal entre el colesterol y la ateroesclerosis. Advirtieron que bajas concentraciones de colesterol han sido asociadas con altas tasas de muertes, particularmente en los ancianos (algunos negacionistas de las estatinas aman recalcar este hallazgo), pero estas asociaciones podrían ser no causales.

Figura 1. Ilustración de la decisión de la Clínica Mayo disponible online.

El problema es que solo tenemos estadísticas de la población. No podemos predecir qué individuos se van a beneficiar con las estatinas, así que debemos tratar cada caso individualmente. Esto significa que las personas que toman estatinas no van a obtener beneficios. Una manera de ver la información es calcular el NNT, número de pacientes que necesitarían ser tratados para obtener un beneficio. El NNT para prevenir un ataque cardíaco en pacientes que tienen una enfermedad cardiovascular es de 16 sobre 23, para prevenir la muerte, 48. Para aquellos pacientes que tienen factores de riesgo pero todavía no tuvieron un ataque cardíaco, en NNT está entre 70 y 250 (13). Estas son en general estimaciones para la población; el real NNT variará de acuerdo a los factores de riesgos individuales. Las estimaciones visuales están disponibles online (14) mientras se pueda ingresar el colesterol individual, presión arterial y otros riesgos y obtener un diagrama fácil de interpretar como el ejemplo de la Clínica Mayo en la Figura 1.

Los expertos han evaluado repetidamente toda la evidencia disponible. En 2013, la American College of Cardiology y la Americna Heart Association publicaron guías de tratamiento basadas en dicha evidencia (15). La magnitud de los beneficios es pequeña, pero es mayor para los pacientes con alto riesgo. Y si usted es uno de esos pacientes que se salvaron de un ataque cardíaco, el beneficio es muy importante. Las guías no son prescripciones; se usan como guías para facilitar la interpretación de la evidencia para los pacientes. La ciencia puede proveer evidencia acerca de los beneficios y riesgos, pero básicamente los pacientes deben elegir tomar drogas y si los beneficios pueden pesar más que los riesgos. El deseo de la gente para correr riesgos varía.

Sobre los efectos secundarios

Cualquier droga tiene sus efectos y es probable que tenga efectos secundarios, y los clínicos siempre comparan los beneficios y los riesgos. Más aún, los fabricantes de drogas tienen que demostrar que los beneficios superan a los riesgos antes de que la FDA (Administración de Alimentos y Medicamentos) apruebe una droga para lanzarla al mercado. El mismo artículo de revisión aparecido en Lancet encontró que los efectos adversos de las estatinas han sido sobrestimado (16). Los devastadores efectos secundarios han sido informados, incluyendo el cáncer, mareos, depresión, anemia, acidosis, pancreatitis, cataratas, fallas cardíacas, hambre, náuseas y trastornos del sueño, pérdida de memoria, zumbidos en los oídos y sentimientos de indiferencia”… La lista continúa. Pero estos síntomas derivan de informes anecdóticos y de observaciones no controladas.

Cuando síntomas de esta clase han sido evaluados en estudios controlados, no demostraron ocurrir con más frecuencia con las drogas que con los placebos. El artículo de Lancet concluyó, “Los únicos excesos de evento adversos que se ha demostrado que fueron causados por la terapia de estatinas son la miopatía y la diabetes, junto con un probable exceso de derrames cerebrales. Estos ejemplos son más amplios en ciertas circunstancias, pero los riesgos totales son pequeños comparados con los beneficios totales”. Tratar a 10.000 pacientes durante cinco años podría causar cinco casos de miopatía, de 50 a 100 casos de diabetes, y de 5 a 10 hemorragias. Al incremento de los accidentes cardiovasculares hemorrágicos se contrapone un descenso mucho mayor de los accidentes isquémicos, y la relevancia clínica de nuevos diagnósticos de diabetes es mínima cuando se la compara con los beneficios de la terapia con estatinas. Y un meta-análisis sobre estudios subsecuentes encontró que el riesgo de diabetes era menor que en un estudio anterior (17).

Hay gran cantidad de informes de dolor muscular y debilidad, pero allí hay buena evidencia de que la mayoría de ellos no están relacionados con la terapia con estatinas. De 10.000 pacientes tratados, solo 10 o 20 desarrollarán dolor muscular o debilidad, y solo uno de ellos será diagnosticado como miopatía requiriendo que se suspendan las estatinas. Solo dos o tres casos de la seria complicación llamada rabdomiólisis serán diagnosticados cada 100.000 pacientes. Los efectos dañinos de las estatinas suelen revertirse dejando de consumir la droga. Si no tomas estatinas y tienes un ataque cardíaco o un infarto, no serán reversibles.

El negacionismo acerca de las estatinas daña a los pacientes

Algunos informes irresponsables sobre los efectos secundarios de las estatinas han asustado a muchos pacientes que abandonaron el tratamiento. Recientemente, en el Reino Unido, siguiendo la publicación de afirmaciones exageradas sobre los efectos secundarios de las estatinas, más de 200.000 pacientes suspendieron su tratamiento. Es probable que en la siguiente década se produzcan de 2.000 a 6.000 accidentes cardiovasculares que podrían haberse evitado (18).

¿Por qué el negacionismo?

¿Por qué los negacionistas de las estatinas se apoyan en “hechos alternativos”? ¿Qué los motiva a rechazar la evidencia en que la mayoría de la comunidad médica y científica se ha puesto de acuerdo? No creo que haya una respuesta simple, pero sospecho que parte del problema es una ideología anti-establishment que automáticamente rechaza cualquier cosa que provenga de la Big Pharma (la Gran Industria Farmacéutica) o de la medicina científica, y a veces incluso se inventan teorías conspirativas. Otra parte es que hay tanta gente que quiere creer que si comes lo correcto, nunca te vas a enfermar, y que hay soluciones naturales para cualquier problema de salud. No las hay.

Otros factores que pueden motivar el negacionismo son la ideología religiosa, el propio interés (financiero, político, económico), y el deseo de protegerse de las desagradables verdades negando la realidad. Y por supuesto, es más probable que la gente que no entiende como funciona la ciencia rechace los tratamientos con estatinas. No van a aceptar el consenso que hay entre los expertos porque lo ven como una mera “opinión”.

Los negacionistas dan la bienvenida a las opiniones desinformadas, pero no hacen eso con los “hechos alternativos”. El calentamiento global es real, los gérmenes causan enfermedades, el HIV causa el SIDA, la evolución es un hecho establecido, las vacunas salvan vidas. Y las estatinas, aunque no son la panacea, han mostrado claramente que tienen efectos positivos -más que negativos- sobre los pacientes en riesgo.

Estatinas: ¡Funcionan, forros!

Notas

La cita entera de Dawkins es [la ciencia] ¡funciona! Los aviones vuelan. Los autos andan. Las computadoras computan. Si basas la medicina en la ciencia, curas a la gente. Si basas el diseño de aviones en la ciencia, vuelan. Si basas el diseño de cohetes en la ciencia, llegan a la Luna. Funciona… forros”. La expresión “Ciencia: ¡funciona, forros!” apareció originalmente en una historieta de xkcd y en una remera, ilustrada con un gráfico que muestra una perfecta correlación entre la información de la misión COBE y las predicciones de Planck respecto de la radiación de los cuerpos negros

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9trx6opxmBI
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27166128
3. http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/cell-membranes-14052567
4. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Leonard_Coldwell
5. https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/iage/201402/cholesterol-and-our-aging-brain
6. http://atvb.ahajournals.org/content/24/5/806
7. http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2010/07/20/the-truth-about-statin-drugs-revealed.aspx
8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22390808
9. http://blogs.naturalnews.com/the-truth-about-salt/
10. http://skepdic.com/refuge/bunk28.html
11. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)31357-5/fulltext
12. http://pharmamkting.blogspot.com/2008/01/statin-lottery-number-needed-to-treat.html
13. https://statindecisionaid.mayoclinic.org
14. http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/circulationaha/early/2013/11/11/01.cir.0
    000437738.63853.7a.full.pdf
15. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(16)31357-5/fulltext
16. http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61965-6/fulltext
17. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27353418?dopt=Abstract

Harriet Hall

Harriet Hall, médica retirada de la Fuerza Aérea de los Estados Unidos, escribe y educa sobre pseudociencia y la llamada medicina alternativa. Es colaboradora frecuente del Skeptical Inquirer y también del blog Science-Based Medicine (Medicina basada en la ciencia).

We are interested in compelling stories of personal turnabout with regard to well-entrenched beliefs. We are seeking essays about the personal experience of changing one’s mind because of meaningful new information or data, compelling argument, or defeated theory. This obviously raises questions about what, when, and why some “facts” become facts. We presume that such changes will also have inevitable social and emotional consequences.

We want to hear your story without restricting your style or content. We plan on editing the final submissions into a book with the working title: I changed my mind: Personal stories of facing the facts. We use the word “stories” instead of “essays” because we are aiming for a more general market. Please make your submission in Microsoft Word, 1.5 line spacing, 12 font, Times New Roman, unjustified, with footnotes in Chicago 16 style. Length should be 1,000 to 4,000 words.

Please contact us if you have something to contribute within this framework, or if you know someone whom we might approach who has an interesting and relevant story to tell.

Loren Pankratz: loren.pankratz@comcast.net
James Alcock: jalcock@yorku.ca

Artículo traducido por Alejandro Borgo, Director del CFI/Argentina.

La homeopatía es una farsa. Se ha demostrado a través de la investigación científica que los “remedios” homeopáticos son, como mucho, un placebo. Toda la base teórica de la homeopatía —conceptos tales como “lo similar se trata con lo similar y el hecho de que diluir progresivamente un supuesto ingrediente activo hasta llevarlo a concentraciones tan pequeñas que no se pueden rastrear, aumente su potencia, es risible, y ninguna investigación seria ha demostrado tener validez.

Sin embargo, los estadounidenses gastan millones de dólares por año en esta supuesta panacea. Tan frustrante como parezca, en el Center For Inquiry (CFI) creemos que es un derecho que tienen los adultos. Si quieren gastar su dinero en medicinas pseudocientíficas, lo pueden hacer, comprando cristales “sanadores” o visitando a un maestro de reiki.

Pero existen algunas advertencias. Tenemos extremas dudas sobre los padres que evitan la medicina científica y “tratan” a sus hijos con la homeopatía. La negación de la medicina auténtica lleva, en poco tiempo, al dolor y el sufrimiento y a menudo consecuencias negativas a largo plazo, lo cual incluye la prevención  de la muerte. También creemos que si los adultos están comprando esos productos, se les debería informar la verdad: ¿en qué están gastando su dinero? Los productos homeopáticos no deberian promocionarse de manera engañosa. En los Estados Unidos, la regulación sobre los medicamentos de venta libre la comparten dos agencias: la FDA (Administración sobre Drogas y Alimentos) y la FTC (Comisión Federal de Comercio). La FDA supervisa qué productos pueden ser ofrecidos a la venta (libre) y la FTC regula cómo deben ser promocionados estos productos en el mercado. Ambas agencias, en los años recientes, han emprendido una revisión de las regulaciones de productos homeopáticos de venta libre, y el CFI ha contribuido con ambas.

La FDA, como respuesta a un pedido del CFI, dijo que anunciaría su régimen regulatorio a fin de este año. La FTC, en cambio, en noviembre de 2016 publicó una Política de Declaración de Ejecución (EPS) detallando un cambio en la políitica de regulación de los produtos homeopáticos de venta libre.

Remarcando que el Acta Federal de Comercio "no exime a los productos homeopáticos de los requermientos generales acerca de que las afirmaciones objetivas del producto sean confiables y corroboradas", continúa afirmando que "la promoción de un producto homoeopático de venta libre que no esté basado en la investigación científica confiable no es engañoso si efectivamente comunica a los consumidores que: 1) No hay evidencia científica de que el producto funcione, y 2) las afirmaciones acerca de los productos están basados en teorías homeopáticas del siglo XVIII, las cuales no son aceptadas por la mayoría de los expertos en medicina. La EPS también reconoció que "para la gran mayoría de las drogas homeopáticas de venta libre... no existen estudios válidos que usen los métodos científicos habituales y que demuestran la eficacia del procucto".

This article was originally available in English.
Click here to read it.

La EPS es clara. Para evitar promociones engañosas, los productos homeopáticos que sean publicitados como beneficiosos deben llevar la advertencia correspondiente. Sin embargo, parece ser que esto no sucede. Los fabricantes de productos homeopáticos no han cambiado los envases, y si entras a algua farmacia del barrio, podrás ver, por ejemplo, el Oscillococcinum  de Boiron (un "remedio" que contiene una dilución infinitesimal (1) del hígado de un pato (Muscovy duck) al lado del Tylenol en una estantería con la etiqueta: "Resfrío y gripe". Tanto el fabricante como el minorista están promocionando este producto como tratamiento para los síntomas de una enfermedad particular. No hay evidencia científica de que sea efectivo para dicha enfermedad, y no se muestra ninguna advertencia de las requeridas. De esta manera, en el CFI hemos decidido que la mejor estrategia es ponerse en contacto con el minorista. Nos hemos puesto en contacto con negocios CVS a través de sus abogados. Nuestras peticiones han sido razonables. No le pedimos a las CVS que dejen de vender productos homeopáticos; simplemente les pedimos que los exhiban y promocionen en la web y en sus negocios de una forma no engañosa. Hemos solicitado que las CVS vendan productos homeopáticos en un sector diferente, y que ese sector muestre claramente las advertencias requeridas por la FTC. Para las ventas online pedimos que la advertencia se vea cuando alguien agregra un producto homeopático a su carrito de ventas. No respondieron.

El siguiente paso del CFI, fue escribir a la FTC pidiendo procedimientos de ejecución contra CVS. La carta puede leerse aquí. Ahora todo depende de la corte de la FTC. La agencia ha establecido reglas para la promoción de los medicamentos homeopáticos de venta libre. Ahora deben hacerlas cumplir. Si no lo hacen, el CFI se compromete a explorar vías para proveer acciones legales privadas para asegurar que los minoristas no participen de este fraude al público.

1. Oscillococcinum es una dilución de 200C, aproximadamente una parte de vísceras de pato en 10.400 partes del “remedio”.

Nick Little es el Director Legal del Center For Inquiry, en Washington D.C. Luego de su educación en la Universidad de Oxford y en la Universidad de Warwick, en el Reino Unido, se mudó a los Estados Unidos y recibió la licenciatura en leyes por parte de la Universidad de Vanderbilt.

Kavin Senapathy is a science communicator who lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She writes for Forbes on many topics; you can check out her contributions here. Kavin will be speaking at CSICon Saturday, October 28 along with Natalie Newell at 11:00 a.m. They will be showing a film called “Science Moms.”

Susan Gerbic: Hello Kavin, very nice to meet you finally. I hear about you everywhere. We need all the science activists we can get. Can you please tell readers more about yourself?

Kavin Senapathy: Likewise, and I also hear about you often! I’m a communicator tackling myths on science, health, medicine, food, biotechnology, parenting, politics, and their intersection. In my free time I like to watch home shopping channels, but I only make a purchase like once a year. It’s mostly for entertainment. I’ve loved Michael Jackson since I was a kid, so much so that I received several condolence messages when he passed away. Perhaps of interest to CSICon attendees—I was raised strongly atheist by parents who were raised Hindu. I’m pretty rebellious so I no longer identify as atheist.

Gerbic: You will be speaking at CSICon, Saturday October 28 at 11:00 a.m. You and Natalie Newell will be showing us a movie about science-minded moms. How did this come about?

Senapathy: It all started with Buffy the Vampire Slayer! One day, the group of Science Moms (we had already been working together and sharing ideas well before the film was born) realized that celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow, Jillian Michaels, Ginnifer Goodwin, and Sarah Michelle Gellar had jumped on anti-GMO bandwagon. Layla sent a message on Facebook lamenting how tragic it was that Buffy was anti-GMO! Layla and Alison in particular love Buffy, so this was upsetting to them! People perceive scientists as these serious, lab-coat clad folks in mysterious labs but, the truth is, scientists love Buffy too. Anyway, we had to do something. So, we wrote an open letter to the celebs, published on evidence-based parenting site Grounded Parents. Other parents signed on, including farmers, communicators, scientists, and even Julie Borlaug, of the Norman Borlaug Institute, and granddaughter of the great Norman Borlaug.

Natalie Newell came across the letter and was inspired. She decided she wanted to make a film following moms who choose to make parenting decisions based on facts rather than misinformation. She reached out with this exciting proposal, and we were in.

Gerbic: You are the coauthor of The Fear Babe: Shattering Vani Hari’s Glass House. What about Vani Hari’s story was so compelling that made you want to focus on her when there are so many others like her out there?

Senapathy: Vani Hari had a pretty strong grip on the food narrative a few years ago, and it’s heartening to see that the mainstream media has largely discredited her. As one of the most popular misinformation vectors in recent times when it comes to food, health, and agriculture, she was not only an effective framework to examine some of the most common misconceptions about these issues but why and how they proliferate.

Gerbic: Madison, Wisconsin, does not come to mind as a hot-bed of science supporters, but I see you did the March for Science this April. They reported between 4–5K people showed up. What is it about the demographics of Madison that made that many people show up and speak out?

Senapathy: It was awesome getting to lead science chants and speak at the March for Science in my own community. I think part of what brought so many people out, in addition to UW–Madison, is that Tia Nelson, conservationist, climate change champion, and daughter of Earth Day founder Gaylord Nelson, gave a speech at the event.

Gerbic: I’m really interested in the March for Science, and I will be speaking about it on Friday at CSICon. I’m concerned with a march like this having a slacktivism feel to it. People showed up got real excited and then nothing happened after that. Really interested in your thoughts?

Senapathy: The international momentum of the march was inspiring and I do think that people want to carry it forward. But I also believe that it was fundamentally flawed in some ways, including that a march “for science” is very broad in scope, which seems to have led to a dilution in efforts and also left the organization open for exploitation. I wrote about it in my column before the march. I also implore people (as I always do) to really look at the big picture when it comes to science, policy, education, and the environment. For example, many who champion fighting climate change are also anti-GMO because they assume these technologies are bad for the environment. In reality, genetic engineering in agriculture can enable increased carbon sequestration and help farmers use land and resources more efficiently. Showing up on Earth Day with signs is great, but it’s easy. Making truly evidence-based decisions, based on the broad weight of data rather than cherry-picking and confirming our biases, is not as easy. And championing for and creating change based on these data is downright hard. See: Forbes Article.

Gerbic: You have this group, March Against Myths (MAMyths), that is pro-science and pro-biotech. I heard you say on one video, “We are not going to give up, wherever myth mongers show up, especially when it comes to science, and when those myths cause injustice, which is often, we will be there.” From what I’ve learned reading your website, this group that marches against Monsanto is losing steam, but they have adopted an anti-vax agenda now. This sounds fascinating; what’s the story on this?

Senapathy: Ah yes, I said that during live video from Chicago this past May. They are definitely losing steam. MAMyths took science to the streets to counter-protest three years in a row, and their numbers are dwindling, with some of our chapters reporting that there was no MAMyths rally to counter-protest. I wrote about the connections between the anti-GMO and anti-vax movements recently here, including some info on March Against Monsanto.

I should make it clear that MAMyths is NOT a march for Monsanto. We are an activist group that fights pseudoscience injustice. I am pro-technology and pro-innovation but think that all businesses and their practices should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

Gerbic: One of my big passions is psychic mediums; we call them grief vampires. I have been involved in many stings and protests against them; our focus isn’t on the believers that show up but to shake up the psychics who are really just performers. If the performer gives a bad performance then the whole tone of the event is harmed. As I watched some of your protest videos I wondered who your audience really was. I’m not sure you think you are going to convince anyone on the other side. What is your goal?

Senapathy: Our goal is definitely to shake up the leaders of this movement and destabilize their footing, but for me, the audience of these types of public actions is the middle ground, observers who may be unsure but not ideological about these issues. I see it as giving voice to the justified anger and passion of scientists and science supporters when we see the injustice that myth-mongers perpetuate. Science, by its nature, is cautious, but there is a time and place for scientists to channel grievances in a more visceral way. The other “side” is angry too, but we channel ours with reason and with compassion. I think it’s acceptable to compartmentalize. For me, that means that that vast majority of my communication efforts reflects the nuance of data and science. When I write or speak, I only use the term “GMO” to describe how meaningless it is. But when I March Against Myths, I wear an “I ❤ GMO” t-shirt. We’re particularly excited to now be able to reach the audience of the new Food Evolution documentary, narrated by Neil deGrasse Tyson, in which one of our counter-protests is featured.

Gerbic: You are a mom of two young children. If I understand correctly, you became more involved in science activism because of your children?

Senapathy: I grew up loving science, prose, and storytelling. I was always especially into the life sciences. But what first inspired me to start communicating about these issues was becoming a mom. The overwhelming anxiety of new parenthood really got to me, and as I navigated being a new mother, I sought out information; I was a sponge. But I encountered only slivers of credible information in a sea of BS. I realized that parents are inundated with fear-based marketing, chemophobia, and alarmism. So, I was driven to somehow reach and save other parents from the rabbit hole that so many fall into.

President Obama said after the Sandy Hook massacre: “Someone once described the joy and anxiety of parenthood as the equivalent of having your heart outside of your body all the time, walking around. With their very first cry, this most precious, vital part of ourselves—our child—is suddenly exposed to the world.” The love and anxiety that comes with parenthood is indescribable and ripe for exploitation.

In addition, for a lot of parents, and especially moms, parenthood becomes a part of our identity; sometimes disturbingly so. It’s easy to lose part of who we are and let the mommy identity take over, and when that happens, unfortunately, being a “good mom” can seem like a competition. This is also easy for purveyors of misinformation to exploit.

Gerbic: CSICon is happening at Halloween time. I’m not sure how into the holiday you are, but the theme is a zombie disco one. I’m hoping to get a group of people to reenact the Michael Jackson Thriller dance scene. Any chance I can count you in on that?

Senapathy: Let me know what you end up planning. I just need a little time to practice/refresh my moves.

Gerbic: For more information about Kavin, you can follow her public posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Readers, CSICon is quickly approaching, it will be an amazing experience. I strongly encourage you to get your tickets soon as it will sell out. Skeptical conferences are not only the time to see and interact with great speakers, but it is a fun social interaction with your peers. Show up on Wednesday and leave on Monday to get the full experience; there is so much conference outside of non-scheduled times. Follow the CSICon Facebook page to learn more about what is happening outside the schedule.

“He’s so sweet.”

“What a nice guy.”

“Caring and with malice to no one.”

“How can you call him a grief vampire when he helps so many people?”

“He’s helping them get over their grief and move on.”

“He is a blessing and adorable!”

The positive adjectives keep coming; this is all I hear about Tyler Henry these days, the star of Hollywood Medium, on its third season on the E! Network. I am starting to hear from his supporters as I become known as his key detractor. Emails, Facebook messages, comments on YouTube: all want to know what my problem with him is. “Why do you say such mean things about him? He is a doll, a gift from heaven, everyone loves him.”

One woman wrote to me on Facebook that she is an atheist and skeptic but can’t understand why I can’t see that Henry is the real thing. Normally I answer by explaining that the burden of proof lies on the person making the extraordinary claim. If he can communicate with the dead, then he would be breaking the laws of physics, and it is up to him to prove he can do it. The default is that he can’t. But for some reason this statement never satisfies believers. They want me to disprove him, show that he is faking it. This is something that I really can’t do; I can only show that there are much simpler ways to do what he appears to be doing—communicating with the dead.  Cold-reading or hot-reading techniques and clever editing are all more reasonable possibilities, and they don’t require unproven explanations.

Finally, one day someone answered me when I asked for their best evidence of why they believed that Henry can communicate with the dead.  Something specific, and not just because he has a great smile. She told me that Henry told actor Alan Thicke that he had heart issues. She said, “No way could Tyler have predicted Thicke’s death from heart failure unless Henry can talk to the dead.” That is something I can look into; a specific claim is being made. Did Henry predict Alan Thicke’s death? Luckily, for just a few dollars and an Amazon Prime account, and the benefit of pause and rewind on my computer keyboard, I could look into the details of the reading.

At the end of 2016, Tyler Henry went to the home of actor Alan Thicke and his wife Tanya. In nearly every Hollywood Medium show, Henry mentions that he does not know who he will be reading for in advance. This time there was no mention that Henry did not know who he would be reading. Tanya was a complete fan; she was so excited that Henry was going to be reading her husband. When the cameras started rolling, Alan stated that he is a skeptic, scientific minded, “Show me proof; I don’t have any faith in the afterlife.”

There were two main parts of the reading; at least that is all we see on the show. Remember the editors want to show the best parts, only the hits. The parts that weren’t exciting would be cut out. If Henry had received hit after hit, then this would have been saved for a special release. Always remember that the editors can make magic happen.

The first half shows Henry reaching Isadora, who is Thicke’s grandmother. And the second half of the reading concerns Henry telling Thicke that there might be some heart issues he should check into.

So, let’s stop right here. I need to make sure you understand that two months or so after this reading, Alan Thicke died from heart trouble. The Internet lit up with the news that a psychic predicted a death, and the E! Network, with the type of compassion known only to profit making ventures everywhere, decided that they could best honor the memory of Alan Thicke by giving his family privacy while they grieve. NOPE. Instead they sent Tyler Henry back to the home, on the two-month anniversary of his death, to show his widow the video of the reading and talk about what Alan was doing in the afterlife. Yep, really classy. Well to Tyler Henry’s fans, this is a kindness: giving his widow peace and helping her to grieve.

How can someone like me fight against that? I come off looking like a person who robbed a cancer victim. How dare I take that away from the widow. How dare I dismiss her pain. Why do I get to determine how she gets to grieve? If she wants to believe that her husband is still around her, watching and sending his love, then what kind of villain am I to say otherwise? I get it; I’m no fun at parties either. If someone is really dealing with grief, then there are people who are trained and licensed to talk to about this. If they don’t want to participate in grief therapy, then at least they can talk to friends, people who aren’t going to put your grief on the E! Network, all over their promos, and use it for their own financial gain.

Let’s review what really happened. Did Tyler Henry predict Alan Thicke’s death from a heart condition? Did Tyler Henry contact Thicke’s grandmother? Well … other explanations are more likely.

Henry was sitting across from Thicke on facing couches, across from Alan Thicke who appears to be 65–75 years old. Henry knows that Thicke wants to hear from someone that he was close to and has sitting nearby a pair of glasses (Henry uses personal objects from the departed to focus on). What we and Henry can tell are that these are old glasses worn by a woman … maybe it was Thicke’s daughter’s second grade teacher who died last year? No, Henry is hearing from an older woman, and he is getting “grandma, grandma, grandma.” The camera all this time stayed on Henry’s face, so we do not know if Thicke was nodding his head in agreement and giving feedback. So, when Henry said, “She is on your mother’s side” and received a “Yes” from Thicke, are we surprised? The odds are 50/50, and with some feedback from Thicke it wouldn’t be hard to guess it.

Henry gives a bunch of general statements about her personality; the same kind of statements everyone wants to be true about themselves and about someone they really loved and miss. It tells us nothing about accuracy but made Alan feel good. Henry went on: She is creative, amazing, and “could have lived twenty more lifetimes,” intense, strong, high-energy. All along Thicke was nodding and giving back feedback, giving Henry clues that he was on the right track.

Next came a statement that seems really specific: “I’m seeing a piano bench, and I’m sitting on the bench and this woman is putting sentimental or significant value around this. Do you know of anyone on your mom’s side that played the piano who would fit that bill?” This would have been the 1930s or ‘40s. According to the LA Times, “The piano has been the center of many American homes for generations, not only a proclamation of a love of music but also often a statement about striving for success.” And in the 1930–1940s this would have been very common. http://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-pianos16-2009may16-story.html So for Henry to claim he saw a piano in a house that Thicke grew up in, or had access to, was a safe bet. Note Henry did not say that he saw Thicke’s maternal grandmother Isadora playing the piano; he only said he saw an older woman and then asked, “Who might that be?” There is a big difference between those two statements.

Thicke went on to tell Henry all about his grandmother, Isadora. Thicke seemed to think that Henry had shown him the proof he needed, he says “You killed that one—wooo you crushed it!” And Thicke really can’t be blamed; it all happened very quickly. He was primed to think that Henry is the real deal and did not have the ability to pause and replay as I do sitting in the quiet of my office. Thicke had not been following and viewing these kinds of readings for years, as I have. I’m going to speculate further and state that Thicke does have a potential motive to participate in a positive way.  If Thicke did not get excited about the reading, then the show may not have aired. There would be no free publicity for Thicke. And his wife, Tanya, would be disappointed.

Speaking of playing to Tanya, this bit is so precious: Henry claimed that Isadora said that she saw a wedding and was giving her congratulations; it was a wedding she was unable to attend. I wonder whose wedding that might have been? Tanya, who is quite a bit younger than Alan, kept talking about how they plan on having a baby together, so she must be younger than forty. Thicke was born in 1947, which probably means his grandmother was born in the 1880s to 1900. What are the odds that she would not have been alive when Thicke married his third wife? Wikipedia says that he married Tanya in 2005, which would have meant that Isadora would have been 105–125 years old if she had been alive to attend the wedding. Not very likely. Henry made a safe bet, and Tanya was thrilled with the news that Isadora has blessed their marriage. Interesting that Isadora didn’t have any news for her great-grandchildren or a warning that her grandson was about to die two months later. Considering that the second show on the Thickes was promoted on E! that Henry did just that, I think Isadora could have been a lot clearer with her warning.

Now comes the part of the reading where all the believers are so sure that Henry predicted Thicke’s death. Let’s look at a transcript to make sure we aren’t missing anything.

Henry: For the men in your family it’s important to take into consideration something we really have to keep in mind. Heart issues are not uncommon in men, thing is (pause) I don’t know where to start?

(insert scary music cue— cut to commercial)

(back from commercial, more ominous music)

Henry: When it comes to a family gene perspective, it’s possible that within your family that there may be multiple men who at a later age have to deal with a blood pressure issue, but also with a heart murmur or heart arrhythmia, but I have to go to heart which correlates to blood pressure. So, keep that in mind, I have a couple people passing on a similar sense saying keep in mind your own heart. There is a man who is very stubborn who passed away, he acknowledges dying because of a heart problem. His message is don’t be stubborn like I was … it could have been treatable if we had known about it.

Thicke then told Henry that there are no known heart problems in his family other than his sister who had surgery but is doing well. Then Thicke said “Thank you Doctor Henry, I’m going to take that to heart.”  Henry then threw back his head, and laughed. I’m mentioning this because it seems so heartless (pun intended) that if Henry REALLY thought that Thicke’s heart would give out only a couple months later, he should have been less flippant about it and actually very stern.

And that was it, nothing much other than a warning to keep an eye on his blood pressure. Keep in mind that Henry was again playing the odds. The number one cause of death for American males? You guessed it: heart disease.  If the Thicke family had a history of deaths or illnesses from heart complications, then mentioning this in the reading would have been an even better fit.

As I said, the E! Network brought Henry back to the Thicke home two months after the death. He shows the reading to the widow Tanya who says that it is “So important for me to see Tyler because if there’s anybody in this world that can give me some guidance because it’s so difficult for me to even fathom what my life is going to be like without my husband, that’s how I feel right now, I’m still healing.”

She and Henry went for a walk around the ranch, and Henry said that he is seeing a “sun symbol,” and Tanya takes that to be a message from her husband. “I thought I would never see the sun shine again.” Which is a hit in Tanya’s mind and just something vague that would have hit no matter what in my mind.

Henry then asked her if there was a Florida trip planned. Tanya had a very strong reaction and told him that her husband had planned a surprise trip to Florida with their friends. Sounds like a hit. She seems to have forgotten that only four months ago Henry and Alan had a long conversation, and it was not unlikely that Thicke mentioned that he was planning this vacation.

So, then Henry talked Tanya into taking the trip to Florida. He says that she will fall in love again, and Alan will be happy if she does. “That’s how healing happens.” She is strong; she will be fine. Henry then explained that after a thousand readings, he still does not know what happens after you die, that he thinks they have to “work through things.”

The show ends with Tanya saying that she “feels lighter—hope in her heart. Step one, picking up the pieces. The sunshine came out today.”

(Cue happy music.)

I was curious about licensed grief therapy and reached out to someone at a nearby hospice center. Cindi Gray is a licensed Clinical Social Worker and has worked in the field of death and dying through hospice for twenty-six years with Santa Cruz County. She told me that she hasn’t directly had contact with anyone who has come to them after seeking out help from a psychic. She said that she does know that they have had clients in the past who have gone to psychics for support. Her clinic does not judge; she states that “there isn’t a right or wrong way to grieve and that we are here to accompany grievers on their journey. We offer grief education and a non-judgmental space for sharing feelings and receiving support. We provide 1:1 counseling and groups for a series of weeks. Typically, we hear that the community appreciates a listening ear when they are trying to make sense of things after a death.”

Cindi is the expert. There is no right way to grieve. Personally, I’m disgusted that grief vampires exist to prey on grief and exploit them as E! and Hollywood Medium do in this case. But if this really helps the widow of Alan Thicke then it is none of my business. I am only able to comment on the Thicke’s experience with Tyler Henry because they choose to be public with the story.

My intent with this investigation is to show that there is no evidence of any communication with the dead is happening, everything that was said was general, or edited. If this is such a great case of prediction of someone getting a call from the “other side” to get your heart checked out, then why was it so vague? Is Hollywood Medium blaming Alan Thicke for not taking Henry’s reading seriously? Obviously, this is a controversial issue; education is important, if someone wants to use psychics for grief counseling then that is their choice. What I believe is that there should be more articles like this one in case people are looking for a second opinion about such an important moment in their lives.

Thank you to Rob Palmer for his help with this article.

Susan Gerbic: Evan, so good to get a chance to catch up. Very excited to see that you will be at CSICon this year, we missed you last year. For the few people who don’t know who you are, can you give readers a bio?

Evan Bernstein: Thanks Susan ...  My name is Evan Bernstein; I am the co-host of the award-winning podcast The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe (SGU), which is enjoyed by 300,000 listeners each week around the globe. I am also the coauthor of our upcoming book by the same name as the podcast, which we expect to be available in the fall of 2018. I am also a member of the executive board for The New England Skeptical Society, which is our local skeptics organization.

Gerbic: So, lots to ask you. NECSS just ended and I hear it was a big success, despite there being a fire or something and the venue had to move everything to another location. Sounds stressful, but I hear you all pulled it off fine.

Bernstein: NECSS was a very successful conference, and yes, our venue did suffer a fire the week before we were ready to go, but everyone pulled together—most especially the venue managers themselves—to ensure that we had everything we needed.

Gerbic: One of my GSoW editors, Sharon Roney went to NECSS (it was her first ever skeptic’s conference). She said that you are the “funniest SGU member. He was cracking me up at the live NECSS show” and another of my editors, Stuart Jones, wanted me to ask you if you practice the one-liners at home; she said you are very “quick off the mark.” Is this true; are you looking for a second career doing stand-up?

Bernstein: I think I would freeze like a deer in headlights if I were to attempt a classic “stand-up” routine. My quips, one-liners, and sprinkles of sarcasm stem primarily from listening to talk radio programs for all my life, especially from morning ensemble shows, such as Imus in The Morning and The Howard Stern Show, to name two of the more recognizable shows in the industry. My dear friend and former cohost, the late Perry DeAngelis, was also a very big talk radio program listener, so we shared a very similar sense of humor which, after a while, just became part of our regular repartee. We took great delight in making each other laugh, and we had many years of practice at it.

Gerbic: You are a CPA and a nonmember of the Novella blood brotherhood. Do people outside of our world know about your involvement in skepticism? I suppose you tell people that you do a podcast with friends and talk about science topics; I imagine that the conversations would get weird if you explain more than that. How does skepticism inform your work?

Bernstein: I tend to not mix my day job with my activism, but when I am asked about it from the people I deal with through my accounting practice, I am honest with them. Those instances are few and far between, and I am definitely more comfortable keeping the two circles independent from each other for professional reasons. That’s not to say that there is no room for overlap. For example, I have talked on our podcast before about scammers who prey on innocent people pretending to be with the IRS or some other taxing agency. As far as my friends and family are concerned, they all know of my activism through the show. Some of them talk with me at length about it or about specific skeptical-related topics, and others avoid talking to me about it because it greatly differs from their own opinions and worldview.

Gerbic: If I remember correctly, Perry and Steve started the podcast and NESS, and you were a friend of one of the brothers. You all played table-top games together a lot; how did you get involved in the skepticism part of this?

Bernstein: Perry and I were friends since 1986, and through Perry, I met Steve (and Bob and Jay) in 1992 via a live action role playing game that Perry was running at the time. We all became fast friends. Perry and Steve founded the Connecticut Skeptical Society on January 1, 1996, and it was about a week later that they approached me to tell me about their new project. We talked for about thirty minutes; they explained the basics of skepticism to me, and like a lightbulb going off above my head, I was instantly captivated by this skeptical worldview. I wanted to be a part of this new and exciting life-changing opportunity, so I joined the society on the spot, and never turned back.

Gerbic: Here is something that I bet most people do not know. A few years ago, I wrote the Perry DeAngelis Wikipedia page. It was a lot of work finding citations to prove that he was noteworthy enough to have a page. At one point the page was almost deleted. One day I got a message from you that you had found an old newspaper clipping that talked about Perry. You sent me a screen shot of the article, and it was enough to secure the page. Thank you so much for doing that. I just took a quick look at the page view stats, and the page has been accessed 23,061 times so far. In the last seven days, 305 times.

Bernstein: Without Perry DeAngelis, the Connecticut Skeptical Society would not have existed. Hence, we would not have evolved into the larger New England Skeptical Society (NESS). And most certainly, it would not have provided us with those critical ten years of experience that would serve as the foundation of our launch of the SGU podcast in 2005. Suffice to say, the SGU owes its existence to Perry. Perry earned his Wikipedia page, and we have you, Susan, to thank for helping make sure that his page not only survived, but has thrived!

Gerbic: We are all in this together, and we need to support each other. Like me, you have been involved in this skeptic world for years and been on the front lines with the drama we experienced back in 2012–2014. That was pretty painful, but I feel like we are healing; we lost a lot of people due to the drama, but we have gained a lot more, that have no idea what I’m talking about, and I would like to keep it that way. I think you have a pretty optimistic view of things; how do you rate the health of our community these days?

Bernstein: Movements have ebbs and flows. They all have ups and downs. This is not unusual. I am, overall, an optimistic person and I see the skeptic community, as a whole, as having long legs and a bright future. The modern skeptical movement founded by the likes of James Randi, Paul Kurtz, Isaac Asimov (among others) in the mid 1970s was the Big Bang of skepticism, and today, we are the galaxies that have coalesced in its wake. Are there some collisions and dramatic events that unfolded along the way? Of course. But the movement is greater than the sum of its parts. Our critical function—trying to help people everywhere achieve a more rational worldview—is the glue that will always keep the community intact.

Gerbic: I know that podcasts like the SGU play a major part in bringing in new people. I hear it all the time when I get new recruits to the GSoW. I ask each one how they learned about my project and what influences them; podcasts are the most often mentioned, and of those mentioned, the SGU is always in the mix somewhere. Do you feel that responsibility?

Bernstein: I do. We all do (Steve, Bob, Jay, Cara, and myself). Audio podcasting is a powerful medium, and for those of us that have been long-time listeners of talk radio shows (I talked about that influence earlier), we understand just how influential and intimate talk radio shows can be. The most common feedback we receive is “I really enjoy the show because I feel like I know you all.” Exactly right, they do know us. Our show is many things to many people, but to every listener, the show is an exercise in intimacy between us and you, the listener. That is one of the fundamental components of our success.

Gerbic: So, I want to ask you about CSICon, what do you all have planned for us? Give us a tease.

Bernstein: All five of us will be in attendance, which is always special because we perform live together only two or three times a year. We normally are each at home, alone, recording at our own computers over Skype, so we take delight in being side by side with each other whenever possible. Our live show at CSICon will follow the format of a typical show, but we always try to incorporate something more “visual” for the live audience—maybe a short video skit to present, or a little “skeptical vaudeville” on the stage. We are discussing a costume theme for SGU (Halloween will be just around the corner) so you might see us dressing up as something fun, funny, or hopefully both. We are also trying to arrange for a special “private recording” of an SGU episode, which we always try to craft as a unique experience for those in attendance. Contact Steven Novella at the SGU for further details about the private recording email: info@theskepticsguide.org.

Gerbic: Something that NECSS does not have is a zombie disco Halloween party. I’m trying to pull together a group of people that will perform Michael Jackson’s Thriller with me. Can I count you in? You looking into some sort of special zombie outfit or just the run of the mill generic zombie?

Bernstein: Zombies are always fun, and I’m a big Walking Dead fan to boot. What I can tell you is that if the SGU group costume turns out to have zombie qualities, then count me in on the dance!

When a man does something silly, my daughters and I like to joke, “Testosterone poisoning strikes again!” Everybody knows women and men are different, not just anatomically but psychologically and behaviorally. That common knowledge is epitomized in the book title Men Are from Mars; Women Are from Venus.

Sometimes common knowledge turns out to be wrong. The common knowledge about male/female differences is questioned in a new book, Testosterone Rex: Myths of Sex, Science and Society, by Cordelia Fine. It’s an eye-opener, fully backed by scientific references, and is well worth reading.

Explained by Evolution?

Evolution produced us, and there are logical evolutionary explanations for all the perceived differences between men and women. Reproductive success drives evolution. The male’s investment is a single sperm; the female’s is much greater.  Men will produce more offspring if they spread their sperm around to many women. Women are constrained by the need for resources to successfully raise their offspring. So naturally, men evolved to be competitive, promiscuous risk-takers; women evolved to play a safer game focused on tending to their precious offspring, sticking to one mate who is a good provider, and developing traits such as intuition, empathy, nurturing, and cooperation. As the story goes, this is why men drive sports cars, engage in dangerous sports, become CEOs, and gravitate toward careers in science and engineering while women are more likely to choose jobs such as teaching or nursing or may choose not to work outside the home at all. Toys for boys encourage physicality, competition, and construction; toys for girls (dolls, beauty sets, tea sets) reinforce traditional ideas of femininity.

Many people find it satisfying to have a biological explanation for the lower status of women in our society; they think biology justifies the status quo, at least to some extent. They think it’s natural for women to stay home nurturing children instead of competing in the workplace. They think women don’t really want STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) jobs and aren’t best suited for them. They think equal opportunity can never be expected to lead to equal numbers because of the innate natures and preferences of men and women.

Testosterone Rex: Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong Again

Of course, evolution had to affect the brain as well as the body. But evolutionary explanations run the risk of being “just so stories”; they may be fiction, and there is no way to wind back the clock to verify them. Fine calls it Testosterone Rex: the familiar, plausible, pervasive, and powerful story of sex and society. Testosterone drives masculinity; it allegedly explains all those male/female differences.

Cordelia Fine’s book shows that Testosterone Rex “gets it wrong, wrong, and wrong again.” It has been undermined by new scientific understandings. There’s no such thing as a male brain or a female brain; there are no essential male or female natures. Social change is possible: it’s time for society to say goodbye to Testosterone Rex and move on.

New Knowledge Shatters Old Assumptions

Neither promiscuity nor competition are necessarily the preserve of male reproductive success. Female promiscuity is abundant throughout the animal kingdom, and it leads to better reproductive success. Dominant, high-status females (think pecking order) have more offspring and more access to the resources needed to raise them.

There are good reasons for the males of some species to be discriminating in their choice of mates. In one extreme example, the St. Andrew’s Cross spider breaks his copulatory apparatus during his one chance at coitus, and the female puts him out of his embarrassment by eating him. (Fine quips, “No wonder they’re cross.”)

Paternal child care is common in fish and birds. It is less common in mammals but is common in some species of primates.

Even within a species, behavior is influenced by environment. In the two-spotted goby fish, more males die off as the season progresses. Early in the season males are competitive; later in the season females take over as the courting sex. The hedge sparrow’s sexual arrangements vary with factors such as the female’s territory size; they range from one male/one female to one female/two males to one male/two females to two females sharing two males.

Traditional evolutionary explanations about sexual selection are based on the assumption that sex is only for reproduction. In lemurs, it may be. But humans have evolved to have sex for many reasons other than reproduction, reasons that may also drive evolution. Women’s and men’s sexual preferences and behavior have considerable overlap and are responsive to social and environmental conditions.

Says Fine: “The across-species variability means that there is no universal template for how genetic and hormonal components of sex play out to affect brain and behavior.”

Risk-Taking Is Not an Essential Masculine Trait

Risk-taking in one domain doesn’t translate to other domains. As Fine puts it, there are “insurance-buying gamblers” and “skydiving wallflowers.” The perception of risks is subjective and is affected by many social factors such as power and status. Studies of risk-taking behaviors in males and females have shown that overall males are more risk-taking, but half of the differences were only modest; in 20 percent of cases females were more willing to take risks. Fine reports this interesting fact: in the U.S., pregnancy is twenty times more likely to result in death than skydiving. And biology doesn’t determine that men should be more competitive. Fine points out that women are increasingly competing for male-dominated jobs such as surgery and policing, where they subject themselves to a high risk of discrimination and sexual harassment.

Male vs. Female Brains

The simplistic idea that testosterone in utero gives the fetus a “male brain” and absence of testosterone makes a “female brain” has been proven false. Sexual differentiation of the brain is an untidy process involving genetic, hormonal, environmental, and epigenetic factors.

There are plenty of studies measuring a difference in some aspect of male and female brains. There is a shifting mosaic of features, some more common in males, some more common in females, and some common in both. None of the measurable differences are very substantial. Even for the largest, there is so much overlap between the sexes that one in five women are more “male-like” than the average male.

Testosterone Is Not Rex

Testosterone was traditionally viewed as the biological wellspring of the hormonal essence of masculinity, what Fine calls a “steroid tsunami that destroys all hopes of sexual equality.” Not anymore!  Now, no one is suggesting that the testes are a social construction, but the notion of testosterone’s powerful influence has not survived recent scientific investigations. Sure, it does stuff—important stuff. But that stuff is only part of a highly complicated system. Testosterone blood levels are an extremely crude guide to testosterone’s effects on the brain.

“No sex difference in basic behavior comes close to the divergence between the sexes in circulating testosterone, for which there’s only about 10–15 percent overlap between men’s and women’s levels,” Fine tells us.

Testosterone levels don’t predict social dominance or rank. There is no consistent correlation; sometimes levels rise after rank has been achieved. Changes in testosterone might be either cause or effect. Testosterone goes up and down with environmental and social factors; changing levels seem to help animals adapt to circumstances.

The same event can affect individuals differently depending on context. In one ingenious experiment, men were exposed to the crying of one of those programmable babies used to teach high school students. If they were told just to sit and listen, or if the baby was programmed to keep crying no matter what, testosterone levels rose. If the baby was programmed to be consolable, so the men felt they had some control of the situation, testosterone levels dropped.

So testosterone is not king. Castration would not produce sexual equality in society and in the workplace (not that anyone has suggested such a harsh remedy!).

Nurture Trumps Nature

Testosterone Rex explanations are demonstrably false. Fine says,

...differences between males and females may not “add up” in a consistent way to create two kinds of human nature; but rather, as with sex differences in the brain, create “mosaics” of personality traits, attitudes, interests, and behaviors, some more common in males than in females, other more common in females than in males…. These findings and patterns are awkward for those who want to argue that the sexes “naturally” segregate into different occupations and roles because of their different nature, or because of a slight advantage of one sex over the other, on average, on a particular trait.

Nature or nurture? Most perceived differences of behavior or preferences are determined by experiences and environment, not by biology. Babies are adaptable; they will develop according to whatever society they are born into. We have already come a long way toward equal job opportunities, but social constructions are not easy to dismantle. First, the message that Testosterone Rex is dead must reach the general public. Then we can concentrate on changing outdated social stereotypes. This will involve changing the environment our children grow up in. Toy stores have gender-coded aisles, men tell dumb blonde jokes, girls are clothed in pink dresses, some expert panels are composed entirely of men…. These may seem like minor things, but they add up. Fine says, “That’s why calling out even seemingly minor points of sexism matters.” There are actions those in power can take, such as implementing targets and quotas, auditing pay gaps, offering paternity leave, rooting out sexual harassment, and rethinking media portrayals. Science can’t determine public policy, but it can inform policymakers that men and women are not from different planets and their behavior and career choices are not dictated by their biology.

The Bottom Line: Men and Women Are More Equal Than We Realized

Cordelia Fine’s book provides compelling evidence that men and women aren’t really very different other than in their anatomy. There is no such thing as a “male brain” or a “female brain.” There are no essential male or female natures but rather an individualized mosaic of features. Testosterone isn’t very important. Biology can’t be used to explain or excuse societal inequalities.

Sheldon W. Helms is a professor of experimental psychology at Ohlone College in Fremont, California, where he serves as senior faculty member in the Psychology Department. He holds a master’s degree in psychology and is currently a doctoral candidate in the School of Education at Alliant International University.

Susan Gerbic: Sheldon, it’s so great to be able to catch up with you. We just saw each other at SkeptiCal in Berkeley, but you were so busy with the conference we didn’t get a chance to really talk. Speaking of SkeptiCal, this was the eighth year, and it seems to be growing. I’ve always enjoyed attending and learn so much each time. I know it’s still early, but any news on changes for 2018?

Sheldon W. Helms: Yes, I saw you at the Monterey County Skeptic’s table, telling everyone about Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia, and we barely even had time to say hello! It was a really fun conference, though, and there wasn’t an empty seat in the place. 

The SkeptiCal Conference was the brainchild of Shane Trimmer, the former president of the Sacramento Area Skeptics, who proposed a one-day conference on science and skepticism that pulls from local talent to make it affordable to the general public. They joined forces with our group, the Bay Area Skeptics (headed up by Eugenie Scott), and we held our first conference in 2010. Since then, it’s only gotten bigger and better.

We have a long list of great speakers we’re considering for next year, but nothing I can talk about publicly yet. The only thing I can say is that we may have outgrown our venue yet again, and we’ll probably be looking for a bigger one for 2018, although still in the East Bay of San Francisco of course. What a great problem to have, though!

Gerbic: You are going to be speaking at CSICon this year, Saturday October 28, at 10 am. Your lecture, “Straight Talk about Gay Conversion” is a topic I’ve heard you speak on before. Really interesting lecture and topic. Don’t give away your entire lecture here, but what can you tell us that’s new on this issue? I keep thinking that it is long gone, and then another story pops up in the media. How frustrating.

Helms: I’ve been speaking publicly about Gay Conversion Therapy for several years now, and it’s a subject that continues to shock and horrify me. Sometimes I can’t believe there’s even a need for me to talk about this. I mean, with all the progress that’s been made in the social and political landscape for the LGBT community, you’d think that this topic would be relegated to the history books by now. But the stories you’ve seen in the news media prove that we haven’t won the battle yet.

Formal attempts to convert gay people to heterosexuality have a long and ugly history, dating back at least a century or more. They include religious as well as nonreligious strategies, none of which have any effect on someone’s sexual orientation, of course. We have far too many stories of attempts to commit suicide (many of them successfully), years of battling depression, social isolation, and self-harm, all after taking part in programs claiming to covert people to heterosexuality, all of which ultimately fail. Although they don’t have an effect on sexual orientation, they do have an effect on people’s self-worth and mental status, and that’s my big concern. They are ineffective but not at all harmless. And my talk will concentrate mostly on that harm.

That’s not to say that we haven’t seen any progress at all. Some readers may have seen announcements of laws that have been passed in some states recently in an attempt to discourage or eradicate these practices. But, as people will hear in my talk, those laws don’t go far enough. They have huge legal loopholes that mean that people will still be at risk of being subjected to these barbaric techniques.

Gerbic: The college you teach at, Ohlone, has a lecture series that you created.  I know you have had James Randi speak. Who else would our readers know?

Helms: By the time I was hired at Ohlone College in 2001, I had been attending talks by psychologists, scientists, and other professionals for decades—even before my involvement in the skeptic community. After becoming the faculty adviser to the Ohlone Psychology Club, I mentioned to some students a talk that I had attended, Michael Shermer’s speaker series in Los Angeles. A club member said, “That sounds like fun! Why doesn’t Ohlone College do that?” I didn’t really have an answer for her. After a lot of groundwork and getting financial backing from our Student Government, we hosted our first talk in 2009, which, as fate would have it, was by Michael Shermer. (Readers may be amused to know that Dr. Shermer has an “act of God” clause in his speaking contract, which made me laugh out loud.)

Since then, the Ohlone Psychology Club Speaker Series has become almost fully financially independent on campus, and has hosted a wide variety of talks by people like Brian Dunning, Eugenie Scott, Carol Tavris, Anthony Pratkanis, the cast of the Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe (with emcee George Hrab), and yes, James “The Amazing” Randi…twice!

Randi’s talks are always mind blowing and sell out in record time. We’d gladly host him again if he found time in his schedule and was interested in coming back. He and his husband, Deyvi, have actually become close friends to my husband and me, and we recently attended Randi’s eighty-eighth birthday celebration at their home in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. We’re looking forward to seeing them at the CSI conference in October, where I’m sure Randi will be as adorable as ever.

Gerbic: You’re a long-time skeptic conference junkie (like myself). What do you say to people who complain that we are just speaking to the choir? What’s the best argument you can give for people to attend lectures and conferences?

Helms: More appropriately, I’d say that I was a long-time TAM (The Amazing Meeting) junkie. I think I attended all but the first two TAMs, and I made a lot of great friends in the process. I attended my first CSI conference last year, and it was probably the closest I’ve felt to the TAM experience since the last one in 2015. I was honored to be part of a workshop before the end of TAM and was given the opportunity to host a main-stage discussion on “Science and Pseudoscience in Clinical Psychology” with a panel of five of the most well respected psychologists in the U.S. So, I guess you could say that I’ve had the skeptic conference experience from newbie to speaker—and everything in between.

I’m guessing from my own experiences that people have many different reasons for attending skeptic conferences. Some are brand new to the community and only recently decided to give up their magical or superstitious worldviews. Their attendance at the CSI conference would probably involve a lot of “checking us out” to see who else thinks the way they do. There will also be people at these conferences who, like myself, are involved in educating others. They come to hear new ideas, to meet authors and speakers whose work they admire, and to network. And, of course, there are lots of people who come to these conferences not so much to sit in on the talks but to meet up with old friends and make new ones. The social aspect of TAM and the CSI conference is one of my favorite features that sets them apart from conferences like the ones held by the American Psychological Association.

Gerbic: At TAM 2012, you were walking by when we were arranging a Sylvia Browne protest and asked what we were doing. We explained we were leaving in a few minutes, and you jumped on the opportunity to go. That was such a blast; we even have video of experience. And again, when I asked for volunteers to help out with Operation Bumblebee and attend in character a Chip Coffey event, your hand went right up. (Readers who would like to know more about the event they can read about it here and here.) As a professor of psychology, what insights can you give into the mind of believers of psychics? To us we clearly see cold-reading happening. It’s hard to imagine that someone in the audience can’t see it also, even if they don’t know what it’s called; these statements are so leading and general.

Helms: I think people believe in psychics for a variety of reasons. Most who seek out their advice are probably doing it for entertainment. Where it gets tricky, and sometimes even dangerous, is when the psychics ply their trade to prey upon the naive and the weak. By naive, I mean those who are generally unaware that some of these folks are quite willing to victimize them for financial gain, sometimes taking small fortunes from them. And by weak, I mean those who are grieving, desperate, or frightened. As you know, a favorite target for these sorts of psychics are those whose loved ones have died, have disappeared, or have been the victim of a crime. In those times, we are at our most emotional, and therefore at our least logical. It’s quite easy to shift into a state of desperation in which we’re willing to give up our basic reasoning powers in the hopes that our fate will change. And when that happens, charlatans move in, ready to manipulate the target to her or his advantage.

A common misconception on the part of the general public is that people who get taken advantage of by psychics and other con artists must be stupid. The implication is often that they somehow deserve to be taken advantage of. Nothing could be further from the truth. People from all walks of life, and from every educational or intelligence level, can be victimized by swindlers. When I discuss these issues in my classes, I warn students that “If you think you can’t be fooled or that you’re impervious to these persuasive techniques, then you’re probably the first one who’ll be victimized.” I say this because people who feel this way often let their guard down, and that’s all the con artist needs to begin the scam.

The good news is that we have so much more information today than ever before about how these scams work and the psychological principles behind them. I’m fortunate that my job as a professor of psychology has allowed me to teach these techniques to thousands of people, making them and their loved ones a bit safer in the process.

Gerbic: Thanks so much, Sheldon. I really look forward to seeing you again in a few weeks. Folks, the date is quickly arriving for CSICon. Arrive on Wednesday and leave on Monday after breakfast. Remember to follow the after-hours activities on Facebook. Zombie Disco is on Saturday night. Don’t forget! See you there.

If you are interested in the 2017 solar eclipse event, then I’m sure you have already read about or watched more than I will be able to tell you in this article. I attended and was in the path of the totality. It was awesome, interesting, very cool (both figuratively and literally), and an event that I’m very glad to have experienced. That’s about it. Well, not really.

While there were some stories trending in the news to boycott the eclipse, or pray it away, there was a lot going on behind the scenes to pull this off. Okay, I know what you are thinking: the moon getting in the way of our sun was not planned or directed or anything like that. What I mean is that the people element, the social and educational aspect, was completely planned. Experiencing this event was a moment in time (two minutes, forty-two seconds to be exact); it was a chance the science world had to excite the masses and draw likeminded people together and inspire them. That was what really interested me.

For over a year, I’ve been hearing that some people wanted to move the date for the Skeptic’s Toolbox from its usual third week to the fourth week in August. It has been held in Eugene, Oregon, since 1990 and would put attendees in the right place at the right time for the eclipse. For reasons unknown to this writer, the Toolbox was not held at all in 2017 (nor in 2016). Instead, a day of Toolbox Workshops is to be held at CSICon in Las Vegas in October 2017. This meant that the normal Toolbox attendees (and there are at least fifty diehard fans) were able to descend on whatever eclipse festivities happened to be planned across the United States.

At SkeptiCal, astronomer Andrew Fraknoi lectured on eclipse safety and other tips and trivia about the event. One thing he kept stressing was that once the media caught on to this story, it would be all over the place, and uninformed people would hear about the eclipse and decide on a whim to drive up to see this amazing spectacle. The problem with this, according to Fraknoi, was that the areas of America that would experience the totality were not areas used to having tens of thousands of people descend upon them. There were not enough bathrooms, space on the roads, and hotels to accommodate all the people. If you planned on attending, then you needed to prepare for the worst, and if the crowds didn’t show up, then you would be happily surprised.

Herb Masters from the Bay Area Skeptics and the Masters Challenge Scholarship discovered that Oregon State University (OSU), located in Corvallis, would be opening their dorm rooms and campus (for a reasonable price) to visitors. What a great idea; it would be just like the Toolbox: dorm beds, cafeterias, communal bathrooms, and friendly skeptics sharing a weekend of fun and science together. I was in! Monterey County Skeptics member Deborah Warcken decided to share the adventure and we booked a room together. Jay Diamond and David Almandsmith, from the Bay Area Skeptics, and a few others decided to join us.

Enter Jeanine and John DeNoma and the Oregonians for Science and Reason (O4SR) group. (I’ve written about this group before and did an interview with Jeanine about scholarships O4SR gave to three CSICon attendees in 2016.) The DeNormas live in Monmouth, Oregon, in a good-sized cabin with a large flat area perfect for camping and a mountain named Coffin Butte in their backyard. Jeanine was having none of the plan to watch the eclipse from OSU’s campus. She was insistent that everyone in our group, and anyone else interested, needed to camp on her property and watch the Monday morning eclipse from her home. She sweetened the deal by throwing a spaghetti dinner party on Sunday night and a 6 am breakfast on Monday morning followed by a post-eclipse BBQ. How can you turn that down? One of our good friends from Los Angeles, Paula, decided that she would take the DeNomas up on their offer. 

Deborah, Paula, and I decided to rent a car and make the twelve-hour drive from Monterey County up to the area. As we got closer to the date, we found that Fraknoi was correct: the media was starting to notice. We kept hearing about how insane Oregon was going to be. With this in mind, Paula drove up from Los Angeles (about five hours) to spend the night at my house in Salinas, and then the next day we drove until we were tired, got a hotel room in Redding, and then continued the drive, ending up in Salem, Oregon, on Friday afternoon. We experienced no unusual traffic; there was plenty of food and necessities at every stop we made. People all along the route whom we talked to were excited about the eclipse; employees working in the service industry seemed to be prepared, in good moods, and happy about the boost in sales. There were no lines at gas stations or the fast food restaurants we stopped at. California and Oregon seemed to be prepared; or perhaps we were just really early.

We stopped in Salem because Jeanine had arranged for me to talk about the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project to the Cherry City Skeptics. They have existed only a couple years and were a small but attentive audience. Jayson Merkley gave me an excellent introduction and we had a great time. GSoW didn’t get any new editors (at least not so far), but I planted seeds; I can only hope to hear from one or more soon. One very important thing happened when I was about to start my lecture: I received a message from Susan Lancaster. Apparently, she and her husband Robert live only a few miles away in Salem and saw that I had checked in, via Facebook, near them. She asked if I could please stop by and say hello when I could. You can read, in an upcoming CSICOP.org article, about Robert Lancaster and how he was an important inspiration for my (and others’) activism in the skeptic world.

Jeanine attended the lecture and took Paula and her camping gear to Monmouth. Deborah and I (after visiting the Lancasters) checked into the dorms in Corvallis (about forty-five minutes south of Salem).

Saturday morning, Deborah and I wandered all over the OSU campus. They had science activities, lectures, art exhibits, music, and an outdoor showing of Apollo 13 going on at night. Lots of people staying at the University, as well as locals, showed up. It is always rewarding to see families with young children enjoying science activities together, and there were plenty. As usual, I photographed like crazy and over-ate, as the cafeteria food was adequate and abundant.

Sunday night, we drove to Monmouth (about twenty minutes away) to the DeNomas. Their property is idyllic: a large two-story cabin with a deck surrounding most of the exterior sits on a side of the mountain with a large field below. The O4SR group had outdone themselves; it was a giant potluck food fest. Yes, I over-ate again. The DeNomas have many tables, benches and porch swings all over the deck, and with at least twenty people attending the spaghetti feast, no matter where you sat you would find great conversations. As soon as I got there I popped down in a shady spot on a porch swing overlooking the fields, with friends on each side of me. The weather was perfect and one of the family dogs took up the rest of the swing and rested his head on my lap to be petted. This was my idea of heaven; I could have stayed the night in that spot.

Monday morning, we drove back to Monmouth, arriving at 6 am for breakfast. We were greeted by Jeanine coming to us with arms wide open, saying “Look at what a beautiful clear day I’ve arranged for the eclipse.” Yes, the weather was perfect. The DeNomas have a giant kitchen island, which made it easy for ten or more people to be frying, buttering, pouring, or whatever was needed for the thirty or so people who showed up for breakfast. I should mention that the DeNomas have thirty-two chickens, plus a blackberry bush larger than a semi-trailer. Ripe sweet blackberries and eggs were plentiful.

Another skeptic friend, Mick West, was staying in lower Oregon with family and noticed my posts on Facebook; he said he was a couple hours away, not quite in the totality. So, we invited him to join us. He got up at 4 am and drove (no traffic, he said) with his wife Holly and father-in-law John to the event. I’ve interviewed Mick for CSICon, and you can read it to learn more about him. He got some amazing photographs of the eclipse, so be sure to look him up on Facebook.

After breakfast, almost twenty people from the O4SR group, and the next-door neighbor and his friends, hiked up Coffin Butte to a clearing at the top where we had an unobstructed view. This was serious business; people began setting up tripods, video cameras, and folding chairs and claiming spots to view the eclipse from, but there was a giddy happiness to everyone. Many of us were strangers to each other, but no one cared; we were all together about to witness something really special. It was quite wonderful just to be there with others who cared. We watched two planes in the sky circling our area; maybe they were NASA flights or just pilots hoping to experience the eclipse from the sky. Birds also circled around; everything was just a normal August morning.

As I came to experience the experience of eclipse watching, more so than the actual eclipse, I set up a tripod to video the people watching the event unfold.

One of the first things we noticed was how the changing light made the shadows of the leaves appear crescent shaped. Then we looked at the shadow of our hands and saw small lumps in between our fingers as if they were webbed. I was surprised at how emotional the experience was for me and others. It became so cold, something I hadn’t really thought would happen. The birds stopped flying around and the crickets became very loud. You probably have read about (or saw yourself) what this was like, so I don’t need to go into too much detail. It was really surreal, especially the diamond ring. What surprised me the most was how bright everything became with only a sliver of the sun being visible after totality ended.

Once it was over, everyone was friends. No one talked about politics, which seems to be a part of every conversation these days. The experience was unifying, and I’m so glad to have been with a great bunch of people.

We went back down the mountain, and lazed around on the cabin’s deck. I started uploading photos, and the entire trip can be found documented on my Facebook page. After a few hours, John DeNoma had a BBQ ready and we gorged on plenty; and yes, once again I ate too much.

Deborah, Paula, and I drove back to Salinas on Tuesday morning. We encountered no problems at all. We asked people we met at a gas station what the weekend was like for them. The man we talked to said that it was really busy, but nothing they couldn’t handle; the rush was over by Monday night. We didn’t know what to expect on the drive home; we had planned to stop half-way, but since we had a clear path ahead of us and three drivers, we kept driving and made it to my home in Salinas in fourteen hours.

The whole experience was wonderful. I met some terrific people, got great photos, and spoke about GSoW to a local skeptic group and to many people at the DeNomas. I learned a lot too, and not just about eclipses. The O4SR group has a lot of great plans in store for the upcoming years, and they are also sponsoring more scholarships to CSICon in Vegas this October.

I vote that all total eclipses should happen in Monmouth each year; who do we talk to about that?

Thank you, Rob Palmer and Stuart Jones, for your proofreading skills.

Susan Gerbic: Hello, Maria. I don’t think we have actually met in person, but I have so enjoyed your lecture at CSICon 2016 as well as your podcast The Grift. You will be speaking again at CSICon on Friday, October 27, at 9:30 am. I know you are extremely busy these days, but I hope you have a few minutes to answer some questions for CSI readers. Can you give a bit of background on who Maria Konnikova is?

Maria Konnikova: Of course. I’ve been a full-time writer for just over a decade. I write about human nature, culture, literature—basically, whatever catches my fancy. I do have a PhD in psychology, so my work often has a psychological angle. My first book, Mastermind, was about Sherlock Holmes’s thought process; my second (The Confidence Game) was about con artists; and now I’m working on my third (The Biggest Bluff) about my journey into the poker world. I also host a podcast called The Grift about the world of con artists.

Gerbic: At CSICon 2016 you talked about confidence games. What do you have in store for us this year? I think it has something to do with luck and how we perceive its influence over us?

Konnikova: Indeed. It’s the theme I’m exploring for my next book:  the balance of skill and chance in our lives and how we can tell the difference. How do we figure out what we can’t control and adjust our decision-making accordingly? It’s actually a very difficult thing to do, and we have lots of cognitive biases that work against us. I’ll be talking about those as well!

Gerbic: Well that should be timely as you will be telling us about this in a casino. As I said I very much enjoy The Grift podcast. People in my social media world know I’m very interested in what Mark Edward calls “grief vampires,” people who claim to talk to the dead and try to get a hook in the family. Please tell us that there will be more episodes or how you intend to expound on the subject of grifters.

Konnikova: We haven’t quite landed on timing yet, but yes, I would love to do a second season of The Grift. And I have to say, a lot of the themes are cropping up in my journey through the land of poker. The themes that con artists bring out are endlessly fascinating to me, so I don’t expect to stop thinking about them any time soon

Gerbic: In February 2016, one of my GSoW editors Janyce Boynton wrote a Wikipedia page for one of your books, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (2013). So far that Wikipedia page has been viewed over 14,000 times. Reviewers seemed to think the book was very science-based, but thought of it more as a self-help book. Is that an odd distinction for a science book?

Konnikova: I think it is certainly odd. I didn’t mean it as self-help, in the sense of giving people concrete tips or steps for self-improvement. That said, I tried to focus on themes—specifically, mindfulness—that are central in improving your thinking and well-being. So, I think one can easily extrapolate from the book to personal ways of improving your own thought process. Still, some readers were miffed that there weren’t more concrete tips in the book itself, after reading reviews that suggested there would be. I had a hard time explaining that that had never been the point.

Gerbic: I hear you keep yourself very busy and that poker has become one of your hobbies. Is there anything that has surprised you about that world, and do you think it will influence what you write?

Konnikova: Poker hasn’t become a hobby; it’s the topic of my next book. I’m spending several years immersed in the world of high-stakes poker to explore the themes of chance and skill that I’ll be talking about at CSICon. The book won’t be a poker book as such; I’m using No Limit Hold’Em as a sort of metaphor for life. But the narrative structure will be following my journey from novice to pro, to give some storytelling drive to the underlying themes.

Gerbic: You mentioned in the Out Loud podcast that you did not speak English when you started Kindergarten and that influenced your career choices. Can you expand on that?

Konnikova: I was born in Moscow and came to the U.S. not speaking any English. I think that being immersed in a foreign world, in every sense, made me more sensitive to the nuances of language and communication. And that fascination in turn contributed to my decision to become a writer.

Gerbic: You are in Vegas now. Where were you brought up at?

Konnikova: It’s funny that you say I’m in Vegas now. It certainly feels that way, even though I’m actually still based in NYC. I’m just spending a lot of time out there because of poker. The game is still illegal in New York, and many of the biggest tournaments take place in Las Vegas. I’m not a fan of the place, to be honest. It’s always a relief to come back home to the East coast, which is where I’ve spent most of my life. My family moved to the Boston suburbs when we emigrated from Russia. I went to a public school, Acton-Boxborough, about forty minutes outside of Boston. I went to college at Harvard and then moved to New York right after graduation. I’ve been in the city for over twelve years now.

Gerbic: Thank you so much for your time, Maria. I look forward to seeing you at CSICon

Konnikova: Thanks for having me! It was a pleasure.

La homeopatía no funciona, su promoción conlleva graves riesgos para la salud y no debería financiarse con dinero público, acaba de decir el Consejo Asesor Científico de las Academias Europeas (EASAC), organización formada por veinticinco academias científicas nacionales de la Unión Europea, las de Noruega y Suiza, la Federación Europea de Academias de Ciencias y Humanidades (ALLEA), la Academia Europaea y la Federación Europea de Academias de Medicina (FEAM), esta última entidad como observadora.¹ “Cualquier efecto de los productos homeopáticos en uso clínico puede explicarse por el efecto placebo, un diseño pobre del estudio, una variación aleatoria, la regresión a la media o el sesgo de publicación”, sentencia el EASAC en una declaración pública.

El negocio anual de los productos medicinales homeopáticos y antroposóficos superaba en 2015 en la UE los 1.000 millones de euros y en Estados Unidos los 3.000 millones, según un informe de la Coalición Europea de Medicamentos Homeopáticos y Antroposóficos -grupo de presión de partidarios de esas prácticas- que cita el EASAC. Los grandes mercados europeos de la homeopatía –y también los grandes fabricantes– son Francia, Alemania, Italia y España, y “las farmacias son el principal canal de comercialización de los productos homeopáticos”, cuyo negocio crece en la UE un 6% anual. Ante esta situación, la declaración del EASAC es un importante paso en la lucha contra la expansión de esta pseudoterapia en Europa, ya que no deja lugar a dudas sobre la postura de la comunidad científica: la homeopatía es un timo peligroso para la salud.

Los autores recuerdan que los fundamentos de la homeopatía -que lo similar cura lo similar y que una sustancia es más potente cuanto más diluida esté-  de que las afirmaciones científicas hechas para la homeopatía “son implausibles e inconsistentes con los principios establecidos de la química y la física”. “La proposición de la homeopatía de que su eficacia puede explicarse mediante la memoria del agua carece de fundamento científico y es implausible”, sentencian. Tras revisar la literatura científica, un comité de doce investigadores presidido por el virólogo alemán Volker ter Meulen concluye que la presunta efectividad de la homeopatía no es tal, sino que se debe principalmente al efecto placebo y que cualquier beneficio potencial de éste tiene como contrapunto, en este caso, importantes riesgos para la salud individual y colectiva.

Etiquetado engañoso

“La promoción y el uso de productos homeopáticos conlleva riesgos importantes. En primer lugar, que suponga para el paciente una demora en la búsqueda de atención médica apropiada, basada en las pruebas, o, peor aún, se le disuada de hacerlo. En segundo lugar, al socavar en general la confianza del paciente y del público en la naturaleza y el valor de la evidencia científica para la toma de decisiones en la atención de la salud y otras prioridades sociales”. Es decir, el daño causado por el homeópata va más allá del individuo y afecta a toda la sociedad, ya que también alimenta la desconfianza hacia la ciencia y el conocimiento basado en pruebas. Además, “la homeopatía plantea preocupantes problemas sobre el consentimiento informado si los profesionales de la salud recomiendan productos que saben que son biológicamente ineficaces”, apunta la EASAC.

El Consejo Asesor Científico de las Academias Europeas destaca que la homeopatía se beneficia en la UE de una legislación que permite etiquetar sus productos como medicamentos sin necesidad de demostrar su efectividad, sólo con que sean inocuos. Y recuerda cómo academias científicas nacionales como la sueca, la húngara y la británica –las tres miembros de la EASAC– han reclamado que los preparados homeopáticos se sometan a las mismas pruebas experimentales que cualquier otro clasificado como medicamento. El documento no es exhaustivo en la relación de dictámenes de instituciones científicas sobre esta práctica, que sólo en España se enfrenta al rechazo de la Organización Médica Colegial (OMC), de las tres sociedades científicas farmacéuticas y de la Real Academia de Farmacia, así como de un creciente grupo de profesionales de farmacia reunido en el colectivo FarmaCiencia. El presidente de la OMC, Juan José Rodríguez Sendín, ha dicho, por ejemplo, que la homeopatía es un proceso “ilusorio y engañoso” que pertenece “al mundo de las creencias”.

En la misma línea que la Comisión Federal de Comercio de Estados Unidos, la EASAC reclama que el etiquetado de los preparados homeopáticos cumpla la legislación europea, que exige en todos los productos empaquetados la exposición de la lista de ingredientes con sus cantidades. Frente a eso, los preparados homeopáticos incluyen en sus etiquetas el nombre científico de las sustancias que presuntamente llevan y el grado de dilución. Así, ponen 2C en vez de 0,01% y 30C en vez de 0,0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001%, lo que resultaría mucho más informativo para el consumidor. Como destacan los científicos europeos, es “poco probable” que el usuario entienda sin los porcentajes que esos grados de dilución implican que el preparado tiene una mínima parte o nada de principio activo. “La publicidad y la comercialización de los productos y servicios homeopáticos deben ser reguladas para ser exactas y claras: las afirmaciones publicitarias sobre su eficacia y seguridad no deben permitirse sin pruebas demostrables y reproducibles”, añaden los firmantes.

La EASAC pide a la UE que tome medidas frente a esta pseudoterapia en lo que respecta a experimentación, legislación, etiquetado y mercadotecnia, así como en la educación pública. Y, por supuesto, que la pseudoterapia no se financie públicamente. ¿Tomarán de una vez cartas en el asunto los legisladores europeos o seguirán bailando al son que marca la industria homeopática? Como me decía el escéptico argentino Alied Pérez Martínez tras conocer el dictamen de los científicos europeos, “¿qué más falta para terminar con éste timo millonario?”.

1. El Consejo Asesor Científico de las Academias Europeas (EASAC) está formado por Federación Europea de Academias de Ciencias y Humanidades (ALLEA), la Academia Europaea, la Academia Austriaca de Ciencias, la Real Academia para las Ciencias y las Artes de Bélgica, la Academia Búlgara de Ciencias, la Academia Checa de Ciencias, la Real Academia Danesa de Ciencias y Letras, la Academia Estonia de Ciencias, el Consejo de Academias Finlandesas, la Academia de Ciencias Francesa, la Academia Nacional de Ciencias de Alemania, la Academia de Atenas, la Academia Húngara de Ciencias, la Real Academia Irlandesa, la Academia Nacional del Lince, la Academia Letona de Ciencias, la Academia Lituana de Ciencias, la Real Academia Holandesa de Artes y Ciencias, la Academia Noruega de Ciencias y Letras, la Academia Polaca de Ciencias, la Academia de Ciencias de Lisboa, la Academia Rumana, la Academia Eslovaca de Ciencias, la Academia Eslovena de Ciencias y Artes, la Real Academia Española de Ciencias, la Real Academia Sueca de Ciencias, la Real Academia Suiza de Artes y Ciencias, y la Sociedad Real. Además, figura como observadora la Federación Europea de Academias de Medicina.

Bob Novella is one of the founding members of the popular The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe podcast that started in May 2005. He and the rest of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe rogues will be speaking at CSICon, October 26–28, 2017, at the Excalibur in Las Vegas.

Susan Gerbic: Thanks for agreeing to do this interview with me, Bob. I last saw you at LogiCal LA in January. You did a podcast panel with Brian Dunning and Ross Blocher. I learned a lot about what goes on behind the scenes. How have you managed to keep doing this week after week for over ten years?

Bob Novella: There's so much that has kept me coming back to that microphone these past 640 weeks. My love of science is paramount of course. I adore talking about not only the latest scientific advances but also the potential of near and far-future technologies. I've been conveying my passion about things like colliding galaxies and the future of nanotechnology for most of my life.  I probably won't rest until we have literally reached the limits of science and technology.  Imagine an iPhone infinity.

Hanging out once a week for hours with the guys and Rebecca and now Cara is definitely hilarious and enlightening, and I would do that even if we never recorded a single word. Perhaps after we die we'll release recordings of our banter that never made it into the show.

Some of the most important reasons we all keep coming back happen when we engage with listeners through emails or face-to-face at cons. Their enthusiasm revitalizes us. Sometimes it's hard to even know what to say when we are told that we helped people during rough periods of their lives, or helped them turn away from a life of pseudoscience, or even motivated them to get advanced science degrees.

Gerbic: Besides James Randi (everyone’s favorite), who have you really enjoyed interviewing? Is there someone you would have liked to score an interview with but haven’t?

Novella: There's just so many fantastic interviews to choose from. If I had to decide, it would have to be Christopher Hitchens. We were all in awe during that interview, but it was especially satisfying to see Steve in awe of someone since, as a Vulcan, he rarely displays emotions. My main memory is him sitting there drinking and chain-smoking the whole time and reciting hilarious dirty limericks.

I would love to interview John Oliver. He's not often seen as a skeptic, but he has often touched on skeptical topics on his show. His combination of humor and facts is probably one of the best ways to bring our message to mainstream audiences.

Gerbic: I know that you are a major Halloween fan; you start preparing months in advance. Corn mazes, decorations at home, and personal costumes. You will be speaking at CSICon this year near Halloween. We are going to have a Zombie Disco party on Saturday night. Do you have some amazing Star Trek Zombie costume planned?

Novella: I do take Halloween pretty seriously. Some would say I'm obsessed but I prefer to call it passionate-beyond-all-reason.

I have everything all mapped out for my home Halloween theme and costume this year. Unfortunately, it's harder to corral six or so skeptics into agreeing on what our group costume should be. All I can say now is that we are still in discussion as to the best group costume idea for CSICon.

Star Trek zombies? Hmmmm.

Gerbic: Thanks, Bob! This is going to be an amazing conference.

As I write this, it is over a week since a man in a Las Vegas hotel room used assault rifles to shoot 489 people at a music festival, killing fifty-eight, and people are still asking why. The shooter appears to have acted entirely alone and had neither a history of mental illness nor connection to a radical cause. The victims were at a country music festival, and they appear to have been targeted simply because they were gathered together in a large crowd. According to the New York Times, the lack of an obvious motive has “put enormous pressure on federal and local investigators to find answers.” This case of mass shooting is somewhat different from the many others we have witnessed in recent decades, but I believe the explanation is there in front of us. We just don’t want to accept it.

The shooter’s goal was to set a record: to kill as many people as possible all by himself and to become famous for doing so, simply because he could. He officially accomplished his goal the morning after the incident when the Las Vegas Municipal Police Department announced that fifty-eight people had been killed—a death count that exceeded the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida—and cable news stations immediately labeled the event “the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.”

The shooting appears to have been approached with the same determination as an effort to summit Mount Everest or break the land speed record. The shooter assembled the equipment necessary over a period of several months and designed the event to kill and injure as many people as possible. The New York Times reports that he may have evaluated other outdoor concert venues and sporting events before settling on the Route 91 Harvest country music festival in Las Vegas, which suggests the motive had no connection to gambling or the city of Las Vegas in particular. Although the shooter took his own life, the only note left behind in his hotel room contained numbers that appear to have been calculations of the trajectory from the hotel to the music festival below. The attack was only ten minutes long, but it took a substantial amount of planning and preparation.

More interesting than the shooter’s motive is our need to find a motive for him. If the perpetrator of these horrible incidents can be labeled mentally ill or terrorist or, as Vice President Pence chose to call the Las Vegas shooter, “pure evil,” then the many other variables that facilitated the event all but disappear. Once a label is given, we can turn our attention to fixing the perpetrator’s label. There are familiar calls for better mental health screening and more effective identification of terrorists. The “pure evil” explanation is somewhat daunting because it doesn’t point to an obvious call to action—except, perhaps, for the most reliable one of all: #PrayForVegas. Thoughts and prayers have not stopped this parade of slaughter, but they are the most universally accepted responses to any national disaster.

Far from being an impulsive act, this was an elaborately planned and determined effort to do as much damage as possible. Lacking other explanations, we should consider another variable that has not received much attention. Like all of us, the perpetrator lived through many recent mass shootings, and he must have been familiar with the way they are covered in the media. He must have known he had a good chance of being killed in the episode, but he could be certain of one thing. If successful, he would be famous, and the massacre he created would go down in history.

The day after the Las Vegas Route 91 festival shooting, one hundred and forty-seven scholars, professors, and law enforcement professionals signed an open letter to members of the media mentioned in Steven Pinker’s tweet below.

An Open Letter to the media from crime experts regarding rampage shooters: Don't Name Them, Don't Show Them. https://t.co/cuUKgU549A

— Steven Pinker (@sapinker) October 3, 2017

In the open letter, these professionals pleaded with members of the media to take specific actions in an effort to discourage future attacks:

• 1. Don’t name the perpetrator.
• 2. Don’t use photos or likenesses of the perpetrator.
• 3. Stop using the names, photos, or likenesses of past perpetrators.
• 4. Report everything else about these crimes in as much detail as desired.

Notably, the signers acknowledged that they did not always agree about how to respond to violent attacks, “However, all of us agree that it is important to stop giving fame-seeking mass shooters the personal attention they want” (emphasis in the original).

On occasion members of the media have tried to follow some of these guidelines, several of which have been advocated in the past. On the Friday night after the Las Vegas shooting, Anderson Cooper of CNN hosted an hour-long broadcast focused entirely on the victims, and he began the show by stating very clearly that he would not be naming or showing images of the perpetrator. The focus would be on the victims entirely. But elsewhere on his and other networks, hours of programming was devoted to understanding the mystery man who had orchestrated this event, and both the shooter’s name and image were used.

The recommendations of the open letter are very good, but in my view, they don’t go far enough. The minute you call the event the “largest mass shooting in modern American history” you have given the perpetrator a huge reward, and this description has been used continuously since the day after the event. Even Anderson Cooper repeated this phrase in his show devoted to the victims. The Las Vegas shooter did not live long enough to hear those words spoken on television, but he undoubtedly died believing he had broken a record. Furthermore, the next competitor in this horrible contest, whoever he may be, now knows the bar he must surpass to push the total higher.

In an ideal world, I would limit all coverage of the shooter and the methods used to accomplish the act—particularly on television because in our modern world being on television remains the clearest measure of fame. Soon after the episode is over—even if, as in this case, there are unanswered questions—any additional coverage should be limited to the victims and those who responded to the emergency. As more information related to the perpetrator and methods become available, perhaps this could be disseminated in print media only. Although these changes are unlikely to happen, it should be noted that, in the interest of deterring future crimes, the media in both Canada and Finland have adopted policies that prevent revealing the identities of some or all mass shooters.

Conflicts of Interest

In the standard formula of mass shooting coverage, the media gives considerable time to the usual host of proposed solutions: gun control legislation, mental health policy, and anti-terrorism measures. But for obvious reasons, the role of the media is rarely discussed. Wall-to-wall coverage of big news events is a ratings bonanza—it is, in fact, cable news’ reason for being—and as a result, the networks have a substantial conflict of interest. We see countless interviews with pundits speculating about why the killer did it, but the elephant in the living room is the media’s role. The very people who are showing us hours of programming aimed at figuring out the Las Vegas shooter are, in part, the answer to their own questions. It is also noteworthy that, despite being signed by many prominent crime and law enforcement professionals, so far the open letter has not received any coverage in the media.

In reaction to the Las Vegas shooting, conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly said that the massacre was “the price of freedom,” and without question he is right. O’Reilly was referring to the freedom to own and use firearms, including semi-automatic assault rifles, but we also pay a price for freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In the case of mass shootings, that price is measured in lost lives. The evidence suggests that fame-oriented shooters kill in larger numbers. Furthermore, behind all these freedoms is a free market. Both the media companies and gun manufacturers are profit-making operations, and in the United States, we are loath to limit free enterprise. The question we all should consider is: How long do we want to keep paying this price? Are there some reasonable restrictions on our many freedoms that would allow more of us to live long enough to enjoy them?

Final Thoughts

Without question, the drive to become famous is not an entirely satisfying explanation for the Las Vegas mass shooting. Most people who had the killer’s knowledge, resources, and need for attention would not do something this horrible. Although some parts of the explanation for this event may remain opaque to us, we should not blind ourselves to factors that are both under our control and likely to save lives. There are things we can do.

Those words were spoken by my favorite science podcast host, Nate, from “The Show About Science,” on the thirteenth episode of his show, which was devoted to superstitions. At the time he said this, Nate was just halfway to being thirteen-years-old himself, but he understood the arbitrariness of numerical superstitions. Unlucky numbers in various cultures all tend to be at the low end of the number line (4, 13, 17)—perhaps with the exception of the biblical 666—and because they are low numbers we encounter them on a regular basis. Larger airports in the U.S. often to have a Gate 12 and a Gate 14, but not a Gate 13. Many hotels and office buildings skip the 13^th floor and, instead, have the elevator labeled …11, 12, 14, 15.... The owners hope the people with rooms on the 14^th floor will not think too much about what floor they are really on. In many cases, this is undoubtedly a simple financial decision on the part of business that don’t want to take a chance on anything bothering a potential customer. Indeed a 2007 Gallup poll found that 13 percent (yes, 13!!) of Americans would be bothered by being assigned a 13^th floor hotel room. Nine percent reported they would ask for a different room.

Although many people are superstitious, skeptics and science-minded people like the young Nate are not superstitious. On Halloween weekend, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), a notoriously unsuperstitous group, is having its annual conference, CSICon 2017, in Las Vegas again this year, because, of course, skeptics are also not afraid of ghosts and goblins. In contrast, gamblers tend to be a superstitious lot, and a number of the hotels in Las Vegas are said to skip the 13^th floor. However—and, to my mind, fittingly—CSICon will be held at the Excalibur Hotel, which DOES have a 13^th floor. Want proof? Easy enough. It turns out you can find anything on YouTube, and someone has posted a video (actually several videos) of the Excalibur elevator in use. As the screen shot below clearly shows, the Excalibur has a 13^th floor.

Credit: Youtube

I don’t know whether the organizers of CSICon have looked into this or not, but I think it would be great if the conference-goers were all placed in a block of rooms on the 13^th floor. CSI has a long tradition of sponsoring the Superstition Bash on Fridays the 13^th . At these events you can walk under a ladder or safely break a mirror, which can be much fun. So it seems very appropriate to have skeptics flaunt the 13^th floor superstition at the conference. I know I would enjoy it.

However you spend this Friday the 13^th , let it be a happy and anxiety-free day. There are always things we can worry about, but Friday the 13^th shouldn’t be one of them. “It’s just a number, right?”

The use of galvanometric devices to make health assessments is commonly referred to as electrodermal screening (EDS) or electroacupuncture according to Voll (EAV). Last year, I tested myself with a leading EDS device forty-three times in ten days and found that the results were preposterous. In addition to my experience, this article describes the history of EDS devices and why I believe they should be banned.

Background History

Electrodermal screening devices are said to measure and react to skin resistance to the passage of low-level electrical current. At least forty have been marketed during the past sixty years. Proponents attribute their origin to Reinhold Voll, a West German physician/acupuncturist who asserted that skin resistance is related to the health of the body’s internal organs. In 1958, he combined Chinese acupuncture theory with galvanic skin response measurements to determine what he said was the body’s flow of “electro-magnetic energy” along “acupuncture meridians” (Barrett 2016a).

Voll’s first transistorized model—the Dermatron—was a box with two gauges, several dials, and wired components that would be placed in contact with the patient’s skin. The device emitted a tiny direct current that flowed through a wire to a metallic cylinder that the patient held in one hand. Another wire went from the device to a probe that the operator touched to supposed “acupuncture points” on the patient’s other hand or a foot.

The Dermatron measured the electrical resistance of the patient’s skin at each point touched by the probe and displayed it on a gauge as a number from 0 to 100. Voll declared that readings from 45 to 55 were normal (“balanced”), readings above 55 indicated inflammation of the organ “associated” with the meridian being tested, and readings below 45 suggested “organ stagnation and degeneration.” Homeopathic products would be administered and the patient retested until everything was determined to be “balanced.” Other early devices, such as the Vegatest, added a honeycomb into which vials of remedies could be placed to test whether their contents would supply the hoped-for balance.

Subsequent EAV devices replaced the gauge with a computer that reflected the measurements on its screen, reported what organs might be affected, suggested what products might be most useful, and added dietary supplements and herbal preparations to the recommended product mix. Some systems, most notably the INTERRO, used a dedicated computer, whereas others provided software that would run on a standard computer.

As these evolved, the products being tested in vials were replaced by computer codes said to represent the products, and software was programmed to display elaborate charts, pictures, and lists of body areas, symptoms, diseases, and supposedly corrective measures. Most recent systems don’t use a probe but have the patient continuously connected through one or more components that serve as electrodes. ZYTO devices use a hand cradle that plugs into a computer. The iTOVi Nutrition Tracker uses a hand-held scanner that plugs into a smartphone loaded with an app that generates recommendations (Barrett 2017a).

The INTERRO. One probe is held in the patient’s hand. As the other probe is touched to the patient’s other hand or foot, a bar rises on the right side of the computer screen, accompanied by a noise. The reading supposedly determines the status of various organs of the body. After the alleged problems are “diagnosed,” glass vials containing homeo- pathic solutions are placed in the metal honeycomb and the tests are repeated to determine which will correct the alleged “imbalances.”

I stumbled onto the fakery of these devices during an investigation of homeopathy for Consumer Reports magazine. In 1986, after testing me with an INTERRO device, the clinic proprietor said I had a number of electromagnetic blockages plus “temporomandibular joint stress, probable subclinical allergies, and possible mild early preclinical arthritis” (Barrett 1987). During the testing, I noticed that the harder the probe was pressed against my skin, the higher the reading on the computer screen—which is not surprising, because pressure reduces electrical resistance and makes the current flow better from the probe to the skin. A few years later, I learned that placing products into the honeycomb of a Vegatest device had no effect on its readings (Mosenkis 2001). This was no surprise because glass does not conduct electricity, so even if the products emitted electric signals, they could not escape from the vial.

The current market leader of EDS systems appears to be ZYTO Technologies of Lindon, Utah. Its users include chiropractors; naturopaths; acupuncturists; massage and colon therapists; “holistic” dentists; veterinarians; physicians who purport to practice “integrative” or “complementary” medicine; and unlicensed “nutritional consultants,” “wellness consultants,” “health coaches,” and distributors for multilevel marketing companies that sell dietary supplements and/or herbal products.

ZYTO’s Claims

According to the ZYTO website, “Just like a doctor uses a stethoscope to listen to a child’s breathing, the ZYTO ‘listens’ to the body’s subtle galvanic skin response” and suggests corrective measures (ZYTO 2017b).

To run the test, the hand cradle is connected to a USB port on the practitioner’s computer, and the patient’s hand is placed with palm and fingers touching corresponding metallic areas on the device. The practitioner then launches the software program and selects the type and scope of test from menus that appear on the computer screen. The software then generates numbers and graphics that supposedly indicate (a) whether the function of various organs and body parts are “in range” (favorable) or “out of range” (unfavorable) and (b) which products, procedures, and/or dietary measures show the most “coherent responses” (those that will bring the values “within range”). Changes in skin resistance are said to trigger what gets matched.

ZYTO says that its software sends “digital signatures” (unique code numbers) to the body and determines “the body’s degree of preference” for measures that will make the body most “biologically coherent.” To have their products considered during the test process, manufacturers submit them to the company, which creates a “library” of digital signatures for each product plus a brief description of what the product can do. “Libraries” are available for the offerings of more than 200 companies. ZYTO’s software is also said to contain signatures that represent the condition of various organs, teeth, and spinal segments—all of which, the company claims, are connected through acupuncture meridians (ZYTO 2017a).

The stated goal of the test is to match the supposed characteristics of the patient to the products, services, and/or dietary advice that the practitioner can provide. The Internet-advertised prices of scans run from $10 to $250, but the recommended products often cost hundreds of dollars more. Testing can be done in the presence of the practitioner or done remotely though the Internet by connecting a purchased or borrowed hand cradle to the client’s computer. Many practitioners aim to scan everyone who consults them. One provider in Virginia, who has no relevant license but offers remote testing throughout the world, states that he has done more than 20,000 scans.

Last year, I was able to access a ZYTO system (the Elite 5.0) and see whether repeated testing could produce consistent and meaningful results (Barrett 2017b). As far as I know, no similar study has ever been published.

My Test Results

Using myself as the subject, I ran three series of tests. The first was a basic scan that supposedly evaluated my internal organs. The other two were nutritional “biosurveys” to determine what I should or shouldn’t eat.

The basic scan is said to determine whether “biomarkers” are in or out of range for twenty organs: adrenals, bladder, gallbladder, heart, hypothalamus gland, kidneys, large intestine, liver, lung, pancreas, parathyroid, pineal, pituitary, prostate, small intestine, spleen, stomach, testes, thymus, and thyroid. My basic scans generated reports that were eight to thirteen pages long. Shown below are portions of six pages from one of my reports. The findings for the organ biomarkers are displayed with a colorful full-page bar graph and as positive or negative numbers elsewhere in the reports.

Selected pages from a ZYTO report

The colorful bar graph purports to show whether biomarkers for each of twenty organs are “out of range.” The greater the supposed problem, the longer and redder the bar that crosses the vertical “range line” in the middle of the bar graph. Most scans have a bar for every organ, but this one failed to detect the author’s adrenal glands, prostate, and testes. The other pages state which spinal segments, acupuncture meridians, or teeth have relevant problems and which products can correct the alleged problems.

Table 1 shows the results of sixteen basic scans, with four done within an hour on each of four consecutive days. These scans found means of 69.2 biomarkers and 11.4 organs that were “out of range,” but the organs specified and the supposedly corrective products—a mean of 5.3 per scan—varied considerably from one test to another. The organ with the highest “out-of-range” score, positive or negative, also differed from test to test. Four reports highlighted my adrenal glands; three chose my small intestine; two chose my heart; two chose my thymus; and the other six tests each identified a different, supposedly problematic, organ. Only four of the sixteen scans had any organs “within range.”

The numbers are said to represent the body’s response to code numbers that represent the organs listed in column 1. The soft- ware determines a range (baseline) value, compares the response numbers with that value, determines whether “biomarkers” are within that range,” and recommends products that supposedly will bring “out of range” biomarkers back “in range.” ZYTO reports list the “out-of-range” numbers in a table. The numerical value of the “in range” numbers can be derived by measuring the bars in the bar graph, but their direction is not specified, so they are listed here as “±” numbers. The furthest out-of-range numbers (displayed here in bold-face type) are said to require the most attention. If a table cell is empty, no organ response was reported. All numbers are rounded to the nearest integer.

Even though I have no gallbladder, this organ was reported to be positively “out of range” four times, negatively “out of range” four times, and “within range” eight times. I have benign prostatic hypertrophy, but my prostate did not show up in one scan and was reported to be positively out-of range in seven, negatively out of range in four, and within range in four.

ZYTO claims that its nutritional surveys can determine “which foods and supplements are right for you” (ZYTO 2016). The test reports can be configured to assess food categories, “top negative foods,” and/or “all positive in-range foods.” The food categories are additives, beans/legumes, beverages, dairy/egg, fat/oils, fish/seafood, fruits, grains, meats/poultry, miscellaneous, nuts/seeds, spices/seasonings, sugars/sweeteners, and vegetables.

To explore how the food biosurveys work, I conducted twelve food-category tests and fifteen individual-food assessments. The resultant reports were two to four pages long.

The food-category tests were completed within one hour. As shown in Table 2, the test reports recommended avoiding a mean of 6.4 categories per test, but not necessarily the same ones. Ten of these tests recommended avoiding grains, nine recommended avoiding nuts and seeds, and eight recommended avoiding fruits and vegetables. Five recommended avoiding all fruits, vegetables, and grains. One recommended only sugars/sweeteners; one recommended only beans/legumes; and one recommended only beverages, fish/seafood, meats/poultry, and spices/seasonings.

The numbers are said to quantify the body’s response to code numbers that represent the listed food categories. The positive numbers are food categories that should be included in your diet. The negative numbers represent the “top negative foods” that should be avoided. The “Avoid” column is the number of times the “top negative” list included the group. All numbers are rounded to the nearest integer.

The individual-food tests were done in two groups. First, there were ten tests that assessed common foods. Two days later, five tests assessed a larger food list. Both groups took less than an hour to complete. As with the basic scans, the individual-food scores were wildly inconsistent, with many foods scoring “positive” (recommended) on one test and “negative” (not recommended) on another administered a few minutes later. For example, pineapple and red potatoes were listed seven times among the top negative foods and three times among the most positive foods.

The claim that ZYTO scanning can provide clinically useful information is preposterous. To demonstrate that a device is capable of measuring something, it is necessary to validate its accuracy and consistency with repeated tests. My basic scan results were so inconsistent that they could not possibly be clinically meaningful. In addition to being inconsistent, my food-category biosurveys recommended excluding so many foods that the resultant diets could be extremely unhealthful. Statistic analysis using Cohen’s kappa to compare the results to one another found that they did not differ significantly from random.

To demonstrate that a device can detect organ pathology, it is necessary to do controlled studies of people who have that condition and people who do not. To demonstrate that administering a product or procedure can improve outcome, it is necessary to study whether people who are treated do better than similar people who are not. A Medline search for “ZYTO” in the title yields no relevant publication.

ZYTO Technologies has not explained how it can construct or validate its organ assessments or product libraries without any underlying clinical studies. Nor is there any logical reason to believe that skin resistance is related to organ health or what people should eat. But even if magical explanations were found, the ZYTO system’s moment-to-moment variability would still render its findings useless.

Electrodermal screening tests are not only worthless but potentially harmful. In addition to money wasted on the test and useless products, the harm can include (a) needless worry about nonexistent medical problems suggested by the test reports, (b) the cost of medical care involved in seeking reassurance, (c) failure to seek appropriate medical care for real problems, and (d) the consequences of malnutrition due to excessive dietary restrictions.

Government Regulation

In 2011, ZYTO Technologies obtained 510(k) clearance from the FDA to market its hand cradle as a galvanic skin response measurement device (Eydelman 2011). Clearance merely requires “substantial equivalence” to a device that was previously cleared or approved. It is not the same thing as approval, which requires that clinical trials demonstrate safety and efficacy for its intended purpose.

Because moistness of the skin affects its ability to conduct an electrical current, a few galvanic skin resistance devices have legitimate medical use in managing sweat-gland disorders. Aside from this, however, skin resistance has no proven or logical relationship to the diagnosis or management of any medical problem. ZYTO’s 510(k) application and software registration did not indicate that the device would be used for diagnostic purposes.

ZYTO’s marketing materials state that its devices are “not intended to be used in the diagnosis, cure, treatment, mitigation, or prevention of any disease or medical condition.” However, “intended use” is based on the context in which a device is used and is not necessarily changed by the use of disclaimers or contrived terminology.

In 2015, the FDA warned ZYTO Technologies Inc. that “the promotion of the ZYTO Hand Cradle for use in diagnosing a disease or condition, predicting biological responses to a wide range of virtual stimuli including drugs and nutritional supplements . . . fall outside of the device’s cleared intended use to measure galvanic skin response and constitutes a major change or modification to the device’s intended use.” The FDA also objected to the claim that “ZYTO’s technology measures your body’s responses to a specific library of nutritional products, asking your body which it prefers” (Mitchell 2015).

In 2016, presumably as a result of FDA pressure, ZYTO Technologies announced a voluntary recall of 1,252 ZYTO Select and Elite software programs due to “claims exceeding the 510(k) clearance” (FDA 2016). ZYTO has modified some of its marketing language, but there is no reason to believe this will influence how practitioners use its devices.

Marketers of the iTOVi Nutrition Tracker state that it is a “general wellness device” that does not require FDA clearance or approval. Some of its claims are similar to the language used by ZYTO to which the FDA objected, but whether the FDA will do anything about the iTOVi remains to be seen. The use of EDS devices by practitioners is subject to regulation by the states. Some states have taken disciplinary action, but there has been no systematic effort to discourage EDS use (Barrett 2016b).

There is no scientific evidence or logical reason to believe that galvanic skin response testing can determine a person’s health status or strategies for health improvement. I believe that all such devices and associated software that are used for these purposes should be removed from the marketplace. •

Barrett, S. 1987. My visit to the Nevada Clinic. Nutrition Forum 4: 6–8. Available online at http://www.homeowatch.org/articles/nevada.html.
• ———. 2016a. Quack electrodiagnostic devices. Quackwatch (June 4). Available online at http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/electro.html.
• ———. 2016b. Regulatory actions related to EAV devices. Quackwatch (July 11). Available online at https://www.quackwatch.org/02ConsumerProtection/eav.html.
• ———. 2017a. iTOVi scanning: Another test to avoid. Device Watch (March 7). Available online at http://www.devicewatch.org/reports/itovi/overview.shtml.
• ———. 2017b. Close examination of a ZYTO electrodermal screening system. Missouri Medicine July/August (in press).
• Eydelman, M.B. 2011. Letter to Vaughn Cook re 510(k) number K111308. August 30. Available online at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/cdrh_docs/pdf11/K111308.pdf.
• FDA. 2016. Class 2 device recall: ZYTO Select software and ZYTO Elite software. FDA website (July 1). Available online at https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfRES/res.cfm?id=147046.
• Mitchell, L.M. 2015. Warning letter to Vaughn R. Cook, May 8. Available online at http://www.fda.gov/ICECI/EnforcementActions/WarningLetters/ucm446687.htm.
• Mosenkis, R. 2001. Examination of a Vegatest device. Quackwatch (September 4). Available online at http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Tests/vegatest.html.
• ZYTO Technologies. 2016. Which foods and supplements are right for you? (August 25). Available online at http://zyto.blob.core.windows.net/zytosite/en/pdf/food_and_supplements
  _infographic.pdf.
• ———. 2017a. Vectoring your health with Dr. Cook. YouTube (February 17). Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94BzwSlfzuE.
• ———. 2017b. Understanding ZYTO reports. Available online at https://www.zyto.com/learning/understandingzytoreports/; accessed March 20, 2017.