Some skeptical items for your consideration

   I haven't been doing much writing of any substance lately. I've mostly been posting little quickies than don't require any thought. Yes, I haven't forgotten that I owe you one more installment of the 100 movies series. That's coming. Honest!
   But here are a few little things that I've been thinking about lately.

Expelled Exposed 
   You may have heard of the soon to be released movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Or, you may not have. Ben Stein (Bueller...Bueller...Bueller...) stars in what the producers are calling a documentary about the suppression of new ideas by the scientific establishment (whatever that is). According to the film's website:

“Expelled” calls attention to the plight of highly credentialed scholars who have been forced out of prestigious academic positions because they proposed Intelligent Design as a possible alternative to Charles Darwin’s 150-year-old theories about the origins of life. Instead of entertaining a debate on the merits of competing theories, the scientific establishment has moved to suppress the ID movement in a “systematic and ruthless” way at odds with America’s founding principles, the film asserts.

   That would be quite an interesting movie to watch, I suspect, if the statement above were actually, you know, true. Unfortunately, like many other things that have come to light about this film, the statement above is a lie. The scientific establishment is quite prepared to debate the merits of the science behind the "theory" of Intelligent Design...if only its proponents would present some. To date they have failed to do so.
   Make no mistake, Intelligent Design is not a scientific theory. It is religious propaganda, and its primary proponent, the Discovery Institute, is not a scientific research facility. It is a political lobbying organisation. Lucky for us, the "scientificestablishment" is quite prepared to back up their position with cold, hard, observable fact. To this end, the website Expelled: Exposed reveals the facts behind the veil of lies being spread by the producers of this film.

A Case Of Curse Transference?
   One of the areas of our lives that is absolutely permeated by superstition is sports. Ball players take great care not to step on the chalklines as they run off the field. Hockey players will grow a "playoff beard." Basketball players will refuse to wash their socks during a winning streak. And we completely accept these silly things, as if they could possibly have any effect whatsoever on the outcome of a game.
   For the most part, these things are harmless, but the fact that so many people believe in them can lead to problems. Last week, constuction on the new Yankee Stadium in New York was delayed for five hours, at a cost of over $30,000, so workers could jackhammer through two feet of concrete to remove a Boston Red Sox jersey placed there by a former worker. Gino Castignoli, a construction worker and Red Sox fan hid the jersey just before concrete was poured for one of the luxury boxes during his one day of work on the stadium. Representatives of the New York Yankees Baseball Club called it "a very bad, dastardly act." A very bad, dastardly act. Dastardly, like tying Derek Jeter to a set of railroad tracks.
   OK, so you think you've heard everything now, don't you? You're wrong. The Yankees organisation is considering legal action. I swear, I'm not making that up. These guys truly believe that the action of burying a Red Sox jersey under the stadium could have materially harmed their ball club. I'm sorry, but that's just plain kooky.

Making a Choice
   Recently, here in Toronto, a devout Sikh man challenged the Ontario law requiring motorcycle riders to wear helmets. He could not wear a helmet, he said, because his religion required him to wear a turban, and prohibited him from covering it in any way. The Ontario Human Rights Commission ruled in favour of Balinder Badesha's challenge to the law, but a Superior court Justice over-ruled that decision on March 6th of this year. Mr. Badesha plans to appeal the decision.
   I have two questions for Mr. Badesha:

1) Does your religion require you to wear an uncovered turban at all times outside of your home?

2) Does your religion require you to ride a motorcycle?

The answers to these questions are, of course, "yes," and, "no." I don't see a conflict here.
   You see, Mr. Badesha, observing your religion is a choice you have made. Like all choices, once you have made it, you find it impacts upon other choices facing you in your life. Riding a motorcycle is also a choice. There are many alternate forms of transportation of which you may avail yourself. You could drive a car, you could ride a bicycle, you could take a bus, you could walk. If riding said motorcyle conflicts with your religion, well then, you are going to have to choose between them. But choose wisely. As far as I'm concerned, they're both dangerous practices.

But She Was On Oprah, So She Has To Be Right
   Also back in March, former model Jenny McCarthy was in Toronto for the Holistic World Expo, and spouting her load of nonsense about Autism and Vaccines to anyone who would listen. Toronto Sun columnist Michele Mandel wrote what started out to be quite a rational and skeptical article on the subject, saying:

According to McCarthy, the recent alarming rise in autism -- as high as one in 150 children -- is directly tied to the increasingly heavy childhood vaccination schedule that began in the 1990s...

 The scary thing is that no one in this town's goo-goo-eyed media bothered to challenge her controversial stand...

The scientific evidence, though, is pretty conclusive. The oft-touted link between autism and vaccination has been examined to death and endless studies have concluded there is no connection.

Somewhere along the way, however, Mandel lost the script.

So I was all prepared to completely discount the 35-year-old crusader and her Internet science. But it turns out that part of her message may actually have something to it. McCarthy credits a complete change in diet for helping to "cure" her son of his autism. After removing wheat and casein (found in milk) and adding vitamins and supplements, she noticed a dramatic change in just six months. "I do know I undid the damage that was done by vaccines," she told one local morning show, "and healed the body. You heal the body and you heal the mind and then he was able to function in society."

Mandel appears to accept McCarthy's statement at face value, leaving all semblance of skepticism behind. There are several things Mandel had overlooked in credulously reporting McCarthy's claims on this matter.

   First - and you've heard me say this before - correlation does not necessarily imply causation. Just because two things happen at the same time (or one follows the other) does not necessarily mean they are related. They might be, be it can be hard to know for sure.
   Autism is a condition marked by developmental delay. Note that is delayed development, not arrested development. It can seem like an autistic child is stuck at one level of development forever, then they can suddenly progress dramatically, seemingly overnight. It isentirely possible, indeed likely, that had McCarthy not changed her son's diet, he would still have experienced the same rapid improvement at the same time. Of course, Jenny would have just found something else to credit for the change.
   There are all kinds of alternative autism therapies out there - modified diet, heavy metal chelation, what have you - that people claim are effective. Scientific investigation has, to date, shown that they are not.

   Second, by allowing McCarthy's statement to go unchallenged, Mandel undermines a fact she presented earlier in the piece - that there is no scientific support for the 'vaccine causes autism' claim. She has allowed McCarthy to throw in her contention that she has undone "the damage done by vaccines." Even if there is something to the claim that a modified diet can have an effect on autism, that in no way points to vaccines as a cause. But Mandel allows that idea to slip back into her readers' minds by not applying critical thinking to the whole story.

   The third thing that Mandel completely overlooks is that McCarthy claims to have healed her son. She conveniently leaves out the fact that Evan McCarthy still has autism. It hasn't gone away. He just showed some developmental progress. The fact is, everything McCarthy says is complete, and utter hogwash. Mandel needed to stick to her skeptical guns all the way to the end of her article. By failing to do so, she has failed her readers. She doesn't think so. She ends by saying, "at least this prescription of hers won't cause harm." Michele, I beg to differ. If just one of your readers abandons traditional treatements and therapies in favour of the woo presented by Jenny McCarthy, then there is harm. I've said this before, too. Alternative therapies that are ineffective, are not harmless.

   There! I feel much better having got all that off my chest. Sorry to harsh your mellow.

Tags: skepticism, superstition, religion, autism, expelled, skeptics circle