You support quackery!

Government hypocrisy is rife amid the talk of a “knowledge-based economy”

Homeopathy does not work. There is no debate about this fact among rational, informed people.

Homeopathy is a sham system of medicine. It is based on two false ideas that were dreamed up by a German, Samuel Hahnemann, around 1800, before the era of scientific medicine. The first of these principles is the notion that a patient can be helped by giving a substance that would cause the symptoms in a healthy person. Thus, a homeopath gives pepper to a patient who has a fever because taking pepper makes a healthy person feel hot. Of course, there is no reason why such a treatment would work. The second idea is that the so-called medicine is made more powerful by diluting it many times — to the point where only water is left. Homeopaths claim the water somehow remembers the original speck of substance that was in it. Of course, this idea is fanciful. In other words, homeopaths give patients ordinary water, perhaps in a sugar cube. Thus, homeopathy can not work.

The danger is that homeopathy plays with people’s health, which is a serious subject. As we see too often, quackery can be a matter of life and death. Instead of seeking proper medical advice, people can waste time — which is precious in the case of a worsening illness — and money, on pseudomedicine. The winter 1995 edition of Mothering magazine listed supposed homeopathic remedies for such serious childhood diseases as measles and whooping cough. These “remedies” are as effective as waving a forked stick. In their ignorance, some homeopaths speak against antibiotics and vaccinations. Meanwhile, so-called homeopathic vaccines, which were for sale in an Auckland pharmacy, give nothing but a false sense of security. (Dr Leo Revell’s recent statement in his Waikato Times column that “vaccination is a form of homeopathy” was inaccurate and unhelpful.) Lots of dangerous nonsense is on show at the Auckland College of Classical Homeopathy’s page at http://www.nzhomeopath.com/auck/seventh_organon.htm. Inadequate law means homeopaths practice without a medical licence. Even Ricky Gorringe, the disgraced and banned Hamilton doctor who uses homeopathy and other quackery, can continue to see patients as an alternative therapist. Because it is no good and leads to dangers, homeopathy deserves oblivion.

The homeopathic industry is well established in New Zealand. It includes the New Zealand Council of Homeopaths, insurers, manufacturing pharmacies and health professionals. Caring more for profit than for patients, Southern Cross Healthcare has started selling The Wellbeing Plan, which can cover homeopathy and other nonsense, such as acupuncture and naturopathy. It is also shocking that some chemists have chosen to leave behind their ethics by selling homeopathic “medicines”. A chemist who does not know homeopathy is useless is incompetent and should be out of the field.

Worse, the Government is using our hard-earned dollars to support this twaddle. Career Services, which is a Crown Entity and reports to the Minister of Education, says it is “New Zealand’s leading provider of career information, advice and guidance.” Its government-funded website, http://www.careers.co.nz, links to the Bay of Plenty College of Homeopathy and publicises the joke qualifications available there. Indeed, homeopathy is widely taught in New Zealand, with government support. The Wellpark College of Natural Therapies, located in Grey Lynn, is a New Zealand Qualifications Authority-accredited training institution that teaches homeopathy and other quackery, such as iridology and Ayurvedic medicine. The Waikato Institute of Technology and some other tertiary education facilities teach homeopathy. Three NZQA accredited colleges teach homeopathy: the Auckland College of Classical Homeopathy, the Wellington College of Homeopathy, and the Bay of Plenty College of Homeopathy, which has branches in Tauranga, Auckland and Christchurch. The Tauranga branch, which teaches at the local polytechnic, is the country’s largest homeopathic training provider. Because it has NZQA accreditation, the college has approval for student loans and allowances by the Ministry of Education. A ridiculous course of Homeopathy for Animals is sold at the Auckland University of Technology and by videotape. It, too, is approved by the NZQA and for loans and allowances by the Ministry of Education. Fees and costs for those paying through WINZ/Student Loans for training as homeopaths can be $10,000. Thus, misguided students are wasting our money to learn quackery, with government approval.

Unless rational and informed people speak up, the situation will get even worse. The Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health, which is dominated by supporters of quackery, is pushing for the integration of homeopathy and other nonsense into our health system. Already, our taxes pay for acupuncture and sacro-cranial massage through ACC. Is homeopathy next? So much for a knowledge-based economy!

4.6 Billion Years Worth of String

Bill Taylor explains some of the thinking behind the Time-Line installation, “Genesis Aotearoa”, at Victoria University (See also Page 13)

As a lay person I entered the world of Earth Science with a sketchy understanding and appreciation of what it entailed. Coming from an arts background there was a substantial degree of culture shock. Once this had been worked through I began to experience a rich interchange of knowledge and understanding; the interface of science and art is an exciting dynamic.

The Royal Society was concerned that while I was on Fellowship I actually learnt something. Over the years I had developed some curiosity about evolution but hadn’t pursued this beyond the school’s library. Issues such as the Big Bang, 4.6 billion years of Earth history, Chaos Theory and the expanding universe were really out of my zone of appreciation. Continental Drift theory I could appreciate but my knowledge was scant.

This curiosity blended informally and naturally with an appreciation of creation myths, such as the Maori creation myth that I often used to motivate art classes. Parallel to this was a strong sense of scepticism towards Creation Science: I always felt Genesis was yet another myth.

The prime reason for creating something like the Time Line, though, was to prove the point that art and science complement each other and enrich learning at even sophisticated levels of inquiry.

In other words, the connection goes deeper than cosmetic decoration or superficial patronage. This is a mutually worthwhile and purposeful connection, one that is not so obvious with other generic arts.

Bishop Ussher and Other Fathers of Science

In the mid-sixties, while sitting fidgeting in church, my elder brother pointed to the top of the first page of his Bible and told me knowledgeably that people thought that the world began 6000 years ago. He was referring to the Ussherian date of 4004 BC. News like this fed an already phobic imagination with visions of divine catastrophes.

Later the National Geographic and its articles on Richard Leakey’s discoveries (in the late sixties and early seventies), dated in millions of years, led me to relax a bit and see the world and my place in it as a little more tenable.

The Ussherian date provides a good lead-in to the culture of science. His scholarly and scientific use of the Bible was regarded as impeccable, thorough and unreproachable. James the First was so impressed with his approach that he had the dates included at the top of each page in the edition of the Bible that bears his name.

Ussher’s work was preceded by that of Dr John Lightfoot, Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, who in 1644 gave an even more precise time of 9.00 am on 23 October 4004 BC.

Sir Isaac Newton played the same game. By his calculations the world began in 3996 BC. This conclusion caused alarm amongst his colleagues in the Royal Society. Some members’ theories that the Chinese Dynasties went back as much as 6000 years were rendered untenable.

Lightfoot, Ussher, and Newton represent through their rigour, and logical sequential inquiry into the evidence they held, the attributes of good scientists. This style of thinking would eventually undermine their original conclusions, as people sought and critiqued new evidence.

Another Year goes By…

Vicki Hyde presents the Chair-entity’s report for 2003

It’s been another busy year, mostly working behind the scenes, with the occasional burst into the public arena.

For the second year running, we celebrated Darwin Day, with a birthday cake and Darwin Day lecture in Christchurch. It would be great to see other areas join in to put February 12 on the calendar as a day to celebrate science and humanity. Anyone interested in doing this should contact me for Darwin Day support material and ideas.

The Darwin Day Collection Volume One was published in the US, with a selection of articles from New Zealand skeptics sitting alongside material from the likes of Richard Dawkins, Steven Pinker and assorted stellar luminaries. There are plans to put a collection out every couple of years as part of the international Darwin Day activities. Copies are still available from the secretary.

Following on from the discussion at last year’s AGM, we ran a Teaching Critical Thinking Competition, offering a $1000 prize for a one-page teaching resource that could be used by teachers and parents. The competition announcements were picked up by a wide range of educational publications and passed on through email groups; we also thank Jonathan Harper who kindly included posters within a mailout he was sending to schools.

Around 30 entries came in from round the country, with the winning entry dealing with assessing the evidence for the existence of the moa. We are using the entries to develop a kit which we hope to distribute to schools as part of the second competition’s promotional activities, and have applied for NZ Post Community Post support to help with that.

The 2002 AGM proposed that “NZSCICOP petition the House of Representatives for the estab-lishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Civic Crèche Case and the judicial and forensic counselling issues arising therefrom.” Moves to do so had got under way when we were contacted regarding what has been termed the “VIPs’ petition”. The suggestion was that Parliament would find it more difficult to ignore a petition coming from those perceived to be influential members of the community. The committee agreed to put their support behind this initiative, and I signed the VIPs’ petition as Chair of NZCSICOP. We also provided information on the petition and its later expansion, via the website and email alert list.

The petition is very similar to the motion as passed at the 2002 AGM:

“We the undersigned petition the House of Representatives to urge the Government to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry, presided over by a Judge or Judges from outside the New Zealand jurisdiction, to enquire into all aspects of the investigation and legal processes relating to the Christchurch Civic Crèche case. This case is one of great public and professional concern, and raises serious questions about the administration of justice and the working of existing laws, which must be addressed.”

Media contacts continued throughout the year, with requests for television appearances, expert advice and commentary. Among the contacts were Isola Productions, NZ Radio Training School, Bay of Plenty News, Plains FM, Newstalk ZB, and Next magazine. UFOs were a big thing at one stage, with no fewer than four independent contacts in the space of two months.

The National Radio Sunday Supplement provided a useful slot to publicise our concerns. At the beginning of the year I covered problems with homeopathic “vaccines” being sold in Auckland and, interestingly, made contact with the president of the NZ Homeopathic Society, who was equally concerned. Should these vaccines rear their heads again, we’ve agreed to issue a joint release condemning the practice! Another Sunday Supplement concerned the topical issue of the Pan Pharmaceuticals recall, which dealt an all-too-brief blow to the credibility of the supplement industry.

We had a very intense flurry of activity when discovering by accident that the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Complementary and Alternative Health had apparently called for submissions on introducing, regulating and integrating CAM care in New Zealand. Despite contacting them fairly regularly over the past couple of years, we hadn’t made it on to their notification list…. With four days to the deadline, we managed to pull together comments and material from researchers worldwide to produce a 30-page submission, and made this available for viewing online.

The website and email alert list continued to be useful in getting information out to members, the media and the general public. As well as the CAM section, we added sections on the Christchurch Civic Crèche petition, magnet therapy, and more information flyers for downloading and printing with more in the pipeline. There is a proposal to provide full sets of the flyers to members for local distribution, and this was discussed at the AGM.

Bravo Awards were distributed as nominations came in, and have been made to Alan Pickmere for sterling work regarding alternative medicine claims in Northland; and Barry Colman for putting his money on the line with his publication of transcripts from the Christchurch Civic Crèche case. I’d encourage you all to keep an eye out for people who deserve a pat on the back as it is good to be able to be positive and, importantly, be seen to be positive.

I’d like to conclude by expressing my strong thanks to Joanna Wojnar, who almost single-handedly pulled the conference together by being our person on the ground. She’s a great example of how one person can make a significant contribution.

All the best,

Vicki Hyde
Chair-entity

Chair-entity’’s Report 2002

The year got off to a good start with a series of successful meetings run by our Auckland colleagues in conjunction with the Rationalists, and I thank those involved for their efforts. I’d also like to thank Claire le Couteur and others who, in conjunction with Philip Catton of the Canterbury Society for the History and Philosophy of Science, organised a local Darwin Day celebration at short notice. That was on February 12, and was our first participation in an international effort which should see us mark the occasion each year, culminating in 2009 with the 150th celebration of the publication of Origin of Species.

I have become the convenor of the International Representatives for the Darwin Day Project, based in the US, which is looking to encourage celebrations around the globe. A number of local Skeptics have contributed to the first Darwin Day book, to be published next month – in company with the likes of Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Stephen Pinker.

In June, I was fortunate enough to attended the 4th World Skeptics Conference and be firmly convinced, once again, that the level of quality and humour of our own conferences rank among the best in the world. One contentious debate at the WorldCon was whether religious, economic and political criticism should be a part of the skeptical purview. As a consequence, we surveyed our members to assess whether this view was supported here. It seems fairly clear that you support the distinction between those claims which are scientifically testable and those which are not, though the actual topical focus has changed over time.

We’ve produced a new edition of the membership form. These can be passed on to people who may be interested in the cause, put on file with the local library and so forth.

We’ve also started production of a series of informative brochures which will be available for general distribution in both print and online form. So far, these have included flyers on acupuncture, astrology, creation science, UFOs and others. I’d like to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Laurie Eddie of the South Australian Skeptics who has provided text files of the brochures which they produced, and which sparked our activity.

The minutes of the last AGM covered plans we had for the website, almost all of which have been put into place. These include:

  • the email alert service, which has attracted the interest of non-members
  • a members’ only section to provides access to the Video Library and the Book Library; we received an early book donation from member Al Dennard and hope to encourage more
  • extended information on the Bent Spoon and Bravo Awards, and other resource information

A proposal to run a teacher-oriented competition to encourage critical thinking and develop useful teaching resources is one that was sparked by Alastair Brickell shortly before this conference, and we look forward to it helping to raise the profile of the society. We’ll also be working on boosting the media image of the Skeptics, in response to comments from the survey. I expect 2003 to be another busy but productive year.

Hokum Locum

Yet Another Alternative to Evidence Based Medicine

Eloquence based medicine

The year round suntan, carnation in the button hole, silk tie, Armani suit and tongue should all be equally smooth. Sartorial elegance and verbal eloquence are powerful substitutes for evidence.
New Zealand Medical Journal Vol 113 No 1122 p479

Acupuncture Flunks

A comprehensive literature search has concluded that there is no strong evidence for the effectiveness of acupuncture in treating and rehabilitating musculoskeletal injuries when compared to other forms of treatment. This is similar to the conclusion of Ernst & White, who reviewed 600 references and concluded, “the only compelling evidence is that acupuncture is efficacious for the treatment of backache, nausea and dental pain.” (Acupuncture: a scientific appraisal, Ed. Ernst & White, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1999)

The National Council Against health Fraud (NCAHF) concluded in 1997 that “acupuncture is mostly a powerful placebo and/or a psychological aid for use in managing behavioural disorders.”

I intend writing to David Rankin at ACC Healthwise, to ask him how they will justify continuing to pay for unproven treatments such as acupuncture.
ACC News August 2002 Issue 48
NCAHF Newsletter Vol 20, No. 6

Water births have no proven benefit

Considering man’s status as a terrestrial mammal, the pre-occupation with water births has appeared on the scene like some kind of antediluvian regression. It seems like the more advances are made by medical science, the more people want to revert to medieval superstition or New Age silliness.

There have been few trials of water births but plenty of reports of near-drownings of newborn infants. Many years ago I was invited to attend one such birth, but my attendance was cut short when I asked if I could bring my dive gear and speargun. Those slippery newborns can be elusive! Seriously though, what’s next? Water births attended by orcas and dolphins at Napier’s Marineland? Hmmm, could be a great new tourist attraction. A clever dolphin could soon be trained to flick the newborn infant up out of the water and into the arms of the waiting midwife. There has to be an idea there for some tasteless new TV program.
Marlborough Express 12/8/02

Oxygen Therapy

As we all know, oxygen is essential for life. If something’s good for us it stands to reason that a lot more must be even better. This is the rationale for extra vitamins, food supplements and so on. Oxygen clinics are an excellent scam because if properly run there is an unlimited crowd of gullible customers. All you need is some convenient threat, for example air pollution, and you have a perfectly reasonable excuse to remedy that problem by offering people oxygen in pleasant and soothing surroundings. A clinic based in Calcutta offers twenty minutes of oxygen via nasal prongs “where customers can sink back into soft leather chairs, inhale oxygen flavoured with various scents and be lulled by soothing music.” There’s only one small problem. Our haemoglobin, the oxygen carrying pigment in the blood, is about 98% saturated with oxygen at the earth’s surface. Inhaling extra oxygen does not improve this saturation at all. In fact, I would bet anything you like that if the oxygen was substituted for clean air the subjects would feel just as refreshed and still cheerfully pay their 175 rupees. This is a classic placebo scam. Someone should start a similar clinic in Auckland aimed at the same sort of people who buy energy drinks. As WC Fields was fond of saying – never give a sucker an even break!

Fibromyalgia

Imagine a doctor’s surgery. A patient complains of tender areas everywhere. This is what I call “und here” after the German syndrome of the same name. The patient has pain here, und here und here. The doctor examines the patient and finds that they are indeed tender in the areas where they say they are tender! This ridiculous folie-a-deux has been sturdily defended by a few remaining rheumatologists. It has taken a judge to rule “evidence of physical symptoms is not evidence of physical injury” and “is not compensable by ACC”.

Fibromyalgia (aka “fibro-sitis”) is a typical psychosomatic complaint where vague malaise and non-specific aches and pains get endorsed by a group of specialists. Skeptics noted that four fifths of patients were women and it is now recognized that the syndrome is indistinguishable from chronic fatigue syndrome. (Shorter Pg313)
ACC News September 2002 Issue 49
From Paralysis to Fatigue, Edward Shorter, 1992 The Free Press

Get an Educayshun??

Until I looked at the site www.massagecollege.co.nz I had no idea that ridiculous pseudo-science such as holistic pulsing and polarity therapy could be studied and rewarded by NZQA recognition. It gets worse. Student subsidies are available from Winz. I have written to both Winz and the NZQA asking how taxpayer funds can be wasted in this manner. Watch this space.

The Wisest Fool in New Zealand?

A GP colleague forwarded me a portion of letterhead from a doctor who practises chelation therapy as well as using Electro acupuncture of Voll. I have discussed this latter quackery before. It is an evolution of the “black box” and its use by registered medical practitioners should occasion a referral to the Medical Practitioners Disciplinary Committee. When I read the list of qualifications held by this doctor I was reminded of the famous description of James 1 of England as “the wisest fool in Christendom.”

Here is the list – the meaning of most is obvious: B.Med Sc. MBChB. Dip Bus Admin. MRNZCGP, ANZIM, BSc, Dip Obst., MRACGP, MSc, FAMS, BA, Dip AvMed, MRSNZ.

The Diary of Inspector Melas

I cannot reveal how this diary excerpt came into my possession but it gives an insight into police methods in relation to the Christchurch Civic Crèche case. I reproduce it verbatim. The original has been placed with my lawyer.

Monday That damned book has won a Montana award! Called a meeting to discuss how to counter these attacks on our integrity. Det. Dixon suggested contacting the Counsellor who has been seeing B. and making good progress with regression therapy. ACC have agreed to pay for a further 1500 counselling sessions. (1703 for the mother – she’s making good progress).

Tuesday Wonderful news. B. has recovered more memories. The tunnels. I knew they existed! Material very detailed – dates, times etc. Regular underground trips involving other Cr&egraveche children in the company of known Christchurch Satanists and pornographers. Contacted Karen who confirmed that these are absolutely classical descriptions of systematic child abuse. Ordered Det. Green to obtain ground-penetrating radar.

Wednesday Phoned by some loony in Fendalton who claimed his dog was psychic and could help our investigations. Told him we don’t use that sort of unscientific rubbish. 1430: Green phoned. Promising radar returns from under the Civic crèche. The tunnel complex!!! Decide to hold press conference after we have the evidence. Told them we were on the verge of a breakthrough. Great excitement.

Thursday Meet on site with excavation team. B. present with whanau. (All our supporters.) B. has apparently remembered “dancing, poos, clowns and somebody called Lara Croft”. (NB. not one of the original accused) Probably need Karen to interpret that when we interview the suspects again and lay charges. Det. Green offered to let me break into the tunnel. Most unfortunate – hit the main sewer. Bugger. Green apologetic. Told him to sort out the mess. B. very upset and will probably need more therapy. Went home and changed uniform. Cancelled press conference.

Friday Depressing day. On the phone mostly sorting out the repair of the sewer. Called up to see the Boss – he was not happy at all. No more tunnel searches. Found two copies of the book in a second-hand shop on my way home and burnt them. Cheered up a bit. Rem – must follow up the Lara Croft lead on Monday (and clowns).

Tackling the Dumb Mysteries

Vicki Hyde reports from the 4th World Skeptics Conference

I knew Someone was smiling on me – there I was going to be stuck in Los Angeles for three days waiting for a flight back across the Pacific – and what should chance to be on at that time, in the neighbourhood, but the 4th World Skeptics Conference…

The theme was “Prospects for Skepticism – the Next 25 Years”, with sessions on evolution and intelligent design, fringe psychotherapies, urban legends, medical claims, skeptical investigations and more – it sounded like my kind of conference.

As with most skeptics conferences, national and international, the real buzz was in being there amongst a group of (mostly) like-minded people, opinionated, informed, inquiring minds.

The notion of inquiry was one taken up by Paul Kurtz, a founding father and Chair of CSICOP, who argued that perhaps it was time to get away from the “skeptical” label and rebrand ourselves as “inquirers”. It’s an argument which has its merits – there is a lot of “baggage” associated with the term skeptic, as many of us know. All too often it is taken as a synonym for cynic, or to represent a dogmatic, close-minded authoritarian view of the world.

However, I have to confess to being a little dismayed at hearing Paul call for organised skeptics to take on all areas of inquiry, including the areas of religion, economics and politics. He had made similar comments at the 3rd World Conference in Sydney in 2000, and clearly this is an important issue for him personally. Judging by discussions outside the sessions, he doesn’t have unanimous support for that, despite the apparent presumption at the conference that skeptics, by definition, had to be vociferous humanistic, if not atheistic, Democrats. It made more than just me uncomfortable, particularly when a challenge to this was knocked back rather harshly.

(As a consequence, we’re looking at finding out what our members here believe should be our core functions and focus. I suspect that we are a more diverse group than in the US, and I urge you to take part in our survey within this issue or online, to see if we have some basis for that belief!)

Those questions of who we are and what are our interests were reflected, in some respects, in the opening session, Don’t Get Taken, which saw a focus on scams, ranging from the kerbside cons of three-card monte to those of Wall Street. Amongst the sleight-of-hand and financial analysis, came a thought-provoking comment from CSICOP fellow Ray Hyman.

In discussing how con artists rely on the confidence people place in one another and in the general level of trust within a society, Ray noted that the only societies which did not see scams or cons were totalitarian ones because under such systems, trust is non-existent.

Therefore, he concluded, scams are a sign of a healthy democracy…

The next morning, it was hard to drag myself away from the wonderful range of books available from the Prometheus Books display to get to the first session on Evolution and Intelligent Design. It was worth it, as it turned out to be one of the liveliest sessions of the whole conference, putting two supporters of each approach on the stage and on the spot.

It would be hard to remain complacent about the forces behind intelligent design having seen the “Wedge” document which outlines the strong, well-supported campaign to have it taught and accepted throughout US society. It appears that the “research” component of this campaign has evaporated (apparently in response to problems associated in proving intelligent design concepts…), but there’s good evidence that the political push has been taken up with enthusiasm.

Take a look at the document (a copy is at www.antievolution.org/features/wedge.html). It’s very impressive as a strategic planning document; it’s chilling in its thoroughness and implications.

Ironically, given the public image of skeptics as dogmatic and dictatorial, the only person who came across as that was William Dembski, described as associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University and senior fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (where renewal basically means defeating the forces of godless evolution).You can get the flavour of his presentation with the following rhetoric:

“What’s a skeptic to do against this onslaught [ie the fact that intelligent design is broadly accepted], especially when there’s a whole political dimension to the debate in which a public tired of being bullied by an intellectual elite find in intelligent design a tool for liberation?”

There were lots of untenable assertions like this, which you can read for yourself at www.discovery.org/viewDB/index.php3?command=view&id= 1185&program=CRSC

Paul Nelson, editor of Origins & Design, came across as more reasonable until the Q&A session when he was asked directly if he accepted the fact that the world was more than 10,000 years old. He paused, he squirmed, he attempted to deflect it by saying that geology had nothing to do with biology(!), he attempted further digression, until he finally had to admit to being a proponent of the young-Earth theory…

I have to confess to bailing out halfway through the next session on fringe psychotherapies. Three-hour-long sessions, small hard seating and persistent problems with the technology made even those with long attention spans vulnerable to the seduction of the comfy chairs and conversations outside.

We were lured back in by the evening address from Marvin Minsky, but his disappointingly rambling address didn’t hit the spot except for this line:

“We [ie Skeptics] love mysteries too – we just want to get rid of the dumb ones.”

Saturday started off with Urban Legends, including the great researcher and raconteur Jan Brunvand (author of The Vanishing Hitchhiker), and a presentation by the online urban legend folk from snopes.com (David and Barbara Mikkelson).

Then came the hard choice – concurrent sessions on medical claims and skeptical investigation. I knew the latter would be immensely entertaining and interesting. After all, with the likes of long-time investigator Joe Nickell and the ebullient Richard Wiseman, it could not fail, but I had heard them both speak in Sydney and so headed for the medical session.

The speakers included Wallace Sampson, editor of the Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine; Stephen Barrett of quackwatch.com fame; and Marcia Angell, Harvard lecturer and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine. It was the strongest line-up of the conference and one of the meatiest subjects. One of the most memorable comments came from Stephen Barrett:

“Complementary medicine is not a form of medicine – it is a marketing slogan.”

Now how can we get that spread as a general cultural meme?!

The evening banquet was entertaining if only because we had the famously egotistic Harlan Ellison dash over to our table to grovel at the feet of a bemused-looking Jan Brunvand. Harlan was being honoured for his services to skepticism or, as noted in the conference programme, for his attempt to become the “biggest pain in the ass in the Western Hemisphere”.

And so to Sunday, when the conference concluded with concurrent morning sessions on Educating our Future and Paranormal Around the World. I would have liked to have heard of the experiences of our counterparts in India, China, Peru, Mexico and Germany, but I had been commandeered by the highly energetic Amanda Chesworth for the education session.

So I ended up on the stage, abetted by Diane Swanson, author of Nibbling on Einstein’s Brain, a book for teaching the scientific method to children.

Chemistry professor Charles Wynn, author of Quantum Leaps in the Wrong Direction, had some very promising research showing how his honours colloquium on teaching skeptical thought made a big impact on his students. Almost all questionable beliefs showed a significant drop amongst his honours students by the end of his course, but the sobering thing was just how much effort was involved in shifting those beliefs. It would be great to find out which of the various techniques were the most effective; clearly more research is required…

Biases apart, I do think that this session had the greatest relevance to the conference theme and deserved better placement, particularly when Amanda began to outline the highly ambitious programme she is running as director of the Young Skeptics and Darwin Day initiatives. We, the New Zealand Skeptics, will have a part to play in those initiatives as a result of contacts made at the conference, and I confidently predict that the next 25 years will see good prospects for us all.

Conference Highlights

  • Being pounced upon by a Fox TV crew in search of exotic accents as an example of international skepticism.
  • Figuring out a card trick top-flight magician Bob Steiner did for me, looking for the “smoking gun” move when he repeated the trick at the conference opener…and not seeing the move I expected.
  • Arguing about adverbs, religion, gun laws, science fiction movies, wines, medical treatments, with all arguments characterised by strong opinion and even stronger humour.
  • Waving goodbye to Joe Nickell as he headed off to examine what was claimed to be a genuine vampire hunting kit (we were just down the road from Universal Studios…)
  • Hearing a great example from Diane Swanson about how to get sampling errors across to school children (something our media needs help in understanding!)
  • Being able to say a heartfelt personal thank you to all those folk who provide such great online resources that make my life easier as Chair-entity of the NZCSICOP, such as Quackwatch, Snopes, Skeptic’s Dictionary, Young Skeptics, Skeptiseum.

Mormonism and Academic Freedom

When Raymond Richards included a lecture on the Mormon Church in his course on American history he ran foul of not only the Mormon community but also the University of Waikato heirarchy. He told his story at the NZ 2001 Skeptics’ conference in Hamilton.

My experience as a lecture at the University of Waikato has shown that danger to academic freedom comes as much from inside the university as from outside. University management caved in to religious radicals.

Every year, I teach the history of the United States to scores of first-year students. The course includes a lecture on Mormonism, which is the most successful religion to start in the United States. The lecture is based on the research of the most respected historians in the field. (Bibliography available on request from editor.)

After I gave the lecture in August 1998, the university’s Mediator, Bethea Weir, told me that a handful of my students were charging me with harassment. They were demanding an apology and equal time to present the Mormon view. She said she had been flooded with calls from Mormons in the community, outraged by reports of my lecture. Weir planned to process the students’ charges of harassment.

This news came as a shock to me. I had heard that the Mediator at the University of Waikato entertained dozens of harassment cases each year. Still, I was surprised to find that a university would subject a lecturer to a threatening procedure for teaching what historians around the world have known for years. The charge could lead to my dismissal.

No Controversy

To historians, there was nothing controversial about my lecture. They know the Mormon Church started as a scam. It was founded by Joseph Smith, who was born in 1805 and grew up in New York State in a poor family. Determined to make money and fascinated by mysticism, Joe made plans. At the age of 16, he said he had found a seer stone while digging a well. He claimed the stone gave him power to see buried treasure. Folk beliefs told of gold hidden by Indians and by Captain Kidd, the pirate. Some men claimed paranormal ability to find buried loot. Charming and smooth talking, Smith hired himself out as a gold digger. He would put his magic stone in his hat and, holding the hat in front of him, seek to divine buried treasure. However, this venture led to his conviction for fraud in a New York court in 1826. It was the first of three criminal convictions he received during his life.

Smith thought of another idea to make money, using the same magic stone. Now past 20 years old, he claimed that angels had visited him since he was about 14. His story changed a few times, but he settled on a version that Mormons today call “the First Vision”. He said an angel called Moroni had shown him where to dig up ancient, gold plates with hieroglyphics on them. Joe spread the news of this “golden Bible” – which would soon be for sale. He said the inscriptions were in “reformed Egyptian” (a language that never existed) that he could read, using special powers. Smith put his seer stone in his hat, held the hat to his face, and dictated the Book of Mormon. He first claimed the plates were hidden in the woods while he dictated, then he said the angel had taken them back. Smith published the Book of Mormon in 1830 and founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. He copied symbols and rituals from the Freemasons, who also tell of golden plates hidden and discovered. The fraternity’s influence is obvious in Mormon temples and ceremonies, and in the symbols on the special underwear that Mormons have on at all times.

The Book of Mormon is exactly what one would expect from farm boy Joe Smith. It shows a small vocabulary and is full of awkward prose and wooden characters. Mark Twain called it “chloroform in print.” It contains 25,000 words copied from the King James Version of Bible, which was written centuries after the gold plates were supposedly inscribed!

The Book of Mormon contained little new. Smith copied ideas from folk tales and other writers. The book tells how, about 600 B.C., a lost tribe of Israel sailed from Arabia to America, which was the promised land. Once there, they split into two factions, the Nephites and the Lamanites. Nephites had white skin and were good but prone to the temptations that come with success. Lamanites had dark skin and were bad.

According to the Book of Mormon, these Jews founded a great civilization in North America, more than a thousand years before Columbus.

They built dozens of huge cities with millions of inhabitants. They used steel – more than a thousand years before steel was invented. Elephants, lions, camels and horses co-existed with them in North America. As the story goes, Jesus visited America soon after he was crucified. He first established the Christian Church there.

But, the Lamanites wiped out the Nephites in a great battle in today’s New York State in AD 385. The Lamanites were the ancestors of the Indians. The belief that Indians were descended from a lost tribe of Israel was common in Smith’s time. In fact, Indians are Mongoloid, from Asia; they are not Semitic. Neither are Maori descended from Jews, although the Mormon Church teaches that Polynesians are descended from Hagoth, a Nephite shipbuilder! Teachers have to correct this drivel.

During that climactic battle in A.D. 385, millions of people were slain. The true faith was lost. This history survived only because the prophet Mormon wrote it on golden plates and buried them until the angel Moroni revealed the plates to Joe Smith, 1400 years later, thus restoring the true church.

It is a romantic story, but no evidence for Book of Mormon people or places has been found. The Book of Mormon tells of an imaginary world, like The Lord of the Rings. All religions have their myths, but the Mormon Church teaches this fiction as fact. That millions of people believe this hogwash is a black mark against our education system. Educators are not teaching sound methodology and critical thinking.

Each field of scholarship has its own pseudo-scholars. Geography has its flat-earthers. Biology has its creation scientists. Anthropology has chasers of surviving ape-men. Archaeology has believers in ancient astronauts. Medicine has homeopaths. Physics has inventors of perpetual motion machines. Psychology has phrenologists. Astronomy has astrologers.

History has holocaust deniers – and Mormons.

The Book of Abraham

In 1835, Smith bought mummies and scrolls that had been looted from Egypt. No one in the United States could read hieroglyphics then, but Smith said he could – by inspiration from heaven. He said that one scroll was in the handwriting of Abraham of the Old Testament. From it, he produced the Book of Abraham. Unlike the golden plates, those scrolls still exist. Scholars today can read hieroglyphics, and they say the scrolls are 2000 years too young to have been written by Abraham and that Smith’s “translation” is a fraud, nothing like the original scroll. He made it up!

Mormons still believe the Book of Abraham is inspired, and it contains striking teachings. It says God cursed Black people because in a previous existence they did not help Jesus in a fight against his brother, Lucifer.

The Book of Abraham also teaches a version of the doctrine of eternal progression, an idea known since mediaeval times. The doctrine teaches that the meaning of life is to strive toward becoming a god.

Mormons explain: “As man is, God once was; and as God is, man may become.”

Eternal Enhancement

Life on earth supposedly is but one phase in a process of our eternal enhancement. Everybody had a pre-existence as a spirit. The memory of that time is now veiled from us. Life on earth is a school to which God’s children go to gain a body and to learn. The greater your progress on earth, the greater your glory in heaven as you advance toward becoming a god yourself, governing your own planets. Righteous Mormon men who have died are now living as gods on planets unknown to us. Earth’s god lives in the heavens near a place called Kolob.

By the 1840s, Smith was showing signs of megalomania as he kept up his pose as a prophet. He set up a Council of Fifty to govern the world with him after the imminent return of Christ. Smith had himself crowned King on Earth. The Council also managed Smith’s campaign for President of the United States.

Church members had already experienced violent conflict with their neighbours, and now they fought among themselves. The bitterest controversy involved the doctrine of polygamy. For years, Smith and other Church leaders had been married to many women at the same time, while denying it. In 1843, Smith announced that polygamy was divinely sanctioned. He had about fifty wives. Some of his brides were married already, some were sisters, some were mother and daughter, and some were as young as 14 years. He proposed marriage to females as young as 12.

When an Illinois newspaper criticized Smith, he ordered its press smashed. He was arrested and jailed. A mob broke into the jail and shot Smith dead. He was 39.

After Smith’s death, the Church split into many factions, with most members following Brigham Young to found Salt Lake City in Utah. In 1896, the US Congress forced the Church to set aside polygamy so that Utah could join the United States as the 45th state. Some Mormon groups still practice polygamy. About two percent (40,000 people) of Utah’s population live in polygamous families.

Struggle for Acceptance

Since World War 2, the Church has tried hard to gain acceptance. It has stressed so-called family values. In 1995 the Church hired a public relations firm, which recommended that the Church stress the “Jesus Christ” part of its name, even though the Jesus of Mormonism bears little likeness to the Jesus of Christianity. Mormonism is a religion in its own right, as different from Christianity as Christianity is from Islam.

Church leaders continually revise Mormon scriptures and doctrines in the effort to gain wider acceptance. For example, until 1978 the Church banned Black men from the priesthood, which falls to Mormon males at the age of 12 years. US President Jimmy Carter threatened to withdraw the church’s tax-exempt status because of its racial discrimination. Within days, Church President Kimball announced a revelation from God, lifting the ban.

Racist Reputation

The Book of Abraham still says Black people are cursed, and the Church still struggles with a reputation for racism. The Church has never disowned the idea that Black-skinned people are cursed.

The Church also has a reputation for sexism. Women are not allowed in the priesthood. The Church teaches that a woman’s place is in the home, raising children. The Mormon Church has excommunicated supporters of equal rights for women.

The Church also has a reputation for hostility to intellectual inquiry, with a record of trying to silence people who disagree with it, such as myself. Mormon scholars are excommunicated, for destroying faith, if their research leads them to reveal information the Church does not like. Fawn Brodie was a Mormon and a historian who uncovered Smith’s 1826 conviction. Michael Quinn was a Mormon and a historian who discovered that the early Church included female priests. Both were excommunicated for their work. In 1998 the American Association of University Professors censured Brigham Young University in Utah for its violations of academic freedom. BYU’s goal is to provide an education consistent with the Book of Mormon. Research is subordinate to revelation, since there can be no disagreement with God’s university. BYU’s philosophy, then, is hostile to the purpose of a university.

So, what started as a scam is now perhaps the fifth biggest church in the United States, surpassing the Presbyterians. The Mormons claim 10 million members worldwide, half of them outside the United States. The annual income of the Church is $US6 billion, making it bigger than Nike Corporation. Its success, however, is a monument to a fraud.

List of Charges

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not like its history told. The university’s mediator told me the complaining students had drawn up a list of charges. They claimed I had harassed them when I said the Book of Mormon is full of awkward prose and wooden characters, and when I said Joseph Smith was a megalomaniac.

I could not believe the university was considering disciplining me instead of telling the students they had no basis for complaint. I waited for the mediator or university managers to dismiss the charges. I waited for the Vice-Chancellor, Bryan Gould, to stand by me. After a month of stress, with the threat of punishment still hanging over my head, I decided to go to the media, since sunlight is the best disinfectant.

Newspapers, radio and national television reported the conflict. I argued for scholarship and academic freedom, and Mormons as far away as Australia sent letters to the university and to newspapers, demanding my sacking. Threatening calls to the departmental secretary led to a security alert on campus. From university managers, however, came not a word.

Vice-Chancellor Bryan Gould did not speak up for his lecturer, for historical scholarship or for academic freedom. I wrote to Professor Gould, reminding him that I had every right to lecture as I had. His reply shocked me. He wrote that he would try to “provide some satisfaction to the complainants.” The Vice-Chancellor, then, would seek to please a religious group at the expense of a historian.

Sure enough, the so-called mediator suddenly announced in a press release that the students had dropped their charges – but that Mormon representatives would be debating me in public! There had been no discussion with me about a debate, but this arrangement met the Mormons’ demand for equal time. I was so angry at this imposition that I refused to go along with it. Weir then released another press statement, attacking me for not agreeing to discuss matters, making me look bad. Reluctantly, I agreed to the debate, but only if security guards were present.

The evening was unpleasant for me. The Church stacked the lecture theatre with Mormons who hissed at me and called for my sacking. Speaking for the complaining students were the local Mormon bishop, Mike Roberts, and a Mormon student leader who had not been at the lecture. Roberts admitted he was not an expert in US history, but told how he thought a lecture on the history of his Church should go. I had to sit in front of tiers of glaring faces while the student slandered me as incompetent and unprofessional. Neither she nor Roberts engaged with the historical information I gave.

The Vice-Chancellor’s treatment of me had a chilling effect on free speech at the University of Waikato. Several colleagues told me they would drop controversial topics from their courses to avoid being charged with harassment.

These days, I try to reassure them. The experience of being charged with harassment led me to learn the law regarding free speech and academic freedom. I advise lecturers charged for what they teach: Don’t negotiate, litigate! Lecturers who are disadvantaged by their employer for what they teach should sue under the 1990 New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which guarantees freedom of expression, and the 1989 Education Act, which guarantees academic freedom for lecturers and students.

Bethea Weir has been promoted. University managers are considering the disestablishment of the now vacant job of Mediator.

Historians and other scholars must be able to teach the results of research and thinking without being disadvantaged. The fact is that Joseph Smith was a swindler. There is no reason to believe angels led him to the Book of Mormon. The “history” of America taught by the Mormon Church is fiction. Seeking to satisfy Mormons who object to this information being taught is a mistake. Negotiating lecture content with interest groups is a threat to education. Fortunately, the law means there is no need for academics to pander to people who discount scholarship and the free exchange of ideas.

Newsfront

Smile for the camera

Singaporean ghostbusters are turning to hi-tech equipment as they search for paranormal phenomena, reports the Evening Post (September 9).

Singapore Paranormal Investigators say they are taking a scientific approach to prove or debunk or unidentified flying objects. The team use digital video cameras, electromagnetic field meters and thermal guns. Many pictures suggesting paranormal shenanigans turn out to be the result of reflections, one has admitted.

‘God man’ warning

Three British men have died mysteriously after becoming followers of god man Sathya Sai Baba. The Dominion (August 28) reports his activities are being studied by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which is considering issuing an unprecedented warning to travellers against the guru.

Three Britons, one of whom claimed being repeatedly sexually molested by Sai Baba, have apparently taken their own lives.

Scorn poured on Sorbonne

The Sorbonne has been denounced as a refuge for irrational academics lacking intellectual rigour. The criticism refers to the institution’s decision to award a doctorate to astrologer Elisabeth Teissier who has advised leading French personalities, such as former president Francois Mitterrand.

The Dominion (August 15) says a number of scientists have called for Mrs Teissier’s doctorate to be revoked and have poured scorn on her 900-page thesis, The epistemological situation of astrology through the ambivalence fascination/rejection in postmodern societies.

Spirit search

An international hunt for witches was launched last August – kicked off by a British medium who wants to contact the Scottish King Macbeth and lift the jinx said to overhang Shakespeare’s tragedy, according to the Evening Post (August 16).

“I’m looking for two witches,” said Kevin Carloyn, high priest of the 1600-strong coven of British white witches.

The idea was to get in touch with the real Macbeth to see if he has anything to do with the weird things which happen when the play is produced. By now, Carloyn and assistants will have been to Cawdor, Macbeth’s windswept home in the Scottish Highlands and tried to pacify the disgruntled spirit. Haven’t heard if it worked, but then plan B was to go to the top and contact Shakespeare himself.

Rebirthing tragedy

Two assistants in a rebirthing therapy session that led to the death of a 10-year-old girl pleaded guilty to criminally negligent child abuse resulting in death says the Evening Post (August 4).

The pair were assisting psychotherapist Connell Watkins in an unconventional treatment session in Watkins’ home. The girl was wrapped in a flannel sheet and told to break out to be ‘reborn’ to her adopted mother. She wasn’t breathing when she was unwrapped more than an hour later.

Oh dear…

Two Waikato researchers say deer velvet seems to have no effect on sexual performance, says the NZ Herald (July 2). The pair Helen and John Conaglen received funding by the maker of the product and were studying its effects as an aphrodisiac. The 34 men who used velvet in their experiment had hormone levels and sex drives no different from those taking placebo tablets. For more than 2000 years deer velvet, a furry skin on growing antlers, have been used in Asia to improve sexual function.

No getting away from it…

Traditional Chinese medicines are here to stay, say Chinese and US doctors in a report in the NZ Herald (July 2). Cao Zeyi, vice-president of the Chinese Medical Association said herbal medicines have worked for a thousand years on trillions and trillions of people but proof was needed.

He was at a week-long gathering of Chinese doctors and their US colleagues and delegates said they must redouble efforts to gain a Western scientific approach to prove that traditional Chinese medicines and therapies worked.

“If we can show clinical results I think my colleagues will open up to the possibility (that they work),” said Dr David Eisenberg, head of Harvard Medical School’s research on complementary therapies.

“This is a global phenomenon. Herbs and supplements are here to stay.”

He valued the worldwide supplements market at $112.93 billion in 1999.

Bad news for ghosts

Tony Cornell of the Society for Psychical Research in Britain reckons he knows why ghost sightings have tailed off in recent years – it’s cell phones!

“Ghost sightings have remained consistent for centuries. Until three years ago we had received reports of new ghosts every week,” said Mr Cornell, of Cambridge. Paranormal events, which some scientists put down to electrical activity, could be drowned out by the electronic noise produced by phone calls and text messages. (The Press, October 15)

Raising a Skeptical Family

Being a skeptical parent in New Zealand isn’t always easy, but it has its rewards. This was originally presented to the Skeptics’ World Convention in Sydney, in November.

When I became head of the New Zealand Skeptics seven years ago, the irrepressible Denis Dutton had great delight in ringing the major newspapers to announce the fact that the organisation had elected someone who was female, of Maori descent and pregnant.

“How more politically correct can you get?” he crowed triumphantly. I don’t know about elsewhere around the world, but for some reason the New Zealand Skeptics are rarely seen as PC.

What Denis didn’t know was that the gravid situation provided me with a great excuse to pass back to him the many invitations to speak to seemingly innumerable numbers of Rotarians, Roundtablers, Lions, Great Elks and other assorted male mammalian service groups. There’s nothing surer than saying you’re pregnant to get an all-male group to back off hurriedly.

I like to think of it as part of my personal crusade to singlehandedly boost the skeptical population of our country.

I must say that people seem to delight in predicting that my sons are going to grow up to be Sensitive New Age Guys. If they really want to make me nervous they add that David and Perry will be New Age, rugby-playing accountants who’ll end up working for Treasury. I can’t see it somehow – after all, they’re both fire signs…though I do find it a bit worrying that my seven-year-old has started paying attention to the stockmarket reports and cheering every time Telecom drops a few more points.

Of course, his interest-and incidentally the reason why the bulk of this audience is male-is explicable. According to psychologist Bertrand Cramer, it all relates to early adolescent experimentation with gender-specific body parts. Most notably that manipulation which causes said body parts to move and retract, which, according to Cramer:

“…presents the boy with a particular challenge in the development of the body image; this may contribute to his interest in machinery, physics and the like.

“The boy’s better spatial sense relates to the greater use he makes of space in motor activity; the ability the boy has to perceive his sexual organ may also contribute to a better representation of space and to his better skill and greater interest in experimental science and mathematics.”

One can only conclude from this that women should be over-represented as mining engineers, tunnellers and speleologists….

Anatomy and Skepticism

I must confess to a certain degree of scepticism concerning the relationship between gross, so-to-speak, anatomy and an interest in science or its handmaiden, skepticism.

I attribute my interest in skepticism to my early fascination with science and science fiction, thanks to writers such as Arthur C Clarke and Isaac Asimov. In both their fiction and non-fiction, they posed questions and looked for answers, they acknowledged the sometimes-tentative nature of their conclusions, they changed their minds when the facts built up against them. Their science was not the boring stuff of school textbooks, but involved real people trying to find answers to all manner of questions.

They raised real concerns about where the world was heading long before anyone had started worrying about the H-bomb or the China Syndrome, Dolly the cloned sheep, or global warming.

Of course, by no means have all their predictions of the future been accurate ones; nor have the predictions made from respected scientists or the even more highly respected astrologers. Arthur C Clarke knew this when he postulated his First Law which states that:

…when a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

There are times when this Law is overthrown, as noted in Isaac Asimov’s Corollary to Clarke’s First Law:

…when the lay public rallies round an idea that is denounced by distinguished but elderly scientists, and supports that idea with great fervour and emotion, the distinguished but elderly scientists are then, after all, right.

And while I read Asimov and Clarke and Sagan and Feynman, I was also reading Velikovsky and von Daniken. I tried experiments with Rhine Cards and fervently scanned the skies hoping for a close encounter of my very own. I drew up natal horoscopes in my astrophysics labs, and made more money off astrological charts than I ever did from writing astronomy columns.

But throughout it all, my tendency to ask questions, to try and look at all sides of an issue, stuck with me. That was helped by a goodly dose of debating at school and university level, probably one reason why I tend to be an equivocator.

And, if I want to get Freudian, I can blame my father. He was a staunch non-believer in gravity, and we had lots of arguments about air pressure, centrifugal forces, Newton and apples. I’m still not sure to this day whether he was having me on or not, but it taught me never to accept things at face value.

A Conundrum

The latter is something we could all do well to remember. I think the most stunning example of this I’ve seen came from a speaker we had after our annual skeptics dinner one year. We’d settled back in our chairs and were presented with the following conundrum:

Two men – James and John – are in a room. James is taller than John. John is taller than James.

How do you explain that? Just think about it for a moment. James is taller than John. John is taller than James.

Well, we had a room of 100 or so skeptics, the most critical minds in the country, and the suggested explanations were legion, not to mention ingenious. I’m sure many of you have already thought of similar solutions to the ones we came up with:

James is standing on a box but John is actually taller.

The floor slopes.

James was taller but then some time passed and John grew taller than James.

The gravitational field is different in different parts of the room.

By the time we started to argue about the effect of singularities, the speaker called a halt and put us out of our misery. There were two obvious explanations that we had failed to come up with:

He was lying OR he was mistaken.

We’re just not taught to be suspicious enough. As a species, we’re suckers for the confident conman. It’s laughable when it’s some guy with a toy submarine drumming up some tourism in a local loch; it’s not so funny when we’re asked to believe that another part of the human race is inferior based on their skin colouring or religion.

I find it sad that few people bother to ask questions. It’s an indictment really of how little critical thought enters our lives, how rarely people are prepared to think, really think, about issues that may affect them. This holds as true for any activity in which we participate, whether it’s debates on astronomy and astrology, alternative medicines and health reforms, or the way in which we choose our political representatives.

I remain highly skeptical about acupuncture and its uses, but didn’t really start to question it until a mother in my local baby group announced that her acupuncturist had said the best way to treat a baby with a fever was to bleed it. “That’s positively medieval” I gasped, only to be reassured “oh no, it’s much older than that, it’s Chinese.”

I knew this woman wasn’t going to be interested in a tirade, but I pointed out just how little blood a small baby has to lose before it gets into dire trouble. She could see what I was getting at. But maybe only because I was the closest pseudo-authority figure at the time.

Healthy, Natural Diseases

Some of these women refuse to have their toddlers immunised because it’s not natural. Somehow it’s more healthy for their children to get diseases – they’ve had measles, mumps and whooping cough so far. These are women who worry about radiation from their microwaves and electric blankets, but who drive their kids around in their urban combat vehicles without safety belts. These are women who listen to the health shop staff and buy heaps of herbs, royal jelly and megavitamins, but who automatically distrust anything to do with Western conventional medicine.

You can’t argue with them, that’s confrontational. Yet you can’t leave them to their wilful ignorance unless you’re willing to accept that the price of the New Age is an uninformed populace making decisions based on supposition and superstition.

And why worry about some ditzy women? Well, it’s said that if you educate a man, you educate an individual. If you educate a woman, you educate an entire family.

I believe that we each have a responsibility as individuals, as parents, as citizens to be educated – that doesn’t mean sending everyone off to university. What it means is having enough nous to ask questions until we can understand or, perhaps more importantly, can recognise our lack of understanding. It also requires us – whether operating as card-carrying members of the Skeptics, or simply as friends and parents – to encourage questions, to provide alternative viewpoints, to make our case effectively.

If you explain homeopathic solutions in terms of a teaspoonful of gin stirred into a Pacific Ocean of tonic, people can immediately grasp what you’re getting at when you challenge the idea of potent dilutions. Start talking in terms of moles, millifibles or inverse powers of ten and you’ve lost them.

The New Zealand Skeptics had toyed with killing two birds with one stone by taking on the homeopaths and the urine-quaffers simultaneously – we figured we’d take a glass of urine, dilute it homeopathically way past any chance of a single molecule of urine remaining and invite the press along to see the “Skeptics Take the Piss out of Homeopathy”. We weren’t confident we could explain the maths to the representatives of the Fourth Estate however.

If you encourage people to stop and think about it, they know that it doesn’t seem all that likely that a civilisation immeasurably more advanced than ours would want to travel millions of miles across space to stick things up the noses of neurotic Americans. The idea becomes even more ridiculous when you point out that the figures being bandied about for alien abductions mean that one American has been abducted every minute every night for the past 30 years. People know that there are simpler solutions. Even children can figure that out.

Effective Presentation Essential

We do need to present our case effectively, because if we don’t, the fallout can be disastrous. It’s easy to laugh at tales of UFO abductions – it’s not easy to laugh at a child’s coffin. We’ve had a huge debate in New Zealand over the past 18 months as to the rights of the parent to decide what is appropriate treatment for their children.

Many people would argue that parents have the ultimate right and responsibility. I can decide what is best for my child. After all, I’m a caring, well-educated, white middle-class parent who dearly loves her children and would do only what is best for them.

Sounds reasonable you say? But be careful. After all, I may truly believe that it is appropriate to beat my child. People do. I may think it appropriate to withhold a life-saving blood transfusion from them. Jehovah Witness parents believe this sincerely. Or I may decide that my child will be better off having quantum-boosted radio waves or happy thoughts beamed at his cancerous growth, rather than nasty chemotherapy. After all, in commenting on just such a case, the New Zealand Health and Disability Commissioner said that parents have the right to choose what treatment is given to their child.

I do wonder if the commissioner would uphold the rights of people who believe their child’s diabetes will be aided by prayer, rather than by insulin. Somehow I doubt it. After all, in one recent case, two parents were charged with manslaughter for withdrawing their 13-year-old son from chemotherapy treatment for a 15-kilogram tumour – the prayers hadn’t worked and the boy died.

Yet, in the cause celebre that was the short eventful life of Liam Williams-Holloway, it appeared that something was different. There are a number of factors that one could point to: the parents were white and middle-class, not Samoan and poor; they gained supportive media coverage from our major news celebrity Paul Holmes; and they were relying on alternative therapy, which sounds more effective and reasonable to a secular society than appealing to God.

Liam had neuroblastoma cancer, with a tumour on his jaw. It’s a difficult cancer, but when the oncologists first saw him when he was three, they thought he had a 60-70% chance of beating it if they could treat it quickly. This type of cancer has a very fast drop-off in success rate; by the time children with it reach five, they have about 15-20% chance of survival.

Chemo Courses Stopped

Liam had had two courses of chemo and then stopped. The oncologists made numerous attempts to talk his parents into bringing him back, including agreeing to alternative treatments running alongside the conventional, to no avail. Healthcare Otago eventually went to the Family Court and Liam was made a ward of the courts to enforce treatment; it’s not an uncommon outcome in this sort of case, though is more typically used to permit blood transfusion for Jehovah Witnesses’ children.

At that point, things careered out of control. The family went into hiding so they could pursue alternative treatment, in this case Rife Quantum Frequency therapy which promised to explode all the cancer bacteria in Liam’s jaw. The Holmes prime-time current affairs program portrayed them as a loving, well-intentioned family hounded into hiding by uncaring oncologists for having the temerity to question orthodox medicine. The country was up in arms about the perceived jackboot tactics of the medical profession; talk-back phonelines ran hot; the police copped it in the neck for being a party to the search for the child; the Family Court made the unhelpful decision to try to muzzle any media reports on the case.

One constant refrain throughout was that the decision to stop chemotherapy was an informed one. I was therefore dismayed to see the family citing the book “Suppressed Inventions and other Discoveries”, as a reference source; a book initially published, I am sad to say, by our own Auckland Institute of Technology.

As its name suggests, this book deals with a vast range of conspiracy theories, from NASA’s suppression of evidence for intelligent life on Mars through to the perpetual fruitless quest for free energy sources. It is the stuff of which fortunes are made by those prepared to rip off the vulnerable, and you can’t get much more vulnerable than being the parent of a child diagnosed with cancer.

The family were clearly taken in by these claims, as their next move was to head for Mexico and the Oasis of Hope Clinic in Tijuana; these clinics were featured in the “Suppressed Inventions” book also. Again they got great coverage on Holmes and other media about their fight to protect their child, about the wonderful treatment they were having – reputedly for $45,000 a month – about the dreadful things that the cancer industry were responsible for in suppressing cancer cures.

The New Zealand Skeptics gave the 1998 Bent Spoon to Holmes for exploiting a sick child and desperate parents in the name of entertainment without asking the hard questions that needed to be asked.

And while all this was going on, paediatric oncologists around the country were treading very warily. In July, a six-year-old died following his parents refusal of radiotherapy. Doctors said that the Williams-Holloway case made them wary of acting in the best interest of their child patient. In the case of the 13-year-old mentioned earlier, the parents’ lawyer argued that it was the health authorities who were negligent in not seeking a court order to enforce treatment for the boy. They, too, had been scared by the fervent public opinion whipped up around the Williams-Holloway case.

We had a publicly funded documentary follow one woman through alternative therapy to treat a lump in her throat. No mention that the alternative healer also claimed to be regularly abducted by UFOs, no questioning of his claims that cancer is caused by bacteria, no questioning of the ethics of him prescribing 35 health supplements daily from a brand in which he had a financial interest. And how did this piece of investigative journalism end – with the conclusion that the reason her lump ended up bigger over the 16 weeks of treatment was because she hadn’t believed in it enough!

We now have parents on cancer wards torturing themselves for not offering their children a less invasive alternative.

Well, to cut a long and harrowing story short, Liam died recently in Mexico. He outlasted the oncologists’ predictions by about a year, which has been taken by some as clearly indicating that the alternative treatment was working. The fact that he has died, and made front-page headlines in doing so, may, I hope, cause others to think again.

Parents Exonerated

One of the most disturbing reactions I have seen to the news came from our Commissioner for Children, Roger McClay, a man who has had the highest profile in arguing for the rights of children, who has wept publicly over cases of child abuse. His response was to exonerate the parents once again because they had made “the right choice for them” and then, astonishingly, he added:

“Whether a different course of action would have been better, there’s not much point in worrying about it now.”

Well, I’m sorry Commissioner, but there’s a great deal to worry about. When you have medical professionals paralysed for fear of a public roasting, when you have alternative therapists seemingly having full access to national publicity with no fear of demands for proof of their claims, when you have people believing that there is some conspiracy by cancer specialists to suppress cures and harm children, then you’ve certainly got something to worry about.

The Need to Question

I believe it all comes back to that need to question, and to encourage others to question. After all, we all start off with a questing spirit. Babies explore their world, and anyone who has dealt with small children is well aware of their apparently endless store of questions about how the world works.

Somewhere along the way, many people lose that desire to know, to broaden their horizons. My mother, a primary school teacher for many years, reckons this loss happens when children start to ask questions which are beyond the scope or training of their teacher. Deceptively simple questions such as “why do clouds float?” and “what makes this light work?” reveal the questioning nature of a potential scientist and – all too often – the adult’s lack of knowledge.

Some people, whether parents or teachers, feel threatened by this. It’s seen as disruptive, irrelevant, potentially disrespectful. It gets in the way of the lesson plan, or interrupts the structured bedtime routine.

Yet it is these very aspects that make children so receptive to science, so able to question.

Science writer and physics professor Chet Raymo identified the habits of mind which children have at their most creative, and which are mirrored in the world of science:

  • curiosity
  • voracious seeing
  • sensitivity to rules and variations within rules
  • fantasy

He mourned having to teach undergraduates whose image of science was of a dull, dry, boring subject devoid of interest, to be endured and then forgotten in the interests of more lively pastimes such as astrology or parapsychology.

Instead, he said, we need to convey the adventure stories that make up science, the fantasy that forms it. Small wonder that he so often cites children’s literature, whether the works of Dr Seuss or Maurice Sendak.

“In children’s books,” he says, “we are at the roots of science – pure childlike curiosity, eyes open with wonder to the fresh and new, and powers of invention still unfettered by convention and expectation.”

Don’t Despair

So don’t despair if your kids are into the latest SF, Goosebumps or Harry Potter. That doesn’t mean that they will grow up to be would-be wizards or psychic investigators. What they will learn is that there are more things in the world, Horatio, than can be found within the pages of a school textbook, and that’s never a bad thing.

My kids first started asking about werewolves and ghosts after encountering Scooby Doo on television. I think Scooby Doo has been around long enough that most of us will have watched him and his gang of kids who, every episode, unmask the villain who’s dressed up in the wolf suit or the white sheet to frighten or con someone. I hadn’t thought about Scooby Doo as an agent of skepticism, but have to wonder about the creators of this show.

There are plenty of children’s science shows produced all over the world, but few take a direct look at things of a skeptical nature. My all-time favourite has to be “Oi” which, I am proud to say, was produced in New Zealand, and which has won awards internationally. In each 30-minute show it had a segment which was pure skepticism. If the New Zealand Skeptics ever get a major bequest, I’d like to put together a Greatest Hits of Skepticism using material from “Oi”.

I’ve had some small measures of success in subverting my own children. Davey was barely three when we were in a local bookshop and he paused before a display of that bastion of Australian culture, Bananas in Pyjamas.

“We don’t buy that,” he announced. “Why?” I asked. “Because it’s commercialization.” The lady next to us was startled but I was delighted – I’d been teaching David to be suspicious of the ploys of marketers. My kids know that the sweets at the checkout counter are a trick and are determined not to be fooled. They may look longingly at the chocolate bars, but it means I don’t get the whining which can be clearly heard emanating from the other aisles.

We often talk about what’s real and what’s not, whether it’s discussing Pokemon, the TV news, Halloween, dinosaurs or whatever has taken their fancy. My children are used to me equivocating – I’m happy to preface a response (note – not an answer, but a response) with “it depends”, “we’re not sure but…” or “what do you think?”.

Over the past couple of years, David and Perry have read and reread their way through Dan Barker’s guide for young skeptics “Maybe Yes, Maybe No” which sets out the basic rules of science:

  • check it out
  • do it again
  • try to prove it wrong
  • keep it simple
  • it must make sense
  • be honest

and which concludes “it is okay to say ‘I don’t know'”.

That’s a phrase I use a lot with my children, but I usually follow it up with “let’s see if we can find out”.

You see, one of my greatest delights is discovery – new facts, new words, new ideas – and I want to do my best to encourage that delight in my children.

It doesn’t take a good reference library or Internet access, though we’re lucky to have both available at home. It can be something as simple as a walk to school.

We talk about what the weather is doing, how clouds form, the difference between fog and smog. We peer cautiously at the various items of roadkill, and consider how death and decay is a part of life. The late arrival of the Sun over the sea in winter is a practical reminder of Earth’s movement around our star. The changing bird populations on the estuary mirror changes in the seasons, as do the annual cycle of the tomatoes grown in the large glasshouse on the corner.

Pure Joy

I get pure joy when I ask David why he thinks such-and-such happens and get a gratifying moment of thoughtful silence before he makes the attempt to explain. It’s not a matter of getting things “right”, though it’s a delight when he does. It’s more a matter of virtually seeing his thought processes at work, of experiencing that fresh interest when all is new.

We do get odd looks from other pedestrians who are busy hurrying on their way. They see us examining the death mask of a hedgehog by the side of the road or stirring an oily puddle with a stick, but they don’t see our joy of discovery as we discuss why a hedgehog’s teeth are so sharp or what makes the colours on the puddle’s surface.

There’s an adage that one should “stop and smell the roses” – but you can do so much more. Why do the roses smell like that? Why aren’t roses shaped like cornflowers? Why do they have thorns?

We mightn’t be able to answer every question, but it’s the journey to those answers that provides the excitement. It’s a journey on which, as a parent, I am privileged to be accompanied.

Forum

Wellington’s Healing Touch

I was interested to read a recent article in the NZ Skeptic on Healing Touch, as I am a consultant anaesthetist at Wellington Hospital.

When I heard this “service” was to be offered to our patients, I immediately protested to CEO Leo Mercer.

During discussion he was unhappy with what he saw as my unnecessarily adversarial stance, and felt my offer to go to the police fraud squad was not a constructive approach.

My response to him was that there was absolutely no evidence that this was a proven form of healing. He replied the personal interaction between a nurse and her patient was a vital element in promoting the patient’s welfare and recovery.

I asked why dress it up in some kind of unproven mumbo jumbo, and turn it into something mystical. I also said that if this interaction had a spiritual basis, the nursing service was promoting religion, and not science or medicine, and was therefore misusing public funds.

In reply to that he asked whether I was calling for the withdrawal of the hospital chaplaincy service, which is also at least partially funded out of taxation. I said the chaplains were employed for their religious role, and no matter who funded it, they do not pretend to be anything else. Nurses are not employed as spiritual, magical, or religious advisers, and should not take on that role.

He said much of the practice of medicine has not been proven nor subjected to formal trial or analysis, a stance I agree with. However, the failings of medicine do not defend Healing Touch or anything else. What they call for is more and better scientific research in medicine, not the acceptance of anything else.

Dr Mercer agreed to raise my concerns with the senior nurses. Nothing has happened. The courses continue, and recently a seminar on the evidence supporting the energy basis of Healing Touch was offered.

Dr Mercer has now gone the way of all hospital CEOs – away from the hospital to somewhere, anywhere, else.

But the Healers Touch on.

Graham Sharpe, Consultant Anaesthetist