Not magic

I got in a friendly argument online a few days ago with someone who finds my reliance on the scientific method "limited."  (His word.)

He accepts science, he said, but added that if that's your only way of understanding, there's stuff you'll miss.  "There are features of reality that science can't, or won't, study," he said.  "Science deals with what is tangible and quantifiable; there are other ways of knowing that allow you to access what is intangible and unquantifiable.  Without those, you're ignoring half of the universe."

The whole thing put me in mind of biologist Stephen Jay Gould's idea of non-overlapping magisteria -- that there are different domains of inquiry, and science only addresses one of them.  (Gould considered religion to be one of those other magisteria -- and that science and religion could coexist just fine unless one chose to tread on the other's toes.)

The problem with this is that science has been progressively chewing away at the other magisteria, as more and more of the universe is explained scientifically.  Phenomena that were thought to be utterly mysterious are now accounted for by rational scientific models -- heredity and tectonic activity are just two of many examples.  (In some realms -- such as legal documents -- we still have vestiges of this older way of thinking, in calling certain natural occurrences "acts of God.")

Even some religious people are uncomfortable with this approach.  Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer referred to it as "the God of the gaps," and pointed out the most obvious problem with it:

How wrong it is to use God as a stop-gap for the incompleteness of our knowledge.  If in fact the frontiers of knowledge are being pushed further and further back (and that is bound to be the case), then God is being pushed back with them, and is therefore continually in retreat.  We are to find God in what we know, not in what we don't know.

So accounting for a phenomenon using some not necessarily religious, but non-scientific, explanation is basically nothing more than the argument from ignorance; "we don't yet know how this works, so it must be beyond science to explain."

Emphasis on the word "yet."

Take, for example, the bleeding polenta of Padua.

[Image credit: Exploring the Invisible]

In 1819, there were reports of what some were calling a miracle and others a work of Satan -- the appearance of what seemed to be drops of blood in polenta, bread, and other starchy food.  Whatever it was did look convincingly like blood, as you can see from the above photograph.  Italy in the nineteenth century was a devoutly Roman Catholic country, and the phenomenon was considered a "sign" (of what, depended upon whom you asked; some thought it was a harbinger of the end of the world, unsurprising considering how often this claim still comes up).

But a chemist at the University of Padua, Bartolomeo Bizio, firmly believed that there had to be a natural, rational cause for the spots.  He obtained samples of the red-stained food, and very quickly discovered two things: (1) if he put a drop of the red material on a sterile dish of starch, it rapidly developed red streaks as well; and (2) when he looked at some of it under a microscope, he saw cells -- but not blood cells.  Whatever it was might have the same color as blood, but it wasn't blood.

It was, in fact, a bacteria, which Bizio named Serratia marcescens -- the genus name after Florentine biologist Serafino Serrati, and the species name from a Latin word meaning "decay."  The red color comes from an organic compound called prodiogiosin.  Serratia marcescens has been found to be a more-or-less ubiquitous bacteria in soils and on moist surfaces -- it's responsible for the pinkish color that sometimes shows up in spoiled food and around the edges of unscrubbed sinks and drains.

It's a simple example, but it does show how "it happened because of something supernatural" is not really an explanation at all.  It is, in fact, a way to stop thinking.  Bizio started from the standpoint of "let's assume this has a rational cause," and it was only because that was his baseline assumption that he was able to take the step forward into understanding it.

Now, don't misunderstand me; it's not that I'm sure that science can explain everything, and it's certainly not because I think science has explained everything.  It's more that before we jump to a paranormal answer, we'd better make sure we've ruled out all the scientific ones first.  Because in the past two hundred years, the other magisteria have gradually shrunk as science has explained more and more of the universe.

As the inimitable Tim Minchin put it: "Throughout history, every mystery ever solved has turned out to be -- not magic."

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Thicker than water

People on the left side of the political aisle are currently engaging in a good bit of gloom-and-doom prognostication.  I try not to make predictions -- I've found that almost always, such attempts to look ahead don't work.  The universe always seems to have surprises in store for us -- some of them far better than we'd hoped, others far worse than we'd feared.  In any case, foretelling the future is generally a losing game.

This time, though.  I dunno, folks.  2017 is looking pretty dire.  I say that not as some kind of political pundit, which heaven knows I'm not.  I'm saying this because...

... the blood of St. Januarius didn't liquefy a couple of days ago.

St. Januarius is an interesting figure, largely because there's a huge and complex story about him even though modern historians are uncertain whether he ever existed.  The short version is that he was a third-century holy man who helped out Christians during the reign of the virulently anti-Christian Roman Emperor Diocletian, and for his trouble got shoved into a fiery furnace (that didn't work), thrown into a pit filled with wild bears (that didn't work either), and finally beheaded (that worked).  The earliest historical sources that mention him date to the sixth century, so right there it casts a little doubt on his life history, even if you don't count the miracles.

The Martyrdom of Saint Januarius (1631), by Artemisia Gentileschi [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

Fast forward to 1389, when a relic of St. Januarius showed up in Naples, Italy (where he is known as St. Gennaro).  It was a vial of the saint's blood, obtained when he was beheaded in 305 C. E. or thereabouts.  Where it had been for a thousand-odd years is anyone's guess, but it was immediately revered as a holy relic, especially when it was found that the blood spontaneously liquefied three times a year.

Skeptics have speculated for some time about how the whole liquefaction thing happens.  Robert Todd Carroll, in The Skeptic's Dictionary, said that the "miracle" can be duplicated using a mixture of chalk, hydrated iron chloride, and salt water, and was due to a property of certain liquids called thixotropy -- they become less viscous the more they're shaken, stirred, or agitated.  (A common example is ketchup.)  So predictably, my thought is that it's a non-miracle that relies on purely natural physical properties of whatever it is that's in the vial.

But of course, the true believers don't like that idea.  Especially now that (gasp) the blood didn't liquefy on schedule.  They say that this only happens when a disaster is about to strike -- such as in 1631 (before an eruption of Mt. Vesuvius), 1939 (right before World War II), 1943 (when Italy was occupied by the Nazis) and 1980 (right before an earthquake struck).  Of course, those are hardly the only bad things that have ever happened, so one has to wonder how many times the blood liquefied and something awful followed, or didn't liquefy and there was a disaster.

This hasn't stopped people in Naples from panicking, of course.  The Catholic powers-that-be have tried to calm everyone, to little effect. Monsignor Vincenzo De Gregorio, Abbot of the Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, said, "We must not think of disasters and calamities.  We are men of faith and we must pray."

Or, possibly, stop believing in medieval superstitions and look for rational explanations for stuff.  That could work, too.

Of course, apparently the saint has been giving us hints of disaster all year.  When Pope Francis visited the Chapel earlier this year and said the Lord's Prayer over the vial, the blood only "half liquefied."  Whatever that means.  Archbishop Crescenzio Sepe said of the event, "The blood has half liquefied, which shows that Saint Januarius loves our pope and Naples."

The pope wasn't quite so sanguine.  "The bishop just announced that the blood half liquefied.  We can see the saint only half loves us.  We must all spread the Word, so that he loves us more."

Righty-o.  And now the blood didn't liquefy at all, which means St. Januarius doesn't love us at all, or (according to the legend) that something really dreadful is about to happen.

I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, however.  Given the world's current state, something really dreadful is pretty likely to happen anyhow, regardless whether some obscure saint decided to warn us ahead of time.  And besides, since the saints are supposed to be pretty powerful and able to work miracles and all, don't you think that there'd be a more direct way of warning us than having his blood liquefy?  How about the saint putting big letters in the sky spelling out "WATCH OUT THERE'S GOING TO BE AN EARTHQUAKE?"  Or having celestial trumpets blare, and the saint's deep, booming voice shout out, "There's going to be a volcanic eruption in the middle of downtown Omaha, you probably should evacuate?"  Or simply having the saint tell Donald Trump to tweet about it?

In any case, I'm willing to wait and see what 2017 has in store.  My guess is it'll be a mixed bag as always, although considering the fact that the incoming Cabinet appointments have all been selected from the Daddy Warbucks Fan Club, it could be a rough ride.  So we'll have to wait until the next scheduled liquefaction, which is in May, if the Earth isn't hit with a giant asteroid or something before then.

The lure of young blood

You hear a lot about how we're a youth-obsessed culture, but really, humans have always been.  The ancient Greeks had a real mania for youth and beauty.  Witness the myth of Endymion and Selene, for example.  Selene, the goddess of the moon, saw the shepherd Endymion asleep one night, and thought he was so drop-dead handsome that she asked Zeus to keep him perpetually youthful -- and perpetually asleep.  So he did, proving that sometimes being blessed by the ancient Greek gods was as bad as being cursed.

On a darker note, we have the lovely figure of Countess Elizabeth Báthory of Hungary, who has been called the "most prolific female serial killer in history" -- the number of her victims perhaps being as high as 650.  Besides being a psychopath and (to put not too fine a point on it) crazy as a bedbug, Báthory allegedly liked to bathe in the blood of young women as a way to preserve her own youth and vitality.  It was this practice that she's best remembered for, and why she apparently was (along with Vlad the Impaler) the inspiration for Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Portrait of Countess Elizabeth Báthory [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I bring the whole blood thing up deliberately, because some research published just this week seems to indicate that there might be something to the whole youthful-blood thing after all.  Not bathing in it, however, or any other sort of superstitious nonsense, so don't start laying plans for beating the Blood Countess's record, or anything.

Researchers at Harvard have shown that there is a protein in blood that apparently functions to maintain physiological youthfulness.  More interesting, especially to us middle-aged folks, is that introducing that protein into the blood of an older animal seems to reverse the effects of aging.

Amy Wagers and Lee Rubin of Harvard's Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology did a pioneering experiment in aging by first surgically fusing the circulatory systems of a young and an old mouse, and second, injecting an old mouse with a blood protein called "GDF11."  Both procedures had the effect of reversing the symptoms of aging in the heart, skeletomuscular system, and brain.

"I cannot recall a more exciting finding to come from stem cell science and clever experiments," said Doug Melton, co-chair of HSCRB.  "This should give us all hope for a healthier future... We all wonder why we were stronger and mentally more agile when young.  And these two unusually exciting papers actually point to a possible answer: the higher levels of the protein GDF11 we have when young.  There seems to be little question that, at least in animals, GDF11 has an amazing capacity to restore aging muscle and brain function."

Human trials of GDF11 are scheduled to commence in three to five years.

I find the whole thing simultaneously thrilling and terrifying.  I'm no great fan of aging; I'm getting to the "gray hair," "way too many smile lines," and "forgetting what I was about to say" stage myself.  And the one thing I'm truly afraid of is debility.  I can honestly say that I'd rather be dead than bedridden and dependent.  So the idea that I might be able, with a simple injection of a protein, to restore some of my youth and vitality is pretty attractive.

On the other hand, aren't there some ethical issues here?  Not least the idea that we're already, as a species, using up far more than our fair share of Earth's resources, largely because of our explosive population growth in the past two hundred years?  A population surge that was caused by our eradication of childhood diseases and increased life span because of improved medical care?  If we really could reverse the effects of aging -- and likely further extend human life span, at least amongst the privileged individuals who could access this treatment -- would that not exacerbate the problem?  Is doing something that would allow the rich greatly extended life spans truly a ethical thing to do?

I'm not sure I know the answer to this.  Nor, if someone came up to me right now with a nice little syringe filled with GDF11, whether I'd have the moral backbone to say, "No, thank you."  It seems to me to fall into that scary realm of something that looks extremely attractive but is ultimately destructive.

Which brings to mind yet another Greek myth -- the story of the goddess Eris and the Apples of Discord.

So maybe the capricious and smite-happy Greek gods might have something to teach us, after all.

The Masonic Red Cross vampire conspiracy

Well, I have reached the woo-woo equivalent of Nirvana.  I just ran across the single stupidest claim in the world.  This one beats the previous odds-on favorite, which was the medicines that you pay for online, and which then download directly into your body as you sit in front of your computer monitor.  Because of quantums, of course.  Everything woo-woo has to be because of quantums.

But nope.  That one is a weak second-place finisher by comparison to what showed up on the David Icke forums last week.  Are you ready?  Here we go:

You shouldn't participate in Red Cross blood drives.  Because the Red Cross is working hand-in-glove with the Masons, who then use most of the donated blood to drink in their Satanic, animal-sacrificing, devil-worshiping rituals.

If you don't believe me, here's the link.  But in case you're understandably reluctant to push David Icke's hit tracker up, and give him the impression that what he hosts on his website is even vaguely connected with reality, I will quote the relevant passages for you.

So we have all heard of the Red Cross, and how they hold blood drives around the world.

In America, many of these blood-drives occur at your local Masonic/Satanic Lodge.

We, as donors, are misled into believing that this donated blood will "saved the lives" of many people, and no doubt a LITTLE of this blood DOES help save lives. But there is something more sinister, more satanic, goin gon [sic] with these blood-drives than meets the eye.

Clearly, 90% of the donated blood is, literally, drank by Masons, Illuminati, and the Church, with about 5% going to help those who need it, the rest spoils before it's used.

Oh, clearly.  Do go on.

The Red Cross could care less if you live, and prefer that you die. But the demand for "fresh" blood by these Vampires is what started this whole blood donation thing. Think about it. Someone from your family needs blood, then a family member can donate within a few minutes. If there are no family members alive to donate, then a list a people willing to donate is/has been/still is, available. Nothing better that "super-fresh", minutes-old blood.

But you see, people like the Royals in the U.K., the scum buckets in The White House, Senate, Congress, your local Masonic Mayor, Police Chief, Masonic business owners....well, they drink blood like you and I drink beer.

Blood is the "life" in a body, and these vampires believe that drinking blood will keep them young (and other reasons).

The Red Cross. Feeding Masonic/Illuminati Vampires for decades. If you give to this Masonic controlled organization....STOP IT.

Righty-o.  And that explains why the Red Cross is always on the scene in disaster-stricken areas -- so they can find new and helpless victims.  To exsanguinate.  And then bring the fresh blood to the Masons, so they can drink it.

Mwa ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Initially, I hoped that this was just the work of one lone wacko, and that no one else could possibly believe it other than the delusional individual who wrote it.  So when I came across this post, I Googled "Masons Red Cross blood drinking rituals," thinking that I'd get "No Relevant Results," and would have my faith in humanity assuaged.

This turned out to be a mistake.  I got over 30,000 hits.  The first few not only implied that the Masons and the Red Cross were working together to deprive you of your life's blood, but that they were in cahoots with various combinations of the following, depending on which version you go for:

• the Vatican
• the Jews
• the Reptilians
• the Jesuits
• the Muslims
• the Bilderberg Group
• the Knights Templar
• the Rosicrucians

And I cannot help but think it is significant that the two ads on the webpage about the Masonic Red Cross Blood Drinking Conspiracy have to do with (1) removing "flouride" [sic] from your tap water because the government is trying to poison you, and (2) claims that the medical establishment has been wrong all along, and "cancer is a preventable fungus."

So.  Yeah.  I feel like this is sort of the mother lode, the most concentrated vein of sterling-pure stupidity ever discovered.  It almost makes me feel like my job as a blogger is over -- that anything I could say or do after this would be an anticlimax.

Of course, the problem is, saying "this is the dumbest idea ever conceived" is always a false statement, because no sooner do you say it than the woo-woos take it upon themselves to prove you wrong.  They take that kind of thing as a challenge.

But even so, I think they'll have a hard time beating this one.  

Blood magic

Let me tell you a story.

There once was a woman named Elizabeth Báthory, who was a countess in Hungary.  Elizabeth was very beautiful, with fair skin and long, lustrous hair, and men from all over the kingdom fell in love with her.  She married Ferenc Nádasdy, a valiant military man, and they lived happily together for years -- until he died in battle.  By this time, Elizabeth was 43 years old, and still in the prime of health, but she began to worry that she was aging and losing her famous beauty.  So she came up with a brilliant solution:

She would bathe daily in the blood of virgins.

During the next decade, Elizabeth allegedly killed 650 young girls.  History doesn't record whether it worked to keep her skin looking young.  Finally, the people in the surrounding areas rose up and demanded that something be done, despite Elizabeth's power and wealth.  Having no choice, local authorities arrested Elizabeth, and had her imprisoned for the rest of her life in Csejte Castle -- although she was never brought to trial.

She was, apparently, batshit crazy.

Blood has long been thought to have magical powers of restoration and vitality; thus the vampire mythos, and the hundreds of cultures that included blood sacrifice as part of their ritual beliefs.  The scientific world has more or less shown this all to be nonsense, with the exception that keeping your blood flowing through your arteries and veins is pretty essential to your health and vitality.  But this hasn't stopped people from believing that blood has magical powers, and there are still nutjobs running around who claim they're vampires, lo unto this very day.

And this whole wacky belief system has given rise to a new "alternative medicine" fad: the "vampire facial."

In this technique, which when you hear about it will make you wonder who the hell ever thought this could be a good idea, blood is withdrawn from your arm.  It is then centrifuged to spin out the plasma and platelets from the red and white blood cells.  The plasma and platelets are then injected into your face, in order to "stimulate new collagen growth," "get rid of wrinkles," and "revitalize the skin." 

Below is a picture of noted deep thinker Kim Kardashian getting a "vampire facial:"

And if that photograph wasn't enough to dissuade you from ever doing this, allow me to add just a couple of comments about the procedure: You are (1) poking your face full of holes, and (2) injecting fluid into those holes.  Of course your skin feels fuller.  You are also causing inflammation, resulting in the production of histamines, causing swelling.  So, okay, the wrinkles may go away for a while, rather in the fashion of pumping air into a flat tire, but as soon as the injection sites heal, the inflammation subsides, and the body reabsorbs the fluid, you're going to be right back where you started -- wrinkled, or, in the case of Kim Kardashian, dumb as a bag of hammers.

Oh, and did I mention that the cost of the treatment is $1,500?

Me, I think I'll just stick with the wrinkles, thanks.

So, that's the latest from the world of alternative medicine and "beauty treatments."  Every time I see some new thing arise on this front, I always think, "What will they come up with next?"  And I'm never disappointed, because it always turns out to be more ridiculous than the last thing.  Of course, the I-don't-want-to-get-old crew has yet to try out the Elizabeth Báthory method.  I'm not sure why.  Maybe it's because so many of them live in Hollywood, and virgins are hard to come by.  I dunno.