Source credibility and the legalization of marijuana

A particularly subtle problem in establishing whether a claim is pseudoscience, or at least flawed, has to do with source credibility.  Note that I didn't say credentials; there are plenty of smart, well-read, logical people with no degree in the field in question, and whose arguments I would consider carefully, and I've met more than one Ph.D. who gave every evidence of being a raving wackmobile.

Credibility is a different thing than a piece of paper with some Latin hanging on your wall.  It has to do with establishing that you understand the basics of rational argumentation, that you are familiar with the fundamental principles of science, and that you don't have a particular vested interest or agenda.

A particularly good example of this came my way yesterday, in the form of a New York Times editorial piece written by Dr. Ed Gogek, entitled "A Bad Trip for Democrats."  The gist of the article is that the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington last week is a terrible idea.  His arguments:

• 90-some-odd percent of patients who have been prescribed medical marijuana received it to alleviate pain.  Pain, Gogek says, is "easy to fake and almost impossible to disprove."  Further, chronic pain patients are mostly female, while 74% of marijuana users are male.
• Medical use of marijuana for glaucoma is no longer recommended.
• Marijuana is addictive, despite claims that it's not.
• Use of marijuana lowers cognitive function.

He then ends with an interesting statement:

In effect, America now has two tea parties: on the left they smoke their tea; on the right they throw it in Boston Harbor. Both distrust government, disregard science and make selfish demands that would undermine the public good. 

Now, let me be up front about the fact that I am not a pharmacologist, and am not qualified to evaluate the soundness of clinical studies of the efficacy of THC for treating glaucoma.  I do know enough neuroscience, however, to doubt his claims that marijuana is addictive; most addictive substances create addiction one of two ways, either by activating the brain's dopamine-loop pathway (such as cocaine) or by creating a rebound effect if you stop (such as heroin).  Marijuana does neither, so I have a hard time seeing how it could be addictive in the strict sense of the word.

I'm also skeptical of his suggestion that claims of chronic pain are being used as excuses to obtain marijuana.  While in one sense he is right -- it's impossible to prove, or disprove, that someone is in pain -- the idea that a significant number of patients who claim to be in chronic pain are lying remains very much to be seen.

However, even with all of those questions about Gogek's statements, I would not have been prompted to write about him on Skeptophilia if it hadn't been for one additional thing I discovered about him:

Dr. Gogek is a homeopath.

He doesn't state that anywhere in his piece; at the end, his bio statement says, "Dr. Ed Gogek is an addiction psychiatrist and a board member of Keep AZ Drug Free."  But whenever I have questions about a study -- or even a brief editorial, like this one -- I always want to find out what the writer's background is, to see how credible a source (s)he is.  And lo and behold, a quick search brought me to Dr. Gogek's homepage, wherein he makes the following statement:

Many people think homeopathy refers to all forms of alternative medicine, but it’s actually one specific type of alternative practice, very different from nutrition and herbs. Classical homeopathy works well for most medical and psychiatric problems. For people in psychotherapy or suffering from addictions, it removes roadblocks, and speeds the recovery process. And the right homeopathic remedy will also transform marriages and other significant relationships. Nothing heals and transforms a person’s life like the right homeopathic remedy.

In my experience, homeopathy can help all psychiatric problems except ADHD and schizophrenia. However, it works exceptionally well for anxiety disorders (panic attacks, social anxiety, specific phobias, PTSD and OCD), bulimia, sex and love addiction, and anger. It’s also very helpful for personality disorders and unusual problems that defy easy diagnosis.

My immediate reaction was, "And you're lecturing other people about disregarding science?"

Now, please note that the immediate loss of scientific credibility that this engenders doesn't mean that Dr. Gogek's original argument was entirely wrong (any more than a Ph.D. means a person is always right).  But it does tell me one thing; he has a serious difficulty with looking at a body of evidence, and concluding correctly whether that body of evidence supports a particular conclusion.  There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands, of controlled, double-blind experiments testing homeopathy, and not one has produced any clinically relevant results.  Not one.  The fact that he is unaware of this, or perhaps ignoring it or rationalizing it away, makes me look at other conclusions he draws with a wry eye.

Now, as far as the legalization of marijuana, please understand; I don't have a dog in this race.  I'm not a user, and have no intent to become one.  I do find it curious that tobacco, which is clearly a more dangerous drug, is not only legal, but federally subsidized, while marijuana possession can land you in jail in most states; but that isn't the only weird internal contradiction in our legal code.  What I do want to make abundantly clear, however, is that when something appears in print -- even in The New York Times -- it is always worthwhile to check source credibility.  Things, as Buttercup points out in H.M.S. Pinafore, are seldom what they seem.

Sense, nonsense, and microwaves

One of the difficulties in detecting spurious claims occurs when the writer (or speaker) mixes fact, and real science, in with spurious bits and stirs the resulting hash so thoroughly that it's hard to tell which is which.  When a claim is made of unadulterated bullshit (such as yesterday's post about ley lines), our job is easier.  Mixtures of science and pseudoscience, though, are often hard to tease apart.

I saw a good example of this yesterday, in an article on the website NaturalSociety called "Microwave Dangers - Why You Should Not Use A Microwave."  In this piece, author Mike Barrett describes the terrible things that microwave ovens do to the people who use them and to the food that's cooked in them.  Amongst the claims Barrett makes:

1. Microwave ovens heat food by making water molecules move "at an incredible speed."  This differs from conventional ovens, which gradually transfer heat into the food "by convection."  Further, this energy transfer into the water molecules results in their being "torn apart and vigorously deformed."
2. Microwaves are radiation.  This radiation can "cause physical alterations" even though microwaves are classified as "non-ionizing."  This radiation "accumulates over time and never goes away."
3. Microwave exposure has a greater effect on your brain than on your other body parts, because "microwave frequencies are very similar to the frequencies of your brain," and this causes "resonance."
4. Exposure to microwaves causes all sorts of problems, from cancer to cataracts and everything in between.
5. Raw foods have "life energy" in the form of "biophotons," that came directly from the sun.  These "biophotons" contain "bio-information," which is why eating sun-ripened raw fruits makes you feel happy.  Microwaving food destroys the "biophotons" which makes it lose all of its nutritional value.
6. Microwaving foods causes the conversion of many organic molecules into carcinogens.
7. Microwave ovens were invented by the Nazis.

Okay, let's look at these claims one at a time.

1. First, all heating of food makes the molecules move faster.  That's what an increase in temperature means.  A piece of broccoli heated to 60 C in a microwave and a piece of broccoli heated to 60 C in a steamer have equal average molecular speeds.  Ordinary ovens don't heat most foods by convection; convection heating requires bits of the food itself to move -- so, for example, heating a pot of soup on the stove creates convection, where the bottom part of the soup, in contact with the base of the pot, gets heated first, then rises, carrying its heat energy with it.  Foods in conventional ovens are heated by a combination of radiation from the heating coils, and conduction of that heat energy into the food from the outside in.  Further, heating the water molecules doesn't "tear them apart," because then you'd have hydrogen and oxygen gas, not water.
2. Microwaves are radiation.  So is sunlight.  Sure, microwaves can cause physical alterations, which is why it's inadvisable to climb inside a microwave oven and turn it on.  But not all kinds of radiation accumulate; the microwaves themselves are gone within a millisecond (absorbed and converted into heat) of when the magneto shuts off, otherwise it wouldn't be safe to open the door.  Barrett seems to be making an unfortunately common error, which is to confuse radiation with radioactivity.  Radioactive substances, or at least some of them, do bioaccumulate, which is why strontium-90 showed up in cows' milk following the Chernobyl disaster.  But your microwaved bowl of clam chowder is not radioactive, it's just hot.
3. When oscillations of one body trigger oscillations of another body at the same frequency, this is called resonance.  However, your brain does not oscillate at the frequency as microwaves -- the frequency he quotes for microwaves inside a microwave oven is 2,450 megahertz (2.45 billion times per second), which is actually correct.  Brains, on the other hand, don't oscillate at all, unless you happen to be at a Metallica concert.
4. Agreed, exposure to microwaves isn't good for you.  Thus my suggestion in (2) above not to get inside a microwave oven and turn it on.
5. There is no such thing as a "biophoton."  You do not absorb useful energy in the form of photons in any case, for the very good reason that you are not a plant.  The only "bio-information" we have is our DNA.  Sun-ripened fruit may taste better, as it's ripened more slowly and has a longer time to develop sugars and esters (the compounds that give fruits their characteristic smell and taste), but microwaves don't destroy "life energy."  This bit is complete nonsense.
6. Microwaving food may cause some small-scale alterations of organic molecules into carcinogens, but so does all cooking.  In fact, the prize for the highest introduction of carcinogens into food has to be awarded to grilling -- the blackened bits on a charcoal-grilled t-bone steak contain polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known carcinogens.  The problem is, they're also very tasty carcinogens, which is why I still like grilled steaks.
7. Microwave ovens weren't invented by the Nazis.  The first microwave oven was built by Percy Spencer, an engineer from Maine, in 1945.  The mention of the Nazis seemed only to be thrown in there to give the argument a nice sauce of evil ("anything the Nazis invented must be bad").  But it's false in any case, so there you are.

So, anyhow, that's my analysis of Barrett's anti-microwave screed.  He's pretty canny, the way he scatters in actual facts and correct science with poorly-understood science, pseudoscience, and outright nonsense; the difficulty is, you have to have a pretty good background in science to tell which is which.  All of which argues for better science education, and better education in critical thinking skills.  But any effort I make in that direction will have to wait, because my coffee's getting cold, and I need to go nuke it for a couple of seconds.

Ley lines redux

Last year I wrote a piece about "ley lines," which are supposedly lines of "Earth energy" that run through sacred sites and places where the ancients built settlements.  The whole thing is immensely popular in the UK, where there have been dozens of books written that claim that the siting of towns, cathedrals, monasteries, and stone circles was based (sometimes unconsciously) on the perception of these "energy lines" that channel psychic power beneath the Earth's surface.  (Ley Lines Across the Midlands, Earth Energy: A Dowser's Investigation of Ley Lines,  and Arks Within Grail Lands, not to mention the book that started the whole phenomenon -- The Old Straight Track -- are all available on Amazon, should you have nothing better to do with your money.)

Myself, I just thought that important places were sited along straight lines because Euclid et al. showed that a straight line was the shortest distance between two points.  Going from Stonehenge to Glastonbury via Cambridge doesn't, perhaps, make quite as much sense.

Having the general idea that the whole thing is a lot of woo-woo nonsense, I was pretty psyched when a friend sent me a link to the site "The Magical Mystical Ley Line Locator."  The home page of the site shows a map of England, and has the caption "Ley Lines: mysterious lines of force between ancient monuments.  Are you one of the lucky Britons that lives on a mystical energy highway?"  You are then invited to enter a postal code for your home town, and the site will see if you live on a ley line, or better yet, on an intersection of two or more ley lines, which is supposed to represent some kind of psychic node where the confluence of Earth energy causes all sorts of cool paranormal stuff to happen.

Now, I'm not British and don't know any postal codes -- as far as I can tell, they make even less intuitive sense than the US zip code system -- so I decided to look up a postal code for a town I've been to.  I chose Thirsk, in Yorkshire, because I have fond memories of being there when I was on a walking tour of northern England in the mid-90s.  I found that Thirsk's postal code is YO74LS, so I entered that in the "ley line locator."

And lo, I found that Thirsk is not at the intersection of two, but three, ley lines.  Next to the map showing the ley lines converging on Thirsk was the message: "This is amazing!  We found three ley lines that converge at that location, including one from Stonehenge...  You seem to live at a swirl of ancient energy highways; this may mean that your area is a hotspot for paranormal activity, or even for unidentified flying objects!"

Below this was the statement, "IMPORTANT: to understand these findings and any potential dangers, read this."  So I clicked that link, and the following message came up:

"So here's the truth: ley lines don't exist.  Sorry to disappoint you. The truth is, no matter where in England you are, this site will happily find you three ley lines — including one that goes through Stonehenge!  How?  Simple: there are over 9,000 scheduled monuments in England.  We're running with a smaller database - about 3,000 of the most impressive ones - but that's more than enough to guarantee that hundreds of "ley lines" will pass right through your house.  The site picks a few directions, draws a line, and finds the closest sites of interest. By discarding the misses and showing you only the hits, something that's incredibly common can be made to look spectacular.  That's how ley lines... work -- they take advantage of the fact that the human brain is really bad at statistics."

Well, all I can say is:  Well played.  Up to that moment, I really thought this was a serious woo-woo website.  My day was much improved by finding out that the designer of this website -- Tom Scott (*doffs hat in Mr. Scott's general direction*) -- has created it not to promote the fuzzy thinking that belief in ley lines represents, but to show it up for the foolishness that it is in a particularly elegant fashion.  (He also includes a link to a bit from Carl Sagan's Cosmos, winning him further points in my book.)

So, sorry to disappoint you, but your house doesn't sit on a confluence of Earth energies, and you'll have to look for another reason to explain why your clocks run fast and you keep losing your car keys.  Oh, well, that's the way it goes.  I'll end with my own favorite quote by Carl Sagan, which seems peculiarly relevant to this discussion:  "It is far better to understand the universe as it is than to persist in delusion, however comforting or reassuring."

Microchips, Obamacare, and the Mark of the Beast

Well, another election season is over, and Barack Obama has been given another four years to enact his vision of where the United States should head.  He won't have much time to rest on his laurels -- he's got a lot of work to do if he's going to achieve his chief goals, including creating one million new manufacturing jobs, recruiting 100,000 new science and math teachers, reducing oil imports by half, reducing the deficit, ending US involvement in Afghanistan, and implanting the Mark of the Beast on every American citizen so that he can initiate the End Times as predicted in biblical prophecy.

Well, okay, the last one isn't one of his stated goals, per se.  But you'd think it was, to listen to Paul Begley, the evangelical preacher who in a video clip entitled "Americans!  Prepare to Be Microchipped!" claims that there is a provision in Obamacare to implant RFID chips in everyone, and that corresponds to the Mark of the Beast described in Revelation 13:16-18: "And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.  Here is wisdom.  Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

The fact is, Obamacare contains no such provision; there is a provision to microchip pacemakers and other implantable medical devices, so that a patient's medical information could be quickly accessible via a scan if the device fails.  But Begley says that no, this isn't all, that this is just a smokescreen for the actual intent of the bill, which is to tag everyone in the US, and ultimately, everyone in the world.

The whole "Mark of the Beast" thing is mighty popular with evangelicals.  It's been discussed by biblical literalists for decades, resulting in speculation that it corresponds to credit card numbers, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, GPS tags in cellphones, UPC codes on items in stores, scannable chips in passports, and a variety of other things.  And once they get the wind up about this stuff, they tend to get awfully suspicious.  One guy I know seriously believes that the DMV is using a microchip implanted in your driver's license to follow your every move, as if (1) they had the staff and technology actually to accomplish this for every person in the US who has a driver's license, (2) the workers in the DMV actually cared where you are on a minute-to-minute basis,  and (3) they didn't have better things to do, such as attending surliness training seminars and taking important coffee breaks when the line for license renewal gets too long.

In any case, the key point, to evangelicals, is that some person will end up getting the number "666" as his/her Mark, and that person will be the Antichrist, or the Beast with Seven Horns, or the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, or possibly all three at the same time.  It's hard to be sure, frankly.  I've read the Book of Revelation more than once, and my general impression is that it sounds like the result of a bad acid trip, so I'm not entirely certain I understand the finer details.  Be that as it may, the evangelicals take the whole 666 thing pretty seriously, to the point where a worker in Georgia last year refused to wear a badge for a day that said "666 days without an accident" for fear that he would be nabbed instantaneously by Satan and dragged off to hell.  (He was fired, sued the company, and was then rehired with back pay.)

Paul Begley, though, thinks he has the whole thing figured out, and that the End Times will start in March 2013 with Obamacare mandating chip implantation in everyone.  (If you looked at the link, note the highly alarming picture of someone using a barcode reader on a blank-eyed guy's forehead.  If that doesn't convince you... well, don't make me use the word "sheeple" in your general direction.)

So, anyhow.  I hope all of you people who voted for Obama knew what you were getting into.  If you don't, you'll figure out all too soon -- March 2013 is right around the corner.  That is, of course, provided we survive the Mayan Apocalypse on December 21, 2012, an event I am positively looking forward to.  (I'm thinking of getting a shirt to wear on December 21 that says, "The Mayans Had An Apocalypse, And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt.")  So I guess this gives us something to look forward to after the Apocalypse is over -- at least those of us who aren't eaten by zombies, or whatever other special offers the Mayans have in mind.  Me, I'm already considering my strategy, and I think I have a good one, which I have outlined below.

UFOs, Bigfoot, and celestial teapots

At what point should you give up investigating something for which there are many unsubstantiated claims, but virtually no hard evidence?

It's a difficult question.  As astronomer Martin Rees put it, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."  Just because we currently have no evidence for a particular claim doesn't mean we never will, or that such evidence doesn't exist.  In science, our information is necessarily always incomplete, and our explanations evolve as what we know about the world expands.

On the other hand, it's easy for this to slip into the Negative Proof Fallacy -- if you can't prove ghosts don't exist, that's evidence that they do.  As scientists, we need to keep our logical brains engaged, and weigh the likelihood of claims before we throw ourselves too enthusiastically into the latest oddball theory.  As Bertrand Russell famously put it, "If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.  But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense."

This week we have two examples of the conflict between the desire to research the unknown, and the question of when to say "Enough is enough."  I'll leave it for you to decide if either, or both, of these constitutes looking for Russell's Celestial Teapot.

In the first, an article in The Telegraph entitled "UFO Enthusiasts Admit the Truth May Not Be Out There After All" describes the frustration some UFOlogists are experiencing from decades of devotion that have, like Monty Python's Camel Spotters, turned up hard evidence of nearly one UFO.  Dave Wood, chairman of the UK-based Association for the Scientific Study of Anomalous Phenomena, speculates that serious study of UFO sightings will be a thing of the past by 2022.  "It is certainly a possibility that in ten years time, it will be a dead subject,” he said.  "We look at these things on the balance of probabilities and this area of study has been ongoing for many decades.  The lack of compelling evidence beyond the pure anecdotal suggests that on the balance of probabilities that nothing is out there.  I think that any UFO researcher would tell you that 98% of sightings that happen are very easily explainable.  One of the conclusions to draw from that is that perhaps there isn’t anything there.  The days of compelling eyewitness sightings seem to be over."

Wood states that reports of UFO sightings have dropped by 96% since 1988 -- and that this is especially significant given the improvement in cameras, video equipment, and information technology.  If there really were anything there to study, Wood contends, we should be seeing more and better evidence, not less... and worse.  "When you go to UFO conferences it is mainly people going over these old cases, rather than bringing new ones to the fore,"  Wood said.

Of course, that doesn't mean that UFO enthusiasts are an extinct breed quite yet; to paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of their deaths were greatly exaggerated, to judge by my daily excursions to woo-woo websites like AboveTopSecret doing research for this blog.  But it is an interesting question to consider how long they can go on looking, and not finding, evidence of alien visitations without giving up and moving on to another hobby.

The same sort of problem is besetting the cryptozoologists, although they seem to still be going strong, to judge by the popularity of television shows like Bigfoot Hunters.  And just yesterday a second story came to my attention, that there has been a grant-funded project launched that will search for Sasquatch in the mountains of the western United States -- via blimp.

According to Reuters News Service,  "An Idaho scientist shrugging off skeptical fellow scholars in his quest for evidence of Bigfoot has turned his sights skyward, with plans to float a blimp over the U.S. mountain West in search of the mythic, ape-like creature.  Idaho State University has approved the unusual proposal of faculty member Jeffrey Meldrum...  Now Meldrum is seeking to raise $300,000-plus in private donations to build the remote-controlled dirigible, equip it with a thermal-imaging camera and send it aloft in hopes of catching an aerial glimpse of Bigfoot."

What is most remarkable about this is the cooperation of a state university in this research -- universities, and the grant funding agencies that pay for most of their projects, have tended to shy away from anything that smacks of woo-woo.  But the researcher, Jeffrey Meldrum, is a respected (and well-credentialed) professor of anatomy and anthropology, who presumably knows what he's looking for and would recognize credible evidence when he sees it.

"Though some may dismiss the idea of searching for Bigfoot as silly or ridiculous, there's no reason why the topic shouldn't be taken seriously and investigated scientifically," writes noted skeptic and science writer Benjamin Radford about the proposed Meldrum project.  "If Bigfoot exist, it is important to find out what they are, how they may be related to humans, and how exactly tens of thousands of them have managed to exist in North America without leaving any hard evidence.  If Bigfoot don't exist, the question becomes a psychological and social issue: why so many people report and believe in them...  Two things are certain: If Meldrum and the Falcon Project are successful, they could add immensely important information to our scientific knowledge of zoology and anthropology.  On the other hand if they fail to find evidence of Bigfoot, that will not settle the matter; believers will offer excuses and the search will continue, as they have for decades."

You have to wonder, though, whether the same thing will happen to the cryptozoologists that Dave Wood says is happening to the UFOlogists; if all of those folks, with thermal-sensing equipment and night-vision goggles and the latest high-tech video recorders, can't come up with any scientifically credible evidence for Bigfoot (or Nessie, or El Chupacabra, or Mokele-Mbembe, or the Bunyip...), then at what point do we just give it up as a bad job?  Hard to say, given that the claims are still coming in daily (here's one of the latest).  But at some point, unless someone like Jeffrey Meldrum is successful, I think we'll have to say that we've given it our best shot.

Sometimes, sadly, the teapot you're looking for just isn't there.

Zealotry, belief, and the desecration of Serpent Mound

Zealot (n.) - A person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.

There's something frightening about zealots, isn't there?  They are quite content to flout laws, ignore social conventions, and run right over anyone who opposes them (sometimes literally) in order to achieve their goals.  In my experience -- and I've known a number of people I would describe with this term -- they are also damn near impossible to talk to.  Once you start out from the position, "I am right, and nothing anyone could say will convince me," your conviction becomes an unassailable, and rather dangerous, fortress.

People usually think of zealotry as being the bailiwick of the more extreme factions of the majority religions.  You hear a lot about zealots amongst the evangelical Christians and the fundamentalist Muslims, for example.  But zealotry is no respecter of belief system; any faith-based framework can lead you there, as long as you end up espousing it with sufficient fervor.  One of the most decided zealots I've ever met chose to express that tendency via PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).  Don't think this could possibly represent zealotry?  This woman once said, in my presence, "All life is equivalent.  If I was faced with the choice of killing one human life to save the lives of ten non-human animals, I would do it without hesitation."  And yes, that includes mice.  Or worms.  Or bugs.

Zealotry, therefore, entails a kind of blindness.  Whatever you do, you do with a set of self-justifying rationalizations, that it's what god, or the gods, or the angels, or a Higher Purpose, demands that you do.  Any argument to the contrary is simply ignored into non-existence.

Which brings us to the damage done by vandals to the Serpent Mound, an ancient Native American site in Ohio.

Serpent Mound is a low, undulating rise 420 meters long, that archaeologists believe was created by a people called the "Fort Ancient" culture about a thousand years ago.  It is thought to have served some sort of dual devotional and astronomical purpose, although its significance to the culture which created it is still uncertain.  The land on which it stands was donated to the Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society in 1900, and it was designated a National Historical Landmark in 1964.

Serpent Mound (photo courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons)

And now, a bunch of people calling themselves "Light Warriors" spent an evening running around on Serpent Mound, digging holes in it to plant "orgonites" in it so that they can "realign its energy" and "lift the vibration of the Earth so that we can all rise together."  [Source]

What is an "orgonite," you might ask?  It's a bunch of quartz crystals, feathers, and metal filings, embedded in a blob of resin (usually made by baking it all in a muffin tin).  Orgonites, believers claim, rid a place of "negative energy" and "create positive energy frequencies."

The ones who are responsible for this act -- a bunch of wingnuts called "Unite the Collective" -- are proud of what they did.  They are, they claim, "Galactic Light Beings" who are only doing what is necessary to make the Earth experience "ascendancy."  (If you have the time, look around on their website.  It is that strange mixture of woo-woo wackiness and absolute conviction that I find simultaneously funny and very, very scary.)

Fortunately, officials in Ohio are not impressed by Unite the Collective's claims that what they did is not only right, but necessary.  Volunteers are helping Ohio Historical Society members to locate and remove the Energy Muffins from Serpent Mound, and charges are expected to be filed this week which (if successful) would result in 90 days in jail for the perpetrators and a $5,000 fine.

What freaks me out about this is not that a beautiful, historically significant place was vandalized; this is (sadly) not the first time such a thing has happened, nor will it be the last.  What gives me the shudders is the complete certainty these people have that their bizarre worldview is correct, and their willingness to act on it.  It was just this attitude that led fundamentalist Muslims to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan and historical sites in Mali; it is what led to the burning of the texts in the Great Library of Alexandria; it is what led Christian missionaries to destroy the quipus, the ancient "talking knots" of the Incas, of which few remain intact.

I have high hopes that law enforcement will catch up with the self-styled "Light Warriors" who desecrated Serpent Mound, but I am less sanguine about the possibility of eradicating the self-righteous zealotry they represent.  Whether it is expressed through politics, mainstream religion, or a fringe group like "Unite the Collective," the tendency toward zealotry is scarily common amongst humans -- and amazingly difficult to predict, control, or correct.

Magical thinking and falling crucifixes

Today we have a story from Newburgh, New York about the power of prayer, and the untoward results thereof.  [Source]

David Jimenez, a devout Catholic, prayed every day in front of a giant, 600-pound marble crucifix in the Church of St. Patrick, asking god to heal his wife Delia, who was suffering from ovarian cancer.  Doctors told the couple that Delia's cancer was in remission in 2010.  Elated, David offered to spend hours meticulously cleaning the crucifix, as a sign of his thankfulness that his prayers were answered.  Unfortunately, what neither he nor (apparently) anyone else in the church knew was that the crucifix was held to the wall by only a single screw, and when he started scrubbing it, the screw popped loose, and the crucifix fell over on top of Jimenez, crushing his leg.  He was rushed to the hospital, but doctors were unable to save his injured leg, and it was ultimately amputated.

Last week, Jimenez's lawyers announced that they have initiated a lawsuit seeking $3 million in damages from the church.

This story has elicited a lot of sardonic laughter on atheist websites.  I understand why people responded that way -- irony always seems to generate laughter, even when it involves injury or death (look at "The Darwin Awards").  Me, I feel sorry for the guy.  After all, he was throughout the incident only acting from the best of motives; care for his ill wife, thankfulness for her recovery, gratefulness to the church for their support.  Whether the church owes him $3 million is not for me to say; but clearly if what he claims is true, that the 600-pound statue was only secured by a single screw, he might well have a case.

What I don't get here, and (honestly) probably never will get, is how anyone gets caught up in that kind of magical thinking in the first place.  It is undeniable that Jimenez and millions of others seem to take "the power of prayer" as a matter of course; "pray every day" is commanded from pulpits all over the world every Sunday.  And there are thousands of accounts of times that the "power of prayer" resulted in cures (or as they call them, "miracles").  My question is: do these people really not get cause-and-effect?  Delia Jimenez was cured by doctors, presumably through chemotherapy, radiation, surgery, or some combination; David's kneeling in front of a crucifix had nothing whatsoever to do with it.  Before you can make the claim that the "power of prayer" really works, you have to explain all the times it didn't work with something more than "god has a plan" or "god works in mysterious ways."  If you pray for Uncle Frank and he recovers, and I pray for Aunt Betty and she doesn't, you can't just say that Uncle Frank's recovery proves that prayer works and wave away what happened to poor Aunt Betty.

Of course, the toppling over of the crucifix adds another surreal element to the whole thing.  If you believe that god really was behind Delia Jimenez's recovery, don't you find it odd that god walloped her husband with the very object of devotion her husband had been praying in front of?  One of the commenters on the story stated, "God healed Delia Jimenez and then punished David Jimenez for idolatry.  Catholics always have had trouble obeying the Second Commandment."  This kind of made my head spin.  Do you really think that a deity, especially one of the kind Christians worship, would work that way?  "Through my power, and because of thy prayer, I have healed thy wife, but now I'm going to smush thy leg because thou didst pray the wrong way."  Really?  That's what you believe, that's the god you worship?  A god who would do such a thing would beat the Greek deities in simple capriciousness.  In fact, I think that given a choice, I'd rather worship Hermes.  At least he knew how to tell a good joke.

I guess the bottom line is, I will never understand magical thinking.  I honestly do try to be tolerant of others' beliefs, however I sometimes come across as an arrogant know-it-all.  But stories like this make me realize that there is a wide, probably unbridgeable, gap between the way I think and the way most of the religious think.