Wand waving and hand waving

Consider four general truths about your average human.

First, people are attracted to novelty.  Look at how often "New and Improved!" shows up on product labels -- although I've always wondered how something can be "new" and "improved" simultaneously.

Second, the idea of curing chronic pain is a pretty attractive proposition to a lot of us.  Many people deal with pain sufficient to change our lifestyles, and in some cases bad enough to trigger thoughts of suicide.  All of us know someone whose life has been plagued with chronic pain.  Because of this, tremendous amount of (legitimate) medical research goes into developing therapies to manage, treat, or mitigate pain.

Third, we have the sad fact that most folks don't have much background in real science, so anything with science-y words is going to sound impressive, even if on analysis those words don't turn out to mean much.

And fourth, it's pretty obvious that money is a powerful motivator.

Add these four things together, and you have the makings of a scam of mammoth proportions.

Meet the Amega Amwand -- a device that uses "minerals and crystals" that have been treated with an "amized fusion process" (the details of which are, of course, a proprietary secret) to treat pain.  The minerals and crystals are encased in a steel sleeve the size of a ballpoint pen.  To treat the pain, all you basically do is to wave the wand around over the painful area, and the pain miraculously goes away.

How can this possibly work, you may be asking?  They say that the wand accesses "zero-point energy" and then uses that to stimulate your body's "bioelectric fields" and it promotes healing.  Of course, we also have the disclaimer that the wand "is not intended to treat, prevent, cure, or diagnose any medical condition," which makes me wonder what exactly "Improves body’s ability to self-regulate – more harmonized bodily functions like never before!" means.

Oh, and a video interview with a guy who sells the things says it'll also make your wine taste better.  Your food, too.  Why?  Because it "oxidizes" it.  Now, in case you're curious, burning something is also oxidation.  And my general experience with burnt food is that it doesn't, in fact, make it taste better.  But maybe that's just me.  (You should definitely watch this video, which ends with an interview with a physicist that debunks the whole claim.)

I haven't told you yet how much these things cost.  The website I linked above has wands priced at $370 each -- $704 for one that has "activated rubies" in it.

Add this to the fact that the Amega brand is a multi-level marketing (pyramid) scheme -- and this explains why Sam Adams, who is identified in the video as being one of the top "generations" of the company, is allegedly making $3,600 a day from this stuff.

So, here's the central point: could this thing actually work?

The simple answer is: no.  There's no way that a magic wand filled with minerals can have any effect on your body.  It's not "shooting out energy" (as the site claims); it's not "inducing homeostasis" any more than your body's systems already were; and it's not stimulating anything in you except the placebo effect.  The whole hand-waving "explanation" given on their website basically amounts to throwing out some technical-sounding jargon and making extravagant promises, including the inadvertently humorous statement that "this Zero Point Energy Field, gives a ginormous amount of Life Giving Energy to the body and reminds it’s [sic] cells where they came from."

Oh, and by the way: the idea of "accessing the zero-point energy" is bullshit.  Zero-point energy is a real thing, defined as the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical system could have.  If you could "extract energy" from it, then it wouldn't be the lowest possible energy, you know?  To quote the Wikipedia article directly:

As a scientific concept, the existence of zero-point energy is not controversial although the ability to harness it is.  Over the years, there have been claims of devices capable of extracting usable zero-point energy.

In quantum theory, zero-point energy is a minimum energy below which a thermodynamic system can never go.  Thus, none of this energy can be withdrawn without altering the system to a different form in which the system has a lower zero-point energy.

Current claims to zero-point-energy-based power generation systems are in contradiction with known physics laws and have the status of pseudoscience.

So there you go, then.

I live in perpetual amazement that people fall for something like this, especially given how pricey these things are.  I mean, if I were in chronic pain, I might risk twenty bucks on something that was a little sketchy -- but $370?  $704 for the special, ruby-enhanced version?  I suppose pain could motivate people to try something out of desperation -- which makes what these hucksters are doing even more reprehensible.  Because getting rich by selling a steel sleeve full of snake oil is also, for the unethical, a strong motivator.

After all, it's no new thing that a fool and his money are soon parted -- nor that there's a sucker born every minute.

Magic in the water

It's always struck me as baffling to see people how much people will pay for woo-woo stuff.  Not so much the alt-med stuff like homeopathy, because there, the recipient has been bamboozled (usually via some science-y sounding nonsense about vibrations and energies and quantum signatures) into thinking that the remedy being sold actually does something that has been verified experimentally.  (i.e., they have been lied to.)

On the other hand, it's less understandable to see someone buying something that doesn't even come with any sort of rational explanation -- when the item being sold falls into the Magic, Pure & Simple department.  It's probably narrow-minded of me, but whenever I hear about this sort of thing, I always think, "How on earth do people expect this to work?"

For example, there's Temitope Balogun Joshua, the Ghanaian pastor of the Synagogue Church of All Nations in Accra.  Joshua, a charismatic figure who attracts huge crowds in Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, and Togo, goes about preaching the gospel and selling stuff, including "new anointing water."  "New anointing water" has been blessed by Reverend Joshua and has been credited with miraculous cures of diseases, and the relieving of stress and anxiety.  It usually sells for 80 cedis (about $40) per bottle -- a sizable sum in West Africa.

Well, unfortunately, a radio station announced last Saturday that Reverend Joshua would be giving away bottles of "new anointing water" for free at the service on Sunday.  Crowds began to form at two in the morning.  So many people showed up that it "brought traffic in large parts of Accra to a standstill."  And then, when the doors opened, there was a stampede, which killed four and injured thirty.

Joshua himself was apparently upset by how the whole thing turned out, and he's promised to pay the hospital expenses of the ones who were injured.  This shouldn't be a hardship...

... because apparently his net worth exceeds $15 million.  That, my friends, is a crapload of bottles of water.

Now, it's not that I think this kind of magical thinking is uncommon, mind you.  After outlaw John Dillinger was gunned down, bystanders soaked handkerchiefs and the hems of skirts in his blood.  Earlier, men and women who met their end by losing their heads had their spilled blood treated the same way -- notable examples were Anne Boleyn and King Louis XVI.  The idea of magic (of various kinds) clinging to a substance, be it water, blood, or something else, is as old as humanity.

But still.  How, precisely, do these folks think Reverend Joshua's bottles of miracle water can work?  I know I'm approaching this from my squared-off, show-me-the-goods rationalism, and that the mystical worldview allows for all sorts of other stuff going on.  But try as I might, I just can't see how this guy's magic potions and preaching have made him worth $15 million, despite his hawking his wares in some of the poorest countries in the world.

Magical thinking, apparently, is big business, even if you don't resort to science-y words.

On a more hopeful note, though, is a second story, this one from Spain.

Another idea that is hardly new is the love spell -- magic cast to make the target of your amorous feelings fall in love with you, or (more prosaically) at least willing to have sex with you.  Like Reverend Joshua's magic water, this one is still with us today, and is still as ineffective as ever -- as Zaragoza businessman José Laparra found out.

Laparra, the owner of Spanish football team Club Deportivo Castellon, had his eye on a woman who evidently was resistant to his advances.  Frustrated, he went to a psychic, Lucia Martin, who said she would help him -- if he paid her $210,000.

Now that is desperation.

Be that as it may, Martin said she knew the very spell, and she took Laparra's money, and proceeded to do her magical stuff.  To no avail; Laparra was no more successful than before.  So he went to Martin, and demanded his money back.

Only fair, I suppose, but according to the source, the psychic "foresaw his arrival" and tried to prevent him from entering.  She called the police, who came in, and found the money wrapped up in a newspaper -- and promptly arrested Laparra, because he'd apparently paid the psychic by embezzling the money from the funds belonging to his football club.

Laparra, for his part, proceeded to have an "anxiety attack," which is hardly a surprise, considering the circumstances.  Maybe someone should have gotten him some "new anointing water."

The New Holy Writ

This morning, I'm pondering what it takes for a piece of writing to be accepted as Holy Writ.

Now, anything can be seen as divinely inspired, if you're willing to play fast-and-loose with the definition of fiction.  We've seen, for example, that there are people who think that The Lord of the Rings is describing actual history, and others who have decided that H. P. Lovecraft's pantheon of Elder Gods is real.  But I'm wondering what it would take for such an idea to spread beyond just a handful of wingnuts.

I'm talking the Bible, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Sutras, the Vedas.

Clearly, there's a religious answer to all of this, and I'm not trying to be disingenuous by ignoring it.  Of course adherents to a religion believe, to one extent or another, that their holy book was divinely inspired, if not the exact word of god, or gods, or whatever.  But if you look at it from the outside, it does pose an interesting question -- and not one that is as easily answered for most religions as it is for Christianity, for which the history of the documents in question, and how decisions were made about which texts to incorporate into the Bible and which to exclude, are somewhat better known.  (See this page for a good overview of how the biblical canon was put together.)

All of this comes up because yesterday I stumbled on a claim by a guy named Marshall Vian Summers to have a "New Message from God."  It showed up on Reddit, and in fact has its own subreddit that I saw because it got cross posted to r/Atheism.  This new message was, Summers says, received over a thirty-year period from god himself, and "is not based on any existing religious tradition or spiritual teaching."  (You can see a summary and excerpts on Summers' website here.)

On July 1 and 2 Summers is having an "event" in Boulder, Colorado to proclaim his new message (which apparently hinges on the idea that the Divine Deity wants to "end our isolation" and allow us to interact with our alien brothers and sisters on other planets).  His candidate for the next generation Holy Scripture runs to over 9,000 pages, and will be available for purchase on July 15.

Being a writer myself, I can tell you that to write 9,000 pages, no matter what the content, is no mean feat even if you are divinely inspired.  So whatever else you can say about the guy, you have to admire his dedication.

Anyhow, I read a bit of what's on his website, and most of it sounds like pretty ordinary stuff.  (One passage goes, "But who can recognize the Messenger?  He appears to be very average. He is not sensational looking.  He does not hold a great position in the world.  He will disappear into the masses of people.  He will walk amongst them.  No one will recognize him, except perhaps for those who have been struck by the Revelation.")  There certainly wasn't anything there that struck me as being of divine origin, but then, I suppose that's to be expected.  What I wonder, however, is what other folks -- people who are, perhaps, more receptive to persuasion on the topic of religion than I am -- will make of Summers' writing.  After all, all current holy writings started this way; with some person or group of people writing a bunch of stuff down, and then saying, "Look, I have this book I wrote, except it wasn't really me that thought it up, I was just taking dictation from god!  It's really great!" 

It's always been a matter of curiosity to me why people gravitate toward certain belief systems, beyond ones into which they were born (the vast majority of people, after all, belong to the same religion as their parents and community members -- making geography a far stronger driver of belief than any perception of the inherent truth of a religion).  But new ideas do come along, and (as I said) every religion was new at some point.  What happens in a person's mind that makes them read something, or hear someone speak, and think, "This is it?"

Anyhow, I must say, Summers isn't doing it for me, not that anyone would probably expect that he would.  It'll be interesting to see how people react to his "event" and book release in July -- if he is hailed as the latest prophet of The Truth, or if -- as happens to most self-proclaimed Mouthpieces of God -- he, and his 9,160 page Holy Scripture, will simply vanish back into obscurity.

Living on light

When is a claim so bizarre that it deserves to be dismissed out of hand?

The fair answer is "never."  If we were to use a "common sense about how the world works" approach to decide what claims don't even merit an experiment, scientists would probably never have discovered quantum entanglement (for example).  Still, I think there are times when laws of science have been so well established, have been verified in such a myriad of ways, that anyone who says they've discovered an exception probably deserves nothing more than a dismissive laugh.  (This probably explains why the United States Patent Office will no longer even read submissions for designs for perpetual motion machines.)

All of which brings us to a 65 year old spiritualist named "Naveena" who claims she is living on nothing but light for nourishment.

Naveena does drink water, tea, and (most importantly) coffee, because let's face it; you just can't get that warm morning buzz from gulping down rays of sunlight.

She's not the first to make such a claim.  There's an Indian yogi named Prahlad Jani who claims he hasn't eaten or drunk anything in seventy years.  He allows himself to "dip in water" and sometimes "gargle," but he doesn't swallow.  Ever.  Another, who calls herself "Jasmuheen" but whose legal name is Ellen Greve, is an Australian who wrote a book called Pranic Nourishment: Living on Light.  Jasmuheen participated in a test of her claims, which had to be discontinued after 48 hours because she was on the verge of going into shock from dehydration.  About four of her followers who died, she denies all responsibility, and in fact said about one, "(Lani) Morris was not coming from a place of integrity and did not have the right motivation."

So now Naveena is going to try the same thing.  Maybe her "motivation and integrity" are better.

"As early as 1910 Richard Steiner, scientist and philosopher, proclaimed that 'Matter is Condensed Light.'  Breatharians, Sun-gazers and Yogis have claimed the capacity to 'Live On Light' for centuries but without hard evidence their claims have been dismissed and ridiculed," Naveena said in a press release last week.

Yes, well, Steiner may have said that, but basically, he's wrong.  We now have this thing that explains the properties of matter and energy, and how they interact.  It's called "physics."  Recommended that you take a course or two in it.

Of course, she admits that things might not work out for her.

"Since death is what normally occurs when a person does not eat food, she warns people not to try this," her press release stated.  "It might be untrue or it might be that there are certain criteria needed in terms of physical, mental and spiritual readiness."

And that's just it, isn't it?  If you can fall back on blaming the practitioner for the failure -- as Jasmuheen did with the death of Lani Morris -- you don't have to admit that the whole claim is a sham.  As far as Prahlad Jani, I'd bet that he's simply lying.  There are organisms that can survive on light -- they're called plants.  Animals like us, on the other hand, don't get by so well unless we're allowed to nosh every so often.  So unless Jani et al. can show me that their cells contain functional chloroplasts, I'm not buying it.  (Here's the Skeptic's Dictionary's take on Jani, which outright calls him a fraud.)

Still, I guess Naveena has the right idea.  At least she's willing to participate in a test.  She's got a YouTube channel, from which she is broadcasting updates.  The problem is, given the extraordinary claim we've got here, just periodic film clips documenting her progress aren't going to be enough to convince me, and (I suspect) most people; if what Naveena is doing is real, I'd want some round-the-clock footage, that she had no way of controlling, that would assure me that she wasn't periodically sneaking out for a cheeseburger.

So that's today's dip in the deep end of the pool (just immerse your toes!  No ingesting the water!).  My guess is that one of two things will happen, in Naveena's case; (1) she'll discontinue her experiment, voluntarily, at the advice of her doctor; or (2) she'll be exposed as a hoaxer.  Either way, the "breatharians" and their "living on prana and light" will remain a fringe claim, meriting nothing but a shrug and the comment, "sorry, the world doesn't work that way."

The twisted world of the Tornado Truthers

If I can sum up the rationalist view of the world in one sentence, it would be: your belief in something does not make it the truth.

If you would like me to agree with you, I need more than hearing that you believe it's so.  I need evidence -- or failing that, at least a good, solid, logical argument in favor.

The problem is, there is a slice of humanity for whom a lack of evidence for a claim becomes some kind of twisted argument for its correctness.  These are the people who become conspiracy theorists -- people whose belief in their warped view of reality is so strong that a complete absence of any support for their views is turned inside out, is used to show that the coverup is real.  They are absolutely convinced, and are damn near impossible to argue with.

And now, of course, they have weighed in on the tornadoes that hit Oklahoma in the last three days.

They call themselves the "Tornado Truthers."  Don't believe me?  Here is a collection of direct quotes, taken from Twitter and Facebook.  [Note to readers who are offended by such things; there's a good bit of bad language in these quotes, but to edit that out would diminish the intensity of these people's feelings on this subject.  In any case, be forewarned.]

255 tornadoes issued today.  43 caused by HAARP.

TORNADO WARNING.  YEAH FUCK YOU TO HELL #HAARP

Government-made tornadoes - HAARP - check out HAARP maybe with one A - can't remember offhand Tesla's work

That tornado pic is insanity, hey government, I know you [sic] watching, TURN THAT FUCKING HAARP MACHINE OFF!!!!

Tornadoes is wild man it's not tornado season... #haarp

Dutchsince on YouTube.com issued a warning for the east coast.  The HAARP induced tornadoes that leveled cities in the midwest is now on its way to the east coast.  East coast get prepared.  Facebook just like Obama refuses to post information to warn America.  Why?

Notice to all these tornados this week are the result of haarp to set the stage for martial law and FEMA camps

30 + People Dead & Thousands of Homes/Towns DESTROYED cuz of The Illuminati & Their Weather Modification Machine (HAARP) ITS A FACT!  LOOK IT UP AND START SPEAKING OUT TO CREATE SOME WEATHER RELATED DISASTER TO FORCE US OUT OF OUR HOMES INTO THEIR NEW HOMES (FEMA CAMPS)

Thank you h.a.a.r.p. for this crazy fucked up weather

HAARP, of course, stands for High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, a government-run ionospheric research station in Alaska.  It has nothing to do with weather modification.  It cannot generate tornadoes (or earthquakes, or volcanoes, or hurricanes, or sinkholes, or any of the other hundreds of things it's been claimed to do).

Oh, yeah, and it is tornado season, actually.  The peak of it.  But by all means, "Tornado Truthers," don't let any facts get in the way of your beliefs.

And then Alex Jones, of course, had to weigh in.  Could the recent tornadoes be generated by the US government, a caller asked?  Don't be a ninny, of course they could.  After all, we now know that the insurance companies have been using weather modification to avoid having to pay out to ski resorts during winters when it doesn't snow.  "Of course there's weather weapon stuff going on," Jones said, one eyelid twitching spasmodically.  "We had floods in Texas like fifteen years ago, killed thirty-something people in one night.  Turned out it was the Air Force."  Of this week's tornadoes, he admitted that he wasn't sure that it was the government, but that if you saw small aircraft "in and around the clouds, spraying and doing things, if you saw that, you better bet your bottom dollar they did this, but who knows if they did.  You know, that's the thing, we don't know."

Heh.  We don't know.  *wink wink nudge nudge*  It's the government.

To Jones and his intrepid band of loony followers, anything constitutes evidence.  In fact, nothing constitutes evidence.  "I haven't seen any aircraft spraying stuff and immediately triggering a tornado" simply becomes, "They've got cloaking technology.  Of course you didn't see anything."  And all you have to do is append the word "Truther" to your particular warped view of the universe, and it becomes de facto Truth, capital T, no evidence necessary.

The whole thing makes me want to scream.

Better, though, to focus on what we should be doing; assisting with the cleanup and rebuilding, donating money if you can't go there to help directly.   (Here's a site that has a list of places to donate.)  Beyond that, focusing on the positive stories that have come out of this tragedy -- of the selfless teachers who tried to save their students' lives, some of them who lost their lives in the process; of the first responders who risked their safety to dig survivors out of the rubble of their homes; of the neighbors, friends, and families who pitched in to help as soon as the funnel clouds lifted.  And of the little miracles, like Oklahoma resident Barbara Garcia, who lost her home but was reunited with her little dog who she thought had been killed when her house collapsed.  (Have kleenex handy if you watch the video on this link.  Don't say I didn't warn you.)

 

Focus on what's important, here.  With any luck, the deafening silence that greets the screeching pretzel logic of the "Tornado Truthers" will convince them to crawl back under their rocks where they belong -- at least until the next natural disaster occurs.

Shame, lying, and Archie Bunker

One of my sensitive spots has to do with embarrassment.  Not only do I hate being embarrassed myself, I hate watching other people in embarrassing situations.  I remember as a kid detesting sitcoms in which a character (however richly deserving) was made to look a fool -- the sensation was close to physical pain.

Of course, it's worse when it's a real person, and worst of all when (s)he doesn't realize what's going on.

This whole wince-inducing topic comes up because of a wonderful academic paper called "Cooperation creates selection for tactical deception," by Luke McNally and Andrew L. Jackson of Trinity College (Dublin, Ireland).  The paper describes research into the evolution of deception, and is a sterling piece of work, showing how a game-theoretical model of cooperation results in selective pressure favoring "tactical deception" -- better known as lying.

"Our results suggest that the evolution of conditional strategies may, in addition to promoting cooperation, select for astute cheating and associated psychological abilities," the authors write.  "Ultimately, our ability to convincingly lie to each other may have evolved as a direct result of our cooperative nature."

It's a fascinating piece of research, and it generated some buzz in the media -- even meriting an (also nicely done) summary in HuffPost Science.

So far, what's the problem?  A well-written paper on how game theory predicts the evolution of behavior, and the media (for once) reporting it as they should.  No cause for wincing here, surely?

Nope.  The winces started once the creationists got wind of this.

The site Creation Evolution Headlines evidently found out about McNally and Jackson's paper -- although whether they actually read it remains to be seen.  Because the piece they wrote in response is called...

... wait for it...

"Evolutionists Confess to Lying."

Yes, you're interpreting this correctly; they think that because the paper supports an evolutionary edge for people who are deceptive, it is equivalent to the evolutionary biologists stating, "Ha ha!  We were lying all along!"

I couldn't make something this ridiculous up if I wanted to.

Don't believe me?  Here is an excerpt.  Make sure you have a pillow handy for when you faceplant.

If lying evolved as a fitness strategy, can we believe anything an evolutionist says?...  Brooks [the author of the HuffPost piece] has the Yoda complex.  So do McNally and Jackson.  They believe they can look down on the rest of humanity from some exalted plane free of the evolutionary forces that afflict the rest of humanity.  No; they need to climb down and join the world their imaginations have created.  In the evolutionary world, there is no essential difference between cooperation and deception.  It’s only a matter of which side is in the majority at the moment... 

Having no eternal standard of truth, the evolutionary world collapses into power struggles.  The appeals by Brooks and Sam Harris to try to “resist our temptations to lie” are meaningless.  How can anyone overcome what evolution has built into them?  How can either of them know what is true?

Since all these evolutionists believe that lying evolved as a fitness strategy, and since they are unable to distinguish between truth and lies, they essentially confess to lying themselves.  Their readers are therefore justified in considering them deceivers, and dismissing everything they say, including the notion that lying evolved.

My wincing-at-people-embarrassing-themselves response was activated so strongly by all this that I could barely tolerate reading the entire article... especially given that the Creation Evolution Headlines piece got linked on the Skeptic subreddit by the obviously astonished friend of one of the original paper's authors.  (Of course, you're probably thinking, "If you hate seeing people embarrassed so much, why are you calling further attention to it by writing about it?"  To which I can only respond: touché.  And also, that my outrage over a nice bit of evolutionary research being trashed this way trumped my dislike of watching morons shame themselves.)

Let's just take this a piece at a time, okay?

First, McNally and Jackson didn't say that everyone is lying; they said that some people are lying, and benefit by it, a contention that I'd guess atheists and theists would both agree on.  Second, given that the original research looked at cooperative species -- of which there are many -- why does that somehow turn evolution into "power struggles," into a world of every man for himself?  Do ants in a colony only cooperate because they recognize an "eternal standard of truth?"

And I always find it wryly amusing when the theists claim that we atheists must be without morals because we don't think morality comes from some higher power, and suggest that we aren't to be trusted.  Honestly, devout Christians; if the only thing that's keeping you from running around stealing, raping, and murdering is some Bronze Age book of mythology, I think you are the ones we should be watching out for.

And last: saying that lying is an evolved strategy doesn't mean that we "are unable to distinguish between truth and lies."  If evolutionists were unable to distinguish between truth and lies, IT WOULD BE KIND OF HARD TO WRITE A SCHOLARLY PAPER ABOUT LYING, NOW WOULDN'T IT?

*pant pant gasp gasp*

Okay, I'll try to calm down a little.

What's the worst about these people is that they don't seem to have any awareness that what they're saying, with apparent confidence, is absolute nonsense.  It reminds me of watching the character of Archie Bunker on the 70s television series All in the Family, who week after week would have conversations like the following:

Mike (Archie's son-in-law):  Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Archie: Denmark ain't no state, it's the capital of Colorado.

 

And, of course, Archie would never admit that he was wrong.  In his world, he was always right, world without end, amen.

I bet Archie would have loved that article in Creation Evolution Headlines.  And he'd probably look at me and say, as he did to once to his wife, "You don't believe in nothin', Edith.  You're one o' them, whaddyacallem, septics."

Breaking news: precision matters.

I keep telling myself not to expect much from how science is covered in commercial media.  They are beholden to sponsors, who pay attention to only one thing; how many people partake.  So if media can get more sponsors (= more money) by sensationalizing scientific news, that's what they do, however it misleads the gullible and undermines the reputation of science as a whole.

I guess I just thought that National Geographic would be above that kind of thing.

Yes, National Geographic, that venerable institution that sends out the monthly glossy, yellow-edged magazine that from its density appears to be printed on sheets of lead.  That wonderful source of information and photographs from exotic locales that teenage boys the world over peruse in the hopes of seeing a topless native woman.  Yes, National Geographic.  Even they have succumbed.

I came to this realization when I was perusing the News section of the online National Geographic, and I saw the headline, "New Sea Monster Found, Rewrites Evolution?"  It happens that this particular turn of phrase is one that really grinds my gears -- it seems like every time some paleontologist finds a new fossil, the media shrieks that it's going to "rewrite everything we know about evolution!"  And, of course, it never does.  Given that what we have from the fossil record represents a tiny percentage of the living things the Earth has seen during it's three-odd-billion-year hosting of life, it's only to be expected that we'll find new and amazing things in fossil beds, more often than not.  And surprisingly, astonishingly, the evolutionary model has survived, intact, despite all that "rewriting."

Now, to be fair, this discovery was pretty cool -- a new species of ichthyosaur, Malawania anachronus, so named because it dates to 66 million years after its nearest cousins were supposedly extinct.  But like I said: this is interesting, but hardly earthshattering.  A group of seagoing prehistoric carnivores were still around more recently than scientists thought.  No "rewriting of evolution" necessary.

Also, must they always call them "sea monsters?"

Now, you may well think I'm overreacting, here.  But cut me some slack; given that I'm a biologist, it's to be expected that precision in speech on this particular topic is something I value.  But seriously, you may be saying; does anyone take that "rewriting evolution" thing as more than hyperbole?

You have only to look at the comments section on the article in question to see that the answer is "yes."

"As most scientists now know who are brave enough to admit it, the entire 'theory' of evolution needs to be rewritten," said one commenter.  "As long as we try to cover up its many problems, we are the problem."

"Evolved animals 'appear' in the Jurassic or whatever period...I guess out of nowhere," wrote another.  "As if by magic without numerous specimens leading to the found fossil.  You would think that life on earth after 3 billion years of evolution would look like the 'Island of Doctor Moreau' of blended animals."

One person, at least, tried to bring some sense into the discussion.  "Oh come on, National Geographic, pul-eezzze stop using the word 'monster' in your headlines to suck in readership," he wrote.  "That's tabloid journalism, and National Geographic should know better.  A ten-foot long aquatic reptile is not a 'monster' in any sense of the word.  This animal was a sleek, efficient predator of fish and has many characteristics of already-discovered fossils of similar animals.  And while it may ADD valuable information to our understanding of how evolution has worked, it will NOT 'rewrite evolution' as the headline further claims.  That would seem to shred Charles Darwin's masterpiece of science, and is plainly not what's happening here. "

Unfortunately,  he was immediately shouted down.  "Stop whining," one person responded.  " If you don't like the headlines here, go elsewhere and complain."  Another said, "So, you are complaining about how they try to suck in readers with the word monster, yet you were here, reading this article. Think ahead before you comment mouse brain."

Herein lies the problem, and it's not just an issue of civil discourse.  Precision matters, especially when writing about topics that are, by their very nature, controversial.  I'm guessing that the author of the piece, Christine Dell'Amore, had no intention of giving fuel to the fire of the creationists -- but what are the anti-evolution crowd supposed to think, when every other week there's an article with the headline, "Evolution Has To Be Rewritten?"  However much I lambast them for their anti-science, anti-rational stance, you have to admit that anyone would begin to wonder about a scientific model that has to be "rewritten" every time some tiny new piece of evidence is found.

Okay, I'm ranting.  But really, it's National Geographic.  I expect better from them.  I've completely written off the Discovery network, for example, which has just announced that ANIMAL PLANET'S MONSTER WEEK BEGINS TODAY.  (Capitalization theirs.)  And despite the fact that to a biologist, the word "animal" means "a type of real, live creature, i.e. not fictional," they are going to kick off the week with a special about...

... mermaids.

Just 'scuse me while I go pound my forehead on the desk.