Our Newest Book Project!

Some of the most fun and illustrative content that Ziztur and I have dived into on this blog were our grossly in-depth book reviews; You Can Lead an Atheist to Evidence, but You Can't Make Him Think, by Ray Comfort, and the classic Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis.  Well, we decided that it's high time we started in on a new book.

Thus, Evidence of the Afterlife, The Science of Near-Death Experiences, by Jeffrey Long and Paul Perry.  This book has only been out since January 19, and became a best-seller almost immediately.  An in-depth review of this book appealed to us for several reasons.  For one, its cultural appeal is incredibly broad.  The arguments and evidence in this book, as well as a thorough, critical examination of it, are relevant to Christians, atheist, spiritualists, and everyone in between.  The arguments here are unique.  Ziztur and I have beaten all the old arguments for the existence of God to death, but an argument for the afterlife, based on near-death experiences, is something we haven't carefully looked at on the blog yet.

A few interesting notes:  Jeffrey Long seems to have assembled the data for this book by simply accepting people's near-death experience testimony via a form on his website (at least, that's what it says on the Near Death Experience Research Foundations's website).

Evidence of the Afterlife is by far the largest scientific study of NDE ever presented, and is based on researching over 1300 NDEs shared with NDERF.

Of course, Ziztur and I, being curmudgeonly skeptics who care about science, would point out that claiming a "scientific"conclusion based on anecdotes submitted to a website is as unscientific as it gets.  It would be very difficult for the authors to screw up the scientific method any worse if they actually tried.  We could reasonably dismiss the entire book's conclusions based on a sampling method as grossly biased as this, but of course we're going to take a closer look.

Look for us to dive into Jeffrey Long's specific claims and arguments soon.  If reading this kind of "evidence" and "science" makes you a feel slightly ill, laughter is the best medicine.  Thus, I leave you with the words of Tim Challies, a Christian reviewer of best-selling books, and his thoughts on this evidence of the afterlife.

The accounts are too common and too consistent to ignore entirely. So we see that such experiences do appear to exist and that they seem to lead directly away from what the Bible teaches us. What recourse do we have, then, but to state with some confidence that these experiences are somehow a trick of Satan?

I get email: homeopath

Today this email appeared in my inbox:

Respected Madam,

(I hope that you are the same person who did sleeping pill experiment)

The otherday, I watched the video of your experiment on homeopathic sleeping pills.

First of all, let me appreciate you for your interest in the evidence based medicine. As per the experiment done by you, the homeopathic sleeping pills can't induce sleep in a humanbeing. I fully agree with you. But, let me tell you the truth that, there are several patent preparations (combinations) marketed as homeopathic medicines. These are actually not homeopathic as per the principles of homoeopathy. The genuine homoeopathic medicines are totally different from these combinations and mixtures. Let me tell you the truth that, homoeopathy has suffered a lot from these non homoeopathic medicines.

A medicine becomes homoeopathic when it is selected on the basis of homoeopathic principles. Recently one scientist in India took a homoeopathic medicine and reported that the medicines could not produce any symptoms on him. This clearly proves that he was not susceptible to the medicine he had taken. If a group of people take the same homoeopathic medicine, only a small percentage of them will have the symptoms and others will not respond immediately. On the other hand, taking the same medicine repeatedly on regular interval can produce the symptoms in many, but here also a few will not be affected.

we can classify homoeopathy in to classical and modern homoeopathy. The classical homeopathy is the genuine one and the other is just an imitation of modern medicine, ie, suppresing the presenting complaints of the patient.

I am practicing homoeopathy since 8 years. Initially, my results were not satisfactory. But, after learning the real homoeopathy by joining BHMS (Bachelor of homoeopathic medicine and surgery), my results are excellent. Now I get different varieties of cases including the failed cases coming from the hands of modern medicine.

While going through your experiment, I feel that, instead of taking a "homoeopathic" patent preparation, you could have taken a genuine homoeopathic medicine for the experiment. The other option is (which will be the best and easy method for you), you notedown your own symptoms in detail and take a suitable homoeopathic medicine from a trained homoeopath or a group of homoeopaths. I am sure that this will prove the efficacy of homoeopathy.

After watching your video, many homoeopaths might have called you as skeptic or a critic funded by some allopathic drug manufacturing company. But, I am not in that category. I feel, if you experiment homoeopathy in a proper way, you will become the ambassador of this system; because most of the famous homoeopaths were once had critical attitude towards the same.

Eagerly waiting to get feedback from you.

Kind Regards.

Dr Muhammed Rafeeque, BHMS, PGNAHI.

Family Homoeopathic clinic

Kerala

India.

www.familyhomoeopathy.com

For Good Reason

Hey! Did you guys know that D.J. Grothe and the JREF have started a new podcast called For Good Reason?

They have already released their first episode, and I dare you to listen to it. It's awesome! The first podcast features Jamy Ian Swiss and James Randi.

Also, you'll hear me on there for a few seconds every week.

Cooking With The Host: Christ Crispies

Ingredients:
3 sleeves communion wafers
½ bag marshmallows (5 oz)
1 ½ tbsp margarine or butter

Supplies needed: 
1 medium saucepan
Wax paper or greased pan
Long-handled spoon

 
Directions:

Melt butter and marshmallows in saucepan over medium heat, being careful not to burn. Once marshmallows are melted, remove from heat and fold communion wafers in. Stir to coat. Allow Christ Crispies to cool for a few minutes. Using greased spatula or fingers, shape bundles of wafers into attractive mounds. Cool. Makes 15-20 treats. Enjoy with wine.

Nutritional information: Provides 50 calories, 10mg sodium, 345g blasphemy*, 10 g carbohydrates, 7g sugars. Not a significant source of piousness. 

 
*Not recognized by the FDA as a nutritional supplement.

Debate night!

Last night, my friends and I (which consisted of nearly the entire St. Louis ring of skeptical bloggers!) had a small debate night at my apartment in St. Louis. 9 People attended, and 2 groups of people debated 2 topics.

The first was a debate between Pastor Keith and War_On_Error. Their topic was "Does God Lie?" The debate dissolved into a group discussion before it finished, mostly because P. Keith and War more or less agreed! That's okay though, because instead of talking about whether or not god lies, we talked about the real point of the debate. The real point of showing that god lies (or deceives, if you are bothered by the word lie) is that people can be mistaken about what god wants. Out discussion was on whether or not it might be better (from a standpoint of convincing some people that they don't have a "special knowledge" trump card) to have a conversation about how hard Biblical interpretation is. If we can convince people that Biblical interpretation is hard, then maybe we can convince them – for example – that someone doesn't have absolute proof by mandate from their god that they should vote down civil rights for homosexuals.

Next, Saint_Gasoline and Inquiring Infidel debated the Kalam Cosmological argument, with Inquiring Infidel pretending to be William Lane Craig. While they were debating, I kept thinking that since lots of people don't know what "M-theory" and "string theory" mean in any detail, that Saint Gasoline, with all of his appeals to physics, would sound like, "blah blah blah blah" to Inquiring Infidel-Craig's more macro approach. I did think it was kind of amusing that Infidel-Craig brought up Hilbert's Hotel, calling such a notion absurd, when god is basically equally absurd, at least in the, "god is timeless, eternal, and ultra-powerful" sense. We speculated that a timeless being could not have thoughts, because thoughts entailed a time structure. Alas.

For the March debate night, Andrea_The_Nerd and I are debating gay marriage. The second debate is still up for grabs.

The debate night for April will be couples debate! Andrea and War will debate debating ("debaters are great!" vs. "debaters are wankers!") while Flimsy and I will be debating marriage ("Marriage is awesome!" vs "Marriage is for suckers!")

Also, the best part of debate night is Debate Kitteh! She decided to hang out on the lectern for the entire first debate, playfully batting at people's notes. 

Once of these days, I swear, we'll move to more public debates.

What if atheists left America?

This video is an interesting premise - what if all atheists left America, like some Christians want?

Dragon's Den ownage.

Here is an entertaining video in which the guys of Dragon's Den completely smash to smithereens all hope that this snake-oil salesman had of hawking his bullshit. Way to go!

A nail in the anti-vax coffin? Maybe...

I have two links of importance today regarding the anti-vaccination hubbub.

The first is a Discover Magazine blog entry on the full retraction of the Lancet Vaccine research article - the article that got the anti-vax movement really started.

The second is news that Andrew Wakefield, the primary author of the study, has been found guilty of medical misconduct and will likely lose his license. There is a long list of evil this man has done in the name of his own agenda, and it is good to see justice served.

This is probably not the final nail in the coffin of the anti-vax debate. I wish it were, for the world would be much safer if everybody got their vaccines.

Borba Skin Skeptic

The other day I was at Walgreens with Flimsy when I passed the section of open-air refrigerated drinks and became puzzled as to why an employee would accidentally shelve shampoo or body wash alongside Mountain Dew and Arizona Tea.

Upon closer examination, I realized that the shampoo-like bottle that had caught my eye was not in fact shampoo, but some kind of drink. Obviously, this is exactly the kind of thing that the makers of Borba Skin Balance Water want to happen, and I will shamefully admit that I totally fell for their unusual packaging – square with a square cup on top, clean simplistic labeling, and a certain opaqueness to the plastic bottle as to almost make the inner contents glow. Whoever designed this packaging is clearly brilliant.

Borba Skin Balance Water, at $2.99 a bottle, hurts your wallet like many other bottled drinks. I grabbed the Guanabana Fruit – Firming bottle, which reads on the front "Designed to promote skin's natural Smoothness * Elasticity * Nourishment"

The side reads, "HEALTHY SKIN FROM WITHIN BORBA SKIN BALANCE WATER FIRMING contains a revolutionary cultivated bio-vitamin complex along with a scientifically designed blend of nutrients intended to promote the skin's natural support system, helping to nourish and tone the skin. BORBA SKIN BALANCE WATER is formulated to work with your body's chemistry to promote healthy skin. This on-the-go, skin-care infused beverage combines simplicity and nutrition with the goodness of water. It's water with benefits."

"FIRMING – GUANABANA: the guanabana fruit, native to the Caribbean and South America, is known for its rich, aromatic flavor and nourishing benefits. Guanabana contains a healthful blend of nutrients, intended to promote more beautiful skin."

More text explains that it has "4 essential b-vitamins" that it is "infused with green tea and grape seed extract", that you can drink it daily to "enhance skin care from within", and that you can alternate it with the other flavors for "multiple skin care benefits".

On the other side, it says that it is calorie free, aspartame free, has no preservatives, 0 grams of carbs, is free of sodium, and has natural flavorings. A message from Scott-Vincent Borba reads, "There's more beauty within you. It lies in wait, on the other side of your skin. Borba Skin Balance Water activates your beauty while hydrating your body, bringing the natural attraction of your skin to the attention of the world. You're just a sip away from a more gorgeous you.

So, I'm skeptical that this drink could improve my skin and dude, what do you mean, "It's water with benefits?" It's as if the writer of this label were claiming water had no benefits unless it has vitamins in it. Unfortunately, the bottle only makes rather vague claims about what the contents are capable of doing. They don't mention any clinical proof, so I can't email them and ask for said proof. Darn! There is a great article in the NY Times about Borba – published back when Borba made specific claims about their elixirs. At one time, bottles of FIRMING claimed it was "scientifically proven to improve elasticity by an average of 24 percent." The NY Times article also cites some specific information on the independent studies, stating that they are available on the Borba website. I can't find them, though. If there were good research proving that this product made your skin prettier, it would be wise to promote it.


My opinion with skin supplements is the same as with any other supplement - as far as I am aware, your body likes to maintain homeostasis and so if you have an excess of a particular vitamin, you simply pee it out, just like if you have an excess of water. If you have too little of a vitamin, then you have a clinical deficiency. Most people don't have vitamin deficiencies, so most people won't really benefit from 500% of your daily value of Vitamin B-12. 


At least it tastes okay and comes in an amusing package, I guess.

Meeting my peeps!

One of the things I did in Buffalo, NY was meet Malimar, one of my very regular commenters!

See? Here's the proof. 


It's so much fun to put faces to the people I communicate with. Plus, Malimar has the most entertaining combination babyface-insanity-mutton-chops-luxuriant-flowing-hair ever. He's nice! He even smells nice, ha. 


My apologies for the Worst Picture Ever in the history of my blog – I didn't take my camera with me, so this picture is from my Blackberry. 

Pants on Fire

I stumbled upon this article from Bodie Hodge of Answers in Genesis from a couple months back.  It asks the classic yet seemingly simple question of whether it's ethical to lie to Nazi soldiers in order to save a hiding Jewish family.

For most of us, including the vast majority of Christians (which I'll get to in a moment), I think that this is a pretty easy answer - the simple act of lying is nowhere near as unethical as directly endangering the lives of innocent people.  Amazingly, AIG disagrees:

The most common example sent to me was envisioning the Holocaust and being placed in the position of lying to potentially protect someone’s life. Like most, if placed in such a difficult situation, it would be very difficult. In fact, I could never be sure what I would do, especially if it were a loved one.

Ah, it would be much easier to endanger the life of someone that you didn't know very well.  Good to know.

But consider for a moment that we are all already sentenced to die because we are sinners (Romans 5:12). It is going to happen regardless. If a lie helps keep someone alive for a matter of moments compared to eternity, was the lie, which is high treason against the Creator, worth it?

It would be like sitting in a cell on death row and when the guards come to take your roommate to the electric chair, you lie to the guards and say you don’t know where the person went—while your roommate is hiding under their covers on the bed. Does it really help?

So there we have it.  Knowingly causing the death of one or more innocent people is insignificant to offending God.  As he points out, scripture is pretty clear on these priorities, after all.

I don't think I need to explain in much detail what's so wrong with this worldview.  Thankfully, Hodge himself admits that such an action seems wrong to him, and that he's not at all certain what he would do if he found himself with such a choice.  I sincerely hope that he never finds himself in such a position, and that if he does, he chooses the ethical course, and discards his God's wishes entirely.

He offers some other examples:

Stephen in Acts 6–7 preached Christ, and men came against him. This culminated with a question by the high priest in Acts 7:1 who said: “Are these things so?”

At this point, Stephen could have done a “righteous lie” to save his life so that he could have many more years to preach the gospel. However, Stephen laid a long and appropriate foundation for Christ—then preached Christ. And they killed him.

Obviously, I strongly doubt that this story took place exactly as it is portrayed.  If we give it the benefit of the doubt, however, I still think that it's a pretty easy answer, especially considering that Hodge concludes that good came from Stephen's death - his martyrdom to the Christian cause.

Martyrs can be a source of great good, if a person's life is given in service to a worthy cause.  The Revolutionary War, the Civil War and abolition of slavery, various civil rights movement, etc. are all good nominees for such causes.

I don't think that making people Christian is such a cause.

To put it bluntly, Stephen lost his life for almost nothing.  Whatever positive effect could have occurred as a result of his death, I conclude that such hypothetical benefits are not greater than his worth as a person, and the lives of his family and friends.

I find it telling that Hodge specifically states that the good that would have come from Stephen lying to save his own life would come from his continued preaching and proselytizing.  There's no mention of Stephen's own worth, or the effect on his loved ones.

Also, do I even need to say it?  While we (arguably, potentially) have a right to choose to be a martyr, even in a cause of questionable worth, we clearly have no right to martyr other people to our cause.  He could have even responded to the Nazis-hunting-for-hiding-Jews example with something about the value of those lives as martyrs to the cause of rallying support for the Nazi's defeat.  He doesn't, though, he only considers the value of their lives vs. his religious doctrine.

Later in the article, even more disturbingly, he himself has to resort to lying outright about a passage in Exodus, to desperately try and prove his point that God always condemns lying, even to save innocent life (!).

In summary, Pharaoh has decreed to the Hebrew midwives that they put to death all male children that they deliver.  They disobey, and when Pharaoh asks them why the cock they've got all these newborn Hebrew cocks running around, the midwives tell him that the Hebrew women are just giving birth really, really fast, too quickly for the midwives to show up.  God wholeheartedly approves of this falsehood, and blesses the midwives for it by multiplying the Hebrew people.

Hodge claims that the midwives did not lie.  His alternate explanation of the passage is that the midwives simply told Hebrew women that their sons would be in danger unless they managed to give birth very quickly, on their own, without a midwife, and they somehow managed to do so.  Okay, okay, stop laughing.  He also suggests that the midwives just took a really long time to get to a woman in labor.  Of course, this would also mean that the midwives basically lied to Pharaoh (can anyone really claim with a straight face that deliberately dragging their feet and then claiming that Hebrew babies are like greased lightning would not be completely deceptive?).

Both possible explanations suffer from one glaring drawback, hence the clear fact that Hodge has lied about what the Bible says; the Bible passage clearly states that the midwives didn't simply show up late:  "But the midwives feared God, and did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the male children alive."

This leads me directly to my main point - the Bible contradicts itself on this matter (no surprise there, I suppose . . .), but we have a Christian who, I think, knows what's right, as shown by his hesitation to hand over an innocent family to be murdered.  However, he has concluded with all his rational faculties that the opposite is true - that lying to Nazis is a greater evil than letting an innocent family die.  People, both religious and nonreligious alike, are quick to point out that many people would oppose gay rights based on their own bigotry regardless of whether they had religious doctrine to fuel it.  That is absolutely not what we have in this case - Hodge has reached this grossly immoral conclusion exactly as a result of his religious doctrine.*

*Note that this last paragraph is completely philosophical in nature, and actually only represents what I sincerely hope to be the case.  It is entirely possible that Hodge is, in fact, a violently bigoted closet-Nazi anti-Semite.  I suppose we'll never know . . .

CFI report

So today is the end of my second day at CFI. My brian is a little burned out at the moment, primarily due to lack of sleep (it's odd sleeping in a house by yourself when you're accustomed to sleeping in a shotgun apartment with 2 cats, 1 dog, and – most importantly – 1 Flimsyman.

My first day at CFI, I literally spent 8 hours talking with Joe Nickell on topics ranging from how unskeptical some atheists can be to how awesome it is when one comes across a rare bottle of "clairvoyant medicine" at an antique shop. We yammered at length about the ethics of investigation, and why skeptics need to avoid being armchair-ivory-towerists and actually get out into the world and participate actively in skepticism. Joe further convinced me that investigation should occur in the real world as much as possible.

Another thing we talked about at length is his Skeptiseum, and awesome, yet somehow sort of unknown – skeptical museum of the paranormal. The Skeptiseum features exhibits on alternative medicine, cryptozoology/mythical creatures, ghosts and spirits, miracles, pseudoscience, psychic phenomena, superstition, UFO's and aliens. In person, the Skeptiseum is a quirky collection of strange and mysterious items mixed in with a sizable collection of books in Joe's personal library. It's one of those things tucked away that I think needs more exposure.

My second day at CFI (today) was spent researching the holy grail relic the Sacro Catino. The Sacro Catino is a famous object preserved in Genoa, Italy, that has a spurious history. People at one time apparently believed it was carved of a large emerald, though most modern scholars believe it is merely glass. I'll assuredly write more about it later, but at the moment we're still trying to piece together a decent historical account of the thing.

Homeopathy: For insomnia

Okay! I've had like 2 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours as I finish this post. So, if there are any glaring grammatical errors, I can't see them because my eyes are kinda crossed. I'll trust my fellow bloggers to fix any obvious ones. :)


Continuing on my series of articles outlining a recently published two-part special issue of the journal Homeopathy on the efficacy of homeopathy, this post is on an article [1] testing the effectiveness of application of homeopathy to chronic primary insomnia. 


This research was a double-blind, placebo-controlled study, the primary purpose of which was to "evaluate the efficacy of homeopathic similimum in the treatment of chronic primary insomnia in terms of the patient's perception of the treatment, using a Sleep Diary (SD) and the Sleep Impairment Index (SII).

The Sleep Diary is defined in the study as a daily written record of the subject's sleep patterns, including sleep-wake times, time in bed, estimated period of sleep, quality of sleep, number of sleep interruptions, and daytime naps. The SII is a "7-item measurement tool that yields a quantitative index of sleep impairment." It relies on self-report of the subject's perception of "insomnia, its severity, level of distress and impairment of daytime functioning"

For the study, subjects were recruited and then asked to fill out a SII to provide a baseline measurement of the severity of insomnia symptoms. They were also instructed to record sleep data in the sleep diary for one week to provide a baseline measurement of other sleep variables. Their full homeopathic case history and physical examination were performed. For each subject, the homeopath was allowed to prescribe any homeopathic remedy that he or she felt would be beneficial to the subject. Potencies were not limited, rather the homeopath determined the most suitable remedy. The dosage took the form of

"three single-dose lactose powder satchet per consultation, one of which was dissolved sublinguially each night consecutively before going to sleep… each active powder sachet comprised 10 medicated lactose granules which were placed into the sachets containing lactose powder. The medicated granules were produced in accordance with Method 10 of the German Homeopathic Pharmacopoeia. Lactose granules were triple-impregnated with centesimal potencies of the relevant remedy contained within 96% ethanol… Each placebo powder sachet comprised lactose powder and 10 lactose granules impregnated with 96% ethanol alone and were indistinguishable from the active sachets in appearance and taste"

Impressively, the researchers in this group put a great amount of forethought into the blinding and randomization process. The researcher and research supervisor would discuss each case and determine which homeopathic preparation was most appropriate, based on "repertorisation (RADAR version 9) of the totality of symptoms presented". Then, the prescription was dispensed by an independent dispenser according to the randomization list. So, the researchers and subjects did not know if the subjects were receiving homeopathic preparations or placebos. Participants were instructed to begin taking the medications a week after the initial consultation (presumably so that they could fill out their week-long sleep diary). After two weeks, they returned to the clinic, where they were reassessed. At this point, the homeopath could modify the treatment as needed, so long as treatment still fell within the principals of homeopathy. Again, subjects went to a dispenser for either the homeopathic preparation or a placebo.

The subject group consisted of an initial recruitment of 45 subjects. 12 did not meet the inclusion criteria. Thus, 16 were allocated to the treatment group while 17 were allocated to the placebo group. Of these subjects, 2 were lost to follow up from the treatment group (due to scheduling difficulties and compliance) and one was lost from the placebo group due to scheduling difficulties. This left a total of 14 subjects in the treatment group and 16 in the placebo group.

At the end of the study, researchers analyzed the SD in terms of total hours slept per week. For the SII, subjects graded their sleep symptoms in terms of a 4-point severity scale (none, mild, moderate, severe or very much). The authors stated that they analyzed this data "in the form of summary scores as well as per individual question".

So, let's talk about statistics a little. The researchers set the P-value at .05, meaning that the researchers would be 95% certain that the data they obtained from groups were significantly different from one another. This is important to note because, as Petter so eloquently pointed out, most published research results are wrong, and so a p-value of .05 might be acceptable for preliminary work but is absolutely unacceptable for conclusive work, especially clinical medical studies. The researchers state that the groups did not differ significantly in terms of their baseline measurements of hours per week slept or SII reports.

For the treatment group, the weekly hours slept was as such: Baseline: 35, week2: 45, week3: 43, and week4: 41.

For the placebo group, weekly mean scores for hours slept were: baseline: 34, week2: 32, week3: 35 an week4: 35.

For the SII measures, the treatment group was: baseline: 3.34 week2: 3.14, week3: 1.47.

For the placebo group the SII measure was: baseline: 3.53, week1: 3.41, week2: 3.35

A major problem with these numbers is that while it looks like the treatment group got more mean hours of sleep than the placebo group, the reader is offered no numbers for standard deviation. That means that I can't calculate effect size to see if these numbers have any clinical relevance. For those of you who aren't researchers or statisticians – this is a big deal. One might be able to show that there is a statistical difference between groups, but whether or not this difference is clinically relevant can spell the difference between useless statistical noise and an actual worthwhile treatment. On the surface, those numbers look impressive, but without a standard deviation, we have no way of knowing how distributed the data were – we have no way of knowing, for example, if one or two subjects seriously skewed the data.

Was there a significant difference in any of the other factors of the sleep diary? You'll recall that the SD measured at least six different factors of sleep, yet the authors only chose to report on the mean hours of sleep per week. Not per day, but per week. Why did they not report on the other items in the sleep diary? My guess is that they did not find that any of those factors were significantly different, or perhaps even found that some of those factors were significantly different, but showed that the placebo group had a more positive outcome. We do not know, because they do not say. Regardless, if researchers mention that they measured something, it is prudent that they report on the results. In my experience, journal reviewers frown on the practice of mentioning variables early in a paper and then not reporting on the outcomes of those variables.

Things are a little more complicated for the SII measure. The researchers report contradictory and vague results, stating:

1. The SII is a 7-item measurement tool.
   
2. There were "significant improvements in 6/11 questions after 1 week" for both groups
   
3. There were "significant improvements in 10/11 questions" in the treatment group and significant improvements in 4/11 questions in the placebo group for week 2.
   
4. "When comparisons were made between Baseline SII scores and those at Week 4 (trial entry and trial completion), significant improvements in all (11/11) questions within the verum group were observed. Within the placebo group no significant improvements were noted for any of the questions (0/11) over the same period.
   

It's interesting that a 7-item measurement tool has "11 questions" – what's the deal with that? How is it that there were improvements in the placebo group, but then there weren't? The researchers claim that there was a significant difference between treatment groups between baseline and each follow up consultation. This seems to jive with their numbers (3.34, 3.14, 1.47) but they say that while initial improvement occurred in the placebo group (moving from 3.53 to 3.41) there was "no difference between baseline and final SII scores".

Say what? The scores were 3.53, 3.41 and 3.35. There is clearly a greater difference between baseline (3.52) and week 2 (3.41) and week 4 (3.35), but they say this is non-significant. Why? Also, why is it that they took baseline SD measures and then 3 follow-up SD measures, but only took 2 follow-up SII measures? From my perspective, the data in this study is starting to unravel. Once again, they only give the mean and not the standard deviation, so I am unable to calculate effect size.

The researchers also have a table of the specific homeopathic preparations they used, and to what frequency they were prescribed. They do not say to what potency the preparations are given, just that 23 were given at 30CH, 63 given at 200CH, 38 given at 1M, and 5 given at 10M. They are: Lachesis muta (8), Nux vomica (7), Medorrhinum (5), Sepia officinalis (5), Lycoposium clavatum (4), Carcinosin (4), Sulphur (3), Natrum muriaticum (3), Calcarea carnonica (2), Coffea cruda (2), Ignatia amara (2), Silica terra (2), Mercurius solubilis (1), Arsenicum album (1), Cannabis indica (1), Calcarea arsinicosum (1), Kalium carbonicum (1), Tuberculinum (1), Thuja occidentalis (1) and placebo (5).

Yes, they prescribe placebos intentionally. Apparently this was given as the "second prescription only; only if the first prescriptions was considered to be still acting." I'll let you guys make of this what you will.

One of the more fascinating results of this study is that the placebo group does not mirror the placebo effects of typical drug trials for insomnia. Why is it that the results of the placebo group are so negligible? In this study, the placebo treatment resulted in no significant increase in the duration of sleep and only tiny improvements in the SII scores. Quite, frankly, this is surprising and does not agree with other research on the placebo effect of treatments for insomnia. A strong positive placebo (and nocebo, for that matter) effect has been established in the treatment of primary insomnia [2] As such, I am skeptical that the verum treatment has been adequately compared to a placebo treatment.

I also take issue with the author's statement that homeopathy is a viable treatment for insomnia, given the small size of treatment groups and respective probable lack of power. Of course, since the researchers did not specify the standard deviation, I can't calculate power either. I think the correct conclusion of this study is that given the small sample size, this study is a pilot study that can be said to have determined that further study on the effects effect of homeopathy on the treatment of chronic primary insomnia may be warranted. I think that it would also be valuable to explore the surprising lack of placebo effect in the placebo group, as this is contrary to established literature.

1. Naude DF, Couchman IMS, Maharaj A. Chronic primary insomnia: Efficacy of homeopathic simillimum. Homeopathy 2009:99, 63-68
   
2. Perlis ML, McCall WV, Jungquist CR, Pigeon WR, Matteson SE. Placebo effects in primary insomnia. Sleep Medicine Reviews 2005:9;381-389

Off to New York

The secret is out:

I am traveling to the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI, the guys who produce Skeptical Inquiry Magazine) for an internship!

Today!

Now, I am fully aware that this is a Skeptic's dream internship. I'll be hanging out with Joe Nickell and lots of other cool people.The goal is to learn how to do pseudoscience, paranormal, and fringe science research and investigations.

16 months ago when I started this blog, I had NO idea where it might take me. To CSI is one of those places. There are probably about 200 people I should thank for giving me the awesome opportunity to be more than just an armchair skeptic, so I'll just say thanks to everyone - you know who you are. 

Fear not, for I shall be blogging about my experiences at CSI. I'll also be bringing along my camera in the event that I come across some skeptical eyecandy. There are more interesting things in the works for the future, so keep checking back.

Bomb dowser inventor arrested

Remember the recent blurb on our blog concerning a British company that sells bomb detection devices to developing countries that are nothing more than fancy-looking dowsing rods?

Well, the head-honcho of said company has been arrested on suspicion of fraud. Apparently he was questioned after someone complained that he misrepresented the devices.

Someone? Skeptics have been complaining about this tragic piece of quackery for years. Thankfully, someone finally listened.

Of course, the company owner is complaining that his device is being criticized not because it doesn't work, but because of it's appearance:

"We have been dealing with doubters for ten years. One of the problems we have is that the machine does look a little primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights."

Oh! Flashing lights will totally convince us…

Jim McCormick (the owner of the company and inventor of the device) is evil, plain and simple. There is no evidence that the device works, and so giving people in developing countries an ineffective bomb-sniffing device puts them at risks that cannot be understated.

Does Objectification Equal Sexism?

An interesting business was recently under discussion on Atheist Nexus and by our good friend The Nerd.  That business is a small coffee shop, the Java Divas.  Seriously, check out their site.  Attractive women selling coffee in skimpy, suggestive costumes.  The coffee even comes in large/medium/small cups identified by bra sizes.  Another interesting tidbit - the owner and operator/fellow scantily-clad server is also a woman.

So . . . thoughts?  Much conversation at the above-mentioned internet places has already revolved around the idea of objectification not being morally/socially good or bad in and of itself.  Clearly, I sometimes objectify Ziztur, and she sometimes objectifies me.  This clearly has no inherent sexism, for a large number of reasons.

The principle difference, pointed out several times already, is that the suggestively-clad women at Java Divas have nothing more than a financial relationship with the customers (presumably, at least in the vast majority of cases).  There is at least a possible element of the women in question being resigned, by their financial situation, to working that job under these conditions.

My question, not to sugar-coat it too much, but:  So the hell what?

I'm reminded of this incident (among others in other firefighting departments around the world) in which a woman or women came short of physical fitness requirements for the job the were doing or applying for.  This particular case dealt with a distance run, and I've seen other cases dealing primarily with the immense upper-body strength required to be a firefighter.  Basically, in a nutshell, by any reasonable standard, you have to be an utter hardass to be a firefighter.

Now, I'm certainly not going to say that gender bias and discrimination have never been a factor in firefighting; that would just be spectacularly ignorant.  However, it's obvious to most people that these physical fitness standards are for the safety of the firefighters themselves and the safety of the public that they serve, and are not inherently gender-biased.

My question is this:  How are the women at Java Divas, or any similar establishment, being objectified for their physical appearance any more than firefighters are being objectified for their physical strength?  For that matter, why does the criteria have to be physical?  If someone happens to have knowledge and/or experience of, for example, the insurance business, or of Occupational Therapy, and are hired for a job on that criteria, how is their employment not "objectifying" them on the basis of that knowledge?

So, what does it say about someone's attitude towards women, their attitude towards sex, or their attitude towards what they think is women's attitude towards sex (try saying that ten times fast . . .) when they basically claim that women aren't capable of choosing for themselves what to do with their potential physical attractiveness?  Do these folks really worry about whether, to use just one example, firefighters (who after all are in much more physical danger on the job than baristas) are being exploited for their body strength, or are they basically, in effect, thinking, "Ah, well, they're men; of course they can make a mature decision about their own employment."?

Need I even mention that whatever "objectification" of the Java Divas employees that's occurring pales in comparison to a stripper, porn star, or prostitute?  I think it's obvious that an almost puritan or religious restriction on what women can and can't do with their bodies is the more sexist attitude, not only because of it's anti-sex overtones, but also because of it's strong implication that those mentally weak wimminfolk just don't have the emotional maturity to deal with people looking at their bodies.

What do you guys think?

Journal of Homeopathy: wheat

According to ScienceDaily, the journal Homeopathy has published a 2-part special issue on the biological models of homeopathy. Being the obsessive quirk that I am, I decided to get ahold of this 2-part special issue of Homeopathy to see what all the fuss is about.

ScienceDaily says that:

The special issue makes an important contribution to this debate, by reviewing laboratory experiments with high dilutions. It includes reviews and new findings in biosystems, ranging from whole animal behavioral, intoxication and inflammation models through diseased and healthy plant models, to test tube experiments using isolated cells, cell cultures or enzymes.

The editor in chief concludes that -

"Throughout its 200 year history claims that homeopathy has 'real' (as opposed to placebo) effects have been hotly contested. Our special issue brings together a wide range of scientific work in biological systems, where there can be no placebo effect, showing that there are now several biological experiments which yield consistently positive results with homeopathic dilutions."

One of the first articles I looked at was an article on the effect of arsenic on wheat seedlings [1]. This article was a review of an experiment on wheat seedlings that had been replicated 17 times among 2 research groups. The experiment was like this: To test potentiated arsenic as a cure for arsenic poisoning, researchers first exposed wheat seedlings to a 1%, 1.2%, or 1.6% solution of arsenic. Then, they had three outcome groups: 1 treated with water, 1 treated with 45X potentized water, and one treated with a 45X potentation of 1% Arsenic. Then, they measured wheat shoot length as an outcome after 7 days.

So, here's what happened with the two research groups. The first lab group conducted the experiment, and said experiment resulted in a 24% increase in shoot growth as compared to the placebo. This was the expected outcome, as homeopathic arsenic is taken to be a remedy for arsenic poisoning. A different research team later replicated the experiment, only to find the opposite – they found that the arsenic group had a reduction in hoot length by -3%. Curious about this discrepancy, they performed the experiments again. They found no statistically significant effect. So, they performed a meta analysis of all of the seed data and found a 3.2% reduction in seed growth and an (apparently nonsignificant) trend in reduction of germination rates.

The authors report that these findings are puzzling, but the fact that there was any effect at all shows that homeopathy does something. Their conclusion is that treatment of arsenic poisoned wheat seeds with homeopathic arsenic leads to statistically significant, yet contrary, effects. Without going into huge amounts of detail, I can say that the authors did a fairly good job of eliminating other factors that might have contributed to their results. Regardless, the meta-analysis certainly did not show that homeopathic arsenic is an effective treatment for arsenic poisoning in wheat.

I think that the experiment producing both positive, negative, and no effects does not point to homeopathy having some kind of effect, but rather it illustrates that science is messy and inexact. A 3.2% difference in wheat shoot growth is barely noticeable. Their mean growth rate was between 29 and 65mm. When a meta analysis reveals a 3.2% difference between treatment groups, we're talking about a difference in wheat shoot measurements of 1-2mm.

Surprisingly, the researchers in this paper talked about effect size. Effect size, simply is a measure of the strength of the relationship between two variables. In scientific experiments, it is often useful to know not only whether an experiment has a statistically significant effect, but also the size of any observed effects. In other words, if we look at a group of 20 people in a treatment group and 20 people in a placebo group, there might be significant differences, even when those differences are essentially meaningless. What is really important is how much these groups are different or how big the differences are. It is always possible to show that there is significant difference between two groups, unless they are 100% Identical. The important part is to what degree groups are different. For this, you need to know the effect size. In this case, the effect size of a 3% difference between their wheat groups amounts to 0.04. Effect size for Cohen's d an effect size of 0.2 to 0.3 might be a "small" effect, around 0.5 a "medium" effect and 0.8 to infinity, a "large" effect. If a small effect is from 0.2-0.3, and the effect size of the experimenter's wheat growth is 0.04, then I would chalk up the differences to experimental noise. This difference in groups is immensely tiny.

I have to wonder why the experimenters chose only 7 days of germination instead of taking measurements at 14 days, and then at 28 days. I don't know if a 1-2mm difference in shoot length among groups will actually translate into any measureable effects of plant size as the plants grow, but since the authors of this paper did not comment on further growth after the 7 day period, one cannot make any claims either way. There are also about a million factors that can influence early seed growth. I admit only rudimentary knowledge of horticulture, but even if seeds are placed side by side in rows in a pan, there could be enough of a difference in lighting, soil temperature, air temperature, and carbon dioxide distribution to account for the small differences seen among groups, even if the groups are dispersed. One thing the experimenters did do was to look for statistically significant differences among shoot growth of 2 pans of seeds where the seeds were placed side-by side and subjected to otherwise identical growing situations. They didn't find any differences. Here is how they arranged the seeds:

The 90 envelopes of each cardboard box were grouped in 9 groups of ten seeds each. The 9 groups of each box were randomly allocated to 3 3 treatment groups with the aid of a computer generated randomization list. The list was prepared newly for each box and each experiment. Thus, in one box, ten seeds of the first group were followed by ten seeds of the second group, and so on (corresponding to the order in which they were planted).

There are other research papers on homeopathy for treatment of arsenic poisoning. One was a study conducted on mice [2] which produced positive results, but it was unblinded. There have been other studies conducted on humans, but I'll just say that the guys over at NESS tore those studies apart. I am unconvinced that this minute difference among plant seedlings will translate into a clinically meaningful effect with regard to using homeopathy as a treatment for disease (also noting that the tiny effect the researchers found in their meta-analysis was contrary to homeopathy, stunting shoot growth rather than increasing it) and the standards for validity of non-homeopathic remedies are much higher. Given all of the other research published on homeopathy which has shown that its effects are equivalent to placebo in humans, I have to wonder why researchers are backtracking into preliminary studies and then saying, "See? High dilutions do something… even if what it does is barely measurable and contrary to the law of similar" when we already have ample evidence that homeopathy is of little clinical use.

1. Lahnstein L, Binder M, Thurneysen T, Frei-Erb M, Betti L, Peruzzi M, Heusser P, Baumgartner S. Isopathic treatment effects of Arsenicum album 45x on wheat seedling growth – further reproduction trials. Homeopathy (2009) 98:198-207
   
2. Mallick P, Chakrabarti (Mallick) J, Bibhas G, Khuda-Bukhsh AR. Ameliorating Effect of Microdoses of a Potentized Homeopathic Drug, Arsencium Album, on Arsenic-Induced Toxicity in Mice. BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine, (2003)3:7

How cool is this!?

My lovely friend Inquiring Infidel posted this gem on Facebook: the 100 best (free!) science documentaries online. They've got everything from Super Size Me (about the guy who eats nothing but McDonald's for 30 days) to a documentary about coffee. You just need to check it out, and that's all I can say.

LifeSaver's Musk

Is someone out there in bloggyland willing to find and/or mail some musk candy (either Lifesaver's musk or musk sticks) to me in St. Louis?

You know, this:

 or this:

Never before have I tasted something so... unique and delicious. I got to try some Lifesavers Musk while at TAM, courtesy of the Australian Skeptics. Now, I miss it! I want it! Please? Anyone? Send me the musk?

I'll mail you something in return... umm... like... something!

Time to make some predictions…

In a few days, at exactly 10:23 on January 30th, over 300 skeptics (well, sceptics, because they are in the UK) are going to take part in a massive homeopathic "overdose".

The folks putting it together are over at 1023.org have this to say:

Sceptics and consumer rights activists will publicly swallow an entire bottle of homeopathic 'pillules' to demonstrate that these 'remedies', prepared according to a long-discredited 18th century ritual, are nothing but sugar pills.

The protest will raise public awareness about the reality of homeopathy, and put further pressure on Boots to live up to its responsibilites as the 'scientist on the high street' and stop selling treatments which do not work.

I am going to try to amass a St. Louis version of this even, but I have to work fast, because this is only in 11 days!


I have a few predictions to make:

1. This will not dissuade the true believers of homeopathy.
   
2. True believers will claim that this experiment is invalid, or they will screech that we "don't understand homeopathy" or they will insist that an overdose isn't possible, or make up all sorts of silly excuses as to why the mass overdose somehow demonstrates nothing.
   
3. 
   
   We'll be accused of being shills for "big pharma".
   
   
   
   
   

I've started collecting patent medicines – you know, liniments and female pills and camphor and laxatives from the 1800's – Most of this stuff we consider bunk today, as it was made back in the day when anyone and everyone could patent medicines without verifying that their claims were real. The history of patent medicine is completely fascinating to me.

For some really good info on patent medicines, you can visit the Smithsonian exhibit on the latter.




Homeopathy is patent medicine. It's a throwback to the days when medicines were sold unregulated, unchecked and untested. I suppose some snake oil was bound to survive the glorious days before drug regulation – especially when homeopathy practitioners managed to convince the FDA that homeopathy needs no regulation beyond labeling restrictions (homeopathy is only allowed to be labeled as a curative for nonspecific ailments or self-limiting conditions). At any rate, having hundreds of skeptics swallow bottles of homeopathic remedies should certainly get the attention of someone.