In response to my blog post on Monday, David Kirby wrote a response in the Huffington Post and Dr. Jon Poling (father of Hannah Poling) wrote an open letter to me, placed in the comment section and posted at Age of Autism. It seems only polite that I respond to their kind attention.

The primary focus of my original post (which I further developed yesterday) was that the media is focusing too much attention on what celebrities and politicians are saying about the controversy surrounding the discredited notion that vaccines are a significant cause of autism. Over the past year Jenny McCarthy (now joined by her boyfriend Jim Carrey) has become the major spokesperson for a movement that, at its core, is anti-vaccine and is dedicated to the scientific opinion that vaccines are toxic and cause autism. Recently actress Amanda Peet joined the fray, professing her belief that vaccines are safe, are not associated with autism, and that parents who do not vaccinate their children are “parasites” for depending on other parents who do. (She later apologized for that remark, calling it “divisive”.)

While I appreciate Amanda Peet’s support, I feel strongly that scientific questions should be handled by the scientific community. Celebrities are great when they support causes - but when they second guess the scientific community and decide to advocate for their own scientific conclusions, they are more likely to cause harm than good. Continue Reading »

Yesterday I wrote about the fact that Amanda Peet had come out in support of vaccine safety, adding her voice to those who wish to counter the now discredited notion that vaccines are linked to autism. While I admire her for essentially reading the situation correctly, I lamented the fact that celebrities (like Jenny McCarthy) are getting too much attention for their opinions on scientific questions. Today, while bouncing around the blogosphere, I see that McCarthy and Peet were only the tip of the iceberg.

Britney Spears

Orac reported yesterday that Jenny McCarthy held a fundraiser for her antivaccination group (mischaracterized as an autism charity) Generation Rescue. Her boyfriend, Jim Carrey, was there, of course. But also making an appearance was Britney Spears. Orac nailed it when he wrote: “Because no one knows parenting and science like Britney Spears, I guess.”

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I have bemoaned in the past the celebrity culture in which we grant more weight to the opinions of celebrities than they deserve. It seems to be part of human nature to idolize and hero-worship. It can be benign, even healthy. Young athletes idolizing the talent and hard work of sports stars may be spurred on to greater achievement themselves. I also think that intellectual heroes, like Carl Sagan and Stephen J. Gould, can have an enormously positive influence on culture and society.

TV and movie stars, however, are famous because their profession involves public performance in a medium that potentially reaches millions. This is fine as far as it goes - I have no problem admiring stars for their entertainment value, their charisma, and their artistic talent and skills. It is reasonable to admire artists for their art.

The problem comes, in my opinion, when actors and actresses feel that their political opinions or ideology are somehow more valuable than anyone else’s because of their fame. I don’t necessarily blame them - they have a right to express their opinions and their fame gives them an outlet. I do think that if they are going to trade on their fame then they have a responsibility for what they promote, but I am not questioning their right to promote whatever they choose. Rather I maintain that the public should largely not care what celebrities think about issues that have nothing to do with their art and profession.

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Writing for the Huffington Post (an online news outlet that regularly hosts pseudoscience and anti-vaccinationist ravings), Deepak Chopra seeks to inform us: Why the Paranormal is Normal. What he actually demonstrates is his ability to twist and abuse language in an attempt to distract and confuse his reader. At this verbal deception Chopra is truly the master.

Language is important- words matter. Anyone who has studied a technical field should appreciate the need to use precise and unambiguous terminology. Good writers will also carefully choose words to illuminate, rather than obfuscate, what they wish to convey. It is also true that humans generally think in words. Language is closely tied to conscious thought. We therefore need clear language in order to think clearly. Words are also handle-bars with which we can grab hold of concepts - therefore by expanding our vocabulary we can expand our intellectual horizons.

Those who wish to push a claim or point of view that is illogical, at odds with reality, or simply does not make sense will often use language to force-fit their ideas to reality. They will use ambiguous terms, or will shift the definition of terms as needed, for example. This is exactly what Chopra does in order to make his dubious point.

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A new study just published in the New England Journal of Medicine followed three diets for two years: a low-fat diet, a low-carb diet, and a so-called Mediterranean diet which is moderately low fat and replaces red meat with poultry, fish, and nuts. The result are being touted in the media as vindication for the Atkins style low-carb diet, but a careful look at the study tells a more complex story.

Weight loss

There are different ways to assess the healthfulness of a diet. Most Americans are primarily interested in weight loss, but there is also heart-health, reduction in risk for DM, and overall nutrition to consider as well. But let’s start with weight loss.

The low-carbohydrate (sugars and starches) diet is promoted primarily as a weight loss strategy.  Proponents sometimes claim or infer that you can lose weight with a low-carb diet without reducing total calories - or, at any level of caloric intake, you will lose more weight. This has never been established and this new study does not establish it either. The real (and more plausible) question is whether or not a low-carb diet or a low-fat diet helps dieters achieve and maintain lower caloric intake to aid in weight loss.

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Much of the controversy surrounding autism in recent years is based upon the premise that there is an autism epidemic - that autism rates are climbing. However, the evidence strongly suggests that this is not the case and that autism diagnoses are increasing through a combination of broadened diagnosis and increased surveillance and awareness. However, proponents of various discredited theories, such as those anti-vaccinationists who claim there is a link between vaccines and autism (there isn’t) want to believe there is a true epidemic because that in turn implies an environment factor (like the vaccines they despise).

But the environmental hypothesis of autism, while impossible to completely eliminate, has not been fairing well. On the other hand, the theory that autism is largely (if not entirely) genetic has been very fruitful. Researchers are finding more and more genes that correlate strongly with autism. Also, studies have shown that the risk of autism rises with paternal age - suggesting that aging sperm may play a role. It is also true that as our ability to diagnoses autism more reliably, and based upon earlier and more subtle signs, we are finding that infants show early signs of autism - before they receive most of their vaccines or environment has much of a chance to play a role.

Essentially, multiple independent lines of evidence are converging on the conclusion that autism is dominantly genetic. Well, now there is yet another line of evidence supporting this conclusion

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Growing up on Bugs Bunny this was my image of a tasmanian devil. Only later in life did I come to know the real animal, through books, documentaries, and now the internet. The tasmanian devil is the largest marsupial carnivore in the world (after the extinction of the tasmanian tiger).

For the past decade the tasmanian devil population has been decimated by an unusual disease - an contagious cancer. Devils commonly bite each other in the face as part of their social interaction, especially during mating. A facial cancer that can be spread through biting has reduced the devil population by about 90%. The cancer is fatal because it eventually prevents the devil from feeding. This has prompted breeding programs in captivity to rescue the species. It is believed that the cancer is able to spread in this fashion partly because the devil is so in-bred, therefore genetic diversity is low and devil’s immune systems do not reject what amounts to a tissue graft.

There are several distinct populations of tasmanian devils in Tasmania, all but one are affected by the cancer. There are two populations held in captivity as insurance. Biologists are also working on a vaccine for the cancer. The clock is ticking, however, because it is feared that the red fox, an invasive species, may take over the tasmanian devil’s habitat while the populations are low.

But, evolution may succeed first without the need for human intervention.

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I have been following the solar power news for some time out of personal interest. It seems to me solar power is likely to play an important and growing role in meeting the world’s energy needs. It is environmentally friendly, very modular (you don’t need a huge energy plant to use solar, unlike, say, nuclear), and can be unobtrusive.

Also - we are being bathed in more solar energy than we currently need to run the world. According to Wikipedia:

• The total solar energy absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850 zettajoules (ZJ=10^21 joules) per year.
• Global wind energy at 80 m is estimated at 2.25 ZJ per year.
• Photosynthesis captures approximately 3 ZJ per year in biomass.
• Worldwide electricity consumption was approximately 0.0567 ZJ in 2005.
• Worldwide primary energy consumption was 0.487 ZJ in 2005.

That means that the Earth receives 7905 times the energy from the sun as we currently use. This means that we would need to cover only 0.12% of the earth with 10% efficient solar panels to meet current needs - if we ran everything on solar.

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Well, not quite, but he came close.

I was recently asked about the claim that Swift wrote about the moons of Mars in Gulliver’s Travels, published in 1726, and that he knew that there were two moons and exactly described their size and orbital period. The implication is that Swift somehow knew about the moons of Mars, Phobos and Deimos, a century and a half before they were discovered. It turns out that his predictions, if you can call them that, were accurate enough to be an interesting coincidence, but not so close that we have to consider it anything but that.

Gulliver’s Travels

If you have never read this book, I highly recommend it. The animated and live-action movies are fun for kids, but they contain almost none of the biting social satire, and generally leave out the most interesting parts of the book.

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Is still a fraud.

Laura Day is a psychic, although she calls herself an “intuitionist.” What’s an intuitionist? Well, it’s someone who can access information not available to the senses. On Day’s website she offers advanced intuition techniques that include telepathy and clairvoyance. In other words - she’s a psychic.

The only difference is in marketing. Day’s clientele are not the middle-class moms who want a quick tarot card reading. They are not the desperate parents who turn to the chain-smoking Sylvia Browne for a glimmer of information on their missing child. They are not the new-age types who go in for crystals and head scarves.

Day caters to corporations and celebrities. So she attires herself accordingly and calls herself an intuitionist instead of a psychic - to give a bit of cover to executives who might be a little embarrassed about making business decisions based upon magic. The scam works - she claims she gets 10k a month per client and holds down five clients at a time, raking in millions.

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