AVN may be closing doors; Meryl Dorey stepping down
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
AVN may be closing doors; Meryl Dorey stepping down
We have another MAJOR win for reality and skepticism, folks. And this is a good one: Meryl Dorey just announced she’s stepping down as head of the Anti Australian Vaccination Network, and that the AVN itself may shut down.
Ah, the hits keep on a-comin’.
Regular readers may remember Ms. Dorey, that hero of the antivaxxers who has twisted the truth about vaccinations so much it’s shocking her tongue hasn’t turned into a Möbius strip. She has said no one dies from pertussis anymore… when little four-week-old Dana McCaffery died of that very disease, because herd immunity in her area of Australia was so low. Dorey is an HIV denier. She thinks doctors lie and poison babies. She viciously defames those who disagree with her. It goes on and on.
The timing of this announcement is very interesting, seeing as how the Australian Skeptics have been hammering at Dorey and the AVN, and in fact Dorey and the AVN may be held accountable for breaking Australian laws about dispensing medical advice without a license; they are currently under investigation by the New South Wales Health Care Complaints Commission.
They’ve also been getting a lot of negative publicity, which is the very, very least that they deserve. My friend, the tireless Rachael Dunlop, has been instrumental in exposing the truth about Meryl Dorey, and is largely responsible for holding Dorey’s and the AVN’s feet to the fire.
Reading Dorey’s statement on the AVN blog is actually rather interesting. She says:
I am getting older; my children have missed out on so much so I could run the AVN; and at this stage in my existence, I need to be able to work on this subject and still have a life. Without a large injection of capital behind me, I simply cannot continue.
In other words, she’s leaving to spend more time with her family. Hmmmm. Also, her use of the word "injection" nearly made every molecule in my irony gland explode at the speed of light.
OK, no more snark. Dorey, in that blog post, is asking someone to step up and take her place. I have no doubt someone will, so I expect the AVN will go on without her, spreading their falsehoods, slathering their fearmongering over an unsuspecting and trusting audience, and helping thousands of Australian babies be exposed to pertussis, measles, mumps, polio, and all sorts of other preventable diseases that would have been otherwise eradicated by simple vaccinations.
I can hope, though, that without Dorey’s voice, the AVN will be far weaker, and if the charges against them hold up, they may fall apart entirely. That would be a very good thing indeed.
So whaddya know? Dorey claims she wants to save people’s lives. This move on on her part may finally do it.
Labels: skepticism, vaccines
Skeptics – Getting Under Their Skin
Monday, January 25, 2010
Skeptics – Getting Under Their Skin
bySteven Novella, Jan 25 2010
As the activist skeptical movement grows and increasingly networks, thanks largely to social media, we seem to be irritating those who are the targets of our critical analysis. This is a good thing. It’s a sign that we are doing our job and having an impact.
Recently there has been an increase in those attacking skeptics and skepticism. One tactic is to attempt to intimidate critics and silence public debate through libel lawsuits or the threat of such suits. The blustering by Bonnie Vent and her minions following Mark Edwards’ latest post is a good example. Clearly, they are not familiar with libel laws in the US, or they hope that we are not, or they simply don’t care.
To be clear, we take very seriously our responsibility to be fair and factually accurate, and we will happily correct mistakes if they are pointed out to us. The original version of Mark’s article contained the word “apparently” to refer to second-hand information. This was probably enough of a qualification, but we strengthened it to “allegedly” just to be sure, and even added the caveat about the original source. (Read the post for details.)
Fortunately in the US we have rational libel laws. In order to prove libel the plaintiff will have to prove that the defendant wrote something that was wrong, they knew it was wrong, and they did it deliberately out of malice. In some states you also have to prove harm, but a few have what is called “libel per se” which means that certain accusations are considered automatically damaging to one’s reputation.
On the other hand, some states also have anti-SLAPP laws – strategic lawsuit against public participation. In essence, if you use a libel suit to silence a critic and remove their right to participate in free speech, you may be counter sued under anti-SLAPP laws. The courts, in short, have recognized the threat that SLAPP suits pose to first amendment rights.
The Canadian Supreme Court recently recognized this as well, ruling in one case:
The Supreme Court said it examined laws in other countries with similar legal systems, such as the United Kingdom and Australia. It found that Canadian law was strict by comparison and did not give enough weight to the value of free expression.
“This, in turn, may have a chilling effect on what is published,” said the text of one of the rulings. “Information that is reliable and in the public’s interest to know may never see the light of day.”
Unfortunately, English libel law is still in the dark ages, as some of our colleagues across the pond have discovered. Simon Singh is currently defending a libel suit in British court against the British Chiropractic Association (BCA). Apparently he stung them and made it hurt when he pointed out they promote treatments that are not supported by evidence. This resulted in a backlash against the BCA and a campaign to reform English libel laws.
Previously Ben Goldacre and The Guardian were the target of a libel suit from one Matthias Rath, for selling dubious treatments for serious illnesses, like AIDS, in Africa. Ben emerged victorious from this suit.
Back on this side, Robert Lancaster was threatened with suit by Sylvia Browne for his website, stopsylviabrowne.com. Robert refused to back down or be intimidated by Browne, who had not case against him. Unfortunately, Robert suffered a stroke and during his recovery period it appears that the registration for the domain name lapsed and the url was picked up by a psychic promoter.
Paul Offit and Amy Wallace from Wired Magazine have also recently been sued by anti-vaccinationist Barbara Loe Fisher, the head of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). This one is over the claim by Offit printed in Wired Magazine that “she lies” – referring to Fisher. If it actually gets to court it is likely, in my opinion, that Offit will be able to demonstrate that Fisher has made comments that are less than truthful. But usually in such cases the point of the suit is not to defend it in court, but simply to force a settlement.
Threat of libel is not the only way that the cranks of the world are trying to fight back against skeptics. They are also trying to take us on in their own critical writing, which of course they have the right to do. But just like with the libel suits, this strategy has been backfiring more often than not. It seems that if we irritate them enough, we can goad them into embarrassing themselves by trying to do something they clearly are not good at – critical analysis.
Recently Deepak Chopra, Rustom Roy, and Larry Dossey attacked Science-Based Medicine in the Huffington Post. Invariably such attempts butcher the skeptical position (always a marker of intellectual sloppiness) and just provide more fodder for us to criticize, and this was no exception. In the world of alternative medicine defenders on nonsense, like the three above, have an especially hard time because they do need to seem scientific while attacking science and defending pseudoscience. So it is easy to trip them up in self-contradiction. As David Gorski writes:
Dr. Dossey just spent two articles whining that his beloved CAM is being treated so very, very unfairly by promoters of science-based medicine, but from my viewpoint it’s being treated more than fairly these days; it’s being given a free pass, by and large. Again, that’s why I’ll repeat it one more time. If Dr. Dossey really wants CAM to be evaluated on a truly equal scientific footing with science-based medicine, I have one thing to say to him one last time:
Bring it on!
Mike Adams, editor of NaturalNews.com, has also felt the sting of skeptics and decided to fight back with his own rhetoric. In it he raises an army of particularly flimsy strawmen against skeptics, easily dismantled. He was joined by fellow natural guru Joseph Mercola, who attacked one of our Australian colleagues, Rachel Dunlop. Mercola’s comments were in such poor taste that his own followers flinched.
Speaking of which, the winner of the most callous, distasteful, and strategically moronic attack on skeptics of 2009 goes to the Age of Autism for their photoshopped picture of various critics of the anti-vaccine movement (including yours truly) eating a baby at Thanksgiving dinner. Even some of their devoted followers were put off by this despicable (and mysogynistic) display, and they quickly decided to take it down.
Conclusion
As the skeptical movement grows we will increasingly become the targets of counter-attacks like those I discuss above. Like it or not, we are engaged in conflict with the promoters of pseudoscience and an anti-scientific world view, and they will fight back. But we have shown in recent years that we can stick together and we will not be intimidated. Try to silence one of us, and the criticism will only be magnified 100 fold.
Bonnie Vent could have just taken Mark’s criticism and moved on, but instead she chose to try to have the criticism taken down, resorting to empty libel threats as an intimidation tactic. But all she has accomplished is to focus our attention on her all the more.
The BCA was soundly embarrassed by the attention they received as a consequence of their lawsuit. It even led to skeptical activists reporting instances of chiropractors making false claims, which in turn led to one chiropractic group advising their members to take down all claims on their websites (which seems like a curious admission that their claims do not hold up to scrutiny).
I am particularly amused when the purveyors of pseudoscience try to engage skeptics in critical analysis. That is our arena, and we will be happy to trounce them all day long. In fact, we want a serious discussion of logic and evidence – that is what skepticism is all about. If we can get them engaging us in such discussion that can only serve our ends. Even if they can demonstrate that they are correct about a claim – that is all we want, to base claims on logic and evidence.
More likely, however, we will get what Mike Adams served up – a frothing rant that is so disconnected from reality it accomplishes our work for us.
So keep it up, fellow skeptics. We are having an impact, and the cranks of the world are feeling the pain.
Labels: skepticism
Religion vs. Reality in Missouri
Monday, August 31, 2009
Via Orac comes this tale of religious kneejerking that shows just how big a problem it is in America.
I urge you to read the whole thing, but the basic story is a band made t-shirts with the theme "Brass Evolutions" using the famous cartoon sequence of a monkey changing into a man. It's a cute idea, and no big deal, right?
Right?
Not so right. Some parents complained about the shirts because they depicted — gasp!– evolution (never mind that it's a cartoony version that's really not even terribly accurate). Assistant Superintendent Brad Pollitt decided to make the students turn in their shirts so as to not offend any parents' sensibilities.
The sheer dumbosity of this already has my head reeling. You might think at first that this isn't a huge deal: it's just another example of narrow-minded thinking we've seen so much of from creationists.
But in fact it's a lot worse than that. From the original article:Pollitt said the district is required by law to remain neutral where religion is concerned.
I'm afraid that is simply not true. Like, really really not true.
First, by taking away the shirts, he was not being religion neutral. He was kowtowing to a specific religion. That action immediately contradicted his words.
Second, think about what that sentence means. If being religion-neutral means not offending any religion, then nothing at all could ever be taught at school. Certainly not science, which clashes in almost every conceivable way with Fundamentalist creationist doctrine. You can't teach anything past 6000 years ago under Pollitt's reasoning. No astronomy, no biology, no history (Sumerians were around long before 4000 BC). Some interpretations of Islamic law state that music is forbidden. Does traife food touch kosher food in the cafeteria (or is it served on the same plates)? Does anyone wanna go through Leviticus and see what rules from there the school breaks?
If we are to believe Pollitt, then they'll have to ban the Pledge of Allegiance because Jehovah's Witnesses don't worship idols. That'll go over well, I'm sure.
This whole idea of "religion neutrality" is a crock [of shit], and clearly is being used to the advantage of one narrowly-defined religious viewpoint. There's a difference between being neutral — which Pollitt clearly was not being — and not promoting one religion over another.
Being religion-neutral in the sense Pollitt means is conceptually impossible. You cannot appease every religion, because many common modern religions contradict each other. However, we can be religion-neutral by actually refraining from making any decisions based on religion. That's what that First Amendment is all about.
So what we have here is yet another shot in the battle over religious freedom (both of and from) in this country. I suspect the band leader could pursue a First Amendment case here.
But if he chooses to pursue it, he may have an uphill climb... it depends on how many people there hold the same view as band parent Sherry Melby, one of the people offended by the very concept of evolution, [who said]:I was disappointed with the image on the shirt. I don’t think evolution should be associated with our school.
Yes, because teaching the very fundamentals of biology in a school?
Heaven forbid.
[Update: Steve Novella has a funny and pointed take on all this.]
Labels: anti-science, evolution, skepticism
Antivax People Are Antivax
[Note: Many times, when I write about antivax stuff, I get comments that try to sidetrack the issue at hand. For the record, I am a parent myself, my heart goes out to parents of autistic kids, and I went through those very same fears and worries that every parent does. I also understand that a lot of parents listen to antivaxxers and believe in their falsehoods, but my writing is generally not aimed at the parents. It's aimed at the loudest proponents of the antivax movement, the ones instigating those falsehoods, not the ones simply repeating them. In the end this is about the fact that vaccines don't cause autism, and the big mouthpieces of the antivax movement are almost entirely fact-free in their claims. So let's stick with that, Mmmmkay?]
I talk about the antivaccination movement quite a bit here, because I happen to have a strong desire to keep babies alive. If we stop vaccinating kids, we’ll see a lot of them succumbing to preventable diseases. Preventable, that is, through vaccination.
Orac has an interesting take on all this: he points out that at its core, the antivax movement just simply hates vaccinations.
Now, that might seem like a tautology. But it's not, not really. It's actually relevant because the antivax movement must change its story (what we skeptics call "moving the goalposts") every time they are conclusively proven wrong. That happens a lot. When it's pointed out that mercury doesn't cause autism (removing it from vaccines did not lower the autism diagnosis incidence rate), they say vaccines contain squalene, or fetal tissue, or ghosts, or the Loch Ness monster.
Of course, when it's shown that autism rates have nothing to do with vaccination, they ignore it, or spin it, or lie about it.
In a sense, the loudest proponents stick to their movement the way a racist sticks with their prejudices. You can tear down their specific claims about a particular group of people point by point, but in the end the racist simply hates people in that group. It's not rational, or logical, or reasonable. It just is.
[Furthermore], what Orac is saying is that no matter what, at its core, the antivax movement really hates vaccination. No matter what proof you show them, and no matter how much they squeal that they are "pro-choice", really it's their loathing of vaccinations that drives them.
It's an interesting idea, and he may very well be right. We've seen exactly this kind of behavior from many in the antivax crowd, moving from debunked claim to debunked claim, trying to pin anything and everything they can on vaccines, long after the logic trail has petered out. In the end, all they have are empty claims and their own misguided methods.
No matter what, they are antivax.
Labels: anti-science, skepticism, vaccines
Today (16 Jun 09)
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Well, antiscience is taking major body blows the past week or so, and it’s a wonderful, wonderful thing to see. It started with Newsweek taking down the quackery promoted by Oprah Winfrey, and has taken off from there:
1) Reader’s Digest jumped on the anti-Oprah ride… and when the milquetoast middle-of-the-road offend no one RD takes you on, it’s time to rethink your very existence.
2) Deepak Chopra — who couldn’t find reality with both hands, a compass and, evidently, the aid of centuries of scientific advancement — ran to Oprah’s defense, and, as usual, mangled more logic in one essay than can be humanly possible without the aid of quantum healing. Massimo Pigliucci magnificently takes him down, as did JREF’s Jeff Wagg at the Swift blog.
3) The Australian government has ruled that Arnica Montana, a homeopathy company, falsely advertised the efficacy of its product — which, in the case of homeopathy is everything they advertise — and they had to post a humiliating retraction. I weep non-diluted tears for them. Dr. Rachie has more info. Also, Steve Novella has written a lengthy and complete destruction of homeopathy on his NeuroLogica blog. If you are a homeopathic believer and feel you must spout your undiluted nonsense in the comments below, read his essay first, because if you make any of the claims he debunks I will allow everyone free reign to mock you. Because that’s better than allowing babies to die due to homeopathy.
4) Simon Singh is being sued by the British Chiropractic Association because he wrote about their "bogus" claims. BCA vice-president Richard Brown then posted a flailing essay titled In Defence of Chiropractic in New Scientist magazine, a piece laden to the hilt with astonishingly poorly thought-out logic. Apgaylard thoroughy dismantles the claims from Brown, leaving the emperor looking a little naked out there.
This kind of antiscience antireality antihealth garbage will always be with us, but I can hope to help amplify the chorus of voices being raised against them. It’s important, as I have been hammering home for months. They will never rest as long as people credulously accept their claims, so we need to make sure as many people as possible examine their claims as critically as possible.
Labels: medicine, skepticism, small-victories
Archives
May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009 October 2009 November 2009 December 2009 January 2010 February 2010 March 2010
