The Winnipeg Skeptics

LUEE Episode 14: A Creationism Primer

Gem Newman — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:19:09 +0000

In this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Robert Shindler, Laura Targownik, Richelle McCullough, and Greg Christensen define creationism and discuss several key points relating to intelligent design, evolution, and the scientific method.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast celebrating science and skepticism presented by the Winnipeg Skeptics and the Humanist Association of Manitoba.

Links: Quebec Kids Cannot Opt Out of Religion Course (CTV, Global) | Hyperbaric Chamber Explosion Kills Horse and Employee (Eventing Nation, Chronicle of Horse, Chronicle of Horse Followup) | Hyperbaric-Oxygen Therapy | An Introduction to Creationism | TalkOrigins | Index to Creationist Claims | The Winnipeg Skeptics Visit the Creation Museum | The Counter-Creationism Handbook

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Listen: Direct Link | iTunes | RSS

LUEE Episode 13: What Is Love?

Gem Newman — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 21:37:12 +0000

Episode 13: What Is Love?

In this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, just in time for Valentine’s Day, Laura Targownik ponders the nature of love with Laura Creek Newman, Robert Shindler, and Mark Forkheim.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast celebrating science and skepticism presented by the Winnipeg Skeptics and the Humanist Association of Manitoba.

Contact Us: Facebook | Twitter | Email

Listen: Direct Link | iTunes | RSS

The opposite of stumped: 9 unanswerable anti-vax questions answered

Flora — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 17:38:44 +0000

9 Questions That Stump Every Pro-Vaccine Advocate and Their Claims found its way onto the Facebook page for the Winnipeg Skeptics when a member’s friend posted it, along with the qualification “if you can give me a good, scientifically-backed answer to each of these questions, I will vaccinate my children.”

Oh, if it only were all so easy! The article claims:

I have never encountered one pro-vaccine advocate, whether medically or scientifically qualified, who could answer even 1 let alone all 9 of these questions.

Well, here’s one non-immunologist, non-virologist, unqualified physiology & medical student who had zero problem with finding scientific answers to any of their questions. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

1. Could you please provide one double-blind, placebo-controlled study that can prove the safety and effectiveness of vaccines?

Yes, although you can’t find any modern studies of old vaccines, because it’s unethical to deviate from the standard of care. However, there are tons of modern (i.e. internet searchable) literature on the subject. Honestly, go to Google Scholar and search “double blind placebo vaccine” I’ll start you off:
Prophylactic quadrivalent human papillomavirus (types 6, 11, 16, and 18) L1 virus-like particle vaccine in young women: a randomised double-blind placebo-controlled multicentre phase II efficacy trial

2. Could you please provide scientific evidence on ANY study which can confirm the long-term safety and effectiveness of vaccines?

Yes. Seriously, it took me 30 seconds to find this. Google Scholar is your friend.

3. Could you please provide scientific evidence which can prove that disease reduction in any part of the world, at any point in history was attributable to inoculation of populations?

Yes.

4. Could you please explain how the safety and mechanism of vaccines in the human body are scientifically proven if their pharmacokinetics (the study of bodily absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion of ingredients) are never examined or analyzed in any vaccine study?

You can’t study the pharmacokinetics of something which is not physically acting on the body—rather, vaccines are designed to be acted upon. I can’t answer this; not because of a conspiracy, but because this is an unanswerable question. It’s like asking, “Why haven’t they studied the mating habits of tennis shoes?”

5. Could you please provide scientific justification as to how injecting a human being with a confirmed neurotoxin is beneficial to human health and prevents disease?

Neurotoxins are a matter of dosage, just like radiation, and all interventions are a risk-benefit ratio. You accept the risk of getting a chest x-ray if you might have pneumonia because the dose is very low, and you won’t have it done repeatedly. Also, for something to be a neurotoxin and have effects on the brain, it must be able to pass the blood-brain barrier. This is very, very difficult and chemists spend their entire lives trying to design something that will get across. Just because something can be toxic doesn’t mean it is, just because something has risk doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing, and just because something has theoretical potential to do harm doesn’t mean that it will do harm.

‎6. Can you provide a risk/benefit profile on how the benefits of injecting a known neurotoxin exceeds its risks to human health for the intended goal of preventing disease?

See the above study on measles vaccines saving hundreds of thousands of lives. Any risk of “injecting a known neurotoxin” (Which one? At what dose? Neurotoxic to who? Correlation or causative?) is unequivocally lower than the very real and potentially lethal risk of an outbreak in an unvaccinated community or one with a low uptake.

7. Could you please provide scientific justification on how bypassing the respiratory tract (or mucous membrane) is advantageous and how directly injecting viruses into the bloodstream enhances immune functioning and prevents future infections?

Different parts of your body have different types of antibodies associated with them. In the mucous membranes of your body, like the GI tract and the respiratory tract, white blood cells at the membrane produce IgA antibodies on exposure to a pathogen. In the blood stream, you have direct access to the memory cells which produce IgGs: the more robust antibodies that provide lifetime immunity against a particular pathogen. Those memory cells will stay in your lymph nodes, ready to produce an onslaught of deadly (to the pathogen) IgGs whenever the body recognizes it again. IgAs are incapable of this, and many respiratory pathogens are defeated after exposure by the body’s initial defences, before an specific set of antibodies can ever be manufactured.

8. Could you please provide scientific justification on how a vaccine would prevent viruses from mutating?

Viruses mutate as they replicate, but fortunately, by definition, viruses require the machinery of living organisms to do so. To do this, viruses must enter the cells and hijack their function to produce more viruses. If the body is prepared to identify the pathogen, it can respond immediately to the pathogen in a matter of hours instead of days. Given that viruses can replicate at phenomenal rates, the faster the body responds, the less replication will happen, the less likely a beneficial (to the virus) mutation will occur. Furthermore, even if a mutation does happen, if individuals around the infected patient are all immunized, the mutation will not be carried on. The nice thing about adaptive (post-exposure) immunity is that it identifies a bunch of different parts of the pathogen as foreign, so even if little bits of it change, one antibody might be useless but all of the others will still work!

9. Could you please provide scientific justification as to how a vaccination can target a virus in an infected individual who does not have the exact viral configuration or strain the vaccine was developed for?

Although I sort of just addressed this, it’s a matter of phylogeny. If you look at human beings (obviously far more complicated than viruses, but work with me) almost all of our diversity and mutation is contained in a fraction of a fraction of a percentage of our DNA. This is because we all come from a common ancestor and we have been building off of that base DNA ever since, so we have more in common than not. Viruses work the same way. Each type of virus has certain defining characteristics, defining proteins that make it work. For retroviruses, this is something like reverse transcriptase, which allows the HIV to copy itself into our DNA and hide. So, if the vaccine causes you to develop an antibody against a particular protein, say one on the surface of a influenza virus, it’s going to make antibodies against little chunks of it, and the odds of a related virus having mutated all of those little chunks beyond the wiggle-room there is in these sorts of processes is pretty low.

Think of pathogens like fugitives and antibodies like really zoomed in “wanted” photos that the body has put up in the Post Office. The fugitive tries to hide by dying their hair, so maybe that photo of their hair is useless. And maybe they’ve changed their shirt, so throw out that photo too. But that hand is still a hand, and that mouth looks like the right mouth even though it’s got a moustache now. The fugitive is spotted—the white blood cells are primed to look for that mouth and that hand—and the pathogen is “arrested”.

That’s not to say that an imperfect match is going to lead to the best result. If you can put all those little snapshots together and get the whole thing, you’re even better off, just like a perfect match is going to trigger a wide variety of antibodies to be produced and the response will be more robust, but immunization with a closely related virus is going to provide some protection.

So no, Random Internet Website that hasn’t even bothered to try and learn about the immune system (I cannot reiterate enough that I am not an immunology expert and all of this information is freely available via appropriate internet search): none of these are stumpable questions. If someone is confused by your questions, it’s because they don’t make sense or because they are so unbelievably broad as to be useless.

Asking questions is good, and should be encouraged! You should know these things before you vaccinate your kids! However, critical thinking can teach you to ask better questions. For example: What sort of evidence is there for the 25 year safety and efficacy of the Canadian childhood MMR vaccine in a healthy Canadian population? This a specific, quantifiable, discrete question to which discrete answers can be obtained. These are the sort of questions that scientists ask—and the ones that drive the clinical trials you’re asking for.

Quantum physics cat

Ashlyn — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 03:34:25 +0000

Poor kitty, string theory is hard. You know what else is hard? Putting together and presenting a successful TEDx talk! Congratulations on pulling it off, Gem!

The Not-So-Dangerous Truth Behind Microwaves

Gem Newman — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:00:03 +0000

I received the following message the other day from a close friend of mine.

Hi!

I saw this and for a moment was terrified until I remembered that I’m friends with YOU and therefore a much more rational person than I might otherwise be just by sheer proximity. Regardless, please remind me again that microwaves aren’t destroying my baby and various loved ones.

http://truththeory.com/2012/01/27/the-dangerous-truth-behind-microwaves/

The link she provided was The Dangerous Truth Behind Microwaves by Mike Barrett of TruthTheory.com. Ah, EMF scare-mongering. It’s been too long, old friend!

I didn’t have much planned for the next few minutes (aside from playing some Super Meat Boy), so I dove right in.

The article is, as you might expect, riddled with misinformation. That misinformation, however, is crammed cheek-by-jowl with accurate statements, leading me to suspect that the author is guilty only of sloppy research, and readily accepted claims from both scientific and unscientific sources—with perhaps a modicum of cherry-picking thrown in. (This is borne out upon an examination of his source list, but we’ll get to that later.)

How Microwaves Work

Let’s start with the author’s description of the process by which microwave ovens heat food:

In order for something to heat in a microwave oven, water must be present within the substance. If water is not present, heating will not occur and it would remain cool. The reason for this is that water molecules within the food vibrate at an incredible speed, creating molecular friction which is responsible for the heating of the food. The structure of the water molecules are torn apart and vigorously deformed. This is much different than any other method of cooking, as other methods such as convection ovens heat up food by transferring heat convectionally from the outside inward.

This description is almost correct, but is guilty of much hyperbole. First of all, it is not true that, lacking water, heating will not occur. What we’re talking about is dielectric heating. While it’s true that dielectric heating works best on water or substances containing water, it will also work on fats, sugars, and anything that contains electric dipoles.

Second, while stating that “the structure of the water molecules are torn apart and vigorously deformed” sounds scary, I’ve been unable to find any evidence that this occurs, and it’s unclear what the dangers would be even if it did. While the molecules certainly do increase in kinetic energy (they move), the author seems to be suggesting that the molecular bonds are actually broken, which would cause the water to decompose into its component hydrogen and oxygen, as occurs in electrolysis. This is a fairly incredible claim that I’ve been unable to substantiate.

The Dangers of Radiation

The author admits that microwaves are not a form of ionizing radiation, although he stresses that non-ionizing radiation can still effect physical alterations. Sure! Like cooking stuff! He then says:

Other forms of ionizing radiation are visible light, ultraviolet and infrared waves, and waves emitted from televisions, cell phones, and electric blankets.

This is completely false. These are forms of non-ionizing radiation. While it is certainly possible that this was simply a typo, it remains irresponsible misinformation.

And then the real absurdity begins:

Although we’ve conducted study after study concluding that no amount of radiation is safe, we don’t really know what all of this means in the long term.

I’m not even sure the author knows what he means, here. He seems to be conflating all forms of radiation, and then stating that the body of scientific literature on the subject concludes that there is no safe amount of any form of radiation.

Of course some amount of radiation is safe! If there were no radiation, we would be blind and we would freeze to death! Just lumping all spectra of electromagnetic radiation together is eggregious, irresponsible nonsense.

The author claims that “Tissues directly exposed to microwaves are subject to the same deformities molecules go through”. This is very misleading.

Sure, microwave radiation can cause burns: that’s why microwave ovens have doors on them specifically designed to block microwave radiation. You don’t want to bathe your hand in high intensity microwaves for the same reason that you don’t want to stick it in a campfire: it’ll burn.

Now you might be worrying that your microwave door could be broken or cracked, and you’re being exposed to dangerous invisible microwaves without your knowledge! Well, stop fretting. If this were happening, you’d know it pretty quickly, because the microwaves would literally be cooking your flesh, and that’s something that we humans tend to notice.

Remember: microwaves are non-ionizing. They don’t cause cancer: they cause heat.

“Microwave Sickness”

The author of the article then provides a laundry-list of nonspecific symptoms that he attributes to so-called “microwave sickness”:

Impaired cognition
Nausea
Vision problems
Depression and irritability
Weakened immune system
Headaches
Dizziness
Insomnia and/or sleep disturbances
Frequent urination and extreme thirst

Sound familiar?

This so-called “microwave sickness” is just a repackaging of electrosensitivity syndrome, a discredited (and probably psychogenic) disorder that has been shown in controlled trials to no correlation (let alone a causal relationship) to EMF exposure.

Here’s the list of symptoms attributed to electrosensitivity:

Fatigue and mental impairment
Poor memory and reduced concentration
Headache
Altered sleep pattern
Skin rash

And here are some of the (many, many) symptoms linked to so-called adrenal fatigue:

Excessive fatigue and exhaustion, chronic fatigue
Sleep disturbance, insomnia
Sensitivity to light
Difficulty concentrating, brain fog
Low immune function
Low blood pressure
Sensitivity to cold or frequent influenza
Anxiety, irritability, or depression
Reduced memory

Dr. Steven Novella calls these “the common symptoms of life”. Talking about this purported adrenal fatigue, Dr. Novella notes:

Some of these people may have a real underlying disease, and can get distracted from pursuing a proper diagnosis by the offer of a simple fake one. Many people need lifestyle adjustments, and that is where they should focus their efforts – not on magic supplements to treat nonexistent syndromes.

And finally, just for fun, here are the purported symptoms of being attacked by a psychic vampire:

Leaky or diminishing aura
Dizziness
Loss of energy
Muscle tension
Mental confusion
Headaches
Chronic fatigue
Sleep disturbances
Irritability
Depressed mood
Physical illness

I’m convinced.

And while we’re on the subject…

It’s true that mobile phones, WiFi, etc. use radio waves in the microwave spectrum, but they are hilariously low-intensity. One of the ways that you can tell is that even the tiny bit of radiation that leaks out of a microwave oven is enough to interfere with wireless router traffic: and, as I said earlier, that’s obviously not enough to do any damage.

Cell phones and WiFi, and their related impact on health, are heavily scrutinized, and there is no strong or even middling evidence linking these devices to health problems such as cancer. There are a small number of studies by a few fringe researchers which have failed reproduction by the scientific community. Many of these experiments have startling methodological flaws. Dr. Steven Novella has a great summary of some new research on the subject here.

Also worth noting: any case or covering that purports to block the EMF emitted by cell phones, laptops, etc. (and such devices are popular!) will fall into one of two categories: (1) it won’t do anything; or (2) it will work, and your cell phone/WiFi will immediately stop working, because its signal is blocked.

So… keep that in mind.

The Nazi Connection

And this is where the author of this article really jumps the shark:

Microwaves were first invented by the Nazis in order to provide a method of cooking for their troops during World War II.

Godwin always makes me laugh. Also, I can find no evidence that microwaves were invented by the Nazis, and substantial evidence to the contrary.

The Sources

The author of this article has obviously taken no care in choosing his sources, which all seem to share strong (and fairly transparent) ideological convictions that bias them against good science. They are also uniformly hilarious.

Here are the websites linked to in the “Sources” section at the bottom of the article:

Relfe: “Valuable natural health, mind, spirit, financial and other information unifying the whole, rather than just educating a part of the whole.” The main page contains multiple embedded Alex Jones videos, which describe in detail exactly how the government and the scientific establishment are trying to kill you.
The Library of Halexandria: “Halexandria is a Synthesis of new physics, sacred geometry, ancient and modern history, multiple universes & realities, consciousness, the Ha Qabala and ORME, extraterrestrials, corporate rule and politics, law, order and entropy, trial by jury, astronomy, monetary policy, scientific anomalies, religion and spirituality, and a whole host of other subjects ranging from astrology and astrophysics to superstrings and sonoluminesence to biblical and geologic histories to numerology, the Tarot, and creating your own reality.” Need I say more?
Lita Lee: The website of “nutritionist” (and Ph.D. chemist) Lita Lee. She would love to sell you all sorts of herbal concoctions, so why not mosey on over?
Global Healing Center: An online pharmacy! Except it only seems to stock those shady end-cap items that cause pharmacists to hang their heads in embarrassment, saying “We don’t decide what to stock, it comes from corporate.” Lots of cleanses and detoxifying foot pads!
Natural Society: This site seems to be the evil twin of Skeptic North.

And here is a list of the peer-reviewed literature cited by the author:

That is all.

LUEE Episode 11: Alternative Marriage

Gem Newman — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 03:49:47 +0000

Episode 11: Alternative Marriage

In this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, host Laura Targownik discusses some secular and skeptical perspectives on non-traditional marriage with Ashlyn Noble, Jeff Olsson, and Anlina Sheng.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast celebrating science and skepticism presented by the Winnipeg Skeptics and the Humanist Association of Manitoba.

Links: Winnipeg Sun “Editorial: Rainbow conniption over ‘queer’ pledge” | Winnipeg Free Press “Three’s Company: Polyamory in Winnipeg” | Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan & Cacilda Jetha | The Armageddon Factor: The Rise of Christian Fundamentalism in Canada by Marci McDonald | Leaving Faith Behind by Jeffery Olsson

Contact Us: Facebook | Twitter | Email

Listen: Direct Link | iTunes | RSS

LUEE Episode 10: Hidden Meanings in Music, Part 1

Gem Newman — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:13:07 +0000

Episode 10: Hidden Meanings in Music, Part 1

In this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Leslie Saunders takes Paul Brown, Robert Shindler and Greg Christensen on a musical journey to find hidden meanings.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast celebrating science and skepticism presented by the Winnipeg Skeptics and the Humanist Association of Manitoba.

Links: 12 Days of Christmas | Musicam Sacram: Instruction on Music in the Liturgy | Backmasking

Contact Us: Facebook | Twitter | Email

Listen: Direct Link | iTunes | RSS

DNA or RNA?

Ashlyn — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:28:10 +0000

Nerdy lolcats make their triumphant return to the Winnipeg Skeptics blog!

LUEE Episode 9: Communicating with People Who Believe Weird Things

Gem Newman — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 21:11:44 +0000

Episode 9: Communicating with People Who Believe Weird Things

In this episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else, Gem Newman, Ashlyn Noble, Anlina Sheng, and Greg Christensen discuss how to approach someone with odd beliefs and whether or not it’s okay to be a dick in the name of science.

Life, the Universe & Everything Else is a podcast celebrating science and skepticism presented by the Winnipeg Skeptics and the Humanist Association of Manitoba.

Links: Legal Challenge to Catholic Schools’ Taxpayer Funding | Phil Plait’s “Don’t Be a Dick” | Greta Christina’s “Why Are You Atheists So Angry?” | Intelligence² Debate: “The Catholic Church is a Force for Good in the World” | The Winnipeg Skeptics Visit a Creation Museum | Gem Newman’s “I Don’t Debate Science” | Cut Onion Contamination on Snopes

Also on this episode, the first instalment of Where’s My Jetpack? This week, Old Man Newman demands to know, “Where’s my jetpack?”

Where’s My Jetpack? Links: Soar Over Water on Your Hydro Powered Jet Pack | Man with Jetpack Races Actual Jets | Jetpack (Wikipedia)

Contact Us: Facebook | Twitter | Email

Listen: Direct Link | iTunes | RSS

My Group Isn’t Special

Gem Newman — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 05:07:53 +0000

Cross-posted from Startled Disbelief.

I don’t blog a lot about feminism, LGBT issues, racism, and the like, for several reasons.

First of all, as a beardy white dude*, my opinions on those subjects are likely to be less nuanced than those of others. Second, the more I learn about these issues, the more I’m forced to come to terms with the fact that I used to be an ignorant dick. I’ve been meaning to write a post in my “Stuff I Used to Believe” miniseries about the distorted perspective that I used to have on the subject of feminism, but with everything that has happened in the community lately the post has simultaneously grown and shrunk in scope.

There’s so much to talk about, but there are so many others who are so much more qualified to discuss it. So if you want to know what I think about any given feminist issue, I recommend consulting Greta Christina, Rebecca Watson, Jen McCreight. Not because I “toe the line”, but because I consistently find them to be insightful and thought-provoking, and where we disagree on topics of equality (which is rare enough that I don’t care to rack my brains searching for an example) I usually later discover that I am in error.

But there was something that I heard on the most recent episode of Life, the Universe & Everything Else that I couldn’t let stand. Robert Shindler echoed a sentiment that I hear not infrequently (and often from men) in our group: that our group is special; that we don’t have a sexism problem (and perhaps by extent any problem with equality). I’ve even said it myself.

Maybe it’s true. I won’t pretend to know. But that sort of sentiment can be harmful. If you think that your group is somehow special, it’s easy to be blind to any problems that may occur. The biggest problem with privilege is how easy it is to be blind to it.

I am proud to be the organiser of the Winnipeg Skeptics, and I’m glad that we have relatively strong female and LGBT representation in our group. We could perhaps be better when it comes to racial equality, and I frankly have little idea what to do about that. As aware as I try to be of my own privilege, I’m sure that I still make my share of mistakes—and I hope that my fellow skeptics will do me the favour of calling me out if I slip.

I’m not trying to come down on Robert or anyone who has remarked that we don’t have that woman problem that other groups have. Try not to hold your own group beyond reproach, because it may blind you to real issues that may arise. I’m not perfect, and we’re not perfect. Our group may be better than most, but let’s not get cocky! I’m sure that we still all have a lot to learn.

So instead of reading “Stuff I Used to Believe: Feminists Just Hate Men” (which I’ll probably never write), go read Rebecca Watson’s “The Privilege Delusion”, Heina’s “Beyond Jokes and Pick-Up Lines”, and Greta Christina’s “Why ‘Yes, But’ Is the Wrong Response to Misogyny”.

And learn something. That’s what skepticism is all about!

* (who also happens to be straight, cis-gendered, and fairly well-off)