When Our Powers Combine…

As you’ve no doubt read somewhere else by now, Jenny McCarthy signed a production deal with Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions that, among other things, will most likely give her a TV show all her own. Yes, this means that even more people will fall under the dangerous and deadly spell of her anti-vaccination lies, paranoia, and ignorance. Those of you with a particularly morbid sensibility can keep track of McCarthy’s Sherman-esque march through the world’s public health at this invaluable website. And those of you particularly interested in futile efforts to bash some sense into Oprah’s increasingly inflated head might want to shoot a message of protest to Oprah.com. She probably won’t read your email herself, but if you believe in The Secret like she does, you might be able to wish her into hiring an intern to read it aloud. More horrible details here.

HuffPo Watch: Premonitions and Other Nonsense

It’s been a long time in coming, but the broad coalition of skeptical science blogs have finally declared war on the ridiculous bullshit littering The Huffington Post. In large part, this has to do with the website’s continual promotion of anti-vaccination propaganda by people like Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, and others without critical thinking skills. And while all of that is definitely bad enough, there’s plenty of ludicrous woo-woo to go around. Case in point: the recent essay “Premonitions and Spirituality” by Dr. Larry Dossey. Unlike many other so-called “doctors” in the world of complimentary and alternative medicine (i.e. “medicine” that isn’t based on fact or evidence), Dr. Dossey really has medical training. Unfortunately, even actual M.D.s aren’t always immune to nonsense, and Dr. Dossey has seemingly turned his back on evidence-based reality in his wholesale embrace of precognition. In his essay, he gives the idea a spiritualist spin, claiming that premonitions aren’t only real, they’re also a method of tapping into the collective oneness of all living things. Like other new age quacks, Dr. Dossey tries to equate this “oneness” with the concept of God, even though to do so would be to abstract the historical concept of God to meaninglessness. (Just to use one example, the Judeo-Christian concept of God is in no way simply another word for some sort of quasi-philosophical universal force. He’s a real person who lives in another world and directly interferes with reality. Going even further back, He’s meant to be only the most powerful among a plethora of other gods. To draw a direct line between this concept and modern new age philosophy is theologically absurd.) It’s also worth noting that nowhere in the essay does Dr. Dossey ever give a shred of evidence to support the reality of precognition. Sure, there are a couple of anecdotal accounts of premonitions coming true, but there’s not a single documented case of a written or otherwise recorded prediction actually coming to pass at a later date. Dr. Dossey tells of a father who was sure that his newborn baby wouldn’t survive into adulthood and how that baby later died of SIDS. But this story doesn’t take into account the surely hundreds of thousands of parents sick to death with worry and paranoia about their children and who thankfully never experience any kind of similar tragedy. This is a pure example of confirmation bias and not proof of anything. But Dr. Dossey isn’t much interested in evidence. Judging by the post-script at the end of his essay, it seems he’s more interested in pimping his book, The Power of Premonitions. Another win for mindless credulity on The Huffington Post!

Egypt Pigging Out on Swine Flu

Egypt’s population is about 90% Muslim, and most of the rest are Copts, Christians whose ancestors walked on the beach with Jesus (metaphorically) way back before it was cool. Since Muslims don’t eat the pork, almost every pig farmer in Egypt happens to be a Copt. But the Egyptian government has begun systematically slaughtering the country’s pigs as some sort of hysterical response to swine flu. At least, they say it’s a response to swine flu. Many Copts aren’t so sure, and they suspect this might be an excuse for the notoriously anti-Christian Egyptian government to clamp down on their economic prosperity. In any case, it’s terrible science on the government’s part. Despite the fact that swine flu is a mutated form of influenza that exists in pigs, you can’t catch swine flu from eating pork. The World Health Organization has told the Egyptians this, but it doesn’t seem to be working. And while the medical authorities are trying to rebrand the virus with another name, it’s probably going to be an uphill battle. If nothing else, swine flu is catchy as hell. Pun intended? Maybe. More details here.

Europeans May Unlock History of Universe

Our pal Phil Plait over at the Bad Astronomy blog has a great post up on the European Space Agency’s upcoming Herschel and Planck missions. While NASA is busy tying strings to tin foil and hoping we can make a moon base out of the results, the Europeans are getting all up in our space grill. And with that typical European style! Herschel is an ultra-high resolution infrared telescope, and Planck will map the microwave frequencies in the background of space. To what end? Why, explaining just what the hell existed before the Big Bang, of course. Sometimes it’s best to shoot big. Head over to Bad Astronomy for the details on how those Eurotrash bastards will help all of humanity understand our existence a whole lot better.

Religious People Love Them Some Torture

A new Pew survey shows that those Americans who attend church once a week are more likely than non-religious people to support the torture of terror suspects. 54% of them said that torture is “sometimes” or “often” justified. White evangelical protestants were the worst, with over 60% loving them some inhuman horrors. People claiming no religious affiliation seem to be the most levelheaded, as only 40% of them supported torture. Wait, 40%? What the hell is the matter with people? Do that many of us really think that 24 and every ‘80s action movie is how the real world works? Just to be clear: it doesn’t matter whether actionable intelligence is gathered by physically robbing other human beings of their basic humanity. If we really wanted to kill Osama bin Laden, we’d carpet bomb all of Afghanistan and Pakistan. But we don’t do that because we still have something like a conscience. Well, 60% of us do. And by “us”, I mean people with critical thinking skills. More details here.

Obama Not Asking or Telling?

One of President Obama’s many campaign promises was to repeal Bill Clinton’s ludicrous “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on allowing gays to serve in the military. The administration even went so far as to list that promise on the White House’s website under their broader LGBT policy plans. But websites get updated. Things change. Promises are sometimes broken. After briefly removing the mention of repealing DADT from WhiteHouse.gov entirely, someone has reposted it with a slight but significant word change. Instead of “repealing” DADT, the official administration policy now seems to be “changing” DADT. What that means is anyone’s guess, but it can’t be good for those of us hoping Obama would give backward anti-civil rights policies a swift kick in the nads. Though the administration’s skittish non-support of gay marriage is sort of along the same lines. I like Obama. I voted for Obama. But it seems his actions so far have consistently been one step forward and two steps back. He doubles science funding, then doesn’t even mention NASA. He orders Guantanamo Bay closed, then he stands by illegal, warrantless wiretapping. Mr. President, I want to love you, but you’re making it hard. Baby, come back! More details here.

Gay Monks a Little too Swishy

I may not learn something new every day, but today is definitely one of those days. Did you know Thailand is full of trannies? I didn’t. And did you also know many of those trannies enter into Buddhist monkhood? You do now. Apparently, some Buddhists think the huge numbers of transgender and flamboyantly gay Thai monks are tarnishing the reputation of their open and accepting religion. So senior monk Phra Maha Wudhijaya Vajiramedhi is issuing new rules of etiquette to curb the enthusiasm. How flamboyant can these monks possibly be, you ask? Well, apparently many of them wear tight, revealing robes, pluck their eyebrows into pretty arches, and carry pink purses. How could this possibly be a violation of Buddhist teachings, you ask? Well, it isn’t really. Funny how these rules written to protect Buddhism’s reputation sort of tarnish its reputation for tolerance. More details here.