Yes, still alive

No, the homeopathic sleeping pills haven't killed me off in a delayed-reaction effect... yet.

I've just been really busy preparing my talk for the SFSA Star Trek convention this past weekend. Since then I've been really busy writing the transcript of it for you guys.

So I'll be back and posting again as soon as it's done. Promise! And this time there will be a video of it. Maybe!

Still Alive!

That's right, I'm still alive.

What does that mean? It means that homeopathy is made of suck.

Homeopathic Suicide Attempt Recap Video

Hide made an awesome follow-up video chronicling my homeopathy experiment. Enjoy!

Homeopathic Suicide Attempt

Part 1:




Part 2:




Part 3:




Part 4:




Part 5:




Thanks to Hide for directing, filming and editing!

Killing myself

The experiment has begun... head on over to http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=7994869585 for the latest updates.

Teetotalers

I stumbled upon this list of teetotalers on Wikipedia.

Clearly I'm not famous enough to be on the list. But that's okay, George Hrab isn't on there either, and he's more famous than me.

It seems Geo and I are in good company on that list: Bruce Lee, Penn & Teller, Kim Cattrall (Lt. Valeris from Star Trek VI), Isaac Asimov and Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts (who may have been acquainted with my ancestor, Edward "Blackbeard" Teach).

Of course there are some less-than-impressive names on that list as well. But I won't talk about those.

My point is that there appear to be some interesting, intelligent and respectable people who have made similar lifestyle choices to my own. It's comforting to know that, since I am often accosted by drinkers who don't understand or respect that choice.

I wonder how often Warren Buffett gets hassled about it.

Lessons from cults

While I wouldn't dream of condoning cults, it has become increasingly clear to me that there are some valuable things we can learn from them.

To clarify, when I refer to 'cults' I'm using the term quite strictly in reference to small superstitious communities bound together by minority religious beliefs, as opposed to the more general application of the term which refers to small sub-cultures.

Cults are generally not good things. People who are suckered into joining are frequently badly mistreated, and coerced into doing all sorts of things they would not otherwise have done. This can mean being taken advantage of (be it financially or sexually), isolated from their loved ones or even mass suicide.

The thing about cults that I find remarkable is their ability to recruit, retain and motivate their members. As the leader of a volunteer organization, those are issues I've wrestled with.

So cults seem like as good a place as any to look for inspiration. How do they do it?
My research into the matter has yielded the following list:

1. A charismatic and attractive leader. This seems to be common to all cults: a leader who is both physically attractive and personally engaging. He (it's usually a 'he') should be easy on the eyes so that his followers will gladly gaze at him endlessly, and should present himself in such a way that followers will gladly listen to what he says.
   
   As far as my own recruiting ability is concerned, I may already be at a disadvantage. Perhaps I should employ a body double.
   
   
2. Restricted access to information. Followers need to be isolated from any competing influences or dissenting opinions. This can be achieved by physically isolating them from the outside world, indoctrinatinq them with the message that outside influences are not to be trusted or teaching them to fight off dissenters. Or even a combination of the three.
   
   For my purposes this is obviously no good. I'm trying to promote an ideology based on egalitarianism, free inquiry and global unity. Isolation and insulation would be counter-productive.
   
   
3. Us vs Them. Creating a strong In-Group vs Out-Group mentality is a useful way of retaining members. Followers are made to feel as if they belong to a family, and that anyone outside that family is somehow out to get them. This triggers a very deep-seated instinctual desire to be part of a tribe, hence it's effectiveness.
   
   Various techniques are employed to create this effect ranging from paranoia-inducing indoctrination to what has been called 'love-bombing'.
   
   Love-bombing is, in my opinion, the technique that is most applicable to most social organizations. It can be performed easily and without moral complications.
   
   It boils down to an intense effort to make new arrivals feel welcome. A barrage of sincere and warm welcome messages is all it takes to make someone feel special, accepted and comfortable. It requires some follow-up effort to make sure the feeling doesn't go away, but that's not difficult.
   

And that, I think, is the most valuable lesson we can learn from cults: if you make an effort to make new members feel good about joining, they'll be more likely to stick around. Whether you're starting a sceptics' group, a small business, a Star Trek fan club or a barber-shop quartet, the same advice applies. Just bombard them with love, and they'll feel like they belong.

Plus it doesn't hurt if you look like Brad Pitt.

My God... it's full of stars!

Arthur C. Clarke, 1917 - 2008

DFL - You're Not Helping

In response to the moronic statement issued by our (apparently) retarded Minister of Health regarding the fact that African traditional medicine should not be subject to scientific testing, an organisation named Doctors For Life (DFL) had this to say:

“Being inconsequent with scientific safeguards will leave ample loopholes to make it virtually inevitable for the general public who use untested traditional medicines to ingest substances from scavenged body parts that are mixed with some of these medicines...From the extremely high incidence of muti-killings, it is clear some potions sold as traditional African herbal medicine contain these human body parts. The DFL has testimonies of traditional healers using human body parts in herbal mixtures, and poisoning is often a consequence.”

I think they're missed the boat here.

While I suppose it's a legitimate concern that some or other murder-victim might end up in the muti (African traditional medicinal preparation) you buy at your local sangoma (witchdoctor African traditional medicine practitioner) I am sceptical that the probability of that is very high.

The South African Police Service don't exactly have a good track-record on releasing specific crime statistics, but several statements by the SAPS Occult Unit have implied that apparent muti-related crimes are on the increase. Be that as it may, I still find it hard to believe that there is such a high incidence of this that there is a real danger of any given sangoma client receiving 'Extract of placenta' in their cold-and-flu remedy. But I suppose it is still greater than zero, which is unacceptably high.

I feel (and I suppose this is a matter of opinion in the absence of data) that the far bigger danger here is in perpetuating the myth that alternative therapies quackery should be exempt from scientific scrutiny and proper regulation. This tendency would lead not only to the possibility of your neighbour ending up in your medicine, but of any number of other toxic additives, contaminants who knows what else being sold to the general public as therapeutic interventions. And since the general public tends not to know enough about it to question, they will happily assume that some sort of quality control has been enforced when no such control exists.

I May Have Said This Before...

Manto is a complete goddam idiot!

I'm not really all that surprised that that moron would spout such idiocy, but that doesn't shake my indignation.

I'm going to have to reproduce the article here to really give it justice:

African traditional medicines should not become "bogged down in clinical trials" when being subjected to research and development, Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang said in Pietermaritzburg on Saturday.

Addressing members of the presidential task team on African traditional medicine, Tshabalala-Msimang said: "We cannot use Western models of protocols for research and development. We should guard against being bogged down with clinical trials."

She later explained that she was not against clinical trials per se. "But some of the medicines have been used by traditional healers for thousands of years. Clinical trials need protocols for traditional medicine."

She also warned against "charlatans tarnishing the image of this sector [traditional African medicine]" and "who promise our desperate help-seeking people all sorts of things that are not practically possible to deliver".

The task team is trying to come up with legal guidelines on traditional African medicines. It is expected to present these to the Cabinet early in March. It is also expected to discuss the naming of traditional medicines and patent and ownership rights.

"This lack of documentation [in traditional medicine] sometimes creates serious legal challenges," said Tshabalala-Msimang.

Ladies and gentlemen, our Minister of Health.

The woman who is responsible for making decisions that affect people's lives, quite literally, doesn't think that traditional medicines should be subject to "Western" test protocols.

In real science, there is no distinction between "Western" medicine and "African","Traditional" or "Alternative" medicine. There is only medicine, and a lot of other stuff that isn't medicine.

How do we know whether something is either medicine or not? We subject it to scientific testing. Not "Western" testing. Scientific testing.

If it works, it gets incorporated into the mainstream. if it doesn't, it gets discarded as being either worthless or harmful. Finished and klaar!

I can only laugh at Manto's little tirade at "charlatans". What exactly does she think "traditional medicine" is capable of delivering? Who are these people failing to deliver on their promises? I'll tell you who they are: anyone claiming to offer medicine who is not an MD, and even some who are!

In logical terms, in this statement Manto is committing the fallacy of special pleading: she somehow feels that African traditional medicine cannot be measured for efficacy by the same tools used to evaluate all other medicine. She feels that the tools of science - double-blind testing, clinical trials and so on - are insufficient to the task, since African traditional medicine is somehow exempt from the laws of the universe - the laws science makes its business of testing. As a Medical Doctor, she should be ashamed of herself for even thinking such a thing.

The other logical fallacy she commits here is found in this sentence:

some of the medicines have been used by traditional healers for thousands of years.

This is called the argument from antiquity, a special variant of the argument from special pleading combined with another logical fallacy: the argument from authority. She seems to assume that since these methods have been employed for a very long time, that they must work. The question that should be asked here is, when, at any point during those thousands of years, where any studies actually performed to evaluate the efficacy of the interventions? Is there any reason why they should be considered effective?

Bear in mind that practices like bloodletting and trepanning wre also practiced for centuries before they were critically evaluated and found to be useless and harmful. How do we know that the same is not true of African traditional "medicine"? We don't know, not until it has been subjected to testing... real scientific testing.

Idiocy of this nature is inexcusable. Based on this statement alone, and excluding the many, many other examples of Manto's incompetence, she should lose her job. Why is this woman still employed in the Health sector, let alone as its head?