Sick ‘n' tired of subscientific boobulescent ignoramitude

GET A FRIGGIN’ CLUE. Leaving aside those pesky subatomic particles, nature is regular, which is why even NASA scientists manage to aim those expensive rockets and hit their mark over and over again. I mean, rocks, fireballs, and gravitational tugs are pretty damned consistent.

From a scientific point of view, you don’t get to say that things go like this over here, but they go like that over there. The laws of physics don’t morph or stutter or adjust for POV.

Same goes for medical and health phenomena: you don’t get to say, “well, maybe urine therapy doesn’t work for you guys (skeptics), but it definitely works for us guys (true imbibers).” Such talk emerges from the dark (and crowded) cave of subscientific boobulescent ignoramitude (SBI).

I don’t care who’s got it, whether it’s Bill “ET” Richardson or Mike “Nope to Darwin” Huckabee. I’m sick and tired of SBI.

I’ve been telling my students for years that, contrary to popular opinion, taking vitamin C doesn’t prevent or cure colds. I mean, if it did, then that would be the pattern that researchers would find when they give people dollops of vitamin C. But that’s not the pattern they find, OK? That pattern is: take it, don’t take. Coldwise, it’s pretty much a wash.

Case closed.

Yesterday’s Guardian Unlimited (Cold comfort: vitamin C myth exposed) makes the point yet again, only with an even bigger mountain of evidence:

Daily doses of vitamin C do little to protect people from the common cold, scientists revealed today….In a survey of scientific studies spanning more than two decades and including more than 11,000 people, those who took 200mg of vitamin C daily had almost as many colds as those who took no supplements. The vitamin also failed to have a substantial effect on the length and severity of a person's cold.

The supposed cold-combating powers of vitamin C have been hailed since its discovery in the 1930s. …[T]he Nobel laureate Linus Pauling encouraged people to take 1,000mg of the vitamin daily to ward off colds….

However, the latest survey, compiled results from 30 different studies around the world, concluded that only people who were exposed to exceptionally high levels of stress, such as marathon runners, skiers and soldiers on sub-arctic exercises, had fewer colds as a result of taking the vitamin. Among these, a daily supplement of vitamin C reduced the chances of catching a cold by half.

…The review appears in the latest issue of the Cochrane Library, an international organisation that is widely regarded as the most prestigious medical research evaluating authority.

—Like I said, nature is regular. And so, if you give vitamin C to one group and withhold it from another, and, coldwise, no difference emerges, then you’ve gotta wonder about all this Vitamin C malarkey. And if there are shitloads of studies, and they all converge on the same negative finding, then maintaining a belief in the efficacy of Vitamin C (re colds) is no better than believing in ghosts or auras or Iraqi WMD.

“Oh, you silly man! Don’t you understand that truth is an illusion? Truly!”

Oh yeah? Here’s a truth. Rocks are hard. Smash a big one into your iMac and watch what happens.

“Well, really, anything is possible!”

Good. Got that rock yet? Start smashin’ and see what this wacky universe comes up with!

The Guardian article goes on to say:

A separate study recently warned that people who took regular supplements of vitamins A, E and beta-carotene in the hope of living a fitter, longer life were instead at risk of dying younger…[The] study, published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that during 47 trials involving more than 180,000 people, those who took the supplements were at greater risk of dying than those who did not.

UH-OH: SLOPPY LEFTIST SCHOLAR A SYMBOL OF ACADEMIC FREEDOM. This morning’s Inside Higher Ed reports that “The University of Colorado Board of Regents will hold a special meeting July 24 to consider a proposal to fire Ward Churchill, the controversial ethnic studies professor who has been found by faculty committees and the president of the university system to have committed research misconduct.”

Evidently, Churchill has vowed to litigate to keep his job, should he be fired.

That hackneyed Voltaire quotation goes here, I guess (even though Voltaire never actually said it).

MONEY MAKES THE U GO ROUND? This morning’s LA Times (UC regents seek compromise) reports on the U of California’s struggles regarding tobacco research money:

Members of the UC Board of Regents, unable to agree on a proposal to ban tobacco industry money for research, said Wednesday that they would seek a compromise to maintain the university's integrity while protecting academic freedom….

The board is divided between regents who oppose the acceptance of any tobacco funds because of the industry's history of manipulating research and members who believe the university should trust the faculty to decide what grants to accept.

…U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler ruled in [a] case last year that the major American tobacco companies conspired for decades to deceive the public and had manipulated research to make it appear that scientists disagreed on the effects of second-hand smoke. One study she cited was conducted by UCLA researcher James Enstrom.

[Former U.S. Justice Department attorney Sharon] Eubanks urged the regents to ban tobacco funding…"Why would the University of California permit university researchers to accept money from a group of racketeers who intentionally mislead the public?" she asked. More than 20 other universities across the country have banned the acceptance of tobacco research funds. Eubanks predicted that, as a result, the industry will pump increasing amounts of money into UC.

…But most of the board members were not persuaded. Some expressed concern that prohibiting faculty members from accepting funds from one industry could lead to bans on grants from other industries.

Several regents also argued that the board should respect the recommendation of UC's Academic Senate, which voted earlier this year in favor of allowing continued tobacco industry funding of research….

A QUOTATION FOR YOU:

[The] Heisenberg Principle … is applied to very small particles and forces. The parapsychologists borrow … [it], and taking it out of context,... suggest that paranormal demonstrations are best performed when not being too closely observed. Professor John G. Taylor of Kings College, London … named this the "shyness effect,” meaning that wonders preferred to happen when out of sight.

As a magician, I also prefer not to be observed, and the miracles I can produce under that circumstance are prodigious.

—James Randi