INTERESTING TIMES

 On Monday October 14 I attended what was advertised as a movie about homeopathy.  It was listed in the email that goes out to all staff, faculty and students at NUNM, the National University of Natural Medicine.  I was one of two staff present, the other one being there because she was required to for her job.

I attended this event because I am writing a book about homeopathy, or rather about the culture and psychology that surrounds it.  I am not a believer.  The people who at the event made the assumption that I was, and I made no effort to dissuade them.  I presume that NUNM hosts these events because Boiron donates money, but I could be wrong.

The man who greeted me at the event was the same man I had called to RSVP.  He was nice enough but he had terrible breath and I had to steel myself not to take several steps back whenever he spoke.  He also had a huge pot belly.  When I walked in the door he was telling his own conversion story, about how 30 years ago he'd been sick and had exhausted all the options given by conventional medicine.  Then he'd tried homeopathy and gotten better, and he had never looked back.  It is this kind of uncritical conversion story that gets repeated ad nauseum by homeopathy believers.  I believe they need to repeat it, to hear themselves repeating it, to maintain their belief.  His breath turned my stomach and his story gave me no reason to respect his critical thinking prowess, so I escaped as quickly as possible, but not before I learned that he is a rep for Boiron, one of apparently just two for the entire west coast.  The other rep was also present and made no better representation of the health that can be attained by way of homeopathy.  She engaged me in conversation for a little while, marketing her ND practice in PDX and eating M&M's one by one.  If this is the best Boiron can do for reps they are definitely going down.

They were giving away free pizza and the host had asked me on the telephone what my favorite kind of pizza was.  I answered jalapeno and anchovy, but when I got there my favorite was not.  Apparently the restaurant did not have anchovies and only jar jalapenos though fresh are easily available.  All but one of the huge stack of pizzas were gluten free, however.  I suppose they think that all naturopaths avoid gluten.

The talk that came before the movie was supposed to be a summary of the regulatory status of homeopathy in the US, but really it was an advertisement for Boiron.  The focus was on Boiron's efforts to influence the FDA's position, on a great personal connection that Boiron has in the FDA, and on how the FDA regs don't really stop the sale of homeopathy.  I was somewhat irritable because being in the supplement business I know a little bit about how the FDA has impacted OUR sales of homeopathics, and the Boiron rep was clearly ignorant of that situation.  We've discontinued all sales of LM's (compounded liquid homeopathics),  remedies made from DEA-regulated drugs (opium, etc), and nosodes (remedies made from diseased material, like medorrhinum).  These changes have been in response to shifts in the FDA's stance. 

There was also angry mention of the Australian analysis of everything known about homeopathy which resulted in them dropping it from their publicly funded healthcare program.  They decided it was not effective for treating any condition.  France and other countries have dropped homeopathy from public funding due to lack of evidence, but the speaker at this event insisted that the Australian assessment was biased and wrong and would be reversed.  Yeah, right.

I learned little from this presentation but I did eat some pizza.  It was OK.

More interesting than the update about regulation was the bit that they said about the "grant" that Boiron had provided to the CEDH (Center for Education and Development of Clinical Homeopathy) to start a "Clinical Homeopathy" program, with the subtitle "Integrate Homeopathy Into Your Daily Practice".  It isn't really a grant, it is an expenditure on a marketing effort intended to brainwash more people into believing.  The CEDH exists to separate the name Boiron from the "educational" program. 

In the first "module" of the 4-part educational program they have 22 students enrolled, most of whom are NUNM students.  This makes sense as a lot of people enter naturopathic school already sure about homeopathy and intending to use it.  It also makes sense because shifts in the ND curriculum have removed all five of the homeopathy classes that I was required to take, and instruction in homeopathy is supposed to be blended in with the subject matter in "blocks" that address organ systems one at a time.  According to the students the majority of professors are not teaching much, if any homeopathy, and yet homeopathy is still on the ND clinical board exams.  The students are panicked about the exams and seeking training in homeopathy outside of the NUNM ND curriculum.  Boiron and the CEDH are taking advantage of this situation to secure their future market.

After the talking they finally started the movie, a good hour after the email had said it would begin.  Entitled Magic Pills, the movie is another brainwashing effort along the lines of Just One Drop.  This one attempts to directly address all the complaints that skeptics have about homeopathy, talking about confirmation bias as a reason that scientists won't even consider homeopathy, and repeating the usual homeopathy hypnotic anchor of "it works" (kind of like "build a wall" for Trump).  They also expressed quite a bit of anger at moles such as myself who do not believe but show up to their events and practices wanting to gain information to undermine their efforts.

From my perspective Magic Pills was a weaker piece of brainwashing than Just One Drop but the believers in the scant audience were nodding along.  The use of the title was an effort to take one of the phrases used by skeptics and turn it into a hypnotic anchor for the believers.  I was keeping a tally of all the mentions of "it works", all the testimonials by lay people, medical professionals and PhD's, and all the conversion stories.  These are the standard approaches of homeopaths in getting people to believe.  In the future it might be worth tracking "magic pills" references.  Skeptics should be aware that believers may have been brainwashed to specifically resist the terms that they are using.  Repetition is one of the essential tools of hypnosis/brainwashing.  I had to leave before the end which could be have been more powerful than the anti-skeptic lead-in, but I confess I did not regret leaving.  I had to take a shower when I got home.

Contemporary Western postural yoga projects an authenticity and unbroken ancient heritage onto the yogic tradition, while mourning the commodification, secularization and denuding of that tradition by the West. Such lamentation belies the fact that modern postural yoga is a creature of fabrication and reinvention.
--Farah Godrej

Democracy is based on the belief that people are more good than bad, that we are more curious than controlling, more playful than violent, and more kind than selfish.  I am not so sure anymore.  If the ways of a democratic society are based on the common denominator, and humans at base are horny, greedy and cruel, then society will be the same.  

I have come to suspect that we have not evolved to the point that our cognitive processes consistently overrule our animal instincts.  The idea that we can base our choices on verifiable information appears damned.  Civility is superficial and short-lived.  Democracy fails in the face of the self-righteous greed of our kind.  The solution of course would be a benevolent dictator, but the problem with those is that they are human too and the majority are not benevolent.

Please, America, prove me wrong.

No man ever steps in the same river twice,
for it is not the same river,
and he is not the same man.
-Heraclitus

Creationism gets treated by religious people as if it were a viable theoretical alternative to Evolution.  They do this in spite of the fact that evolution is broadly accepted by educated people world wide.  Evolution is obviously working on species today, and it is visible to any person with minimal powers of observation and exposure to the natural world.  Darwin was one such person.  Creationism is a myth, a dogma.  It is based on nothing other than a nice fictional book, and promoted by a whole lot of people who need a simple and colorul story to tell about how the world came to be.  Every culture, language and religion has its own creation story.  Creation stories can be spectacular and we love them.  But this does not make them theories in the scientific forum.  This does not make them true.  This just makes them good fiction.

The strongest bias in American politics is not a liberal bias or a conservative bias; it is a confirmation bias, or the urge to believe only things that confirm with what you already believe to be true.  Not only do we tend to seek out and remember information that reaffirms what we already believe, but there is also a "backfire effect", which sees people doubling down on their beliefs after being presented with evidence that contradicts them.  So, where do we go from here?  The only way people will start rejecting falsehoods being fed to them is by confronting uncomfortable truths.
--Emma Roller
in NYTimes.com

Note to self: This bias may not be uniquely American.  A 2016 study confirms that our political beliefs are the ones most resistant to change in spite of new information that refutes them.  It's called Neural Correlates of maintaining one's political beliefs in the face of couterevidence.

WHAT MAKES US RESISTANT TO NEW IDEAS 2016

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep39589

Neural correlates of maintaining one’s political beliefs in the face of counterevidence

Jonas T. Kaplan, Sarah I. Gimbel & Sam Harris

Scientific Reports 6, Article number: 39589 (2016)

doi:10.1038/srep39589

23 December 2016

Abstract

People often discount evidence that contradicts their firmly held beliefs. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms that govern this behavior. We used neuroimaging to investigate the neural systems involved in maintaining belief in the face of counterevidence, presenting 40 liberals with arguments that contradicted their strongly held political and non-political views. Challenges to political beliefs produced increased activity in the default mode network—a set of interconnected structures associated with self-representation and disengagement from the external world. Trials with greater belief resistance showed increased response in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex and decreased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex. We also found that participants who changed their minds more showed less BOLD signal in the insula and the amygdala when evaluating counterevidence. These results highlight the role of emotion in belief-change resistance and offer insight into the neural systems involved in belief maintenance, motivated reasoning, and related phenomena.

The current retrograde is supposed to last until September 22.  It's a long one.  Lots of people think that this planetary phenomenon is the reason that things haven't been going their way.  You're not supposed to make any major decisions or stick your neck out during a retrograde.  Why?  Superstition, in a word.

Most people who believe this bunk don't understand what the mercury retrograde really is.  They think it's something serious, when it is really just an optical illusion in the sky.  Mercury appears to be going backwards because of our perspective from here on earth, and the relative movements of the other planets.  For a sky-watcher, it's interesting.  For the superstitious person, it's momentous.  Like zodiac signs in astrology, it guides their choices and gives meaning to events.

People who embrace "new age" spirituality are the most likely to believe in the negative effects of a mercury retrograde.  They also tend to believe in karma and reincarnation.  These beliefs are indicative of the overall ignorance of our populace.  People think that because they have shed institutionalized religion that their new superstition must be better.  Too many people seek explanations for what they experience, and then latch onto them without further consideration.

How is reincarnation any more plausible than heaven and hell?  Are we capable of living with "I don't know" as our answer?  Is intellectual laziness really our future?

I think this may be part of the reason that so many people have defaulted to supporting tRump.  At a gut level he gets it, that somehow the religion of Islam is motivating some people to kill bunches of hedonistic rich oblivious Americans.  We are The Great Satan, after all.  Our women roam around half naked.  We drink alcohol and eat so much that we can't get out of our chairs.  The Muslims who hate us find plenty to hate.  And the teachings of the religion are harsh.  Unforgiving.  Granted, most religions have some myths and stories that motivate hateful actions.  Most religions have a few fundamentalists whose simplistic interpretations lead them to extreme beliefs and behaviors.  Islam has a lot of people like that.  I am certain that the followers of ISIL think that American Muslims who don't help their cause are apostates, no better than the rest of us.  So given that there are quite a few Muslims who think we all deserve to die, and several at least who've been successful at violently killing Americans, being afraid of Muslims sounds kind of reasonable.  If the Dems don't admit to this, and begin teaching Americans about how they've been attempting to quell the fears of peaceable Muslims in order to prevent religious based warfare, they are missing the boat.  Blaming the Pulse shooting solely on easy access to guns is missing the very important point that currently there are a lot of people with this religious background who are motivated to kill.  We need to study them, to understand them.  They are not necessarily insane, they simply live in a different reality dictated by a different culture.  There are also a lot of Americans who are not Muslim who share their distaste for gays, their disrespect for loose women, and their instinctive hatred of other races.  Maybe you should be afraid.