Magical thinking does not work

Here’s a little treat for those of you that are particularly into skepticism - Richard P. Sloan has written an article at the New York Times about the belief that through spirit or will, people can overcome illness or injury.

The headline to this article, “A Fighting Spirit Won’t Save Your Life,” is a particularly refreshing dose of realism in a cultural environment that is addicted to comforting magical thinking. Sloan goes on to point out that the primary problem with believing that will can heal wounds is not that it does not work- although it definitely doesn’t - but that there is a strong undercurrent of moral judgment involved.

It is difficult enough to be injured or gravely ill. To add to this the burden of guilt over a supposed failure to have the right attitude toward one’s illness is unconscionable. Linking health to personal virtue and vice not only is bad science, it’s bad medicine.

For those interested particularly in the problem of magical thinking, typified by such pernicious books as The Secret, I highly recommend Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bright-sided.

Periodic table of irrational nonsense

Courtesy of the very smart and very funny skeptical blogger, Crispian Jago. This link will give you the ability to hover your cursor over various kinds of “irrational nonsense,” in order to learn more about them.

“Faith healing works!” says US government website

I picked this story up from PZ Meyers’ blog.

US government website www.healthfinder.gov posted a story entitled “Can Hands-On Prayer Help Heal?” If you read the article you will see that the implied answer is “yes.” The article mentioned that the study was “peer reviewed” in the Southern Medical Journal. What it failed to mention is that there were NO CONTROLS. That’s right, the people participating in the study were self-selected individuals and came in believing that the faith healing would work. Great “scientific” study, right? Double-blind? Pshaw! Who needs double-blind studies when you have blind faith? So I guess if you have vision problems you should probably RUN to your nearest Benny Hinn crusade and get in line for your healing. Or you could seek treatment by medical professionals who practice scientific medicine-the choice is up to you.

Bonus video clip: enjoy Benny slaying people “in the spirit” to some of the worlds finest rap-rock.

Two pieces of skeptical artistic expression

Here are two pieces of art (a beat poem and a hip-hop song) that I really like. They are more on the topic of skepticism than atheism, but I think they are beautiful and express the way many atheists think.

I like pretty much everything Tim Minchin does. Enjoy “Storm” a beat poem that sums up the thoughts I have when I’m in a health food store. I’ve often been “Trapped…in the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.”

I also like pretty much everything Baba Brinkman does. You can also check out his guide to the Canterbury Tales and Evolution. Enjoy the Rationalist Anthem “Off that.”

Denialism

Debunking myths and urban legends is one of my favorite hobbies. I visit snopes.com just to check out their new articles on a regular basis. A few weeks ago I went to a professional legal education seminar that exposed me to the anti-genetically modified foods groups. Curiosity about this issue led me to a great TED talk about science denialism that can be found here.

Also, this week New Scientist magazine is doing a very interesting report on Denialism, which can be found here. The report focuses on climate change deniers, creationists, vaccine deniers, holocaust deniers, AIDS deniers, and 9/11 deniers. However, I would also like to add to this list Christian dominionist historical revisionism, embodied by David Barton of the organization WallBuilders. He blatantly quote-mines documents the founding fathers wrote to try to prove that America is a “Christian Nation” and needs to enact laws that evangelical Christians want. Chris Rodda of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, has an excellent 9-part youtube series debunking Barton’s claims. This issue is very complex and has been dealt with by Tom on this blog, but in any case, many of the founding fathers were Christians, some weren’t, but their personal opinions don’t really matter because they set up a secular nation, based on the text of the constitution and it’s amendments. It’s sad that this Onion article exists, but it really hammers home how misinformed many people are about the contents of the constitution. People like David Barton help perpetuate these myths.

In the concluding segment of the New Scientist piece, eminent skeptic Michael Shermer makes a great point about how we should deal with denialists.

“Those who are in possession of the facts have a duty to stand up to the deniers with a full-throated debunking repeated often and everywhere until they too go the way of the dinosaurs.”

This is why I take the time and energy to explain to be people why I am an atheist and a skeptic. Because beliefs have consequences, and the more true beliefs we hold, the better off we will be. Debunking the false claims of the various denialisms with facts is a very important task, and one we should not take lightly.