A Story of Angels and Heaven and Hell

I'm on my second day off of work for this week. My wife has gone to her job and my two youngest girls were probably at their school by now. My oldest, who's ten, was on the living room couch finishing her homework and I was in the kitchen fixing myself some coffee to start my day.

Yesterday I had noticed that my daughter had a story up on her computer that she was apparently working on. From what I glimpsed it was about a fallen angel working for hell. Seeing my daughter finish her assignment put me in mind of her story I had seen and I decided to talk with her about it.

"So that story you're working on, is that an assignment for school?" I asked from the kitchen as I measured out some coffee grounds.

"No, it's comprehension homework that I'm supposed to do with a parent," my daughter answered from the living room. It occurred to me that I hadn't been clear on what story I was referring too.

I paused a moment while I filled the reservoir of the coffee maker, turned it on and then continued, "Sorry muffin, I meant the story that you're writing on your laptop. Is that a homework assignment?"

As I walked over to the range to turn on one of the elements so I could fry myself an egg I saw my daughter shake her head, "No, it's just a story that I'm writing."

"What's it about?" I continued as I put the frying pan on the heating element. I heard my daughter get off the couch and walk over to my area of the kitchen. She stopped on the other side of the stove before she answered.

"It's about a guardian angel from heaven who went to hell and now tries to take people there," my daughter told me.

"Oh?" I replied as I scraped some coconut butter into the frying pan. (I don't know, my wife decided to get it and I have to admit it both smells nice and gives food a nice flavour.)

"Yeah, and there's these three other angels too that are trying to stop her. The snow angel, the wind angel and the water angel," my daughter said while grinning and watching me trying to scrape some coconut butter out of the jar. *

I looked up from my extraction efforts to peer at her curiously, "Really, snow, wind and water angels?"

My daughter nodded still smiling, "Yep, and the thing is," she continued excitedly, "If these three other angels stop her they might do something wrong!" She giggled at the cleverness of her story line. My wife and I have always agreed that this daughter had a gift for the dramatic.

I smiled back at my daughter, "Sounds like a very interesting story." I was done with the coconut butter so I put it away, "So what do you think of hell anyway?" I asked her.

"What do you mean?" my daughter asked with a puzzled expression on her face.

I chuckled, "What do you know about hell?"

My daughter scrunched her face in thought and shrugged, "I dunno, it's where bad people and people who don't love Jesus go."

"Hrm," I pondered, "So if you don't love Jesus you end up with the bad people in hell?"

My daughter shrugged again, "It's what the people at church say. It doesn't make much sense."

I smiled at her, "You're right, that doesn't make much sense," my kid was awesome. All this time I was worried that we were screwing our kids up in all the wrong ways, then my oldest produced this gem. We must be doing something right after all.

I reminded her that it's okay to question everything because it just means that you're using your brain. I told her that some people might get angry at her for asking questions, but never to let that discourage her. I let her know that she was a good, smart kid and that I was proud of her.

* I may have the elements associated with the angels wrong. If my daughter ever reads this post I hope she can forgive me for this error. back

SOPA PIPA or A Day Off of teh IntraWebs

A lot of the Web Sites I normally go to are down so I decided to "take a break" from The Internet. Of course The Internet is a lot more than just the World Wide Web and I didn't truly get off of The Internet either.

Let's see:

• I still corresponded by e-mail. This allowed me to post a reply to my dad on Facebook without logging on to Facebook.
• I still read my newsgroups (No postings or follow-ups though).
• My Twitter feed was up (I didn't post directly, but I still managed to post some Tweets.)
• I uploaded some pictures to Photobucket.
• I responded to an e-mailed Avaaz petition request. I used the Facebook and Twitter buttons to "spread the word" subsequently posting to both Facebook and Twitter.
• I read a comment on a video I had uploaded to YouTube.
• I read Undeadly and the FAQ on TalkOrigins.
• I posted to my blog.

So, all-in-all, a rather failed attempt to not use The Internet for a day. Why is that I wonder? Am I truly so addicted to The Internet that I can't have a day where I don't use it and do something else that I've been putting off?

My girls were at home today because of a Snow Day due to extremely low temperatures. I could have spent time playing with them, but honestly I was thawing out my vehicle so I could salvage what was left of a mostly lost day. Still, I found time to do all the above. Perplexing, isn't it? Not really, but tomorrow the temperatures are still supposed to be low, but there's a good chance that they won't be as low as today and the buses will probably be running.

Lost opportunity? I'm afraid so. On the other hand, I do have a scheduled day off tomorrow and if tomorrow is declared another Snow Day then I've got some plans for a day with my girls. Still, that's counting on a lot of "if's" and is not certain. Counting on dumb luck just makes me dumb...unless of course the odds work in my favour, but I have no control of that. It'd be silly to think that I do, or that anybody else does.

Ah IntraWebs, if I could but have quit of thee!

It doesn't follow that things would necessarily be "better" though. I was quite an avid reader and I do continue to read. I'm reading the first book of the "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman at the same time I'm also reading "The Believing Brain" by Michael Shermer. In the meantime, I'm reviewing a bit of my Physics and Mathematics for some subbing I'm doing on Monday. So I suppose that if it weren't The 'Net there'd always be something else.

Hrm, I wonder if I have some time to check out a MUD?

The Trails of Jessica Ahlquist

Recently a 16 year old girl from Rhode Island, by the name of Jessica Ahlquist, challenged and won her case against her school Cranston High School West. Apparently they had a banner on public display with a prayer addressed to the Christian God on it with the title "School Prayer". Now a prayer to the God of the Christians is not in and of itself a problem, neither is the fact that it had the title "School Prayer". The issue here was that this is in a public school, the law of the land (US of A) requires separation of church and state and the banner was in violation of this underlying principle by being on public display.

Perhaps this doesn't seem like a big deal, but consider that there were no other prayers to the Gods of other religions on display. This immediately creates an environment of exclusion in the school, children who aren't Christian will either feel ostracized or forced to conform to a religious culture they don't share. In fact, even they included a prayer from every religion in the school (which would probably be impractical to say the least) they would still be excluding those who don't practice any religion at all.

(Hypothetically, a prayer to the Flying Spaghetti Monster might suffice for atheists but then:
a) There's still the issue of practicality and
b) what'd be the point?)

The only real solution would be to have no school banners displaying any prayers from any religion. People who have religious convictions can still have their prayers at school though there are probably valid reasons to restrict public displays of prayer at specific school locations. The point is not to force others who do not share your religious convictions (assuming they have some) to go along with you and your group.

However, I don't think that the idea of having more than one religion's prayer on display would fly well with the dominate religious group at any school (though circumstances can make strange bedfellows at times). Consider what Cranston parents and students have been saying since Jessica won her case.

So This is Christian Love?

If by "Christian Love" you mean hatred & contempt

There are probably many Christians right now, should they be reading this, that are saying to themselves, "But that's not how a real Christian would act." Aside from pointing out the No True Scotsman Fallacy, I'd also state that many of my Christian readers thinking this are possibly "Liberal Christians" whose brand of Christianity doesn't take as much of The Bible literally as a more Fundamental/Evangelical Christians. Fundamental/Evangelical Christians are likely to see Liberal Christians at not "Real Christians" either (The No True Scotsman Fallacy can cut both ways) and many of them might even see the above actions of the parents and students as justifiable in defense of their faith.

These parents and students are behaving badly, I don't care if they Christian, Islamic, or even if they're atheist. Such poor behaviour toward someone who did the right thing to defend civil liberties is deplorable. While these parents and students may have their supporters, I hope that most of the American population see that the removal of the banner was correct and support Jessica.

The point I'm trying to make here is that I have a great deal of admiration for Jessica. At fifsixteen years of age she is confident, obviously intelligent and motivated to do what she has reasoned to be the right thing to do. I have three little girls myself and whether they end up being theist or atheist I hope that they have the courage, strength and critical thinking skills as young Jessica had.

My Ill-informedness

wawei67 you claimed:

And who do you think I am-an anonymous trolling alien from outer space? Would you treat/doubt me the same way if I was in front of you and talking you through the evidence? Do you think I have nothing better to do (I'm NOT a homeopath btw) than 'convert' you? Do you think I'm self-deluded and/or a liar. These are the questions you really need to ask yourself before you are so sure about your illformed (by biased others, I might add) view of an incredibly effective medicine.

I don't know how you got that from this:

Regarding being even-handed, rational and progressive.

Objective != Even-handed. I do strive to be objective, rational and progressive. That said, I will argue on the side that I see as having the most supporting evidence. Ergo, I cannot be even-handed in such an unevenly divided debate.

Not all opinions are equal. The weight of an opinion is proportional to its supporting evidence and the expertise of the opiner.

Perhaps you could enlighten me in the comments section below, but I assume it stems from "Not all opinions are equal. The weight of an opinion is proportional to its supporting evidence and the expertise of the opiner." Is that correct, wawei67?

I'm not insulting you there. In the scheme of things the opinions of yourself and I are insignificant next to the scientists doing the research. The fact of the matter is that there is so much evidence that supports the efficacy of Modern Medicine (and I'm not just talking about Pharmaceutical drugs either) and there's really nothing that supports the efficacy of Homeopathy. This renders our debate rather one-sided unfortunately.

I'd also like to remind you that I did not begin by being rude to you, in fact I've been quite civil to you. You haven't practiced as much restraint, but then you are sixteen. I try not to take offense.

That said, you want to prove the efficacy of Homeopathy? Do you doubt that Modern Medicine is very effective? Good, doubt is always the first step in scientific inquiry! I would encourage you to persue a science education, get into medical research and try to falsify the claims of Modern Medicine.

I'm not mocking you wawei67, this is how science is done. In those clinical trials in the peer-reviewed literature, the researchers are trying to falsify the efficacy of the drug. The researchers are trying to demonstrate that the drug has no more efficacy than placebo. If the efficacy of the drug is not statistically significant from the placebo effect then the efficacy of the drug is considered inconclusive. If the efficacy of the drug is statistically significant from the placebo effect then the researchers have been unable to falsify it and the drug is considered to work.

Do I think that you have nothing better to do than convert me? I don't know, you seem to work pretty hard at convincing me I'm wrong though I question your methods. I'd find verifiable, peer-reviewed evidence much more convincing than trashing science, peer-review and scientists. In fact, that's what I've been asking you to do from the start; take me through the evidence you believe supports Homeopathy. I probably will look for flaws in your conclusions of what your evidence says, I may even try to find flaws in the evidence itself. This doesn't mean you shouldn't try as long as you've read the evidence that you're presenting yourself then you should at least have a ready answer to my questions if nothing else.

Self-deluded, you? Perhaps, but that's just Cognitive Dissonance. Interesting phenomena that Cognitive Dissonance, we're all subject to it, it's even a survival trait. Science is the only system we have that actually runs counter to Cognitive Dissonance as science's very existence is about questioning everything, even it's own conclusions.

Feel free to answer below. I think you'll find talking about this on the blog a better experience than trying to cram everything into a less-than 500 character limit text-box.

Accusations of Sophistry

wawei67 You claimed:

I didn't post anything cause I"m tired of it all and don't believe your sophistry would accept anything regarding the proof of homeopathy's efficacy (I really don't!). You're 'analysis' of what I posted was entirely your point of view smothering the fraud that is peer-review studies (or any studies) of H. And DON'T STRIVE to BE anything!!! Just be open minded and OBSERVE the fucking world!!! Is that so hard to do with you people???

1. Sophistry is a pretty serious charge to make. I don't take it lightly and neither should you make it lightly. If my logic has ever been in error, it was never deliberately so.
2. You're "tired of it all". Well I'm not feeling all that refreshed either, but if you're going to make a claim, you've got to put the effort into backing it up with evidence. Forget anecdotal evidence though.
3. I smothered the fraud that is peer-review? If you're referring to that article that RebornHammer posted as "proof" that peer-review was corrupt may I remind you of some small details:
1. RebornHammer claimed the article made a certain claim.
2. I read the article and said that it made a different claim.
3. RebornHammer accused me of not even reading the article.
4. I demonstrated that I did indeed read the article and that it said exactly what I claimed it said.
5. RebornHammer admitted to not reading the article and even seem to think it was a point-of-pride to have not read it.
6. The irony of RebornHammers actions was so poignant that I took a screenshot. Of the two of us it was RebornHammer, not I, that committed sophistry.
4. "...DON'T STRIVE to BE anything!!!" Okay, I have no idea what you mean by that. Could you please be so kind as to explain in the comments section below when you answer?
5. "Just be open minded and OBSERVE..." Right, simply observing is not doing science. What are you looking for? How will you know it when you see it? What can you do to make sure that you're seeing actual phenomena and are not just fooling yourself? Can others repeat your results or verify the observed phenomena in other settings? How can you relay your methodology and results to others? Who do you know that can check your work or figures? How do your results fit in with what we already know? etc.... These questions and more are what real scientists have to answer. If science were just all about observing it would never progress.

Here's a story I'd like to share with you now. I can't remember exactly how the story goes so I might get some of the details wrong. Perhaps you or another reader can provide a link to the original story.

"An elderly man in his late sixties decided that he wanted to make his contribution to science. Everyday at precisely 12:00 he'd sit himself down by the window of his apartment overlooking the busy street below. He'd record the number of people entering and leaving the stores, the time they did so, their sex, apparent age, apparent weight, etc.... The man continued doing this for next twenty odd years up till the day he got to weak to from infirmity to do so any more.

"On his deathbed the elderly man asked that it be put in his will that his contribution be given to the scientific community. After the elderly man's death the executor brought the elderly man's contribution to the local university and handed it to one of the head scientists. The head scientist looked through the contribution and give it back to the executor shaking her head sadly. "I'm sorry," said the scientist, "But there's nothing we can use in there. They're just lists of numbers and other data. This is not science.""

Now I ask you, why wasn't what the elderly man did science? Think about that and what I just discussed.

Falsely DMCA'd

Surprise, You've Been Flagged!

At approximately 08:00 am MST 04 January 2011 I got a notice from YouTube that Osho International had filed a Copyright Infringement complaint against me. It was over a video I was mirroring from Robert Lester where Robert was talking about common traits of various cult leaders. Robert used an image of Osho among other cult leaders as visual reference. Additionally Robert also mentioned that he is fighting the current DMCA flagging brought against him by Osho International.

Video: False DMCA Against Mirror about a False DMCA - Irony?

I've since filed an appeal. Osho International cares little about Fair-Dealings or Fair-Use and is trying to intimidate anybody who criticizes their organization. This kind of behaviour cannot be allowed.

The Financing of Drug Trials by Pharmaceutical Companies and Its Consequences

RebornHammer accused me of not reading the meta-study "The Financing of Drug Trials by Pharmaceutical Companies and its Consequences" (Schott et al, 2010) (I referred to the authors as Lieb et al in the discussion). I disagree as I did read it and I think my understanding of the meta-study is better than RebornHammer's.

RebornHammer:

tinyurl com/6qjmgb4 PROZAC is so great!! A study on trials of SSRIs revealed that those with significant results were more likely to be published, sometimes more than once, whereas trials with non- significant results or findings unfavorable to the drug under investigation (intention-to-treat analyses versus per-protocol analyses) were not published

wstevenschneider:

1) This article is not a criticism of peer review or science, it's a criticism of pharmaceutical companies and how they try to thwart the science that exposes inefficacy or side-effects of their products. Lieb et al are encouraging government to take steps to see that this doesn't happen and that science continues to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for evidence.

2) This in no way is evidence supporting Homeopathy.

RebornHammer:

@wstevenschneider thats evidence for a bias against homeopathy and any research or peer review that might prove it to work..

@wstevenschneider And that is why every time you ask for peer review proving homeopathy you are asking for something that is unlikely to ever exist under the current political/ medical situation on the planet earth.

@wstevenschneider hello? can you read? what this is is a criticism of peer review that is used by the medical community to choose treatments for their patients. The point is that the pharmaceutical industry is out of control, and owns(through contributions and donations) most of the most highly respected peer review for medicine out there. This means that if it's not a pharmaceutical drug it does not get the light of day. Homeopathy is not a pharmaceutical drug.

Let's read "The Financing of Drug Trials by Pharmaceutical Companies and its Consequences" (Schott et al, 2010) together.

Methodology

Fifty-seven independent studies looked at various trials that were funded by pharmaceutical companies. These studies were then organized into a meta-study to get a more comprehensive view of what is going on when pharmaceutical companies fund research.

Results

Incomplete registration
With the aim of facilitating public access to clinical trial data and preventing pharmaceutical companies from influencing the publication of results, in 2004 the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) made registration a condition for publication in any of the 11 leading medical journals (7): new trials had to be registered by 1 July 2005; those already under way, by 13 September 2005. Meanwhile several reg- isters fulfill the ICMJE standards.

In January 2005 major pharmaceutical organi- zations, among them the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the Inter- national Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations (IFPMA), implemented guidelines that obliged their members to enter trials prospectively in publicly accessible registers (8, 9).

Despite this, two of the 57 studies included in the present investigation contain data suggesting that phar- maceutical companies are still not registering important information on clinical drug trials.
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Evidence that some pharmaceuticals are not disclosing their funding of drug-trials.

Concealment of adverse drug reactions
Seven of the studies investigated concerned themselves with adverse drug reactions (ADRs) in industrially sup- ported drug trials (Table).
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Evidence that some pharmaceuticals are repressing the publication of self-funded trials that reflect negatively on their product.

Publication bias
Of the 57 studies included in this investigation, 14 ana- lyzed the connection between the type of funding of a trial and publication bias.
.
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Evidence that some pharmaceuticals only present the self-funded trials that reflect positively on their product to the FDA.

Rights over trial data and restricted publication rights
Two investigations on this topic were identified. Both an analysis of the protocols of all studies initiated and published by pharmaceutical companies in a particular region of Denmark in 1994 and 1995 (e28) and a ques- tionnaire survey of medical specialists in Australia (e29) indicated that in some trials pharmaceutical companies secure the rights over the data and place constraints on publication rights.
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Evidence that some pharmaceuticals consider the methodology, results and data from the drug trials on their product to be propriety information, particularly if they are funding the trial.

Ghostwriters and guest authors
A case study on rofecoxib (e5) and an investigation into the above-mentioned studies in Denmark both found evidence of frequent resort to ghostwriters and guest authors in industry-funded publications. The Denmark investigation showed that statisticians employed by pharmaceutical companies are frequently not men- tioned in the published articles (e4).

Evidence that some pharmaceuticals attempt (and succeed in some cases) to control the direction of and what is said in the report of a trail they are funding.

Conclusion

This systematic review clearly shows that clinical trials with the involvement of pharmaceutical companies often present the therapeutic benefit of a drug in too positive a light and also fail to mention risks. Clinical studies are increasingly being funded by pharmaceuti- cal companies (e32­e35). Professional medical bodies construct evidence-based guidelines on the basis of published trial results, so their recommendations may be flawed. This contributes to excessive prescription of expensive new drugs whose efficacy is overestimated and risks underestimated. Moreover, because the evi- dence is distorted patients do not receive adequate in- formation (14).

In the past few years measures have been taken worldwide to deal with the problems described here. Laws have been enacted, for example, with the inten- tion of securing public access to research data (15­18). In the USA, for instance, a law of 27 September 2008 prescribes the registration and publication of the results of clinical trials in a register accessible on the internet (15, 19). In the European Union, directive 2001/20/EC requires registration of all clinical studies (16). A guideline implemented in 2008 lays down what classes of information from the EudraCT database-- accessible only to governmental authorities--should be made available in the publicly accessible EudraPharm drug database, which thus remains incomplete (17, 18).

Pharmaceutical organizations have implemented recommendations that are intended to ensure compre- hensive publication of research findings, whether posi- tive or negative (9, 12, 20). This initiative on the part of the pharmaceutical industry is welcome; however, the present investigation shows that negative results are still not being published in timely fashion and control mechanisms have failed.

Official regulatory measures to guarantee public access to study protocols and results and prevent the withholding of information about dangerous ADRs are urgently required. This would also give independent drug bulletins and bodies representing physicians, e.g., the Drug Commission of the German Medical Associ- ation, the opportunity to obtain detailed, unbiased in- formation about new drugs. Furthermore, it should be obligatory to prove that a new drug provides additional benefit compared with existing pharmacological and non-pharmacological forms of treatment. More public funding should be made available for independent studies (21, 22).

Measures must be taken at many levels to ensure that commercial interests do not undermine the knowledge of scientifically correct study planning, study execu- tion, and publication (4, 5, e15, 15, 23­25, e36, e37). A large number of physicians are involved in the planning and conduct of drug trials. For the benefit of their pa- tients, they should assume greater responsibility and work to counteract the economic self-interest of pharmaceutical companies in research and clinical practice.

This meta-study is not an indication of the corruption of peer review though it does indicate that some pharmaceutical companies attempt to subvert the peer review process in pursuit of profits. What the meta-study does show, albeit indirectly, is the self-correcting nature of peer review at work. Science is always questioning things, even its own conclusions. Peer review is also subject to this scrutiny.

Here we see scientists taking a look at a particular portion of peer review, in this case drug-trials, and finding evidence of pharmaceutical companies trying to subvert the peer review process. This meta-study serves to alert researchers, journal editors, medical doctors and policy makers of these subversion attempts.

Furthermore, the meta-study acknowledges that, while progress has been made countering some of these threats to peer review, more effort is required as more pharmaceutical companies are starting to fund research. Schott et al calls for several things:

• Official regulation of drug-trails to guarantee public access to studies and provide disclosure of adverse drug reactions.
• New drugs should provide benefits beyond that provided by old regimes.
• Increase public funding for more independent studies.
• Improved measures to prevent commercial interests from subverting the research and the peer-review process.
• Doctors to be proactive in countering the commercialization of medical science.

It does not follow that because there are pharmaceutical companies that attempt to subvert research and peer review that the peer review process is unreliable.

In fact, much of the message that comes from this meta-study is that the reader should be wary of pharmaceutical-funded clinical trials. As usual, the trials to go to are the publicly-funded, independent third-party studies that have no vested interest in the success of the drug being reviewed.

Far from being evidence that peer review and medical science are corrupt and unreliable, this meta-study shows us that peer review allows scientists to verify attempts to corrupt the process and to suggest corrections. It also demonstrates that science is out to protect the well-being of the general public and that pharmaceutical companies must continue to be held accountable.

While no one disputes peer review is not without its flaws, it is the only thing preventing pharmaceuticals from corporately raping the public. This meta-study serves as a call-to-arms to protect the integrity of peer review from being subverted by pharmaceuticals whose main interest is producing profit for their share-holders.

So, RebornHammer I'm curious as how you got, "The point is that the pharmaceutical industry is out of control, and owns(through contributions and donations) most of the most highly respected peer review for medicine out there," from Schott et al when this is clearly not what the meta-study says. I get the impression that you read the abstract and drew your own conclusions without bothering to find out what the meta-study actually said.