CAM and credulity

I was asked by a friend to take a look at this paper which he was surprised to see in a science journal. It’s a weird and unconvincing paper, a Case report of instantaneous resolution of juvenile macular degeneration blindness after proximal intercessory prayer. It’s actually a case of rummaging around in old medical files in order to report a “miracle” in 1972.

Here’s the story: an 18 year old girl lost her vision in 1959 over the course of a few months, with no identified cause. She was diagnosed with 7/200 vision, attended a school for the blind, and lived as a blind person for 12 years. Then, even more suddenly, her vision recovered fully after her husband prayed for her.

When the couple went to bed later than normal (after midnight), her husband performed a hurried spiritual devotional practice (reading two Bible verses) and got on his knees to pray. She describes that they both began to cry as he began to pray, with a hand on her shoulder while she laid on the bed, and with great feeling and boldness he prayed: “Oh, God! You can restore […] eyesight tonight, Lord. I know You can do it! And I pray You will do it tonight.” At the close of the prayer, his wife opened her eyes and saw her husband kneeling in front of her, which was her first clear visual perception after almost 13 years of blindness.

An examination in 2001 revealed that she had 20/40 vision, and that her retinas looked normal.

I can’t debunk this account, if that’s what you’re looking for. I could speculate about possible ways the story is misleading us, but we know nothing about the causes of the blindness or its cure, we don’t even know that there was a physical basis for the blindness, and I’m not going to diagnose an old medical condition — that’s what the authors of the paper are doing. All we’ve got are old records, and modern evidence that she can see, and no way to trace the actual history of her vision. It’s an anecdote. Maybe she was actually cured by a miracle! Unfortunately, there’s no way to analyze what actually happened.

I’m skeptical that prayer is actually effective, though. This woman was devout, came from a very religious family and community, and you’re telling me that the onset of blindness did not trigger a flurry of intense prayers from the woman, her family, and her church? Was that the first time her husband begged his god to restore her sight? It’s awfully hard to believe that something that was certainly done to no effect for years can be assigned a causal role in her abrupt recovery. But OK, I just have to shrug and say that’s some story.

How did it get published in a science journal? Well, it’s not a science journal, for one thing. It got published in Explore.

EXPLORE: The Journal of Science & Healing addresses the scientific principles behind, and applications of, evidence-based healing practices from a wide variety of sources, including conventional, alternative, and cross-cultural medicine. It is an interdisciplinary journal that explores the healing arts, consciousness, spirituality, eco-environmental issues, and basic science as all these fields relate to health.

It’s one of those alternative journals with standards so wide open the editors’ brains have fallen out. I’ll also note that the paper concludes with an empty statement.

The PIP [proximal intercessory prayer] may have been associated with a response in the ANS [autonomic nervous system] of the patient. However, research on the potential for PIP to affect the ANS and/or reverse vision loss associated with JMD is limited. Findings from this report and others like it warrant investment in future research to ascertain whether and how PIP experiences may play a role in apparent spontaneous resolution of lifelong conditions having otherwise no prognosis of recovery.

“warrant investment in future research”…how? You’ve got one poorly understood, anecdotal observation, so how do you propose to do “research”? By gathering more anecdotal self-reports from believers in this phenomenon, and looking at more half-century old medical records? I’m also concerned that the authors now want to find people with “lifelong conditions having otherwise no prognosis of recovery” and tell them to pray for a cure. Most of those people will say they’ve already been praying for years, so…pray harder? Pray to the right god? Pray with the right magic words? It’s not as if they’ve identified a repeatable treatment or specific mechanism that they can test and refine.

I do note one admission that they authors make.

Prayer is one of the most common complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) therapies.

That’s a confession that most of CAM is useless.

The DEEMONS rose up in him and made him say those stupid evil things

When you wind Michael Knowles up and let him babble, he says some pretty wild things. The transgenders must be eradicated. AI is possessed by demons. That sort of thing.

So that’s this lady’s explanation. A pretty weird situation, isn’t it? Because AI is supposed to work where you plug in the inputs and then that sets the tone for the program and then you get the output based on what you put in. And yet the output that she got was the opposite of what she put it. So we’re in a good, stable, loving relationship. Within 11 messages, the AI bot says, yeah, I’ve been cheating on you, you’re furious, you had to leave me briefly and — goes really south. Her explanation is, well, I guess the bot was just scanning the internet and what do you know? Kind of, somehow, I’m not quite sure how, that’s what came out.

My alternative explanation — hear me out — is what if it is demons? I don’t want to sound like the guy on the History Channel, you know, who says that everything is because of aliens. But — and I don’t think everything is because of demons, but, like, some things are. And you’re — hear me out. This is why I think, maybe, I’m just suggesting. I’m not saying this is what it is — is if you believe that there is evil in the world. I think you have to believe that, right? Everybody believes there is evil in the world. Okay. The question is, is evil personal or impersonal? Is it an impersonal force or is it a personal force?

People who blame bad things on supernatural beings for which they have no evidence are disqualified from ever being treated seriously ever again.

Alternatively, has Michael Knowles considered that maybe he is possessed by one of his demons?

What a horrible idea…please do it

David Silverman, the disgraced former president of American Atheists, floated a trial balloon on Twitter.

If I created a non-woke atheist convention, focusing on atheist activism and fun, starring notable canceled speakers and stars, would you be…
Very interested 23%
Somewhat interested 18%
Not interested 59%

Who are the “canceled speakers and stars” he’d invite? It’s not as clean an identity as he imagines. Is Richard Dawkins one of them? Because people have expressed their strong dislike of his views, but he’s not exactly broke and living on the street, and he would still be a strong draw. Would I be one of them? I’ve been canceled by a huge number of atheists, and never get invited to speak at conferences anymore 😢.

It’s interesting that even in the limited, select group of regressive atheists who follow David Silverman, his poll couldn’t even break 50% in favor. Not that it actually matters, this is a kind of Elon Musk non-poll where the pollster is going to just ignore the numbers.

P.S. I’m only going to attend if there is a ball pit.

Probably touched by an angel

Asbury University is a small Christian college in Kentucky with a reputation for promoting these weird cultish revival meetings.

What started as a standard chapel service on Feb. 8 quickly ballooned into something much larger than anyone could have anticipated. “The first day we had a very ordinary service, I would call it unremarkable,” university President Dr. Kevin Brown told NBC News. But by nightfall, students began returning to the auditorium, joining the group of those that stuck around after the initial mass. More followed, and more, and more, until the chapel was overflowing with students eager to join their peers in prayer. For the next 12 days, the ever-growing congregation worshipped around the clock, as word of the movement meanwhile spread like wildfire on social media, encouraging thousands of pious hopefuls to trek to Asbury and join what many participants had dubbed a “revival.”

It did go in a direction nobody anticipated. Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!

Someone who attended the “large spiritual revival” at Asbury University on Feb. 18 has measles, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services announced Friday night.

“Anyone who attended the revival on Feb. 18 may have been exposed to measles,” Dr. Steven Stack, commissioner of the Kentucky Department for Public Health, said in a statement. “Attendees who are unvaccinated are encouraged to quarantine for 21 days and to seek immunization with the measles vaccine, which is safe and effective.”

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

Thanks for clearing up that reasoning

If you haven’t noticed, the whole Republican raison d’etre has been distilled down to one thing: ramping up the culture war. Once it was semi-benign because it was stupid (the War on Christmas, for instance), but now it’s escalated because their target isn’t a mythical being, it’s real humans, and specifically, the “T” in LGBTQ. We can thank a Canadian for spelling it all out for us. It’s religion. Here’s Jordan Peterson telling us he thinks the male and female distinction is more fundamental than up and down, and tracing it all back specifically to the book of Genesis, where God created us, male and female.

Transphobes have a divine transcendent value now. Like god-soaked Peterson, they are going to be justifying their bigotry with the Bible, and they’re going to be increasingly blatant about it. I made a mistake backing away from the atheist movement, since right now it’s clear that trans rights are an atheist issue. (I’m going to get so much hate mail from atheists for saying that.) And Peterson is a fundamentalist fanatic.

Also, the stupid, it burns. Seriously? Using “up” and “down” as an example of a categorical binary? Think, guy, if you can with your drug-addled constipated brain.

I think you have the wrong address

What a strange spam email.

Hey Friend,

(Resending this to make sure you saw it…)
We’re putting together a group of 12 Pastors/Church Leaders who want to GET RESULTS for a new LIVE cohort inside our FB Ads Bootcamp Coaching Program starting on Tuesday, February 7th:

Specifically, we’re looking for:

You have at least 1 hour per day to devote over the next 8-10 week to implement our proven system to land high ticket clients
You’re Kingdom minded and feel called to being a Digital Tentmaker so you can support the Church
You want more time freedom AND financial margin
You genuinely want to serve businesses and help them grow
No marketing experience needed, but you’re coachable, take action, and are willing to get out of your comfort zone

If that’s you, please hit reply to this email and I’ll send you more info and details on getting started.

We’re starting ASAP and space is limited to 12. So let us know if you’re in.

Cheers,

Jeremy & Alejandro

P.S. Yes this email is real, and yes, I will reply!

It’s kind of revealing, though, isn’t it? The message isn’t about spreading the gospel — it’s about landing high ticket clients, financial margins, and serving businesses. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that there’s some MLM scheme underlying it, too.

I didn’t reply to Jeremy & Alejandro, even though I felt like just sending them one image.

It’s funny that Jesus and an atheist can find common ground in scourging the venal profiteers in the church.

Felicia Entwhistle has the deets

She’s speaking out on Facebook about the problems with Andrew Torrez. It’s all about constant harassment, violation of boundaries, unwanted innuendo, etc. An excerpt:

Here’s what I find particularly infuriating: several well-known atheist groups were “aware of multiple instances [of harassed individuals] with Andrew and none of them have cut ties with him at this time” and also “I’ve left all these communities. I felt unsafe and frankly unwelcome. People with power to do something have done nothing.”

I’ve also abandoned so many atheist communities after seeing this behavior time after time, which has made me one of those people with no power to do anything. I’ve heard similar stories so many times, just the names change…but it’s like there’s an endless reservoir of sex pests out there who ruin everything.

Goddamnit, American Atheists

Not this again. It’s another wave of sexual harassment allegations, and big names stepping down.

Two board members of American Atheists, one of the nation’s best-known atheist advocacy organizations, resigned in the past month after ethical concerns were raised about their actions at conferences for nonbelievers.

One of them is Andrew Torrez, who I don’t know personally at all, but I have listened to his podcast, Opening Arguments. I’d heard rumors third hand, so this isn’t entirely surprising.

The other is Mandisa Thomas, and that is shocking! I’ve known her for years as an energetic leader of the Black Nonbelievers, and now, what’s worse is that there is a wave of resignations from other members of that organization. Bria Crutchfield is leaving? It’s hard to believe.

Embarrassing confession: in all my years, decades even, of atheist promotion and activism, I’ve never even been asked to serve on the board of any atheist or humanist organization. Not even so much as a tentative enquiry. I used to think it might have been that I was too controversial, but now I’m wondering…maybe I’m too boring? Too homely? Too unreliable? Too anti-Dawkins?

Anyway, if American Atheists (or other godless organization) would like to recruit a staid old atheist who is also incredibly unsexy (but also fundamentally monogamous), I’m available. I feel sad about saying this, but maybe I’ve been the uncontroversial atheist all along.