No, Oprah is not going to be a viable Democratic candidate

In some ways, they’re perfectly good representatives of the yin and yang of our two political parties. Donald Trump: xenophobic, angry, crude, white male. Oprah Winfrey: kind, sympathetic, open, black female. They’re almost caricatures of the right and left. All they need to do is open their mouths in a public forum and stand there like the apotheosis of their representative parties, and people start clamoring to make them our real political leaders.

In the case of Trump, they succeeded, with disastrous results. In the case of Winfrey…most of what I’m seeing is rejection. We’re supposed to be the reality-based community, and Winfrey is missing that one critical aspect that would make her a true avatar of the political left: she stands for fantasy and quackery and feel-good pseudoscience.

…the big qualm I have about the prospect of a President Winfrey: Perhaps more than any other single American, she is responsible for giving national platforms and legitimacy to all sorts of magical thinking, from pseudoscientific to purely mystical, fantasies about extraterrestrials, paranormal experience, satanic cults, and more. The various fantasies she has promoted on all her media platforms—her daily TV show with its 12 million devoted viewers, her magazine, her website, her cable channel—aren’t as dangerous as Donald Trump’s mainstreaming of false conspiracy theories, but for three decades she has had a major role in encouraging Americans to abandon reason and science in favor of the wishful and imaginary.

Remember the Secret, the Law of Attraction? She was big on promoting that. How about the legacy of Dr Oz, Dr Phil, Deepak Chopra, and Jenny McCarthy? We now hear all the time about witch-hunts and moral panics, but it was Oprah Winfrey who enabled this nonsense.

As I say, she is an ecumenical promoter of fantasies. Remember the satanic panic, the mass hysteria during the 1980s and early ’90s about satanists abusing and murdering children that resulted in the wrongful convictions of dozens of people who collectively spent hundreds of years incarcerated? Multiple Oprah episodes featured the celebrity “victims” who got that fantasy going.

Pizzagate is the logical descendant of her shows that featured people claiming there Jewish satanic rituals in which babies were sacrificed — and she didn’t show a scrap of skepticism.

I am constantly being told that Winfrey is going to be groomed for the presidency, that Democrats are just as superficial as Republicans. I don’t believe that for a moment. But if the worst case scenario happened, and we had a 2020 presidential election to decide between Trump (isn’t he going to be impeached before then?) and Winfrey, it would be the end of the American experiment and the complete failure of democracy.

I guess I’m not the only one disenchanted with movement atheism

Somebody is mad as hell.

Remember when we used to get so pissed off at theists telling us we had no basis for morality, that we’d probably murder and rob banks without a god to keep us in check, and we could just point to religious terrorism and child-raping priests and smirk? Those were the good old days. It turns out that dogma and authoritarianism can afflict even secular communities. There goes our more-rational-than-thou defense!

One amusing fact for you all: when Ed Brayton and I were putting together this little network we’re on, we were trying to figure out what name to give it. I was all for something in-your-face, with “atheism” front and center and some kind of impudent logo. Ed advocated for something a bit more…open and friendly, and came up with Freethoughtblogs, emphasizing freedom from dogma rather than loud atheism. Oh, man, he was right. It would be awkward if this were Atheismblogs right now.

The next Mythicist Milwaukee con will be worse than the last

That’s a prediction. They tried to invite Sincere Kirabo to the next Mythicist Milwaukee con, and Kirabo is a Very Big Name in the humanist/social justice community, well-respected, and a great writer and speaker. You’d think that was a good sign, right? Wrong. You have to read what they propose that he do.

We are reaching out to see if you would want to be a speaker at Mythcon V. Our idea for your event would to be part of a discussion on “The effects of social justice activism in the African American community” [sic] This topic title is not final. The idea is to have you on stage with someone that would hold opposing views. We would have a moderator that would be present just to keep the conversation moving along.

That was my emphasis. This is exactly the kind of crap they pulled last time: they need an excuse to put an edgelord front and center on stage, and they do it with the pretext of setting up a debate with someone with more respectable views. When I get invited to do a creationist debate, this is always the case: the organizers are really all about promoting the creationist ass on stage, and that’s who the audience is bussed in to see, and they just want me there as a foil for the dishonest twit.

You do have to wonder who the Milwaukee frauds were trying to get who holds opposing views to a black social justice advocated. Richard Spencer? Jared Taylor? Some whiny racist vlogger from YouTube? It doesn’t matter. They’re going to have another audience of white alt-right anti-social-justice atheists there, and they just want an obliging target for them jeer at. Kirabo’s response is perfect.

Or, as secular activist Alix Jules paraphrases the request that he also received: “Please justify your existence, anger, and rage, while defending your humanity.”

They also tried to get Alix Jules? Jesus.

I will not negotiate my humanity. I will not play accomplice to interrogating the significance of Black liberation to indulge the white gaze.

This leads me to a point many who consider themselves a part of the atheist movement may not want to hear: the misguided audacity Mythicist Milwaukee has displayed reflects aspects of an ethos deeply entrenched within organized atheism communities.

It isn’t like Mythcon 4 is the first time atheists or self-described secular humanists have misapplied the right to free speech to express or celebrate dehumanizing views. It isn’t like Mythcon 4 is the first time atheists or self-described secular humanists have trivialized the struggle for a more just world and dismissed it with terms like “identity politics.”

I acknowledge that these elements are alive and well within the humanist movement, one made up of a non-monolithic variety of outspoken individuals, groups, and organizations who share mutual interests but also embrace diverging goals. I’ve gradually disassociated myself from organized atheism (outside what’s necessary for work) because it’s too common to meet those involved in this movement who not only don’t prioritize matters of social change for collective liberation, but also regard those who value these ambitions with contempt. Those aren’t my people, but more than that, they’re obstacles to my work.

I don’t want to waste time and energy trying to convince people why they should examine their allegiance to unjust ideologies, or why they should want to act in solidarity with marginalized communities. I prefer to invest my time in communities of people who acknowledge that there are major social problems that demand solutions.

I’ll just say right now that this conference is gearing up to bring in speakers, and if you get an invitation from them, just say NO right now, unless you want to get tangled up in another contentious shitshow. Or unless you’re a shitlord. Then just go right ahead.

Hard to believe the attempt to vindicate Sandusky retroactively continues

His conviction on dozens of counts of child sex abuse was pretty solid, but some are still trying to claim he was convicted on the basis of that bullshit “repressed memory therapy”. He wasn’t. Here’s a damning summary of the trial that slaps down those “skeptic” claims that the evidence against him was a collection of fantasies.

And then…Sandusky had an appeal built around the claim that unreliable “repressed memories” were used against him. This whole argument has already been debated in a court of law!

Here’s what the judge said in the appeal.

Although he was denied access to the victims’ psychological records, Sandusky was permitted to call witnesses to explore whether the victims had undergone repressed memory therapy prior to trial, and he did explore that subject with Dustin Struble (“Struble”), Michael Gillum, Aaron Fisher, Brett Houtz, and Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, none of whom affirmed the defendant’s hypothesis.

During his direct testimony, Gillum, Fisher’s treating therapist, plainly and credibly stated, “I don’t deal with repressed memory [and] I don’t work with anyone who claims to have repressed memories or anything along those lines.” (PCRA, 03/24/2017, p. 159). He further articulated his negative assessment of repressed memory therapy and why he did not engage in it. (Id. at 164-165). While Struble acknowledged that he and his therapist had discussed methods of unearthing repressed memories, moreover, he stated definitively that he had not undergone that type of therapy prior to the defendant’s trial. (Id., 05/11/2017, p. 20).

Dr. Loftus had a different opinion based on “impressions” from Gillum’s book, statements Struble made two years after the trial, and the fact that the victims whose excerpted trial testimony she reviewed did not give consistent stories to the police, the grand jury, and the trial jury. (Id. at 71-90). Having been rendered after an uncritical review of an absurdly incomplete record carefully dissected to include only pieces of information tending to support Sandusky’s repressed memory theory, however, that opinion was entirely ineffective to rebut Gillum’s and Struble’s definitive denials.

Note that comment, that none of the experts called upon “affirmed the defendant’s hypothesis” that the victims had gone through repressed memory therapy…the very thing that the “skeptics” disagreement with the trial result hinges upon.

Skeptic Magazine: rots from the head

Hoo boy, but the influence of its malignant editor is making itself felt this month with some utterly terrible articles. One is from Carol Tavris, which is incredibly disappointing — her talks were always a highlight at the old Amazing Meeting — but now she has decided that the #metoo movement is a “moralistic crusade” with bad consequences. To make that argument, she has to resort to the false dichotomy fallacy.

Whenever a movement is fueled by rage and revenge, it is more important than ever to tolerate complexity and ask questions that evoke dissonance. We can all imagine the ways in which “Me, too” might benefit women, but how might it backfire? Because it will. Moralistic crusades to censor “sexist” pornography, for example, led to suppression of lesbian books, sex-ed books, and plain old sexypleasure books that someone thought offensive. What might be the consequences of a moralistic crusade to root out any behavior that might be misconstrued—now, next week, in 10 years—including affectionate touches, supportive hugs, jokes? Do professional women really want a Mike Pence world where they cannot have a business dinner or go to a party without a chaperone? When feminists find themselves in bed with right-wing puritans, they are going to get screwed.

Hear that ladies? Quit complaining about the butt pats and the groping and the sexual demands to advance your career, or next thing you know it’s going to be Mike Pence ruling over the Republic of Gilead! Which would you prefer, a few Harvey Weinsteins going berserk in Hollywood, or Cotton Mather convening some new witch trials?

You know, #metoo isn’t about Puritans demanding all sex be suppressed. It’s about ordinary women demanding some professional respect and human dignity. There is a difference, and most of us can see it fairly clearly.

Also, Mike Pence is a poor example of a guy who will end all public displays of prurience. He’s the happy enabler of the Groper in Chief. He represents the status quo, the perpetuation of male sexual privilege in the workplace. I don’t think most of the #metoo women are anticipating jumping into bed with Pence.

If you want a lot more — I mean, a lot more — criticism of the Tavris piece, HJ Hornbeck has a multi-part beat-down. I’m just kind of appalled at the ongoing corruption of everyone associated with Michael Shermer.

But holy hell, the Tavris piece isn’t even the worst thing published! They’ve published a defense of Jerry Sandusky! Look, Jerry Sandusky was found guilty of 45 counts of child sexual abuse. He’s a convicted pedophile. The prosecution brought in a long train of witnesses and evidence of criminal behavior spanning at least 15 years and 10 victims, and this case found him guilty in a community that was full of fanatical Paterno/Sandusky defenders. Anyone remember the riots and protests when the Paterno empire fell? You can’t have a witch hunt when the targets are regarded as holy saints — the evidence was just so overwhelming and undeniable that even angels by repute could be defrocked at last.

The article in question tries to argue that a) it was a conspiracy theory, with all these people conniving to railroad a beloved family man (wait, why?) and b) and then goes through each of the witnesses, disparaging their testimony and wondering why these boys would maintain an outwardly cordial relationship with an abuser. That never happens! There’s no such thing as a nurtured dependency or fear of reprisal. It sounds exactly like the smears made against the women who finally spoke out against Harvey Weinstein: all you have to do is find a photo of the woman smiling in Weinstein’s presence, and obviously she must have been lying about his abusive behavior.

The most shameful part of a shameful article is how it ends: with a picture of Bo, the beloved family dog. Bo died while Sandusky is in prison. Free Jerry so he can mourn for this lovely innocent dog!

I fwowed up. Fucking professional Skeptics™.

But then, lately, that’s all I can do when the stench of Shermer’s magazine wafts my way.

The “intellectual dark web”

While I was at the gym this morning, I was listening to Thomas Smith’s podcast, Serious Inquiries Only, and in particular, the latest episode, SIO108: Sam Harris Sides with Ben Shapiro Over the FFRF. The title covers the problem. Sam Harris, once again, has a nice civil conversation with a flaming conservative asshole, Ben Shapiro, and they end up agreeing that bakeries ought to be able to discriminate against gay people, since the Market will just fix everything up.

Right. Business as usual for the Harris wing of atheism.

Smith does a phenomenal job of flaying all of the participants, but I want to pick on one thing. Another participant was Eric Weinstein, who got a lot of attention for his assertion that there was an “Intellectual Dark Web” where all the smart guys, like Jordan Peterson (??!? Fuck me!) were hanging out, and that they expected to be persecuted any moment now by the Powers That Be.

Wait, “Intellectual Dark Web”? What the heck is that? In the conversation, it is revealed that there are about 25 people that Weinstein turns to to discuss matters of import.

Hang on there, guy. That’s not a “web”, it’s a bubble. We’ve had those for decades. I’m on a couple of mailing lists that are much bigger than that, and talk about substantial stuff like teaching biology. We don’t call ourselves the Bio-Intellectual Web. It’s a goddamn trivial mailing list.

It could also be something like a Google Group. We’ve got one of those with about 30 people on it for Freethoughtblogs. We’ve been missing an opportunity — we should rename it to the Brilliant Freethought Web! And don’t you wish you were good enough to be on it.

I suspect he called it the “Dark” web because it sounds edgy. Probably the only reason it deserves that adjective, though, is because it includes people like Peterson, who are pretty dim to begin with.

We’ve been building Kook Magnets!

One of those unfortunate discoveries made over decades of wrestling with one fringe idea, creationism, is that when you tug on one string in the fringe, you find that it’s connected to all the other fringes, and you have to unravel the whole thing. Creationists often have bizarre ideas about Christianity and space and electromagnetism and how the Pope isn’t the true Pope and Jesus is connected to the Masons and the Rosicrucians and the Hebrews colonized Mars and Nazis possessed the Spear of Destiny and used the Holy Grail to power their flying saucers that were used to shuttle slaves to the gold mines at the center of the Hollow Earth and did you know the Nephilim built the pyramids. There is a gigantic tangle of remarkably nonsensical myths lying around, and if you’re so ignorant that you believe that scientists have engaged in a centuries-long conspiracy to hide the fact that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, then you’re primed to pick up on any bullshit you hear. If they’ve been lying about that, then sure, maybe the sun is actually only a few thousand miles away, and the Earth is also flat.

The SPLC has noticed, and has put up an article discussing the indisputable links between the alt-right and alt-history and alt-science. It starts with our contemptibly racist president — not the current one, the 19th century one, Andrew Jackson — who believed that the Mound Builders, and any other culture that built cities and monuments in the Americas, had to have been a superior and white race that was exterminated by the “savages” currently occupying the ruins. There is a long history of cultural chauvinism in the West, where the accomplishments of non-white cultures are belittled or bestowed upon super-intelligent visitors from alien worlds or visiting white tribes or angels, because gosh, the wogs couldn’t possibly have built the pyramids.

We’ve been pandering to it. If you’ve read von Daniken’s Chariots of the Gods, you’ve been soaking in racism. That’s the whole premise: that anything of any complexity or sophistication could not have been constructed by non-Europeans, and therefore, it must be interpreted as a product of alien influence. Maybe you’ve laughed at Giorgio Tsoukalos, but it’s the same thing, a set of arguments resting entirely on contempt for the intellectual capacity of brown people. We’ve seen entire television networks consumed by this pseudo-scientific conceit — anything that babbles about “hidden history” is basically garbage. But popular garbage.

Take “America Unearthed,” which aired between 2012 and 2015 on H2, a defunct History Channel network. That show’s host, a geologist named Scott Wolter, promoted theories that ancient Celts and Scots settled North America and hybridized Native Americans centuries before Columbus. The details can be found in Wolter’s contributions to Lost Worlds of Ancient America, a 2012 anthology edited by Frank Joseph, born Frank Collin, founder of the National Socialist Party of America. (In 1993, following his expulsion from the party for “impure blood”, Collin became editor of Ancient American magazine and has authored dozens of books dealing with ancient “suppressed” history.) In another episode, when a guest professes admiration for the Knights of the Golden Circle, a group of wealthy Southerners who sought to create a hemispheric slave empire, Wolter just nods. (Wolter has denied that he or his ideas are racist, and claims to be politically liberal.)

I’ve met Scott Wolter. He’s not liberal, he’s just nuts.

In the movies, we’ve got crap like The DaVinci Code and National Treasure built on ridiculously convoluted conspiracy theories about the past. Worst of all, we’ve got Indiana Jones…and I liked those movies (except the last one) and took my kids to see them. Indiana Jones is a terrible archaeologist, the very worst, and every one of those movies rests on the idea that the past accomplishments of exotic cultures rest on occultism, rather than the entirely human minds and skills of their people. And then there is the Nazi connection.

Popular media has been feeding the idea that the Nazis had secret super-science, as well as insight into the Truth™ of mystical paranormal powers and the potency of magical religious relics.

Another inevitable development in postwar conspiracy subculture was the rise of a belief in secret Nazi bases underneath Antarctica. The idea of a “hollow” or “inner” earth was a key tenet of nineteenth-century occultism, and in the postwar years it reemerged as a setting for escaped Nazi scientists working in secret technology and weapons labs.

The legend took root during the mid-1970s, nurtured by the Canadian neo-Nazi Ernst Zundel, who argued that Nazis invented flying saucers and had taken their breakthrough technology to bases deep under the South Pole.

The Third Reich was interested in a possible base at the South Pole, and a few high-level Nazis did escape to Argentina, whose national territory includes a slice of Antarctica extending to the South Pole. Zundel and his successors have infused these facts with Victorian inner-earth legends, and then marinated them over multiple viewings of the 1968 B-flick, They Saved Hitler’s Brain. Versions of the theory remain popular on neo-Nazi alt-history sites, and in recent years British tabloids like the Mirror and Daily Star have found click-bait gold in spreading them.

Yeah, “click-bait gold”. There’s a reason rat poison is sweet, too.

There were no Nazi magic powers. Germany was an industrial and scientific powerhouse in the 19th and early 20th centuries — Germany dominated physics, chemistry, and biology, and had built a substantial technological lead over the rest of the world. The Nazis didn’t create that, they exploited Germany’s hard-won advantages, and wrecked them. The Nazi regime was a major setback to our technological progress (and civilization as a whole), and I despise this propaganda that tries to pretend they were an engine of innovation rather than looters and wreckers who drove away a large part of their scientific talent and murdered good human minds.

There are no shortcuts to education and research. Our media, though, have been going down this path of promoting fables about how the world works, and it’s going to take us down the same ugly path that derailed Germany.

The Atheist Conference is looking a bit shaky

In a year when the evangelical right is taking over the government, when Mike Pence is the vice president, you’d think the atheist movement would be riding high, motivated and furious. You’d think. After all, atheism was all the news after George W Bush and 9/11, right? But no. We’re in disarray. Last year, the Global Atheist Conference was cancelled for lack of registrations. The one conference that got a lot of attention was the Mythicist Milwaukee con that featured racist asshats, and most of the publicity was negative — and they lost money on the conference itself, and only got it back by pandering to the alt-right for donations after the fact. (Remember when the trolls would whine about SJWs “e-begging” to get support for medical care? It’s OK when your Nazi friends do it, I guess.)

And now another big atheist conference looks to be in trouble. The Atheist Conference is supposed to take place this summer in New York City, which is currently in melt-down mode. One early problem was that they didn’t seem to have a good purpose, claiming that they’re about uniting “the atheist community on our common goals by repairing recent divisions”, which is not a great premise since many of us are not interested in surrendering a commitment to social justice to make nicey-nice with regressive assholes; they also announced that they were “not an Alt-Right or Alt-left, or a conservative or a liberal rally”, which is confusing because they seemed to be announcing that they’re nothing and are trying to occupy an imaginary middle between contradictory extremes. At the same time, though, we were getting all these private messages that oh, yes, they were definitely a social justice conference. It made no sense.

Then we learned that they were making misleading claims to entice people to commit to the conference. Apparently, George Clooney agreed to appear there. At least, they didn’t say that publicly –it was more along the lines of a confidential whisper to prospective speakers, as a lure to further get them to waive any speaking fees. In my case, there was a nod to all the great names on the speaker’s list, and wouldn’t I like to join them, and they’d consider me, but would I be willing to cover my own travel expenses? We’ll get back to the board and let you know. It was weird. But I was considering going on my own anyway, because it did look like some excellent speakers, even if it didn’t include George Clooney.

But now, who knows who is going to be speaking there? The speakers have been talking among themselves, comparing notes, and suddenly people have been dropping off the list. There has been some back room chatter, and even more are planning to abandon ship.

And now the executive director of the conference has quit.

I think the whole thing is going to implode soon. At least, I wouldn’t recommend registering for it until they get their act together, which means they’re not going to have any money coming in, which means they’re going to fail hard — it’s a kind of self-perpetuating failure mode that you get locked into with these kinds of egregious errors at the onset of the project. It’s kind of a metaphor for the atheist movement in general, actually.

Jebus. Just as I posted this, The Atheist Conference announced that they were cancelling the whole thing.

More money than sense

Sure indicators that you’re dealing with a quack: the magic words “detox” and “cleanse”. I’ve heard so many people babble about drinking algae or having wheatgrass squirted up their butt to somehow scour poisons out of their bloodstream and colon. Yvette D’Entremont is here to tell you that none of it works.

Let me point out: In order to be detoxed, you first have to be, well, “toxed.” And you’re probably not. If you actually had a build-up of heavy metals or pesticides in your body, you’d be crazy sick. There are specific symptoms to having both of these “toxins” inside of you. In fact, different metals and pesticides have specific symptoms, like muscle spasms and breathing difficulties. Bottom line? Breakouts and feeling a little rundown aren’t symptoms of any of them, and you need REAL MEDICINE — dimercaprol chelation and atropine, respectively — for treatment. Not juice.

Meanwhile, at the same time and often involving the same detox fanatics, people are paying premium prices for “raw water”.

In San Francisco, “unfiltered, untreated, un-sterilized spring water” from Live Water is selling for $60.99 for a 2.5 gallon jug — and it’s flying off the shelves, the New York Times reported. Startups dedicated to untreated water are gaining steam. Zero Mass Water, which allows people to collect water from the atmosphere near their homes, has already raised $24 million in venture capital.

People — including failed startup Juicero’s cofounder Doug Evans — are gathering gallons of untreated water from natural springs, venturing out onto private property by night to get the water. Evans told The Times that he and his friends brought 50 gallons of raw water to Burning Man.

You know, fish poop in that stuff. Have you ever heard of Giardia? How about amebic meningoencephalitis?

On the bright side, though, I’m thinking of shipping raw Lake Crystal Water from Minnesota to Silicon Valley and making a good profit. The name sounds like a marketing dream, but those of us who live here know it is actually a large shallow pond, one step up from a swamp, with dairy farm runoff trickling in on one side, and a nice squishy layer of duckshit on the bottom. It’s incredibly raw. I ought to be able to charge double for the magnitude of its rawness.

One sip, though, and you’ll probably need a detox/cleanse. If I sell those, too, I’ll be making money off them coming and going! I’m gonna be so rich I’ll be morally obligated to vote Republican.