Blown away

cnv

One of the reasons I like attending SF conventions is that there are always smart literate people who will tell you about the books they’re enjoying. At Convergence, I attended a couple of panels that featured Amal El-Mohtar, and she kept raving about this one book that wasn’t even science fiction or fantasy — but she brought it up a couple of times as an excellent example of a story of friendship, and so I opened up my iPad, and looked on Amazon, and there it was for only $1.99, so I thought, “what the heck…” and bought it, and then I read it, and…holy crap, now I’m going to have to read everything El-Mohtar ever recommends. There goes my life.

And really, the rest of you need to go read Code Name Verity like, right now. Or you can tell me you already read it ages ago, and what took me so long? It’s just amazing.

It’s a World War II story about a pilot and a spy aiding the French Resistance, when the spy is captured by the Gestapo and the pilot is stranded behind enemy lines. It’s all about heroism and tragedy, and it’s a love story at the same time, and I swear there were multiple moments when I felt like breaking down and blubbing over it (but as a manly man, of course, I choked it all back and stared stoically at a wall until I’d composed myself). Although I’m still at risk of breaking down if anyone says “KISS ME HARDY” to me.

And all the central characters are women — fiercely courageous women. You’ll come away from it with a different idea of what it means to be brave.

Now I learn that there’s also another novel by the same author, Elizabeth Wein, Rose Under Fire. I may have to wait a while before cracking that one, though, I don’t know how well my fragile masculine veneer can hold up under another blast.

Maybe they should think about the radiation coming out of their televisions…

I’ve heard you can get eyeball cancer from watching bad televison programming.

No, I lied…but apparently they are people making bank off the idea that cell phones cause ear cancer, which is about as ludicrous. An Australian science show has had to retract another episode after it was exposed as credulous bunk. This show accepted without question the fear-mongering nonsense of Devra Davis, who has written a book claiming that cell phones cause cancer.

I mean, really, the show had some of the most obvious examples of bad methodology I’ve seen in a long time. For example, it purports to show that cell phone radiation is penetrating right into people’s heads with pseudocolored imaging: how horrifying, they show a picture of a child holding a cell phone with a bright red tint over the side of her face with the phone, shading into yellows and greens and blues on the far side of her head. But I’m looking at it and wondering what kind of camera they were using to measure that, and I realize it was no camera…these were stock photos that someone had painted over.

Then Davis makes this claim:

The reality is that every single well-designed study ever conducted finds an increased risk of brain cancer with the heaviest use of cell phones, and the range of the risk is between 50% and eight-fold.

Apparently, her definition of “well-designed study” is one that gives her the results she wants, because that is simply not true. Only a few studies have found a very weak correlation between cell phone use and cancer, and those have tended to be case control studies, in which people with those cancers are asked to retrospectively report on how much they’d used cell phones in the past…and they’re clearly over-reporting their frequency. So quite contrary to what Davis is saying, the studies that find an effect tend to be methodologically flawed.

Here’s a believable analysis of Devra Davis’ work.

Disconnect [Davis’ book] is a good example of the kind of material used by the EMF alarmist movement. Virtually all the alarmist studies that Davis cites used a poor methodology and/or have not been replicated in follow up studies. In fact, most have been refuted by far more comprehensive and rigorous studies. In many cases, serious flaws have been found with studies that show harm. It is at odds with the conclusions of mainstream expert groups such as the SCENHIR (* 5 P 8): It is concluded from three independent lines of evidence (epidemiological, animal and in vitro studies) that exposure to RF fields is unlikely to lead to an increase in cancer in humans. Disconnect is designed to bamboozle and scare the lay reader, not to inform.

But the creators of that science show shouldn’t have needed to read that — they should have been able to see the hokey ‘evidence’ Davis was throwing at them and seen that there was something fishy going on.

If Australians want to be afraid of something, they ought to step outside and look at that giant ball of plasma in the sky that is showering them with intense radiation all the time. Does anyone seriously think that cell phone emissions are at all comparable?

The Amazing what?

We need an appropriate noun in there…I just wish “atheist” wasn’t one of them. After his awful run-in with Martin Hughes in which TJ Kirk, the “amazing” atheist, revealed just how mind-bogglingly and obliviously racist he is, you can guess what happened next.

A. He had an epiphany and realized that lecturing a black man on the nature of racism was absurd?

B. He took the rebuke seriously and is in the process of rethinking his errors?

C. He doubled down and declared that black people in America are all professional victims?

What’s your guess?

The correct answer is C, D, E, F, G, H, etc., in increasing order of patent nastiness. Kirk had a long heartfelt discussion with Hughes, and it just got worse and worse and worse.

This is exactly why we have to dig a deep chasm in the heart of atheism, detonate a few nukes inside it to widen it, and fill it with molten lava to keep those shitbags on their side.

But of course @DeepakChopra is incorporating epigenetics into his quackery

quantum_chopra

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that my prediction that epigenetics was ripe for an invasion of quacks would come true. I also shouldn’t be surprised that Deepak Chopra has already jumped on the bandwagon.

We are referring to a different aspect of our genome, which radically revises a model that is decades old, dating back as far as the original discovery of DNA. In the original model, the effects of our genes were considered to be fixed and unchanging, controlling every aspect of our physical makeup, behavior, and susceptibility to disease. Not just eye color, height, and other physical characteristics were predetermined by inherited genes, but perhaps all kinds of behaviors, from criminality to belief in God.

No. No one with any knowledge of biology seriously believed any of that. Look up norms of reaction, for example — phenotype is the complex output of interactions between genes and environment. What he’s describing is the popular misconception of how genetics works.

It does not fill one with confidence when Chopra’s opening gambit is to completely misrepresent the field of science he’s claiming to be revolutionizing.

The new model, however, portrays a more fluid, dynamic genome that responds quickly, even instantly, to all that we experience, including how you think, feel, speak, and act. Every day brings new evidence that the mind-body connection reaches right down to the activities of our genes. How this activity changes in response to our life experiences is referred to as “epigenetics.” Regardless of the nature of the genes we inherit from our parents, dynamic change at this level allows us almost unlimited influence on our fate.

Yes, action affects gene expression. If you exercise, for instance, your muscle fibers will upregulate cytoskeletal proteins, repair enzymes, etc. in response. How else does he think we get changes in physiology?

This is not epigenetics, however. It is also not heritable — your muscle cells do not contribute to the plasm of your progeny.

Theories of evolution and genetics have long taught that genetic mutation is entirely random. However, genetics has been gradually stepping into a new era of “self-directed biological transformation,” a mouthful perhaps, but with great significance in each word:

  • Self-Directed: Voluntary activity in your thoughts, feelings, habits, and desires. This is the realm of personal choice

  • Biological: Effects at every level of the mind-body system, including reactions by your genetic material

  • Transformation: Major shifts in cellular activity leading to physiological changes

Repeat after me: we do not have conscious control over our histones or DNA methylation. We do not have conscious control over our histones or DNA methylation. We do not have conscious control over our histones or DNA methylation.

You cannot think your gene regulation into a desired state. What is most ironic is that someone who doesn’t even understand gene activity wants to put it under his control. Imagine self-directed aeronautical transformation: every passenger in a 747 is given direct access to every little detail of the actuators and hydraulics and circuitry of the plane. Would this be good or useful? Would transformation into a greasy flaming crater be desirable?

It’s also wrong. Voluntary control of your thoughts does not translate into voluntary, directed control of your genes.

This means that control is being given back to each person; we are no longer seen as puppets of our DNA. The human genome is set to be the stage for future evolution that we ourselves direct, making choice an integral part of genetics. This is in stark contrast to the “biology as destiny” view where genes override choice. Unless decisions, lifestyle, environment, and personal preferences are included, a full picture of the mysteries of our DNA cannot be attained.

I get it. Chopra is peddling an unrealistic illusion of control over your body, that you can modify your physiology by thinking at it. Nothing he is proposing is at all revolutionary — when you go to the doctor, and they tell you to “eat less, exercise more”, they are telling you that you can redirect your overall pattern of gene expression in productive ways. They’re just not swaddling it in uselessly vague misappropriation of scientific concepts.

Have you ever gone to a doctor who tells you your destiny is totally fixed by your DNA, go ahead and smoke, drink, engage in risky sexual behaviors, eat deep-fat-fried Mars bars, etc., etc., etc. because none of it makes any difference to your health, since your fate is fixed by your DNA? Didn’t think so.

The speed and extent of change at the genetic level would astonish researchers even a few years ago. Yoga and meditation, for example, can trigger almost immediate responses in genetic activity. Exercise, a balanced diet, good sleep, and stress reduction—all well-known for improving bodily function—exert beneficial effects via our genes. So the next frontier will be to discover how deep and lasting such changes are, how much control we have over them individually, and how they can be passed on to future generations through so-called “soft inheritance,” in which the parents’ life experiences and behavior directly influence the genome of their offspring (transmitted via the epigenome, which controls how the activities of our genes are turned up and down).

I can take a razor blade and cut a slice into my skin; this will trigger an almost immediate response in genetic activity as cells switch into repair mode, start proliferating, and move to combat potential infections. Eat some food, your gut responds. Grow older, and without even trying, there are steady changes in gene activity everywhere. Exercise, a balanced diet, good sleep, and stress reduction modify how your cells respond, this is no surprise at all, and Chopra has no special scientific knowledge to make him an authority on these effects.

But this part is a flat-out lie:

the parents’ life experiences and behavior directly influence the genome of their offspring

There are effects on development — try drinking a quart of vodka every night during a pregnancy, and yes, your behavior will affect the embryo — but no, working too hard or eating a poor diet does not change the genome you pass on to your children. There are weak correlations that show that some effects might propagate on for a generation or two via epigenetics, but they are not directed or conscious in any way, and there are many behavioral effects that confound the data. To claim that you can will changes in your genome is simply a lie.

The comments on that article are sadly gullible — I’m pretty sure Chopra wouldn’t let criticisms through. But this is truly terrible:

Can I make my cancer disappear? 2.5 cm esophicus with nothing showing in lymph nodes

No, ma’am, you can’t make a cancer disappear by consciously modifying your epigenome. The proper approach is to go to a real doctor or two, not Chopra, and listen to their recommendations. Cancers are not acts of will, punishments for sins, or subject to thoughtful consideration.

But Deepak Chopra has made a lot of money by implying that they are, and drawing in desperate, sick people who will grab onto any glimmer of hope, no matter how false.