false hopes from the lunatic fringe

At the moment, it is becoming more and more difficult in this country to be a skeptic. Along with the amazing progress that the Internet has made in the past decade comes many pitfalls. Information moves pretty swiftly here in 2010 and it's almost impossible to filter the good from the bad. Professional looking web sites are easy to design, blogs and advertisements everywhere are frequently confused with reliable news articles, video and photo editing software has become increasingly easier to use, and anybody with a microphone and a computer can broadcast a national radio show from his or her own home.

Most surveys place America at about 75% connected to the Internet. This is up from about 35% in 2000. What all these new Internet users are not aware of is the fact that anybody with a small amount of know how and a large amount of time on their hands can construct a completely compelling audio/visual argument for any cause they feel like pushing. For example, by shifting sound tracks and editing low resolution videos frame by frame, some people have managed to fool seemingly intelligent people into believing that the world trade center was never even hit by any planes. This brings me to the title of this article

Throughout history, especially in times of turmoil and uncertainty, there are many among us who are skilled at preying on our fears. Some do it to spread their beliefs or political agenda, many others are in it purely for financial gain. The Internet in all its glory has unwittingly created a pedestal for those who make wild and outlandish claims. I'll summarize the majority of what I'm speaking of in one phrase

"The end of the world is near, but if you buy our DVDs, books, and whatever other crap we're selling on our on-line shop, you'll be well equipped to survive. "

Some even go further to coax you into donating to their "cause". I know what you're probably thinking. The phrase "A fool and his money are soon parted" comes to mind. If people aren't intelligent enough to see through these claims, then let them be suckered. This I agree with, I'll illustrate the trouble I have with the following example.

The following headline was copied directly from the archives at the website "Organic Health Advisor" http://www.organichealthadvisor.com

"Is The H1N1 Swine Flu Vaccine Causing Miscarriages?"

Well for starters, the answer to the headline is no. There is no scientific data anywhere that I could find that shows any increase in miscarriage after being vaccinated . There is however plenty of scientific data that the H1N1 flu itself may not only cause a miscarriage, but cause death. (6% of those who died of H1N1 in 2009 were pregnant) . So where did this particular website get it's information? Quoting organichealthadvisor.com :

"reports are pouring in from all over the United States of women who have lost their babies very quickly after receiving the H1N1 vaccine"

What reports? Where are they?
Their answer?

"They end up on sites like this one because the mainstream media won't touch this story with a ten foot pole (lest they offend the pharmaceutical giants and their millions of dollars in ad money)"

So the claim here made is that the only venue these women have to report their miscarriages is at organichealthadvisor.com ? Lets say for a moment that they aren't lying, and they did get reports sent in from would be mothers that lost their babies after taking the vaccine. Is it socially responsible to write an article based on a few e-mails or phone calls without doing any research whatsoever?

Let's break this down shall we?

Sanofi and Novartis are two of the primary manufacturers of the H1N1 vaccine. CNN is one of the most mainstream news outlets in America. I poked around the CNN archives and without going too deep into the past, and came up with the following headlines.

"FDA scrutinizing safety of asthma drug Xolair " (Xolair a Novartis drug)
"Study links some ADHD meds to rare deaths" (Refers to Ritalin, by Novartis)
"FDA issues new warning for Plavix" (Plavix manufactured by Sanofi)
"Drugs that treat epilepsy, depression linked to suicide " (Refers to Trileptal, by Novartis)

These are some pretty damaging articles, so why would CNN run these and not the H1N1 vaccine?

Now lets look at organichealthadvisor.com, the source for this article. Along with "helpful" health tips, the website also has a pretty wide array of organic products ranging from vitamins, oils, seeds, emergency survival kits, and Apple Ipads. Wait a minute, organichealthadvisor.com is selling Apple Ipads? Pretty sure those aren't organic but I'm not even going to go there in this article.

On top of all the products they are selling, there also resides quite a few click ads running up and down the margins which also generate revenue. The point I'm trying to make here is that an interesting headline generates traffic to your website via shock value, thus transforming junk reporting into cold hard cash without even a second thought about risking the health of the general public by spreading bogus reports with no science to back it up. The danger here is obvious, word spreads and pregnant women decline a vaccine that could save their lives.

What I'm getting at and what I want to convey here is the vital importance of checking out where your data is coming from. There is a lot of misleading and dangerous information swimming around the Internet like sharks in the ocean. They want your money and are willing to tell you anything to get at it. More on this later.



"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" . -Carl Sagan

unrelated- why we feel grief

It seems at first glance that grief be a negative evolutionary trait. It doesn't seem to effect those creatures that we consider "lower" on the evolutionary scale. So from this I would typically assume that thanks to natural selection and survival of the fittest- grief would have disappeared as an emotion somewhere down the line. It leaves us weak for a short while. I would imagine this temporary weakness would make an ancient family of primates vulnerable to attack from enemies. Any competing tribe would have to do is kill off the weakest family member, and attack them while they're busy grieving. So what is it good for anyways? The reptiles don't seem to have it, the other mice never seem to miss a beat after one of their comrades has been snagged by a trap. I did some searching and found one article that summed it all up here

So basically it has two theories, the first of which I feel is pretty solid, the second but I'm not as keen on.

First idea is that if you're aware that a member of your genetic family goes away, they will be unable to send their genetic makeup (AKA your genetic makeup) down the line. So put simply creatures who don't feel grief would be less inclined toward saving their family members from certain doom. They may even be more likely to see their kin as a source of food. Creatures who work together live longer, and therefore father more children.

The second idea that I wasn't as keen on but I will mention it is the idea that creatures who display grief are considered by possible mates to be more loyal. It's a long shot in my mind but I'm sure it didn't hurt griefs' chances of surviving natural selection.