I was not intending to blog on scientific themes these days, but sometimes duty calls. Carelessly browsing the Web, I suddenly found a link that switched all my alarms on. Briefly, it refers the reader to an article by Pelsser et al. titled Effects of a restricted elimination diet on the behaviour of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (INCA study): a randomised controlled trial and published in the February issue of the Lancet. I have no access to the full text, but the abstract tells us that from 100 children with ADHD aged 4-8, a randomly chosen half were left as controls and the other half were put for 5 weeks on a restricted elimination diet. There is no mention what this diet was, and the results are described in such a messy way that it is impossible to understand exactly what is claimed. Happily, the same Web site directs the reader also to a LA Times article by Jill Adams discussing the study. It informs us that the restricted diet consisted of "short list of ingredients that included water, rice, turkey, lamb, lettuce, carrots, pears and other hypoallergenic foods". "At the end of the study, 64% of the kids on the limited diet showed significant improvement on a variety of standard rating scales. Though the initial scores for all of the kids in this group put their ADHD symptoms in the moderate-to-severe range, after the diet intervention their symptoms were classified as either mild or nonclinical."
Three years ago, I wrote a post titled I am skeptical about food additives - hyperactivity link. It questioned another publication in the Lancet claiming that "artificial food colous and additives" were causing ADHD symptoms. If you are interested in the subject, you can read that old post, too. In the present post, I will not try to keep the same line of composed argumentation. I am furious and not going to hide it.
Are you worried about the quality of the food you consume? Are you anxious to obtain healthy food and to give it also to your family members? And if so, what are you thinking of yourself? Perhaps you think you are a responsible person and everybody should be like you. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with the truth. You are victim of a disorder which turns your life into hell and endangers your physical health - and that of any child with the poor luck to be under your care. The obsession with healthy foods is a disorder called orthorexia by some psychiatrists. It is not an official diagnosis but is easily accommodated under the umbrellas of eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder. My observations show that many people with real or imagined health problems, and particularly parents of chronically ill and disabled children, develop orthorexia. They swear that their or their child's condition has been caused by unhealthy eating and is currently ameliorated by some particular "healthy" diet. Here, "healthy" diet typically means one that, if given to convicted felons, will lead to prison riots and charges with inhumane treatment. The list of publications of the first author of the study in question - Dr. Pelsser, is not too impressive but clearly shows that she has orthorexic obsession about ADHD.
People of science have a saying that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Any claims for successful treatment of a socially important condition are extraordinary, and so are any claims based on an insane working hypothesis. If you ask me what hypothesis I call insane, I'll answer that I cannot give a definition but the hypothesis of foods causing abnormal behaviour is a brilliant example.
I would ask again, as I did in my old post, why wasn't the study done first on animal models? And if someone thinks animal models of ADHD are not satisfactory (i.e. fail to produce the crazy results wanted and expected by the researcher), why wasn't the experiment done first on adult volunteers with ADHD? Maybe because no adult, except some patients with much more severe diagnoses than ADHD, would agree to participate in such a study; but parents eager to streamline their disabled or just different children easily fall into the trap of wanting the child "either cured or dead". In the LA Times article, Dr. Pelsser says, "The children said they felt so different, as if some mad thing in their head wasn't there anymore". Eh well, if your 5-yr-old experimental subject talks of "some mad thing in his head", you should bury your own head in your hands, then abort the study and pray that your institution's ethical committee never hears of this. Has the whole world gone crazy?
The Lancet is a top scientific journal with an impact factor of 30 (for lay people - this is sky high). Such a journal, especially if specialized in clinical medicine, is expected to have a take-no-prisoners peer review that would not let any crap sneak in. However, this journal 13 years ago published the disastrous (now retracted) study linking the MMR vaccine to autism, it published the mentioned article linking food additives to ADHD 4 years ago, and has now published another nonsense about ADHD. When will the respectable Lancet raise its bar for quacks and stop shouting "Fire!" in crowded theaters?
Showing posts with label psychopathology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychopathology. Show all posts
Saturday, April 02, 2011
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The fateful line for the West
In recent time, I have been blogging exclusively about Bulgarian and personal matters, neglecting international affairs (except the most vital ones such as shoe-throwing). Let me now just translate a small section of the article Ukraine - the fateful line for the West, by Vadim Belotserkovsky. It was published in last week's issue of Pro & Anti and is available online here. The author is a former Russian dissident, now human rights activist.
"What is most important here, and what I think must be said in a loud voice, is that Europe - and, in a broader sense, the West - is now standing at the fateful line. It is marked by the wars between Russia and Georgia, between Israel and Hamas and between Russia and Ukraine (the latter one is just a gas war, yet). In front of this line, the West must decide: How far are democratic countries allowed to go in appeasing the destroyers of the world? For how long may democracies apply double standards in their approach to big and small countries, to aggressors and their victims? What more is needed for Western politicians and nations to realize with whom they are dealing?"
"What is most important here, and what I think must be said in a loud voice, is that Europe - and, in a broader sense, the West - is now standing at the fateful line. It is marked by the wars between Russia and Georgia, between Israel and Hamas and between Russia and Ukraine (the latter one is just a gas war, yet). In front of this line, the West must decide: How far are democratic countries allowed to go in appeasing the destroyers of the world? For how long may democracies apply double standards in their approach to big and small countries, to aggressors and their victims? What more is needed for Western politicians and nations to realize with whom they are dealing?"
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Short overview of journalists criticizing presidents
Cartoon of a shoe with George Bush's face on it, apparently shown at a rally in support of al-Zaidi. Authors of the cartoon and the photo are unknown to me.On Dec. 14, 2008, during his visit to South Ossetia, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev held a press conference. A local journalist, angered by the Russian occupation and de facto annex of his country, threw both of his shoes at him. President Medvedev ducked twice, avoiding being hit by the shoes. The journalist was arrested and is now awaiting trial. He may be charged with insulting a foreign leader of with assault, which carries a maximum sentence of 3 and 15 years, respectively. However, he found support from his employer, thousands of protesters in South Ossetia and some Ossetian politicians, as well as outside the country.
Of course the above described incident never happened. It hardly could, and even if it did, I don't think we would ever again hear of the shoe-thrower. The event actually took place in Baghdad, the journalist was Muntadhar al-Zaidi (29) and his target was then-US President George Bush. I copied some of the above phrases from al-Zaidi's Widipedia article, changing the names of people and locations.
Al-Zaidi became a hero not only in Iraq but also in the entire Arab and much of the Western world. I have shown above a cartoon held by his supporters, because it is really a good one and I can only regret that such excellent Arab cartoonists waste their talent on dubious causes, leaving all the important work to their Danish colleagues. In the city of Tikrit (where Saddam Hussein was born) a sculpture in the shape of a shoe was created, stayed for three days and then was removed following an order by local authorities.
Let me now frankly state that I have only contempt for al-Zaidi and his personality cult. According to Wikipedia, his journalism record prior to the incident shows him being strongly "anti-occupation", i.e. standing at the enemy side. While throwing the second shoe, he shouted, "This is for the widows and orphans...". Because civilian war victims are presumed to include at least as many women and children as men, and because only several thousands of regular Iraqi soldiers died during the 2003 invasion, al-Zaidi's mentioning of killed Iraqi men with surviving wives and children is (at least to me) a clear reference to the "insurgents", as the politically correct media prefer to call the terrorists. I think that German journalist blogger R.A. Clermont was quite right to note similarity between al-Zaidi and suicide bombers (her post is actually quite sympathetic to him, describing him as "thinking, civilized, with real understanding"). And while there is much talk about al-Zaidi's courage, this courage apparently never passed the threshold required for opposing Saddam Hussein's regime in any way. Many people independently asked the same question as commenter Jack on Sandmonkey's blog: "I wonder when Arabs will start throwing shoes at their own leaders? Or do they know, somehow, that the consequences might be substantially different?...I know exactly what would happen if people started to throw shoes at Arab leaders, aside from what seems to be the consensus so far: death after an indeterminate period of pain. The Arab leaders would make wearing shoes illegal."
After his arrest, al-Zaidi was beaten and this raised much indignation and protests (quite different from the silence observed when police are beating innocent citizens and killing detainees here in Europe). While I agree that no prisoner should be mistreated, I am amused by the double standards of al-Zaidi's supporters who claim that he is entitled to full corporal integrity and at the same time has the right to express his opinions by throwing heavy objects at other people's heads. Al-Baghdadia TV, which is al-Zaidi's employer, went as far to demand that "the Iraqi authorities immediately release their stringer Muntadhir al-Zaidi, in line with the democracy and freedom of expression that the American authorities promised the Iraqi people on the ousting of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. ... Any measures against Muntadhir will be considered the acts of a dictatorial regime" (source: Wikipedia).
What angers me most, and is the reason for me to write such a long post, is the worldwide attention given to al-Zaidi's act. It undoubtedly deserved to be included in the news, but I think this should have been in the People section, between reports of celebrity marriages, divorces, drunken drivings, clashes with paparazzi and attempts to guess paternity without using DNA tests. Inclusion of such news in the political section only diverts attention from real problems and leaves darkness where the spotlight of public attention is desperately needed. To illustrate, let me briefly mention what happened to two journalists criticizing other presidents.
"The terrifying ordeal of Jestina Mukoko, a television news anchor turned human rights activist, began at 5am on December 3 when seven men and one woman forced their way into her house at gunpoint... Certainly Mukoko has been a thorn in Mugabe’s flesh. She resigned from state television to become director of the Zimbabwe Peace Project, a human rights monitoring network, and has been one of the regime’s most intelligent, influential and informed critics. She has collected evidence of tens of thousands of abuses in the past decade. Her monthly reports have detailed the routine tyranny of violence, the shortage of food and the denial of free speech that characterise Zimbabwean life today..." The quote is from the Sunday Times Dec. 14, 2008 article Silenced - the sharpest voice against Mugabe, by Sophie Shaw. I came across this report via the WIP site, which means that I would never hear about this case if Mukoko were male. According to a later report by Independent, Mukoko was tortured and is now being tried.
Let's now come home to Bulgaria, which is expected to have a better human rights record and more freedom of speech. On Sept. 23, 2008 journalist Ognyan Stefanov (54), editor in-chief of Frog News, was severely beaten in the street as he was leaving a restaurant. The attackers were several men who first asked for Stefanov's name to be sure about his identity and then started beating him with hammers and metal rods. Stefanov suffered fractures of all four extremities, backbone and head injuries, lost over two liters of blood and spent days on artificial respiration. Doctors were not sure for a long time whether he would survive; fortunately, he did. I have no information about his present condition.
I wanted very much to blog about Stefanov immediately after the attack, but I had no opportunity back then. However, today isn't late at all because the key questions remain unanswered. Stefanov's attackers haven't been caught and their motivation remains uncertain. However, most commentators reminded that Stefanov had been "highly critical of the President Parvanov" and that shortly before the assault he had been subpoenated and interrogated by the State Agency for National Security. A month before the beating, on Aug. 28, Stefanov himself wrote a text titled Free speech between fear from those with power and power over fear; in it, he claimed that unidentified powerful people demanded him to stop criticizing the President and threatened him that if he doesn't, "they knew how to cause harm". So Bulgarian journalists strongly suspect that either security agents or "businessmen" sponsors of the President, not content with the legal options to shut up criticism, arranged a beating. But even if DANS people didn't participate in the attack per se, by calling Stefanov they clearly gave a sign to the mafia (against which he also wrote) that he was considered by the authorities as an enemy and wouldn't be protected. This aspect was best expressed by TV journalist Velizar Enchev, who knows well the secret services. If the reader thinks that I am too biased against our security forces and unwilling to let them off the hook, I would ask, why are then the attackers still unidentified and walking free? Or are our police good only in intimidating journalists and other citizens?
As far as I know, the attack against Stefanov was largely neglected by international public opinion. An exception is the Netherlands, where Daniela Gorcheva, a journalist from Bulgaria, alerted her colleagues about the case. Five leading Dutch cartoonists created works in solidarity with Stefanov (you can see the cartoons at Gorcheva's blog).
Let's now return to the shoe-throwing subject. While this post was in the pipeline, another incident took place in Britain. On Feb. 2, as Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao was delivering a lecture at the Cambridge University, an unidentified 27-year-old man called him a "dictator" and threw at him a shoe, which landed a meter away. While agreeing with a university official that "Cambridge is a place where ideas are put into play, not shoes," I have much more sympathy for this protester than I have for Mr. al-Zaidi.
Chinese media initially kept silence over the incident, but when information leaked in via satellite channels and the Web, they just had to report it. According to one commenter, "the uncompromising Iraqi people threw a shoe at Bush which is a brave act by a suppressed nation, but the ugly Englishman threw a shoe at Wen, which was only a barbaric trick". Isn't this brilliant? I love China!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Two words about the US elections
A week ago, Sen. Barack Obama was elected US President. I wanted to write about him before the elections, particularly why I thought it wasn't advisable to vote for him, but I was too busy and missed the opportunity. Now, I'll abstain from bashing him until he has been President for 100 days, as tradition requires. I don't want to be like those Arab dictators who began lecturing the poor man what to do 2 months before he was even sworn in.
So let me just share my thoughts about the phenomena accompanying Obama's victory. I mean all those crowds of people totally out of control, shouting, crying, fainting etc. I have never seen or heard of adults behaving this way without being under the influence of a psychotropic substance. In backward countries like Bulgaria people are quite susceptible to messiah politicians promising the Earth but, frankly, I never thought the same to be possible in an advanced post-industrial country with established democracy such as the USA. I briefly visited a couple of my favourite US-based blogs and other sites. In a number of them, I found accounts of the authors crying when they heard about Obama's victory. How sad. (No, don't expect any links from me here. If an online friend decides it's a great idea to post nude photos of herself, I won't link to them, either.)
To be sure, Obama's opponents were far from perfect; and those always seeking the bright side should be glad that USA, the leading nation in science, was spared the disgrace to have an antivaxer President and a creationist Vice-President. But the pros seem to end here.
As far as I can grasp something rational in the "hope" and "change" abracadabra (most of which, however, clearly works well below the brain cortex), Americans want to renounce their role in the world. They are tired of being good, intrepid, strong and devoted. They are tired of bringing light to the world and receiving mostly hate in return. They want brilliant isolation, keeping all their money at home to pay their own mortgages and letting dictators and terrorist do whatever they wish. I don't know whether this would be good for the USA. It surely wouldn't be good for the world. But if this is what the Americans want, who am I to judge them?
So let me just share my thoughts about the phenomena accompanying Obama's victory. I mean all those crowds of people totally out of control, shouting, crying, fainting etc. I have never seen or heard of adults behaving this way without being under the influence of a psychotropic substance. In backward countries like Bulgaria people are quite susceptible to messiah politicians promising the Earth but, frankly, I never thought the same to be possible in an advanced post-industrial country with established democracy such as the USA. I briefly visited a couple of my favourite US-based blogs and other sites. In a number of them, I found accounts of the authors crying when they heard about Obama's victory. How sad. (No, don't expect any links from me here. If an online friend decides it's a great idea to post nude photos of herself, I won't link to them, either.)
To be sure, Obama's opponents were far from perfect; and those always seeking the bright side should be glad that USA, the leading nation in science, was spared the disgrace to have an antivaxer President and a creationist Vice-President. But the pros seem to end here.
As far as I can grasp something rational in the "hope" and "change" abracadabra (most of which, however, clearly works well below the brain cortex), Americans want to renounce their role in the world. They are tired of being good, intrepid, strong and devoted. They are tired of bringing light to the world and receiving mostly hate in return. They want brilliant isolation, keeping all their money at home to pay their own mortgages and letting dictators and terrorist do whatever they wish. I don't know whether this would be good for the USA. It surely wouldn't be good for the world. But if this is what the Americans want, who am I to judge them?
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Vote for science
Copy-pasting Orac's March 6 post:
"There's an idiotic poll up at Larry King Live with the question: "Do you believe vaccines cause or contribute to autism?" Idiotic, because it's science that says whether or not vaccines cause or contribute to autism. Whether the public thinks they do or not is irrelevant to the biological, medical, and clinical science that say, to the best of our knowledge, they do not.
Even so, please go tell him the real science about vaccines and autism. The pseudoscientists have already stacked the deck, and clearly antivaccinationists are voting, as the numbers are running around 80% to 20% in favor of "yes" as of this posting.
Vote now, and bring some balance!"
I blogged about vaccines and autism on Jan. 14 , Feb. 1 and March 4.
"There's an idiotic poll up at Larry King Live with the question: "Do you believe vaccines cause or contribute to autism?" Idiotic, because it's science that says whether or not vaccines cause or contribute to autism. Whether the public thinks they do or not is irrelevant to the biological, medical, and clinical science that say, to the best of our knowledge, they do not.
Even so, please go tell him the real science about vaccines and autism. The pseudoscientists have already stacked the deck, and clearly antivaccinationists are voting, as the numbers are running around 80% to 20% in favor of "yes" as of this posting.
Vote now, and bring some balance!"
I blogged about vaccines and autism on Jan. 14 , Feb. 1 and March 4.
Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Sen. McCain joined the ranks of celebrity idiots
As the US presidential campaign is gathering speed, we non-Americans are paying more and more attention to it. The show is good and, while we aren't entitled to cast votes, we at least can participate in the campaign (by our blogs).
Until now, the candidate I liked most was Sen. John McCain. However, I just read the following in the New York Times Web site:
"McCain Steps Into Debate Over Cause of Autism
By BENEDICT CAREY, published: March 3, 2008
“It’s indisputable that autism is on the rise among children,” Senator John McCain said while campaigning recently in Texas. “The question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.”"
I've already blogged on Jan. 14 and Feb. 1 about the vaccines-cause-autism theory disproved by science but still promoted by what another blogger called "celebrity idiots".
I wonder, why did Sen. McCain publicly make a statement on such a serious problem without first doing even the most basic homework? Did he really believe what he said, i.e. has he the same (low) level of intellectual skills as ageing porn star Jenny McCarthy? Or did he say it without really believing it, i.e. is he the sort of politician who in his hunt for votes would consciously and unscrupulously endanger the health and very lives of children?
Pick one of the two opportunities, dear Americans - I don't see a third one. And please think well whether to vote for such a person, whatever other virtues he may have.
Until now, the candidate I liked most was Sen. John McCain. However, I just read the following in the New York Times Web site:
"McCain Steps Into Debate Over Cause of Autism
By BENEDICT CAREY, published: March 3, 2008
“It’s indisputable that autism is on the rise among children,” Senator John McCain said while campaigning recently in Texas. “The question is what’s causing it. And we go back and forth and there’s strong evidence that indicates that it’s got to do with a preservative in vaccines.”"
I've already blogged on Jan. 14 and Feb. 1 about the vaccines-cause-autism theory disproved by science but still promoted by what another blogger called "celebrity idiots".
I wonder, why did Sen. McCain publicly make a statement on such a serious problem without first doing even the most basic homework? Did he really believe what he said, i.e. has he the same (low) level of intellectual skills as ageing porn star Jenny McCarthy? Or did he say it without really believing it, i.e. is he the sort of politician who in his hunt for votes would consciously and unscrupulously endanger the health and very lives of children?
Pick one of the two opportunities, dear Americans - I don't see a third one. And please think well whether to vote for such a person, whatever other virtues he may have.
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Atheism: a proposed addition to DSM-V
This morning, I systematically toured Libyan blogs in the hope of finding a particular picture about Ramadan I had seen in one of them. (I found it eventually in another place). During the search, I mentioned something interesting in a blog I generally don't read, Khalid Jorni's CNN Libya (Update: after a demand by CNN, Khalid had to change the name and URL of his blog, now located here). The post is dated Jan. 28 and titled Union of Libyan Bloggers succeeds in deleting a Libyan blog. I am pasting here an unusually large, unedited quote from its beginning:
"Living in a country where all men head to mosque on Fridays, and 99% of women wear Hijab, always made me think that we are different, innately religious, and naturally immune against godlessness and secularism, but recently I realized that we are as normal, "or abnormal, this is not the point", the point is that people in this country are not different from those who come out everyday in western societies confessing that they don’t believe in God, they are homosexuals, or they are addicted and cannot quit, the only one difference between us and them is that they can speak out, while we have to worry about the possible consequent social stigma before we even take a breath.
Those of you who browse the Arabic language sector of the Libyan blogosphere, have definitely come across what used to be the most popular Libyan blog of Tariq Ali, a Libyan guy who confessed frankly that he didn’t believe in any religion, and wrote things like "all prophets are quacks..bla bla bla", his blog has recently been deleted after the message that had been sent by the Libyan union of bloggers to maktoob, the host of Tariq's blog.
Now Tariq is silent, and I think since maktoob acquiesced in the demands of the Libyan union of bloggers, so the guy must have violated the terms of use of the host of his blog, and therefore his blog deserves to be deleted.
But I wonder if this was the right way to manage!. Did we need to hide him!?, to insult him on the comment section of his blog? To provoke everyone against him?, or to understand his illness, feel sorry for him, and advice him to get help?
Before the atheist Libyans -who are increasing every day- state their objection to the word "illness", I would like to point out that spirituality is now added as a recognized component of health.
Health used to be identified as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, but WHO has recently added spirituality as a fourth component of health, "Libyan physician bloggers can correct me if I am wrong, we have plenty of them", so he who has no spiritual life, who is not a Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, etc.., is now formally considered sick and needs therapy, not to be hidden, not to be insulted, not to be silenced, not to be terminated, but to be helped out with treatment..."
Follow the above link to read the entire post.
I am sorry for Tariq and his blog, but at the same time I think that what happened is good from the viewpoint of safety. The deceptive anonymity of Internet lures people to write things that could put them in trouble if they are found out. And they are too easily found out. We all know how Chinese regime with the help of Yahoo identifies people writing against it in the Web and puts them in jail. So, if Tariq hadn't been silenced now, he could eventually suffer something much worse than losing his blog. If he happens to read this, he is welcome to e-mail me.
Meanwhile, I would suggest to Khalid (and other people who think like him) to take care for the much needed inclusion of atheism in the next, fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I don't know whom they should e-mail, but this is relatively easy to find :-).
"Living in a country where all men head to mosque on Fridays, and 99% of women wear Hijab, always made me think that we are different, innately religious, and naturally immune against godlessness and secularism, but recently I realized that we are as normal, "or abnormal, this is not the point", the point is that people in this country are not different from those who come out everyday in western societies confessing that they don’t believe in God, they are homosexuals, or they are addicted and cannot quit, the only one difference between us and them is that they can speak out, while we have to worry about the possible consequent social stigma before we even take a breath.
Those of you who browse the Arabic language sector of the Libyan blogosphere, have definitely come across what used to be the most popular Libyan blog of Tariq Ali, a Libyan guy who confessed frankly that he didn’t believe in any religion, and wrote things like "all prophets are quacks..bla bla bla", his blog has recently been deleted after the message that had been sent by the Libyan union of bloggers to maktoob, the host of Tariq's blog.
Now Tariq is silent, and I think since maktoob acquiesced in the demands of the Libyan union of bloggers, so the guy must have violated the terms of use of the host of his blog, and therefore his blog deserves to be deleted.
But I wonder if this was the right way to manage!. Did we need to hide him!?, to insult him on the comment section of his blog? To provoke everyone against him?, or to understand his illness, feel sorry for him, and advice him to get help?
Before the atheist Libyans -who are increasing every day- state their objection to the word "illness", I would like to point out that spirituality is now added as a recognized component of health.
Health used to be identified as a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, but WHO has recently added spirituality as a fourth component of health, "Libyan physician bloggers can correct me if I am wrong, we have plenty of them", so he who has no spiritual life, who is not a Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, etc.., is now formally considered sick and needs therapy, not to be hidden, not to be insulted, not to be silenced, not to be terminated, but to be helped out with treatment..."
Follow the above link to read the entire post.
I am sorry for Tariq and his blog, but at the same time I think that what happened is good from the viewpoint of safety. The deceptive anonymity of Internet lures people to write things that could put them in trouble if they are found out. And they are too easily found out. We all know how Chinese regime with the help of Yahoo identifies people writing against it in the Web and puts them in jail. So, if Tariq hadn't been silenced now, he could eventually suffer something much worse than losing his blog. If he happens to read this, he is welcome to e-mail me.
Meanwhile, I would suggest to Khalid (and other people who think like him) to take care for the much needed inclusion of atheism in the next, fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. I don't know whom they should e-mail, but this is relatively easy to find :-).
Monday, January 14, 2008
The authority problem in the Age of Unreason illustrated by "celebrity idiots"
(Warning: long post.)
Age of Unreason is the title of a post by one of my favourite bloggers, Prometheus. He writes in it, "After centuries of slow but steady progress against the forces of unreason, a single generation is trying to send us back to the Dark Ages. After centuries of scientific progress in medicine, a single generation brings back homeopathy, naturopathy and introduces any number of new variations on shamanism... Much of “alternative” medicine encourages people to abandon scientific principles that have brought us in the West to a level of health and longevity that are unrivalled in human history. If we want to see what happens when that happens, we only have to look to those parts of the world where – for economic or philosophical reasons – scientific medicine is unavailable."
Let me begin with Oprah Winfrey. She is described by Wikipedia as "the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history... an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century... She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world."
Personally, I've held a low opinion about Ms. Winfrey ever since I learned that she supports Palestinian terror (see details e.g. at CAMERA and Garbanzo Toons). And, to return to the subject of this post, she clearly belongs to the Age of Unreason. Wikipedia again: "Recently, Winfrey has been accused by magician and skeptic James Randi of being deliberately deceptive and uncritical in how she handles paranormal claims on her show. In 2007, Winfrey began to endorse the controversial self-help program The Secret. It claims that people can change their lives through positive thoughts, which will then cause vibrations that result in good things happening to them." Last September, Oprah invited to her show Jenny McCarthy... but if you belong to my target group of readers, you are likely to ask, "Who the hell Jenny McCarthy is?"
Wikipedia describes McCarthy as "a model, comedian, actress and author. She first appeared in Playboy magazine in October 1993 and was named Playmate of the Year in its June 1994 issue. She later began a career in television and film and has recently started writing books... Though McCarthy initially rose to fame because of her sexual image, a frequent source of her celebrity derives from toilet humor... In 1993, McCarthy underwent breast augmentation to enhance her look as a model for Playboy. McCarthy had the implants down-sized in 1998... (Her) son, Evan Joseph, (was) born on May 18, 2002... In May 2007 McCarthy announced that her son was diagnosed with autism in 2005... In June, 2007, Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) named McCarthy as its spokesperson. Her stated goal is to educate the public that autism is treatable... (Her book) Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism was published Sept. 17, 2007. McCarthy told Oprah that her son was developing normally until he received his measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (at 15 months of age). She has stated in her book, and on her appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show that her husband was unable to deal with their son's autism, which led to their divorce." (I have changed the order of some of the above pasted sequences - M.M.)
Now, I may be a puritan and an extreme feminist, but I admit I have little respect for women who photograph themselves undressed for money. Of course anybody is free to produce and publish any pictures (as long as the people photographed are consenting and over 18), but I think that magazines like Playboy and women contributing to them perpetuate the worst sexist stereotypes. If we, the other women, meet obstacles in our careers because of being women, or if men discuss our appearance when we try to explain our views, I think this is partly "thanks" to ladies like Ms. McCarthy. So, if a woman has appeared in Playboy, I put on her the entire burden to prove that she can be something more than a mere sexual object. And if, without providing any such proof, the lady becomes "an author" and begins "writing books" on serious subjects such as parenting and autism, my reaction is, Save us God! (Representative pictures of Jenny here, unfortunately I cannot paste one because they seem to be all copyrighted.)
The Oprah site has a page about Jenny McCarthy but it contains a narrative rather than the actual interview that took place in the talk show. So I'll rely on reports and commentaries by people who have watched the show. At Left Brain/Right Brain site, the phenomenon is described as New McCarthy-ism (as far as I know, this post introduced the term): "Step aside, people: Jenny McCarthy is armed with Google, and she’s not afraid to use it... No joke: McCarthy was cheered lustily by the studio audience for announcing that, after her son was diagnosed, she typed the word “autism” into the Google search engine, launching a courageous and audacious search for the truth. And what came up? Why, story after story about remedies and recoveries and other amazing stuff your pediatrician is paid handsomely by the CDC (the US Centre for Disease Control - M.M.) not to tell you about... McCarthy spoke particularly of clicking on a link “up in the corner” (I believe those are what are known as “advertisements”) and learning about the wonders of biomed... (Here, "biomed" refers to the quack "biomedical treatments" of autism widely advertised to parents of autistic kids by snake oil salesmen - M.M.) There was something chilling about the way she described getting an employee of a play gym fired for suggesting her son might have a “brain problem”... Oprah also cooed approvingly when McCarthy defended biomed by saying, “Well, chemotherapy doesn’t work for everybody either”... And naturally, vaccines had to come up. McCarthy said she had invoked what she calls her “mommy instinct” to finger the MMR in the case of her son. Then Oprah read a response she had received from the CDC (at least she took a stab at social responsibility by contacting the agency) that talked about the lack of scientific support for the idea that thimerosal triggers autism. McCarthy scoffed and said, speaking of her son: “He is my science.”"
Science blogger Orac discusses the show under the title Jenny McCarthy and Oprah Winfery: Two Crappy Tastes that Taste Crappy Together on Autism. He writes, "Jenny McCarthy... was apparently quite susceptible to woo. Indeed, she once ran a website for "Indigo Moms." The website was apparently taken down shortly before the release of McCarthy's book, perhaps to take away an obvious bit of evidence of her New Age credulity..., but Joseph points to a source that tells us a bit about "Indigo Kids": "Jenny, who runs IndigoMoms.com, is of the belief that Evan is a 'crystal child,' and she herself is an 'adult indigo.' This belief suggests that 'indigo/crystal phenomenon is the next step in our evolution as a human species.' Proponents also suggest that many indigo and crystal children are wrongly diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, and autism." There's more about what "indigo children" are here, and McCarthy herself has written about it here. In addition, Kristina Chew also discussed some of the woo found on the IndigoMoms website before it was shut down around the time McCarthy's book was released. I think McCarthy's involvement with the "indigo children" movement shows all you need to know about her critical thinking skills. Of course, if she really thinks she is an "indigo adult" and thus part of the next step in human evolution, she probably has a very inflated view of her own reasoning abilities."
After the Oprah show, Jenny McCarthy was also invited and interviewed by Larry King. Prometheus commented on Not Mercury's blog, "Why is it that "everybody" (i.e. Oprah, Larry King...) is willing to take as Gospel the opinions of a woman who - by her own admission - believed a total stranger who stopped her on the street and told her that her son was a "Crystal" or "Indigo" or whatever (I can't keep that sort of nonsense straight)? Isn't it much more likely that her latest "revelation" is as fanciful as the previous one(s)? Is there an epidemic of gullibility going on?"
On Steve's blog, commenters wrote, "Jenny McCarthy appeals to parents by being just like them except with a porn star appearance. She doesn't particularly pretend to be smart or educated. She says "I'm just like you. We're in this together. We know things those smartypants scientists can't figure out with all their numbers." People enjoy identifying with glamorous porn stars (God/FSM help America)"; "The US has a strong tradition of anti-intellectualism. Keep in mind that, for example, the majority of Americans do not believe in evolution. If something is said by a scientist, that makes in suspect in and of itself."
There are many more good texts about Jenny on the Autism Hub, I am sorry that I cannot mention all of them. Outside the Hub, Debbie Schlussel writes about Bimbo Science: "Doctor" Jenny McCarthy & The New McCarthyism: "You've heard of "junk science." Now there's a new form, which I call "Bimbo Science." The latest (and maybe the first of many such bims to come) "scientist" to come along and dismiss accepted, proven medicine is former Playboy model, Playboy video star, and all around blow-up doll Jenny McCarthy. She's parading around all the usual shows that welcome Bimbo Science--Oprah, The View, etc.--claiming that vaccines caused her son's autism. But while the "New McCarthyist" has a medical degree from the University of Google, Dr. Ari Brown, a Medical Doctor, pediatrician, and fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics exposes McCarthy's many lies and idiocy in one of the best Wall Street Journal op-eds I've read in a while... Dr. Brown refers to Jenny McCarthy as an "actress." That's being charitable. But who knew America would actually be taking medical advice from this bim?... While life often imitates art, it's sad that the world of "Idiocracy" is already this dominant."
Knudsen also has an excellent post titled Jenny McCarthy to Host Autism Symposium: "Los Angeles, CA-A meeting of the world's foremost experts on neurodevelopmental disorders and vaccine science, moderated by autism authority and former co-host of MTV's Singled Out Jenny McCarthy, will be held today at UCLA's Schoenberg Auditorium. "For years now, the scientific community has lagged behind the overwhelming anecdotal evidence that has been collected and compiled in places like Google and YouTube," Dr. McCarthy explained..."
Now, after criticizing two female celebrities, let me add a gentleman to the list. Citing Autism Street's post Where Is Trump's Science Team: "I was really beginning to think that Jenny McCarthy would be an extremely popular candidate for being considered the “celebrity idiot of the year” by many scientific thinkers in the autism blogging community. I suppose I should have known better about claims to the singular, where the plural is not only possible, but likely. Jenny apparently has company... (Quote from) the Palm Beach Politics blog: "Trump: Autism linked to child vaccinations... In an interview with Palm Beach Politics, Donald Trump offered a controversial opinion on a new topic: autism. The New York-Palm Beach real estate mogul is no doctor, but he said he thinks the rising prevalence of autism is related to vaccinations given to children at a young age."... Mr. Trump, do you have any science to go with this nonsense?"
There have been two hypotheses linking vaccines to autism causation: one implicating the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal which was widely present in vaccines in the recent past, and another one implicating the live viruses in the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. If you, dear reader, want to know what science says about the vaccine-autism link, let me inform you: it's disproved. In fact, it was never considered very plausible because autism symptoms don't resemble symptoms of known vaccine complications or of actual mercury poisoning. Populations with known exposure to mercury haven't higher prevalence of autism. Epidemiological studies showed that removing thimerosal from mandatory childhood vaccines, as well as skipping the MMR vaccine, does not curb autism prevalence a bit. And attempts to induce an autism-like condition in animal models by vaccine components have been unsuccessful. Of course many people still think that their child's autism has been caused by vaccines. They are likely to remain that way; in fact, some of them openly say that no scientific evidence will ever succeed to shake their belief.
The three celebrity idiots discussed above illustrate the deeper problem present-day societies have with authority. Here, by "authority" I mean a person to whom we voluntarily transfer our decision-making power, such as a doctor when we have care for our health or a Member of Parliament when we vote. Some American commenters cited above were highly critical of their own society and described the problem as specific for the USA. It is beyond doubt present in the USA - just compare the Founding Fathers to the people populating the American political landscape in recent decades. However, it is not restricted to the USA. It is a global problem.
What have Oprah Winfrey, Jenny McCarthy and Donald Trump in common? They have all succeeded to become rich and well-known people. It seems that in today's Western world, the ability to earn money has remained the single attribute of authority.
The ability to become rich requires some specific intelligence and skills, but isn't correlated with ability or expertise in any other field. It isn't even necessarily accompanied by high general intelligence. Anybody who has been around rich people, especially if he has tried to educate them, is likely to agree with me. It is understandable that the rich themselves tend to mistake their income for actual intelligence. But why do other people do the same?
After the Oprah's show with Jenny McCarthy, some my online friends - autistics and parents of autistic children, suggested writing to Oprah and explaining to her why the show had wronged autistic people. (And it wronged them in many other ways besides the vaccine thing, it will become tomorrow if I try to explain in debth.) I disagreed. I wrote, "I've repeatedly observed that (1) few individuals can do more harm than popular TV show hosts and (2) glorious career and earning millions are quite compatible with moral and intellectual qualities far below the average. The question is, why people let themselves be influenced by celebrities instead of thinking with their own heads? I don't think writing Oprah would be to any avail. Do it, it will do no harm either. But people like her are very pompous and consider themselves very good and smart. They think they make no mistakes and even if they make one, it cannot be noted and should not be pointed out by mere mortals."
Because celebrity idiots parasitize on society's backwardness, they cannot be expected to work for the cause of enlightenment. So it's no use to try and recruit them as our allies; they are our natural enemies. If we manage to bring enlightenment, it will be despite them. Let them keep their damn money, but not the undeserved respect and authority they enjoy now. Authority must be given to people based on their expertise, intelligence, record of decent life and loyal service to society and adherence to solid moral principles even in situations when this is unpopular.
Isn't it a bit scary that the last sentence sounds so old-fashioned?
Update: Jenny McCarthy was Larry's guest again and here is how Gawker reports it (hattip Kev): "Larry King had noted medical expert/softcore video star Jenny McCarthy on the program last night to talk about AUTISM. Specifically, how it’s caused by VACCINATING YOUR CHILDREN. This is patent conspiratorial nonsense, but it’s very popular conspiratorial nonsense. Of course, in a battle between concerned, credulous parents and medical experts, the media will generally frame it as, say, Debate Rages Anew on Vaccine-Autism Link. Faced with a panel of three trained pediatricians, Ms. McCarthy shouted “BULLSHIT” twice."
Age of Unreason is the title of a post by one of my favourite bloggers, Prometheus. He writes in it, "After centuries of slow but steady progress against the forces of unreason, a single generation is trying to send us back to the Dark Ages. After centuries of scientific progress in medicine, a single generation brings back homeopathy, naturopathy and introduces any number of new variations on shamanism... Much of “alternative” medicine encourages people to abandon scientific principles that have brought us in the West to a level of health and longevity that are unrivalled in human history. If we want to see what happens when that happens, we only have to look to those parts of the world where – for economic or philosophical reasons – scientific medicine is unavailable."
Let me begin with Oprah Winfrey. She is described by Wikipedia as "the American multiple-Emmy Award winning host of The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in television history... an influential book critic, an Academy Award-nominated actress, and a magazine publisher. She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century... She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world."
Personally, I've held a low opinion about Ms. Winfrey ever since I learned that she supports Palestinian terror (see details e.g. at CAMERA and Garbanzo Toons). And, to return to the subject of this post, she clearly belongs to the Age of Unreason. Wikipedia again: "Recently, Winfrey has been accused by magician and skeptic James Randi of being deliberately deceptive and uncritical in how she handles paranormal claims on her show. In 2007, Winfrey began to endorse the controversial self-help program The Secret. It claims that people can change their lives through positive thoughts, which will then cause vibrations that result in good things happening to them." Last September, Oprah invited to her show Jenny McCarthy... but if you belong to my target group of readers, you are likely to ask, "Who the hell Jenny McCarthy is?"
Wikipedia describes McCarthy as "a model, comedian, actress and author. She first appeared in Playboy magazine in October 1993 and was named Playmate of the Year in its June 1994 issue. She later began a career in television and film and has recently started writing books... Though McCarthy initially rose to fame because of her sexual image, a frequent source of her celebrity derives from toilet humor... In 1993, McCarthy underwent breast augmentation to enhance her look as a model for Playboy. McCarthy had the implants down-sized in 1998... (Her) son, Evan Joseph, (was) born on May 18, 2002... In May 2007 McCarthy announced that her son was diagnosed with autism in 2005... In June, 2007, Talk About Curing Autism (TACA) named McCarthy as its spokesperson. Her stated goal is to educate the public that autism is treatable... (Her book) Louder than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism was published Sept. 17, 2007. McCarthy told Oprah that her son was developing normally until he received his measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (at 15 months of age). She has stated in her book, and on her appearance on the Oprah Winfrey Show that her husband was unable to deal with their son's autism, which led to their divorce." (I have changed the order of some of the above pasted sequences - M.M.)
Now, I may be a puritan and an extreme feminist, but I admit I have little respect for women who photograph themselves undressed for money. Of course anybody is free to produce and publish any pictures (as long as the people photographed are consenting and over 18), but I think that magazines like Playboy and women contributing to them perpetuate the worst sexist stereotypes. If we, the other women, meet obstacles in our careers because of being women, or if men discuss our appearance when we try to explain our views, I think this is partly "thanks" to ladies like Ms. McCarthy. So, if a woman has appeared in Playboy, I put on her the entire burden to prove that she can be something more than a mere sexual object. And if, without providing any such proof, the lady becomes "an author" and begins "writing books" on serious subjects such as parenting and autism, my reaction is, Save us God! (Representative pictures of Jenny here, unfortunately I cannot paste one because they seem to be all copyrighted.)
The Oprah site has a page about Jenny McCarthy but it contains a narrative rather than the actual interview that took place in the talk show. So I'll rely on reports and commentaries by people who have watched the show. At Left Brain/Right Brain site, the phenomenon is described as New McCarthy-ism (as far as I know, this post introduced the term): "Step aside, people: Jenny McCarthy is armed with Google, and she’s not afraid to use it... No joke: McCarthy was cheered lustily by the studio audience for announcing that, after her son was diagnosed, she typed the word “autism” into the Google search engine, launching a courageous and audacious search for the truth. And what came up? Why, story after story about remedies and recoveries and other amazing stuff your pediatrician is paid handsomely by the CDC (the US Centre for Disease Control - M.M.) not to tell you about... McCarthy spoke particularly of clicking on a link “up in the corner” (I believe those are what are known as “advertisements”) and learning about the wonders of biomed... (Here, "biomed" refers to the quack "biomedical treatments" of autism widely advertised to parents of autistic kids by snake oil salesmen - M.M.) There was something chilling about the way she described getting an employee of a play gym fired for suggesting her son might have a “brain problem”... Oprah also cooed approvingly when McCarthy defended biomed by saying, “Well, chemotherapy doesn’t work for everybody either”... And naturally, vaccines had to come up. McCarthy said she had invoked what she calls her “mommy instinct” to finger the MMR in the case of her son. Then Oprah read a response she had received from the CDC (at least she took a stab at social responsibility by contacting the agency) that talked about the lack of scientific support for the idea that thimerosal triggers autism. McCarthy scoffed and said, speaking of her son: “He is my science.”"
Science blogger Orac discusses the show under the title Jenny McCarthy and Oprah Winfery: Two Crappy Tastes that Taste Crappy Together on Autism. He writes, "Jenny McCarthy... was apparently quite susceptible to woo. Indeed, she once ran a website for "Indigo Moms." The website was apparently taken down shortly before the release of McCarthy's book, perhaps to take away an obvious bit of evidence of her New Age credulity..., but Joseph points to a source that tells us a bit about "Indigo Kids": "Jenny, who runs IndigoMoms.com, is of the belief that Evan is a 'crystal child,' and she herself is an 'adult indigo.' This belief suggests that 'indigo/crystal phenomenon is the next step in our evolution as a human species.' Proponents also suggest that many indigo and crystal children are wrongly diagnosed with ADD, ADHD, and autism." There's more about what "indigo children" are here, and McCarthy herself has written about it here. In addition, Kristina Chew also discussed some of the woo found on the IndigoMoms website before it was shut down around the time McCarthy's book was released. I think McCarthy's involvement with the "indigo children" movement shows all you need to know about her critical thinking skills. Of course, if she really thinks she is an "indigo adult" and thus part of the next step in human evolution, she probably has a very inflated view of her own reasoning abilities."
After the Oprah show, Jenny McCarthy was also invited and interviewed by Larry King. Prometheus commented on Not Mercury's blog, "Why is it that "everybody" (i.e. Oprah, Larry King...) is willing to take as Gospel the opinions of a woman who - by her own admission - believed a total stranger who stopped her on the street and told her that her son was a "Crystal" or "Indigo" or whatever (I can't keep that sort of nonsense straight)? Isn't it much more likely that her latest "revelation" is as fanciful as the previous one(s)? Is there an epidemic of gullibility going on?"
On Steve's blog, commenters wrote, "Jenny McCarthy appeals to parents by being just like them except with a porn star appearance. She doesn't particularly pretend to be smart or educated. She says "I'm just like you. We're in this together. We know things those smartypants scientists can't figure out with all their numbers." People enjoy identifying with glamorous porn stars (God/FSM help America)"; "The US has a strong tradition of anti-intellectualism. Keep in mind that, for example, the majority of Americans do not believe in evolution. If something is said by a scientist, that makes in suspect in and of itself."
There are many more good texts about Jenny on the Autism Hub, I am sorry that I cannot mention all of them. Outside the Hub, Debbie Schlussel writes about Bimbo Science: "Doctor" Jenny McCarthy & The New McCarthyism: "You've heard of "junk science." Now there's a new form, which I call "Bimbo Science." The latest (and maybe the first of many such bims to come) "scientist" to come along and dismiss accepted, proven medicine is former Playboy model, Playboy video star, and all around blow-up doll Jenny McCarthy. She's parading around all the usual shows that welcome Bimbo Science--Oprah, The View, etc.--claiming that vaccines caused her son's autism. But while the "New McCarthyist" has a medical degree from the University of Google, Dr. Ari Brown, a Medical Doctor, pediatrician, and fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics exposes McCarthy's many lies and idiocy in one of the best Wall Street Journal op-eds I've read in a while... Dr. Brown refers to Jenny McCarthy as an "actress." That's being charitable. But who knew America would actually be taking medical advice from this bim?... While life often imitates art, it's sad that the world of "Idiocracy" is already this dominant."
Knudsen also has an excellent post titled Jenny McCarthy to Host Autism Symposium: "Los Angeles, CA-A meeting of the world's foremost experts on neurodevelopmental disorders and vaccine science, moderated by autism authority and former co-host of MTV's Singled Out Jenny McCarthy, will be held today at UCLA's Schoenberg Auditorium. "For years now, the scientific community has lagged behind the overwhelming anecdotal evidence that has been collected and compiled in places like Google and YouTube," Dr. McCarthy explained..."
Now, after criticizing two female celebrities, let me add a gentleman to the list. Citing Autism Street's post Where Is Trump's Science Team: "I was really beginning to think that Jenny McCarthy would be an extremely popular candidate for being considered the “celebrity idiot of the year” by many scientific thinkers in the autism blogging community. I suppose I should have known better about claims to the singular, where the plural is not only possible, but likely. Jenny apparently has company... (Quote from) the Palm Beach Politics blog: "Trump: Autism linked to child vaccinations... In an interview with Palm Beach Politics, Donald Trump offered a controversial opinion on a new topic: autism. The New York-Palm Beach real estate mogul is no doctor, but he said he thinks the rising prevalence of autism is related to vaccinations given to children at a young age."... Mr. Trump, do you have any science to go with this nonsense?"
There have been two hypotheses linking vaccines to autism causation: one implicating the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal which was widely present in vaccines in the recent past, and another one implicating the live viruses in the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. If you, dear reader, want to know what science says about the vaccine-autism link, let me inform you: it's disproved. In fact, it was never considered very plausible because autism symptoms don't resemble symptoms of known vaccine complications or of actual mercury poisoning. Populations with known exposure to mercury haven't higher prevalence of autism. Epidemiological studies showed that removing thimerosal from mandatory childhood vaccines, as well as skipping the MMR vaccine, does not curb autism prevalence a bit. And attempts to induce an autism-like condition in animal models by vaccine components have been unsuccessful. Of course many people still think that their child's autism has been caused by vaccines. They are likely to remain that way; in fact, some of them openly say that no scientific evidence will ever succeed to shake their belief.
The three celebrity idiots discussed above illustrate the deeper problem present-day societies have with authority. Here, by "authority" I mean a person to whom we voluntarily transfer our decision-making power, such as a doctor when we have care for our health or a Member of Parliament when we vote. Some American commenters cited above were highly critical of their own society and described the problem as specific for the USA. It is beyond doubt present in the USA - just compare the Founding Fathers to the people populating the American political landscape in recent decades. However, it is not restricted to the USA. It is a global problem.
What have Oprah Winfrey, Jenny McCarthy and Donald Trump in common? They have all succeeded to become rich and well-known people. It seems that in today's Western world, the ability to earn money has remained the single attribute of authority.
The ability to become rich requires some specific intelligence and skills, but isn't correlated with ability or expertise in any other field. It isn't even necessarily accompanied by high general intelligence. Anybody who has been around rich people, especially if he has tried to educate them, is likely to agree with me. It is understandable that the rich themselves tend to mistake their income for actual intelligence. But why do other people do the same?
After the Oprah's show with Jenny McCarthy, some my online friends - autistics and parents of autistic children, suggested writing to Oprah and explaining to her why the show had wronged autistic people. (And it wronged them in many other ways besides the vaccine thing, it will become tomorrow if I try to explain in debth.) I disagreed. I wrote, "I've repeatedly observed that (1) few individuals can do more harm than popular TV show hosts and (2) glorious career and earning millions are quite compatible with moral and intellectual qualities far below the average. The question is, why people let themselves be influenced by celebrities instead of thinking with their own heads? I don't think writing Oprah would be to any avail. Do it, it will do no harm either. But people like her are very pompous and consider themselves very good and smart. They think they make no mistakes and even if they make one, it cannot be noted and should not be pointed out by mere mortals."
Because celebrity idiots parasitize on society's backwardness, they cannot be expected to work for the cause of enlightenment. So it's no use to try and recruit them as our allies; they are our natural enemies. If we manage to bring enlightenment, it will be despite them. Let them keep their damn money, but not the undeserved respect and authority they enjoy now. Authority must be given to people based on their expertise, intelligence, record of decent life and loyal service to society and adherence to solid moral principles even in situations when this is unpopular.
Isn't it a bit scary that the last sentence sounds so old-fashioned?
Update: Jenny McCarthy was Larry's guest again and here is how Gawker reports it (hattip Kev): "Larry King had noted medical expert/softcore video star Jenny McCarthy on the program last night to talk about AUTISM. Specifically, how it’s caused by VACCINATING YOUR CHILDREN. This is patent conspiratorial nonsense, but it’s very popular conspiratorial nonsense. Of course, in a battle between concerned, credulous parents and medical experts, the media will generally frame it as, say, Debate Rages Anew on Vaccine-Autism Link. Faced with a panel of three trained pediatricians, Ms. McCarthy shouted “BULLSHIT” twice."
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Creationism and my (unpleasant) touch with it
These days, my cousin's husband Constantin Chipev sent me a New Year greeting and a link to his article refuting creationism. It is titled Scientific creationism - is there ground for it in Bulgaria? and is published in the Nov. 28, 2007 issue of Kultura weekly paper. Bulgarian readers can find it online here.
The article made me realize that the nasty phenomenon of creationism (call it scientific if you like, communism was also once called "scientific") is getting stronger and time has come when everybody working in science or education has to struggle against it. Unfortunately, my participation in the struggle must begin with bringing a skeleton out of the closet, that is, confessing an old sin. One of the jewels of creationism available at the Bulgarian book market lists my name as "scientific editor". Just don't ask me for the title of this book because I don't want to give any free advertising to guys who have too much undeserved money anyway.
Here is the story. I knew a woman with whom we had enough mutual sympathy to call each other friends. Unfortunately, she suffered a crisis in her life. She coped by joining a community which passed as Christian but was in fact a cult organized around a leader. I did what most other people would do in my shoes. In other words, I severed my contacts with the lady but was conscience-stricken for failing to help her and for leaving her behind.
Unexpectedly, some time ago my ex-friend contacted me. She said that the people she was working for were translating from English a great book about evolution. Would I agree to see a part of the text and check whether the terms were correctly translated? My displeasure was immense, but I just couldn't decline. So I read what she gave me and corrected two or three terminological inaccuracies.
Then she asked me whether I would agree my contribution to be acknowledged by listing my name as a scientific editor. Because some researchers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences had seen the book and although they recognized the power of its arguments (sic!), they refused their names to be connected to it because they feared unpleasant consequences for their careers.
Of course I knew right from the beginning that those guys wanted not my insignificant editor's work but my very name. Because creationists, while trying to prove our science stupid, entangled in contradictions and unable to explain this and that, at the same time are very eager to cite names of scientists or teachers in support of creationism. However, I agreed because of the old friendship. When I declined any payment, they gave me a Bible plus a copy of the book I had "edited".
I am now feeling miserably because I agreed, but I would also feel miserably if I had refused. I just was in a lose-lose situation. To grasp my loss, you must understand that for teachers and people of science, reputation is invaluable capital. So I did major and irreversible damage to my capital. Remember that despite the very low incomes of ordinary Bulgarians in general and teachers/researchers in particular, no money could convince the other people contacted by the creationists to mar their reputations as people of science. I agreed only because of special circumstances of deeply personal, emotional nature.
Some time later, I read in FrontPage Magazine an article defending "intelligent design" (the current fashionable variety of creationism). You can find it here. I added a comment in disagreement. There were many other comments by evolutionists, most even better than mine. Unfortunately, all comments seem to be deleted now.
I also wrote an e-mail to the author. Because he wasn't a scientist, I tried to explain why "intelligent design" has nothing to do with science. In my message, I also described my experience (more openly than in this post, because here I keep in mind that my ex-friend or her family member could accidentally come across my text). The article's author didn't even bother to answer my e-mail. You can fully understand how I felt only if you have also revealed, with utmost effort, embarassing facts about yourself for the sake of a cause, just to find that your story isn't welcome.
Creationism has gradually gathered strength as a part of the anti-intellectual trend described by blogger Prometheus as a coming Age of Unreason. In the USA, the number of creationism supporters has exceeded the "critical mass" after which an opinion is considered too popular to be entirely dismissible. That is, if you try to explain to Americans why it is shameful for sane people with normal intelligence in the 21st century to have creationist views, you will face the same surprise as if you try to explain to Palestinians why it is wrong to attack Israeli school buses. Even non-creationists will accuse you of arrogance and advise you, if you really have any arguments, to offer them in a polite way to try and convince "moderate" creationists. Support to teaching creationism spoils otherwise good articles on unrelated subjects, e.g. Deroy Murdock's Keep Christmas "Christmas". And Europe seems to follow the same path. It is sad for me to watch conservative Christians and Jews, whom I respect, making themselves laughing matter for the enemy. Happily, our worst enemies - the Islamists, aren't much in a position to laugh because they are stubbornly committed to their own, Islamic creationism.
Let me now say two words about creationism itself. It claims that science in general and the Darwinism-based evolutionary theory in particular is unable to explain the diversity and perfection of the living world. That life's emergence on Earth was too fast to be explained by natural processes and the living organisms are too complex to have evolved by mutations and natural selection. All this allegedly compels us to acknowledge that organisms are products of "intelligent design".
Creationism is based on so deep ignorance about science and such factual and logical errors that when criticizing it, we wonder where to begin. E.g. creationists with much emphasis "prove" that Darwinism is "just a theory" and so bang on an open door because all science is "just theories". If present-day science "isn't able to explain" something, we must just wait until it becomes able to explain it, rather than renouncing science and embracing quackery. In fact, science even now explains perfectly many of the problems which creationists in their ignorance proclaim inexplained. And when a scientific theory is wrong, it is just replaced by a better scientific theory and not by extra- and antiscientific concepts. At last, although science is a quest for the truth, it never claims that it does or ever will possess the whole truth. Such a claim is a characteristic of religion, not science.
The root error of creationists is using supernatural forces as an explanation for natural phenomena. To illustrate how absurd this is, I'll give an example from criminology, which resembles science because it treats only natural phenomena and doesn't promise the whole truth. Let's say that the body of a man with slit throat was found in an out-of-the-way street last night. The police of course will begin seeking the perpetrator. They may never find him but this will not make them resort to the working hypothesis that the victim has been slain by an angel with a sword of fire. If he has been a thug terrorizing the entire town, somebody may say that "God has punished him". However, this will mean that God has used as His weapon another thug with a knife, not that God has sent an angel with a sword of fire.
Let's consider that the murder investigation comes to some contradiction. E.g. the forensic expert says that the man was already dead at 10 PM while a witness says to have walked that street at 11 PM and seen no body. Will this make us think that God has accelerated the post-mortem processes in the body so that to make His role apparent? No, we shall seek a natural explanation again. We'll think that the witness is lying, the expert is wrong or the murder was done somewhere else and the body was moved after 11 PM. If you implicate God in the unclear circumstances around a crime, everybody will question your sanity. Why are phenomena in living nature considered to be different?
I hope that you already understand why arguing with creationists is to no avail. Their heads are impermeable to the arguments of reason. They are like people who are sure that Earth is flat. Or like the character from The Good Soldier Svejk who admits that Earth is a sphere but thinks that inside it there is another, bigger sphere. To argue with creationists means to regard creationism as an ordinary faulty scientific theory, i.e. to attribute to it undeserved legitimacy. As physicist Pauli would say, this doctrine not only "isn't right, it isn't even wrong". Hence, we'd better not argue with these people, just struggle against them.
At the end, I am throwing them a challenge. Dear creationists, would you enlighten us about what message is sending to us your "intelligent designer" by creating, with remarkable speed and ingenuity, drug-resistant bacteria? Perhaps He doesn't want us to use chemotherapy? Then I appeal to you, if you really stick to your convictions, not to take antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection, however serious it is.
Update: I had forgotten that I had already written shortly against creationism in my chapter The cell as a basic unit of life. Viruses. Origin of life (published in 2006, in Bulgarian). The final sentence of this text advises the creationists "to stick to the Genesis or whatever religious cosmogony fits their taste, instead of disguising their anti-scientific message in science-like terminology and tormenting their brains with scientific problems".
The article made me realize that the nasty phenomenon of creationism (call it scientific if you like, communism was also once called "scientific") is getting stronger and time has come when everybody working in science or education has to struggle against it. Unfortunately, my participation in the struggle must begin with bringing a skeleton out of the closet, that is, confessing an old sin. One of the jewels of creationism available at the Bulgarian book market lists my name as "scientific editor". Just don't ask me for the title of this book because I don't want to give any free advertising to guys who have too much undeserved money anyway.
Here is the story. I knew a woman with whom we had enough mutual sympathy to call each other friends. Unfortunately, she suffered a crisis in her life. She coped by joining a community which passed as Christian but was in fact a cult organized around a leader. I did what most other people would do in my shoes. In other words, I severed my contacts with the lady but was conscience-stricken for failing to help her and for leaving her behind.
Unexpectedly, some time ago my ex-friend contacted me. She said that the people she was working for were translating from English a great book about evolution. Would I agree to see a part of the text and check whether the terms were correctly translated? My displeasure was immense, but I just couldn't decline. So I read what she gave me and corrected two or three terminological inaccuracies.
Then she asked me whether I would agree my contribution to be acknowledged by listing my name as a scientific editor. Because some researchers from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences had seen the book and although they recognized the power of its arguments (sic!), they refused their names to be connected to it because they feared unpleasant consequences for their careers.
Of course I knew right from the beginning that those guys wanted not my insignificant editor's work but my very name. Because creationists, while trying to prove our science stupid, entangled in contradictions and unable to explain this and that, at the same time are very eager to cite names of scientists or teachers in support of creationism. However, I agreed because of the old friendship. When I declined any payment, they gave me a Bible plus a copy of the book I had "edited".
I am now feeling miserably because I agreed, but I would also feel miserably if I had refused. I just was in a lose-lose situation. To grasp my loss, you must understand that for teachers and people of science, reputation is invaluable capital. So I did major and irreversible damage to my capital. Remember that despite the very low incomes of ordinary Bulgarians in general and teachers/researchers in particular, no money could convince the other people contacted by the creationists to mar their reputations as people of science. I agreed only because of special circumstances of deeply personal, emotional nature.
Some time later, I read in FrontPage Magazine an article defending "intelligent design" (the current fashionable variety of creationism). You can find it here. I added a comment in disagreement. There were many other comments by evolutionists, most even better than mine. Unfortunately, all comments seem to be deleted now.
I also wrote an e-mail to the author. Because he wasn't a scientist, I tried to explain why "intelligent design" has nothing to do with science. In my message, I also described my experience (more openly than in this post, because here I keep in mind that my ex-friend or her family member could accidentally come across my text). The article's author didn't even bother to answer my e-mail. You can fully understand how I felt only if you have also revealed, with utmost effort, embarassing facts about yourself for the sake of a cause, just to find that your story isn't welcome.
Creationism has gradually gathered strength as a part of the anti-intellectual trend described by blogger Prometheus as a coming Age of Unreason. In the USA, the number of creationism supporters has exceeded the "critical mass" after which an opinion is considered too popular to be entirely dismissible. That is, if you try to explain to Americans why it is shameful for sane people with normal intelligence in the 21st century to have creationist views, you will face the same surprise as if you try to explain to Palestinians why it is wrong to attack Israeli school buses. Even non-creationists will accuse you of arrogance and advise you, if you really have any arguments, to offer them in a polite way to try and convince "moderate" creationists. Support to teaching creationism spoils otherwise good articles on unrelated subjects, e.g. Deroy Murdock's Keep Christmas "Christmas". And Europe seems to follow the same path. It is sad for me to watch conservative Christians and Jews, whom I respect, making themselves laughing matter for the enemy. Happily, our worst enemies - the Islamists, aren't much in a position to laugh because they are stubbornly committed to their own, Islamic creationism.
Let me now say two words about creationism itself. It claims that science in general and the Darwinism-based evolutionary theory in particular is unable to explain the diversity and perfection of the living world. That life's emergence on Earth was too fast to be explained by natural processes and the living organisms are too complex to have evolved by mutations and natural selection. All this allegedly compels us to acknowledge that organisms are products of "intelligent design".
Creationism is based on so deep ignorance about science and such factual and logical errors that when criticizing it, we wonder where to begin. E.g. creationists with much emphasis "prove" that Darwinism is "just a theory" and so bang on an open door because all science is "just theories". If present-day science "isn't able to explain" something, we must just wait until it becomes able to explain it, rather than renouncing science and embracing quackery. In fact, science even now explains perfectly many of the problems which creationists in their ignorance proclaim inexplained. And when a scientific theory is wrong, it is just replaced by a better scientific theory and not by extra- and antiscientific concepts. At last, although science is a quest for the truth, it never claims that it does or ever will possess the whole truth. Such a claim is a characteristic of religion, not science.
The root error of creationists is using supernatural forces as an explanation for natural phenomena. To illustrate how absurd this is, I'll give an example from criminology, which resembles science because it treats only natural phenomena and doesn't promise the whole truth. Let's say that the body of a man with slit throat was found in an out-of-the-way street last night. The police of course will begin seeking the perpetrator. They may never find him but this will not make them resort to the working hypothesis that the victim has been slain by an angel with a sword of fire. If he has been a thug terrorizing the entire town, somebody may say that "God has punished him". However, this will mean that God has used as His weapon another thug with a knife, not that God has sent an angel with a sword of fire.
Let's consider that the murder investigation comes to some contradiction. E.g. the forensic expert says that the man was already dead at 10 PM while a witness says to have walked that street at 11 PM and seen no body. Will this make us think that God has accelerated the post-mortem processes in the body so that to make His role apparent? No, we shall seek a natural explanation again. We'll think that the witness is lying, the expert is wrong or the murder was done somewhere else and the body was moved after 11 PM. If you implicate God in the unclear circumstances around a crime, everybody will question your sanity. Why are phenomena in living nature considered to be different?
I hope that you already understand why arguing with creationists is to no avail. Their heads are impermeable to the arguments of reason. They are like people who are sure that Earth is flat. Or like the character from The Good Soldier Svejk who admits that Earth is a sphere but thinks that inside it there is another, bigger sphere. To argue with creationists means to regard creationism as an ordinary faulty scientific theory, i.e. to attribute to it undeserved legitimacy. As physicist Pauli would say, this doctrine not only "isn't right, it isn't even wrong". Hence, we'd better not argue with these people, just struggle against them.
At the end, I am throwing them a challenge. Dear creationists, would you enlighten us about what message is sending to us your "intelligent designer" by creating, with remarkable speed and ingenuity, drug-resistant bacteria? Perhaps He doesn't want us to use chemotherapy? Then I appeal to you, if you really stick to your convictions, not to take antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection, however serious it is.
Update: I had forgotten that I had already written shortly against creationism in my chapter The cell as a basic unit of life. Viruses. Origin of life (published in 2006, in Bulgarian). The final sentence of this text advises the creationists "to stick to the Genesis or whatever religious cosmogony fits their taste, instead of disguising their anti-scientific message in science-like terminology and tormenting their brains with scientific problems".
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Meet your Professor, dear students!
The photo shows Angela Davis in 2006 (source: Wikipedia).
I have just discovered that Bulgarian universities in some respects are superior to American ones. Do you know why? Because students in Bulgarian universities don't risk having Angela Davis as a professor, as students at the University of California do. And Web sites of Bulgarian universities don't praise Davis as this University of Utah Web page does.
The Davis subject touched me as I was browsing Bulgarian blogs and found a questionnaire to check whether you are "a dear child of socialism raised in the 1970s" (I am). One of the questions was "Have you admired Angela Davis's haircut?". An apparently younger commenter asked who Angela Davis is and the blog host gave a link to her Wikipedia page.
Angela Davis, a US black Communist extremist, was tried 35 years ago after her gun was used by other people who attacked a courtroom and killed a judge. During her trial, John Lennon, who never uttered a word in support of Gulag prisoners or other innocent victims of oppression around the world, devoted a song to her, illustrating an aphorism of Bulgarian poet Atanas Dalchev that "unfortunately, talent is often unaccompanied by either personality or intellect". She was acquitted and Vladimir Bukovsky used her case to prove that Western courts often let Communists get away with crimes that would surely send a non-Communist to prison.
As a "dear child" (i.e. survivor) of socialism, I knew all this before. What was news for me in Angela's Wikipedia page was that "She has lectured at San Francisco State University, Stanford University and other schools. She is currently the Presidential Chair and Professor with the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz and director of the Feminist Studies department." If Davis was a genius in, say, mathematics or chemistry, then allowing her to become a university teacher, though still controversial, would make some sense. But WTF "History of Consciousness" means? Thankfully, Wikipedia gives a link showing that it is "an interdisciplinary graduate program in the humanities with links to the sciences, social sciences, and arts at the University of California at Santa Cruz... Perhaps the best-known graduate of the program is Huey P. Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party. Newton received his Ph.D. in 1980."
Back to Davis's page, we read, "A principal focus of her current activism is the state of prisons within the United States. She considers herself an abolitionist, not a "prison reformer," and refers to the United States prison system as the "prison-industrial complex." Her solutions include abolishing prisons and addressing the class, race, and gender factors that have led to large numbers of blacks and Latinos being incarcerated."
However, Prof. Davis's abolitionist views don't apply to prisoners in some other countries. The same source reports, "Russian dissident and Nobel Laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn criticized Davis's sympathy for the Soviet Union in a speech he delivered to the AFL-CIO on July 9, 1975 in New York City, claiming hypocrisy in her attitude toward prisoners under Communist governments. According to Solzhenitsyn, a group of Czech dissidents “addressed an appeal to her: `Comrade Davis, you were in prison. You know how unpleasant it is to sit in prison, especially when you consider yourself innocent. You have such great authority now. Could you help our Czech prisoners? Could you stand up for those people in Czechoslovakia who are being persecuted by the state?' Angela Davis answered: 'They deserve what they get. Let them remain in prison.'”
This is in contrast to the claims in the above mentioned Utah University page: "Angela Y. Davis is known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad."
The same page, below: "During her sixteen-month incarceration, a massive international "Free Angela Davis" campaign was organized, leading to her acquittal in 1972." Please mention that the source actually admits that Davis was acquitted not because she was innocent but because the jury caved in under external pressure. I would draw an analogy between the Davis and the O. J. Simpson trials.
And a last quote: "Former California Governor Ronald Reagan once vowed that Angela Davis would never again teach in the University of California system. From 1994 to 1997, she held the distinguished honor of an appointment to the University of California Presidential Chair in African American and Feminist Studies."
Amen. What implications has this for the ongoing "war on terror"? To combat terror by giving degrees and department chairs to terrorists? Because then they will be busy teaching history of consciousness, African American studies, feminist studies and other woo stuff to the unfortunate students and will have no time left for actual terror activities? Maybe it will work.
I am more outraged and disgusted that my words can express.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Reptiles behind the computer
As a Bulgarian blogger writing in English, I have the duty to make important Bulgarian-born ideas known to the world, rather than languishing in the confined public space of my small country. Recently, I mentioned that many Bulgarian bloggers ironically call themselves "reptiles". It turned out to come from an article in the July 4 issue of 24 chasa newspaper, Vlechugi zad computera (Reptiles behind the computer), by Borislav Zyumbyulev. Bulgarian readers can find the text of the article e.g. at http://www.pressboard.info/Preview.aspx?articleid=88783. At http://marfieta.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/447498_orig.jpg, Marfa has uploaded a scanned image of the original publication. You can see that it occupies an entire A3 newspaper page and is illustrated by a photo of a cobra.
24 chasa (24 hours) is the second most popular daily newspaper in Bulgaria after Trud and has the same publisher, featured in my July 9, 2006 post. There is some division of labour between the two papers, Trud pretending to be more "intellectual" and 24 chasa more "popular". As commenter Hassi wrote on Grancharov's blog, a fairly typical reader of 24 chasa is an old gentleman "who cannot use a computer and hasn't the slightest idea of this technology, but knows that his 25-year-old granddaughter regularly writes in Internet".
The article author Zyumbyulev isn't an ordinary journalist but a Deputy Editor-in-chief. It is not quite clear why he dislikes Internet so much. Some bloggers speculate that he may have entered a Web forum anonymously and other participants have scorned him. Others think that the reason is the abundant criticism in the Web to his newspaper (see e.g. an article titled 24 chasa or the misery of journalism at http://e-vestnik.bg/1429).
I cannot quite understand why Zyumbyulev called Web forum participants "black". With the exception of an occasional student or soccer player, there are no black people in Bulgaria. The only subpopulation with darker skin (though far from being black) are the Gypsies, and whatever other sins they may have, they don't use Internet. So I come to the explanation that Zyumbyulev, similarly to some fairy tales, uses black as a symbol of evil.
I am aware that translating and posting almost the entire text of an article without informed consent by the author and the publisher is a violation of copyright. However, I hope that the utmost importance of the text in question allows my post to arguably qualify for the "fair use" label. After all, if a Bulgarian scientist discovers that some food component used by billions of people is very harmful, isn't it a duty of every decent person with the required linguistic skills to rush, translate and publish the findings? And what's the difference if the discovery is about Internet, which is indeed used by billions? The world must be informed about its dangers. So read, learn and enjoy!
Title: Reptiles behind the computer
Subtitle on red background: Short, black and village-born is the anonymous creep from the Internet forums. Anonymity in the Web devastates the personality and will be the main psychological problem during the following 30 years
Author: Borislav Zyumbyulev
Malice in Internet is so mighty that if somebody manages to convert it into megawatts, its energy will be enough for all light bulbs in Bulgaria to illuminate for at least 77 years. Most writings in Web forums are negative, directed against other participants or against some phenomenon in our life... When the text is about people, they are State Security agents, thugs, good-for-nothing and fools. There isn't a single decent person in this country. This is especially true about people who are popular. Everybody who is widely known or popular in fact is just a boar who deserves his blood to be sucked in a very painful way.
Let's not discuss popular politicians like Boyko Borisov or Georgi Parvanov and take as an example (popular TV show host) Slavi Trifonov. Slavi's concerts over a single summer have been attended by 200,000 people. However, in Web forums you cannot find a single well-intentioned word about him - only malice. It is evident that those who gloat over Slavi becoming blind have in fact bought tickets for his concerts. But they fall into some bizarre Internet schizophrenia.
In their normal lives, when these people haven't accepted nicknames, they almost look normal and don't call fool everybody they meet. But at the moment when they enter the little square, their faces distort as in a second-quality Hollywood movie and they turn into terrible zombies, plain scoundrels and reptiles.
What is the cause of this mass personality split? "Writers in forums are people with complexes, unsatisfied by their lives," explains behavioural psychologist Ray Cavallino from Boston University (not sure about the name spelling; I failed to find Dr. Cavallino in the Boston University Web site - M.M.). "Anonymity gives them courage which they lack in real life. It allows them to feel important, even if for a short time. To feel like people whose opinion matters. Unfortunately, nobody reads their opinions and Internet is a giant psychoanalytical monologue. Chatter of creeps," as Cavallino has called his study on the anonymous swear-words in Internet.
"Even the most innocent subject discussed, such as growing radish or breast-feeding, quickly turns into malicious, libelous and full of personal attacks against some participant in the forum...," writes psycholinguist Lance Winslow. According to Winslow, Internet communication resembles swear-words at an elementary school lunch: if a teacher doesn't interfere, things inevitably escalate to fighting...
"The anonymous author in forums resembles the anonymous murderer. He deprives himself of his personality... in order to carry out his criminal intent," says Boyko Ganchevski, an expert in criminal psychology. Ganchevski points out that not every forum user is a future murderer or has strong criminal motivation, he rather vents his complexes... But the personality split mechanism is the same as in murderers: evil is done with impunity and without burdening the conscience by taking another personality, under cover.
According to Winslow, anonymity and the weeds of malice and baseness in Internet corrode the tissue of human civilization. Because "even most oppressive regimes don't allow arbitrary insults between individuals... We don't know what will the situation be in 30 years, what will happen to mankind, after everyone is allowed to insult everyone else with impunity and to pour whatever libel he likes," wonders Winslow. He finds it the most important field of psychological research in the near future.
Will Internet anonymity change human personality? Will there be an epidemic of schizophrenia in the streets, after this is already the norm in the Web?...
Who is writing in the forums? Bulgarian Internet service providers say that the number of these people is limited - not more than 1500-2000, according to an analysis of their IP addresses... The opinion that Internet is the media of the young is wrong. Young people go to sites for dating, music, movies and other teenagers' entertainment activities. In the "serious" forums people are middle-aged and older. They have accumulated much frustration.
There are several types of know-alls. The first can be called Reptile - short, black and village-born subjects. They have survived a number of misfortunes and are the first in their families to do the village-to-town civilizational transition. Because of this feat, they live with the feeling that the world is their debtor. This leads to painful careerism combined with a lack of realistic personal self-estimate and typical village laziness... We call them reptiles because their writings are most venomous, the evil is most evident. In fact, these people need specialized medical help because of their sociopathy which often has dramatic consequences. They abandon their families, become alcoholics, commit domestic violence.
The other type is the Sad Gay. This group includes many women. Here, the frustration is a consequence of ambiguous sexuality, several failed attempts to lose weight, miserable personal life, acne, oily hair. Especially aggressive are the homosexual guys who have a double life - they photograph themselves in the company of naked female models but dream of butts of young boys. Neurosis is sure and soon comes bipolar personality disorder.
The third main type is the Professional Informer. The former State Security is believed to have had about 300 000 professional and volunteer agents in the early 1980s. Not all of them are now in the business elite... It may be just a coincidence but most of the newly created Bulgarian news sites and blogs have some connection to the former State Security Committee...
Hidden in the Web, the anonymous creep can be found out only with special skills and a lot of efforts. Therefore, he gets away (with whatever he is writing). This perhaps gives him joy but it ruins his psyche.
The anonymous scoundrel is in fact a seriously ill person who deserves pity. "This aggression has been accumulated for millenia, since human race began to socialize. Barriers have been erected to spontaneity. These barriers fall in the darkness of Internet... The aggression typical for Internet is generalized, claiming that everyone is stupid. It is pathological, a symptom of neurotic behaviour similarly to sadism and masochism. It needs help," says psycho-analyst Madlen Algafari.
24 chasa (24 hours) is the second most popular daily newspaper in Bulgaria after Trud and has the same publisher, featured in my July 9, 2006 post. There is some division of labour between the two papers, Trud pretending to be more "intellectual" and 24 chasa more "popular". As commenter Hassi wrote on Grancharov's blog, a fairly typical reader of 24 chasa is an old gentleman "who cannot use a computer and hasn't the slightest idea of this technology, but knows that his 25-year-old granddaughter regularly writes in Internet".
The article author Zyumbyulev isn't an ordinary journalist but a Deputy Editor-in-chief. It is not quite clear why he dislikes Internet so much. Some bloggers speculate that he may have entered a Web forum anonymously and other participants have scorned him. Others think that the reason is the abundant criticism in the Web to his newspaper (see e.g. an article titled 24 chasa or the misery of journalism at http://e-vestnik.bg/1429).
I cannot quite understand why Zyumbyulev called Web forum participants "black". With the exception of an occasional student or soccer player, there are no black people in Bulgaria. The only subpopulation with darker skin (though far from being black) are the Gypsies, and whatever other sins they may have, they don't use Internet. So I come to the explanation that Zyumbyulev, similarly to some fairy tales, uses black as a symbol of evil.
I am aware that translating and posting almost the entire text of an article without informed consent by the author and the publisher is a violation of copyright. However, I hope that the utmost importance of the text in question allows my post to arguably qualify for the "fair use" label. After all, if a Bulgarian scientist discovers that some food component used by billions of people is very harmful, isn't it a duty of every decent person with the required linguistic skills to rush, translate and publish the findings? And what's the difference if the discovery is about Internet, which is indeed used by billions? The world must be informed about its dangers. So read, learn and enjoy!
Title: Reptiles behind the computer
Subtitle on red background: Short, black and village-born is the anonymous creep from the Internet forums. Anonymity in the Web devastates the personality and will be the main psychological problem during the following 30 years
Author: Borislav Zyumbyulev
Malice in Internet is so mighty that if somebody manages to convert it into megawatts, its energy will be enough for all light bulbs in Bulgaria to illuminate for at least 77 years. Most writings in Web forums are negative, directed against other participants or against some phenomenon in our life... When the text is about people, they are State Security agents, thugs, good-for-nothing and fools. There isn't a single decent person in this country. This is especially true about people who are popular. Everybody who is widely known or popular in fact is just a boar who deserves his blood to be sucked in a very painful way.
Let's not discuss popular politicians like Boyko Borisov or Georgi Parvanov and take as an example (popular TV show host) Slavi Trifonov. Slavi's concerts over a single summer have been attended by 200,000 people. However, in Web forums you cannot find a single well-intentioned word about him - only malice. It is evident that those who gloat over Slavi becoming blind have in fact bought tickets for his concerts. But they fall into some bizarre Internet schizophrenia.
In their normal lives, when these people haven't accepted nicknames, they almost look normal and don't call fool everybody they meet. But at the moment when they enter the little square, their faces distort as in a second-quality Hollywood movie and they turn into terrible zombies, plain scoundrels and reptiles.
What is the cause of this mass personality split? "Writers in forums are people with complexes, unsatisfied by their lives," explains behavioural psychologist Ray Cavallino from Boston University (not sure about the name spelling; I failed to find Dr. Cavallino in the Boston University Web site - M.M.). "Anonymity gives them courage which they lack in real life. It allows them to feel important, even if for a short time. To feel like people whose opinion matters. Unfortunately, nobody reads their opinions and Internet is a giant psychoanalytical monologue. Chatter of creeps," as Cavallino has called his study on the anonymous swear-words in Internet.
"Even the most innocent subject discussed, such as growing radish or breast-feeding, quickly turns into malicious, libelous and full of personal attacks against some participant in the forum...," writes psycholinguist Lance Winslow. According to Winslow, Internet communication resembles swear-words at an elementary school lunch: if a teacher doesn't interfere, things inevitably escalate to fighting...
"The anonymous author in forums resembles the anonymous murderer. He deprives himself of his personality... in order to carry out his criminal intent," says Boyko Ganchevski, an expert in criminal psychology. Ganchevski points out that not every forum user is a future murderer or has strong criminal motivation, he rather vents his complexes... But the personality split mechanism is the same as in murderers: evil is done with impunity and without burdening the conscience by taking another personality, under cover.
According to Winslow, anonymity and the weeds of malice and baseness in Internet corrode the tissue of human civilization. Because "even most oppressive regimes don't allow arbitrary insults between individuals... We don't know what will the situation be in 30 years, what will happen to mankind, after everyone is allowed to insult everyone else with impunity and to pour whatever libel he likes," wonders Winslow. He finds it the most important field of psychological research in the near future.
Will Internet anonymity change human personality? Will there be an epidemic of schizophrenia in the streets, after this is already the norm in the Web?...
Who is writing in the forums? Bulgarian Internet service providers say that the number of these people is limited - not more than 1500-2000, according to an analysis of their IP addresses... The opinion that Internet is the media of the young is wrong. Young people go to sites for dating, music, movies and other teenagers' entertainment activities. In the "serious" forums people are middle-aged and older. They have accumulated much frustration.
There are several types of know-alls. The first can be called Reptile - short, black and village-born subjects. They have survived a number of misfortunes and are the first in their families to do the village-to-town civilizational transition. Because of this feat, they live with the feeling that the world is their debtor. This leads to painful careerism combined with a lack of realistic personal self-estimate and typical village laziness... We call them reptiles because their writings are most venomous, the evil is most evident. In fact, these people need specialized medical help because of their sociopathy which often has dramatic consequences. They abandon their families, become alcoholics, commit domestic violence.
The other type is the Sad Gay. This group includes many women. Here, the frustration is a consequence of ambiguous sexuality, several failed attempts to lose weight, miserable personal life, acne, oily hair. Especially aggressive are the homosexual guys who have a double life - they photograph themselves in the company of naked female models but dream of butts of young boys. Neurosis is sure and soon comes bipolar personality disorder.
The third main type is the Professional Informer. The former State Security is believed to have had about 300 000 professional and volunteer agents in the early 1980s. Not all of them are now in the business elite... It may be just a coincidence but most of the newly created Bulgarian news sites and blogs have some connection to the former State Security Committee...
Hidden in the Web, the anonymous creep can be found out only with special skills and a lot of efforts. Therefore, he gets away (with whatever he is writing). This perhaps gives him joy but it ruins his psyche.
The anonymous scoundrel is in fact a seriously ill person who deserves pity. "This aggression has been accumulated for millenia, since human race began to socialize. Barriers have been erected to spontaneity. These barriers fall in the darkness of Internet... The aggression typical for Internet is generalized, claiming that everyone is stupid. It is pathological, a symptom of neurotic behaviour similarly to sadism and masochism. It needs help," says psycho-analyst Madlen Algafari.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Boyko Borisov: portrait of a winner
On May 20, Bulgarians voted for the first time to send representatives to the European Parliament. You can see the results at http://www.socialistgroup.org/gpes/newsdetail.do?lg=bg&id=39356&href=home&site=msb. Most of the votes have gone to GERB (the party of the Sofia mayor Boyko Borisov), to the Socialist party and to DPS (the Movement for Rights and Freedoms). These three parties have obtained almost equal number of votes and will have 5 seats each. Two other parties will also send representatives to the European Parliament: Ataka (2 seats) and NDSV (Simeon II National Movement, 1 seat).
To be honest, I considered not voting at these elections because I don't believe the European Parliament is a useful institution. However, finally I made up my mind to vote (for one of the rightist parties that remained below the bar). So now I may, like every thinking Bulgarian, pull off my hair as I'm looking at the election results, but at least I don't feel guilty.
Why do I regard the results as a disaster? Let's mention the winning parties one by one. I've blogged about NDSV's leader Simeon II Saxe-Coburg-Gotha at http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/06/noblemen-who-steal-umbrellas.html and about Ataka at http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/09/dimitar-stoyanov-child-prodigy-of.html (D. Stoyanov will go to the European Parliament again as the first of the two Ataka representatives). I've also blogged about the Turkish party DPS at http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/04/dps-conference.html. In these elections, its good result was due not only to almost 100% mobilization of ethnic Turkish and Bulgarian Muslim voters (projected on the low activity of Bulgarian voters) but also on bribing many Gypsies and reportedly on intimidating some Bulgarians to vote for DPS. The Socialist Party is the renamed Communist Party from the Iron Curtain era; it still talks and promises social nonsense to its voters despite making virtually every member of its leadership a rich capitalist - need I say anything more? So now I have to describe only the big winner - GERB or, to be precise, its leader Boyko Borisov, because no one ordinary Bulgarian, including those who have voted for GERB, knows anything about its program or can name a distinguished member of the party other than Borisov.
My work is facilitated by Wikipedia, where Borisov is featured both in English and in Bulgarian. Born in 1959, he graduated the police college as a firefighter lieutenant in 1982 and began work in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (the police). He made a PhD thesis titled Psychological and physical training of (police and firefighter) personnel. (I had to work on my PhD thesis for 11 years and to publish its results in peer reviewed journals with impact factor, so excuse me if I view Borisov's "PhD" as a personal insult.) Borisov was a member of the Bulgarian Communist Party - this was mandatory for every police officer during the Communist rule. After this rule ended in 1989, police were de-politicized and their officers had the choice to leave the Party or resign. Borisov preferred the Party and left the police in 1990. However, I wouldn't rush to call him a diehard communist - I think this was for him not a political matter but a convinient way to obtain a honourable discharge in order to start a business.
In 1991, Borisov founded the private security company IPON-1 that guarded personalities like the former dictator Todor Zhivkov and the above mentioned Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. I copied this from Wikipedia. What you won't find in Wikipedia is that IPON-1 was one of the numerous "security companies" abundant in the early 1990s and active in intimidation of the nascent private sector. Every businessman had to pay one or another of these companies for security, or trouble followed. The "security personnel" became known as mutras. Before 1990, "mutra" was an informal word for "face", usually an ugly man's face. Later, it became a term for the whole personality of the mutra-possessing racketeer thug. A person I know worked at that time for a company guarded by IPON-1. When Borisov's star rose on the political sky, that person said to me, "How can people like Borisov? Don't they see that he is a mutra?" The same source told me that "he isn't a dull mutra, he knows his business and never puts his signature under a document that may later be used against him". I'm citing this person because I fully trust him. At http://oshte.info/doc/boikoborisov/001.htm, you'll find (in Bulgarian) much more outrageous information about Borisov, but I prefer not to cite it, because I cannot guarantee the source is trustworthy. The author has preferred to remain anonimous, which I find more disturbing than anything he reports: apparently, when it comes to Boyko Borisov (similarly to Islam in other countries), free speech exists no more.
In 1991, Borisov founded the private security company IPON-1 that guarded personalities like the former dictator Todor Zhivkov and the above mentioned Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. I copied this from Wikipedia. What you won't find in Wikipedia is that IPON-1 was one of the numerous "security companies" abundant in the early 1990s and active in intimidation of the nascent private sector. Every businessman had to pay one or another of these companies for security, or trouble followed. The "security personnel" became known as mutras. Before 1990, "mutra" was an informal word for "face", usually an ugly man's face. Later, it became a term for the whole personality of the mutra-possessing racketeer thug. A person I know worked at that time for a company guarded by IPON-1. When Borisov's star rose on the political sky, that person said to me, "How can people like Borisov? Don't they see that he is a mutra?" The same source told me that "he isn't a dull mutra, he knows his business and never puts his signature under a document that may later be used against him". I'm citing this person because I fully trust him. At http://oshte.info/doc/boikoborisov/001.htm, you'll find (in Bulgarian) much more outrageous information about Borisov, but I prefer not to cite it, because I cannot guarantee the source is trustworthy. The author has preferred to remain anonimous, which I find more disturbing than anything he reports: apparently, when it comes to Boyko Borisov (similarly to Islam in other countries), free speech exists no more.
Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha presumably appreciated the security provided by IPON-1, because when he became Prime Minister in 2001, Boyko Borisov returned to the police on a white horse. He became Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and colonel. Next year Borisov was promoted again, to general. As some commented ironically, such a fast climbing up the ranks is usually observed only for active combatants during a war.
In Bulgaria, the Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is the highest-ranking professional in the Ministry responsible for implementing the policy of the Minister (a political and usually non-professional figure) into practical actions. However, the Secretary also has the function to address the public in cases of important events concerning the police. So, if a charismatic and ambitious person occupies this post, there is a danger that, instead of serving the law and order, he will use his position to make himself popular as a stepstone for a future political career. This has happened before with Bogomil Bonev, Secretary in the early 1990s and not too far from winning the 2001 presidential elections (he remained third). Boyko Borisov's performance fitted the same pattern, in an enhanced and much more dangerous variant. In the early 2000s, I watched more TV and had more social contacts than now, so I could see Borisov's tactic and its reflection on ordinary Bulgarians.
Look at Borisov's photo above (copied from http://sofia.bg/display.asp?ime=bb&title=%20%20&pathtitle=%20%20; the same photo was used in the recent election campaign for the European Parliament). Though a single static image, it tells much about Borisov and the roots of his popularity. First, this heavily built man with large mandible is very masculine. He is a macho archetype, or as I called him once, a Neanderthalian sex symbol (http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/10/dont-vote-for-georgi-parvanov.html). Being a heterosexual woman, I can easily detect his powerful primitive sexuality; however, I can even more easily reject its appeal, thanks to the thick layers of culture covering the female animal in my core. But many Bulgarian women yielded to Borisov's charm.
Of course this wouldn't be enough to bring success, because only half of the voters are female. One could expect Borisov's Paleolithic masculinity, while attracting women, to turn jealous men away. Perhaps it would, if they were truly men. But in our not so distant communist past, the omnipresent and intrusive government restrained and protected us in the same time, predictably making us infantile. To give an example, the majority of healthy adult Bulgarians don't regard themselves truly capable to stand on their own feet and provide for themselves, therefore they don't vote right. A party that doesn't promise tons of "social politics" has no chance to win elections in Bulgaria. Deep inside, our adults feel like children left on their own in a complex and cruel world; and Borisov appeared in front of them as a strong and caring Big Brother.
A psychologist said that the appearance and posture of Borisov (e.g. the leaned head) radiates aggression but this only brings him popularity because he is perceived as the good guy who will protect us from the bad guys and beat them up. Indeed, he deliberately makes himself looking aggressive by his three-day beard, short haircut and black leather jacket - the last two characteristics shared by regular participants in street fights. I don't see well how he is dressed in the above photo, but he usually wears the black leather jacket even on occasions when the protocol requires a suit. During his term as a police Secretary, whenever a grave crime occurred, he was quick to arrive at the scene in his jacket (like Batman, as Starshel paper ironized him). Presumably stepping on and damaging pieces of forensic evidence, he was explaining to journalists that the perpetrators would soon be found. The public liked these promises and didn't at all insist that they be kept.
By 2005, he was so popular that Saxe-Coburg-Gotha used him as a bait for voters in the parliamentary elections. Borisov was nominated and elected in two regions but didn't take his position in Parliament and openly admitted that he had taken part in the elections only "for the King's (i.e. Simeon's) sake". I think that in any normal democratic country such a behaviour would put an end to the person's popularity and political career. In Bulgaria, it didn't. Later in the same year, he was elected Mayor of the capital Sofia - the third most important position in the country after the Prime Minister and the President.
A year and a half later, the approval rating of Boyko Borisov remains high in Sofia, though it will be difficult for his supporters to say what actually he has done for the city. I can point at only one major achievement: unraveling of massive theft at the Sofia's heating utility, leading to the indictment of its former head Valentin Dimitrov (nicknamed Valyo the Warmth by journalists after the scandal bursted out). At http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=80933, you can read (in English) a short report about Dimitrov covering just a small episode of his saga; many millions of Euros with unexplainable origin were found in Dimitrov's accounts in Bulgarian and foreign banks. In Bulgaria, a major cause for the widespread chronic poverty are the "natural" monopolies - the heating, electricity, water and telephone companies that enjoy priviledged law status and rob the population with impunity, charging the hapless client as much as they want. In big cities, poor insulation of most homes and of heating pipes, combined with lack of control over the heating company, leads to average heating bills approaching average salaries. Moreover, once you have heating pipes in your home, you are forced to pay the heating company even if you decide not to use its services and remove all radiators. So it is small wonder that, despite the nearly subtropical climate of Bulgaria, we expect the winter with horror in our hearts - another feature (besides liking people like Borisov) which unites us with the Neanderthals. It is also logical that ordinary people cheered Borisov for exposing Valyo the Warmth. Unfortunately, they forgot to ask why, after the big thief was caught, the heating bills during the following winter were as high as before and even higher. To me, the only explanation is that somebody is stealing again, this time with the blessing of Mayor Borisov.
How will Borisov's career develop now after his May 20 election victory? Nobody knows exactly, but it is surely ascending and I don't like this at all. As my friend said years ago during Bogomil Bonev's campaign, in no real democracy could a person coming from the police be a serious candidate for any important elected position; this is possible only in a police state, or in a nascent democracy wished by too many of its citizens to become a police state. But besides his police background, there are many other reasons not to elect Borisov, as I pointed above. Radio Free Europe rightly called him (during the 2005 municipal election campaign) "a dangerous populist". (BTW, looking for my old post where I had mentioned Borisov in order to cite it, I tried a Google search for Boyko Neanderthal. The search results included a participant in the Sofia News Agency forum saying, "I'm terrified that anyone considers the neanderthal King Mutra Uncle Boyko could hold any post in public life". So the cyberspace contains at least one other person sharing my opinion.)
Somebody could ask, "But comparing Borisov to the other figures in the Bulgarian political panopticum, do you really find him much worse than the others? What actual harm do you expect from his potential rule, keeping in mind that now much of Bulgaria's politics will be determined by the European Union?" The answer: I don't expect Borisov to do much harm to the factual reality in Bulgaria, in the way Prime Minister Zhan Videnov did in 1996-97 (when Bulgaria was deprived of bread and monthly incomes dropped to the equivalent of $ 3-5). But I expect Borisov to harm the miniscule seeds of civil society in Bulgaria, because he wins support by directly engaging the subcortical brain regions and so cultivates stupidity. So his rule will postpone the emergence of true democracy in Bulgaria.
What actually is "true democracy"? It isn't just free and fair elections. It also requires political vote. That is, thinking citizens choosing between alternative programs of political parties. When people's vote is based on the candidate's tribal affiliation or personal charisma, this is not true democracy, even if the elections are free and fair. I won't say that democracy is not good for Bulgarians (or any other nation) because "they are not yet ready for it". This argument belongs to the arsenal of racist bigots and other enemies of civilization. I side with those who say that nations need time and practice to learn democratic rule after obtaining democracy, as individuals need time and practice to learn swimming after they enter the pool. But as years pass, now almost 2 decades since we were thrown into the water of democracy, I sometimes think in despair that we'll never learn to swim properly. At least we don't drown each other during our swimming lessons, as Iraqis do. But this is a pretty low standard to set.
Friday, May 04, 2007
The HIV trial in Libya, part 6 (last): Why most Libyans believed the official story
This image, which I copied from AngloLibyan's blog, seems to be very popular in Libya. At http://lonehighlander.blogspot.com/2005/04/case-441999-story-of-bulgarian-medics.html, Highlander shows it being used by demonstrating HIV-infected Libyan children. The author and copyright status of the image are unknown to me. I'll be grateful to any reader who informs me about these details, so that I could give credit and ask for permission. UPDATE: The author is Mohammed Izwawa (thanks to Suliman who informed me, see his comment to this post; the name seems to be spelled also Ezwawi). I cannot find Mr. Izwawa's e-mail; if he is reading this and disagrees with his work being shown here, he can post a comment or e-mail me (mayamarkov at gmail dot com) and I'll remove it.
This amateur psychological "study" is the last part of my sequel about the trial in Libya; the previous parts are, respectively, at http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/09/hiv-trial-in-libya-part-1-infection.html, http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/09/hiv-trial-in-libya-part-2-victims.html, http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2007/03/hiv-trial-in-libya-part-3-tale-of-two.html, http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2007/03/hiv-trial-in-libya-part-4-how-infection.html and http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2007/04/hiv-trial-in-libya-part-5-discussing.html.
This part was the most difficult for me to write. Remember Diogenes who took a lantern to search for The Human? Anyone who tries to explore the hidden spaces of human mind needs a lantern, for he is likely to find little light where he is going. Moreover, because I am not a Libyan and my people differs from the Libyans in many respects, the intended recipients of my message will most probably dismiss it as mere bigotry. I have even considered omitting this part and letting Libyans, one day after they set aside their more serious problems, to search their souls themselves. However, such a bright future seems unlikely to come, so I'll end my sequel as planned. I won't try to make this post concise - let it be as long as it gets.
Why do most Libyans agree with the official version that the AIDS epidemic in Benghazi was caused intentionally? I think some really believe it while others only claim to believe. So we have two groups to consider.
1) Libyans sincerely believing in intentional infection
The official story that the infection was deliberately spread, especially in its original CIA-Mossad version, seemed so absurd to me that I wondered how could any sane adult believe in it. Even a 12-yr old, I thought, would laugh and say this is a good idea for a video game. However, we must remember what Einstein said, "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." Recently, one of my relations said to me she believed cures for AIDS, plus all types of cancer, were discovered but drug companies were hiding them in order to sell their current expensive and inefficient products. At the same time, a popular TV host (Milen Tsvetkov, for Bulgarian readers) was launching a hysterical campaign against immunizations because of the rare but severe complications of some vaccines (I wish him to see the video at http://www.kevinleitch.co.uk/wp/?p=538). So stupidity is by no means a Libyan patent. However, in a normal society different views are freely expressed and so you have many different types of stupidity, instead of one dominating. The situation is different in a dictatorship, where you are brainwashed round the clock by the official propaganda and have very limited access to alternative information sources. Of course nobody knows better that the Libyans that the TV speaker's "Good evening" is the only part of the news likely to be true, but humans cannot live in informational vacuum, so most of them finally succumb to propaganda. In this context, it is noteworthy that Qaddafi's version isn't very popular among Libyan expatriates who live in normal informational environment. To cite some examples, Hannu, Suliman, 7mada and Smokey Spice reject it.
Let me give a small sample of official Libyan propaganda. As Suliman mentioned in a comment to my earlier post, Libyan sources, without giving the full text of Dr. Montagnier's in-court testimony, claim that it "was damning to the case of the accused" (http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-made-libya-at-end-of-2006-similar.html). (This reminds me of the joke about Napoleon who said in his afterlife, "Soviet propaganda is a great thing. If I had it, nobody would ever know I had lost the Waterloo battle.") An even more fruitful approach is using the infected children and their families. Remembering how useful was for the anti-Vietnam war propaganda the image of a single napalm-burned child, you can figure out what can be done with more than 400 young victims. An example can be found at http://anglolibyan.blogspot.com/2007/03/wisams-story.html. The mother of an infected boy claims that "Sanjaka the Bulgarian old nurse" (presumably Snezhana Dimitrova) has given him an unauthorized shot: "I saw with my own eyes Sanjaka injecting a syringe in to my son's drip, when the nurse noticed that I was looking she got scared and quickly hid the syringe, I asked her what was that medicine for and told her that he is not supposed to have any medications at this time... Yes I saw her inject my son with my own eyes." I'll duscuss later the families' claims and their reflection on other Libyans, let me now just mention that if the story is true, this woman should be telling it not in a newspaper but in the court. As should be expected if the defendants are picked randomly, the evidence linking them to the infected children is very thin. It is in fact so thin that a mother who could testify to have actually seen nurse Valya Chervenyashka inject her child was a key witness and it was a blow for the prosecution when she died of AIDS. (It is another question that only in the twisted reality of totalitarian Libya a nurse in a children's hospital can be charged with giving shots to children - what actually was she expected to do to earn her salary?)
Another reason for Libyans to believe in intentional infection is that they regard the Benghazi epidemic as a world precedent. It seems that the intra-hospital infections in other countries and the importance of unsafe transfusions and injections for spreading the disease are still unknown to most Libyans. Indeed it is in human nature, when something awful happens to us, to think we are the first and only ones in the world hit by it (and realizing that thousands or millions other people have suffered the same is an important part of recovery). But in this case, the propaganda also helps. See e.g. http://anglolibyan.blogspot.com/2007/02/unite-for-children-unite-against-aids.html. At the top of a continent devastated by AIDS for decades, Libyans are being told that theirs is "a real tragedy that the world never experienced before", "no crime ever committed was as horrible as this crime that was committed against our children", "there is no crime worse than this crime". And once you believe that the Libyan epidemic is unique, you will require a unique explanation. Only if you are outside Libya, the question "how bad is this case in comparison to the AIDS disaster in Africa as a whole" may come to your head (Suliman's comment to the same post).
I think that, despite my conviction that unwanted behaviour mustn't be excused in order not to be encouraged, I have almost excused the Libyans for believing the unbelievable. However, a seemingly small but very important detail remains: the personalities of the accused. One day, when the Q-man's rule will be just a painful past, the Libyans will have to deal with the question, "Why did our dictator choose exactly this story to sell to us? He implicated CIA because he knew we hated America; logically, the Americans had bombed us. He implicated Mossad because he knew we were anti-Semites; well, almost everybody was at that time. But why did he choose as scapegoats foreigners, mostly white, mostly women? Did he think we were sexists, racists and xenophobes? And was he right, after we believed him so easily?"
I think it isn't a coincidence that of the seven accused medics, five are women and the only one acquitted is one of the two men (Dr. Zdravko Georgiev). Witchhunts in Europe also targeted mainly women. It seems that cultures repressing sexuality tend to see something satanic in women. This applies not only to young attractive women but also to others who aren't much of a temptation, so this phenomenon is puzzling to me. Possibly someone else could try to clarify it.
The impact of racism and xenophobia is easier to explain. They had been inherent to human even before he evolved into human proper and although restrained today, they are still here and raise their ugly heads every time when something bad happens. Earlier this year, Atanas Predov, a Bulgarian guest worker in Spain, died of methanol intoxication. His relations didn't believe this to be the cause and requested an autopsy which revealed that both kidneys were missing. It was concluded they had been taken for illegal transplantation and this had caused the man's death (source e.g. http://www.sofiadnes.com/modules.php?m=news&nid=24783 in Bulgarian, http://p083.ezboard.com/Bulgarian-Victim-of-Criminal-Organ-Removal-in-Spain/fbalkansfrm11.showMessage?topicID=1325.topic in English). Significantly, no one of the Bulgarian comments I've seen questions the idea that Spanish doctors kidnap Bulgarians from the street and kill them by removing their kidneys for transplantation. In the early 1990s, many Bulgarians objected foreign adoptions out of fear that the children would be used as organ donors. A Bulgarian journalist, mentioning that such fears are popular in many countries despite the absence of proven cases, described this is a modern technological version of an immortal myth - that our children are kidnapped or killed by foreigners. Indeed, the parents of at least two missing Bulgarian children believe, without any serious reason, that the children have been kidnapped and taken abroad (you can read about one of the victims at http://savestin.exactpages.com/).
Taking the above into account, imagine how bad could the situation be in Libya, where the Others are all the time demonized by the official religion. Indeed, one of the reasons why I hate Islam is that it uses, and enhances in order to use, every single built-in defect of human nature. To help the demonization, Libyan prosecutors have accused the Bulgarians also in illicit sexual relationships, distilling alcohol, drinking alcohol in public and illegally transacting in foreign currency. To the Western mind, it seems absurd that additional minor charges are allowed to obscure such a grave case. However, within the if-it-moves-forbid-it Koranic philosophy these charges are not minor. As an anonymous commentor explained at http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/11/alfa-roma.html, a woman wishing to have sex with a man other than her husband is not a human sinner but a monster able to do a first-degree child murder or any other outrage without even hesitating. The currency transaction seems to imply a violation of the Koranic ban on interest and prove that the accused are extremely greedy people able to do everything for money.
The belief of so many Libyans that the accused medics deliberately infected their patients does more than moving the anger away from Qaddafi's health care establishment. It affects the collective Libyan psyche. Without this belief, the siblings and classmates of the infected children would vow to become AIDS researchers and find a cure; instead, now parents are vowing to join al-Qaeda and seek revenge. Such pledges reveal what is going on in people's heads and for that reason, although very unlikely to be fulfilled, may help us predict the future.
2) Libyans trying/pretending to believe
While many Libyans sincerely believe the official story about the Benghazi epidemic, many others just try to convince others, and usually also themselves, that they believe it. Of course, trying to accept something you don't really think means personality split. I've mentioned that not only patients with schizophrenia but also most of the so-called normal people are a combination of two or more incompatible personalities. You don't agree? Haven't you asked yourself why you so often cannot predict how a well-known person will behave in a certain situation? This is because, even if you have been around him for 20 years, you have no way to know which of his personalities you'll be dealing with. But let's return to the question why Libyans claim and try to believe in intentional infection.
Compassion is a burden for the soul. Therefore, if a person is suffering and we cannot (easily) help him, we tend to brush compassion off by convincing ourselves that he brought it upon himself. In other words, we are inclined to blame the victim. E.g. when some years ago in my city a 16-yr old girl was shot dead by a policeman as she was leaving a bar with her boyfriend, a surprising number of people reacted by saying that good girls don't go to bars. In the Libyan HIV case, I am sure that if the infected patients were adults, much more time would pass before linking them to the hospital. Everybody would think they had contracted the disease by illegal sex or drug use. But because children are infected, and infected not by HIV-positive promiscuous mothers but by medical procedures, the Libyan society has to feel compassion for the children and their families. This is already a burden. It would be too much of a burden to pity, apart from the children, also a bunch of tortured and gravely accused foreigners. So people feel better to think that the defendants are guilty. And logically, the more abuse and undue imprisonment the medics are forced to endure, the stronger will be the psychological need of ordinary Libyans to consider them guilty.
In fact, subjects of a dictatorship tend to blame every victim of the regime. When the Communist rule in Bulgaria was dismantled in 1989 and we first enjoyed freedom of speech, I was surprised to see how many Bulgarians believed in the guilt of political prisoners. (In fact, there had never been a strong anti-Communist opposition in Bulgaria and most "political prisoners" were jailed for offences such as wearing a wrong kind of clothes, speaking Western languages, listening to the BBC, telling quite innocent jokes about the regime and the dictator, or for nothing at all.) My friend explained this widespread opinion. She said, "People just feel compelled, after not entreating for the prisoners, to believe in their guilt." I replied, "But who would dare to entreat? We had justified fears for our own safety!" My friend said, "Few can think like you, because people hate regarding themselves as cowards." I call this phenomenon "survivor syndrome". It surely helps people to live under a dictator without feeling depressed all the time, but slows recovery after the dictator is toppled. The survivor syndrome means that the more atrocities a dictator does, the stronger will be the motivation for his (surviving) people to whitewash him and blame his victims. We are observing this very clearly in Iraq.
There is also another, more noble reason for Libyans to convince themselves in the medics' guilt. This is the sense of solidarity with the parents of the infected children and the wish to believe everything they say. Let me discuss this important issue in more detail. The initial article in the La magazine cited a number of parents who accused the hospital staff in rudeness and incompetence but expressed no suspicion of malicious intent, neither pointed to medics of a particular nationality. Of course the parents, most of whom had accompanied their children at the hospital, shouldn't believe very easily in the official version. E.g. some of them are likely to know that their children haven't been treated by any of the accused medics (the defense team revealed that such infected children exist by simply comparing the dates when the patients were treated at the hospital and the dates when the defendants were on duty). However, at a later stage the parents very actively supported the version of intentional infection and called for death penalty and huge compensations. Of course some of them, desperately needing somebody(anybody) to blame for their tragedy, found relief in seeking revenge against the accused, while others, even if not quite believing, would want the Bulgarians sentenced in order to receive compensations from Bulgaria (or its Western allies). These parents have every reason to think that Qaddafi will not agree to give money for their children and they have more chance to get the sums needed for treatment from a foreign source. They cannot think too much of justice and abstract truth and so on, the need of their infected child comes first.
After a court session last August when none of the defense witnesses appeared (I've blogged about this at http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2006/09/nothing-new-in-libya.html), Idris Laga, father of an infected child and chairman of an association of parents of the infected children, was delighted about the witnesses' absence and said it proved the prosecution thesis was correct. A more sophisticated person would express regret that the witnesses hadn't appeared to say their phony testimony and have it disproved, but we must be glad that Mr. Laga said what he said, because his words show us something important: the parents of the infected children aren't interested in fair trial and disclosing the truth, on the contrary, they will make every effort to obscure it. After de Oliveira et al. published their article in Nature claiming that the epidemic started before the defendants arrived to the hospital, Mr. Laga stated that the scientists "were not authorized by the kids' legal guardians to obtain samples" (Suliman's comment at http://mayas-corner.blogspot.com/2007/01/what-made-libya-at-end-of-2006-similar.html). With other words, we won't allow blood samples to be taken from our children because their analysis could prove somebody not guilty and so make his execution more difficult!
The cynic would also mention that the guardians (most likely the parents) seem too well informed about their rights for people fresh out of a dictatorship, so hasn't anybody instructed them? Indeed, in the above lines, I portrayed the parents as free people acting on their own free will, which is hardly justified. Remember the mother who allegedly saw nurse "Sanjaka" inject her boy (http://anglolibyan.blogspot.com/2007/03/wisams-story.html)? Let me cite the comment of Libyan-American Hannu, mother of four: "I am very skeptical of the story and the extent of truth in it. First, the fact that it was published in a Libyan newspaper takes away from its credibility. I got to the part "... when I saw with my own eyes Sanjaka injecting a syringe in to my son's drip..." and that's where I realized the Libyan propaganda behind the story... It is a fact that some of those families are being coaxed by the Libyan authorities to lie and distort things in exchange of false never-fulfilled promises. Who's to blame them!" Mickey Grant, who made a video about the case, has first-hand information that the families are indeed coaxed: "No journalist I know of has ever been allowed to do real interviews with the families of the children. I went to Rome where many of the children were being treated for that purpose and I found that the only way the families could participate in an interview was if a Libyan Agent was present and they were too scared to do that." (http://anglolibyan.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-is-real-number-of-libyas-aids.html; there you can see the video, too).
Some Libyans may think that while it is unfortunate that innocent people have been abused by the Libyan state the way they were, it is a good thing to force the West to pay for the children's treatment (especially after the Libyan government seems reluctant to pay). Indeed, demanding ransom after taking hostages is a much more reliable way to obtain money than appealing to people's humane feelings. However, what might benefit the families (because, while much of the money will surely go astray, some will serve its purpose) is a long-term PR disaster for Libya. I don't think that in our globalizing world somebody can afford not to care what others think of him. "How many Arabs does it take to change a light bulb? None. Arabs just sit in the dark and blame it on the Jews. Same thing with the HIV infection, but this time they blame foreign medics." This is the best of several samples of the "war declared on Libyans on the Internet", cited by AngloLibyan (http://anglolibyan.blogspot.com/2007/02/who-is-michael-sheilds.html). What should be more worrying for Libyans than these Web insults (apparently work of Bulgarian teenagers) is what adults are thinking, typically without saying it in public. The whole affair reinforced one of the worst steretypes about Arab Muslims - that they contact Westerners mainly in order to extort money from them at any cost. I advise Libyans always to stick to the claim that the demand to Bulgaria/West to pay for the children's treatment is solely Q-man's policy never approved by the majority of Libyans. Without true opinion polls, nobody can ever prove the opposite. Those who make voluntary fund-raising campaigns for the children should never imply that the West has any responsibility for the children's plight, either by conspiracy to infect them or by sanctions. Instead, a point should be made that these children are innocent victims of Qaddafi's health care system which, after allowing them to be infected in the first place, now refuses them adequate treatment, although Libya has enough money to afford it (esp. after lifting the sanctions).
And last, after discussing the most noble reason for Libyans to claim to believe Qaddafi's story, let me mention the least noble one: Islamism, i.e. taking to heart the Koran's demand to force Islam down the throats of non-Muslims. While Islam makes a person prone to sincerely believing bad things about the Others, Islamism includes deliberate lying in an effort to denigrate the enemies and so obscure their evident moral superiority. After the Islamists blame the West for their own crimes (Sept. 11) and for natural disasters (the tsunami), how could they resist to blame it for a man-made AIDS epidemic? Among the Libyan diaspora, I've observed almost 100% correlation between expressing firm belief in the medics' guilt and being Islamist (I prefer not to give links, because the aim of this post is not to attack my opponents personally). Within Libya, Islamism doesn't seem very popular... with one important exception: the city of Benghazi.
As I mentioned before in Part 2, strong feelings against the Qaddafi's regime existed in Benghazi even before the epidemic and were reinforced by it. However, the Q-man handled the crisis in a way I reluctantly admire. Knowing well the Islamists' minds, he knew that they were hating him but were hating much more the white infidels, especially the women (similarly to the Iraqi Islamists who, while disliking Saddam, love to hate America and its supporters). All he needed to do was to divert the anger and hate to appropriate objects. After that, interviewed ordinary Benghazeeans praised the Leader for helping the infected children receive justice and not caving in under Western pressure. Of course they couldn't say in front of the camera that they hate Qaddafi, but I had the feeling that the praise was at least 70% sincere.
This is why I am angry at the Benghazi residents. Unwilling or unable to use properly their brains because of heavy Islamist prejudice, they wasted their courage in vain and achieved less than nothing. Instead of being real danger or at least a thorn in the ass for Qaddafi, they became useful pawns in his game. When criticized by Westerners, he can always point at them and say, "You may dislike me but do you see the alternative? People ready to torch buildings because of a cartoon, people whose most cherished dream is to resurrect the 7th century." In the case of the AIDS outbreak, Qaddafi is responsible (though indirectly) but he manipulated the Benghazeeans so successfully that now he is more popular among them than before! Like an Iraqi who admires Saddam despite having a brother killed by the regime (linked and discussed by Sandmonkey at http://www.sandmonkey.org/2007/02/02/lmao/), Benghazi residents now admire the true murderer of their children. Indeed, Qaddafi gained so much from the whole affair that some Libyan expatriates, following the "Who benefits from this?" logic useful in disclosing many crimes, suspect that he caused the Benghazi epidemic intentionally, with or without the accused medics' participation!
I wouldn't want to end this post with such a bleak picture, but so be it, for even the worst truth is better than false hopes. In conclusion, I'd advise Libyans, when going to a hospital for intravenous injections, to ask what syringes and needles they'll need and buy them beforehand. And of course also to use condoms when making unauthorized love.
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