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Made by: Sarah Marino and Dejan Zivkovic

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Description: This website explains each way faith healing is used. It goes on to explain each way, and explains why it does not work.

Connection: The connection in this website is mystical energy, the site goes on to explain each of the ways faith healing was used to “heal” people. It also goes on to explain how each of those don’t have any science to back up the claims. The other connection is confirmation bias, this is used to persuade others into joining as word of mouth will travel faster than scientific research. They go and use these claims of how people were cured, using people that were in the audience that had seen the event to collect confirmations about these events.

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Faith healing is based on belief and is about as far as you can get from science-based medicine, but it is not exempt from science. If it really worked, science would be able to document its cures and would be the only reliable way to validate its effectiveness. Miraculous cures continue to be reported on a regular basis: what are we to make of them? In the Healing Rooms Ministry of Bethel Church in Redding, California, people regularly claim to be healed of cancer, broken bones, multiple sclerosis and many other ailments. Page after page of testimonials of cures are listed on their website. Are these cures real? If not, what is going on?

Amanda Winters, a journalist doing a series of articles on Bethel Church, interviewed me for a scientific view of these faith healings. She asked me some very incisive questions and understood my answers. She wrote what I thought was a balanced article, quoting me fairly and at more length than reporters usually allow.

Her article features a patient who believed his flat feet would be healed (bones would crack and form an arch). Healers poked him, blew a shofar at his feet, and covered him with a blanket when he collapsed on the floor. When he got up, his feet were unchanged. But

his faith was not shaken, he said, because he felt so loved and maybe the physical healing was secondary to the spiritual experience he had.

Multiple sclerosis healed

One impressive testimonial was of a woman who had had multiple sclerosis for 30 years and whose symptoms and impairments apparently vanished during a healing session. The reporter asked me what I thought of the situation and the testimony. What medical, scientific explanations could there be for the perceived healing?

In the first place, stories like these are notoriously unreliable. They are layman's testimonials that amount to nothing but hearsay. How can we know they were not invented, exaggerated, misunderstood, or otherwise misrepresented? They fall far short of the kind of case reports that are published in medical journals with x-ray, lab and other documentation and the opportunity for peer review.

In the second place, multiple sclerosis is a notorious quack magnet because its symptoms come and go erratically. It is a disease with a wide variety of symptoms. It is characterized by remissions and exacerbations: to make the diagnosis you have to show that the symptoms go away and come back over time. It is very difficult to tell if any treatment has "worked" or if the disease was simply following its natural course and happened to be improving on its own at that time. We don't have any objective report from a doctor about this patient's condition before and after the "healing" episode. Some of the improvement could have been because she was trying harder: muscle strength is particularly effort-dependent. We don't know what happened after the "healing" or how long the improvement lasted.

There are many, many similar reports where follow-up found the patients still just as sick or worse off. Patients who "get up and walk" may not be healed. In one unfortunate case a woman was encouraged to get up out of her wheelchair and discard her braces at church. The faith healer proclaimed her "healed." Unfortunately her cancer of the spine had weakened her bones, and the activity caused bones in her spine to collapse; she died not long after. The faith healing hastened her death and caused her unnecessary agony. For the faith healer and the witnesses at church and for the patient herself that day, it appeared to be a miraculous healing: they couldn't have been more wrong! Incidentally, many of the faith healing patients who get up out of a wheelchair and walk had actually walked into church and had been offered wheelchairs they didn't really need.

Cancer cures

The reporter asked me about a woman with brain cancer who was healed and a subsequent doctor's visit showed the brain cancer was gone. Are there cases of cancer where it simply goes away?

There are cases of spontaneous remission but they are rare. There are other explanations that are more likely. Many "cancer cure" claims involve cases that were never proven to be cancer by biopsy. This story is particularly unbelievable because the "healing" supposedly relieved her tunnel vision and then produced a discharge from the ear. The vision and ear parts of the brain are in different locations - where was her tumor supposed to be? One report I saw on the website (not sure if it was the same patient) reported that the size of the tumor had decreased but it had not gone away. Release of liquid and a lesion that became smaller sounds more like some kind of cyst or abscess might have spontaneously drained. Where are the medical reports? Where are the x-rays? Why was this case not written up in a medical journal? What happened to the patient afterwards? There are too many unanswered questions for anyone to even make an educated guess.

Many years ago the Journal of the American Medical Association used to have a regular feature where there would be a testimonial on one page describing how a patient was cured of cancer. On the opposite page, they would print the patient's death certificate showing that he had died of that cancer shortly after providing the testimonial.

The explanations for most alleged cancer cures are:

1. The patient never had cancer. (Was a biopsy done?)

2. A cancer was cured or put into remission by proven therapy, but questionable therapy was also used and erroneously credited for the beneficial result.

3. The cancer is progressing but is erroneously represented as slowed or cured.

4. The patient has died as a result of the cancer (or is lost to follow-up) but is represented as cured.

5. The patient had a spontaneous remission (very rare) or slow-growing cancer that is publicized as a cure.

Raising the dead?

Bethel even reports resurrections: one patient began to move shortly after she was declared dead, and she made a full recovery. This is uncritically accepted as a triumph of prayer and faith healing, without even considering other possible explanations. Which is more likely: that the doctor who declared her dead made a mistake or that a dead person returned to life? I know which I would bet on.

One of their students has formed a Dead Raising Team that is attempting to help the police in Mason County, Washington in cases of accident or fatality. The manager of the county Department of Emergency Management reports there have been no resurrections so far.

Bethel is part of a larger movement known as the Word of Faith movement, which teaches that faith is a force through which anything can be done. They believe they can train people in the supernatural ministry and they can go out and heal people and raise the dead. Other Christian denominations condemn this as a false teaching, because in the Bible healing ability was limited to Jesus and the apostles.

Their questionable claims are not limited to healing. They say angel feathers have floated down into their church. Ornithologists identified these as common bird feathers. They say diamonds and gold dust have also mysteriously appeared.

The evidence for faith healing

There are lots of reports describing the emperor's new clothes, but investigations consistently show he is naked. There is a good review of faith healing on Quackwatch. When faith healings have been diligently investigated by qualified doctors, they have found no evidence that the patients were actually helped in any objective sense. Even at Lourdes, the Catholic Church has only recognized 4 cures since 1978, out of 5 million people who seek healing there every year.

There simply is no evidence that faith healing heals. Not what science considers evidence. And the true believers don't value evidence or the scientific method: for them, belief is enough.

The psychology of belief

Winters asked about healers who "feel someone else's pain" and are led to a patient because God tells them words like "baby" and "blue" and "foot" and they use those correlations to find a baby with a foot problem and some association with the color blue who needs healing. What could cause someone to feel a pain they believe isn't theirs? Are there neurological reasons why someone could think they hear prophetic words that are from God?

People have wonderful imaginations, and they are great at finding patterns, real and unreal. They can find ways to connect words to a patient, just as they can see the Virgin Mary on a toasted cheese sandwich, just as numerologists can find imaginary connections everywhere. People can convince themselves of almost anything if they want to believe. There are neurologic conditions that make people hyper-religious. Temporal lobe epilepsy can present as a religious experience. Experiments with magnets have created religious-like experiences of a higher presence. And hallucinations are not uncommon even in normal people. According to one study, 39% of people report having experienced hallucinations when they were neither sick nor on drugs. There are even mass hallucinations where one or a few people insist they are seeing something that is not there and they get a whole group of people to believe they can see it too.

These faith healings are never documented properly or investigated, because the people involved want to believe, need to believe. If you challenge the pastor to participate in a formal study to establish that these healings are really occurring, you will get lots of rationalizations and backpedalling with no understanding of how science can go about testing for the truth of a claim. They have no interest in finding out if the healing is "real" because they already "know" it is real for them. (Winters' article confirmed my prediction: she says the pastor "doesn't feel he needs to provide any documentation or hard evidence to inquiring minds. He also said he doesn't check up on people who come to Bethel for healing - he doesn't have the time.") Some people who have had recurrences of cancer after faith healing have continued to claim that they were "healed" in some nebulous psychological or spiritual sense even though they know they are dying.

For more insight into the psychology behind faith healing, see this article from the Skeptic's Dictionary.

Faith healers run the gamut from cynical con artists to well-intentioned but self-deluded true believers, with some in the middle who know they are cheating but whose exposure to grateful patients allows them to convince themselves there is something happening beyond the con. "Healing" may not mean objective cure of physical disease; it may mean a subjective feeling of wellbeing or a coming to terms with a disease.

Faith healing can comfort, but it can also cause suffering if patients believe a failure to heal was their fault due to insufficient faith. It can be deadly when patients are led to believe they don't need conventional medical treatment.

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Faith healing is based on belief and is about as far as you can get from science-based medicine, but it is not exempt from science. If it really worked, science would be able to document its cures and would be the only reliable way to validate its effectiveness.

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Description: This picture is to inform people about the advantages of homeopathy. They list each principal of homeopathy, but don't describe any of them.

Connection: Confusion of correlation with causation, using these “scientific” words with no proof or scientific meaning behind them. Another red flag is all natural, it goes on to explain that only using one ingredient at a time will provide the best cures without entering any scientific background (simplex).

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Description: This website lists the different scams that have formed around the pseudoscience topic 'brain gym'. They list different education methods that are used, and some even cure disease.

Connection: Ideological support is a key part to funding these endeavors, as a large majority of the people are teachers. This works as the students are young and are susceptible to naive belief. The parents may see a grade getting better, but it may be a list of development goals that children experience along the way that are scientifically explained already. Appeal to authority is also found in this website as some of the articles are seen to include studies from doctors and other sources. These could be found false as the studies are not clinical trials.

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Alternative medicine on the NHS?

Ben Goldacre
Thursday February 12, 2004
The Guardian

Â· Well, last week's chemicals with rude names certainly tapped a rich seam. There are some species names that Carl Linnaeus would have been proud of. So, it's hard to imagine the story behind how we ended up with a leiodid beetle "Colon rectum", let alone the scarab "Enema pan". Linnaeus himself named a pink-flowered butterfly pea "Clitoria mariana", presumably after a special friend, as well as calling a stinkhorn "Phallus". Someone somewhere is a big fan of the Sex Pistols, as well as trilobytes, calling a group of them Arcticalymene viciousi, A rotteni, A jonesi, A cooki & A matlocki, Agra vation (beetle), Lalapa lusa (tiphiid wasp), and back to the 80s with Aha ha (sphecid wasp). Whoever said scientists were boring?

Â· Meanwhile, the Sunday Express continues fearlessly to rewrite the science books. "Disogenine is an element," Hilary Douglas says, "that can be turned into cortisone, oestrogen, or progesterone." You can get it from dried yams. Bear with me. Synthetic chemicals, apparently, are "invasive", not half as good for you as "natural" progesterone, which she seems to imagine your body could distinguish from the effectively identical progesterone in HRT pills. Vegetables are "very alkali", which is apparently a good thing because acid sounds bad, I guess. Apparently, these "very alkali" vegetables will have some kind of beneficial effect on the movement of calcium across bone cell membrane. Oestrogen will weaken bones, rather than the other way round...and why do I care? Because this newspaper hangs its lead editorial, demanding funding for expensive alternative therapies on the NHS, on this meandering litany of half-truths and fantastical misunderstandings. The day that serious government health policy is influenced by such works of fantasy...Blair guru Carole Caplin in the Mail on Sunday continues her campaign against EU plans to force alternative therapy peddlers to put proper ingredients labels on its products and get licences for the dangerous ones. Be afraid.

Â· But, the smiling face of a cheeky kid shines like a ray of sunshine into these dark days: "I'd like to submit the revision advice of my teacher. She claims that because the brain works by transmitting electricity through water, drinking more water will improve mental performance." Sounds like those www.braingym.org pseudoscientists are taking in gullible teachers again. The joy of science: you don't have to be big to be clever.

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goldacre bad science nutrition nutritionism nutritionists nutritionist media pseudoscience gillian mckeith patrick holford mmr health scare medicine homeopathy homeopaths postmodernism alternative therapy therapies complementary hettie brain gym detox cosmetics evidence based medicine magnets mrsa phd kapferer statistics

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Alternative medicine on the NHS? Ben Goldacre Thursday February 12, 2004 The Guardian Â· Well, last week's chemicals with rude names certainly tapped a rich seam. There are some species names that Carl Linnaeus would have been proud of.

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Description: This video gives insight on how electrotherapy was used in the late 1800's. It also explains how we use this old technology to save lives. In addition, it shows how we are continuing to use this method for pain relief.

Connection: The first red flag that I see is ancient wisdom, as they had used these methods in the 1800’s it is still used today in practice, although making for mostly negative outcomes. The other red flag is appeal to authority. Doctors who prescribe this alternative therapy may be wanting to mask the pain but it does help with the actual problem.

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Victorian Pseudosciences: Shocking People Back to Health

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As 18th-century science and medicine brought properties of electricity to light, some Victorian doctors decided that putting sick people in a bathtub and shocking them might be a good idea. Want more SciShow in person? We'll be at NerdCon: Nerdfighteria in Boston on February 25th and 26th!

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Description: This video explains an old medicine that was used to cure syphilis in the early 1900’s. Pyrotherapy was used on an abundance of patients by raising the body's temperature and defeating the infection. The problem was pyrotherapy was inconsistent and dangerous. By using malaria and forcing a fever it worked on half the patients.

Connection: Appeal to authority is a big part in this, as he was a doctor. In addition he had used these experiments without the authority of the patient. All natural is another red flag since he had used the malaria virus and had injected people with the disease.

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Pyrotherapy: An Awful Nobel Prize for Infecting People with Malaria

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1. I was surprised by the amount of people who believe in medical pseudosciences, especially since they can be harmful. Not all of it is harmful (such as the crystal healing), but a lot of it can be dangerous when proper research isn't done. Some people distrust modern science because they don't do apply critical thinking and take any random article at face value. I hope that people become much more aware of the articles they see on the internet, and decide to apply critical thinking to what they read.
2. The topic of medical pseudoscience is actually very personal to me, as my mother is the type to believe this stuff (We actually just had an argument about it. She still hasn't changed her mind, which is very frustrating). My mother didn't believe in medical pseudosciences until recently. I think it's because she has had so many negative experiences that she is starting to distrust a lot of doctors. Combine this with the fact that she doesn't do proper research after reading an article on Facebook and only seeing opinions from people who believe in medical pseudoscience, she's become very close-minded. It's really sad to see, especially when it's family. Mob mentality is a huge problem in the pseudoscience community.
3. Personally, I found the history to be the most interesting. I like knowing how medicine has developed over the years, and learning about where these medical pseudosciences originated from. I'm glad I live in an age where we are very technically advanced. The rapid advance in technology has helped us build resistance to deadly illnesses, and gives us a higher success rate when performing medical operations.
4. I'm most likely to remember the dangers from my research. Health isn't something to mess around and take risks with. Although there are some harmless medical pseudosciences like the crystal healing, there are plenty of dangerous ones. These dangers don't just apply to the believer, it can affect their families, such as a child's death if the parent(s) distrust modern medicine. It can also affect other people who may be naive and believe these sorts of things.
5.  The most harmful pseudoscience is medical pseudoscience. When people start to believe the first medical article they see without doing any research on it, then they start to post it across the internet and other people fall for it, it becomes a very dangerous situation. People can die as a result of ignorance and close-mindedness. One of the most well-known examples is the anti-vaccination movement. It was started all because one guy wanted to make a bunch of money off of false information. Now, because of him, children and elderly are dying because parents refuse to vaccinate their children, and people with weaker immune systems can't handle the spread of disease from those children, who can't handle it themselves either.
The least harmful would be the belief in aliens and paranormal pseudosciences. Most of the believers are children who are curious about our world and the universe, and they have very active/creative imaginations. It's not just children either, some adults believe in it too, but it isn't doing any harm. It can also be fun to read about the experiences other people have had, even if you don't believe in it.
6. The most important message to pass on is DO NOT fall for phony information. Do as much research as possible, keep an open-mind, and whatever you choose to believe, make sure you have facts and scientific proof to form valid opinions. There is nothing more frustrating than arguing with someone who can't explain why they believe what they believe, and are so close-minded to information that they don't agree with. (Sorry for the length of this post. I have very strong opinions on this).

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Description: This video talks about some of the medical practices used many centuries ago. These practices are not used anymore as we have advanced technology now, but back then people really believed this  would help.
Connection: Ancient wisdom is a very big red flag, as these were old practices that could be dangerous, and do more harm than good (such as blood-letting). Another example could potentially be appeal to authority. Back then these practices were encouraged by doctors, which could lead many to believe these treatments actually worked.

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5 Ancient Medical Practices -- Thought Glass #6

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Description: This photo shows pressure points used in acupuncture, a form of relieving pain by sticking pins into the body.
Connection: The red flags connected to this photo are ancient wisdom, and mystical energy. Acupuncture was practiced by the Chinese centuries ago, and is a part of Traditional Chinese Medicine. It focused on a humans "Qi", which they believed to be a life force energy. People still believe acupuncture helps, even though there is no scientific proof that it will help relieve pain, and there is also no science proving the existence of Qi.

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Description: This photo shows different types of crystals used in crystal healing. Crystal healing involves the use of different crystals to help cure anxiety, improve love life, or other various topics. Each crystal supposedly does something different, but there is no scientific proof to back this up.
Connection: Crystal healing is tied to the red flag mystical energy. Crystal healing focuses on different chakra's people believe to have. Chakra is known as an energy that flows through ones spiritual body. A person would use different crystals depending on the chakra they want to focus on. There is no scientific proof, proving that crystals are effective.

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Description: This website talks about something known as "Oil Pulling" This is a pseudoscience I've never heard of until now, but it claims to improve oral hygiene. A person is supposed to swish an oil (such as coconut oil) inside the mouth for 5-20 minutes, then spit out. The benefits of this range from whitening teeth, to treating tooth decay and preventing cavities (the website also mentions it prevents heart disease, which is weird). There is no scientific evidence backing this up.
Connection: Oil pulling is connected to the red flag ancient wisdom. Oil pulling comes from Ancient Ayurvedic Medicine, which comes from India. It became popular recently through the internet when the alleged benefits were spread across the net. There aren't any proper sources to back these claims up, as there haven't been enough studies done on it

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In the final article in the Bad Science series, we examine oil pulling. Is it a miracle cure, snake oil or harmless?

What is oil pulling?
Image: ©Tempura/iStock/Getty Images Plus
This is the practice of swirling oil around your mouth and then spitting it out. It usually involves coconut oil, sunflower oil or sesame seed oil. Rinsing should be continued for perhaps 5 to 20 minutes, so that the edible oil is pulled through the teeth and mouth.
Where does the practice of oil pulling come from?
A traditional remedy originated from traditional Ayurvedic medicine in India. It has become popular after its benefits were extolled online. Promoters say the oil pulls out toxins, which are known as 'ama' in Ayurvedic medicine.
What are the reputed benefits of oil pulling?
Various websites advocate coconut oil pulling as an effective way to whiten teeth and remove bacteria. Some advocates online suggest it can treat tooth decay, kill bad breath, heal bleeding gums, prevent cavities and even prevent heart disease. There is a book, entitled Oil pulling therapy, that promises it exerts a powerful cleansing and healing effect on the mouth and sinuses and the rest of the body.
Is there evidence for oil pulling offering benefits to dental hygiene?
There are plenty of testimonials available online from people who praise its use, but scientific evidence is lacking. One recent review found that oil pulling might be as effective as chlorhexidine mouthwash in reducing plaque. First study author, Oghenekome Gbinigie at the Centre for Evidence-based Medicine, University of Oxford, UK, said: 'At present there isn't enough information about the benefits and potential harms of oil pulling to help us decide whether or not we should take on daily oil pulling, in addition to tooth brushing.'

Another review looked at the oil pulling literature and identified 21 studies, but concluded that only six had proper study design. The reviewer concluded that the studies were unreliable, sometimes due to poor study design or small sample science. There is a need for bigger trials, of longer duration and of high quality.
Are there potential downsides for patients using oil pulling?
There are few reported side effects from oil pulling, but some have drawn attention to case reports of lipoid pneumonia associated with oil pulling or mineral oil aspiration. Upset stomach has also been reported. More trial data are required to provide evidence of possible side effects.
Is oil pulling an alternative to brushing or other dental hygiene practices?
Though some oil pulling advocates say it can be used instead of tooth brushing, many say it should be used together with regular dental hygiene practices. There is no evidence to support it as a substitute to tooth brushing. The American Dental Association has stated that there is insufficient research to support the practice of oil pulling.
Can oil pulling be labelled as pseudoscience?
The author of the book Oil pulling therapy, Bruce Fife, says it can help with allergies, asthma, chronic fatigue, diabetes and migraine headaches. Others say it can improve acne, strengthen gums and jaws and heal bleeding gums. The expansiveness of the claims seems suspicious.

"Many of these reputed benefits reek of pseudoscience quackery of the worse kind, promising exceptional health benefits without scientific evidence to support them..."

There is no evidence that oil pulling can prevent cavities, detoxify the body, strengthen teeth, treat cancer or reduce headaches, despite such claims made online. Many of these reputed benefits reek of pseudoscience quackery of the worse kind, promising exceptional health benefits without scientific evidence to support them.

Whether the practice of oil pulling can make a positive contribution to good dental hygiene is uncertain. A recent review suggested that it may have beneficial effects in dental hygiene, but requires more rigorous and better reported clinical trials.

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In the final article in the Bad Science series, we examine oil pulling. Is it a miracle cure, snake oil or harmless? What is oil pulling? Image: ©Tempura/iStock/Getty Images Plus This is the practice of swirling oil around your mouth and then spitting it out.