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Post #10  Critical Thinking Process Question Responses (Word Document)

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Post #10  Critical Thinking Process Question Responses (Word Document)

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Post #9: Reason for Belief  Agenticity (Article)

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Post #9: Reason for Belief  Agenticity (Article)

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Definition:
The tendency for people to attribute unexplained patterns to 'agents,' generally of a higher power for example aliens, angels, demons, deities, the universe etc.
Connection:
This article explains how paternicity and agenticity go hand in hand, and why the human brain trends towards both. There are also a few examples of common agenticity that have nothing to do with aliens or religion but still lack scientific claim, such as children adding a smiley face when they draw a sun, or transplant patients believing their new organ will bring with it a new personality.

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A Skeptic's take on souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens and other invisible powers that be

By Michael Shermer

Souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens, intelligent designers, government conspirators, and all manner of invisible agents with power and intention are believed to haunt our world and control our lives. Why?

The answer has two parts, starting with the concept of "patternicity," which I defined in my December 2008 column as the human tendency to find meaningful patterns in meaningless noise. Consider the face on Mars, the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, satanic messages in rock music. Of course, some patterns are real. Finding predictive patterns
in changing weather, fruiting trees, migrating prey animals and hungry predators was central to the survival of Paleolithic hominids.

The problem is that we did not evolve a baloney-detection device in our brains to discriminate between true and false patterns. So we make two types of errors: a type I error, or false positive, is believing a pattern is real when it is not; a type II error, or false negative, is not believing a pattern is real when it is. If you believe that the rustle in the grass is a dangerous predator when it is just the wind (a type I error), you are more likely to survive than if you believe that the rustle in the grass is just the wind when it is a dangerous predator (a type II error). Because the cost of making a type I error is less than the cost of making a type II error and because there is no time for careful deliberation between patternicities in the split-second world of predator-prey interactions, natural selection would have favored those animals most likely to assume that all patterns are real.

But we do something other animals do not do. As large-brained hominids with a developed cortex and a theory of mind-the capacity to be aware of such mental states as desires and intentions in both ourselves and others-we infer agency behind the patterns we observe in a practice I call "agenticity": the tendency to believe that the world is controlled by invisible intentional agents. We believe that these intentional agents control the world, sometimes invisibly from the top down (as opposed to bottom-up causal randomness). Together patternicity and agenticity form the cognitive basis of shamanism, paganism, animism, polytheism, monotheism, and all modes of Old and New Age spiritualisms.

Agenticity carries us far beyond the spirit world. The Intelligent Designer is said to be an invisible agent who created life from the top down. Aliens are often portrayed as powerful beings coming down from on high to warn us of our impending self-destruction. Conspiracy theories predictably include hidden agents at work behind the scenes, puppet masters pulling political and economic strings as we dance to the tune of the Bilderbergers, the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers or the Illuminati. Even the belief that government can impose top-down measures to rescue the economy is a form of agenticity, with President Barack Obama being touted as "the one" with almost messianic powers who will save us.

There is now substantial evidence from cognitive neuroscience that humans readily find patterns and impart agency to them, well documented in the new book SuperSense (HarperOne, 2009) by University of Bristol psychologist Bruce Hood. Examples: children believe that the sun can think and follows them around; because of such beliefs, they often add smiley faces on sketched suns. Adults typically refuse to wear a mass murderer's sweater, believing that "evil" is a supernatural force that imparts its negative agency to the wearer (and, alternatively, that donning Mr. Rogers's cardigan will make you a better person). A third of transplant patients believe that the donor's personality is transplanted with the organ. Genital-shaped foods (bananas, oysters) are often believed to enhance sexual potency. Subjects watching geometric shapes with eye spots interacting on a computer screen conclude that they represent agents with moral intentions.

"Many highly educated and intelligent individuals experience a powerful sense that there are patterns, forces, energies and entities operating in the world," Hood explains. "More important, such experiences are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence, which is why they are supernatural and unscientific. The inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense."

We are natural-born supernaturalists.
Note: This article was originally published with the title, "Agenticity".
This article was originally published with the title "Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World" in Scientific American Magazine Vol. 300 No. 6 ()

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Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World

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A Skeptic's take on souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens and other invisible powers that be

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Post #8: Reason for Belief Perception/observation (ideo)

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Post #8: Reason for Belief Perception/observation (ideo)

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Definition:
Memories and beliefs are built off of what we experience and perceive, but perception is not always accurate. People often miss things if they aren't looking for them, and therefore the recollection of those things will often be skewed.
Connection:
This short video tests your observation skills and proves that human eyes can't be trusted as much as we like to think. People tend to only believe what they see, but if what they see is wrong, what they believe will be as well.

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Post #7: Reason for Belief Patternicity (Image)

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Post #7: Reason for Belief Patternicity (Image)

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Definition:
Patternicity is the human brain's natural tendency to create meaning from meaningless noise or visuals.
Connection:
Most people look at this picture and instantly recognize the pattern of holes in the peppers as a face, even though they aren't faces. Some people choose to believe patternicity is a sign from the universe or a religious entity. For example, they may see the "scared faces" on this pepper and take it as a sign to not eat the pepper even though there is nothing wrong with it.

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Post #6: Red Flag Confusing Correlation with Causation (Video)

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Post #6: Red Flag Confusing Correlation with Causation (Video)

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Definition:
Causation is the reasoning behind an event, while correlation is when two things happen to co-inside but are unrelated; neither one causes the other. This red flag sometimes tries to convince people that one thing causes something else, when really it is just coincidence.
Connection:
This video briefly summarizes 6 different correlations that have been studied and may seem like causation, when really there isn't enough evidence to prove it.

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6 Bizarre Correlations | What the Stuff?!

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Post #5: Red Flag Ancient Wisdom (Image)

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Post #5: Red Flag Ancient Wisdom (Image)

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Definition:
The Ancient Wisdom red flag is used to suggest that something, generally a medical treatment, will work because it has been passed down through the ages. This way of thinking is illogical, as ancient medicine was much less effective than current techniques and technology.
Connection:
The following picture depicts the 7 chakras, or spiritual power centers, of the human body that must be in balance in order to lead a healthy life. For example if one has a headache, they would focus on clearing the "crown chakra." This concept originated in India between 1500 and 500 BC in a n old text called the Vedas, and is still used by many people today.

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Post #4 Red Flag: Appeal to Authority (Video) 

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Post #4 Red Flag: Appeal to Authority (Video) 

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Definition:
Appeal to Authority is a red flag in which a celebrity, an actor playing an expert, or an expert paid by the company lends the air of credibility to a product or service offered by the company even if the product is not of good quality.
Connection:
In this commercial, well known celebrity Tin Fey endorses Garnier hair dye. As a a rich actress, it is unlikely that she actually achieves her look through a 15$ hair product, however her name on the product convinces many that it is one of quality.

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Tina Fey - Garnier Fructis Commercial HD

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Post #3 Red Flag: All Natural (Website Page)

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Post #3 Red Flag: All Natural (Website Page)

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Definition:
The All Natural red flag is used to add credibility to a product or service, even though all natural doesn't always mean healthy or even safe. Many natural things are harmful for example mercury, poison ivy, bacterial infections.
Connection:
This post by Dr. Kat Day debunks the "all natural, and healthy" snack: apricot kernels. They are actually sold in several health food stores despite the fact that they can cause cyanide poisoning and should not be ingested in large (or even moderate) quantities.

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I'll admit, I'm no huge fan of 'alternative medicine', particularly the ones which have been thoroughly tested and shown over and over again to be entirely ineffective (yes homoeopathy, I'm looking at you).

At best these treatments don't work, and at worst they delay or even stop people getting the effective treatment they need. In fact, there's an even worse possibility: they stop people from people from giving their children the treatments they need.

Ok, if you're old enough to make decisions for yourself, and you've tried conventional medicine and it hasn't worked terribly well for your particular problem, and you've found that, say, acupuncture somehow does make your chronic back pain a bit better, even if it is just placebo effect, then hey, it's your money (just please don't recommend it to anyone else who hasn't checked out all their other options first, ok?) Also, please, please read this fantastic article which explains clearly what cancer is and what, crucially, it isn't.

But there has surely has to be a special corner of hell reserved for people who peddle so called 'cancer-cures'.

Medicine has moved on a lot in the last few decades. Advanced screening techniques and treatments mean that many cancers are no longer the death sentence they once were. 50% of people (in England and Wales) now survive cancer for ten years or more, which is double the figure 40 years ago. But it's easy for a well person to say 'cancer treatments'. They are not always quite so easy to get through. Cancer treatments - namely surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy - can be brutal and frequently come with a raft of unpleasant side-effects, particularly chemotherapy.

There are some people who decide that the cure is worse than the disease and personally, I think that's their choice to make. They should have the right to make that choice, so long as it's well-informed.

So long as it's well-informed.

But there are people out there who are making money from desperate cancer sufferers. They sell them ineffective treatments, discourage them (directly or indirectly) from seeking or accepting the treatment they really need, and sometimes even encourage those people to use toxic substances that are likely to actually cause even more harm.

People like Roger Shelley, owner and director of The Vitamin Service Ltd. Who has just been given a six-month suspended prison sentence and his company fined £10,000 for selling potentially toxic 'vitamins' he claimed could cure and prevent cancer.

In particular, he was selling apricot kernels, which he claimed contained a 'vitamin' called B17. There is no such vitamin. The chemical in question is something called amygdalin (sometimes also referred to as laetrile, although they are not quite the same thing). See the picture of it? See that CN group down at the bottom? That's a nitrile group. Potassium cyanide, the poison so beloved of crime writers, has the formula KCN, which is a compound made up of K⁺ and CN ⁻ ions. It's the cyanide ions, CN ⁻, that do the damage, by interfering catastrophically with the way the body uses oxygen. Now, nitriles (like amygdalin) don't usually give up their cyanide ions easily and so aren't, generally, anywhere near as toxic as compounds like potassium cyanide.

Unfortunately one of the enzymes in your small intestine helps to speed up the breakdown of amygdalin. Eating apricot kernels can cause severe toxicity and death due to cyanide poisoning. Yes, severe toxicity and death. Eating apricot kernels can kill you.

Before I cause mass panic I should probably point out that if you accidentally swallow one on a summer picnic, do not fear. It takes more than one to do any damage. The Food Standards Agency says it's safe to eat one apricot kernel a day (they're not saying you should, mind you).

The Vitamin Service was recommending that adults take 35 kernels every day. That IS enough to do damage. In fact, it's above the dose that the FSA highlights as causing severe symptoms. In this statement, they site a case (point 15) of a woman who ate 30 apricot kernels and was later found comatose.

Worse, The Vitamin Service were also recommending that children take 10 kernels a day, "to ward off cancer". For children, who have a smaller body mass than adults, even this smaller dose could be extremely dangerous.

Patients following The Vitamin Service's regime reported symptoms of dizziness and cogitative problems. Classic symptoms of cyanide poisoning. When they reported these symptoms they were advised to reduce the amount for a few days before increasing it again, because the symptoms were due to 'toxins'. Indeed they were, a toxic substance in the very products The Vitamin Service were selling.

To add insult to injury, they were charging in the region of £600 for these kernels along with a raft of other supplements they were recommending.

Shelly admitted to misleading customers and failing to warn them of the risks of B17. He has been given a six month suspended prison sentence, and his company is no longer selling apricot kernels as a cancer treatment. Which you'd think would be a good thing. Problem solved, no?

Just Google "B17 cancer" or "apricot kernels". There are dozens of sites out there promoting it as a cancer treatment, and many still selling products. I won't link to them here, I don't want to give them the traffic. But it's frightening. Please don't believe these people. Please listen to your doctors, the real ones, the ones who have studied for years to learn everything they can about medicines and illnesses, and who have sworn an oath to "do no harm".

There isn't an easy, painless, magical cure for the cancer that the pharmaceutical industry is hiding from us for some reason. We all wish there was, but there isn't. Cancer is horrible, but a lot of the time these days it's beatable with the right treatments. And for those, you need a qualified doctor.

This story was covered in detail on The One Show on BBC One, on Monday 4th February 2015. You can watch the clip here: start at about 4:30 minutes.

There is also an excellent, very easy to follow, summary of the use of laetrile on the charity Cancer Research UK's website. Read it here.

Finally, once again, if you're in the unfortunate position of having been diagnosed with cancer, please, please read this excellent article. It really does help to understand the importance of targeted treatment.

When I wrote this post I focused on the eating of actual apricot kernels, and Roger Shelley's conviction for selling them. It is worth pointing out that although apricot kernels definitely contain amygdalin, it's impossible to be certain exactly how much any one kernel contains. This is always a risk with any natural product like this.

This means there is a big, huge, difference between eating apricot kernels - even a known number of them - and being exposed to a small amount of amygdalin in a controlled manner, say as part of a cancer treatment trial. In the first situation you have no idea how much of the chemical you're being exposed to, and no one is monitoring you to check for ill effects (which you might, or might not, be aware of). It is true that otherwise toxic compounds are utilised in chemotherapy. Arsenic trioxide is used to treat a particular kind of leukaemia for example, but this doesn't mean swallowing a teaspoon of it every day 'just in case' would be in any way sensible or safe.

In 2010 there was a of all the work previously done on amygdalin and laetrile. It reported that there was no clinical data to support the use of these substances to treat cancer, that the risk benefit of using these substances was unanimously negative (the risk of severe poisoning far outweighed any possible benefit), and recommended that no further clinical research into laetrile or amygdalin be conducted on ethical grounds.

However, since I wrote this post I have been made aware that some research is still ongoing. Well, science is about finding answers after all. For example, both of the following papers have been published since the Cochrane review:

Notice that these papers are about the specific chemical amygdalin, rather than apricot kernels. Note also that the second paper contains the words in vitro, which means outside of living organisms. In a test tube in a lab basically. This might be an interesting starting point, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the same effect can be reproduced in living organisms which have inconvenient things like a digestive system to work around. Also, bear in mind that effective cancer treatments are highly targeted. Tossing unknown amounts of a substance into the general vicinity of a tumour and hoping it'll have the effect you want is like throwing a bucket of paint at a piece of fine china and expecting to see pretty decorations appear.

Digestion is a particularly thorny problem with this substance: in the first paper I mentioned above (which is a review of the work done to date, rather than new research) the authors specifically point out that amygdalin is a lot more toxic when it's taken orally than when it's given intravenously (injected). The reason is that, as I mentioned in my original post, it's broken down by enzymes in your small intestine. You're going to have a hard time injecting apricot kernels; you pretty much have to eat them. Which is risky.

Also, while the authors do provide a lot of examples of the therapeutic benefits of amygdalin, they also point out that the (apparent) "antitumor mechanism of amygdalin is not completely clear", that "clinical trials and large retrospective studies showed that [it] had no stable antitumor effect" and that adverse reactions have been reported, particularly following large doses.

So, while this compound might be a subject for further research, I stand by my original point. Don't eat apricot kernels.

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Further update, 20th August 2015
I've recently been made aware of a someone called Dr Philip Binzel and, what appears to be, a rather famous book called " Alive and Well". In this book, Dr Binzel describes his treatment of cancer patients using dietary changes and supplements, including laetrile. I can find remarkably little information about Dr Binzel and his credentials beyond what's described in this book. However, it is a matter of public record that he died on June 6, 2003. So take any source discussing his work in the present tense with a large pinch of salt.

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Another recent post on this blog which may be of interest addresses this common complaint, " no one wants to research that; they can't make any money from it! "

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Follow The Chronicle Flask on Facebook for regular updates and other interesting tidbits.

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Comments have now been closed on this post. Please do not post in the comments section of other posts in an attempt to get around this. Such comments will be deleted.

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I'll admit, I'm no huge fan of 'alternative medicine', particularly the ones which have been thoroughly tested and shown over and over again to be entirely ineffective (yes homoeopathy, I'm looking at you). At best these treatments don't work, and at worst they delay or even stop people getting the effective treatment they need.

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Post #2 Red Flag: Mystic Energy (Website)

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Post #2 Red Flag: Mystic Energy (Website)

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Definition:
The Mystic Energy red flag refers to energy in a magical, mystic sense as opposed to the scientific definition- the ability of something to perform work. Energy fields, world energy, and spiritual energy cannot be proven or quantified scientifically.
Connection:
The following website encourages readers to become a "Certified Reiki Healer," a discipline in which the healer passes energy into the patient to cleanse and heal them. This mystic energy practice claims to heal people emotionally and physically without any modern medicine.

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Learn Reiki quickly from home. Start healing yourself & your loved ones.

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Post #1 Title: Assignment One - Red Flags and Belief 

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Post #1 Title: Assignment One - Red Flags and Belief 

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By Tamara Davidson, working individually