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Definition:

The red flag "confirmation bias" involves a persons experiences and values, and how that can influence what they believe to be true. An individuals perception of information can be effected by confirmation bias.

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I thought this specific example was interesting because it demonstrates how anyone can display confirmation bias in some way. The author of the article is a doctor, which some would say it is unusual for a doctor to believe in paranormal activity. It is an example of confirmation bias because she believes it is a fact that the dead are trying to communicate with their living loved ones. She unfortunately lost her son, and she  describes an encounter she had with his spirit after he died. She experienced a huge degree of trauma, which enables her confirmation bias in the article, which is clear, if you believe what she is saying or you're skeptical. Her sons passing is an example of a barrier to critical thinking.

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Updated on November 14, 2022

Internal Medicine Physician

By Elisa Medhus, M.D.

As a board certified internist, I was reticent to tell anyone about my paranormal experiences after the death of my young son, Erik, in 2009, for fear of ostracism by my peers. After all, before those experiences, when someone spoke to me about psychics or mediums, it would conjure up the mental image of a Gypsy hunched over a crystal ball.

Other than the absence of a body, spirits are the same as they were in life.

If you've had signs from a loved one, have faith that you're not going crazy. Your loved ones are probably communicating with you.

1.

Books on consciousness survival, near-death experiences, alternate dimensions, and mediumship - particularly those with a scientific perspective - can be extremely informative. They'll help you learn that death is not the end as much as a transition into another dimension.

2.

These can include certain smells like perfumes or colognes, objects like dimes or feathers, meaningful songs playing on the radio, objects moving or disappearing then reappearing and other "paranormal" experiences. Try to raise the frequency of your own vibration by thinking of happy memories. This makes it easier for your loved one to meet you halfway.

3.

That relationship might be different - it may even be richer than the one you had when they were alive. You can communicate through mediums, but you can also learn to channel them yourself. One of the simplest ways is through what I refer to as The Hand Game.

Love knows no boundaries, even death.

Designate one hand as your "yes" and the other as your "no," then ask your loved one a yes or no question. "Are you okay?" Then, hands apart, palms up, wait for a change in sensation in one. It might be a change in temperature or pressure. It might be a tingling, a burning, or a numbing sensation. If you don't get anything, ask them to make it stronger until you're satisfied that you feel a change.

Regular communication with your loved one has the power to heal. It could help you go from grieving over them to simply missing them as a parent would when their child is away on a trip but will eventually come home with their dirty laundry.

In the end, you will discover that love knows no boundaries, even death.
RELATED: What Your Dreams About Deceased Loved Ones Could Mean
You can also simply start a conversation with them. I like routine and visuals, so I set out a cup of coffee for my son, Erik, and I start talking. Then, I wait to hear a reply in my head, which could be in his voice or my own.

You can better your chances of a successful communication if you surround yourself with static, like that from a radio tuned between stations. You can also record messages from your loved one by setting a digital recorder on voice activation in a quiet room for several hours.

If you're more of a visual person, you might be able to get a glimpse of your loved one by sitting in absolute darkness so that your eyes aren't focused on anything. You might start seeing all sorts of colors and shapes, but these will eventually coalesce into a face or body.

Although I've heard Erik's voice live, on recordings and even on the telephone, nothing compares to those times when I've actually seen him, physically.

One night, just as I was about to lie down to go to sleep, I saw him jumping from the left foot of my bed to the right as my deceased sister, Denise, sat to his left, grinning. Stunned, I watched as he hopped back and forth, fully realizing how surreal the moment was. After several seconds, Erik turned to face me. His expression turned from contentment to startle, and he shouted, "Mom, you can see me!" Then he fell into my arms and we hugged. It lasted only a few seconds, but he felt so solid and the moment was lovely.

We feel that since we can't see spirits, they must not exist. Consider this, though: We can't see radio waves, but we know they exist. Spirits just vibrate at a frequency well above the visible range - that tiny sliver of the electromagnetic spectrum of energy that defines our reality.

Other than the absence of a body, spirits are the same as they were in life, but without the mental and physical illnesses that may have plagued them. This realization gave me such comfort because Erik suffered miserably from bipolar disease, Tourette's, and learning disabilities. Now, he's free of all of these.

By following these three suggestions, you can strengthen your faith and even heal your grief.

The last thing I wanted was for my peers to think that I was crazy or woo-woo.

But I know that I'm not alone in my desire to understand the afterlife and connect with my son. According to a 2014 CBS News poll, three out of four people believe there is something after death and countless speak of "sensing" or even receiving signs from their loved ones after their passing.

When this happens, we often think our grief is obscuring our judgment.

Are we hallucinating? Is it wishful thinking letting our imagination run wild? Because of this inner conflict, we usually keep these experiences to ourselves lest family or friends criticize us or back away with a wide-eyed stare.

Internal Medicine Physician

Elisa Medhus, MD, is a physician and mother of five who has practiced internal medicine for over thirty years. She is the author of three award-winning parenting books, including Raising Children Who Think for Themselves and Hearing Is Believing, and has lectured on parenting for schools, parent groups, and corporations. After the death of her twenty-year-old son Erik, Dr. Medhus began journaling her grief in her blog ChannelingErik.com and wrote the successful book My Son and the Afterlife. She lives in Houston, Texas.

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I'm A Doctor. Here's Why I Think It's Possible To Communicate With The Dead

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I was reticent to tell anyone about my paranormal experiences after the death of my young son, Erik, in 2009, for fear of ostracism by my peers.

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Pseudoscience Watchlist #1 - Convinces by Faith or Belief 

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Pseudoscience Watchlist #1 - Convinces by Faith or Belief 

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Definition:

The pseudoscience watchlist includes seven attributes. Many times, they overlap. In this post I want to focus on "convinces through faith or belief". This is when an organization or person uses religious leverage or another beliefs in order to push their own narrative or idea of the truth.

connection
the story above is tells her personal account of having an exorcism practiced on her by older members of her religious community. She was a young woman who was new to a missionary community and although she grew up religious it was not quite like the one she found herself in at that time. She revealed to some members that she had never witnessed a miracle or heard God speaking to her, and they immediately insisted she needed to be exorcised. It was casually suggested but they were being completely serious. It was during the ceremony that the author began to feel skeptical, she described it as "a piece of her faith had dislodged" that night.  Exorcisms are a Pseudoscience and in this case, all of the people practicing it were trying to use a young woman faith to gain more control and power over her, as well to express the fact that she needed to behave and believe in certain things or she would be outcast from the group.

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Definition:
The red flag "all natural" is a red flag because people often use this term incorrectly, or they use it as a scare tactic to make people feel bad for using products or eating food that isn't "all natural"; not all things that are natural are safe or better for human use than something that is not deemed to be all natural.

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I chose this article as my object for the red flag "all natural" because as a cosmetician and cosmetic student, all natural or "blank- free" products are very trendy to consumers right now, and I have even heard some people say that they want cosmetics without preservatives. This article debunks the notion that preservatives in cosmetics are bad and something to fear. In reality, they are 100% necessary to keep the formulas of our products stable and long lasting. People need to use their critical thinking when they think about cosmetic formulations as well as if they have concerns about specific ingredients, it is easy to research that on your own and use the critical thinking process to help determine your answer.

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5 Things You Need to Know About Preservatives in Cosmetic

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From food to skin care, preservatives are everywhere. Some chemical and natural preservatives are safe, but there are several preservatives to avoid.

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Pseudoscience #2 - Results Can't Be Reproduced or Verified  

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Pseudoscience #2 - Results Can't Be Reproduced or Verified  

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Definition:
The definition for this red flag "Results cannot be reproduced" means that if someone is presenting findings and information from conducting an experiment or observing something, a different person doing the same experiment will not get the same results as the original.

Connection:
I wanted to go with ghost hunting as one of my Pseudocience connections because the topic interests me and I love paranormal/ ghost movies. I think this is a good example because it is light hearted and shows that it isn't necessarily a bad thing to participate in pseudoscience. This article is from a ghost hunting group that is local to me. The blog post talks about how the group went to Parkwood estate, and they documented the paranormal encounters they had there, but those results can never truly be verified  or reproduced, making it fall onto the watchlist

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On March 5th, 2005, the Paranormal Seekers were offered an all inclusive, private, after hours tour of The Parkwood Estate. With us, we took our two video camcorders (one with night vision, one…

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Definition:
the definition of agenticity is when people give meaning to "agents" that control the world, and it is mostly due to people confusing patterns with meaning. It is also when people believe in invisible beings and let them dictate their lives.

Connection:
I wanted to use this song "the antichrist" from band SLAYER because of the controversy that came from the bands use of satanic imagery. Bands like SLAYER and many others fall victim of people assigning a label to them before really trying to understand why they may be using specific themes in their music. Using satanic imagery for is to draw attention to issues in religious organizations, as well as for shock value. People assign meaning to the devil or satan that is not a proven fact- it is all based on personal beliefs and influences.  People believe In the devil because they observe what they have been told their whole lives. Critical thinking can be used to understand why a band like slayer may use satanic imagery and how that does not mean they are evil and worship the devil.

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Slayer - The Antichrist (live 1985 from combat tour)

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Pseudoscience watchlist #3 - Deliberately Creates Mystery 

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Pseudoscience watchlist #3 - Deliberately Creates Mystery 

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Definition:
The watchlist includes the attribute "Deliberately creates mystery".  This can include being intentionally vague about something while explaining it to people. It can also be when a person uses language that is confusing or misleading.

Connection:
I found this article during my research and I thought it was pretty funny, just how unspecific the "psychic medium"  Scott Davis is when describing how an average Joe can communicate with the dead. He claims to have been able communicate with the dead and know facts about peoples lives for as long as he can remember, and since he was 3o he has been helping people. He says that anyone can speak to the dead, they just have to practice. He then says all that you need to do in order to practice is close your eyes and picture the person you want to communicate with, and then you write down whatever comes to you. I think this deliberately creates mystery because what he is describing can be called meditating, day dreaming, intentionally thinking, imagining and the list goes on. it creates mystery because it leaves the reader of the article still wondering exactly how doing what he said would allow you to speak with the dead. Mediums often use this tactic of creating mystery in order to convince clients and make money, another example of how psychic readings are a form of pseudoscience.

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Psychic-medium Scott Davis says he's communicated with spirits and ghosts for as long as he can remember. It wasn't until his 30s, however, that he began sharing his gift to help others contact their loved ones, giving them guidance for the future.

"As I psychic I pick up on things that are happening in people's lives," Davis told InsideEdition.com. "And then on the medium side, I pick on people's lost loved ones or friends who have a message to deliver."

When Davis was younger, he said he'd talk to spirits, scaring his parents. He stopped tapping into the gift because it wasn't something the people around him readily approved of.

For years, he buried it. But when he hit 30, he said, his ability resurfaced.

"I started communicating with spirits and they would give me information for mostly people I knew," Davis said.

From there, things blossomed. Now, the 37-year-old father of two gives readings on the regular and conducts paranormal investigations with a crew to help people get to the bottom of strange happenings in their homes.

Davis said getting in touch with spirits isn't as hard as one might think, and most people can do it.

"I think it's like athletics. I could shoot some hoops, but I would never be in college league," Davis said. "There are guys who have always been able to do it. This is the same thing. I'm naturally more in tune so I can do operate the way I do. But [anyone] can do it if you practice."

In honor of Halloween, Davis has one major tip for people who may want to explore their abilities - meditation.

First, he said, clear your head of thoughts and worries.

"It doesn't mean you have to sit on the beach in lotus position at sunrise," Davis said. "It can be anywhere you are comfortable. Close your eyes and let your imagination go."

Then, he said, picture the person you want to speak to and write down whatever comes to you.

Getting in touch with the world beyond, he insisted, is that simple.

Davis joined InsideEdition.com for a trip to one of the most haunted houses in New York. For more of what happened, check out the video above.
RELATED STORIES

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How to Talk to the Dead: A Psychic-Medium Shares His Secrets

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Psychic-medium Scott Davis has been able to see and speak to the dead since he was a child.

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Definition:
The red flag "appeal to authority" is when a person believes something to to be true just because an authority figure says so. The authority figure can be a celebrity, a politician, religious leader or even family member.

Connection:
Appeal to authority can be very dangerous!  As seen above, at one point in time, doctors did not know about the direct link between cancer and cigarettes, and cigarette companies often used images and quotes of doctors smoking their brand or endorsing it. This is an appeal to authority because people who saw those ads at the time may have been influenced to smoke or to smoke more since they seen a doctor-someone with authority - saying it was okay. Doctors are viewed in society as people with reputable knowledge and we trust them to take care of us, so that is why there is a power imbalance between doctors and people who are not doctors.

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I think that "unexplained" is one of the most common reasons for belief that there is. People have always tried to find explanations for what we cannot understand. If we cannot find a rational or scientific reason for something occurring, we fill that hole with whatever works in our minds.

Connection:
I think Santa Claus is the perfect example for this reason for belief. Small children are not only told that Santa exists, but they experience the unexplainable! how did the presents get here after my parents went to sleep, and in different wrapping to! these are thoughts many of us had as children- that is part of the reason why we believe as much as we do as young kids. When we get a bit older, we develop critical thinking skills and the belief begins to waiver, but that emotional as well as possibly "unexplained" reasoning comes back.

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The red flag "ancient wisdom" is when a concept is reliable or accurate because it was practiced in the past by ancient civilizations. Often times the wisdom is unchanged or has changed very little over time.

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For the red flag "Ancient wisdom" I wanted to talk about astrology. I think that astrology sort of falls under the same umbrella as religions, although some believers tend to try and say it is a science. The article I attached discusses some reasons why a person may believe In astrology. Some of the reasons include wanting an explanation for things happening to them in their life, wanting to belong and just to cope with life. I think that people also justify these beliefs by telling themselves that if something has been practiced by people for so long, it must hold some accuracy. It is easy to debunk astrology by using the critical thinking method. If your claim is "astrology accurately depicts my life and what happens to me" the second step- acknowledge bias- you would be forced to examine the emotional reasons for why you believe.

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Despite the fact that there is zero science to back it up, astrology is a billion dollar industry worldwide. In India, especially, there is a huge market for this pseudoscience - now, more so, with the advent of digital technology.

"The practice of astrology took a major step toward achieving credibility today when, as predicted, everyone born under the sign of Scorpio was run over by an egg truck," a newspaper cartoon from 1983 reads, mocking the supremely generalized, non-specific predictions made by astrologers.

Then, despite years and layers of criticism, why do people continue to believe in this pseudoscience? According to psychologists, there are several reasons.

Human beings constantly seek narratives to help weave their past, present, and future together through their goals and expectations - and that's where astrology comes in. "[Astrology] provides [people] a very clear frame for that explanation," Monisha Pasupathi, a developmental psychologist at the University of Utah, told The Atlantic. Also, astrology helps create and validate the concept of self for some, and there are thousands of websites on the internet, which cater to just that through their listicles on personality traits attributable to different sun signs. Moreover, for some others, astrology also imparts a sense of belonging. "It allows you to see yourself as part of the world: "Here's where I fit in, oh, I'm Pisces,'" Margaret Hamilton, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin, told Smithsonian Magazine in 2016.

Studies also show that people often turn to astrology in response to stress and anxiety. "Under conditions of high stress, the individual is prepared to use astrology as a coping device even though under low-stress conditions he does not believe in it," Graham Tyson, Professor of Psychology at South Africa's University of the Witwatersrand, said. In fact, the first astrology column to be commissioned for a newspaper was during the Great Depression in August, 1930. Again, during the 2008 financial crisis, people sought out astrologers to foretell their future. "All of those structures that people had relied upon... started to fall apart. That's how a lot of people get into it. They're, like, 'What's going on in my life? Nothing makes sense'," astrologer Rebecca Gordon told The New Yorker, reminiscing 2008.
Related on The Swaddle: You Think You Know Your Correct Star Sign, But You Probably Don't
Another major reason that propels people towards astrology is uncertainty. Studies have shown that we find not knowing what could happen even more stressful than knowing that something bad is definitely going to happen. Through its predictions, the astrological framework helps human beings achieve the certainties they crave for. "If they're going through a time of disruption, they suddenly start to take what's written about their sign much more seriously," astrologer Jonathan Cainer, who writes horoscope columns for The Daily Mail, said.

A current example is the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, which has wreaked havoc worldwide, and injected a host of uncertainties into our plans for the future. And, astrologers across India, the US, and the UK, among others, have been busy making predictions about when the coronavirus will go away. In fact, astrologers and tarot card readers claim that they have been working overtime since the lockdown started - with Indian companies like AstroTalk and AstroYogi reporting that their revenues have almost doubled during the pandemic.

But, besides the big picture uncertainties, astrology also helps some people deal with their day-to-day anxieties, and helps inspire a sense of control. "[Astrology gives me] an irrational kind of hope that when I read that a positive change is going to happen in my life it actually will, reinforcing a sense of control in the future," Rachel Sewell, a PR manager in her 20s, who checks her horoscopes about twice every week, told The Independent.
Related on The Swaddle: Millennials and Meme Culture Have Reclaimed Astrology
Psychologists have noted that more astrologically-inclined people also tend to have an external locus of control in life, meaning they believe that their successes or failures result from external factors or forces beyond their influence, in contrast to people with an internal locus of control, who perceive themselves as the controllers of their narratives. "I think there is a real yearning and longing out there for some kind of guidance and meaning... A lot of people don't quite know what they are looking for. I think astrology falls into that," Stefan Durlach, a consulting psychologist from Sydney, said.

However, this deep-seated belief about celestial events interspersing with human lives, isn't entirely harmless. In a country like India, astrology, rather than compatibility, dictates whether people can get married, besides dictating decisions about financial investments based on planetary positions. Moreover, given how powerful superstitions are already are in Indian culture, practitioners of astrology, numerology, palmistry, and other similar pseudo-sciences, often target people's gullibility for financial gain.

In essence, astrology is a coping mechanism from the stress and uncertainty of life. As Christopher French, Professor of Psychology at University of London, had written, explaining why people believe in astrology: "Anything that appears to provide a glimpse of what is waiting around the next corner may give someone a better sense of control, even if that sense of control is illusory."

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Why Do People Still Believe In Astrology?

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Astrology is a coping mechanism from stress and uncertainty, and helps people create and validate a narrative for their lives.

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Reason For Belief #3 - Emotional Connection 

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Reason For Belief #3 - Emotional Connection 

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Definition:
Emotional connection as a reason for belief overlaps with the other reasons as well, as emotion is sort of an underlying factor at most times. Peoples ability to think critically can often be clouded if emotions are involved. Peoples emotional ties to events, objects or things can be influenced by their own experiences, their environment, their morals and personal beliefs and their families.

Connection:
I think patriotism and nationalism are good examples of believing in something due to emotional connection and at times that means believing in certain actions. If we think about the American stereotype of the patriotic citizen, they love their country and are so connected to it due to emotions possibly from family history or their own life experiences. Americans love for their flag and their overall patriotism is all because of emotional connections.

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Pseudoscience Watchlist #4 - Use of Meaningless Scientific Words  

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Pseudoscience Watchlist #4 - Use of Meaningless Scientific Words  

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Definition:
The watchlist criteria "uses meaningless scientific words" is an important one to know and to be able to analyze. Some words are common buzzwords we hear in everyday conversation, but we may never stop to think about the true meaning behind said word- or if there is a meaning at all. The words can be made up of two real words, or a word with a made up prefix, and so on.

Connection:
I already did one post relating to the words "natural" but it relates to this topic just as well.  This topic interests me because the terms are often used in a way that shames or guilts people into thinking they need products labeled "toxin free" "all natural" "made from organic this or that". In my opinion, most of the time these broad claims are simply gimmicks. Looking through the lens of cosmetics again, consumers must use critical thinking in order to analyze the claims on products as well as consider marketing strategies.

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News articles and blog posts are often full of buzzwords that are heavy on emotional impact but light on substance, and for scientific topics such as nutrition, health, medicine, and agriculture, four of the most common buzzwords are "toxins," "natural," "organic," and "GMO." These words are used prolifically and are typically stated with clear implications ("toxin" and "GMO" = bad; "natural" and "organic" = good). The problem is that these words are poorly defined and constantly misused. Their definitions are so arbitrary and amorphous that they are functionally meaningless. In other words, they do not add anything useful to a discussion without first attaching a list of qualifiers to them. They are often used in a way that shifts them into the category of what are referred to as "weasel words," meaning that their use gives the impression that the author said something concrete and meaningful, when in fact the statement was a null sentence that lacked any real substance. The point of this post is, therefore, to dissect the usage of these words, and explain why they are so lacking in meaning as well as why their usage is often misleading and deceptive.

To be clear, when I say that a word is meaningless, I mean that the word is functionally meaningless, rather than semantically meaningless (i.e., the word may have a clear definition, but that definition is so arbitrary that using the word does not add any meaningful content to a statement, and it is not useful for making decisions or assessing the risks and benefits of the thing being described). Similarly, I realize that "toxin" does have a specific definition within the field of microbiology, but that is not the definition that most people are referring to when they use the word. So why I say that the word "toxin" is functionally meaningless, I am referring to its usage in the common vernacular.
Note: Yes, I know that "GMO" is technically an initialism not a word. Deal with it.
"Toxins"
Our society seems to be obsessed with "toxins." The internet is full of purveyors of woo selling everything from expensive fruit cleanses to "earthing" mats, all with the stated purpose of ridding your body of vaguely defined "toxins." The problem is simply that there is no such thing as a "toxin." All matter is made of chemicals (excluding subatomic particles for a minute), and essentially all chemicals are safe at a low enough dose and toxic at a high enough dose (i.e., the dose makes the poison). So there are toxic doses not toxic chemicals. Even water becomes lethally toxic at a high enough dose ( Garigan and Ristedt 1999). So this idea that something is going to rid your body of "toxins" doesn't make any sense, because the chemicals themselves are not "toxins," and they only become toxic at a high enough dose. Take formaldehyde, for example. I often hear people talk about it as a "toxin," but the reality is that it is an inevitable by-product of normal biological processes. So not only is it in many fruits and vegetables, but it is actually produced by your body! The chemical itself is not dangerous, but it can become dangerous at a high enough dose.

To be clear, I'm not saying that we shouldn't pay attention to what we put into our bodies. Of course we should, but we need to evaluate chemicals based on the dose at which they become toxic, not simply based on whether or not they are present. Further, we need to always carefully define exactly which chemicals we are talking about, rather than using the vague and amorphous term "toxin," because any chemical will become a "toxin" at a high enough dose.
Side note: Your body is wonderfully equipped with a liver and kidneys which do a fantastic job of "detoxing" you and keeping chemicals at a safe level. "Detox" supplements/treatments are total nonsense. Addendum (16-Aug-16): It should be noted that the word "toxin" does have an actual biological meaning in the context of chemicals that are released by microscopic organisms. These are often toxic to individual cells at incredibly lo doses because a cell itself is so small. So when I talked about "toxins" in the post, I was referring to the notion that certain chemicals are automatically dangerous for you as an organism, rather than on a cell by cell basis.
"Natural"
The definition of "natural" seems obviously to be, "found in nature," but that's actually a lot more ambiguous and arbitrary than it sounds. First, let's deal with why this definition is arbitrary, and the best way to explain that is by talking about chemical compounds. Everything around you is made of chemicals (including you), and in chemistry, a compound is simply the combination of two or more different elements. So most of the things that are around you are in fact chemical compounds (there are several thousand compounds that make your body, for example). Now, many people like to distinguish between "natural" and "synthetic" chemicals, where "natural" chemicals can be found in nature, while "synthetic" ones were produced in a lab, but that distinction is arbitrary. A chemical is a chemical, and on a molecular level, there is nothing that separates natural and synthetic chemicals. All chemical compounds are made by stringing different elements together, and there is no inherent difference between nature stinging elements together and scientists stringing elements together. We can make acids in the lab and you can find acids in nature, we can make chemicals that are poisonous at anything but a low dose in the lab, and you can find chemicals that are poisonous at anything but a low dose in nature, etc. The fact that something was synthesized in a lab doesn't make it any more dangerous or any safer than a chemical that was found in nature. Indeed, saying that a given chemical is "natural" tells you absolutely nothing useful about the toxicity of that chemical, which is why I am arguing that the term is meaningless. Saying "chemical X is natural but chemical Y is synthetic" doesn't tell me anything about the properties of those two chemicals. After all, nature is full of chemicals that are toxic at anything but a very low dose (cyanide and arsenic come to mind).

Consider, for example, acetylsalicylic acid and salicylic acid. One of those is natural and the other is synthetic. Can you tell which? No, and neither could a chemist. If you showed those two molecules to a chemist who had no prior information about those chemicals, there is no way they could tell you which was natural and which was synthetic, because that distinction is arbitrary. In all likelihood though, they would know which is which because these are two very well-known compounds. Salicylic acid is the compound in willow bark that gives it medicinal value, and acetylsalicylic acid is the synthetic version of it that we all know as aspirin. Further, we switched to the synthetic version largely because straight salicylic acid has a lot of unpleasant side effects like gastrointestinal problems ( Hedner and Everts 1997). To be clear, aspirin has side effects as well (as do all medicines), but they tend to be less severe, and the point is, once again, that simply being natural doesn't automatically make something better. Indeed, asserting that something is better because it is natural is a logical fallacy known as an appeal to nature.

Moving beyond the arbitrariness of what is natural, the typical definition of "found in nature" doesn't apply to some things that most people would intuitively think of as natural. Take apples, for example. They're natural, right? Not so much. The fruit that we know as an apple does not grow in nature. As I will talk about more later, essentially all of our crops have been modified by thousands of years of careful breeding, so, technically speaking, they aren't natural.

The situation is even more problematic when we talk about actions rather than objects. People often say things like, "we should do X, because X is natural," but what on earth does that mean? Generally, I hear people say that it means what our ancestors did, but that raises the obvious question of how far back do we have to go for something to be natural? Are we talking about 200 years ago? 1,000 years ago? 10,000 years ago? etc. This definition is horribly ambiguous.

To get around this problem, some people say that natural actions are those that are found in the animal kingdom, but that is also an extremely problematic definition for a number of reasons. First, how widespread does it need to be in the animal kingdom? Is it simply required to find one animal that does it? Further, there are lots of human actions that most people think of as natural, even though other animals don't do them. For example, we cook our food. Does that making cooking unnatural? Finally, this definition is fundamentally flawed because we are just highly evolved animals, so doesn't that make everything that we do natural? Actually think about this for a second. I think that we can all agree that structures like bird nests and beaver dams are natural, but those are not structures that just form spontaneously in nature. Rather, they are carefully and deliberately constructed by an animal who uses materials to make them. Nevertheless, if I make a wooden table, most people would agree that the table is unnatural, but how on earth is that any different from a beaver dam? The beaver is an animal that took materials found in nature and combined them to make a new structure, and I am an animal that took materials found in nature and combined them to make a new structure. What's the difference? Further, we can logically extend this to all human structures. When you get right down to it, all of the parts of a skyscraper came from nature, and there is no logical reason to say that a beaver combining sticks and mud to make a dam is natural but me combing two metals to make steel is unnatural. Again, the definition of natural is completely arbitrary and functionally meaningless.

"GMO"
GMO stands for "Genetically Modified Organism," and you may think that this has a very clear and precise definition...but it really doesn't. Before reading the rest of this, try to come up with a definition of it yourself, then see how that definition holds up.

The most general line of thought would be that a GMO is exactly what is says: "an organism whose genes have been altered," but that definition is much too broad. Every living organism has a genetic code that has been altered from its ancestral state by millions of years of evolution. If you really think about it, we are all just heavily modified cyanobacteria (cyanobacteria [or some similar organisms] where most likely the first living cells).

Now you may think that I am stretching things a bit here, and perhaps I am, but "nature" does all sorts of crazy things like hybridizing species (as plants do frequently) and even stealing the DNA from one organism and inserting it into the genetic code of another. For example, at some point in the evolution of the sweet potato, it managed to modify its genetic code by inserting bacterial genes into its DNA. In other words, it is a transgenic species whose genetic code is a combination of the genes of several species. Shouldn't that make it a GMO? Further, this is not limited to sweet potatoes, because bacteria themselves are well known for their ability to incorporate the DNA of other species into their own genomes. So nature is constantly doing the types of things that most people would associate with GMOs, and foods like sweet potatoes really are transgenic species.

Nevertheless, you can try to qualify the term GMO by saying that GMOs are, "organisms that have been genetically modified by humans," but that definition is also fraught with problems. Beyond the fact that it is totally arbitrary (see the "natural" section), it also would encompass all modern agriculture. Those delicious fruits that you know as watermelons don't exist in nature (at least not in their current form). Similarly, natural bananas are small and full of giant seeds, and wild corn does not produce those nice juicy husks that you slather in butter and salt. Both our livestock and crops have been genetically modified through years selective breeding, and they contain genetic codes that aren't found in nature.

At this point, people often try to add something about moving genes between species, but that just creates more problems. First, I've already shown that nature does that as well, so we have to keep that arbitrary "man did it" qualifier. Second, that would also include lots of "non-GMO" crops such as pluots, plumcots, tangelos, etc. all of which are hybrids that used selective breeding to combine the DNA of two different species. Third, this definition does not include all of the crops that are typically described as "GMOs." Indeed, GMOs that take the DNA of one organism and put it into another (a.k.a. transgenic GMOs) are actually only one type of GMO. There are others that simply modify the existing genome (i.e., they activate, deactivate, or alter genes that are already present).

Given the problems with that definition, you might try defining a GMO as an organism that is "modified by humans via a method other than selective breeding," but that definition includes mutation breeding, which is typically not considered to be a GMO. This method uses chemicals or UV radiation to randomly mutate organisms' DNA in order to produce new and useful traits (i.e., it makes genetic modifications via inducing mutations). However, this method typically does not receive the label "GMO," and in some cases, even farms that label themselves as "organic" can us crops that were produced by this method.

This leaves us with the outrageous definition that a GMO is, "an organism whose DNA was modified by humans via a method other than selective breeding or mutation breeding," but at that point we have tacked so many arbitrary qualifiers onto the term, that the term itself is essentially meaningless. To put this another way, our "non-GMO" agricultural practices constantly make genetic modifications, including swapping genes between species and randomly mutating DNA, and the techniques that we label as "genetic engineering" are only different in that they are faster and more precise than the other methods. Therefore, there is no good reason to talk about GMOs as if they are fundamentally different than the other methods, because the definition of a GMO is completely arbitrary.
Note: You may be tempted to say that a GMO is simply, "an organism that was produced by genetic engineering" but that doesn't really solve the problem, because you then need a non-arbitrary definition for GE which excludes mutation breeding, selective breeding, and what happens in nature, without excluding any crops that are typically thought of as GMOs. So you still have the exact same problem.
"Organic"
Finally, let's talk about the term "organic." This is perhaps the greatest marketing term ever coined, and the problem with it is not that a definition doesn't exist, but rather that the definition is arbitrary and most people don't use it correctly (to be clear, I am talking specifically about organic farming practices, not organic chemistry or the general use of "organic" to mean something that formed of its own accord without intervention).

Here is a question for you, true or false, organic farming doesn't use pesticides? A very large portion of people think that the answer is "true," but it is actually "false." Organic farmers absolutely use pesticides, and many of those pesticides are toxic at comparable doses to the pesticides used in traditional farming. Indeed, organic pesticides can harm wild species, pollute waterways, and do all of the other harmful things that traditional pesticides can do ( Bahlai et al. 2010). In fact, one of the most common organic pesticides is " Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) toxin," which is the exact same chemical that GMO corn produces (i.e., Bt maize). So one the one hand, organic farmers use Bt liberally, and on the other hand, they demonize corn that produces Bt. Are you starting to see why this is arbitrary (dare I say hypocritical)?

So if organic crops use potentially dangerous pesticides just as much as traditional crops, then what exactly does it take for a crop to be considered organic? Generally speaking, they have to be grown without synthetic pesticides ("natural" are fine) and without the use of GMOs (some countries place additional requirements like no petroleum-based fertilizers). If you have read the rest of this post, then you should know where I am about to go with this. I have already shown that the distinction between "natural" and "synthetic" chemicals is arbitrary and all chemicals are safe at a low dose and toxic at a high enough dose, and I have shown that what we consider to be a GMO is really arbitrary. So, since the definition of organic relies on those other terms, the "organic" label is itself arbitrary. To put this another way, organic crops are not automatically healthier or more nutritious than traditional crops. Indeed, reviews of the literature have been unable to find consistent and compelling evidence that organic food is healthier ( Smith-Spangler et al. 2012; Galgano et al. 2015).

Now, at this point, you may be thinking that organic crops aren't healthier, but surely they are better for the environment. However, that is also a misnomer. Some practices that are typically associated with organic farming are better for the environment, but those practices are sometimes included in non-organic farming as well, and organic farming has serious drawbacks, such as the fact that it often uses far more land and resources than traditional farming ( Tuomisto et al. 2012). As a result, you can't make a blanket statement like, "organic farming is better for the environment" because in many cases it isn't. For example, Bt GMOs have substantial environmental benefits compared to their organic counterparts, including reduced pesticide use, fewer effects on non-target species, and reduced land usage ( details and sources here).

The point is that simply saying that something is "organic" doesn't actually tell you anything useful about how healthy it is or whether or not it was grown in a sustainable way. You need to actually look at its nutrient content, what chemicals were used to grow it, how much chemical residue is present and at what does those chemicals becomes toxic, how much land was used to grow the crop, etc. In other words, if all that you say is, "crop A is organic and crop B is non-organic" then you have not provided any useful information for describing which is better. To do that, you have to say, "crop A is organic and contains X nutrients, was grown on Y amount of land, was sprayed with Z chemicals, etc.; whereas crop B is non-organic and contains X' nutrients, was grown on Y' amount of land, was sprayed with Z' chemicals, etc." You can, however, say the exact same thing without including the words "organic" and "non-organic" and you won't lose any useful information. In other words, it's the X, Y, and Z bits that matter. The label "organic" is completely irrelevant. Therefore, simply saying that something is "organic" doesn't tell you anything useful about how healthy or sustainable it is.

Conclusion
In short, all four of these terms are either ambiguous or arbitrary, and they really don't give you much in the way of useful information. Everything becomes a toxin at a high enough dose, natural chemicals can be just as dangerous as synthetic chemicals, virtually all of our food has been genetically modified, and organic crops are not inherently healthier or better for the environment than traditional foods. None of these words actually indicate the health or quality of the products that they describe, and you always need to look at additional information like the dose of a chemical contained in the product, the dose at which that chemical becomes toxic, etc. Simply saying that something is "natural" or "organic" or "a GMO" or "contains a toxin" isn't useful because that doesn't describe anything meaningful about that product.
Related posts Citations
Bahlai et al. 2010. Choosing organic pesticides over synthetic pesticides may not effectively mitigate environmental risk in soybeans. PLoS ONE 5:e11250.

Doucleff. 2015. Natural GMO? Sweet potato genetically modified 8,000 years ago. NPR: Food and Culture

Garigan and Ristedt 1999. Death from hyponatremia as a result of acute water intoxication in an Army basic trainee. Military Medicine 164:234-238.

Galgano et al. 2015. Conventional and organic foods: A comparison focused on animal products. Cogent Food and Agriculture 2: 1142818.

Hedner and Everts 1997. The early clinical history of salicylates in rheumatology and pain. Clinical Rheumatology 17:17-25.

Ruishalme. 2015. Natural assumptions. Thoughtscapism.com. Accessed 15-Aug-16

Smith-Spangler et al. 2012. Are organic foods safer or healthier than conventional alternatives? A systematic review. Annals of Internal Medicine 157:348-366.

Tuomisto et al. 2012. Does organic farming reduce environmental impacts? A meta-analysis. Journal of Environmental Management, 112:309-320.

Wilcox. 2011. Mythbusting 101: Organic farming > conventional agriculture. Scientific American.

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4 meaningless words: toxin, natural, organic, and GMO

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News articles and blog posts are often full of buzzwords that are heavy on emotional impact but light on substance, and for scientific topics such as nutrition, health, medicine, and agriculture, four of the most common buzzwords are "toxins," "natural," "organic," and "GMO." These words are used prolifically and are typically stated with clear implications...

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Red Flag #5 - Confusing Correlation with Causation

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Red Flag #5 - Confusing Correlation with Causation

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Definition
The red flag "confuses causation with correlation" is one that I think gets looked over in comparison to some of the other red flags. Correlation means connected or related and causation means it directly caused the events that follow. To confuse the two is easy. Just because two ideas or things are correlated, doesn't mean one caused the other or vice versa.

Connection
I chose to use politics as my example/connection. People usually blame a sole elected official for being responsible for all of the bad or good things that happen while they are in office, but there is a huge team and many different organizations and stuff that goes into all political choices and actions so no one person can really be blamed. People correlate a specific priminister with causing political issues/sucesses.