Here’s more for the crank file. Ron Paul evidently subscribes to conspiracy theories about a “North American Union”. Dennis Kucinich, you’re not impressing me with your judgment.

In this clip Ron Paul responds to a question from Phyllis Schlafly, another promulgator of North American Union silliness.

On a related note, see also Ron Paul’s embrace of crank ideologue medical enthusiasts.

.

Addendum Nov 29 – Compare to Ron Paul’s discussion of the “North American Union” during last night’s YouTube debate.

Addendum Dec 08 – Ron Paul’s conspiracy credulity has made Newsweek.

By way of a circuitous path of internet browsing*, I happened across a tidbit of information that’s in plain sight on Wikipedia. Ron Paul is a member of a certain conservative advocacy group – the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. He has been since 1966.

The AAPS has published quite a bit of the pseudoscientific crazy, including some bizarre claims regarding immigrants and leprosy. Andrew Schlafly, a son of Phyllis Schlafly, is (at least as lately as September this year) the group’s General Counsel. Ron Paul evidently shares the same opposition to mandatory vaccination and suspicion of vaccination in general as the AAPS, the house of Schlafly, and the Schlaflys’ “Conservapedia”.

That’s looking like some mad doktor territory to me. Plus, unless this is a fantastic joke, his followers want to rent him a blimp. Cue the maniacal laughter.

_
* This all started when Conrad sent me the blimp link. Ow. Ow.

I’m of mixed feelings about There Goes the Science Bit…, the stab at consumer product debunking from the UK’s Voice of Young Science. On the one hand, it’s always nice to see institutional support for challenges to advertising and PR. American professional associations interested in promoting public intellectualism could also take a page from this group’s advice regarding the media. It’s a good start.*

On the other hand, the endeavor has a rushed, Michael Moore, low-hanging fruit feel to it. What they did was mostly just… call customer service and ask questions. (”Aha! I’ve vexed and confounded the receptionist! Suck it, Philip Morris!”) Yes, the poor bastard on the other end of the line is probably just an $8 an hour phone operator reading from a 2-page handout. Yes, anything with “herbal”, “homeopathic”, or “energy field” in the name or description is going to be useless crap. Flawless victory.

More proactive, public critiques will surely follow, one hopes. Being ready and able to call bullshit when asked is most excellent. Vigorously challenging marketers who dress up their products in speculative or concocted science claims would be better still.

_
* (Despite the suspicious preponderance of rather attractive young men and women. Look at the photos in the PDFs. It’s like a hard science reality show in there. Yowza.)

I really enjoyed this comic from Cectic. It nicely captures the Lovecraftian vibe that often seems to underlie creationists’ desperate flailings. By way of Pharyngula.

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”

- “The Call of Cthulhu”, H. P. Lovecraft

By popular demand, I’m putting back up some details behind some more anti-caffeine marketing that appeared on HowStuffWorks and Lifehacker last year. The HowStuffWorks article is an extended sales pitch for Stephen Cherniske’s Caffeine Blues: Wake Up to the Hidden Dangers of America’s #1 Drug.

Stephen Cherniske’s nutritional authority is his M.S. from Columbia Pacific University – a now-defunct distance learning diploma mill. Browsing directly to the Amazon.com entry – but not the HowStuffWorks bookstore gateway, interestingly – allowed you to see this noted in the customer reviews.

Stephen Cherniske is a founder of the Oasis Wellness Network, aka MaxCell BioScience, Inc., aka Oasis LifeSciences, aka Univera LifeSciences. (See the current blurb, as well as the Internet Archive cache from 2003 February 13). Oasis/MaxCell/Univera ran into some trouble in 2000 (after the 1998 publication date of Caffeine Blues, note) with the Federal Trade Commission for marketing health products with unsubstantiated claims. See documents at the FTC and FindLaw. Oasis/MaxCell/Univera sold those products via a multi-level marketing campaign.

A glowing review of Stephen Cherniske’s Caffeine Blues has a conflict of interest:

I am Caffeine Free after 40 years, October 9, 2004

Reviewer: Michael Van Masters “OasisMike” (Denver CO) – See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have been a serious coffee drinker for over 40 years. I love everything about coffee. Reading this book freed me from a major problem (caffeine) that I didn’t even realize was a problem. The book was a gift to me. I am so thankful I read this book. Dr. Michael Van Masters, “OasisMike” Denver CO

“OasisMike”? Yes, it’s Michael Van Masters of Stephen Cherniske’s Oasis LifeSciences, aka MyAgelessLife, aka Oasis Wellness Network, aka MaxCell BioScience, Inc., aka Univera LifeSciences.

Last night my site received another visit from a blacklisted IP address out of Israel:

89-138-129-66.bb.netvision.net.il

* /wp-content/themes/bark/style.css
Http Code: 200 Date: Nov 17 09:48:03 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 6018
Referer: http://www.kellyramsey.net/index.php/2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9 Creative ZENcast v1.04.06

* /favicon.ico
Http Code: 200 Date: Nov 17 09:48:08 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 894
Referer: -
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9 Creative ZENcast v1.04.06

* /2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/?s=marina+kushner
Http Code: 404 Date: Nov 17 10:13:57 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: -
Referer: http://www.kellyramsey.net/index.php/2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9 Creative ZENcast v1.04.06

* /2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/?s=++kushner
Http Code: 404 Date: Nov 17 10:14:04 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: -
Referer: http://www.kellyramsey.net/index.php/2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9 Creative ZENcast v1.04.06

* /wp-comments-post.php
Http Code: 302 Date: Nov 17 10:32:54 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 5
Referer: http://www.kellyramsey.net/index.php/2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9 Creative ZENcast v1.04.06

* /index.php/2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/
Http Code: 200 Date: Nov 17 10:32:56 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: 22585
Referer: http://www.kellyramsey.net/index.php/2007/11/16/salesmanship-awareness-alliance/
Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.9) Gecko/20071025 Firefox/2.0.0.9 Creative ZENcast v1.04.06

They tried to leave a comment, but none were in my moderation queue, so I checked the spam comments that my blogging software automatically deletes. Sure enough, this comment was left for my “Salesmanship awareness alliance” post about Marina Kushner’s industry advocacy group, the Caffeine Awareness Alliance – and it came from that same blacklisted Israeli IP.

Janice Templeton RD | as3412@aol.com | IP: 89.138.129.66

Kelly Ramsey

“…..I do what I can to get by.”

Source: http://www.virb.com/kellyramsey

Does that include slander & defamation of character?

Hope you didn’t forget to pay your E&O insurance premium cause I looks like your going to be needing it after she sues you.

Your personal vendetta against Ms.Kushner & her wonderful organization is pathetic at best. Get a life!

Awww, isn’t that special.

The Caffeine Awareness Alliance is still skulking about. Last month a college newspaper published a regrettably poorly-sourced article about the terrible, terrible dangers of caffeine:

Marina Kushner, author of The Truth about Caffeine, wants students to wake up to “the real truth” about caffeine.

Moderate doses of caffeine, ranging from 200-300 milligrams a day (about two to three cups of brewed coffee) aren’t harmful, according Kushner, the founder of the Caffeine Awareness Alliance, a New York-based non-profit organization committed to provide objective information and evidence about caffeine abuse and addiction. However, excessive caffeine consumption, over 500 milligrams a day (over three cups of coffee), can cause irritability, nervousness, anxiety, insomnia, headaches and diarrhea.

The old Coffee & Caffeine FAQ and the Wikipedia article about caffeine could tell you as much. The problem is the reliance on Kushner and her organization.

The Caffeine Awareness Alliance is an industry advocacy group. Prior to March 2006 the CAA site’s front page described its mission as selling caffeine-alternative products:

CAA was founded in 2003 as an authoritative voice for advocacy to serve the needs of the Caffeine-Free Industry & create a valuable network of resources to executives, sales people, retailers, buyers, growers, media and associations.

Caffeine Awareness Alliance founder Marina Kushner also happens to be CEO and founder of Soy Coffee LLC, which sells a caffeine-free coffee substitute.

Marina Kushner also has acquired a reputation on Amazon.com for reviewing her own books (positively) as well as competing caffeine-related books (negatively) under fake names. See Amazon discussion board threads from June 2006, September 2006, again in September 2006, October 2006, and November 12.

Sometimes articles that issue warnings about caffeine cite Roland Griffiths as an independent authority. He has consulted for the caffeine-substitute industry. The Caffeine Awareness Alliance forum used to have a section titled, “Ask the Experts”. The “experts” listed numbered two: Marina Kushner and Roland Griffiths.

College journalists, the Caffeine Awareness Alliance seems to make the rounds year after year after year after year after year after year. Don’t look like tools for industry PR. Search for independent medical professionals who can fill you in on the current state of medical research.

.

Addendum: I’m looking for documentation for a spectacularly ham-handed fake Amazon review, since it seems to have vanished down the memory hole. Last year Harold Bresnick “M.D.” (Mayo Clinic, Rochester NY) trashed a competing book of anti-caffeine quackery:

While reading this book, I needed caffeine to keep me from falling asleep., August 21, 2006

Reviewer: Harold Bresnick “M.D.” (Mayo Clinic, Rochester NY) – See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

While reading this book I realized that I needed caffeine from falling asleep. Though the book addresses the dangers of caffeine, it is too technical and dry. It easily could have been summed up in 200 pages, instead of being twice that it is now.

The book is also dated (1996) and does not address the latest studies on caffeine (i.e Parkinsons, Diabetes). As a cardiologist, my priority is to help my patients understand the dangers of caffeine. That is why I recommend “The Truth About Caffeine” by Marina Kushner. It’s current (2006) and has everything in this book including the amount of caffeine found in many popular consumer products. It also has an extensive bibliography that I found invaluable.

Caffeine has no nutritional benefit and I believe it should be regulated like a drug. Manufacturers are not required to reveal how much caffeine is found in their products and consumers cannot make informed decisions. The only way to understand the risks is to be informed which I do with my patients

As the anonymous reader who tipped me to this pointed out, “Harold Bresnick” was not on the Mayo Clinic’s list of doctors. I didn’t have any luck finding other mention of him online. Perhaps not surprising, because the Mayo Clinic is in Rochester, Minnesota, not Rochester, New York. “Harold Bresnick” was a few states off.

The reviewer deleted it, maybe in response to other reviewers’ outrage. A remarkably similar review of the same book, though, appeared a month later.

Try running a Google blog search for menstrual stem cell or C’elle. Do you see any of these posts?

• 6 Nov – Collect and FedEx menstrual stem cells with the C’elle kit: the next flow (Attila Chordash @ Pimm)
• 6 Nov – Pie in the sky between your thighs (PZ Myers @ Pharyngula)
• 6 Nov – Every month is a miracle (me)
• 8 Nov – Must be a low flow day (me)

A new comment on the Pimm post makes the list, but the original post doesn’t. All sorts of press releases, splogs, and flogs are still padding the search results, though.

Does Google Blog Search really suck that badly? Really?

If I were prone to crazy conspiracy theories, I might draw unwarranted conclusions from the observation that C’elle is a Google AdSense client, as Ms. M & P and Frenchy relate, or that C’elle is represented by PR giant Edelman, a company that is no stranger to either ties with tech companies or attempts at manipulating the blogosphere.

Here’s the non-crazy question. What if a search engine hegemon like Google – or Technorati, for that matter, which has engaged in joint business ventures with PR companies – were to, at some future date, start offering special services to advertising clients? Deleting critical blog posts from the search results would be easy. So would tweaking the spam filters to let splogs and flogs bury blog discussion. How would you ever know?

Do you really expect that there’s anything preventing a search engine corporation – any search engine corporation – from filtering what you read?

Oddly, my post about C’elle’s menstrual blood collection kit – bank your own stem cells, from your menstrual blood, in case your doctor can ever use them for a miracle treatment, which probably won’t happen but hey what’s a few thousand bucks? – has dropped out of both Google’s blog search results and Technorati’s search results.

What, Google, Technorati, simultaneous hiccups? Too much marketing copy quoted too soon? C’mon, people, you’re killing me. All those blatant splogs get through but nothing for my little blog? Boo.

I study the politics of stem cells, so my newstrawl brings me gems like these:

C’elle’s exclusive and revolutionary service provides women with the unique opportunity to collect and preserve vital stem cells that can be harvested from the body’s menstrual fluid during the menstrual cycle. Until now, menstrual blood has typically been discarded as unsanitary waste. However, exciting new research shows that menstrual fluid contains, self-renewing stem cells that can be easily collected, processed and cryo-preserved for potential cellular therapies that may emerge in the future.

(I found it via Attila Csordás at Pimm. There’s also a Wired article now.)

I’m guessing the stem cells here are supposed to be blood or uterus adult stem cells, since sifting through menstrual blood to find the odd blastocyst that didn’t attach sounds terribly unpromising. Notice the double hedging: “potential cellular therapies that may emerge in the future”. (Much like saying “it may be possible to spread herpes”.)

This struck a chord because the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about a similar venture several days ago:

A San Carlos startup is offering to create “personalized” stem cells from the spare embryos of fertility clinic clients on the chance that the cells, frozen and stored away, may some day help a family member benefit from medical breakthroughs.

But some of the most fervent denunciations of StemLifeLine came from vigorous supporters of embryonic stem cell research. Two Stanford University critics aired their complaints in newspaper editorial pages. A prominent Stanford ethicist challenged UC San Francisco scientists who are advisers of the company to sever those ties. These critics accuse StemLifeLine of trying to profit from the promise of stem cell research in the present, even though the work may not yield medical treatments for decades, if ever.

Whether StemLifeLine’s clients ever benefit hinges on the chance that a stem cell therapy will arise for a specific disease by the time a family member needs treatment for that very illness. In addition, the company that developed the therapy would have to be willing and able to use the family’s StemLifeLine cell culture. The chances of all that are remote, say some of the most ardent backers of stem cell research.

The Michael Anissimov vs. Dale Carrico debate (if one can ever label blog speechifying as such) and its parallel eruptions of comment groupthink have produced precisely one observation of lasting insight: Anne C’s suggestion that discussions of artificial intelligence begin from a proper understanding of the concept of “intelligence”:

For example, in many of the discussions of “intelligence enhancement” that I’ve come across, I’ve noticed an extremely dogmatic adherence to the notion of IQ as tested by common measures.

I’ve read plenty of papers on the subject myself, and the one thing that strikes me about much of the research (though some of the newer cog-sci stuff isn’t bad) is the tremendous amount of unexamined assumptions.

That is, you’ll see comments like, “well IQ correlates with Success In Life!” — where “success in life” is often defined purely in terms of being able to check off certain items on a narrowly-defined socioeconomic checklist.

Therefore, if you see the notion of “enhancing” humans so that they score better on common IQ tests to be an unquestionably good thing, you might want to think very carefully about what it means to “raise IQ”. In some respects, “raising IQ” almost by definition implies, “making people more in line with the things that current culturally and socially-influenced tests point to as valuable”. And that’s a subtle point, but an important one to understand (in my humble opinion).

Also, I’ve noticed that a lot of superintelligence-oriented folks seem to flip back and forth almost seamlessly between their own, private definitions of intelligence (e.g., that exemplified by people they think of as “smart”) and statistical constructs like g. That can get a bit confusing.

Not to be presumptuous or anything, but I would definitely like to see more acknowledgment from “intelligence enthusiasts” of the cultural, social, and historical factors that influence things like test scores.

Mind you, I’m not saying that everyone really has the exact same underlying ability set, and that all test score differences are the result of cultural bias — but I am saying that you can’t talk about intelligence as if it is a purely technical, and not a political, issue.

“Intelligence enthusiasts”, I like that. Too many extropian commentators share a strange attraction toward using general intelligence as a measure of fitness.

Oh the mailing lists I’m on. Quoted for your amusement: an advertisement email for a discount club. What next, late-night infomercials? (”I’m singularitily impressed with the results, Bob, and my penis is larger, too!”) Emphases are mine.

See also PZ Meyers’s post at Pharyngula and a comment from “zorgon the malevolent” about related marketing.

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This one takes the cake for pseudoscientific claptrap. Ready? Here we go. Conservapedia’s “African Americans” article (because “Calling them Negroes is just uncouth.” – emphasis mine) ends thusly:

Intelligence
A gap in IQ scores of 12 to 18 points (compared with whites and Asians) has been variously attributed to innate ability (see Eugenics) or to the cultural and educational legacy of slavery. For a scientific treatment, see The Bell Curve.

Yes, they’re referring to Herrnstein and Murray’s The Bell Curve.

(by way of The State Of… and OK You Turkeynecks)

“Negroes”, though, pops up in the creationist silliness:

• Apobaramin: An apobaramin is a group of holobaramins. Humans and Dogs are an apobaramin since both members are holobaramins. A group containing Negroes and wolves is not an apobaramin since both members are monobaramins.

Yes, they really are equating race with subspecies. Contrast this to the Wikipedia “Race” article:

Many physical anthropologists have concluded that H. sapiens was polytypic in the past (H. sapiens neandertalensis, now extinct, having been a subspecies of H. sapiens). All human beings now alive, however, are regarded as belonging to the same subspecies: Homo sapiens sapiens – in effect, H. sapiens is now monotypic.

and to the Wikipedia “Subspecies” article:

In zoology, the scientific name of a subspecies is the binomen followed immediately by a subspecific name, e.g. Homo sapiens sapiens. The International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (4th edition, 2000) does not attempt to codify any “infrasubspecific entities” (e.g. human races or pet breeds).

(by way of Jack and Jill Politics and Too Sense, who have more on Conservapedia’s race follies)

Conservapedia’s “Slavery” article also takes excruciating pains to establish the Biblical permissibility of owning other humans.

“Slavery” is also referenced, permitted and regulated in the Bible. The Hebrew word ebed is translated as “slave” or “servant”, but the concept is not the same as the modern understanding of “slave”. It included “persons in subordinate positions” Therefore “all the subjects of Israel and Judah are called slaves of their kings“. [emphases in the original]

Additionally, the Bible teaches that all property belongs to God, with mankind responsible for looking after it for God.

Some biblical passages mentioning slavery are:

[lists ten passages]

The Old Testament alone, prior to New Testament considerations, broadly prohibits the permanent enslavement of the native inhabitants of Israel but permits the enslavement of immigrants and the occupants of other countries. Depending on the precise circumstances, ethnicity, nationality and any enslaved relatives of a slave, some must be freed after a specified time, while others remain slaves for life. Though physical violence to slaves is permitted, murder is not.

What this says about ideologically-driven education and the prospects for American conservatism, you tell me.

This is downright bizarre. Compare the current stub version of the “Smallpox” article on Conservapedia:

Smallpox is an acute, highly infectious, often fatal disease caused by a poxvirus and characterized by high fever and aches with subsequent widespread eruption of pimples that blister, produce pus, and form pockmarks. It is also called variola.

… to the longer, non-stub version that administrator Andrew Schlafly and others continue to revert away, threatening account blocks, because “Andy asked for this page not to be changed”.

Notice that the article’s talk page gives no explanation for the reverts. The admonition to one user not to copy pages from other wikis seems flimsy.

My guess is that there’s an anti-vaccination bias here that has nothing to do with Christianity and everything to do with Schlafly family / Eagle Forum objectives. Phyllis Schlafly is deadset against mandatory vaccinations. Her son Andrew, founder of Conservapedia, represents a conservative advocacy group that opposes vaccination. Her son Roger opposes mandatory vaccinations as well.

The success of smallpox vaccination is a counterargument that vaccination opponents must go out of their way to address. Note the mentions in the pieces from Phyllis, and Roger, and note the attempted debunking of the smallpox vaccine’s effectiveness in this interview with a vaccination opponent.

Keeping the “Smallpox” article a stub looks like a deliberate attempt to keep conservative readers in the dark, at least until a Schlafly-approved version can be written with the appropriate revisionist history of vaccination.