The glory days of organic food and homeopathic medicine

According to the signs at my local grocer, "organic is better". Now there's not a single credible scientific study that supports that, but there are lots of out-of-pocket people who believe it.

According to the supplements industry, vitamins are critical to health, because people's diets are so nutritionally deficient these days. Now the majority of credible studies on vitamin use say its most noted effect is to brightly colour your urine, which it most decidedly does, but there is little evidence of any significant health benefit. There is also no evidence that people's diets are more nutritionally deficient today than they have been in the 50,000 years of human civilization. Our currently projected lifespan is based on the lives of people who weathered the great depression, two world wars, and the food shortages than accompanied all three. To that end, I can't remember the last time I met someone twisted up from scurvy or rickets, the result of actual nutritional deficiencies. I really can't, because in our rich first world, nutritional deficiencies that threaten life don't happen outside of eating disorders.

According to a few celebrities, one debunked study, and a swath of well-educated, well off people, as evidenced by the Disneyland measles outbreak, vaccines cause autism. Now there's not a single credible scientific study that supports that, but the rebirth of previously eradicated diseases means there's tons of people who believe it. Unfortunately for those believers, contagious diseases are simple organisms. Viruses are incapable of understanding the anti-vaccination theory of natural immunity provided by breast milk and a comprehensive all organic diet. Viruses are not that sophisticated. They don't even have DNA, they are just inferior RNA replicators who will create copies of themselves at every cellular opportunity. Like the opportunity that presents itself in an unvaccinated human being.

According to, again, well educated folks who have done their research, GMOs are going to kill us all. Now there's not a single credible study that supports that, but there is no shortage of people who not only believe it, but are crying for GMO food labels so they can avoid these vile DNA-infused crops. I have no idea why. There are four commercially grown GMO crops in North America: corn, soy, sugar beets, and canola. These ingredients are not concealed on food labels. Surely if a person can spend a half hour on Natural News reading why GMOs are the end of the world as we know it, they can spend the two seconds it takes to read high fructose corn syrup on a label to know Oreo cookies and Pepsi contain GMO ingredients.

The reason I say "credible studies" is the nonsense people quote as evidence, because they don't understand what evidence is. Evidence is a double blind study. Evidence is not a two dozen anonymous blog post that sound credible, or a "health" page run by a guy with an arts degree and remedies to sell. When it comes to research, quantity is not quality unless it is referring to the size of the data set. Reading a thousand pages of wrong information does not make you more informed, it makes you an idiot for wasting that much of your time on the writings of idiots. Taking medical advice from anonymous or non-credentialed sources is like taking medical advice from some creepy piss-stained guy in an alleyway.

But disregarding all of that, please follow this link on a trip down Victorian memory lane. It was a scientifically simpler time when all food was organic, all remedies were homeopathic, all babies were breastfed, the only vaccine was for smallpox (eradicated by vaccines) and parents had a reasonable expectation that some of their children would die. http://io9.com/the-strangest-tradition-of-the-victorian-era-post-mort-472772709

Je suis Charlie

On a plane on route to the Philippines yesterday, Pope Francis told reporters "you can't provoke, you can't insult the faith of others, you can't make fun of faith." In the war between freedom of expression and freedom of religion, in his opinion religion wins. Obviously, as head of a church with 1.2 billion followers, he has a vested interest in religion coming out on top.

As a human beings, we too have a vested interest in who wins this war, because we have to live on this planet with every other human being. Life would be better for all if we could all get along. Pope Francis has a point, if no one makes fun of religions, then no one can do harm in defense of religion. But it also implies that religion is above contempt, of ridicule, when much of it is deserving of contempt, of ridicule. 

When you interject yourself within the policy-making of governments with the intent of making doctrine-based legislation, your religion is worthy of ridicule.

When you interject yourself into the education system with the intent of making doctrine-based curriculum, your religion is worthy of ridicule. 

When you deem half of your followers unworthy of any and all positions of authority within its institution, your religion is deserving of ridicule.

When you deny women - regardless of faith - autonomy over their own bodies, and by extension or by intent, their own lives, your religion is deserving of ridicule.

When you deny groups of people - regardless of faith - the same basic rights all others enjoy, your religion is deserving of ridicule.

When you deny life-saving, or in some cases, life-ending methods to people, or to deny the decision-making of science all together - regardless of faith - because it conflicts with long held beliefs from an ancient and unscientific culture, your religion is deserving of ridicule.

And most certainly, when you lay any expectation of violence at the act of insulting religion, your religion is deserving of ridicule.

Because even if you fixed all of these wrongs, religion is still a vastly interpretable instrument that by its very nature should never be above scrutiny, discussion, criticism, and yes, ridicule.

The same holy books that brings solace to believers are the same holy books that believers use to deny people rights and to incite and to engage in violence.

We are a population of seven billion people of different religions. Regardless of the faith to which a person subscribes, the majority of the world believes something else entirely and, in most cases, to exclusivity.

It is not a world in which we can allow any cow to be sacred.