Miracle Mineral Solution (MMS): If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is

Posted on June 28, 2015 by Fallacy Man

There is an old saying that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. I really like this saying because it is a basic principle of skepticism, and it goes hand in hand with a statement that was made famous by none other than Carl Sagan. Namely, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” I find that these two principles are broadly applicable to the many “miracle treatments” and fad diets that pervade the internet, but in this post I am just going to focus on the “Miracle Mineral Solution” (a.k.a. Miracle Mineral Supplement or MMS) as an illustration. Basically, this post is just an exercise in common sense in which I am going to point out some obvious hallmarks of snake oil.

What is MMS?

To put it simply, it’s bleach. To put it more technically, it is a 28% solution of sodium chlorate which breaks down to release chlorine dioxide, and it is the chlorine dioxide which actually reacts with pathogens (remember this chemical, it is going to show up a lot in this post). To be clear, MMS is not the same type of bleach that is used to clean your house (sodium hypochlorite), but it is nevertheless a type of bleach and is used to bleach various paper, wood, and textile products. This is also one of the chlorines that is sometimes used in very low concentrations to disinfect drinking water. Now, the fact that someone is selling a concentrated bleach solution as a miracle cure should throw up some red flags, but let’s investigate further. After all, the skeptic principle is to demand evidence, not to blindly reject something without looking for evidence.

Are its effects plausible?

According to the almighty internet, MMS cures pretty much everything. Spiritportal.org states that it “CURES” (their emphasis) “malaria, AIDs, most cancers, any type of hepatitis, tuberculosis, typhoid, pneumonia, asthma, herpes, HPV, chicken pox, smallpox, measles, influenza (including bird flu), colds, food poisoning, snake bite, Lyme disease, ringworm, roundworm, tapeworm, yeast infections, and many other common diseases.” Many other websites list additional ailments, and one hilariously unfactual website even goes as far as saying that it kills 95% of all diseases! Similarly, MMSWiki has an insanely long list that includes things like Down syndrome, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, depression, etc., and, of course, what good would a miracle cure be if it didn’t cure baldness and erectile dysfunction.

This type of list is characteristic of supposed miracle cures, and it provides really obvious evidence that these “cures” are a load of crap. For one thing, diseases like AIDs, cancer, and Alzheimer’s should jump out at you. Anytime that someone claims to have found a simple cure for one of those diseases, you should be very, very skeptical. Further, the sheer range of diseases that MMS supposedly cures gives us a good reason to be cautious. The list includes cancers, viruses, fungi, bacteria, auto-immune disorders, protozoan infections, parasites, genetic disorders, neurological disorders, snake bites, etc. I’m going to walk through some of those in more detail below, but first, just ask yourself if it is actually plausible that something is going to be effective against all of those maladies (spoiler alert: it’s not).

Pathogenic diseases

First, let’s look at the list of pathogenic diseases that it supposedly treats. In other words, all of the viruses, bacteria, protozoa, intestinal parasites, and fungi. When I first started looking into MMS, I was very skeptical that it would be able to kill so many different types of organisms, because all of these organisms are extremely different from each other. For example, bacteria have a cell wall made of peptidoglycan, whereas fungi have walls made of chitin; protozoa and intestinal parasites have no cell walls, and viruses don’t even have cells. So, generally speaking, treatments are specific for each group (e.g., antibiotics work for bacteria, but not viruses).

Much to my surprise, there is actually very good evidence that chlorine dioxide (the chemical that is produced by MMS) is very effective at killing all of these organisms in water. This is a very important point. Just because something kills “germs” in a glass of water or even when it is poured on a cut, that does not inherently mean that it will kill the targeted germs inside you. There are several reasons for this, but the most important one is that the chemical will react with lots of other things before it gets to the target organism. One of the primary mechanisms through which chlorine dioxide kills cells is by reacting with amine groups through oxidation/reduction reactions (type “chlorine dioxide amine” into Google Scholar for a host of articles about how it behaves). Amines are a type of chemical that contains a nitrogen with a lone pair of atoms, and they are ubiquitous in living organisms. They are, for example, part of some of the amino acids which are used to make proteins. So, we have amines, good bacteria have amines, bad bacteria have amines, etc. This is important because MMS is going to react with the first amines it encounters. Remember, this is just a chlorine atom bound to two oxygen atoms. It doesn’t have any way to detect good cells and bad cells. It’s just doing simple chemical reactions. So, let’s say that you take a few drops of MMS to treat chicken pox, most of it is going to react with the amines in the bacteria that populate your mouth and throat long before it gets circulated to the viruses that you want it to react with. True believers of course claim otherwise. According to one website:

“It [MMS] does not react with organic matter, such as food, body cells or even our ‘good’ intestinal bacteria, but is specific in destroying pathogenic microbes.”

This statement is hilariously impossible. First, all living things are made of organic matter. Amines are, for example, organic matter. So this statement is clearly false. If it were true, then MMS wouldn’t kill pathogenic microbes because they are made of organic matter. In fact, here is a paper entirely devoted to the fact that chlorine dioxide dissolves organic matter. Also, MMS does not discriminate between bacteria types. Both good bacteria and bad bacteria are made of the same chemicals, and chlorine dioxide will react with the amines in good bacteria just as quickly as it reacts with the amines in bad bacteria. Finally, there is evidence that chlorine dioxide reacts with bacteria more quickly than it does with our cells (this is the case because bacteria are much smaller than our cells so the chemical can react with them more quickly), but that is not the same thing as saying that it won’t react with our cells. If you put chlorine dioxide on living human cells and give it enough time, it will enter the cells and react with the amines. This is simple chemistry.

Cancer

Next up, we have cancer. I can admit that it is technically possible that MMS could treat some infectious diseases (though that still doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to take it), but it is completely absurd to think that it could treat cancer. Cancer is not like most diseases because it is caused by our own cells mutating and replicating uncontrollably. This makes cancer extremely difficult to fight because we are fighting against our own cells! So almost anything that will kill a cancer cell will also kill our healthy cells. Cancer cells are made of the same chemicals as normal cells. They are both full of amines, and nothing about the chemistry of chlorine dioxide suggests that it would be able to tell the difference between a cancer cell and a regular cell. Again, it’s going to react with the first amines it encounters, regardless of whether those are in healthy cells or cancer cells.

Asthma

Asthma is also included in the list. This inclusion is rather non-specific as there are many types of asthma that can be triggered by many different things, but most asthmas fall under the umbrella of autoimmune. To put it simply, they are caused by the body over-reacting to something harmless and, as a result, damaging itself. It would, therefore, be rather curious if MMS could treat asthma since there isn’t anything for it to kill (unlike the vast majority of other things it supposedly does). Rather, it somehow has to suppress an immune response. As with cancer, there is no reason to think that chlorine dioxide is in anyway capable of doing that.

Snake bites

Next, we have my personal favorite: “snake bites.” I have to assume that this means venomous snake bites (you don’t typically need medicine for a normal snake bite), but this raises the obvious question of what type of snake bit it treats. You see, there are two broad categories of snake venom: neurotoxins (which affect the nervous system) and hemotoxins (which affect the cardiovascular and muscular systems). There are, however, numerous sub-categories, and there is a tremendous amount of variation. In other words, different species have very different venoms that act very differently. Some block nerve signals, some coagulate the blood, some destroy cell membranes, etc. The chemistry of snake venom is extremely diverse and it simply isn’t plausible that one single chemical would be able to counteract all of the different types of snake venom. As someone who does research on venomous snakes, I am begging you, if you are bitten by a venomous snake, get to a hospital ASAP and do not take MMS for the bite. (On a side note, snake bite kits are also totally worthless and typically do more harm than good. Getting to the hospital as quickly as possible really is your only option [unless you live in Australia, in which case snake bandages are a good stop-gap measure to give you more time to get to a hospital])

Disorders

Finally, I want to briefly look at a few of the most absurd claims about MMS. For example, MMS supposedly cures Down syndrome. This would be truly remarkable because Down syndrome is caused by a trisomy (extra copy) of chromosome #21. So people with Down syndrome have an entire extra chromosome which is giving commands to the body. So to cure Down syndrome, you would have to somehow shut off that entire extra chromosome without interfering with the other chromosomes (which are made of the same chemicals, btw). There is simply no mechanism through which chlorine dioxide could possibly do that.

The procedure for “curing” autism is similarly absurd (and downright barbaric). For some reason, people got it in their heads that autism is caused by intestinal parasites (which is one thing that we know doesn’t cause autism). So, to treat it, well-intended, but dangerously misguided parents are giving their children MMS enemas (sometimes daily)! Remember, MMS is a bleach, and it is caustic enough that it sometimes causes the children to shed their intestinal linings. To the true believers, however, these linings aren’t the results of bleach killing their children’s intestinal cells, rather they are parasitic “rope worms,” and their presence in a child’s discharge confirms that the MMS is doing its job.

Summary of supposed effects

To review, this chemical is supposedly able to cure an extremely broad array of aliments, each of which requires a different mechanism. A mechanism that kills bacteria won’t cure cancer, won’t treat snake venom, won’t suppress the immune system, won’t cause hair to grow, won’t cure Down syndrome, etc. It just isn’t plausible for one chemical to do all of these things. Now, you may be thinking, “fine, maybe the claims are exaggerated, but just because it doesn’t cure all of these doesn’t mean that it can’t cure some of them.” That is true, but there are still several problems. First, without rigorous testing, you have no way of knowing which (if any) ailment it actually treats, and you have no reason to trust the people selling this stuff. I think that I have clearly demonstrated that at least some of the claims about MMS are scientifically incorrect. This means that the people making these claims are either dishonest or ignorant. Either way, you shouldn’t be getting medical advice from them. Second, without rigorous testing, you don’t know if it is safe. There are, for example, many things that will kill bacteria (such as iodine, gasoline, Clorox, rubbing alcohol, etc.), but that doesn’t mean that drinking them is a good idea.

Is the scientific evidence to support these claims?

Every once in a great while, a truly extraordinary claim turns out to be true, but we need some really solid evidence before concluding that it is true. So, are the claims of MMS peddlers supported by science? NO! There is not a scrap of scientific evidence that ingesting MMS does anything beneficial! The only “studies” are poorly designed, uncontrolled, and self-reported tests that were conducted by the inventor of MMS (Jim Humble). You can read about his “tests” in one of his many books which he would be more than happy to sell to you. All of the other “evidence” comes from anecdotal reports. I have previously elaborated on why anecdotes are meaningless, so I won’t do it here.

Are there side effects?

According to the charlatans that sell this stuff, it has “no harmful side effects or damage to healthy cells.” This claim is characteristic of quack treatments and miracle cures, and it is a dead giveaway that you are being lied to. Any medicine that has an effect on our bodies will also have side effects. This is an inevitability of our bodies’ chemistry. All medicines (including the handful of alternative medicines that are actually effective) work entirely because of chemical reactions inside of our bodies, and for at least some people, these reactions will invariably produce unintended consequences. So, the only way that something won’t have any side effects is if it doesn’t have any effects in the first place (on a side note, this is why homeopathy doesn’t have any side effects).

This claim is especially absurd for MMS because we know that MMS has side effects. Remember that that we are dealing with an industrial strength bleach. To be fair, it is not as caustic as regular bleach, and it attacks bacteria more readily than it attacks human cells, but, it will still kill human tissue in a high enough dose. Most people only take one or two drops of this stuff, which probably isn’t enough to do much harm, but some people take large quantities of it and use it daily, which is potentially dangerous. Despite all of the claims that MMS doesn’t affect your body’s good cells, it is a scientific fact that chlorine dioxide can be lethal. Fortunately, the LD50 (the does that will kill 50% of the mice that are given that dose) is estimated to be greater than 10,000 mg/kg, which is a very high LD50. So you probably aren’t going to kill yourself with this stuff, but at the same time, there have been plenty of lab trials where animals died from chlorine dioxide exposure. The non-lethal effects vary. Some studies haven’t found much in the way of harmful side effects, but other studies have found good evidence the chlorine dioxide causes problems such as ulcers, lesions, altered blood chemistry, nausea, and diarrhea (you can find a good review of the toxicity of chlorine dioxide here).

So, as far as a bleach goes, MMS is fairly safe, and it probably won’t do much serious damage in the doses that most people take. Nevertheless, the evidence against it is strong enough that health agencies from multiple countries warn against using it. These countries include: USA, Australia, Canada, and several others. The FDA even comically states that:

“Consumers who have MMS should stop using it immediately and throw it away.”

But, of course, we all know that every major health organization in the world is paid off by Big Pharma (note the immense sarcasm), so let’s look at the information given to us by the supporters of MMS. Miracle-mineral-supplement.com makes the following statement:

“Note: If you notice diarrhea, or even vomiting that is not necessarily a bad sign. The body is simply throwing off toxins and cleaning itself out. Some people say they feel much better after having diarrhea.”

Now, a rational person might stop and think that perhaps they were throwing up because they drank bleach, but according to the true believers, that is simply the MMS doing its job of removing vague “toxins” and whatever else might ail you (all of course without damaging your cells or the good bacteria that live in your gut). This is clearly rubbish. First, even if the claim that your nausea and diarrhea were from the MMS working was true, that is still a side effect! You cannot simultaneously say “this has no side effects” and “while taking this you may lose your lunch and your anus may be converted into an upside-down volcano.” If taking something gives you diarrhea, then diarrhea is a side effect. Second, except under very rare circumstances, the death of bacteria, virus, etc. will not make you sick. You have these wonderful cells called phagocytes that go around removing old cells and harmful materials. They do this all the time, and you don’t get sick from it. Every day, thousands of your cells die, and phagocytes run around disposing of them.

Things are similarly bizarre when we look at the procedure for “treating” cancer. According to spiritportal.org you should start off with 1/2 drop and see if that makes you nauseated. If it doesn’t, you should keep slowly increasing the dose until you find an amount that does make you nauseated. You want to reach the dose that makes you nauseated because being nauseated supposedly means that it is working. You see, after the MMS kills your cancer cells, they become “a poison to your body,” and it is those poisonous dead cells (not the bleach) that are making you sick. I honestly laughed the first time that I read this. For one thing, Occam’s razor tells us that we should default to the explanation that makes the fewest assumptions, and that explanation is clearly that you are throwing up because you drank bleach. Further, why on earth would a dead cancer cell be poisonous? The chemical composition of cancer cells isn’t substantially different from other cells, and, as previously stated, your cells die constantly. So why would a dead cancer cell be poisonous when a normal dead cell is not? Once again, you have phagocytes that do a very good job of getting rid of dead cells.

Why isn’t MMS an approved treatment?

No miracle cure would be complete without a conspiracy theory, and MMS supporters are more than happy to concoct one. In classic conspiracy theorist form, almost every MMS website that I have looked at has stated that pharmaceutical companies are suppressing the truth of MMS because they make so much money treating these ailments, and, of course, all of the world’s health organizations (and bloggers like me) are paid shills. There are so many problems with this argument that I plan on eventually devoting an entire post to it, but for now, I’ll just hit the highlights.

First, pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars looking for cures to cancer, Alzheimer’s, etc. Why would they do that if they already have a cure that they have no intention of using?

Second, if MMS actually works, why wouldn’t they start marketing it themselves and make billions of dollars of off it? Inevitably they would charge way more for it than it costs to produce, and, yes, they would have to compete with the unlicensed internet retailers, but there are still plenty of people who would rather pay a little bit more and get something official than use something from the internet. Surely that would make more sense than spending billions of dollars paying off all of the world’s doctors while simultaneously spending billions of dollars looking for a cure that they already have.

Third, realize that all of the thousands of doctors who work for pharmaceutical companies have friends and family who are afflicted by these diseases (especially cancer). Do you really think that they are just going to sit by and watch tons of people suffer and die when they know that a cure exists?

Finally, realize that this claim is a question begging fallacy/ad hoc fallacy (depending on how it is worded). In other words, I would never accept this absurd conspiracy theory unless I was already totally convinced that MMS worked. So it’s a logically invalid argument.

Conclusion

Hopefully this post has made it clear that MMS is nothing but snake oil and shouldn’t be trusted. More importantly, I hope that this post has given you some basic common sense guidelines for examining miracle treatments, fad diets, etc. The following list gives some of the hallmark characteristics of quack treatments, and you should watch out for them.

  • Implausible effects (e.g. an absurdly wide array of ailments that it cures, unrealistic recoveries, improbable amounts of weight loss, etc.)
  • No plausible mechanisms for causing those effects
  • No scientific evidence to support its claims
  • Claims that it has no side effects
  • Conspiracy theories

For MMS, we find that it doesn’t pass any checkpoints, and there is absolutely no reason to think that taking it is a good idea.

Posted in Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Assumptions vs. inductive logic: is radiometric dating based on assumptions?

Posted on June 18, 2015 by Fallacy Man

Anyone who has tried to debate a creationist has invariably encountered their liberal use of the word, “assumption.” This is one of their trump-card, catch-all arguments that they use to handily “defeat” any evidence that opposes their position. For example, if you present them with the fact that coral reefs grow much too slowly to have formed in the past 4,500 years (their calculated time since the supposed world-wide flood), they will say, “well, you’re assuming that corals couldn’t grow faster in the past.” Similarly, if you point out that ice cores clearly show that the earth cannot possibly be less than 10,000 years old, they will retort, “well you’re assuming that layers only form annually.” Most infamously, when faced with the realization that radiometric dating completely obliterates the notion of a young earth, they choose to ignore that evidence because scientists are, “assuming a constant rate of decay/the amount of material in the original rock.” These blind dismissals of evidence are often accompanied by a rhetorical, “were you there?” The problem is that creationists are misusing the term “assumption,” and, as usual, are completely misconstruing how science actually works. As I will demonstrate, coral growth rates, radioactive decay rates, etc. are not assumptions. Rather, they are the conclusions of simple inductive logic.

The definition of “assumption”
First, we have to define “assumption.” At the broadest level, you could define an assumption as something that cannot be proved with 100% certainty, but that is an extremely problematic definition because it makes virtually everything an assumption. This is the problem that Descartes was describing when he famously proclaimed, “cogito ergo sum” (I think therefore I am). You see, I cannot prove with 100% certainty that I am not currently dreaming, or that we are not currently in the Matrix. The only thing that I can be 100% certain of is my own existence. Thus, at this broad definition, I am “assuming” that I am actually in a real, physical universe. Fortunately, I think that even creationists would agree with me that this definition is not really useful, and I don’t think that it is the definition that they are operating under.

A more restrictive definition is that an assumption is something that was not directly observed. Indeed, this seems to be the definition that creationists use, but this definition is also fraught with problems and inconsistencies. The most fundamental problem is one which I have previously elaborated on. Namely, direct observation is actually very unreliable, and you can use simple inductive logic to reach conclusions about something without directly observing it (i.e., there is no difference between “historical” and “observational” science). Remember that inductive logic is the type of logic that goes from a series of observations to a general conclusion.

I have used the theory of gravity to illustrate this before, but it is such a good, clean example that I am going to use it again. The theory of universal gravity states that all objects with mass produce gravity and are acted on by the gravity from other bodies. It also goes on to detail the math of how these bodies interact with each other, ultimately producing what is known as the gravitational constant (G) where G = 6.672×10^-11N m^2 kg^-2. This value is exceedingly useful and lets us do something really neat. For any two bodies, if we know the mass of each object and the distance between them, then we can use G to calculate the force of gravity between those two objects. These calculations will, however, only work if G is actually constant.

The question is, of course, how do we know that the gravitational constant is in fact constant? Well, quite simply, we have tested it over and over again and it has always been correct. In other words, we accept it as true because of inductive logic (i.e., we went from a series of observations to a general conclusion). Importantly, we can never prove that G actually is a constant, because doing that would require us to test G against every single piece of matter in the universe. That’s clearly impossible, so instead we rely on inductive logic (also there are very strong mathematical reasons to think that G is constant).

This is where things get interesting (and problematic for creationists). We use G all the time, even in situations where we can’t actually observe it to confirm that G works for the object in question. Any high school level physics course will go over calculations that use G, and it is extremely important for astrophysics. This is important because no one would claim that G is just an “assumption,” but that is exactly what creationists’ definition of assumption does. Imagine for a moment that an astrophysicist derived an explanation for some phenomena, and the math for that explanation involved G. It would be utterly absurd for you to say, “I don’t have to accept that explanation because you are assuming that G is constant.” We know that G is constant because we have measured it over and over again and it has always been constant. Therefore, via inductive logic, we must accept that it is constant until we have been shown a compelling reason to think that it is not constant. Even so, we have measured the rates of radiometric decay over and over again and they have always been constant. Therefore, via inductive logic, we must accept that they are constant until we have been shown a compelling reason to think that they are not constant. Similarly, we have repeatedly measured coral growth rates, and we know that even their fastest growth rate is nowhere near fast enough for them to have formed in only a few thousand years. When we make a statement like that, we aren’t “assuming” that growth rates weren’t faster in the past; rather we are applying inductive logic.

Also, note that the argument that creationists are making here is nothing more than an ad hoc fallacy. There is absolutely no reason to think that coral reefs grew faster in the past, or ice cores and varves formed multiple layers annually, or radioactive particles decayed faster, etc., but creationists are assuming that those things occurred even though there is absolutely no evidence to support those notions. That is the proper use of “assumption.” An assumption is something which you choose to accept as true despite a lack of supporting evidence. So, despite what creationists would like you to believe, scientist’s methods for dating the earth are based on inductive logic, not assumptions; whereas creationists’ arguments are based entirely on assumptions and ad hoc fallacies (note: I am using “assumption” synonymously with “unfounded assumption” because that is the way in which creationists seem to use it).

How radiometric dating actually works
Hopefully at this point you realize that scientists aren’t just making haphazard assumptions, but just to be sure, I want to quickly walk through how radiometric dating actually works because there is a lot of confusion and misinformation about it. First, realize that there are many different types of radiometric dating. Each method is specific to the type of rock that it can date, and which one you use depends on what type of material you are working with (on a side note, you may see creationists claim that they have dated something that we know is recent, such as a rock from Mt St. Helen, and the radiometric dating said it was old. These reports are generally a result of creationists using the wrong method for the rock in question).

To illustrate how radiometric dating works, I am going to focus on one method (uranium-lead dating), but all other types of radiometric dating follow the same general steps (note: technically there are two types of uranium-lead dating and both are generally used simultaneously, but I am going to focus on the cycle of 235U to keep things simple). Uranium-lead dating is used on a type of rock known as a zircon. Zircons are useful because when they form, the formation process incorporates uranium, but it strongly repels lead, which means that a newly formed zircon will never have any lead in it. This resolves creationists’ claim that scientists “assume the amount that was in the rock to begin with.” We aren’t “assuming,” rather we have tested the formation processes of zircons, and we understand the chemistry, and we know that lead simply isn’t incorporated. That’s simple inductive logic (note: the amount of uranium in the parent rock is irrelevant).

Uranium exists in several isotopes (same element, different numbers of neutrons), and the one we are interested in is 235U. 235U decays into 207Pb (an isotope of lead) at a rate known as a half-life. A half-life is the amount of time that it takes for half the atoms to decay. For 235U, a half-life is roughly 704 million years. How do we know what the half-life is? Simple: we have measured the rate of decay over and over again and it has always been the same (i.e., inductive logic). Also, as with the theory of gravity, there are strong mathematical reasons for thinking that the rate is constant (in fact, it’s a scientific law known as the law of radioactive decay). So, once again, saying that scientists “assume” that decay rates are constant is no different from saying that scientists “assume” that gravity is constant. Saying that we shouldn’t trust decay rates is just as absurd as saying that we shouldn’t trust gravity.

To illustrate how a half-life works, let’s say we have a rock that starts off with 80 atoms of 235U. After 704 million years, it will have a 1:1 ratio (40 atoms of 235U and 40 atoms of 207Pb) because half of the particles will have decayed. After another 704 million years (1,408 million total), the ratio will be 1:3 (20 atoms of 235U and 60 atoms of 207Pb). After 704 million more years (2,112 million total), the ratio will be 1:7 (10 atoms of 235U and 70 atoms of 207Pb), etc. The ratios are the important things here, and they are why the amount of uranium in the original rock is irrelevant. We can take a zircon, measure the amount of 235U and the amount of 207Pb, and the ratio of those two chemicals will tell us how old the rock is. For example, if the ratio is 1:7, then we know that it is 2.1 billion years old. It doesn’t matter if that ratio is from 1 atom of 235U and 7 atoms of 207Pb or from 1,000 atoms of 235U and 7,000 atoms of 207Pb, the ratio is still 1:7.

In summary, radiometric dating is based on well tested, scientific results, not assumptions. We know that there was no lead in zircons to begin with, because zircons strongly repel lead when they are forming. That is not an “assumption,” that is an inductive conclusion based on multiple experiments. We don’t know how much uranium was present in the original rock, but we don’t need to because the ratios are all that we care about. Finally, we know the rate at which uranium decays into lead because we have repeatedly measured it, and it has always been the same. So you see, when creationists claim that radiometric dating relies on “assumptions” they are grossly mischaracterizing how the process works, and they have demonstrated that they are either dishonest or ignorant about the science. Either way, they aren’t a trustworthy source of information.

Posted in Nature of Science, Science of Evolution | Tagged , , , , | 20 Comments

5 simple chemistry facts that everyone should understand before talking about science

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Fallacy Man

One of the most ludicrous things about the anti-science movement is the enormous number of arguments that are based on a lack of knowledge about high school level chemistry. These chemistry facts are so elementary and fundamental to science that the anti-scientists’ positions can only be described as willful ignorance, and these arguments once again demonstrate that despite all of the claims of being “informed free-thinkers,” anti-scientists are nothing more than uninformed (or misinformed) science deniers. Therefore, in this post I am going to explain five rudimentary facts about chemistry that you must grasp before you are even remotely qualified to make an informed decision about medicines, vaccines, food, etc.

 

1). Everything is made of chemicals

This seems like a simple concept, but many people seem to struggle greatly with it, so let’s get this straight: all matter is made of chemicals (excluding subatomic particles). You consist entirely of chemicals. All food (even organic food) consists entirely of chemicals. Herbal remedies consist entirely of chemicals, etc. So, when someone says something like, “I don’t vaccinate because I don’t want my child to be injected with chemicals,” they have just demonstrated how truly uninformed they are, and you can be absolutely certain that they don’t know what they are talking about because all matter is made of chemicals.

A “chemical-free lifestyle” is totally impossible. You can only survive without chemicals for 1-2 minutes, after that you will suffocate from a lack of oxygen. Right now, you are breathing in dioxide (aka oxygen) and your body is using that chemical as an electron acceptor for a process known as cellular respiration. This process takes carbohydrates such as glucose (which is a chemical) from your food, and breaks those carbohydrates down in order to release carbon dioxide (a chemical), water (also a chemical), and energy stored in adenosine triphosphate (ATP) molecules (still chemicals), and it is ATP which fuels your entire body. This process also involves numerous enzymes and electron acceptors such as acetyl coenzyme A and nicotine adenine dinucleotide (NADH), all of which are chemicals. Are you getting the picture here? You are a biochemical machine and every single thing that you do is driven by chemical reactions inside of your body. Even just reading this post is causing various chemical reactions inside your nervous system which are allowing you to process information. So there is no inherent reason to fear chemicals. You and everything else on this planet are made of chemicals and you would quickly die without them.

It’s also worth noting that the length of a chemical’s name does not indicate how toxic it is. The internet is full of scare tactics and fear-mongering over chemicals with long scary- sounding names. For example, Vani Hari (a.k.a. the Food Babe) is famous for proclaiming that you shouldn’t eat anything that you can’t pronounce or spell. This is patently absurd. For example, consider the following chemicals: retinal, cyanocobalamin, ascorbic acid, and cholecalciferol. Having taught college biology and listened to my students butcher scientific words, I am confident in saying that a large number of people would struggle to pronounce those, and many of them would likely freak out over things like ascorbic acid which sound like they should be bad for you. In reality, those are simply the chemical names for vitamins A, B, C, and D. Similarly, all living things contain DNA, and as a result, virtually all food contains DNA, but DNA stands for deoxyribonucleic acid. Again, its a long, difficult to pronounce name, and it sounds bad because it’s an acid, but it is essential for life and it is in nearly all foods. It is naive and childish to base your diet or medical practices on your pronunciation skills.

 

2). The dose makes the poison

There is no such thing as a toxic chemical, there are only toxic doses. Let me say that again: essentially all chemicals are safe at a low enough dose, and essentially all chemicals are toxic at a high enough dose. This is a fundamental fact that people in the anti-science movement routinely ignore. Vani Hari is notorious for rejecting this fact by making claims such as, “there is just no acceptable level of any chemical to ingest, ever.” The reality is quite different. For example, everyone reading this currently has mercury, arsenic, cyanide, formaldehyde, aluminum, lead, and a host of other “toxic” chemicals in your body right now. Further, you would have those chemicals even if you had spent your entire life hundreds of miles from anyone else, ate only organic food that you grew yourself, never used pharmaceuticals or vaccines, etc. These are chemicals that are normally in our environment and we acquire them through our food, water, etc. Some of these (such as formaldehyde) are even produced by our bodies. Even radioactive chemicals like uranium are often present. So clearly there are safe levels of “toxic” chemicals since all of us normally have them in our bodies. Inversely, “safe” chemicals such as water are toxic in high enough doses. People have, in fact, overdosed on water. To be clear, they did not drown, they overdosed. Water is actually dangerous to your body at high enough levels.

The importance of this fact cannot be overstated. No chemical is inherently safe or inherently dangerous. So, the next time that someone tries to scare you about the “toxic chemicals” in your food, medicine, vaccines, detergents, etc. ask them for two pieces of information:

  1. What is the toxic dose in humans?
  2. What is the dose in the product in question?

Those two pieces of information are absolutely crucial for evaluating the safety of the product. You simply cannot know whether that chemical is dangerous without knowing the dose in the product and the dose at which it becomes toxic. So, if your friend, blogger, etc. cannot answer those two questions, then they have just unequivocally demonstrated that they haven’t done their homework and don’t know what they are talking about; therefore, you shouldn’t listen to them. Indeed, a great many anti-science arguments crumble under the realization that the dose makes the poison. For example, we have all no doubt heard people rant about the “toxins” in vaccines, but the reality is that the supposedly toxic chemicals in vaccines are present in completely safe doses and, therefore, are totally safe.

 

 3). There is no difference between “natural” and “synthetic” versions of a chemical

I often hear people claim that “synthetic” chemicals (a.k.a. chemicals made in a lab) are not as good for you as their “natural” counterparts. The reality is that this represents a misunderstanding of literally the most fundamental concept of chemistry. The most basic unit of matter is the atom (again, excluding subatomic particles), and there are several different types of atoms known as elements. We combine these elements to make various molecules, and the combination of elements determines the molecule’s properties. The process by which those elements were combined is completely and totally irrelevant to how the final chemical behaves.

For example, water (a.k.a. dihydrogen monoxide) consists of three atoms: 2 hydrogens and 1 oxygen (hydrogen and oxygen are both elements). There are literally thousands of different chemical reactions that will produce water. In other words, we can make water thousands of different ways, but water always behaves in exactly the same way no matter how it was formed because it always consists of the same three atoms. Further, if given a vial of pure water, there isn’t a chemist anywhere in the world who could tell you how that water was produced because it would be completely identical to all of the other water everywhere on the planet. So, as long as the chemical structure is the same, it doesn’t matter if the chemical was extracted from a plant or synthesized in a lab.

 

4). “Natural” chemicals are not automatically good and “artificial” chemicals are not automatically bad

I often encounter people who will claim to agree with everything that I have said thus far, but they still insist that “artificial” chemicals (a.k.a. chemicals that simply are not found in nature) are bad for you and shouldn’t be consumed, injected, etc. There are several critical problems here. First, remember again that esentially all chemicals are dangerous at a high enough doses and safe at a low enough dose. That is just as true for artificial chemicals as it is for natural chemicals. Second, this claim is nothing more than an appeal to nature fallacy. Nature is full of chemicals such as cyanide and arsenic that are dangerous at anything but a very low dose, so there is no reason to think that the “naturalness” of a chemical is an indicator of its healthiness.

Further, remember that chemicals are nothing more than arrangements of elements. There is absolutely no reason to think that nature has produced all of the best arrangements or that we are incapable of making an arrangement that is safe or even better than what nature produced. I constantly hear people say that we cannot improve on nature, but that is an utterly ludicrous and unsupportable claim, and I would challenge anyone to give me a logical syllogism that backs it up. Really think about this for a minute, if you are of the opinion that artificial chemicals should be avoided, try to defend that position. Ask yourself why you think that. Can you give me any reason to think that they are bad other than simply that they aren’t natural (which we have just established is a fallacy)?

 

5). A chemical’s properties are determined by the other chemicals that it is bound to

Chemical compounds are made by combining different elements or even molecules, and the final product may not behave the same way as all of its individual parts. Sodium chloride is a classic example of this concept. Sodium is extremely reactive and will literally explode if it contacts water, and chlorine is very toxic at anything but an extremely low dose. Nevertheless, when we combine them we get sodium chloride, which is better known as table salt. Notice that table salt does not have the properties of either sodium or chlorine. It does not explode when it contacts water and you cannot get chlorine poisoning from it no matter how much of it you eat. The combination of those two elements changed their properties and it would be absurd to say that “salt is dangerous because it contains sodium.” The sodium in salt no longer behaves like sodium because it is bound to the chlorine. Therefore, when you hear a claim that something contains a dangerous chemical, make sure that the chemical isn’t bound to something that makes it safe.

Thimerosal in vaccines makes an excellent illustration of how little anti-scientists actually understand about chemistry. You have no doubt heard that vaccines are dangerous because they contain mercury, and mercury is toxic. Ignoring the fact that currently only certain types of flu vaccines contain mercury and the fact the mercury is present in very low doses, there is another serious problem here. The mercury in vaccines is in a form known as thimerosal. Thimerosal is mercury bound to an ethyl group, making it ethyl mercury. The mercury that causes poisoning (i.e., the form that accumulates in seafood) is mercury bound to a methyl group (a.k.a. methyl mercury). Ethyl and methyl mercury are not the same thing. They do not behave the same way. Just as the properties of the sodium were changed by the chlorine, the properties of the mercury are changed by the ethyl group. So, claiming that “mercury is dangerous and vaccines contain mercury, therefore vaccines are dangerous” is no different from claiming that “sodium is dangerous and salt contains sodium, therefore salt is dangerous.”

 

Posted in Nature of Science, Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , , | 483 Comments

Vaccines don’t give lifelong immunity, but they are still better than natural immunity

Posted on May 10, 2015 by Fallacy Man

Anyone who has spent time talking to anti-vaxxers has probably encountered the argument that we shouldn’t vaccinate because vaccines only provide temporary immunity whereas natural immunity is lifelong. This is one of the most insipid, infuriating, irrational and easily defeated claims of the anti-vaccine movement. Nevertheless, like the mighty Hydra it continues to resurrect itself and pervade the internet. I’ve dealt with this argument briefly before, but lately I have been seeing it rather frequently, so I have decided to devote an entire post to explaining why this argument makes no sense whatsoever.

Does natural immunity last longer than artificial immunity?
I want to begin by briefly looking at the facts to see whether or not the fundamental claim of this argument is even true. When you look at the research on vaccines, you quickly find that this claim is only partially true. There have admittedly been several studies that have documented that immunity from vaccines does not last as long as naturally acquired immunity. This actually makes good sense. The whole point of a vaccine is to trigger an immune response without actually inflicting the patient with the disease itself. The mechanism through which the immune response is triggered is the same with vaccines and with natural immunity, but the magnitude of the response differs, and it is hardly surprising that your body would keep a higher level of active anti-bodies after a full infection than it would after the small antigen exposure that it receives from a vaccine.

So there is some truth to this claim, but anti-vaxxers grossly exaggerate it and misrepresent the facts. For example, a study comparing the immune responses of people who were vaccinated against measles with the immune responses of people who actually had a measles infection found almost no difference between the two groups after 21 years. Further, the claim that natural immunity is lifelong is often erroneous. For example, a review of the literature on pertussis (whooping cough) found that immunity from vaccines typically lasted 4–12 years and natural immunity lasted 4–20 years. So the natural immunity lasted longer, but it was by no means “lifelong.” To be naturally immune for life, you’re going to have to get multiple pertussis infections, which kind of defeats the point of being immune.

To summarize, if you’re claiming that vaccine-induce immunity is temporary but natural immunity is lifelong, then you are simply incorrect. Your premise is demonstrably false. If, however, you are claiming that both types of immunity are temporary, but natural immunity typically lasts a little bit longer, then your premises are technically correct, but, as I’ll explain below, your argument still suffers from very serious logical problems.

Who cares if natural immunity lasts longer?
There are numerous logical problems with the argument that natural immunity is somehow better than artificial immunity. First, this argument often boils down to nothing more than an appeal to nature fallacy. Many people that I talk to think that natural immunity is better simply because its natural, but that’s clearly absurd. Death from measles is totally natural, but no one thinks that it is better than living a long, healthy, measles-free life.

Other people seem to simply think that the fact that natural immunity lasts longer automatically makes it better. This is, however, one of the most mind-bogglingly stupid notions that I have ever encountered. Here’s the important thing about natural immunity: to get it, you have to get the disease! There is no universe is which it is better to get the disease so that you are protected from future infections for longer rather than simply avoiding getting the disease in the first place! Let’s use the pertussis example from above. You have two options:

  1. Get pertussis, which will make you immune for up to 20 years, at which point you will need a new infection if you want to continue being immune
  2. Get a vaccine, which will make you immune for up to 12 years, at which point you will need a booster if you want to continue being immune

The second choice obviously makes more sense because it avoids you ever getting pertussis, but this inane anti-vax argument claims that option one is actually better, because after getting infected you’ll be protected for 20 years, whereas the vaccine will only protect you for twelve. How anti-vaccers can ignore the fact that the vaccine prevents you from getting the disease in the first place is totally beyond me.

As many others before me have pointed out, if we applied this twisted logic to other areas, we would get all sorts of bizarre conclusions. For example, no birth control method is 100% effective at preventing pregnancy, but it is impossible to get a new pregnancy if you are already pregnant (excluding a few extremely rare medical conditions). Therefore, according to the logic of this anti-vax argument, if you want to avoid a pregnancy, you should get pregnant, that way you can have sex without worrying about getting pregnant. That really is what this argument claims. It proposes that you should get a disease that way you won’t get the disease again. Surely, it would be better to simply avoid getting the disease in the first place!

This brings me to what is perhaps the most important point of this post: regardless of how long the immunity lasts, your odds of getting a disease are much lower if you are vaccinated. This fact is simply not up for debate. It is demonstrably and quantitatively true. Take a look at the data for pertussis, measles, mumps, and rubella from Schmitz et al. 2011 (below). Look at the measles outbreak in France where the vast majority of patients (roughly 80%) were unvaccianted, even though less than 20% of the population was unvaccianted (in many cases much less, depending on the age group). Examine the measles outbreak in the Netherlands where 96.5% of victims were unvaccinated. Look at the data from Bangladesh where death rates from measles were 46% lower among vaccinated children. Think about that for a second, who gives a crap about which type of immunity lasts longer when vaccinated kids are dying 46% less frequently than unvaccinated children? It doesn’t matter if natural immunity lasts longer because natural immunity requires you to actually get the disease. The best option is clearly the one that minimizes your chances of ever getting the infection in the first place.

Effectiveness of vaccines against pertussis, measles, mumps, rubella

Disease rates are much higher among the unvaccinated than among the vaccinated. Figure from Schmitz et al. 2011.

Boosters aren’t a big deal
Closely related to (and often associated with) the argument that vaccines don’t provide lifelong immunity is the argument that vaccines aren’t effective because they often require boosters. I often hear anti-vaccers touting this fact as if it is a death blow to vaccines, but the logic here is seriously flawed. First, remember that natural immunity often isn’t lifelong either. Second, who cares if you have to get a booster? This argument claims the following: “vaccines aren’t perfect and require follow-ups, therefore they are worthless and we shouldn’t use them.” That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Getting a booster is not a big deal. Once every twelve years or so you take a few hours out of your day to go to a doctor, pay him/her a few bucks, and suddenly you are protected for another 12 years. I fail to see how that is a critical problem that somehow undermines the effectiveness of vaccines and supersedes the massive reductions in disease rates that are associated with them.

To really drive this point home, let’s apply anti-vaccer’s logic to other areas of life. If this argument worked, then you also shouldn’t change your car’s oil, because you’re just going to have to change it again in a few months. Similarly, you shouldn’t replace your carpet, because the new carpet won’t last forever. Further, why should you clean your gutter when you’re just going to have to clean it again next year? Hopefully you see the point here: the fact that something isn’t permanent doesn’t make it worthless.

Finally, I want to bring my fundamental point back into focus. Yes, vaccines only protect you for a limited number of years, but not getting vaccinated protects you for exactly zero years. You have no protection until you get infected. So if my options are: be protected from the disease (with the caveat that I need periodic boosters) or simply don’t get any protection at all until after I’ve already gotten the disease! I’m going to take the former option. Any rational person would take the former option. The latter option is bordering on the definition of insanity. Getting a disease in order to be protected from the disease is mind-numbingly idiotic.

It’s about more than just the duration of protection
As I’ve already explained, your odds of ever getting an infectious disease are much, much lower if you have been vaccinated against that disease, but there is a lot more going on than just your personal protection. First, we also have to consider herd immunity. When most of the people in a population have been vaccinated, then it is very difficult for a disease to spread through the community because the vaccinated people shield the unvaccinated people. Anti-vaccers really don’t like this fact, and they often completely deny the existence of herd immunity, but it is a simple mathematical concept that is easy to simulate (you can also check out this neat simulator that lets you simulate outbreaks in actual US cities). Further, this is not just a hypothetical concept, we have experimentally demonstrated that herd immunity does in fact work (Rudenko et al. 1993; Hurwitz et al. 2000; Reichert et al. 2001; Ramsay et al. 2003). The exact methods vary among studies, but the basic idea is that you vaccinate a subset of a community, then monitor the disease rates in the unvaccinated portion of the community (preferably with a control community that received no vaccines at all).

For example, one of the earliest studies did this by taking two towns and vaccinating 85% of the schoolchildren in one town but not the other. What they found was that in the town with the vaccinated children, the disease rate was lower not just for the children, but also for the adults (compared to the adults in the town with no vaccines). This is herd immunity at work. By protecting the children, the adults were also protected because the disease could not spread as easily.

My point is that vaccine-induced immunity is better than natural immunity because getting natural immunity requires you to get the disease which makes you a vector that can spread the disease to others. In contrast, when a large portion of the community is vaccinated, there are very few vectors and large outbreaks are prevented. This is a very important benefit of vaccines.

Another consideration is the fact that vaccines not only protect against a disease, but they often reduce the severity of the disease. The pertussis vaccine is a great example of this. Not only are your odds of getting an infection much lower with the vaccine, but if you get the disease, it will generally be more mild if you had a vaccine.

It is also important to remember that diseases often come with additional complications. For example, in the process of acquiring natural immunity to measles (i.e., you get a measles infection) 1 out of every 10 children will get an ear infection (which can lead to permanent deafness), 1 out of every 20 will get pneumonia, 1 out of every 1,000 will get encephalitis (swelling of the brain), and 1 out of every 1,000 will die (numbers are from the CDC). Further, encephalitis can lead to permanent brain damage (that’s a pretty high price to pay for natural immunity). The influenza vaccine is another good example of this. A study that looked at the secondary effects of the influenza vaccine in the elderly found that it resulted in a 19% reduction in the risk of hospitalization for cardiac disease, 16–23% reduction for cerebrovascular disease, and a 48–50% reduction for the risk of death. Those are hard facts that natural immunity simply cannot compete with.

Artificial immunity is demonstrably better than getting natural immunity
Finally, just in case you haven’t been convinced by the mountain of evidence that I have prevented thus far, I want to discuss a recent study that is extremely damning to the idea that natural immunity is better than artificial immunity. As it turns out, a measles infection has a rather fascinating effect on your immune system. It does indeed give you immunity to future measles infections (at least for a few years), but it also suppresses your immune system and even “erases” your immunity to other diseases. The researchers found that people who had measles infections experienced a reduced immune response for 2–3 years after the infection. This results in increased rates of secondary infections (which can at times leads to death) during that period. In other words, obtaining natural immunity is bad for you, because even if you don’t get pneumonia or one of the other complications of measles, you have just weakened your immune system for the next 2–3 years! So the cost of natural immunity to measles is three years of a reduced immune response to other diseases. There is no universe in which that is better than simply getting a vaccine and avoiding the infection in the first place.

Summary
In conclusion, neither natural or artificial immunity provides life-long protection. Natural immunity does often last a few years longer than artificial immunity, but it requires you to actually get the disease in the first place, and that initial infection can adversely affect your immune system for several years. Further, even with a shorter duration of immunity, vaccines greatly reduce your risk of ever getting the disease, which in turn greatly reduces your risk of getting any of the complications and secondary infections associated with the disease, and when most people vaccinate, herd immunity is built up and everyone enjoys a lower disease rate (even the anti-vaccers). So, the argument that natural immunity is better than artificial immunity makes no sense whatsoever. It is demonstrably better to get artificial immunity through a vaccine than it is to get natural immunity through an infection.

Posted in Vaccines/Alternative Medicine | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Vaccines don’t give lifelong immunity, but they are still better than natural immunity

Falling branches: the illusion of miraculous divine intervention

Posted on May 1, 2015 by Fallacy Man

Human beings like to have explanations for everything, and we find seemingly inexplicable events extremely troubling. We disdain the notion that some things just happen without any rhyme or reason for them. This dependency on meaningful events makes us prone to contriving and accepting supernatural explanations even though science offers us explanations that are more satisfactory (although often less comforting). I am, of course, talking about our tendency to claim that an event was a miracle. When an improbable event occurs, such as a “miraculous” recovery from cancer, people of many different faiths and religions are quick to claim that the recovery was a result of some form of supernatural intervention, rather than merely a product of statistical probability. That should not, however, be our default. Any time that science offers an explanation, we should default to it rather than proposing a divine plan that is being supernaturally orchestrated.

miracles

 

To be clear, I am not trying to convince anyone that God doesn’t exist, or even that there is no such thing as the supernatural. The existence of supernatural beings is a question that science is completely and totally incapable of addressing. It’s the realm of philosophy and theology, not science. So it doesn’t bother me if people are religious and find comfort in believing in a supernatural deity. What bothers me is when people allow their spirituality to trump science and logic. That’s what I take issue with, and that’s what I am going to address in this post.

Falling branches
Several years ago, there was a large storm that knocked over numerous trees and caused a great deal of damage. When I emerged from my house to go to work the following morning, I observed various branches and detritus strewn around my yard, and I noticed that one particularly large branch had fallen right beside my car. If it had blown over just one or two centimeters further, it would have caused several hundred dollars worth of damage. As I stood beside my vehicle staring at the branch, it suddenly became clear to me why people are so eager to opt for supernatural explanations. At a quick glance, it seemed extraordinarily unreasonable that the branch would have come that close to hitting my car just by chance. It was an improbable event that my puny primate brain struggled to reconcile, and for the briefest millisecond it was tempting to think that some malevolent entity must have been watching out for me and my property. Being a rational person who understands the law of large numbers, however, I dismissed that explanation just as quickly as I generated it. What I realized was that my good fortune was nothing more than pure dumb luck [note: I am using “luck” synonymously with “chance” and am not implying that some force was acting in my favor].

When I considered all of the thousands of branches that had fallen during the previous night and all of the thousands of vehicles that had been parked near trees, it became obvious that we would expect a small subset of the branches to just barely miss hitting a vehicle. In other words, we would expect, just by chance, that lots of branches would fall away from vehicles, lots would fall on vehicles, and a few would fall right beside vehicles. There was nothing special about me or my car, there was no cosmic plan being orchestrated, I was just lucky. I just happened to be in the tail end of the probability distribution. Indeed, when I got on Facebook later that day, some of my friends were posting pictures of the damages that they had sustained, just as we would expect from a probability distribution. Conversely, other friends of mine had been lucky enough to avoid any repercussions of the storm, but, much to my dismay, they were quick to attribute their good fortunes to divine intervention, and give thanks to a supernatural entity who had protected them during the maelstrom. This is where I draw the line, this is what I have a problem with. It’s one thing to believe that God exists and to be thankful to him for life in a very general, ultimate sense. It is another thing entirely to make him into a cosmic puppeteer who is so concerned with the minutia of your life, and so directly involved in manipulating the physical world that he actually redirected branches to keep your precious property safe.

Why should we accept the scientific explanation?
Falling branches is admittedly a trivial example, but this pattern is widespread. I know many people who claim that everything from the precise genetic makeup of their children to the grade that they got on a test was a deliberate act of God. Perhaps the most common and disturbing form of this world-view appears at hospitals. People are extremely quick to distort medical marvels into divine miracles. On numerous occasions, I have seen someone recover from a cancer that has a high mortality rate, and instantly friends and family proclaim that it was a miracle! They claim that their prayers worked and God intervened and healed him. If we stop and think about it rationally, however, that explanation is hollow and lacking in logic.

Consider the following situation:

  1. Man X has cancer
  2. Man X takes a treatment that was designed specifically to fight cancer
  3. Man X recovers from his cancer
  4. Conclusion: It was clearly a divine miracle!

Hopefully the problem here is obvious. What justification could we possibly have for claiming that the recovery was miraculous when the person was taking scientifically tested medicine? Even in the rare case where someone recovers without seeking medical help, we know that the body has many astounding ways of healing itself, none of which require divine intervention.

The fundamental problems here is the burden of proof. By claiming that something was miracle, you have just placed the burden of proof on you to demonstrate that there was no possible scientific explanation. It’s not enough that an event was improbable, you must prove that it was physically impossible before you can claim that it was a miracle. It’s worth pointing out that to demonstrate that something was a miracle, you have to show that a scientific explanation cannot exist, rather than simply that one does not currently exist. History has clearly demonstrated that the lack of a current explanation does not mean that an explanation doesn’t exist. Indeed many physical phenomena, such as magnetism, were once attributed to the supernatural. So, you need to demonstrate that a scientific explanation absolutely cannot exist.

Let me give an example, suppose that on a clear, windless day, a regular person, wearing nothing but regular clothing jumped off of the Empire State building, flew over a mile (unaided), and landed safely on the ground. That would be a miracle because that would be an event that science simply could not explain. It would completely defy everything that we know to be true about physics. There wouldn’t be any conceivable future discovery that could explain that event, but here’s the important catch: no one has ever documented an event like that under properly controlled conditions and with reliable witnesses. It simply hasn’t happened. That doesn’t necessarily mean that miracles are impossible (that would be an argument form ignorance fallacy), but it does mean that we have never witnessed anything which we can safely call a miracle.

Another way to think about this is to consider Occam’s razor. This is the principle that, all else being equal, we should default to the explanation that makes the fewest assumptions, because that explanation is usually correct. Claiming that an event was miraculous requires numerous unfounded assumptions that cannot be proven. You have to assume that the supernatural exists, assume that this supernatural entity cares specifically about you, and assume that this entity actually acted on your behalf. None of these assumptions are necessary for the scientific explanation. In fact, no assumptions are necessary at all because we understand probabilities, causal relationships between medications and recoveries, etc. Therefore, the miraculous explanation is unparsimonious and should be rejected.

At this point, I generally find that people ignore everything that I’ve said and insist that the low probability of a given event somehow proves that it was miraculous. For example, I often have people proclaim that their recovery from cancer had to be a miracle because the doctors said they only had a 5% chance of survival. This is, however, no different from the branch example. Fine, you survived your cancer, but for every one survivor, there are 19 other people with that same cancer who didn’t survive. It only seems miraculous to you because you were lucky enough to be one of the outliers who made it. If you had been one of the 95% of people who didn’t make it, you wouldn’t be saying it was a miracle…because you’d be dead, and rather that talking about miracles, your family would be probably be spouting some nonsense about an incomprehensible divine plan to test their faith.

An easy way to think about this to think about winning the lottery. The odds that you will win are extraordinarily low, but if you win, you don’t get to claim that it was a miracle because so many people played that it was certain that someone would eventually win. Your victory was nothing more than the law of large numbers playing itself it out. Similarly, recovering from an aggressive cancer is not a miracle, it’s just probability theory running its course. So many people get cancer that, just by chance, a few of them will survive even the extremely aggressive ones.

Let me give another medical example to illustrate this. I often hear people describe rare births, such as quadruplets, as miracles because the odds of having them are extremely low, but when you consider all of the millions of people who give birth each year, we expect a few quadruplets to be mixed in there. So they only appear extraordinary and miraculous if you don’t consider all of the millions of perfectly normal births that occurred. Similarly, someone surviving an aggressive cancer only seems miraculous if you ignore all of the thousands of people who didn’t survive that type of cancer.

A final problem is the sheer hubris of a the claim that events in your life are miraculous. It elevates you to a place of extraordinary cosmic significance. Consider the branches example again. Could I really be arrogant enough to proclaim that God cares enough about me to shield my car from harm, but he couldn’t be troubled to do the same for the hundreds of people who awoke to find tree limbs jutting out of their windshields? Similarly, if you survived a cancer with a 95% mortality rate, what makes you so special that God elected to heal you, but didn’t bother with the 95% of patients who died from that cancer? Inevitably people will respond with something to the effect of, “God’s ways are not our ways,” but that’s ad hoc nonsense. There is no rational reason to conclude that these events are miracles.

Why does it matter?
Some people may be wondering why I went off on this tirade. After all, my blog is usually devoted to debunking anti-science arguments, not discussing philosophy. There are two key reasons that I think this topic is important. First, it has an extremely strong impact on how we view the natural world. It determines whether we are going to view the world as a logical, mathematical system or as a system in which probability is merely an illusion and everything is actually being carefully orchestrated by a divine puppet master. This is absolutely fundamental to whether or not we are going to accept science. If God is actually meddling with the world in the way that many people seem to think he is, then science is pointless. Suppose, for example, that we found a new cancer treatment that had a 30% success rate (as compared to the previous treatment’s 20% success rate for the type of cancer that it was designed for). If God was actually constantly performing miracles, that would mean that our “treatment” was actually worthless, because it was really all God. In other words, our treatment didn’t work, but it appeared that it worked because God was performing miracles more frequently than he was before, and in his divine wisdom he had decided to cure an additional 1 out of every 10 patients every time that we used this new treatment.

Many people will object to this and say that the science does work, but sometimes God steps in and helps out. This is, however, extremely inconsistent, and it deprives you of the ability to ever claim that anything is miraculous. If we follow this through logically, then if your recovery from a cancer with a 95% mortality rate was a miracle, but the science does actually work, that means that everyone else in the 5% recover group was cured by science. What justification could you possibly have for thinking that God intervened on your behalf, but not on the behalf of the rest of the 5%? In other words, why do you think that they were cured by science, but you were cured by a miracle? You can’t have it both ways. You can’t accept the miracles and accept the science. This is why I care about this topic: a belief in frequent miracles completely undermines science.

The second reason that I care about this is that it is a dangerous notion that leads to many anti-science views. For example, I frequently talk to parents who don’t vaccinate because they think that God will magically protect their children from illnesses. This goes beyond simple believing that a past event was miraculous, and it actually presumes that God will perform miracles for you in the future and will supernaturally destroy viruses and bacteria before they can harm your children. Religious global warming deniers often commit a similar blunder. I frequently hear them claim that God simply won’t allow us to destroy our planet, and the climate is somehow something which God will prevent us from modifying. As with the anti-vaccine argument, this view stems directly from the notion that God is constantly intervening in our lives. Similarly, we have all probably heard accounts of people who died from treatable illnesses because they decided to reject modern medicine and go to faith healers instead. This is the very real danger of accepting miraculous explanations instead of science. It completely distorts our view of reality to the point that science becomes trivial and meaningless, and that’s a frightening position for us to be in.

Conclusion
I want to reiterate that I am not attacking people of faith. I’m not saying that you can’t believe that the supernatural exists, but I am saying that you shouldn’t let that belief distort your view of the physical world. The universe operates according to logical, mathematical rules, and seemingly miraculous events are easily explainable using probability theory and science. That doesn’t necessarily mean that miracles don’t ever happen, but we have no evidence to show that they happen. Therefore, we cannot default to a supernatural explanation. A miracle is by definition something that science cannot explain, so anytime that a scientific explanation exists, we should accept that explanation rather than claiming that a miracle occurred.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments