Faith, Evidence and the Immoral Drug War

Chain The Dogma      July 21, 2011


Faith, Evidence and the Immoral Drug War

Religion and Politics - Two Sides of the Same Con

By Perry Bulwer


The slang term I use in my subtitle, which plays on the word coin, is derived from the term 'confidence trick' and refers to the intentional deception of people after gaining their confidence, usually in relation to a financial fraud. Not all confidence artists are swindlers out for monetary gain, however. Politicians and religious believers also use confidence tricks to exploit others. Confidence artists, or fraudsters, exploit various human characteristics such as greed, credulity and naïveté, and emotions such as compassion and fear, to trick their targets into trusting them. Politicians do the same by using ideology, propaganda and demagoguery to misinform and mislead their constituents. Believers do it by using religious dogma to exploit the gullibility, superstitions and fears of adults, or the innocence, ignorance and inexperience of children.

Many aspects of both religion and politics are aptly described as con jobs. Here is how the New Testament describes religious faith in Hebrews 11:1, first in the King James Version and then in the Common English Bible: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” and “Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see”. Choose any translation you want, they basically all say the same thing. But it is illogical to claim that the act of believing some thing exists is actually evidence of that thing, that merely having faith or hoping for something to be true is proof of its reality. Faith is not substance or reality, it is merely a belief or a feeling that is not based on evidence. Faith is simply wishful thinking, which sounds nice and harmless, but it can turn deadly when acted upon, as in the case of faith healing parents who allow their children to die  tortuous deaths without any medical intervention. Their confidence in the authority of the Bible has tricked them into killing their own children through neglect.

Children also suffer from the religious confidence trick of indoctrination. There is a reason most religious evangelism focuses on children.  They are easy targets for spiritual fraud because they already have confidence in authority figures such as their parents and religious teachers. It is easy to exploit their credulity and naïveté to trick them into believing in faith-based fantasies rather than evidence-based reality. But the con doesn't stop with just convincing little children that God or gods are real, or that they will live forever in paradise if they just believe, otherwise most children would eventually out grow their belief in imaginary religious figures and places, just like they out grow their belief in Santa and his toy factory at the North Pole.

No sane parent continues to push the Santa story on a child that has grown to reject that particular myth because of common sense and observable evidence, so that belief is easily discarded at a certain stage of childhood. The myths of religion, on the other hand, are constantly reinforced throughout childhood and adolescence with dogma that prevents critical thinking and disables a child's ability to discern the difference between reality and fantasy. By the time a child subjected to such indoctrination reaches adulthood it is extremely difficult to escape the imposed religious worldview. For example, any child convinced to accept the religious fantasy of creationism over the scientific reality of evolution is a victim of a con job of the highest order as it can infect their worldview throughout their life. Nothing could be more childish than to believe that the Biblical creation myth, and other events in Genesis such as the flood and Noah's ark, were literal events that happened exactly as described. Yet many adults who were indoctrinated with creationist lies as children retain that childish belief contrary to the advice in I Corinthians 13:11 to “put away childish things”. The childish thing in that example of creationism is holding a belief or an opinion on an issue when there is no evidence to support that view and all the evidence supports the opposite position.

That sounds a lot like how many politicians work. Political campaign promises are a common example of a con job. Everyone knows how it works. A politician makes an election promise, often with no intention of keeping it, that helps gain the confidence of voters, but once elected the promise is not kept. That is a confidence trick, a con job that everyone can recognize as such and yet voters continue to get taken in by such lies. There are many examples of confidence tricks, or con jobs, in the political realm. The Iraq war waged on the basis of weapons of mass destruction that did not exist is one recent example. But it is the far more disastrous global 'war on drugs'  that I want to focus on here, given the recent report of the Global Commission on Drug Policy, comprised of mostly former heads of state and other world leaders.

The Commission's report is just the latest of many that concludes the prohibition of some drugs has been a complete failure “... with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” It has not been a war on drugs, but a war on citizens, often fought along racial lines particularly in the United States. The commissioners, like many others before them, recommend the legalization of cannabis and other prohibited drugs. Whether or not those high profile individuals can help bring the insanity and injustice to an end remains to be seen, especially given the fact that most of them failed to do anything about it when they were in office and had more power to effect change. Ending prohibition will not be easy as long as political leaders like President Obama and Prime Minister Harper continue to base their drug policies on ideology rather than scientific evidence.

President Obama promised in his presidential campaign  that his administration would not prosecute medical cannabis patients and providers in states that have legalized it, yet that is exactly what he is doing today. He gained the confidence of large numbers of voters interested in the issue of medical cannabis by deliberately lying about his intentions. He could have easily kept that promise and taken one small, progressive step towards ending the disastrous war on drugs, but he didn't, which is why I think it was a deliberate campaign lie. After all, the prohibition of cannabis was originally premised on, and is perpetuated by, deliberate lies and propaganda. In fact, the prohibition of some drugs, but not the most dangerous ones that cause the most harms to individuals and socities, is a con job on an international scale, started and led primarily by the United States.

The evidence for the efficacy and safety of cannabis as medicine  is overwhelming.  Yet, under Obama the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) continues to not just ignore that evidence, but to declare without any evidence of its own, that cannabis has no accepted medical use.  If that is true, then on what basis have 16 state legislatures legalized medical cannabis? The DEA's lies are absolutely absurd and easy to disprove.

Cannabis has been used as medicine for thousands of years.  There are thousands of scientific research studies showing the effectiveness of cannabis for a wide range of health problems. Cannabis was even listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942 and used as commonly as aspirin, another useful drug derived from a plant but more toxic than cannabis.

In 2009, the American Medical Association reversed its opinion (an opinion informed not by science but by political propaganda) that cannabis had no medicinal application, and called for more research. Ironically, the AMA's original position on cannabis was that it has a great deal of therapeutic value for a variety of ailments, and in the 1930s the organization argued against prohibiting it in the first place because it considered cannabis a potential wonder drug, which it is. That call for more research has so far gone unheeded, except for a few exceptions, even though the American College of Physicians has called for the same thing.  The National Cancer Institute,  part of the U.S. Department of Health, refers to cannabis as alternative medicine and admits it has been used as medicine for thousands of years, though the political climate requires it to refer only to potential benefits of cannabis for cancer patients. If you ask the multitudes of cancer patients who use cannabis whether the relief they derive from it is a real benefit or merely potential, I am quite sure I know how they will reply.

In 1997, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) commissioned the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to review the scientific evidence of the health benefits and risks of cannabis. The IOM's report  emphasized evidence-based medicine as opposed to ideology-based medicine, and concluded that cannabis has therapeutic value for pain relief, control of nausea and appetite stimulation. In fact, the U.S. government still grows and supplies cannabis to a handful of medicinal users under an investigative program that was cancelled in 1992.

Furthermore, the new pharmaceutical drug, Sativex,  is derived directly from the cannabis plant, unlike other pharmaceutical cannabinoid analog drugs that are solely synthetic. Sativex has undergone vigorous regulatory testing successfully and is approved for sale in several countries, including Canada, for various medical conditions including multiple sclerosis, chronic pain, and cancer. More countries are testing it, including the U.S., where the first large scale trial for cancer patients had positive results and the next development phase is underway. Finally, the evidence from Portugal  puts the lie to all claims that the legalization or decriminalization of all drugs will increase drug use and harms to individuals and society. After ten years of one of the sanest drug policies in the world, the evidence shows the opposite is true.

So, on what basis has Obama approved the DEA's latest attacks against desperately ill people for whom cannabis is the most effective and safest drug they could use, and one which they could produce on their own very easily and cheaply? It is certainly not on the basis of any credible evidence. Does Obama really believe the DEA's propaganda that cannabis has no accepted medical use, or is he merely playing politics with people's lives? As Dr. Igor Grant, director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at UC San Diego, said: "It's always a danger if the government acts on certain kinds of persuasions or beliefs rather than evidence."  Obama's ally in this immoral war against sick people, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, also seems to prefer ideological propaganda over scientific evidence. He has proven that by his government's efforts to shut down North America's only medical center where drug addicts can legally inject illegal drugs.

All of the evidence proves that Vancouver's INSITE  effectively saves the lives of individuals and improves the community, yet Harper has used the courts to try and shut it down. When the case recently reached the Supreme Court of Canada, British Columbia's lawyers presented the justices with stacks of scientific evidence demonstrating that INSITE was effective public policy.  What evidence did the government's lawyers present to the court to counter that? None, because there is none. Incredibly, the government's argument relied solely on a jurisdictional issue.  In other words, federal government lawyers argued on the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments. They admitted to the Supreme Court justices that there was no credible evidence that the program does not work, but insisted that the province of British Columbia had no jurisdiction in this matter because it is a criminal law issue falling under federal jurisdiction, and not a public health issue which is governed by the provinces.

Just a week after that Global Commission recommended ending the failed drug war, the Canadian government pledged $5 million to keep fighting it in the Americas. Prime Minister Harper does not care much for scientific evidence,  not wanting the facts to get in the way of his religious ideology. I say religious rather than conservative ideology because the prohibition of drugs, particularly cannabis, is not a conservative position.  As Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico and candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who supports legalization of cannabis, recently wrote:

William F. Buckley and Milton Friedman, two of the most respected conservative intellectuals of the late 20th century, were among the drug war's high-profile critics. These great thinkers did not argue that recreational drug use should be celebrated -- far from it! Instead, they argued that the prohibition of drugs was causing far greater harm to society than drug abuse itself. And they were right.

So, if Harper's drug policies are not based on scientific evidence or on conservative values, what could they possibly be based on other than his religious ideology. (I will have much more to say about Harper's religious affiliation in future posts.)  Harper had the gall to recently crow that "Conservative values are Canadian values. Canadian values are conservative values.” Nothing could be further from the truth. He bases that hubris on his recent election victory that finally gave him a majority in the House of Commons. However, the majority of Canadians, around 60 percent, did not vote for Harper or his Conservative party. Only 40 percent of Canadians support Harper, yet over 50 percent support the legalization of cannabis, showing just how out of touch with reality Harper is.  That latter number would be much higher but for decades of prohibition propaganda that deliberately obscures the facts.

As part of Harper's tough-on-crime agenda, also based on ideology rather than evidence (e.g. spending billions on new prisons when the crime rate has fallen to lowest level since 1973),  he plans to impose mandatory minimum sentences for various crimes, including small-scale cannabis cultivation. The U.S. experiment with mandatory minimum sentences has been a failure, especially for drug cases, and is being discontinued in many states. Yet despite that strong evidence from the U.S. that such sentences are ineffectual and a massive waste of money, Harper seems to think they will work in Canada. Harper's rejection of evidence in favour of ideology has many international observers bewildered.

Continuing to prohibit some drugs that have proven health benefits, but not others that are far more dangerous, and imprisoning users based purely on ideology rather than on evidence of harm caused to individuals and society is immoral. As Sam Harris recently wrote: “The fact that we pointlessly ruin the lives of nonviolent drug users by incarcerating them, at enormous expense, constitutes one of the great moral failures of our time.” And it is not just jailing harmless people that is immoral. Hundreds of millions of people around the world suffer needlessly from great pain simply because of hyperbolic drug war propaganda and policies that prevent them from accessing a common, cheap drug that could free them from their misery. The Prime Minister of Canada, Stephen Harper, thinks that the war on drugs is a conservative value and a Canadian value, but it is neither. It is an inhumane, immoral injustice and a complete failure.

******
I wonder what those who dishonestly hold to the dogma that Cannabis has no scientifically confirmed medical benefits would say to the father and son in the following video?

Dad gives two year old son battling with Brain cancer Medical Marijuana

"Marijuana Moms"  A group of moms in California, where medical pot is legal with a prescription, have declared that marijuana makes them better parents and partners.

RELATED ARTICLES AND LINKS ON MY BLOGS


An Open Letter to Canadian Law Societies, Bar Associations, Judges and Lawyers


The Failed War On Drugs
http://chainthedogma.blogspot.ca/p/the-failed-war-on-drugs.html

Medical Cannabis
http://chainthedogma.blogspot.ca/p/medical-cannabis_17.html

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
http://chainthedogma.blogspot.ca/p/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd.html

Chronic Pain
http://chainthedogma.blogspot.ca/p/chronic-pain.html

Fibromyalgia
http://chainthedogma.blogspot.ca/p/fibromyalgia-just-as-i-got-my-head.html

Safe Injection Facilities: Compelling Government to Act
http://perry-bulwer.blogspot.ca/p/safe-injection-sites-bc.html

The Constitutional Obligation of the City of Vancouver to Support Safe Injection Facilities

 http://perry-bulwer.blogspot.ca/p/safe-injection-sites-vancouver.html

International Law and the Right to the Highest Attainable Standard of Health Care: Using Safe Injection Facilities to Control and Prevent Epidemics

http://perry-bulwer.blogspot.ca/p/safe-injection-sites-international.html 

Canada's Christian fundamentalist Prime Minister tells millions of poor no need to protest


A modest proposal to end homelessness in Canada


Asbestos, Abortion and the Canadian Prime Minister's cats

Blind men and an elephant: a duet by Natalie Merchant and PZ Myers

Chain The Dogma   -   February 7, 2011

Blind men and an elephant: a duet by Natalie Merchant and PZ Myers

by Perry Bulwer


Today I posted an article to my archive of news articles on religion and child abuse on how creationism is weakening the U.S. education system  The article is written by PZ Myers, the author of the popular Pharyngula science blog.

It reminded me of my own experience in the Canadian education system, which failed to properly educate me on the reality of evolution. That neglect endangered me because without that scientific foundation, I was easily led astray by religious fundamentalists. That's an over-simplification, of course, as there were other cultural and social factors involved in making me susceptible to a religious world-view. However, I am convinced that had I been properly taught accurate information about evolution and related scientific realities such as geography and the age of the earth, starting in elementary school, I would have been better able as a teenager to fend off the ravenous religious wolves who encircled me.  In my previous post on this blog I provide a few more details about that experience and how I was recruited into an evangelical, apocalyptic cult when I was 16. I plan to elaborate more on that in the book I'm working on.  see:  Who is the Real Anti-Christian: the Atheist or the Fundamentalist Christian?

Myers article on creationism in the classroom also reminded me of another article by him in which he retells the parable of the blind men and the elephant. That in turn reminded me of a song on the same subject by Natalie Merchant in her most recent album, Leave Your Sleep.  I've copied below both Merchant's lyrics [update: they lyrics are verbatim from the poem by John Godfry Saxe] and Myers article, which in case you were wondering, constitutes the duet in my blog title.


Here's a link to Natalie's official site where you can listen to all the songs on that album, including "The Blind Men and the Elephant" at: http://www.nataliemerchant.com/l/leave-your-sleep/the-blind-men-and-the-elephant

Lyrics at:
 http://www.nataliemerchant.com/r/leave-your-sleep/lyrics/the-blind-men-and-the-elephant

The Blind Men and the Elephant

John Godfry Saxe (1816 – 1887)


It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.

The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"

The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"

The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"

The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
“'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"

The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: ”E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"

The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"

And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!

Moral

So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!

***************************


Elephants' Wings

by PZ Myers at: http://hermiene.net/essays-trans/elephants_wings.html

Once upon a time, four blind men were walking in the forest, and they bumped into an elephant.

Moe was in front, and found himself holding the trunk. "It has a tentacle," he said. "I think we have found a giant squid!"

Larry bumped into the side of the elephant. "It's a wall," he said, "A big, bristly wall."

Curly, at the back, touched the tail. "It's nothing to worry about, nothing but a piece of rope dangling in the trail."

Eagletosh saw the interruption as an opportunity to sit in the shade beneath a tree and relax. "It is my considered opinion," he said, "that whatever it is has feathers. Beautiful iridescent feathers of many hues."

The first three, being of a scientifical bent, quickly collaborated and changed places, and confirmed each other's observations; they agreed that each had been correct in the results of their investigations, except that there wasn't a hint of feathers anywhere about, but clearly their interpretations required correction and more data. So they explored further, reporting to each other what they were finding, in order to establish a more complete picture of the obstacle in the path.

"Tracing the tentacle back, I find that it is attached to a large head with eyes, fan-shaped ears, and a mouth bearing tusks. It is not a squid, alas, but seems to be a large mammal of some sort," said Moe.

"Quite right, Moe — I have found four thick limbs. Definitely a large tetrapod," said Larry.

Curly seems distressed. "It's a bit complicated and delicate back here, guys, but I have probed an interesting orifice. Since this is a children's story, I will defer on reporting the details."

Eagletosh yawns and stretches in the shade of a tree. "It has wings, large wings, that it may ascend into the heavens and inspire humanity. There could be no purpose to such an animal without an ability to loft a metaphor and give us something to which we might aspire."

The other three ignore the idling philosopher, because exciting things are happening with their elephant!

"I can feel its trunk grasping the vegetation, uprooting it, and stuffing it into its mouth! It's prehensile! Amazing!", said Moe.

Larry presses his ear against the animal's flank. "I can hear rumbling noises as its digestive system processes the food! It's very loud and large."

There is a squishy plop from the back end. "Oh, no," says Curly, "I can smell that, and I think I should go take a bath."

"You are all completely missing the beauty of its unfurled wings," sneers Eagletosh, "While you tinker with pedestrian trivialities and muck about in earthy debasement, I contemplate the transcendant qualities of this noble creature. 'Tis an angel made manifest, a symbol of the deeper meaning of life."

"No wings, knucklehead, and no feathers, either," says Moe.

"Philistine," says Eagletosh. "Perhaps they are invisible, or tucked inside clever hidden pockets on the flank of the elephant, or better yet, I suspect they are quantum. You can't prove they aren't quantum."

The investigations continue, in meticulous detail by the three, and in ever broader strokes of metaphorical speculation by the one. Many years later, they have accomplished much.

Moe has studied the elephant and its behavior for years, figuring out how to communicate with it and other members of the herd, working out their diet, their diseases and health, and how to get them to work alongside people. He has profited, using elephants as heavy labor in construction work, and he has also used them, unfortunately, in war. He has not figured out how to use them as an air force, however…but he is a master of elephant biology and industry.

Larry studied the elephant, but has also used his knowledge of the animal to study the other beasts in the region: giraffes and hippos and lions and even people. He is an expert in comparative anatomy and physiology, and also has come up with an interesting theory to explain the similarities and differences between these animals. He is a famous scholar of the living world.

Curly's experiences lead him to explore the environment of the elephant, from the dung beetles that scurry after them to the leafy branches they strip from the trees. He learns how the elephant is dependent on its surroundings, and how its actions change the forest and the plains. He becomes an ecologist and conservationist, and works to protect the herds and the other elements of the biome.

Eagletosh writes books. Very influential books. Soon, many of the people who have never encountered an elephant are convinced that they all have wings. Those who have seen photos are at least persuaded that elephants have quantum wings, which just happened to be vibrating invisibly when the picture was snapped. He convinces many people that the true virtue of the elephant lies in its splendid wings — to the point that anyone who disagrees and claims that they are only terrestrial animals is betraying the beauty of the elephant.

Exasperated, Larry takes a break from writing technical treatises about mammalian anatomy, and writes a book for the lay public, The Elephant Has No Wings. While quite popular, the Eagletoshians are outraged. How dare he denigrate the volant proboscidian? Does he think it a mere mechanical mammal, mired in mud, never soaring among the stars? Has he no appreciation for the scholarship of the experts in elephant wings? Doesn't he realize that he can't possibly disprove the existence of wings on elephants, especially when they can be tucked so neatly into the quantum? (The question of how the original prophets of wingedness came by their information never seems to come up, or is never considered very deeply.) It was offensive to cripple the poor elephants, rendering them earthbound.

When that book was quickly followed by Moe's The Elephant Walks and Curly's Land of the Elephant, the elephant wing scholars were in a panic — they were being attacked by experts in elephants, who seemed to know far more about elephants than they did! Fortunately, the scientists knew little about elephant's wings — surprising, that — and the public was steeped in favorable certainty that elephants, far away, were flapping gallantly through the sky. They also had the benefit of vast sums of money. Wealth was rarely associated with competence in matters elephantine, and tycoons were pouring cash into efforts to reconcile the virtuous wingedness of elephants with the uncomfortable reality of anatomy. Even a few scientists who ought to know better were swayed over to the side of the winged; to their credit, it was rarely because of profit, but more because they were sentimentally attached to the idea of wings. They couldn't deny the evidence, however, and were usually observed to squirm as they invoked the mystic power of the quantum, or of fleeting, invisible wings that only appeared when no one was looking.

And there the battle stands, an ongoing argument between the blind who struggle to explore the world as it is around them, and the blind who prefer to conjure phantoms in the spaces within their skulls. I have to disappoint you, because I have no ending and no resolution, only a question.

Where do you find meaning and joy and richness and beauty, O Reader? In elephants, or elephants' wings?

Quantum intentions and prayers to deities: two sides of the same supernatural coin

Chain The Dogma    July 19, 2010


Quantum intentions and prayers to deities: two sides of the same supernatural coin


by Perry Bulwer


Following my previous post on the BP environmental catastrophe and DreamHealer, the quantum quack who thinks that the collective, focused intentions of his followers will plug the hole and stop the oil gusher, I became aware of other supernatural wishful thinkers who similarly think that prayers, visualizations, intentions, thoughts, energy, light, love, etc., are what's needed to stop the oil. Here is a sample of some of the silliness I came across during the month of June.

On June 6 DreamHealer sent out another email in a series imploring his followers to focus their intentions on the gulf:

Let's optimize an extremely difficult situation in the Gulf. Change emotions of blame, fear and anger into healing intentions of light and love toward the recovery of our beautiful planet.

Visualize all of the healing energy in the Universe being pulled into the Gulf of Mexico. Saturate the waters with the healing energy of light and life.

Visualize your healing intentions rippling outward in all directions. Send streams of laser light to clean the water for sea-life to flourish again.

Remember the power of your own healing thoughts, as focused intention activates your thoughts. Assist in closing and healing Mother Earth's wound. Create a critical mass as we all send our healing intentions.

It didn't take long for Deepak Chopra to add his quantum nonsense to the mix. Thanks to PZ Meyers, the mind behind Pharyngula, who received an email from Evolutionary Leaders, a Chopra cult foundation, we get a glimpse at not only how these people think (or don't think) but also at how the words "intention" and "prayer" have become interchangeable to supernaturalists. Here's their email, without PZ's commentary, which you can read on his site at that link above:

Are you tired of sitting around while our environment is being destroyed?

Do you feel helpless, angry or powerless to make a difference as you watch millions of gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf every day with no end in sight and thousands losing their lives and their livelihoods?

Join The Gulf Call to Sacred Action!

The Evolutionary Leaders: In Service to Conscious Evolution have joined together to be a loud and important voice for all who feel powerless.

The People Need You ~ The Gulf Needs You

We begin by setting our collective intention. Join Deepak Chopra to set our powerful vision and participate in a worldwide Intention Experiment with renowned author and scientist Lynne McTaggart. Explore how our collective intention, our voice and our commitment can impact the cleanup of the oil spill. And then we will be graced by Jean Houston who will share with us why this time matters and why we matter.

Our collective prayers and thoughts have the power to cause a profound shift on the planet. Pray with some of the most powerful spiritual thought leaders -- Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith, Joan Borysenko, James O'Dea and more. Together we discover that we have the power to change the world.

Open up and connect to the deeper heart of our planet where we hear our individual and collective call to action. Together with sacred activists Barbara Marx Hubbard, Gregg Braden, and Andrew Harvey, we will take back our power and move into powerful action that will forever change our lives and the lives of generations to come.

It is all just meaningless nonsense. In case you've forgotten, here is some of the craziness Chopra peddles:

Here is some of what Chopra, a former endocrinologist in Boston hospitals, believes and teaches.

That a person is a field of vibrating energy, information and intelligence connected to the entire cosmos.

That this view is substantiated by Ayruvedic medicine of ancient India as well as theories of quantum physics.

That all organs of the body are built up from a specific sequence of vibrations, and that when organs are sick they are vibrating improperly.

That certain herbs and aromas, when applied, can help restore proper vibrations to malfunctioning liver, heart, stomach, etc.

That certain gems and crystals can rejuvenate human skin.

That good thoughts can heal the body and reverse the aging process.

That people can levitate and that he, while sitting and meditating, has flown a distance of four feet.

That one can know God at seven different levels corresponding to physical and psychological reactions in the brain, and that miracles, including visits by angels and reincarnated relatives, occur when a person leaves the material level of existence and intersects a "transitional" level called the "quantum domain."

Chopra and DreamHealer ought to get along great, so I find it a bit curious that neither mentions the other since they both claim to be conducting scientific experiments on the power of intention, with DreamHealer going as far as claiming, on the basis of one flawed experiment, that "our intentions can change the physiology of others". Maybe DreamHealer wants to emulate Chopra's successful cult on his own terms.

Not to be out done by quantum kooks, or mere "mortals" who are actually attempting real-world solutions to the disaster, Christian politicians just had to get their two cents worth of supernaturalism into the act, blurring the already fuzzy line between church and state. On June 20, CNN reported that Louisiana lawmakers propose prayer to stop oil disaster:

While cleanup crews and technical teams continue efforts to stop crude gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, Louisiana lawmakers are proposing a different approach: prayer.

State senators designated Sunday as a day for citizens to ask for God's help dealing with the oil disaster.

"Thus far efforts made by mortals to try to solve the crisis have been to no avail," state Sen. Robert Adley said in a statement released after last week's unanimous vote for the day of prayer. "It is clearly time for a miracle for us."

The resolution names Sunday as a statewide day of prayer in Louisiana and calls on people of all religions throughout the Gulf Coast "to pray for an end to this environmental emergency, sparing us all from the destruction of both culture and livelihood."

And on June 27, the New York Times reported:

The wall between church and state came a-tumbling down on Sunday, as elected leaders from the five states on the Gulf of Mexico issued proclamations declaring it to be a day of prayer. Although days of prayer are not uncommon here — Governor Riley declared one asking for rain to relieve a drought a few years ago — these proclamations conveyed the sense that at this late date, salvation from the spill all but requires divine intervention.

In the two months since the deadly Deepwater Horizon explosion began a ceaseless leak of oil into the gulf, damaging the ecosystem and disrupting the economy, the efforts by mortals to stem the flow have failed. Robots and golf balls and even the massive capping dome all seem small in retrospect.

So, then, a supplementary method was attempted: coordinated prayer.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry encouraged Texans to ask God “for his merciful intervention and healing in this time of crisis.” In Mississippi, Gov. Haley Barbour declared that prayer “allows us an opportunity to reflect and to seek guidance, strength, comfort and inspiration from Almighty God.” In Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal invoked the word “whereas” a dozen times — as well as the state bird, the brown pelican — but made no direct mention of God. In Florida, Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp asked people to pray that God “would guide and direct our civil leaders and provide them with wisdom and divinely inspired solutions.”

As I mentioned, the words "intention" and "prayer" have become interchangeable. The "coordinated prayer" referred to in that NYT article, is what people who believe in prayers do. They want as many people as possible to pray for the same thing, and even at the same time, if possible, and to continue praying. I guess their god is hard of hearing. But that is really no different than what those who believe in intentions do. They also want as many people as possible focusing their coordinated intentions. Collective prayers, collective intentions. Two sides of the same coin.

Another good example of that blurring of the distinction between intentions and prayers comes courtesy of Masaru Emoto, the Japanese 'scientist' who appeared in the film What The Bleep Do We Know?, promoting his belief in the supernatural properties of water. The Colorado newspaper, Post Independent, published a letter to the editor which included an email message from Emoto:

Yesterday we received a letter from Dr. Masaru Emoto, who many of you will recognize as the scientist from Japan who has done research and publications about the characteristics of water. Among other things, his research reveals that water physically responds to emotions.

Right now, most of us have the predominantly angry emotion when we consider what is happening in the Gulf. And while certainly we are justified in that emotion, we may be of greater assistance to our planet and its life forms, if we sincerely, powerfully and humbly pray the prayer that Dr. Emoto himself has proposed.

“I send the energy of love and gratitude to the water and all the living creatures in the Gulf of Mexico and its surroundings. To the whales, dolphins, pelicans, fish, shellfish, plankton, coral, algae, and all living creatures . . . I am sorry. Please forgive us. Thank you. I love you. “

We are passing this request to people who we believe might be willing to participate in this prayer, to set an intention of love and healing that is so large, so overwhelming that we can perform a miracle in the Gulf of Mexico.

We are not powerless. We are powerful. Our united energy, speaking this prayer daily ... multiple times daily ... can literally shift the balance of destruction that is happening. We don't have to know how, we just have to recognize that the power of love is greater than any power active in the Universe today.

Please join us in often repeating this healing prayer of Dr. Emoto's. And feel free to copy and send it around the planet. Let's take charge, and do our own clean up!

There is one way in which the quantum believers and the religious believers differ regarding the oil spill. The quantum believers do not appear to assign supernatural causes to the oil spill, at least not that I could find. Religious believers, on the other hand, are quick to claim that the oil spill is predicted in the book of Revelation, and that God, for various reasons, caused the oil spill as a punishment. For example, here's what the Christian conspiracy website, The World's Prophecy, has to say about it:

Is the oil spill in the bible? Yes it is:

Before you continue reading the verse below where it predicts the oil spill, keep in mind that the Book of Revelations are full of symbolism. One example would be the great whore “Babylon” is definitely not talking about an actual “whore” or “prostitute”. The beast in Revelation 13 is not exactly talking about an actual monster, but a representation of a man with the “number” 666. So when the oil spill in the verse below talks about an angel pouring it out, do not just swallow it in a dumb way interpreting the angel as BP. As you already know, it is not only BP that has the oil spill problem, but also Chevron. The “angel” is only used as symbolism.

Revelation 16:3

The second angel poured out his bowl into the sea, and it became blood like that of a dead man; and every living thing in the sea died.

From Yahoo! Answers:

What color is the blood of a died man?
I’m doing a little research and I want to know what the color the blood of a died man has. sense it rots would it be black?

The colour of oxygenated blood is shiny red but after the death of a person oxygen supply will be stopped resulting de oxygenation of blood causing the colour changed to darker red and later on it will turn into brown and then black because of the absence of oxygen and due to decay.

So, there it is in black and white, or I should say, black and brown. Oil looks like a dead man's blood, so the Bible predicted the gulf oil spill. And not just the book of Revelation, but the book of Genesis too! The wing-nuts at World Net Daily are circulating a video that claims the gulf oil spill is a fulfillment of a prophecy in Genesis related to Israel:

Is there a spiritual, biblical connection to the BP oil catastrophe?

A new video on YouTube is suggesting a possible link to the disaster due to America's recent treatment of Israel, and at least one well-known Bible analyst, Hal Lindsey, thinks there's a valid correlation.

The video was produced and posted today by Carl Gallups of the Hickory Hammock Baptist Church in Milton, Fla.

"April the 19th, Israel celebrates its independence in 2010," Gallups says in narration on the video. "On April the 19th, Fox News reports that the U.S. will no longer automatically support Israel in the United Nations. The next day, on April the 20th, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explodes. Coincidence? Or the hand and judgment of God?"

The minister cites an ancient promise God made to Abraham, the patriarch of the 12 tribes of Israel, one tribe of which is Judah, from which the Jews derive their name.

In the Book of Genesis, God told him, "I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse ... ."

...

Referring to Israel as a "prophetic signpost," Gallups said, "It seems to me we're turning our back on Israel, and that's a very dangerous biblical or spiritual place to be."

Gallups is not alone with the sentiment America could be under a curse from God.

"I believe this is evidence that when you turn your back on Israel, especially when you've been a supporter, you're gonna see judgments come from God," said Hal Lindsey, author of "The Late Great Planet Earth."

So, some Christians believe that coordinated prayers are required to implore God to intervene and stop the oil, while other Christians believe the Bible predicted the oil spill, which obviously means the oil spill is God's will, intended as punishment for the wicked people he created. Still other Christians believe God caused the oil spill specifically to punish one wicked nation. What's a God supposed to do?


**************************************************************

The Montreal Gazette  -  October 15, 2010

Desperate people blinded by online pseudo-science

By PEGGY CURRAN, The Gazette


MONTREAL - Joe Schwarcz is sick to death of coffee enemas, macrobiotic diets, Laetrile tablets, raw juices, megavitamins, salt-water cures and urine infusions.

The director of McGill University's Office of Science and Society, Schwarcz has had it up to the eyeballs with distance healers who claim they can treat what ails you by studying a photograph or looking at the whites of your eyes.

"When you are desperate, you will clutch at anything," Schwarcz says of cancer patients who find themselves "at the mercy of quacks and charlatans."

"Desperate people will do anything. So they wind up not just desperate but destitute as well, because these 'cures' don't come cheaply."

Schwarcz, known simply as "Dr. Joe" to the many Montrealers who read his Gazette column and follow his radio show on CJAD, says there's been an explosion in pseudo-science in recent years, as the snake oil salesmen of old give way to the mountebanks of cyberspace.

"There is such a proliferation of nonsense, aided and abetted by the Internet. There is so much quackery out there."

Schwarcz has been asked to be host of the Lorne Trottier Public Science Symposium at McGill, where this year's theme is Confronting Pseudo-science: A Call to Action -a fitting choice for someone who sees his mandate as "making sense out of nonsense."

The two-day forum, which is open to the public, takes place Monday and Tuesday at the Centre Mont Royal. Monday's panellists will be Ben Goldacre, the author of Bad Science and a columnist for the British newspaper the Guardian; Michael Shermer, the editor of Skeptic magazine; and David Gorski, a surgical oncologist in Detroit who has spent the last decade trying to decipher and dispense information about online remedies.

Closing things off Tuesday will be James Randi, also known as The Amazing Randi, a magician and escape artist who now devotes his time to unmasking faith healers and demystifying so-called paranormal events.

Schwarcz will offer a preview today at the Redpath Museum, where he'll discuss the growth of quackery as part of the Freaky Friday lecture series.

As someone who spends a lot of time monitoring cases of suspect science, Schwarcz is troubled by the deluge of email proclaiming that doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore have found a cure for cancer (they haven't) or the influence of New Age gurus like Deepak Chopra and Adam Dreamhealer, who are "beguiling people" while "laughing all the way to the bank," Schwarcz says.

Increasingly, he believes it is important for consumers to do a little critical thinking - to read the fine print, become scientifically savvy and show a little healthy skepticism when faced with promises of miracle cures and dietary supplements that contain nothing more than water and sea salt.

Schwarcz has no time for purveyors of alternative medicines who try to brand scientists as hidebound.

"When scientists start raising eyebrows at such mindless twaddle, the pseudo-science champions unleash their usual attacks, claiming that scientists are closed-minded and can only think in terms of limited paradigms. Nonsense," Schwarcz says.

"Science will embrace new ideas when there is sufficient evidence. But if evidence shows that an idea is not tenable, it should be tossed onto the pseudo-scientific junk heap."

This article was found at:

http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Blinded+online+pseudo+science/3674891/story.html


RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG:


Quakes, Quacks and Kidnappers: Baptists, Scientologists, DreamHealer and Bad Consequences of Good Intentions


Wishful Thinking Won't Stop The Oil Gusher But Nuking It Would

Wishful Thinking Won't Stop The Oil Gusher But Nuking It Would

Chain The Dogma    May 23, 2010

by Perry Bulwer

Dreamhealer is it again, this time claiming credit for slowing the flow of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico by having his followers focus their intentions on the ongoing environmental disaster. Adam McLeod, the man behind the Dreamhealer mask, is a quantum quack. I previously wrote about his claims that the quantum woo he pitches worked to reduce the height of tsunami waves headed to Hawaii after the recent earthquake in Chile.

Adam's first claim to fame was that he could heal people, even from great distances away, by way of quantum physics. That claim has made him a lot of money from gullible or desperate people who buy his books and attend his healing sessions. In fact, what he preaches is a pseudo-science that is almost indistinguishable from religious faith and faith healing. Adam's particular 'snake oil' is intention rather than prayer, but both are just different forms of wishful thinking, and wishing doesn't make it so.

Adam is anxious to have some scientific evidence to back-up his claims, so he undertook a flawed experiment that has not yet been replicated, verified or peer reviewed. He was quick to claim success, however, and on the basis of that small experiment he soon expanded his claims to include not just human healing, but the power of intention over natural disasters, such as reducing tsunami waves, and now even over man-made disasters like the oil gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

Here's part of a message Dreamhealer sent out to his followers on May 12, 2010:

There are thousands of people on this newsletter who understand the power of intentions. We are summoning everyone to send their intentions for a successful repair job for this oil leak. Let's set May 13th and 14th at 7pm your local time to send intention to see this leak stopped. Set everything aside for at least 5 minutes and visualize the leak being sealed and the engineers being successful. For those who can stay with this visualization we would like you to continue the same visualizations for May 15th and 16th at 7pm your local time. "It is time for some good news on this issue."

On May 14th he sent this follow-up message with a link to a video to help with visualizing intentions:

We have put together a short video  to help you focus your intentions to stop the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. Please focus your intentions at 7pm (your local time) May 14th, 15th and 16th, as shown on the video. Keep this visualization in your awareness throughout the next few days and longer. Integrate your own memories of beautiful oceans, sea-life, and successful engineering feats and mechanical insights to personalize your visualizations. See this happening preferably when you are in your meditative state, or relaxed state for visualizations.

"Engage and Empower yourself, knowing that your intentions will make a difference."

1: Visualize the recovery pipe being lowered over the leak.

2: Visualize the oil being forced onto the awaiting oil tankers.

3: BP then seals the connector over the leak.

On May 15th he sent this follow-up message:

Thanks for your continued focus on stopping the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. We have updated the visualization on youtube which you could use for this purpose. We urge everyone to stay positive and focused on our main objective at this stage, which is to stop the leak. Create your own visualizations and modify with what resonates with you. Visualize with everyone on May 13, 14, 15 and 16 at 7pm your local time. Keep your visualizations in your awareness for as long as possible after these dates.

On May 17th Adam sent out another message to his followers saying that their intentions and visualizations were starting to work:

Much gratitude to the thousands who took the time to visualize a successful connection to the oil leak (gusher) in the Gulf of Mexico. A BP response to the oil spill now shows the first glimpse at containment of the oil spew into the Gulf of Mexico. Undersea robotic equipment successfully inserted a four-inch pipe into the Horizon well's "riser," which was leaking several thousand barrels of oil a day into the gulf. This is a temporary fix and we all have to work on the total elimination of the oil leak.

Our planet has been given a small reprieve from the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the ecosystem, the lives of those who depend on the ocean and the planet makes it clearer than ever that changes need to be made. Keep sending your focused intentions toward cleaning the mess up and giving politicians the courage to set a course toward clean energy. We have to change the voices that say "it can't be done" to voices that say "we can do it." Be confident when you visualize that the power of many others is with you. Mankind must learn something from this experience and become more focused on making our planet a safer and cleaner place to live.

In that same message Adam included a 'testimonial' from one of his followers, similar to those he included in messages falsely claiming success for reducing those waves headed to Hawaii:

Your suggestion to visualize to cap the oil leak was such a wonderful idea. With people all over the world concentrating on this visualization made it a reality. On the third night, May 16th, at 7:21 pm EST, CBS announced that the hookup was a success and that oil was being moved out through the pipe into a waiting ship. I was so excited that I started yelling to my husband, "We did it! We did it! It worked! Adam's visualization and all of the people doing this at the same time worked! What a wonderful thing to do for humanity and ecology. Thank you Adam for planting this seed in our minds and for the example of how we were to see it happening. You are going to go forward and show people that they can accomplish great things by just "seeing them happen." - Cross of Light Lady

That all sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Some quantum kook from Canada gets naive believers to visualize the oil gusher and focus their best intentions on the efforts to fix it, and hocus pocus: “We did it! We did it! It worked!” The only problem is that it didn't work. In his haste to declare success for his wishful thinking exercise, even if indirectly by quoting an eager acolyte, it seems Adam was persuaded by BP's propaganda, both on the size of the gusher and the effectiveness of their efforts so far to fix it. It is easy to see why Adam so easily falls for such corporate spin-doctoring since his intentions are now tied to BP's success.

It is now over a month since BP's oil platform exploded and oil began to gush into the gulf. It is becoming clear that BP has been covering-up and lying about the amount of oil that is gushing. They recently revised their estimate up to 5,000 barrels a day, up from their previous claim of 3,000 barrels a day. That is an awful lot of oil, but nowhere near the true amount. Scientists have more realistically estimated the gusher at 70,000 to 100,000 barrels a day. Now, who are you going to believe? The oil company with a vested interest in downplaying the disaster, or scientists with no interest other than in the facts?






So far, BP's efforts have failed to sufficiently stem the flow, which means there could be upwards of 3 million barrels of oil and counting spilled, with no end in sight. To save their investments, rather than the environment, BP has been trying one untested solution after another, which have all failed. They continue to explore other options into the second month of the gusher, except the only option that is most likely to work: blowing up the well. Explosions have been used for the last 100 years in the oil industry to seal runaway wells on land, and the Russians have done it to underwater wells at least 4 times using nuclear bombs, but conventional explosions might work just as well. However, that would mean the well would be sealed permanently and BP would lose millions in investments and assets, as well as access to all the remaining oil. Unless forced to by the U.S. government, I doubt very much BP would willingly choose that option. It seems BP is engaged in its own form of wishful thinking in trying to plug the well. Perhaps they should give Dreamhealer a call.

Update on Thursday, June 3, 2010

How long before the only option left is a nuclear explosion?

The New York Times reports that U.S. officials have not considered the nuclear option for stopping the oil gusher:

Government and private nuclear experts agreed that using a nuclear bomb would be not only risky technically, with unknown and possibly disastrous consequences from radiation, but also unwise geopolitically — it would violate arms treaties that the United States has signed and championed over the decades and do so at a time when President Obama is pushing for global nuclear disarmament.

It seems to me that first and foremost in their minds are the geopolitical issues rather than the environmental ones. Right now there are unknown, wide-spread disastrous consequences resulting from all of the failed efforts so far, and with hurricane season fast approaching no one knows how that will impact an already dire situation. So, it seems disingenuous for them to say they won't consider the nuclear option because of unknown consequences. After all, hasn't the U.S. conducted nuclear tests for decades? Surely there must be some useful data collected along the way that they could apply to this disaster. And although the Russian's success with nuclear explosions involved gas wells on land as opposed to oil wells on the seabed, certainly some of that experience and data could be useful in this situation.

The latest attempts by BP have actually made the situation worse, with up to 20 percent more oil gushing out. BP estimates it could be August before the well is sealed, but BP can no longer be trusted to give accurate information. It is entirely possible that nothing BP does will work and oil will continue to gush into the Gulf of Mexico indefinitely, and spread from there. What are the disastrous consequences of that? It may be that the nuclear option will only be considered once all other ideas are exhausted, but by then it may be too late.

******************************
Financial Post - Reuters July 2, 2010

Should BP nuke its leaking well?

by Nastassia Astrasheuskaya, Ben Judah, Alina Selyukh | Reuters


MOSCOW/WASHINGTON -- His face wracked by age and his voice rasping after decades of chain-smoking coarse tobacco, the former long-time Russian Minister of nuclear energy and veteran Soviet physicist Viktor Mikhailov knows just how to fix BP's oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico.

"A nuclear explosion over the leak," he says nonchalantly puffing a cigarette as he sits in a conference room at the Institute of Strategic Stability, where he is a director. "I don't know what BP is waiting for, they are wasting their time. Only about 10 kilotons of nuclear explosion capacity and the problem is solved."

A nuclear fix to the leaking well has been touted online and in the occasional newspaper op-ed for weeks now. Washington has repeatedly dismissed the idea and BP execs say they are not considering an explosion -- nuclear or otherwise. But as a series of efforts to plug the 60,000 barrels of oil a day gushing from the sea floor have failed, talk of an extreme solution refuses to die.

For some, blasting the problem seems the most logical answer in the world. Mr. Mikhailov has had a distinguished career in the nuclear field, helping to close a Soviet Union program that used nuclear explosions to seal gas leaks. Ordinarily he's an opponent of nuclear blasts, but he says an underwater explosion in the Gulf of Mexico would not be harmful and could cost no more than US$10-million. That compares with the US$2.35-billion BP has paid out in cleanup and compensation costs so far. "This option is worth the money," he says.

And it's not just Soviet boffins. Milo Nordyke, one of the masterminds behind U.S. research into peaceful nuclear energy in the 1960s and '70s says a nuclear explosion is a logical last-resort solution for BP and the government. Matthew Simmons, a former energy advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush and the founder of energy investment-banking firm Simmons & Company International, is another calling for the nuclear option.

Even former U.S. President Bill Clinton has voiced support for the idea of an explosion to stem the flow of oil, albeit one using conventional materials rather than nukes. "Unless we send the Navy down deep to blow up the well and cover the leak with piles and piles and piles of rock and debris, which may become necessary ... unless we are going to do that, we are dependent on the technical expertise of these people from BP," Mr. Clinton told the Fortune/Time/CNN Global Forum in South Africa on June 29.

Mr. Clinton was picking up on an idea mooted by Christopher Brownfield in June. Mr. Brownfield is a one-time nuclear submarine officer, a veteran of the Iraq war (he volunteered in 2006) and now a nuclear policy researcher at Columbia University. He is also one of a number of scientists whose theories rely not on nuclear bombs -- he did toy with that thought for a while -- but on conventional explosives that would implode the well and, if not completely plug it with crushed rock, at least bring the flow of oil under control. "It's kind of like stepping on a garden hose to kink it," Mr. Brownfield says. "You may not cut off the flow entirely but it would greatly reduce the flow."

BLASTS FROM THE PAST

Using nuclear blasts for peaceful ends was a key plank of Cold War policy in both the United States and the Soviet Union. In the middle of last century, both countries were motivated by a desire to soften the image of the era's weapon of choice.

Washington had big plans to use peaceful nuclear explosions to build an additional Panama Canal, carve a path for an inter-state highway through mountains in the Mojave Desert and connect underwater aquifers in Arizona. But the experimental plans were dropped as authorities learned more about the ecological dangers of surface explosions.

The Soviet program, known as Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy, was launched in 1958. The project saw 124 nuclear explosions for such tasks as digging canals and reservoirs, creating underground storage caverns for natural gas and toxic waste, exploiting oil and gas deposits and sealing gas leaks. It was finally mothballed by Mikhail Gorbachev in 1989.

The Soviets first used a nuclear blast to seal a gas leak in 1966. Urtabulak, one of its prized gas-fields in Uzbekistan, had caught fire and raged for three years. Desperate to save the cherished reserves, Yefim Slavsky, then Minister of Light Industry, ordered nuclear engineers to use the most powerful weapon in their arsenal.

"The Minister said, 'Do it. Put it out. Explode it,'" recalls Albert Vasilyev, a young engineer and a rising star in the project who now teaches at the Lenin Technical Institute in Moscow.

Mr. Vasilyev remembers the technology behind the program with obvious pride. "The explosion takes place deep underground," he says. "We pinch the pipe, break it and the pipe collapses." According to Mr. Vasilyev, the blast at Urtabulak sealed the well shut leaving only an empty crater.

JUST DOING A JOB

In all, the Soviets detonated five nuclear devices to seal off runaway gas wells -- succeeding three or four times, depending on who you talk to. "It worked quite well for them," says Nordyke, who authored a detailed account of Soviet explosions in a 2000 paper. "There is no reason to think it wouldn't be fine (for the United States)."

But not everything went smoothly. Mr. Vasilyev admits the program "had two misfires". The final blast in 1979 was conducted near the Ukrainian city of Kharkov. "The closest houses were just about 400 meters away," Mr. Vasilyev recalls. "So this was ordered to be the weakest of the explosions. Even the buildings and the street lamps survived." Unfortunately, the low capacity of the device failed to seal the well and the gas resurfaced.

Alexander Koldobsky, a fellow nuclear physicist from the Moscow Engineering and Physics Institute, insists the peaceful nuclear explosions were safe. The people who worked on the program "were brilliant professionals", he says. "They had a culture of safety, which did not accept the word 'maybe', but only accepted the words 'obligation' and 'instruction.' Any derivation from these in nuclear technologies is a crime."

Still, he concedes, "there were different scenarios of what happened after an explosion." At his first blast in a Turkmen gas field in 1972, "the stench was unbearable," he says. "And the wind was blowing toward a nearby town." He closes his narrow lips into a smile as if refusing to say more.

Mr. Koldobsky shrugs off any suggestion of fear or emotion when the bomb exploded. "I felt nothing. I was just doing my job."

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS

Not everybody is so sanguine about the Soviet experience. Speaking on condition of anonymity, an expert from Russia's largest oil exporter Rosneft, urges the United States to ignore calls for the atomic option. "That would bring Chernobyl to America," he says.

Vladimir Chuprov from Greenpeace's Moscow office is even more insistent that BP not heed the advice of the veteran Soviet physicists. Mr. Chuprov disputes the veterans' accounts of the peaceful explosions and says several of the gas leaks reappeared later. "What was praised as a success and a breakthrough by the Soviet Union is in essence a lie," he says. "I would recommend that the international community not listen to the Russians. Especially those of them that offer crazy ideas. Russians are keen on offering things, especially insane things."

Former Minister Mikhailov agrees that the USSR had to give up its program because of problems it presented. "I ended the program because I knew how worthless this all was," he says with a sigh. "Radioactive material was still seeping through cracks in the ground and spreading into the air. It wasn't worth it."

"Still," he says, momentarily hard to see through a cloud of smoke from his cigarettes, "I see no other solution for sealing leaks like the one in the Gulf of Mexico."

The problem, he goes on, is that "Americans just don't know enough about nuclear explosions to solve this problem ... But they should ask us -- we have institutes, we have professionals who can help them solve this. Otherwise BP are just torturing the people and themselves."

RADIATION RISKS

Mr. Nordyke too believes the nuclear option should be on the table. After seeing nine U.S. nuclear explosions and standing behind the control board of one, he estimates that a nuclear bomb would have roughly an 80 to 90% chance of successfully blocking the oil. According to his estimates, it would have to be an explosion of around 30 kilotons, equivalent to roughly two Hiroshima bombs or three times as big as Mikhailov's estimate. The explosion would also need to remain at least 3 to 4 miles away from other offshore wells in the area.

The bomb, says Mr. Nordyke, would be dropped in a secondary well approximately 60-70 feet away from the leaking shaft. There it would create a large cavity filled with gas. The gas would melt the surrounding rock, crush it and press it into the leaking well to close it shut.

Although the BP well is thousands of feet deeper than those closed in the Soviet Union, Mr. Nordyke says the extra depth shouldn't make a difference. He also says that so far below the ground, not much difference exists in onshore or underwater explosions -- even though the latter have never been tried.

Mr. Nordyke says fears that radiation could escape after the explosion are unfounded. The hole would be about 8 inches in diameter and, despite the shockwave, the radiation should remain captured. Even in the case of radiation escape, he says, its dispersed effect would be less than that of floating oil patches.

A LAST RESORT

But don't expect an explosion under the Gulf of Mexico any time soon. Even a conventional blast could backfire and cause more problems. There is a chance any blast could fracture the seabed and cause an underground blowout, according to Andy Radford, petroleum engineer and American Petroleum Institute senior policy adviser on offshore issues. The U.S. Department of Energy has no plans to use explosives "due to the obvious risks involved," according to a DOE spokeswoman.

There's also the question of time. Preparations for a nuclear explosion could take up to half-a-year; BP has said it will have a relief well in place to stop the leak by August. "I think it has to be considered as only the last resort," Mr. Nordyke says. But "they ought to be thinking about it."

Would he be willing to work on such an operation? "I'd be happy to help," he says.

This article was found at:

http://www.financialpost.com/Should+nuke+leaking+well/3227727/story.html


RELATED ARTICLES ON THIS BLOG:


Quakes, Quacks and Kidnappers: Baptists, Scientologists, DreamHealer and Bad Consequences of Good Intentions


Quantum intentions and prayers to deities: two sides of the same supernatural coin

Quakes, Quacks and Kidnappers: Baptists, Scientologists, DreamHealer and Bad Consequences of Good Intentions

Chain The Dogma    March 16, 2010

by Perry Bulwer



Natural disasters tend to bring out the best, and the worst, of people. There were amazing stories of rescue and survival in the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti. There were also sad stories of exploitation by charlatans taking advantage of the situation to proselytize or practice their pseudo-science quackery.

Take those American Baptists, for example, who attempted to smuggle dozens of children out of the country without authorization. They claimed, of course, that they did it with the best of intentions, for the sake of the children. However, good intentions alone are not enough since they often have unintended consequences that make things even worse. Those Baptists thought they could 'rescue' a few dozen children, some of whom were not even orphans, but seemingly gave no consideration to the consequences of their good intentions. Here is just one major consequence:

Some groups are urging a long moratorium on new adoptions from Haiti, saying there is too much chaos, and the risks of mistakes or child trafficking are too high.

Other groups fear any long-term clampdown will consign countless children to lives in institutions or on the street, rather than in the loving homes of adoptive parents.

Chuck Johnson, chief operating officer of the National Council for Adoption, said the arrests of 10 U.S. Baptists would probably undercut his organization's push to expand adoptions from Haiti.

"It was a critical mistake — the Haitian government has been very clear they did not want any children leaving without its express permission," Johnson said Monday. "Maybe the Americans thought they were helping 33 kids, but now there's going to be a much slower process and maybe even a ban on future adoptions — and that would be a tragedy."

see: Arrests stir debate over Haiti adoptions

Claiming the best of intentions to help a few Haitian children in a tragedy does not legitimize what they attempted to do. Their good intentions had the opposite effect, making it more difficult for all Haitian orphans to be legitimately adopted. Perhaps one good result is that this case highlighted the issue of religiously motivated child-trafficking, particularly by Christian evangelicals.

Scientologists

Christian kidnappers were not the only fraudsters to invade Haiti in the aftermath of the quake. So too did the Scientologists with their pseudo-science quackery. The science-fiction cult actually has a doctrine called 'Casualty Contact', which founder Ron L. Hubbard invented as a way of recruiting followers in times of tragedy. Here's what he wrote in 1959:

"Casualty contact is very old, is almost never tried and is almost always roaringly successful... This is a pretty routine drill really. You get permission to visit. You go in and give patients a cheery smile. You want to know if you can do anything for them, you give them a card and tell them to come around to your group... Your statement, 'the modern scientific church can cure things like that. Come around and see' will work. It's straight recruiting!

Although certainly deceptive, it does not suggest they are trying to intervene medically in disasterous situations, but are only interested in proselytizing. In other words, as that doctrine was articulated 50 years ago, the idea was not to 'heal' disaster victims on the spot, but to convince them they could be 'cured' by attending a Scientology 'church'. The 'casualty contact' doctrine developed into a formalized program called Volunteer Ministers and is now being used in far more dangerous ways that actually endanger or cause harm to those targeted by Scientologist's recruiters. Just think of New York after 9/11 and that pseudo-science, 'Purification Rundown' promoted by Tom 'Fool' Cruise, which was derided by toxicologists as pure quakery.

As I monitored news reports from Haiti and first heard that John Travolta was flying his own plane filled with supplies to Haiti I thought that perhaps he had finally come to his senses, prompted by the needless death of his son due to Scientology's quackery, and was going to do some actual good for the unfortunate Haitians. My optimism only lasted until the next news report that revealed that Travolta's plane had been given priority landing at the congested Port-au-Prince airport, controlled by U.S. military, even though there were hundreds of relief planes on the waiting list ahead of him. The medical aid organization, Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders, reported that several of their planes loaded with medical supplies and real doctors and nurses were denied landing permission in Haiti and were instead rerouted to the Domincan Republic, resulting in unnecessary deaths. No doubt Travolta's intentions were good, just like those Baptists, but the consequences were very bad for those who got 'treated' by the quacks he brought with him instead of actual doctors with real medical training.

Scientologists claim they can heal and cure people by merely touching them, which they call 'Touch Assists'. Hundreds of unprepared, yellow-shirted Scientologists went to Haiti pretending to heal the wounded. A group of them supposedly helping out in a courtyard of a hospital in Port-au-Prince claimed that “they were healing patients through 'the power of touch to reconnect nervous systems'. Sylvie, a French woman, said: 'We are trained as volunteer ministers, we use a process called 'assist' to follow the nervous system to reconnect the main points.'” But doctors in Haiti said that many wounded were coming to them saying they didn't want to be treated by those people in yellow shirts. Obviously, a quack sounds the same in any language, and those that recognized that sound are the lucky ones. Not so lucky are those that were given food by Scientologists, even though they were scheduled for surgery, thus causing complications during the operation. Again we see good intentions result in very bad consequences.

DreamHealer

Now to a quack of a different kind, one who doesn't need to touch people to 'heal' them, like Scientologists. One who claims not only that people can heal themselves merely by their intentions, but that anyone can heal anyone else simply by focusing their intentions, even at great distances between the 'sender' and 'receiver' of those intentions. Furthermore, he claims that the focused intentions of many people can even effect the environment, such as by reducing the size of tsunami waves. I'm not joking, I'm talking about a young Canadian who calls himself DreamHealer.

Dreamhealer, for those who have not yet heard of this new-age 'healer', is the pseudonym of Adam McLeod, a young man from the Vancouver area in British Columbia. Adam's claim to fame is that he can supposedly heal people by manipulating their energy or aura. He purports to be a trance healer and distance healer. He claims not only that he can heal others great distances away, but that he can also facilitate the healing of everyone in a large group by merging all of their energy or auras together. Perhaps his most famous claim, at least here in Canada, and one that he has been milking for years, is that he healed the musician, Ronnie Hawkins, of pancreatic cancer even though they were thousands of miles apart when the healing sessions took place. Skeptics, however, point out several other possible explanations for Hawkins' apparent cancer remission and even dispute whether Hawkins ever had cancer in the first place.

That so-called healing took place early in Adam's career. Eventually, he progressed from individual healing to group healing and has held large seminars attended by thousands of people mostly in North America. Out of curiousity, I attended one of his seminars in Vancouver a few years ago with a friend to see what all the fuss was about? There were well over 100 people there, some obviously very sick, and they hung on Adam's every word as he offered hope for healing and told his own personal myth describing healings and supernatural abilities. He even showed some photographs he took outside his home showing some strange lights that he claimed had no physical explanation. He didn't offer an explanation, leaving that to our imaginations, but the implication was that they must be of spiritual origin or that it was some kind of energy following him around. It reminded me of what cult leaders do, creating their own personal myths that include unverifiable healings, supernatural powers, mystical entities, secret knowledge, and promises, lots of promises.

It was a wasted two hours and a hundred bucks I'll never get back. I felt embarrassed just being there, especially since I had been conned into joining a cult when I was 16, and now I knew better. Watching Adam was much like watching one of those faith-healing televangelists that are so fun to mock, especially once he got into his trance state. The lights were dimmed and we were all supposed to close our eyes and focus our intentions, but who could resist taking a peek. I certainly couldn't, and if I wasn't yet convinced he was a quack, that certainly did it. There he was waving his arms about wildly like a mad maestro conducting an imaginary orchestra, supposedly connecting our auras and healing everyone there of whatever ailed them. It didn't work on me or my friend, but then Adam would say that it was our fault for not focusing our intentions, or in my case being too skeptical, just like a faith-healer would say it is lack of faith people don't get healed.

You see, intention is a big thing with Adam. He's all about intention and has set up an experiment of sorts called the Global Intention Heals Project to try and lend some scientific credibility to his incredible claims. The website for that project claims:

With Adam DreamHealer's innate healing abilities he is becoming one of the world's leading experts on intention. Most who are following Adam's journey know that our intentions influence our health and our reality. Since Adam knows without a doubt that our intentions have an influence on our health, he has a desire to prove it scientifically. Although many of you also understand this, it is important to conduct the scientific research to help others make decisions with regards to their healing.

So, what exactly was the first experiment that allows Adam to make his claims "without a doubt"? He arranged a specific time and place for a volunteer to be hooked up to a Q-EEG monitor and then 5 minutes before starting emailed a photo of that person to the thousands of people who registered to take part. Then at precisely the same time everyone was instructed to focus their intentions on that person. The monitor measured the volunteer's brainwaves, hoping to demonstrate that all those intentions affected a physiological change in those brainwaves.

You can read the results of that experiment here. The researchers involved with this experiment "are now considering writing a paper based on [their] findings to be submitted to a peer-reviewed scientific journal." But if the results are as conclusive and promising as Adam makes them out to be, then why are the researchers only considering writing a paper. If this is ground-breaking research, why the hesitancy to publish their findings? There is no such hesitancy on Adam's part. He plans similar experiments to confirm what he claims to already know, but already on his website and in his newsletter Adam uses the result from the first experiment as proof of his teachings. He can't be bothered to wait for peer reviewers to examine the experiment or for further experimental confirmations. He now declares, without a doubt, that:

The Intention Heals Project successfully proved that our intentions can change the physiology of others. At the exact time that intentions were sent to Christine, the scientists recorded a change in her brain waves. Two more world renown scientists will be analyzing the data and we will let you know when we receive their results. We cannot overestimate the importance of the initial findings of this research. It scientifically confirms the power of prayer and positive intentions. As self-empowerment is the focus of Adam's conferences and workshops, this establishes the importance of intentions. Every time we send thoughts or prayers to someone we are sending the energy of our intentions. This has been known and practiced since the beginning of time. Now we have scientific proof that the sending of intentions does affect another person's physiology at a distance. Now that we have conclusive results that our intentions can make changes to a person's physiology, the next project will focus on changing someone's health with our thoughts and intentions.

All that talk of conclusive scientific proof certainly seems premature, but that's not stopping Adam. Soon after the earthquake struck Haiti, Adam sent out a request to his followers:

We have all heard about the earthquake in Haiti and the urgent situation that exists. Everyone would like to help in whatever way possible. Very few of us are able to physically be there to help but all of us can send our positive intentions to those in need.

The power of our collective intentions is very real as demonstrated by the recent Intention Heals Project. We are requesting your participation in joining our intentions to encourage a speedy and successful rescue for those trapped beneath the debris. The next few days are critical, so please send your visualization intention of their speedy rescue over the next 3 days. Visualize all the rescue crews and equipment in place working unimpeded as they find many survivors.

Thank you for your participation as we influence our global community with our intentions.

That was on January 13, 2010. Incredibly, five days later Adam sent out another message, this time claiming that those 'rescue intentions' had an impact on the actual rescues taking place thousands of miles away:

Thanks to all for sending your positive intentions to the Haitian earthquake survivors. Your intentions are continuing to make an impact as stories of miraculous rescues and survival continue. There continues to be unprecedented global support for the Haitian people during their time of need. Our gratitude goes out to you for making our world a better place.

Who needs scientific proof when you "know without a doubt"? Adam claims to be a scientist (so do the Scientologists) yet he seems to be using the scientific method merely to verify what he claims to already know, his 'innate knowledge'. Furthermore, he doesn't wait for further experiments or peer reviews for confirmation before declaring success, and he makes pronouncements no true scientist would make, such as claiming credit for 'miraculous' interventions. To say he knows "without a doubt" strikes me as the same kind of certainty religious fundamentalists have.

Adam was at it again recently with news of the earthquake in Chile on February 27, 2010. He sent out an emergency request to his followers:

As you are now aware there has been an 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Chile. A tsunami warning has been issued for the Hawaiian Islands, expected to reach there at approximately 1:30 pm PST. We are issuing an emergency request for you to use your intentions to minimize the impact of the tsunami. Visualize the ocean absorbing the energy to reduce the impact. Know in your mind that your intentions are having a powerful influence on this tsunami. From our previous Global Intention Heals Project we know that our intentions can have an influence on such events.

Then five hours later, Adam sent out another message:

IT WORKED!!! Thanks to all of you who were able to send intentions to minimize the effect of the tsunami on the Hawaiian Islands. The media projected a 12' tsunami which fizzled to about a 1' surge or a 3' wave in some areas. This is remarkable considering that the earthquake was an extremely strong 8.8. As per our visualizations the ocean did indeed absorb the energy of the tsunami. Thank you so much for sending your intentions which made a difference to our global community.

Incredibly, Adam claimed that those intensions reduced the size of the tsunami waves by as much as 9 to 11 feet. One problem with that claim, however, is that waves were never predicted to reach 12 feet, as Adam claims. The New York Times quoted Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, who said that "some early forecasts predicted that waves as high as eight feet could wash into parts of Hawaii." Eight feet is not twelve feet, something Adam the scientist should know. But even if the waves were only projected to reach 8 feet, that still means Adam is claiming a reduction of tsunami waves by 5 to 7 feet by merely getting gullible people to intend that to happen. However, it turns out that there are other more reasonable explanations for the lower waves that reached Hawaii, scientific realities that Adam ignored in his haste to claim more 'proof' of his abilities.

Adam is just getting starting, so we certainly haven't heard the last of him, but just exactly what his intentions are is difficult to determine. He may have nothing but the best intentions, but as we have seen, those could result in very bad consequences for some.

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