Blogs / Bad Astronomy

I usually like to keep things light on Fridays, but this is too good to keep until Monday. Moriel Schotttlander has written up an account of how the Shuttle Columbia astronaut Ilan Ramon’s personal diary survived (more or less) the disintegration of the Shuttle.

A curator of the Israeli Museum called this event "a miracle". It’s hard to know if he was being literal or not, but Moriel does an excellent job showing exactly how this is no miracle, and in fact might even be expected.

I’ll note the diary landed in mud, making the pages very difficult to examine and read. That’s not terribly miraculous. And, of course, if it’s a miracle that the diary made it, what does that say about the deaths of seven astronauts and the destruction of their billion-dollar machine?

Some miracle.

Oh, my brain! It’s all asplodey!

Dennis Leary is sometimes funny, but he can also be a serious jerk. It’s part of his schtick, but there are times… In a book he wrote, Why We Suck: A Feel-Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid, he says that some claims of autism are really just an excuse by “inattentive mothers and competitive dads who want an explanation for why their dumb-ass kids can’t compete academically, so they throw money into the happy laps of shrinks . . . to get back diagnoses that help explain away the deficiencies of their junior morons.”

In a more perfect world…

He says this quotation is being taken grossly out of context. I have not read the book, so I can’t say for sure, though I can see where this might be the case. For example, he might be saying that most cases of autism are real, but only some parents use it as an excuse. Or maybe it’s simply an excrutiatingly poorly-aimed joke. He does say that he talks about autism being a real disorder, and "that I not only support the current rational approaches to the diagnoses and treatment of real autism but have witnessed it firsthand while watching very dear old friends raise a functioning autistic child."

So it sounds like he may be trying making a what he thinks is a legitimate point, though doing so in a very crass and ill-advised manner.

But then the crazy gets, well, crazier. Enter Jenny McCarthy.

She is at the forefront of the loud but grossly wrong antivaccination movement. About Leary, she says…

“Whoo! First of all, let me tell you, the autism community has received probably 10,000 emails [saying] ‘Go kill him!’ ‘Go yell at him,’” McCarthy, 36, told Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush.

“[But] it’s so hard to even get up enough juice in me or energy in me to even try to fight someone that is obviously stupid.”

Wow. Where to start? With the "autism community" threatening him with death? Or her saying someone else’s claims about autism are "stupid"?

I think Leary’s comments were pretty dumb, whether he’s right or not. Stirring up an issue with this much emotion to make a joke is not such a brilliant idea. Of course, he’s not trying to spearhead a movement that creates a huge public health hazard and is literally putting the lives of our children at risk.

Having McCarthy jump on this already exploding dumbosity… well…

A. J. Gevaerd, the editor of "Brazilian UFO Magazine" is what I would charitably call a crank. He once interviewed a guy in his magazine who claimed that Jesus is tied up in the UFO phenomenon — of course! — along with other things that would make my head all asplodey to write about.

A few months ago, he wanted to start a new research center to study UFOs, called the Carl Sagan Institute.

Now, I will give you a moment to make comical head-shaking noises and wipe your ears out with your fingers. Yes, he wanted to name his pseudoscientific center after Carl Sagan, one of the leading and most vocal critics of the UFO phenomenon.

Now, you might say to yourself, "Maybe Gevaerd will be critical and apply Sagan’s skepticism to the study of UFOs." Hope springs eternal! But then there is the inevitable fall, you realize, remembering that whole Jesus-returning-in-a-UFO thing above. Yeah. Oh, and in Gevaerd’s own words:

Many think that Sagan passed away without knowing the result of his search … But that is far from the truth. Sagan had a close relationship with north-american governmental agencies dedicated to the UFO phenomenon investigation, and even Joseph Allen Hynek, considered the father of Modern Ufology, guaranteed that Sagan had a profound knowledge about the alien presence on Earth.

OK, are we done arguing over this guy’s grip on reality? Yes. Yes, we are. Which is good, because this gets funnier.

Not surprisingly, Ann Druyan, Sagan’s widow, took a dim view of this eponymy. There are legal issues to be dealt with in using Sagan’s name… so what’s a UFOlogist to do?

Why, change the name, of course. It’s now called The Galileo Galilee Institute for Extraterrestrial Life Research. Besides the obvious travesty of using that name, and noting the weird use — I don’t remember Galileo talking very much about being abducted and having his butt probed — I have to add that the Church back then took an even dimmer view of this; they burned Giordano Bruno at the stake in part for his heretical writing about even the potential of alien worlds and life.

Oh, those wacky UFOlogists. Burning at the stake isn’t needed any more. That burning smell is their credibility.

Tip o’ the tin foil beanie to Kentaro Mori.

David Grinspoon is an astronomer and author of the very cool book Venus Revealed. He’ll also be talking about aliens in Denver on Thursday at 3-5 p.m. at the Auraria Campus, North Classroom Building at 9000 Auraria Parkway. If you’re on Facebook, you can get more details here.

If you’re not, then here they are:

This October 23rd, Metro State Atheists will be hosting a lecture by David Grinspoon, author of “Lonely Planets” and curator of astrobiology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, on the blunder that is the Denver ballot initiative for an Extraterrestrial Affairs Commission. Lucia Guatney, author of the popular blog “Splendid Elles”, will be presenting Grinspoon.

Grinspoon is the 2006 recipient of the Carl Sagan Medal given for public communication in the Planetary Sciences. You can find his personal website at http://www.funkyscience.net/

Did you see that? Splendid Elles will be there, too!

I’m not sure if I can go yet or not; things are afoot at Chez BA, but right now it looks like I can make it. It should be fun!

OK, I have a chapter about alien invasion, but I never expected this!

Big thanks and tip o’ the crop circle to Joseph Peacock.

As I mentioned, I’m no fan of Jenny McCarthy. Her antivaccination stance is totally without merit, and in fact her status as a public spokesman for that movement constitutes a public health hazard.

Let me take a moment here to say something very carefully. I am a parent. I love my daughter, and want to protect her as much as is healthy for her. I understand that instinctive need to care for a child. While I have not gone through what must be an agonizing experience for a parent of an autistic child, I’ve had my taste of such things when my own daughter was ill, or in an accident.

Talking about kids with autism is a topic filled with emotion. Any time a topic invokes a strong emotional response, critical thinking is the first victim. People are less likely to listen to hard evidence and more willing to accept anecdotal evidence — that is, stories that support their pre-existing beliefs, even if those beliefs are completely wrong. Ms. McCarthy and the antivaxxers have lots of anecdotes, but the real evidence is totally against them. Remember, as hard as it is to talk about this, the ramifications are very, very real: outbreaks of diseases are on the rise because antivaxxers are scaring people into not vaccinating their children.

So we must talk about this.

Ms. McCarthy has an autistic son. Or, according to her, he was autistic; now she’s claiming her son has been cured of autism. She makes this claim in an Us magazine interview, saying changing his diet by removing wheat and dairy products has cured him. In this puff piece, there is not a single medical person contacted (just a general statement saying "doctors have accused her of creating fear of necessary vaccines"), not a single mention that there is no evidence of a relationship between vaccines and autism and in fact strong evidence against such a relationship, and not a single statement that McCarthy might be wrong — actually, is certainly wrong — about vaccination.

In fact, they didn’t even ask her if a doctor had corroborated her diagnosis that her son is cured.

I am not accusing Ms. McCarthy of lying; in fact I think she is a caring parent who loves her son, but who has taken the decidedly wrong path of science denial. But I am very curious about her saying her son was cured. While the press (in the form of Us magazine) has been positive over this, it has not been at all investigative of her claims. We have not seen any diagnoses of her son, for example. Again, I am not accusing her of lying, but let’s bear in mind the seriousness of her claim: she is saying her son is no longer autistic, and that she cured him by changing his diet.

This is a incredibly serious claim, and she is the one using it not only as a weapon against vaccination, but also is de facto telling others to ignore medical advice and try this "alternative" therapy. The burden is therefore on her to show the evidence for her claims. This is absolutely essential: I expect the antivax movement will trumpet her claims loudly and often. But how much real evidence can be made to back up Ms. McCarthy’s claim? For example, there is a broad spectrum of autism disorders, and some research indicates children can do better naturally as they age. Could this be the case here?

I suspect very strongly that what Ms. McCarthy is engaging in is a mistaken way of thinking called post hoc ergo propter hoc: because an event happens after something, it happened because of that thing. Her son got autism after a vaccination, therefore he is autistic because of the vaccination. But vaccinations are given around the same time children can be first diagnosed with autism! So it makes a link, a false link in a parent’s mind. Again, doctors have made very careful studies of this, and there is no link between vaccines and the onset of autism.

And now she is propter hoccing again. Let’s assume her son really is doing better. This happened after she changed his diet, so in her mind it happened because of the diet. But it also happened after we invaded Iraq, and after Cassini reached Saturn, and after I left my last job. None of those things were related to her son’s illness, just as his diet almost certainly wasn’t either. And remember, it’s possible that his alleviation of autism symptoms was a natural aspect of his getting older.

I rail against uncritical thinking on this blog and in everything I do in life. The Moon Hoax, the Face on Mars, and other things like them may not have much of an impact in "real" life, but the same lack of critical thinking skills does affect us, all of us, especially when a celebrity with some notoriety is the one behind them, aided by an all-too-willing and credulous press.

Vaccines are one of the greatest triumphs of medical science. Children can die from not getting vaccines. There is no evidence vaccines cause autism. Jenny McCarthy is wrong.

If you have questions on this, talk to your doctor. Do your research. But please, please, don’t just listen to what McCarthy says, or any of the antivaxxers. They’re dead wrong on this.

My attitude about Jenny McCarthy is well-documented here. She is a leading spokesperson for the antivaccination antiscientific movement. These are people who think vaccines cause autism, despite no evidence at all showing this to be the case, and a tsunami of evidence clearly showing there is no relation at all.

I will have more to say about Ms. McCarthy soon — oh, do I — but for now I want to alert you to a new website called Stop Jenny McCarthy. It has information about her claims, and links to where you can find more and better information. It’s only just started, but I imagine it will have plenty more info as time goes by. The people who put it together are skeptics themselves, and, like me, feel the need to alert the public about known cases of uncritical thinking, especially when it represents a major health risk.

Others have already linked to it, including Skeptic Dad (who interviewed the creators of the site) and Pharyngula. If you have a site or blog, show them some link love too.