Sarah Palin on Marijuana use: Law Enforcement has other priorities

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From Eric Dondero:

Sarah Palin was a guest along with Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, on Judge Andrew Napolitano's Freedom Watch show on Saturday (see video and links post below). The pairing was dubbed the "Tea Party Summit."

In a stunning statement that may shock some of her most hardened critics, Governor Sarah Palin yesterday on Fox News' Freedom Watch show hosted by Judge Andrew Napolitano said the following:

NAPOLITANO: Governor Palin switching gears. Is it any business of the federal government if someone were to use a recreational drug in the privacy of their own home? In such a time or manner not to harm another individual.

PALIN: Well, if we're talking about pot, I'm not for the legalization of pot cause I think that that would just encourage our young people that it's okay to use it, and I'm not an advocate for that. However, I think we need to prioritize our law enforcement efforts, and if somebody is going to smoke a joint in their own house and not do anybody else harm, then perhaps there are other things that our cops should be looking at, engage in, and perhaps clean up some of the other problems of society that are appropriate for law enforcement...

Note - In her 2006 campaign for Governor, during the Republican primary, Palin foes criticized her as a "closet libertarian," suggesting that she supported marijuana legalization. She had once made a similar comment to the one above in a magazine interview which garnered the slam. She is also a past marijuana user herself.

In 2008, immediately after her pick as Republican VP nominee, the Marijuana Policy Project sent out a press release praising her stance on marijuana. The release was pulled soon after, when the media template switched to Palin as a "religious conservative." (Source: Boston radio talk show host Howie Carr read the release in full on air minutes after her nomination was announced.)

Why Palin sold-out with Iowa endorsement

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By The Right Guy

I have been back and forth about Palin in he past year and nine months. She's attractive, funny, sometimes witty, schticky for sure, and by all accounts has gone beyond her 15 minutes.

I had really started to come around to her in the last couple months, and then she went and did it. She endorse Terry Branstad, the Iowa version of FDR in that he's already served four terms as governor.

It's not like I hate Terry, but he's not the best candidate, just the one with the deepest pockets and largest donor list. I also imagine, considering he's of retirement age, he must have been bored to death at Des Moines University to want to run for governor, as it pays a lot more and he also must have a good case of narcissism.  Iowa doesn't need that right now. We also don't need a RINO, who appoints judges that pass law, that has a history of growing government and taxes, and is basically a middle of road mush type of RINO republican.

The sad thing is that Palin endorsed him. Jeez sarah, I hope the blue chip or money you got was worth it, and if it wasn't that, you've lost your mind (In talking with Andre Traversa on our last radio show, he asserted that since Branstad endorsed Huckabee and this was the payback. Could be. Ed.). With that said, I've also come to the conclusion that Palin is about Palin. It's schtick, it's kitsch, and it's about staying on stage long enough to get to 2012. It's all about Sarah. She's nearly as narcissistic as Obama. Haven't we had enough of that? I'd really like to know what she was thinking with this, but I don't expect the phone call to come explaining it. What I can say is that come Tuesday, this republican will not vote for Branstad, but someone else and come the fall, if Branstad is the "Party's nominee, don't expect me to fall in line like sheeple, which Charlie Gruschow expects me and other republican and tea party members to do. Sorry charlie, sorry sarah, but back room big party politics is not what I am about, and if you might have learned anything about the tea party thing, it's that we don't want the same old, same old. Branstad is moribund and desiccated in that category. Endorsing him leaves us wondering what the heck were you thinking, which is, you are a political hack like any other. Zie mir gezunt and don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. You don't get it.

Thank you for reading this blog.

BREAKING… Sarah Palin to meet with Iron Lady of Brit Politics Margaret Thatcher

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'Palin’s big hero is Ronald Reagan. In US Republican folklore Thatcher and Reagan brought down the Soviet Union between them. That’s why Maggie is so important.’

Will Lady Thatcher christen Palin as the worldwide leader of the Conservative movement?

From the UK Daily Telegraph, "Sarah Palin lines up UK trip – and a visit to Lady Thatcher" June 13:

Controversial US politician Sarah Palin could soon be on her way to Britain to boost her hopes of challenging Barack Obama in the 2012 US presidential election.

Her representatives approached Margaret Thatcher to ask for a meeting as part of a bid to enhance her claim to be the ‘heir to Ronald Reagan’ and prepare to challenge Mr Obama.

And Lady Thatcher has agreed to see Mrs Palin, who stood as the Republican vice-presidential candidate in 2008. A spokesman said: ‘We had an informal approach asking if Lady Thatcher would meet Mrs Palin if she comes to Britain and we said yes.’

The Telegraph then goes on to speculate what this could mean for newly elected Prime Minister David Cameron and his Conservative Party.

It could also cause difficulties within the coalition Government. While many Right-wing Tory MPs admire Mrs Palin, many Liberal Democrat MPs regard her as dangerous and irresponsible.

One source said: ‘A meeting with Margaret Thatcher would be an enormous publicity coup for Sarah Palin. Thatcher is by far the biggest political name in US politics, much bigger than Blair.

(H/t Jim Hoft)

Sarah Palin and Ron Paul together on Fox News – Judge Napolitano

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From Eric Dondero & Cliff Thies:

They mostly agree over goals of Tea Party; mild debate between the two giants of differing wings of the libertarian movement.

On libertarians: "How can government effectively provide services...?" That's the fundamental question.

On foreign policy - Palin: "As Ronald Reagan said Peace through Strength."

Also, "I do agree with Congressman Paul, we shouldn't be engaging in empire building around the world..." (Part II)

Part II

Part III (includes surprise appearance by Kentucky US Senate candidate Rand Paul)

Video of Hayabusa’s return | Bad Astronomy

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Emily Lakdawalla has been monitoring the return of Hayabusa feverishly, and tweeted a link to this amazing video of the Japanese space probe’s fiery return:

Wow! In this footage obtained from a DC-8 flying over Australia, you can see the probe breaking up, with individual pieces falling off and burning up as they ram through the Earth’s atmosphere at several kilometers per second. The last little piece you can see at the end is, I think, the hardened component that contains samples of the asteroid Itokawa, obtained when Hayabusa landed on its surface.

hayabusa_itokawaAs I mentioned in an earlier post, Itokawa is a 500-meter-long potato-shaped rubble pile, an asteroid that is not a solid rock like a boulder or mountain, but probably an assemblage of rubble held together by its own gravity. If one of these things were headed straight for us, we could lob nukes at it, even slam it with space probes at high speed to try to push it out of the way, and it would laugh at us. We need to understand these objects much better than we currently do if the time ever comes that we need to keep one from smacking into us. The sample of Itokawa contained inside that tiny glowing dot you saw in that video may just give us some of the answers we need to do that.

Science! It makes the world better, but it also just might save it, too.

Stay tuned to Emily’s blog for more information about Hayabusa as she gets it! She has already posted some great images and video, too.


Heart Kiss | The Intersection

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This week’s featured Science of Kissing Gallery submission comes from artist Tamela. Her painting is titled "Heart Kiss" because of the shape of the couple's lips. See more of Tamela's work here and consider submitting your original photo or art for consideration in this growing collection of kisses across time, space, and species.


So, um, ist das gut? | Bad Astronomy

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Tod aus dem All coverIn January, the German translation of my book Death from the Skies! came out. Over there, it’s got the cooler name Tod aus dem All, and has a cool cover, too.

I was wondering what people in Germany thought of the book, and (because my three years of German classes were a while back) even after seeing this young man review it, I’m still wondering:

So, um, is this good? He keeps holding up the book; does he want his money back? I hope not, since the guarantee on the book is only good for 1092 years, or until all its protons decay, whichever comes first.


Space Tugs

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Space Tugs: Filling The Space Jobs Gap and Privatization Too!, John Strickland

"US space workers are currently faced with both the loss of the Shuttle program (correctly set in motion by the Bush administration years ago), and also by the temporary gap in space jobs caused by the probable cancelation of the Ares Program. Understandably they are all very concerned about their personal future, and also the seeming end of the manned space program. There is a way to at least partly alleviate both of these problems: (one financial and the other perceptual)."

More Commentary on Constellation Closeout

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Constellation funding up to NASA backers to win over Congress, Bud Cramer, huntsville Times

"The president's proposal includes a very different vision for NASA's future and begs the question: Will we continue to have a government-led space program? Will Marshall's workforce have the rug pulled out from under them?"

New NASA cutback a bad idea, editorial, Austin Daily Herald

"There's a two-fold problem with NASA's decision, which is apparently based on the president's distaste for the moon program. First, an enormous amount has already been spent; $10 billion over the past five years. Most, if not all, of that will be wasted with the program's cancellation. Perhaps more importantly, the cancellation will be yet another giant step backward for America's space program, one of the few efforts our nation is making to prepare for the future."

Congressmen still want probe of NASA Constellation decisions, Huntsville Times

"The employees and their families who are experiencing the news of job loss today have my thoughts with them," Griffith said. "It is unacceptable that our region is suffering due to this administration's blatant arrogance and its ignorance of the importance of manned space flight."

NASA move could kill up to 2,000 Utah jobs, Salt Lake Tribune

"Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, a member of the appropriations committee, said he believes they have a 50-50 shot of fighting off the president's plan to scrap Ares in favor of commercially developed vehicles that the government would lease rides on. "I haven't run across anyone outside of the administration who thinks this is a good idea," he said."

Doctors are addicted to "every drug under the sun"

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Doctors suffer in secret from a wide range of physical and mental health problems including addiction, according to the findings of a new health program in the United Kingdom.

The Practitioner Health Program (PHP) was set up in response to concerns that health professionals were self-medicating or avoiding treatment for serious health problems, out of fear of being stigmatized if they visited a colleague for help. The program provides confidential health services, and so far has been judged a success.

"From the number of patients accessing PHP during its first year, it's clear there is a need for this highly specialized service," said England's chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson.

"This has been a real eye-opener," said PHP medical director Clare Gerada. "I thought at first we'd see a bit of stress and burn-out. But it soon became apparent how troubled some of these doctors and dentists were. I've been surprised at the degree and extent of substance misuse that we've seen."

Of 184 patients treated in the program's first year, 36 percent suffered from some form of addiction. Read more...

Immunice for Immune Support

Webinar from CRi on Quantitating Multiple Protein Expression in Intact Tissue

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Event-june_2010_webinar_banner_jpg-632010 Multispectral imaging bridges the gap between ‘omics’ multiplexed array-based techniques and conventional tissue imaging. This webinar provides an overview of how leading scientists are using multi-label imaging in combination with pattern-recognition image analysis software to analyze biomarkers specific to important disease-related cellular states, such as signaling configuration, stem cell pluripotency, and receptor expression.  Call +1-781-935-9099 ext 158 or e-mail us NOW at toleary@cri-inc.com to sign up for this FREE webinar.

Featured Speaker: James Mansfield
Director, Multispectral Imaging Systems
Cambridge Research & Instrumentation, Inc.
Title: Quantitating multiple protein expressions in intact tissue.
Date: Thursday, June 17, 2010
Time: 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM EDT
After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

REGISTER HERE

CRi technology helps to bridge the gap between advances made in the ‘omics’ multiplexed array-based techniques and conventional tissue imaging. This webinar provides an overview of how leading scientists are using multi-label imaging in intact tissue, in combination with pattern-recognition image analysis software to analyze biomarkers specific to important disease-related cellular states, such as signaling configuration, stem cell pluripotency, and receptor expression.  

Improved specificity in determining disease subclasses through protein expression profiles is a goal of many studies. Obtaining this specific information requires the analysis of multiple proteins on a per-cell basis in intact tissues, from specific architectural contexts.

In pharmaceutical drug development, revealing correlations between protein activity and clinical outcome supports target validation, trial design, patient selection, response assessment, and, if trials are successful, the diagnostic component of theranostics. However, the ability of tools to support these activities depends strongly on their precision and accuracy for quantitating protein labels. Multispectral imaging coupled with automated learn-by-example analysis software offer a powerful combination to generate reproducible data of per-cell phenotypes in tumor regions or other regions of interest. Many techniques deployed today, such as those based on microarray detection, or analysis of sample lysates, provide data that are, in fact, averages from volumes of tissue, including many cells not of interest. These methods blur-out key proteomic information that resides at the cellular level and that relates to the signaling states of individual cells.

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP, 2003 Server or 2000
Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.4.11 (Tiger®) or newer

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/833013281

Study praises Howard, other minority medical schools – Washington Post

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Washington University in St. Louis News
Study praises Howard, other minority medical schools
Washington Post
Graduates of medical schools at historically black universities such as Howard and Morehouse are the most likely to practice the kind of ...
Best medical schools don't produce the most-needed doctorsLos Angeles Times (blog)
Med schools ranked on 'social mission'Boston Globe (blog)
Harvard Medical School Places No. 62 in 'Social Mission' StudyBusinessWeek
WABE -Philadelphia Inquirer -Annals of Internal Medicine
all 26 news articles »

The Living Matrix: A Movie Promoting Energy Medicine Beliefs

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It’s boring to try to ferret out reliable health information from dry medical journals. It’s easier and more fun to watch a movie. A new movie promises to change the way you think about your health. To bring you breakthroughs that will transform your understanding of how to get well and stay well. To share the discoveries of leading researchers and health practitioners about miracle cures that traditional medicine can’t explain.

If this makes your baloney detector light up, good for you!

The Living Matrix: A Film on the New Science of Healing is an atrociously bad movie that falls squarely in the tradition of What the Bleep Do We Know? In his book Nonsense on Stilts, Massimo Pigliucci characterized the “Bleep” movie as “one of the most spectacular examples of a horribly tangled mess of science and nonsense,” and this new movie is more of the same. Bleep was just silly, but The Living Matrix is potentially dangerous because it might persuade patients to make poor decisions about their medical care.

It purports to be a documentary about the “new science of healing” but really amounts to an infomercial for various forms of quackery based on so-called “energy medicine.” It’s not about science, but about pseudoscience and mythical misinterpretations of physics and quantum theory. It says things that are simply not true and misrepresents them as indisputable scientific facts. The film features interviews with patients, with non-scientists, and with a veritable Who’s Who roster of infamous fringe scientists like Rupert Sheldrake and Dean Radin. But it doesn’t offer a single word of comment by any mainstream scientist or by the many skeptics who have examined the “evidence” for so-called energy medicine and found it pathetically inadequate. It doesn’t even acknowledge that dissent is possible.

I’m going to give this movie more attention than it deserves. It wouldn’t merit taking seriously if it weren’t for the fact that legions of energy medicine practitioners are promoting these same false ideas to justify bogus treatments, relieve customers of their hard-earned money, and sometimes even contribute to a premature demise by convincing patients that lifesaving science-based treatments are unnecessary. For that reason alone, the movie’s claims demand a skeptical rebuttal.

The concept of energy healing is vague and incoherent, so poorly thought out that it is nearly impossible to explain. It involves quantum holistic energy fields that somehow hold all kinds of information, that unite us with everything in the universe but also somehow govern the functioning of our individual bodies, and that respond to thought and intention. “The Field” encompasses the entire universe, but there is also a hierarchy of smaller fields for our bodies and for each of our limbs and organs. There is no hypothesis to explain how our thoughts know what to do to which field, much less how they might actually do it. It also has something to do with morphogenetic influences and with static scalar waves. Trying to make sense out of all this is as unedifying as trying to make sense out of a schizophrenic’s word salad. One interviewee says

We’re not in this field, we are this field… we’re denser, we’re lighter in between.

What does this even mean?

There are so many things wrong with the film that it’s hard to know where to start. The testimonials are as good a place as any.

  1. A 5-year-old with cerebral palsy was allegedly healed by “reconnective healing” by a chiropractor who is shown waving his hands a few inches away from the child’s body. Problem: There was no medical evaluation before and after to determine whether anything had objectively changed, and video of the child after treatment shows that his gait is still abnormal.
  2. After a motorcycle accident, a woman was told there was a possibility her injured leg might require amputation. She visualized her immune system and rallied it with her thoughts, claiming she could feel the healing happening. The idea for trying this came to her directly through a noetic process: she just knew intuitively that her mind was important to her body. Problem: There is no reason to think this woman would not have healed just as well without any imaginative mumbo-jumbo. Injuries usually do heal.
  3. A woman who wanted children was diagnosed with prolactinoma, a brain tumor that causes infertility. She believed that she had somehow created the tumor. She refused drugs and surgery and relied on neurolinguistic programming (NLP), a discredited psychological therapy. It helped her discover that deep down some part of her unconscious did not want to be a mother. She let go of that, and let go of the anger against her tumor. She realized that having a tumor had taken her on a journey she would not have taken otherwise, and she liked herself better. So the tumor wasn’t totally bad — what if it had a purpose for being here? She gave it permission to stay for the rest of her life, and 6 months later her prolactin blood tests were normal. Her doctor said “This can only mean one thing: your tumor has gone.” He didn’t bother confirming that with follow-up imaging studies. Problem: A change in hormone levels is not proof that the tumor had resolved. Prolactinomas have been known to spontaneously stop producing excess prolactin, to infarct, and to otherwise resolve without treatment. Microadenomas frequently shrink or disappear and spontaneous regression has been observed even in macro-adenomas. So there’s no reason to attribute her improvement to anything she did.
  4. A woman was so impaired by chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia that her husband had to feed and carry her. A Nutri-Energetics System (NES) practitioner found that she was “allergic to almost all foods” and that her energy fields were weak, with distortions in the body field. For 6 months she took drops that the practitioner had imprinted with an information pattern, and she was cured. Hard to believe even if you are the White Queen and have practiced believing six impossible things before breakfast.
  5. Former astronaut Edgar Mitchell (who is notorious for believing in strange things like UFOs and ESP) had an MRI that showed an “irregularity” on one kidney. His doctors wanted to do a biopsy, but he refused. Instead he was treated by a teenage intuitive healer, Adam Dreamhealer. Adam’s healing ability developed after a vision directed him to go to the forest where he met a big black bird. The bird imparted complex information to him from the field of information. Adam can look at a photograph and perceive a holographic image of the body and see where energy flow is blocked, indicating illness or injury; then he clears these blockages using only his intention to heal. On follow-up tests 6 months later, Mitchell’s kidney irregularity had disappeared. Unlike all the other fields and energies known to physics, the healing energy fields are undetectable by scientific instruments and do not diminish with distance according to the inverse square law: in this case the healer was in Vancouver, BC, and the patient stayed in Florida. Problem: We have no way of knowing what the “irregularity” was. Could it have been an insignificant lesion that was likely to resolve on its own? Could it have been some kind of imaging artifact? Even if it was kidney cancer, that is a disease with a known propensity for spontaneous remission.

The plural of anecdote is not data: all these testimonials add up to no evidence at all. They are not properly documented and have other natural explanations. And they are a mish-mash of different techniques with no commonalities and no coherent explanatory mechanism. If healing can occur across thousands of miles by intention, why would the chiropractor need to wave his hands over the patient and why would the nutritionist have to administer information via drops? Do they ever try to compare these different energy healing methods to see if one is superior to another? Or to try to investigate their parameters or study what features they have in common? Of course not. Scientists would do that, but this isn’t science.

The movie claims that there are amazing healings taking place all the time that mainstream medicine can’t explain. In fact, medical science has not tried to explain them because it hasn’t seen any credible evidence that there is anything to explain. These alleged healings are poorly documented and/or have other natural explanations. True, conventional medicine can’t explain everything; but neither can these guys. Their “explanation” amounts to a confused, untestable hypothesis that a quantum holistic information-containing energy field can do strange and miraculous things. It pretends to explain everything but it actually explains nothing.

They try to make their belief system sound like science. It isn’t. They get the science spectacularly wrong, using words like “quantum,” “field,” and “energy” in nonscientific ways. Physicist Eugenie Mielczarek recently educated Science-Based Medicine readers about fields, alternative medicine and physics. She explained that

Studies of equations for these forces and the enumeration of the strength of their fields underlie our current technology. When energy fields are used as a medium for conveying information, scientists ask and answer the following key questions: How large is the signal? What is the transmitter located in the source, and what and where is the receiver? How can the device be tuned and detuned? Lastly, how can one replicate this by a device to be used for medical intervention?

The “scientists” of energy medicine don’t even ask such questions, much less answer them. Their “field” concept has no real explanatory power. For instance, they say that we don’t have a full understanding of how wound healing occurs. In fact, we do know plenty of scientific details about the healing process, while they offer no details about how the “field” might cause healing. They just offer vague generalities that “information” is somehow transmitted to the body. The information field is apparently all-knowing and all-powerful, like God. This is essentially a version of the “God of the gaps” excuse of creationists. If you don’t understand something, you just claim God or The Field did it — somehow.

Many of their arguments are versions of the logical fallacies “argument from ignorance” and “argument from personal incredulity.” How could the body know to heal itself? They find it inconceivable that the entire gamut of physiology and human behavior could be explained by a physical brain and nervous system. They claim that the coherence of neuron firing is faster than the ability of the cells to communicate and that this proves that the brain is communicating at a higher level than is possible through physical factors. They can’t imagine how molecules could find each other in the cell for a chemical reaction to occur. They say we can’t explain how the body maintains homeostasis or how DNA guides development of the embryo unless we realize that the body field turns the knobs. They say we may understand how cells work but we don’t understand how they talk to each other and how they deal with information. They say the coordinated turning of a flock of birds could only occur with the help of fields that transfer information with no time delay.

Scientists are working on these problems, have made considerable progress, and are confident that the remaining mysteries are ultimately explainable. Believers in energy healing don’t want to work on trying to explain the mysteries: they are content with the pseudo-explanation of invoking “The Field.”

Intention, belief — can these factors influence healing? They fall back on the “you create your own reality” myth. “If you think you have an incurable disease, you are right. If you think your problem is curable, then you are also right.” This is nothing but wishful thinking.

They make many statements that are distorted misrepresentations of scientific facts or are simply false. Here are some examples:

  • You can read the mind with EEG or magnetoencephalography.
  • The brain is not the central repository of information.
  • DNA doesn’t explain much. Chimps and humans have similar DNA, so that couldn’t explain the difference between them. The explanation is the morphogenetic field that informs which parts of DNA the body will access for its development.
  • Genes do not control our biology.
  • Children adopted into families with a genetic tendency to cancer will have the same risk of cancer.
  • Beliefs and attitudes shape cancer, not genetics.
  • Chemotherapy only works 9% of the time, and works only if you believe in it.
  • “Modern physics understands that it is not matter but mind or spirit [defined as intelligent energy fields] which is primary.”
  • The body can’t distinguish between action and thought.
  • A belief can override biology.
  • Epigenetics is proof that DNA doesn’t matter. It can cause 30,000 different variations of each gene, so we have unlimited potential.
  • Properties like memory are diffuse throughout our brain and we access them from the field. Memory might not exist in the brain at all – it might be somewhere out in the field.
  • Illness is just a lack in the information system. Disease is scrambled information.
  • Matter is compressed energy.
  • The acupuncture system is a system of information flow in the body itself, arranged in a certain order, that communicates in a certain direction.
  • Thought field therapy instantly healed 100% of cases of PTSD in Kosovo.
  • We have a resonant frequency and coherence is its natural state.
  • A scientist has shown that when you start using reconnective healing, enough excess free thermodynamic energy is released that it could raise the room temperature over 300 degrees C. But our temperature doesn’t rise because we’re accessing something new and different.
  • By changing your mind, you change your biology and your genetics.
  • The heart is a functional brain. It may be the master organ for imprinting information into the holographic body field.

Edgar Mitchell, the astronaut, tells us that it has been proven in the lab that intention has physical effects. In one study, spouses of cancer patients got compassionate intention training. When their partners sent loving intentions, the patients’ physiology showed changes. They put the subjects in different rooms and shielded the rooms and thought they had ruled out conventional explanations; but they allowed the receiver to watch the sender on a video monitor, so they didn’t rule out subtle visible signals from body language. Another study allegedly showed that the heart has precognition and responds before an anticipated good or bad picture can register on the brain and even before it is randomly selected by a computer.

Ioannidis has shown us that most published research findings are false; and energy medicine research consists mainly of poorly designed, poorly controlled, isolated demonstrations like these that have low prior probability and have not merited attempts at replication by less credulous researchers. Real science gradually builds an edifice of experiments that confirm each other and achieve progress and fuller understanding. Energy medicine research is usually hit-and-run. They find an apparent phenomenon and instead of checking for flaws and seeing if it can be falsified, instead of trying to better define it and study its properties, they quickly move on to another kind of experiment to demonstrate another phenomenon. The totality of their research is an unconnected mishmash that proves nothing and that has resulted in no progress.

They say that 1/3 of all healings (drugs, surgery, etc.) have nothing to do with the treatment but are due to the placebo effect. That we could cut health care costs by exactly 1/3 by just using the placebo effect. That an inert substance is somehow able to manage a whole cascade of responses in a complex system to target the liver or the kidney: it’s a great mystery. That what medicine calls the placebo effect is really a phenomenon of energy fields.

This is a complete misunderstanding of what science has learned about placebos. It’s an absurd distortion of the fact that in a controlled study, 1/3 of the patients in the placebo control group typically report improvement. That improvement is mostly due to factors like regression to the mean and the natural course of the disease, and when those other factors are controlled for by adding a no-treatment group, most of the apparent placebo response disappears. And while placebos may reduce pain perception, they have never cured cancer or pneumonia.

Mitchell asks us to walk into any cathedral and feel the palpable experience of awe and reverence. He says we have this experience because for hundreds of years the people going in have been in such a state of mind that the quantum emissions from the body-brain were emitted, absorbed into the cathedral, and now are being transmitted back to us. Yeah, sure. Or maybe it’s angels. It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with any natural explanations like psychology, conditioning, suggestion, environmental influences, sensory effects, aesthetic responsiveness, and expectation, could it?

They suggest one possible mechanism for our body’s connection to the field: the biophoton. Biophotons are a random by-product of cellular metabolism; they can only be detected by powerful photomultipliers. Energy healing advocates claim that biophotons create some kind of dynamic coherent web of light within our bodies. But how could they measure that and what would it even mean? They think this web might be regulating the body’s metabolism, since molecules can’t regulate themselves. But it’s not plausible that these ultraweak photons could have any significant effect, or that a whole-body coherent web could result; and it’s even less plausible that it could carry information.

A good rule of thumb is to never accept any new claim without first asking who disagrees with it and why. The movie doesn’t ask such questions. These people are not seeking the truth: they are certain that they already know the truth and they are only seeking to persuade others to accept their belief system. The Living Matrix made my brain hurt. It was only worth watching as an appalling demonstration of the human capacity for self-deception and as a reminder of how badly our error-prone human brains need the discipline of rigorous science and critical thinking.

The movie claims that informational medicine is going to be the future of medicine. Yes, it is; but it’s going to be real information from advances in fields like neurophysiology and genomics. It’s not going to be mystical information transmitted by thought and intention and quantum holistic flapdoodle.


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