Update! In my haste to get away from the bastion of woo that is NaturalNews.com, I missed the link which said that the craziness continues if you register. I’ve added the new commentary between the horizontal rules down below, and many thanks to commenter blf in PZ’s comments for notifying everyone else of the unabridged version.
So, Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, doesn’t like skeptics. He doesn’t like them so much that he decided to write a scathing article about “what ‘skeptics’ really believe” without actually bothering to find out what skeptics really believe. Apparently he has his knickers in a twist because of the Twitter-based Shorty Awards, where he was winning until it was discovered that a bunch of his votes were coming from dubious Twitter accounts, and supporters of actual medicine voted an actual doctor into the top spot. So, after accusing science-based medicine advocates of lying about the fraudulent votes propping him up, Adams decided that the best course of action would be to do some lying himself, in the form of an article that boasts more strawmen than a Wizard of Oz convention. It’s easy pickings, and I’m sure Orac and Steve Novella will be all over it soon enough, but I figured it’d give me a chance to exercise some atrophied snark muscles.
(NaturalNews) In the world of medicine, “skeptics” claim to be the sole protectors of intellectual truth.
Citation please.
Everyone who disagrees with them is just a quack, they insist.
No, not everyone, just the ones claiming to provide medical services without the backing of evidence. We don’t call Creationists quacks, for instance, we call them wackaloons. There’s a detailed taxonomy, remind me to send you the poster.
Briefly stated, “skeptics” are in favor of vaccines, mammograms, pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy.
You could have said “skeptics are in favor of real medicine” and saved yourself some typing.
They are opponents of nutritional supplements, herbal medicine, chiropractic care, massage therapy, energy medicine, homeopathy, prayer and therapeutic touch.
And again, “they are opponents of things which haven’t been shown to work, or have been shown not to work.” Sure, it’s only one word shorter, but it’s far more accurate.
But there’s much more that you need to know about “skeptics.” As you’ll see below, they themselves admit they have no consciousness and that there is no such thing as a soul, a spirit or a higher power.
I don’t think “consciousness” means what you think it means. But again, “they don’t believe things for which there is no evidence” would be more economic.
There is no life after death. In fact, there’s not much life in life when you’re a skeptic.
Actually, there’s a lot of life in life when you’re a skeptic. In fact, thanks to
modern science-based medicine, there’s a lot
more life in life than there used to be. I get to live a lot longer than my ancestors did, and thanks to all those treatments you dismiss–vaccines, mammograms, chemotherapy, etc.–I get to live through things that would either shorten (cancer, influenza, meningitis) or negatively impact (polio, shingles) my life. There was a time when prayer, herbal remedies, and such were the standard medical practice. Around the same time, 2/3 of Europe died of the plague. Perhaps there’s a connection.
What skeptics really believe
Note: this is not what skeptics really believe.
I thought it would be interesting to find out exactly what “skeptics” actually believe, so I did a little research and pulled this information from various “skeptic” websites.
“I also neglected to provide actual quotes or links to said sites, so you’ll just have to take my word that all this is totally representative, I swear.”
What I found will make you crack up laughing so hard that your abs will be sore for a week. Take a look…
I have a feeling that you’re right, but not for the reasons you think.
• Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they’ve never been tested),
Really? Show me a vaccine available for public consumption that has never been tested. Then, show me a homeopathic remedy that has been tested and found both safe and effective. I’ll even give you a tip: don’t start with Zicam.
that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will,
That’s getting to murky legal and ethical waters. Obviously people shouldn’t have medical procedures inflicted on them without their consent. On the other hand, people who have taken reasonable measures to protect themselves from preventable diseases shouldn’t have their lives endangered because anti-science quacks have convinced people that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they prevent. And the children of antivax kooks and suckers shouldn’t be endangered because their parents couldn’t sort out science from nonsense.
and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and “good for your health.”
I’d like to know who you’re quoting there, Mike. Sure, there’s a limit to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. I mean, at some point you’re going to be diluting the blood to a dangerous degree. And I’m sure there are dosages of any chemical in vaccines which would be dangerous–after all, anything is deadly in large enough amounts. This is why we have guidelines and tests and studies to determine what the safe limits are, and why we keep any dosages well below those limits. You’re almost right in one respect, though, and that’s that skeptics understand that the human body’s capacity for dealing with pathogens is many orders of magnitude greater than what’s present in vaccines. I mean, the immune system is dealing with countless attacks from all fronts 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Adding a few weakened or dead viruses into the mix–or even more benign, some bits of viral coat or surface proteins–barely even registers. It’s just enough for the body to take notice, build up defenses, and continue dealing with the real threats.
• Skeptics believe that fluoride chemicals derived from the scrubbers of coal-fired power plants are really good for human health.
What does the source of a chemical have to do with how healthy it is? A fluoride molecule from a coal-fired power plant is exactly the same as a fluoride molecule from anywhere else–including from the natural fluoridated water sources that first tipped people off to the idea of fluoridating water. Moreover, you do realize that coal comes from plants, right? Don’t you like plants?
They’re so good, in fact, that they should be dumped into the water supply so that everyone is forced to drink those chemicals, regardless of their current level of exposure to fluoride from other sources.
Who’s forcing anyone to drink tap water? You don’t like it? Buy bottled, get a filter that traps fluoride, move overseas. If you can’t accept the basic chemistry and biology behind water fluoridation–not to mention the clinical evidence supporting its safety and effectiveness–then you have plenty of options available to you.
• Skeptics believe that many six-month-old infants need antidepressant drugs.
Citation please.
In fact, they believe that people of all ages can be safely given an unlimited number of drugs all at the same time: Antidepressants, cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping drugs and more — simultaneously!
Do you know how science-based medical practitioners can make those claims? Because we’ve done the legwork to find out how different medications affect the body, and how they might interact with one another. See, when you rely on science and evidence to guide your medical practices, you’re able to make specific diagnoses, specific prescriptions, and specific warnings and predictions about how different drugs will interact. Tell me, Mike, what kind of interactions can I expect if I see both a chiropractor and an acupuncturist? Is there a chance that by fixing a subluxation I might end up blocking a chi meridian? If I’m taking an herbal sleep remedy and a homeopathic sleeping pill, am I at risk for overdose? What happens if I pray during all this? Does God consider any of these things to be witchcraft or magic or otherwise verboten?
When your “medicine” is based on fairy tales and fantasies, it really doesn’t matter how they combine, does it? Just go ahead and pay your naturopath, chiropractor, acupuncturist, Ayurvedic healer, reflexologist, TT practitioner, and homeopath simultaneously; there’s no danger of harmful interactions except between their hands and your wallet.
• Skeptics believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism and that the only things that can save people from viral infections are vaccines.
This is absolutely hilarious, because it really goes to show just how little the Health Ranger knows about basic, grade-school science. The reason vaccines work is because of the immune system. When the immune system is exposed to new pathogens, it develops weapons to fight them, so it’s already prepared the next time there’s an encounter. What vaccines do is make the initial encounter harmless. Instead of encountering the pathogen in the wild and hoping your body survives long enough to develop the virus-specific weaponry, you encounter the virus–or parts of the virus–in a controlled situation. Your body is made aware of the threat and prepares accordingly, so that when you do encounter the wild pathogen, you’re already ready.
It’s the difference between trying to fashion wooden stakes and crosses in the middle of a full-on surprise vampire invasion, and finding a weakened vampire crawling into town so you can stockpile stakes and garlic before the dangerous ones show up. I know which situation I’d rather be in: forewarned is forearmed.
• Skeptics believe that pregnancy is a disease and childbirth is a medical crisis. (They are opponents of natural childbirth.)
Define “natural childbirth.” I mean, I may be radical in thinking that pain is generally a bad thing, and if we can lessen or avoid it, we should. I also think that pregnancy is a medical condition, which necessarily requires medical care and supervision if the child is to be born as safely and healthily as possible. Or are you opposed to folic acid supplements too? Childbirth is dangerous for both mother and child, and so it should be supervised by people who know what to do if a baby is born strangled by its umbilical cord, not people who think that the best environment for a newborn is a lukewarm bathtub contaminated with feces and afterbirth. And if we can make the process go down without all the natural pain that derives from a series of evolutionary compromises, so much the better.
• Skeptics do not believe in hypnosis. This is especially hilarious since they are all prime examples of people who are easily hypnotized by mainstream influences.
Wow, an equivocation on the term hypnosis. And used in such a witty way! Yes, buck that mainstream, Mike! Screw germ theory and sanitation and the scientific method, what we really need are some health rebels!
• Skeptics believe that there is no such thing as human consciousness.
I beg to differ.
They do not believe in the mind; only in the physical brain.
This is simply asinine. It’s equivalent to saying “they do not believe in sight, only in the physical eye.” The mind is what the brain does. It’s an emergent property of the physical brain. This doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as consciousness, it just means that consciousness isn’t some supernatural mystery.
In fact, skeptics believe that they themselves are mindless automatons who have no free will, no soul and no consciousness whatsoever.
The matters of free will and the existence of the soul are ones that skeptics debate freely and frequently; the former depends largely on how we define “free will,” the latter depends on various factors including the religious convictions of the skeptic. In any case, since my soul has never had a broken bone or a headcold, I don’t see how this is relevant to medicine.
• Skeptics believe that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods (hilarious!).
This is hilarious, for lots of reasons. First, it’s patently untrue. Skeptics (and everyone else) recognize that living foods and dead foods have very different nutritional properties. For instance, living foods have lots of bacteria and parasites and other things living on and in them, which is why we tend to cook chickens instead of just biting their heads off. Second, aside from carnival geeks and Ozzy Osbourne, who eats “living foods”? I suppose we could quibble about when exactly a lettuce leaf or apple is no longer living, but as soon as it’s plucked and plated, it certainly isn’t going to be carrying out its life functions much longer. By the time any foods, living or otherwise, get to any part of the digestive tract where nutritional properties matter at all, I think we can safely call them dead. Finally, what is the big nutritional difference between a dead food and a living food? There are certainly different chemical processes that take place in different stages, and cooking obviously changes various properties (denaturing proteins and all that), but the lettuce leaf example really underscores the problem: when is a food “dead”? At what point does the nutritional value change? Living things are made of the same cells and chemicals as dead things, and living things necessarily become dead things on the way toward the intestines, so what is the general nutritional difference between the two?
Maybe you’re just not eating its soul. That must be it.
• Skeptics believe that pesticides on the crops are safe,
Safer than the pests. Pests don’t rinse off.
genetically modified foods are safe,
All foods have been genetically modified. Most of it was done crudely, haphazardly, and in a totally undirected fashion by natural selection over millions of years. Eventually, humans came on the scene and invented agriculture and animal husbandry, and we’ve been genetically modifying food ever since. Nowadays, we can just do it a whole lot better, quicker, and safer than we could before, since we’re working on genotypes instead of phenotypes. So yes, skeptics think genetically modified foods are safe, and if you’ve ever eaten a banana or an ear of corn, you do too.
and that any chemical food additive approved by the FDA is also safe.
Well, more or less. Certainly safer than dietary supplements and herbal remedies not approved by the FDA.
There is no advantage to buying organic food, they claim.
We don’t claim that, the evidence does.
• Skeptics believe that water has no role in human health other than basic hydration. Water is inert, they say, and the water your toilet is identical to water from a natural spring (assuming the chemical composition is the same, anyway).
That’s right, skeptics hold the shocking belief that chemistry is true and water isn’t magic!
Quacks, on the other hand, believe that if you shook the water from your toilet just right, it might make a great cure for diarrhea1.
• Skeptics believe that all the phytochemicals and nutrients found in ALL plants are inert, having absolutely no benefit whatsoever for human health. (The ignorance of this intellectual position is breathtaking…)
No, skeptics understand that many of the chemicals in plants certainly do have effects. Some of those effects may have great therapeutic value–say, salicylic acid from willow bark–and some of those effects may be extremely dangerous–say, the neurotoxin coniine from hemlock. What we need to do is subject plants with possible therapeutic effects to careful systematic tests to find out exactly what the effective chemicals are, exactly what effects they have, and exactly what dosages are safe and useful. Then, we isolate the effective chemical, purify it, and put it into specific dosages. That way, we can ensure that people are getting those phytochemicals in safe, effective dosages for specific ailments, not getting unregulated, potentially contaminated samples with unknown effects for general symptoms in unknown dosages, as they would with herbal supplements.
As to the nutrients, I like salad just as much as anyone else. I doubt that you’ll find a skeptic who doesn’t believe in the value of a balanced diet.
Edit
• Skeptics believe that the moon has no influence over life on Earth.
This is just ridiculous. Of course the moon has effects on living things–gravitational effects show up as tides, animals like moths use its light for direction, etc. These effects, however, are physical and validated by scientific observation.
Farming in sync with moon cycles is just superstition, they say. (So why are the cycles of life for insects, animals and humans tied to the moon, then?)
This, on the other hand, isn’t. The Skeptic’s Dictionary has a good article on lunar effects, what they are and aren’t. The life cycles of humans, insects, and animals aren’t tied to the moon (what you’ve heard about menstruation is myth and coincidence. The moon’s effects on living things are nearly all due to the light it gives off, not some magical, metaphysical connections.
• Skeptics believe that the SUN has no role in human health other than to cause skin cancer. They completely deny any healing abilities of light.
That’s right, skeptics disbelieve in photosynthesis and the production of vitamin D. The strawmen are getting more desperate.
• Skeptics believe that Mother Nature is incapable of synthesizing medicines.
Not incapable, just not very good at it. Evolution isn’t in the business of manufacturing pure pharmeceuticals in discrete doses for specific ailments. Evolution is in the business of manufacturing organisms which reproduce themselves. Any natural medicines are byproducts, which is why we need to isolate the effective chemicals, purify them, and…well, I mentioned all that above. I assure you, no skeptic disbelieves in aspirin.
Only drug companies can synthesize medicines, they claim. (So why do they copy molecules from nature, then?)
Good question; maybe it’s because your claim of what skeptics claim is entirely baseless. Yes, we copy chemicals from nature. We test them, isolate them, and improve on them. We figure out what effects they have on the body and find other chemicals that produce the same effects more efficiently. What we don’t do is grind up random leaves, put them in unregulated capsules, and call them “treatment” or “medicine.”
• Skeptics do not believe in intuition. They believe that mothers cannot “feel” the emotions of their infants at a distance. They write off all such “psychic” events as mere coincidence.
Skeptics don’t disbelieve in intuition. We just recognize it for what it is: “a bridge between subconsciously processed information and the action of conscious thought.” Hunches are not entirely unreliable–nor are they magical sources of perfect knowledge. They also aren’t psychic phenomena, which for some reason always turn out to be indistinguishable from coincidence, trickery, or fallacious thinking when tested. We withhold belief in “psychic” events because there is no plausible mechanism behind them and because they always fall apart under careful investigation. If someone presented some good evidence of psychic phenomena, we’d change our minds–and give them a million dollars.
As to mothers feeling the emotions of their children at a distance, I have a question: why do baby monitors exist? If this intuitive ability were reliable or consistent, then why would any mother need a device that allows you to listen in on a baby in another room?
• Skeptics believe that all healing happens from the outside, from doctors and technical interventions. They do not believe that patients have any ability to heal themselves.
Dude, you’re repeating yourself. Get a damn editor.
Thus, they do not ascribe any responsibility for health to patients. Rather, they believe that doctors and technicians are responsible for your health. Anyone who dismisses doctors and takes charge of their own health is therefore acting “irresponsibly,” they claim.
Yes, skeptics think that the people best equipped to diagnose and treat disease are the people who have been specifically trained in how to diagnose and treat disease, and who do so with the backing of scientific evidence. We also think that the people best equipped to design buildings are the architects who have been specifically trained to draft structures with careful consideration of the materials involved and the potential complications of the building site, and who do so with the backing of scientific evidence. Just as it’s irresponsible to build your own house with no training in architecture, design, or engineering, it’s irresponsible to “take charge of [your] own health” with no training in medicine, anatomy, physiology, pathology, etc. Is it really so radical, so surprising, to suggest that tasks which require expertise are best done by experts?
• Skeptics believe that cell phone radiation poses absolutely no danger to human health. A person can be exposed to unlimited cell phone radiation without any damage whatsoever.
Shorter: Skeptics understand how the electromagnetic spectrum works. If low-energy, nonionizing, low-intensity microwaves that aren’t even enough to cause heating had detectable physiological effects, then we’d experience it from natural sources–which are far more intense–as well. Furthermore, if low-energy microwaves could have terrible physiological effects on human health, then the far more intense visible radiation should be orders of magnitude more dangerous. And yet, you claim that light has healing effects. Strange how that is.
• Skeptics believe that aspartame and artificial chemical sweeteners can be consumed in unlimited quantities with no ill effects.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Dude, aspartame? Really? Sigh, okay, here goes: No, no scientifically-minded person thinks that anything can be consumed in unlimited quantities with no ill effects. Even your vaunted spring water is deadly in high doses (and depending on what’s in it, possibly low doses as well). Scientists understand that toxicity is all a matter of dosage, not so much of substance (or the absurd dualist notions that you seem to employ). The Acceptable Daily Intake of aspartame, as determined through actual scientific investigation is 50 mg per kg of body weight. A can of diet soda contains 180 mg. For a 75 kg (a little over 150 lbs) person to exceed the ADI for aspartame, they’d have to consume 3750 mg of Aspartame, or about 21 cans of diet soda. I don’t know anyone who drinks that much pop in a day on a regular basis, do you?
See, again, when science is the basis for your recommendations, you can actually make informed statements about the safety of various substances, rather than assuming that all natural things are okay and all artificial things are dangerous in any amount. If you’re looking for more info on aspartame, here’s a good place to start.
• Skeptics believe that human beings were born deficient in synthetic chemicals and that the role of pharmaceutical companies is to “restore” those deficiencies in humans by convincing them to swallow patented pills.
Citation please.
• Skeptics believe that you can take unlimited pharmaceuticals, be injected with an unlimited number of vaccines, expose yourself to unlimited medical imaging radiation, consume an unlimited quantity of chemicals in processed foods and expose yourself to an unlimited quantity of environmental chemical toxins with absolutely no health effects whatsoever!
First, you’re repeating yourself again. Get a damn editor.
Second, all those things you mention have known safe dosages. No one believes that you can, for instance, be exposed to unlimited X-rays with no ill effect. That’s why they give you a lead apron, that’s why radiologists and technicians stand behind the shielding when they give you an X-ray, you boob. Every treatment carries with it some degree of danger, and thanks to science-based medicine, that degree is quantified before you ever lay down on the X-ray table.
All the beliefs listed above were compiled from “skeptics” websites. (I’m not going to list those websites here because they don’t deserve the search engine rankings, but you can find them yourself through Google, if you wish.)
Ah, “I’m not going to document my sources, because I don’t want them to feel special.” One more difference between you and scientists. See, real medicine requires people to be explicit about their research and experiments, documenting every source of information. Imagine the uproar among alt-med proponents if a medication were released with documentation this sloppy. The truth is that you don’t want to link to your sources because your readers might actually check them and find out that your statements are either ridiculous exaggerations of what skeptics say, or outright fabrications.
But you can prove me wrong, Mike: post your list of sources. Shut all the skeptics up by demonstrating that every one of your points is drawn from actual quotes from actual skeptic websites. I won’t hold my breath.
Skeptics aren’t consistently skeptical
Pot, meet kettle.
If you really look closely at the beliefs of “skeptics,” you discover their skepticism is selective. They’re really skeptical about some things — like vitamins — but complete pushovers on others such as the scientific credibility of drug company studies.
No, we’re equally skeptical about both, requiring rigorous scientific evidence for either. When the rigorous scientific evidence validates a drug’s effectiveness, we accept it (tentatively). When the rigorous scientific evidence shows vitamins to be largely unnecessary, we accept that too (tentatively). Where’s the inconsistency?
Here are some of the many things that “skeptics” should be skeptical about, but aren’t:
I’m sure this will be enlightening.
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the corruption and dishonesty in the pharmaceutical industry. They believe whatever the drug companies say, without asking a single intelligent question.
Citation please. Drug companies are businesses like any other, and they have the bottom line as their main goal. Drug advertisements, despite the regulations, are just as prone to being misleading and slanted as ads for anything else. This is why we don’t really care about drug companies so much as the scientific research behind the drugs. See, the research isn’t conducted by just one company or just one scientist or just one group. It’s conducted by a variety of people and validated by independent research. Drug trials have to be evaluated by a host of independent scientists and agencies who aren’t concerned with Astra-Zeneca or Pfizer’s bottom line, but who are concerned with safe and effective treatments validated by rigorous scientific evidence.
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about medical journals. They believe whatever they read in those journals, even when much of it turns out to be complete science fraud.
Hey, you know who exposes science fraud? Skeptical scientists. Skeptics tentatively accept medical research that makes it to reputable journals, because most of us aren’t trained medical researchers and don’t have the resources to repeat every experiment that comes down the pipe. We trust the experts provisionally, just as we’d trust what the mechanic says when he examines our cars. And if something is hinky, we trust the scientific process to eventually expose it–to give us a second opinion on our car troubles, as it were. But even despite a lack of expert training on the part of most skeptics, we’re still able to pick out the hallmarks of bad studies–low sample sizes, unstated conflicts of interest, subjective measurements, uncontrolled confounders, conclusions that don’t match the data, poor blinding, etc.–which show up in a number of medical studies–especially in certain journals (*cough*alt-med journals*cough*). Skeptics–and especially skeptical scientists–are just as likely to pick these studies apart as any other.
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the profit motive of the pharmaceutical industry. They believe that drug companies are motivated by goodwill, not by profits.
Right, and what motivates alt-med practitioners? What motivated Andrew Wakefield or the Geiers? Rainbows and butterflies? We’re under no delusions about the desires of the pharmaceutical companies; can your devotees say the same about purveyors of “natural” remedies?
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the motivations and loyalties of the FDA. They will swallow, inject or use any product that’s FDA approved, without a single reasonable thought about the actual safety of those products.
The FDA is a gatekeeper, really becoming important only after all the drug testing legwork has already been done by independent scientists. It’s a stamp of approval on work that has already been done. And yet, it’s a step further than alt-med and herbal proponents are willing to take. Tell me, Mike, which is better: an imperfect regulatory agency, like the one for drugs, or a nonexistent regulatory agency, like the one for alternative medicine?
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the safety of synthetic chemicals used in the food supply. They just swallow whatever poisons the food companies dump into the foods.
Yawn, more repetitive dualism.
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the enormous dangers of ionizing radiation from mammograms and CT scans. They have somehow convinced themselves that “early detection saves live” when, in reality, “early radiation causes cancer.”
Again, the danger is in the dose, not the substance. Small amounts of X-ray radiation carry a known risk, and that risk is weighed against the benefits of early detection of dangerous diseases. People are exposed to ionizing radiation every time they walk outside (what was that above about the sun’s healing properties?), and the amount of exposure to ionizing radiation during a mammogram is about what you’d get from living in the United Kingdom for a year. I don’t see Brits dropping left and right from radiation poisoning or abnormal cancer rates, do you?
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the mass-drugging agenda of the psychiatric industry which wants to diagnose everyone with some sort of “mental” disorder. The skeptics just go right along with it without asking a single commonsense question about whether the human brain really needs to be “treated” with a barrage of mind-altering chemicals.
Right, there are no skeptical evaluations of psychiatry. None at all.
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about mercury fillings. What harm could mercury possibly do anyway? If the ADA says they’re safe, they must be!
And no skeptic has ever expressed concern over mercury fillings, even if the studies show no significant risk.
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the demolition-style collapse of the World Trade Center 7 building on September 11, 2001 — a building that was never hit by airplanes. This beautifully-orchestrated collapse of a hardened structure could only have been accomplished with precision explosives. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwSc…) Astonishingly, “skeptics” have little understanding of the laws of physics. Concrete-and-steel buildings don’t magically collapse in a perfect vertical demolition just because of a fire on one floor…
Oh Jesus, you’re a Truther, too.
• Skeptics aren’t skeptical about the safety of non-stick cookware, or the dangers of cleaning chemicals in the home, or the contamination of indoor air with chemical fumes from carpets, paints and particle board furniture. To the skeptics, the more chemicals, the better!
Hey, dipshit, guess what: everything is made of chemicals. Paints, teflon, carpets, drugs, the sun, pets, people, even water and herbs. About the only thing mentioned here that hasn’t been made of chemicals is electromagnetic radiation, which is instead produced by chemicals.
Nature is bad, chemicals are good
*Facepalm*.
Summing up the position of the “skeptics” is quite simple: Nature is bad, chemicals are good!
Okay, you’ve made it clear that you don’t have an editor, so I’ll offer my services for free, just this once:
Summing up the position of the “skeptics” is quite simple: Nature is bad, chemicals are good!
If we only had more chemicals injected into more babies, the world would be a better place, they say. If we could only ban all plants, herbs, vitamins and supplements, we’d all be so much healthier because then we’d take more pharmaceuticals!
If only we could crack more spines, put more dirty needles into children’s skin, expose more people to preventable diseases, and fill people full of unregulated herbs and supplements, we wouldn’t have to worry about overpopulation anymore! But who’s going to bury all the bodies?
Let’s turn it around, Mike: are there any good chemicals? Is there anything natural which isn’t beneficial? I’ve explained my skeptical position throughout this post, including the points that some natural remedies are effective and some chemicals are harmful. Are your beliefs so nuanced?
Seriously. This is what they believe.
Note: this is not seriously what anyone believes.
They openly admit this is their position.
Note: no one has ever claimed this as a reasonable position ever.
And all you people drinking green smoothies, and growing your own food, and getting natural sunlight, and taking care of your own health, and drinking herbal tea… well you’re all just fools, say the skeptics.
Note:…okay, that one’s pretty much right.
You’re all just too stupid to understand “real” science. Because if you understood real science, you’d give up all those useless herbs and superfoods and healing vegetables and you’d be taking twenty different prescription medications instead.
Sigh, nice false dichotomy. No, the saddest part of all this is that real science isn’t that hard to understand. Anyone can understand the basic principles of basing your claims on evidence and validating them through careful observation. The concepts behind actual medicine are quite easy to grasp, even if the specific biochemistry is more complicated. Perhaps it uses more syllables than “qi” or “soul” or “magic,” but it has the benefit of being real.
Then you’d be really smart, see. Because all those chemicals make you healthy and smart. A few extra vaccine injections will make you even smarter. Then you can join the skeptics because you’re smart enough at that point to understand that chemicals are the answer to all of life’s problems: Depression, anxiety, digestion, sexual performance, sleep, even test-taking abilities… there’s a chemical “solution” to every problem you might experience.
As opposed to alt-med and woo, which offer solutions even for made-up problems like chiropractic subluxations, qi blockages, sick auras, sin, and spiritual illnesses.
What skeptics really are
Mike, you wouldn’t know what a skeptic is if one kicked you in the natural ass.
I hope it’s fairly obvious to you by now that skeptics are the most misinformed people on the planet.
That sound you heard, that faint shaking beneath your feet, was the detonation of my latest irony meter.
They are the easiest people to fool. They’re the easiest to hypnotize, too, because they lack independent thinking skills. Rather than thinking for themselves, they have joined a “club of skeptics” where they can be told what to think and then label themselves “intelligent” for following others in the group.
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These are the people who line up to be injected with useless H1N1 vaccines. (The joke is on them, of course. Those vaccines were a complete fraud…)
And what’s your evidence for that claim?
These are the people who stand in line at the pharmacy to buy a dozen different prescriptions (costing sometimes thousands of dollars) that their doctors told them to take.
As opposed to the people who stand in line at the Whole Foods store to buy a dozen different supplements (costing sometimes hundreds of dollars) that their naturopaths told them to take.
These are the people who eat processed, dead junk food laced with chemicals that make them sick — and then they wonder why they’re sick.
I’ll spare you the details of what’s in the natural fertilizers and pesticides that get used on “organic” crops.
These are the people who sit at home watching television and think to themselves how smart they are because they follow the medical advice they learned in drug company advertisements.
Because no homeopathic remedies or herbal supplements are ever advertised on TV. I’ve certainly never seen a commercial for HeadOn or Zicam or Airborne.
These are the real “skeptics.” They are so incredibly isolated from reality that they don’t even believe in their body’s own ability to heal itself.
These are the real “medical practitioners.” They are so incredibly isolated from reality that they don’t understand that water from a toilet is chemically identical to water from a natural spring.
Skeptics don’t believe in a higher power of any kind: No God, no spirit, no angels, no guides, no creative force in the universe… nada.
Yeah, this is the real proof that you did absolutely no research for your article, because the schism between skeptical atheists, skeptical theists, and skeptics who think everyone should just leave religion alone has been a hot-button skeptical topic for months.
They think the universe is a cold, empty, lonely, stupid place full of soulless, mindless, zombie biological bodies who have no free will and no consciousness.
And people like you, Mike, really don’t help to dispel that belief.
Gee, no wonder these skeptics are so misguided. They have the most pessimistic view possible. No wonder they seek to destroy themselves with chemicals — they don’t even think they’re alive to begin with!

Skeptics are bent on self destruction. And they believe that when you die, the lights just go out and you cease to exist. Nothing happens after that. You’re just a mindless biological robot whose life has no meaning, no purpose, no higher self.
This is exactly what the skeptics believe. They’ll even tell you so themselves!
I…I just give up. How do you argue with someone so arrogantly ignorant?
Never argue with drones
Oh, okay. Thanks, Mike!
Realizing this, it makes it so much easier to debate with skeptics on any topic. Whatever they say, you just answer, “WHO is saying that? Are YOU, a conscious, free-thinking person with a mind and soul saying that, or are those words simply being automatically and robotically uttered from the mouth of a bag of bones and skin that has no mind and no soul?”
I like how you’re giving your followers a script to follow in response to what you perceive as robotic, hive-mind behavior. Truly you have no sense of irony.
If they answer you honestly, they will have to admit that they believe they are nothing more than a robotic bag of bones and skin that is mindlessly uttering whatever nonsense happens to escape their mechanical lips. At that point, you’ve already won the debate because YOU have a soul, and THEY don’t. You’re arguing with a mindless robot.
I’m laughing on the outside, but I’m weeping on the inside.
Seriously. Think about this deeply.
That’s the first good advice you’ve given. Unfortunately, I doubt that even you will follow it.
If you believe what the skeptics want you to believe (because they are always right, of course), then you must accept the fact that THEY have no consciousness. They are not really “alive.” They are just robotic biological machines. They are drones, in other words. And drones are not equal to a being of energy with a consciousness and a soul, inhabiting a human body with purpose and awareness.
I know what all those words mean individually, but I’ll be damned if I can make any sense out of them in that configuration. Seriously Mike, hire an editor.
Never argue with drones. You only waste your time and annoy the drone.
Okay, two good pieces of advice.
Skeptics… zombies… drones… different words for the same thing. Soulless, mindless, lacking consciousness and free will, having no awareness of the value of life… these are the skeptics arguing for vaccines, mammograms and chemotherapy today. They are agents of death who can only find solace in an industry of death — the industry of modern medicine.
Yes, we are the agents of death. We, who advocate methods which have resulted in the eradication of smallpox and the near-eradication of measles and polio; we, who advocate methods that have drastically reduced infant mortality rates worldwide; we, who advocate the science that has uncovered the roots of once-deadly diseases and found ways to extend the lives of patients who even ten years ago would have been lost causes. We’re the agents of death, not the people peddling treatments that were outdated and unsupported in the Dark Ages, who deny basic biology and chemistry, and who have been directly responsible for the resurgence of preventable illnesses in first-world nations.
You’re a ghoul, Mike, you’re apparently totally disconnected from reality, and your refusal to link or quote your opponents suggests that you’re consciously aware of that. You’re a coward, Mike, afraid to let your followers see what skeptics actually have to say, and so you invent ridiculous positions and lie about them. I can only hope that you don’t drag too many people down with you, and that at least some of your readers are able to recognize your strawmen and ad hominem attacks for the substanceless jabs that they are.
So overall, Mike, your examination of “what ‘skeptics’ really believe” has almost nothing to do with what skeptics really believe. Instead, you’ve crafted an army of strawmen to flail against, and even then, you fail. How many of these complaints can be turned back on you, Mike? How many alt-med enthusiasts and religionists claim to have a lock on secret, ancient knowledge superior to anything produced by scientific investigation? How many antivaxxers claim to have intimate knowledge of a secret conspiracy of “Big Pharma”? How many alt-med loons think that all herbs and alternative modalities are safe and effective, even if they’ve never been tested (or have been tested and found to be unsafe or ineffective)? How many think that everyone needs vitamin supplements and herbal remedies and chiropractic treatments and acupuncture to maintain health rather than cure specific ailments? How many think that six-month-old infants need to have their necks and backs adjusted even though their bones haven’t yet ossified? I could go on and on. You exercise so much pseudo-skepticism about science-based medicine, but you fail to apply the same criticism to your own side. And when backed against the wall, scientific medicine can show you the research, the evidence, the double-blind tests, and the rationale underlying every drug, diagnostic, and prescription. What can you show, Mike? What does any newage alt-med proponent have on his side except platitudes, fallacies, and supposed wisdom from before the germ theory?
Physician, heal thyself.
1. A strawman? Yeah, probably. I suppose it’d be more accurate to talk about water’s magical selective memory that makes it somehow forget the piss and shit on the way through filtration systems, but remember stuff that was diluted out of it during homeopathic preparations. That point, however, has been done to death. This one is funnier. But at least I understand that it’s not necessarily an accurate depiction of homeopathy.