I know I wouldn’t consider a person who sticks to studying ID a scientist, no matter what his or her degree.

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Secular Discrimination Report
http://bunda.org

Yes! This is a key point in all considerations of quackery’s incursions into modern medicine or, for that matter, in all con games (think: Bernard Madoff). There’s a large topic here, having to do with the tools of skepticism being useful (essential, probably) for recognizing “CAM” for what it is: quackery.

Skeptical tools—Fifi’s assertion being an example—need not be science per se, as all fans of skeptical literature know (Novella and Sampson being the most advanced among us bloggers, IMO). Those who cut their teeth on Martin Gardner, Ray Hyman, James Randi, Joe Nickell and others writing in Skeptical Inquirer and elsewhere have been amused by how easily real scientists have been fooled by Uri Geller, or by how easily wannabe scientists like David Eisenberg and Herb Benson have been fooled by “external Qi Gong” practitioners.

A useful reference:

Kurtz P (ed.). A Skeptic’s Handbook of Parapsychology. Buffalo; Prometheus Books (1985).

It’s an old and tired story: in the 19th century several eminent scientists (but not all), including Alfred Russel Wallace, Robert Hare, and William Crookes, who “investigated” spiritual mediums, became convinced that the phenomena they had observed were legitimate. Perhaps they can be excused for having wandered into previously uncharted territory. Their modern counterparts have no such excuse.

I really don’t see why you find it so hard to believe that the military would invest in and promote woo when the topic of the blog is that they’re investing in these kinds of things! (Such as using acupuncture in the battlefield – though I attribute this more to the field of chronic pain, which is a special relationship vis a vis woo due to there being no objective measure for it, as discussed here before.) If you’re interested in fighting and disabling woo in medicine, it’s relevant to understand why and how it’s gained legitimacy. General Stubblebine is also the person behind the whole http://www.healthfreedomusa.com

http://www.healthfreedomusa.org/index.php?page_id=198

One of the reasons people often get away with cons so easily is that other people don’t believe anyone would do something they wouldn’t (or that the world works a certain way that doesn’t involed scheming and plotting to take advantage of others with no sense of empathy or compassion). Along with the appeal to vanity or manipulation of neediness, of course. This is just as true of governmental propaganda as it is of individual cons.

I don’t see it as any grand conspiracy – though obviously people in government and business conspire with and against each other – it’s just the way people have run governments and maintained power throughout history. It’s a bit silly to think that’s no longer true!

Seriously though, he’ll be trying to make a lightning shaped scar for himself next.

It’s short and very entertaining, if depressing in the amount of power these people are able to attain over life and death.

“I am a physician practicing acupuncture full-time at the Malcolm Grow Medical Center, Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland.”

He does this nonsense full-time ??? Seems this might qualify for a federal “waste, fraud & abuse” investigation!

Any time someone uses the term “Newtonian physics” in the context of discussing medicine, my woo meter hits DEFCON 1: Woo is either imminent or ongoing.

The phrase “some of us recognize this” should at least elevate your woo alert to DEFCON3 at a minimum. This phraseology is typical of purveyors of woo- Establish an unsupported position (in this case that acupuncture is a definite science) and imply that anyone who doesn’t accept this position simply isn’t enlightened enough to “recognize” it.

Would it be appropriate for me to write my Congressman and Senators? (I’m in NY, so I will have to wait until my second Senator is appointed, of course.) Or Secretary Gates, who will seemingly be staying on?

Hey, Dr Niemtzow, can soldiers get some adhesive tape to draw the poisons out of their feet, too ?
Might as well. . . the tape at least might clean their feet.