And once unvalidated notions invad academia, they have the patina of legitimacy that is difficult to combat. This is doubly true of journals that have sloppy peer review.

Regarding children, I know of one particular CAM practice that is guaranteed to make life-long skeptics of any child. It’s actually the use of craniosacral work in combintion with Attachment Therapy. While a child is being restrained and harassed by the Attachment Therapists, the craniosacral person feels the child’s body for any alteration in spinal fluid flow and then reports to the Attachment Therapists whether or not the child is telling the truth. If believed to be lying, the various brutal methods used by the Attachment Therapists are intensified. Alas, the child is in a hopeless lose-lose situation, but he does learn what idiots the therapists are.

Only if their insurance contracts are in-line, and even then rather less than you think.

Simple reason for that…. money.
An Aerospace engineer makes nothing from pseudoscience and the results are usually incontrovertible
(in fact he usually ends up being unemployed and losing cash)

OTOH, pharmacies and homeopathy practitioners can make a lot of cash.

Cheers,
Lee

I worked as a magician in my younger years, doing birthday parties, picnics, banquets, etc. I always preferred performing for adults. They were much easier to misdirect. Kids haven’t learned enough to be fooled. They don’t make the usual assumptions that adults make.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/20/books/20mccourt.html

-r.c.

The idea of “purpose” [T for teleology] and ‘personalization’ [A for anthropocentrism] is, I’ll guess, what we’re getting at here, while we live in a purposeless, impersonal universe.

Religion is one such anodyne [with a claim of absolute truth], and alternative medicine another.

I’ll also connect this to two things from my academic background that seem at odds: existentialism [E] and alternative medicine [AM].

Across the former [E], there is the ethos that any meaning and purpose, in terms of one’s existence, can only be self-generated.

That is: it’s the responsibility of the individual to salvage meaningfulness from absurdity, and such is by definition very subjective.

In terms of AM — and it’s something I’ve recently written about

http://naturocrit.blogspot.com/2009/07/naturopathys-essential-supersitious.html but not in this sense specifically —

there is the ethos that T and A are objective fact.

I find it fascinating that AM claims what is subjective [in the sense of 'freedom of conscience'] as objective fact [kind of like an 'American Taliban of pseudoscience'], in the same manner that radical religions are IT [the one truth].

[BTW, we met in person at TAM, Dr. J., ].

-r.c.

The whole thing with his canard about academics and his compliments about the true vision of children probably goes to actual, PHD-level academics. To get successfully through the massive levels of post-graduate studies that I am thinking of takes considerable focus and concentration. A drive to exceed if you will. One of my brothers is both brilliant and what I would jokingly call dangerously over-educated. He would be the first one to brush off the Amazing Randi’s help were it to be offered and probably the last one to twig that there were plants in his control group. In fact, I am sure he would feel profoundly betrayed. I can’t help feeling that Randi just barely turns an ill nature to good use. He can’t help thinking up con games and makes it acceptable to himself and others by using his mindset to alert people to just how easily they are lied to. Probably just as well for all concerned.

Nevertheless I must agree with his final summation at the end of the interview as long as I get to rephrase it: Life appears to be random, particularly to those who are suffering for no good cause. Is there any wonder in people searching for reasons and weapons with which to conquer pain be it a drug, a saint, or magic?

Just one point: “illicit” is an adjective meaning forbidden by law, rules etc.

I believe you meant to use the term
“elicit” – to evoke or draw out.

American Heritage (4e): “organic… 3a. Of, marked by, or involving the use of fertilizers or pesticides that are strictly of animal or vegetable origin.. 3b. Raised or conducted without use of drugs, hormones, or synthetic chemicals.”

Draal: Thanks for making the obvious points clearer to Adam_Y. I am aware of the complicated and contentious (and evolving) definition of “organic” given by the USDA. If you prefer, I’ll say that I was using the layperson’s definition, rather than the bureaucratic definition. E.g., the definition from a standard English dictionary, not from regulatory agency policy. In any case, this was not the problem Randi had with the term.

You say you work for a small firm,

No… I said “Many, like me, work on a small part of a larger organization. ”

Which basically means many engineers do not work on one whole product, but one bit of a large thing. If you are still a student this may not be quite what you are expecting.

Take a look at a multi-story office building. Now look at the seperate parts that require mechanical engineers. Not one person did the heating and ventilation system and then the elevators.

Big word of advice: Engineering Co-op, best part of an undergraduate engineering education.

And trust me, you will meet the magical thinkers. It does not matter what kind of education they received (good grief, Jonathan Wells is a cell biologist!). They are out there, and they can be very annoying.

“Your definition does not actually fit the United States definition of organic.”

I suppose that can depend on the context in which you use the word organic.

Form Wikipedia:

“Organic chemistry is a discipline within chemistry which involves the scientific study of the structure, properties, composition, reactions, and preparation (by synthesis or by other means) of chemical compounds that contain carbon.”

“Apart from elemental carbon, only certain classes of carbon compounds (such as oxides, carbonates, and carbides) are conventionally considered inorganic. Biochemistry deals mainly with the natural chemistry of biomolecules such as proteins, nucleic acids, and sugars.”

We don’t teach anyone, scientist, engineer or child, to be skeptical. Generally someone has to have a personal interest in the subject to develop their skills. (Example: I am an academic scientist, and I have always had a strong interest in knowing how “the trick was done”, so I’d be harder to pull something on than some other scientist who was never interested or pursuant of that interest.)

I think Randi has just had years of exasperated interaction with academics.

The gist of it is that because they are smart, or knowledgeable or educated, they assume they can’t be fooled. They can. By having the arrogance to assume they (we) can’t be fooled, we fool ourselves, or provide the conditions needed for a deceptive person to fool us.

The gist of it is that because they are smart, or knowledgeable or educated, they assume they can’t be fooled. They can.

@Charon
Randi isn’t an idiot and after looking at the definition on Wikipedia he was right. Your definition does not actually fit the United States definition of organic.

1) Wikipedia is not an authoritative source for definitions. 2) Words have multiple definitions. 3) Languages are constantly evolving and with it, so do definitions. 4) No one called Randi an idiot.

But unfortunately Charon, the label “organic” on a food product does not technically mean all synthetic pesticides cannot be used.
see list of approved pesticides: http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/getfile?dDocName=STELDEV3100278&acct=nopgeninfo

“What’s even more perplexing is that you dragged Dr. Novella into this, thus using an argument from authority.”
XD It called a citation. It was easier for me to copy and paste and then give credit to the author.

You’ve invented the perception that I and others were pointing out that engineers have magical thinking when it comes to their work. You’ve logically argued that things wouldn’t work if they did. But Um, no. no one said that. That’s a straw man you constructed. So I did not address something that I or anyone else was arguing against.

I proposed that engineers are woo people of woo because they they are religious. That implies they believe in a higher power which a paranormal belief. So, many engineers believe in a paranormal belief.
I did not say engineers believe in mystical phenomenon like dark matter or dark energy. (that was a joke)

I then point out that the vast majority of Americans believe in a higher power. And as someone pointed out, why single out a group?

Therefore, I was being sarcastic by labeling engineers as likely to be magical thinkers.
@Charon
:::hug::: very sensible posts.

Let me try and restate my claim, for the sake of clarity.

I’m not so naive as to believe that no engineers are plagued with woo. Religiosity among them is indeed high, and many of them have very stupid ideas in their heads, as you have stated.

What I am saying is that the nature of engineering causes engineers to compartmentalize; their woo ideas don’t bleed into their professional endeavors. If such a thing did happen, their devices would not function as intended, if at all.

Now, as to the points you raised regarding my experiences and magical thinking. I should have been clearer about this before, but I am an Mechanical Engineering Student. I realize that my experience is very limited, but the completion of projects are required as part of the curriculum. Now, as I said before, I’ve never heard an attribution, by anyone, to supernatural phenomenon as it pertains to engineering. You say you work for a small firm, and I have no reason to doubt that. I’d imagine you’d know your coworkers rather well. Have you ever heard a statement like, “Additional Lift will be generated by the pilots positive thoughts”, or “This transducer has inaite intelligence.”, or anything of that sort?

Magical thinking and foresight are not synonymous. When, say, Arthur C. Clarke wrote about the communications satellite (Not sure if he was the first to do so.), no such thing existed in reality at that time. But it wasn’t magical thinking on his part, because there’s nothing scientifically impossible about a communications satellite, in and of itself.

Individual engineers rarely have a hand in every component of a given system (well, except the project engineer, but that’s a west-coast phenomenon.) However, even though you don’t know everything about a system, you’d make the assumption that everyone working on it has a similar understanding of reality.