#1311: Daniel Amen

You knew it had to exist: brain-imaging woo – the use of brain-imagining as a diagnostic tool for various illnesses and conditions. Commercially, it’s a goldmine. Scientifically, the current state of such imaging makes it little more than a fancier version of phrenology. (No, seriously, the connection between Amen’s work and phrenology is so striking that it should be unnerving to anyone.)

Enter Daniel Gregory Amen, director of the Amen Clinics, and a New York Times bestselling author. A red flag should probably be raised already when you realize that he received his degree from Oral Roberts University School of Medicine. But in any case, Amen’s use of brain-imagining bullshittery as a diagnostic tool has gained him enormous financial success and a solid media presence (and he is, for instance, recognized as one of the NFL’s post-concussion experts). Indeed, he has been called “the most popular psychiatrist in America”. Of course, his methods have no grounding in science, evidence or reality, but he is not particularly open about that to his clients, and one can easily imagine his methods coming across as impressively sciencey to those who don’t know better; his publications in e.g. the journal Alternative Therapies are primarily musings on how close-minded his detractors are. Of course, lack of acceptance among the scientific community and evident financial conflict of interest don’t deter Daniel Amen (there’s a good summary here). And of his critics, he said that “[o]ne reason why they hate me is because I make money, [ ... ] our biggest referral sources are our patients.” Of course, that does not quite address the point the critics make about there being no evidence for his methods. I suppose that’s supposed to be covered by his follow-up “If I’m defrauding them how would I stay in business for decades ...?” Oh yes, that’s how it works, I suppose. The techniques are also evaluated here. Amen was not particularly fond of that evaluation, but his response never addressed any of the criticism this time around either.

In some more detail, the techniques employed at Amen’s clinics include using single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) as a purported diagnostic tool to identify what he says are sub-categories of these disorders, devised by Amen himself. While a 2012 review by the American Psychiatric Association put it rather carefully by saying that neuroimaging studies “have yet to impact significantly the diagnosis or treatment of individual patients,” the fact is that Amen has no research to back up his claims. Nevertheless, “tens of thousands of individuals, many of them children, have been exposed to the radiation of two SPECT scans and paid thousands of dollars out of pocket (because insurers will not pay) against the advice of many experts.” To some, misleading people in desperate situations for (enormous) profit seems morally questionable.

His television programs devised for the PBS network are straightforward and shameless infomercials and fundraising drives for his clinics and products. Originally, the website of the Amen clinics advertised how the technique was used to explore the Brain-Soul connection, but this was later changed to something more sciency-sounding. The actual science behind the ideas remains the same, however.

He also pushes a variety of dietary supplements that have been suggested to have a large number of health benefits, including a claimed ability to prevent or stop Alzheimer’s disease. It is pure woo and quackery, of course, but they are pushed in a manner that most resembles Joe Mercola or Kevin Trudeau, complete with anecdotes and appeals to nature.

Amen is also the co-author of The Daniel Plan: 40 Days to a Healthier Life, with pastor Rick Warren on “how to lead a healthy life” (the other advisors for the book were Mark Hyman and Mehmet Oz) based on Biblical principles and self-help type lifestyle advice.

Worthy of special mention is Amen’s appearance on Dr. Oz’s show to corroborate the claim that a brain scan of “psychic” con woman Teresa Caputo was evidence of spirituality and psychic power. Amen sagely concluded that there is more that is real than scientists believe is real. Yeah, it’s those close-minded scientists again. They’ve been a thorn in Amen’s side from the start.

Diagnosis: Well, though some may suspect that he is so, I am reluctant to officially suspect Amen for being a fraud. I assume that he genuinely believes that his techniques are able to uncover real phenomena. That makes hims a pseudoscientific loon. In any case, his influence is scary. 

#1310: Lad Allen

Lad Allen is a “documentary” film maker and founder of Illustra Media,  who started his career by shooting films about the Campus Crusade for Christ but is most famous for his pseudo-science documentaries promoting Intelligent Design creationism, especially in the trilogy consisting of Unlocking the Mystery of Life, The Privileged Planet (based on the book by Jay Richards and Guillermo Gonzalez and written by W. Peter Allen and Jonathan Witt – I have no idea if there is any closer relationship between the former and Lad Allen) and Darwin’s Dilemma (produced in close association with the Discovery Institute). A fourth creationist documentary, Metamorphosis: The Beauty and Design of Butterflies, was added to his portfolio in 2011.

Darwin’s Dilemma, which tries to push the Cambrian Explosion into service as evidence for creationism, even features some prominent real scientists in addition to a long row of Discovery Institute-affiliated creationists such as Stephen Meyer, David Berlinski and Paul Chien. Guess whether Simon Conway Morris knew that the interview he gave was going to be used in an anti-science creationist movie. Seen that tactic before?

After completing the films, Allen and his friends also tried – with some luck – to lure them into being showed by scientific organizations under the pretext that the contents were scientific – subsequently ending up in lawsuits against said science institutions after the institutions cancelled the showings upon being made aware of its contents, which are definitely not scientific.

Allen’s efforts really fit nicely in with the general work of the Discovery Institute: While steadfastly asserting that Intelligent Design is “science”, all their efforts are devoted to outreach and promotion to win souls for creationism. There is pitifully little research going on.

Diagnosis: Religious fanatic who has devoted his life to fighting the threats of science – and, of course, in an Orwellian fashion by trying to pretend that he is, in fact, campaigning for science himself. Not a vocal member of the denialist movement, but his documentaries have been pushed pretty hard, so his influence must be counted as significant. 

#1309: Jeff Allen

Jeff Allen is a Methodist pastor and “senior editor” at Matt Barber’s wingnut site Barbwire, and as suggested by his affiliations, he has a deep and lasting problem with honesty, accuracy, reading comprehension and common decency. Allen is, as you’d expect, virulently anti-gay, and his preferred gambit is the ultraGodwin gambit. Gay people are like Nazis, complete with a rainbow swastika, and that is obvious to Allen since defenders of LGTB rights have the audacity to criticize people like Allen and call them out as homophobes partially on the grounds that people like Allen, you know, compare gay people to Nazis and try to present themselves as the “real victims” of horrible persecutions. As in this piece, which also illustrates Allen’s aforementioned complete lack of reading comprehension skills. Here Allen opens with Niemöller’s famous “first they came for” statement to launch an attack on the “GAY-stapo.” His evidence for persecution? Once again, the fact that he is being criticized, and that people like Matt Barber are not taken very seriously (yes, that’s the totality of his evidence). And that means that many gays and liberals “console themselves with fantasies of their own Kristallnacht, in which Christians are euphemistically ‘taken out of the way’ as part of the ‘gay’-stapo’s ‘final solution’ to the ‘Christian problem.’ The torturing or hanging of Matt Barber and other Christians like him is shockingly not off the table for the most rabid among them …”

Persecution and martyr complexes are bread and butter for this kind of wingnuttery of course, and people like Allen view their own battle against gay rights as based on the realization “that these social and political arenas represent a buffer zone between the militant homosexuals and the church itself. Once civil marriage laws fall and the so-called anti-discrimination laws fill the void, we know that the church and its ministers will be next.” Allen also agreed with Rick Wiles that the real goal of the Nazis was to create “a homosexual special race,” because that’s a totally reasonable hypothesis. It wasn’t about an Aryan race at all; Hitler was promoting the gay agenda and the ultimate goal was to slaughter all the Christians (not the Jews, as you might mistakenly think).

Allen hasn’t restricted himself to comparing gays to Nazis, however. Here he accuses “Al-‘Gay’Da and Lezbollah terrorist networks” and the “homosexual Taliban” of enforcing “homosexual Sharia” against marriage equality opponents, and laments how “the homofascists, liberals and secularists also want to dethrone God from the universe he founded.” He has also compared gays to the Ku Klux Klan. When Obama asked Gene Robinson, the openly gay former Episcopal bishop, to deliver the closing prayer at the annual Easter prayer breakfast, Allen’s response was curt: “Blasphemy … The president chose to desecrate the Easter observance.”

Upon hearing that White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and his wife have some kitchy art, Allen didn’t hesitate to draw the obvious conclusion: “Might these be collectivist subliminal messages? Or maybe it confirms President Barack Obama’s socialist/communist leanings as demonstrated in the selection of the members of his administration?” Not that Allen needed any more confirmation. Or any at all.

Like many wingnuts, Allen does not have the faintest idea about how the division of powers work, or what role the Constitution is supposed to play in legal procedings. In response to the Indiana and Utah federal courts overturning bans on gay marriage, he said: “Federal courts in Indiana and Utah on Wednesday blatantly overthrew the will of the people and subversively imposed same-sex ‘marriage’ on the citizens of both states. The judicial oligarchy (tyranny of the few) continues flexing the muscle of its apparently unchecked power. The death of democracy is undeniably upon us.” If you don’t see how hysterically idiotic that statement is, you probably need to do some reading.

Diagnosis: It’s so delusional that it beggars belief, and the level of paranoia is so high that one starts worrying about him. One does suspect, however, that anti-gay activists like Allen haven’t exactly picked a winning strategy if he wants to accomplish anything.

#1308: Sterling D. Allan

Sterling D. Allan is the founder and CEO of PES Network, Inc. and the New Energy Congress. As such, Allan is among the most tireless and misguided proponents of free energy pseudoscience and free energy conspiracy theories there is. He is also founder of the New Energy Systems Trust (NEST), which is supposed “to help bring these technologies to market.” Needless to say, he hasn’t had much luck yet.

In fairness Allan and his partners (including in particular one Hank Mills) do their bit to promote more “traditional” forms of renewable energy as well, but Allan’s advocacy would probably have carried more weight were it not mired in support for cold fusion, Andrea Rossi’s Energy Catalyzer and such idiocy, including a plethora of magnetic motor schemes, none of which has achieved anything resembling success. Indeed, Allan has apparently worked rather closely with Rossi, which suggests that he either really, really wants to believe, despite all reason and evidence, or something else. Apparently, Allen’s organizations have, from starting out as pretty reasonable, moved further and further into crackpot land – and part of the problem is apparently precisely that Allan has, it seems, entered into various business endeavors with the people he promotes, starting with Mark Brady and his “amazing” Perendev Motor in 2003.

Of course, as people located in these particular areas are wont to (for sheer, sad critical thinking failure, this post is hard to beat), Allan more than frequently lapses into ludicrous conspiracy mongering (of the kind you’ll usually encounter on Coast to Coast AM – oh yeah, Allan has been there, done that), and you will find plenty of articles blaming the lack of success for these alternative energy systems not only on opposition from energy companies, but assassination attempts organized by the US government. At least he seems – contrary to many of his fellow free energy enthusiast – to try to argue that his ideas are consistent with the existing laws of physics (not always clear how) instead of trying to argue that the laws of thermodynamics are wrong … oh, never mind.

To his fans, Allan seems to have all the trappings of your usual brave maverick scientists, armed with every version of the Galileo gambit you can imagine. Equally unsurprisingly he spends quite a bit of effort lamenting the close-mindedness of skeptics unwilling to accept his claims on face value and nebulous handwaiving.

Diagnosis: Allan seems, in fact, to be one of the more influential internet crackpots out there at the moment, and should accordingly be watched. He is, to be honest, probably rather harmless, but the world (and not the least the Internet) would have been such a much better place if he had spent his efforts on something other than chasing shadows that aren’t there (while claiming that he’s got them).

#1307: Amy Allan & Steve DiSchiavi

The Dead Files is a television series that runs on the Travel Channel. It features psychic medium Amy Allan and former NYPD homicide detective Steve DiSchiavi as they investigate locations reported to be haunted. Allan says she was tormented by shadow people (popularized by Heidi Hollis at Coast to Coast AM in the early 2000s) at age four and has developed psychic powers in the meantime. She used to work odd jobs as a private investigator and security guard before finding this new source of income in the area of ghosts and gullible TV viewers. 

The show’s setup is really just an extensive hot reading adapted to the pseudo-documentary format. Allan and DiSchiavi supposedly do separate investigations of locations reported to be haunted and only compare notes at the very end. Invariably, Allan claims to be in psychic contact with ghosts who tell her what happened at the location, whereas DiSchiavi's research remarkably backs it all up. It’s hard to imagine anyone really falling for it, but they do, indeed.

Diagnosis: It’s pretty hard to treat Allan and DiSchiavi as if they believed their own bullshit; but in any case, anyone who has ever been fascinated by their show deserves an honorable mention in our Encyclopedia.