#2344: Sara Thyr

Sara Thyr, ND, is a naturopath who describes herself as a naturopathic midwife, and is also (at least a one-time) president of the American College of Naturopathic Obstetrics and a founding member of the American Association of Naturopathic Midwives (the former is the organization issuing credentials for the latter, of course). Naturopathy is, of course, bullshit, and the idea of naturopathic midwifery and naturopathic obstetrics downright scary. Looking at Thyr’s article “Pre-Conception Testing: A Naturopathic Perspective” is not conducive to allaying one’s fears and worries. 

If you wish to look at science-based recommendations for preconception care, you can go here. To Thyr and many likeminded deranged lunatics, what is wrong with the science-based recommendations seems to be primarily that they are boring. Since really, there is, for most normal women, not really that much to worry about. According to Thyr, however, science- and evidence-based practitioners don’t look at “all the factors”; in particular, they don’t look at the imaginary and not-science-based factors that Thyr and other naturopaths conveniently offer expensive tests and treatment regimes – pure woo – to treat you for. For instance, the first thing Thyr will look at when meeting women looking to become pregnant is “food allergies”, since, according entirely to her imagination, “undiscovered food allergies are the most common cause of unexplained infertility,” and naturopaths are really good at finding out that you are really allergic to common foods you haven’t noticed that you are allergic to and that real, legitimate tests show that you are, in fact, not allergic to. She also says that “[f]ood allergies are a very misunderstood topic,” which is pretty undeniable given the falsehoods and nonsense about food allergies she will go on to convey.

Next up on her list, of course, are toxins, in particular environmental toxins, understood the way woomeisters and hucksters usually understand them, and showing that Thyr’s understanding of chemistry and biochemistry (or biology – there is, predictably, some pseudoscientific handwaving about epigenetics included here) is as lacking as her understanding of immunology. (She learned – or didn’t – both at a naturopathy school, of course.) Thyr, unsurprisingly, offers a detoxification program to pretend to help remedy the situation. She also recommends adrenal testing; now adrenal dysfunction can indeed cause infertility and pregnancy loss, but Thyr is of course looking at “more subtle” adrenal problems that ordinary doctors wouldn’t find. Indeed, if you come to her you presumably suffer adrenal problems and should purchase a test. It’s an integral part of the grift.

There is a more thorough discussion of Thyr’s recommendations here.

Diagnosis: We’re sure she’s a true believer, but in these cases the moral difference between callous grifting and doing the exact same thing but believing that you help, is slim, and the latter might arguably be worse since people who are aware that they are grifting tend at least to be a bit more careful. The recommendations are pure, delusional bullshit no matter what.

Hat-tip: Respectful Insolence

#2343: Eric Thomson

Eric Thomson is a pretty obscure neo-nazi, most famous for coining the acronym ZOG – Zionist Occupation Government – back in 1976. ZOG is an iteration of the international Jewish conspiracy traditionally invoked in neo-Nazi, Christian Identity, and white supremacist circles, and the conspiracies associated with ZOG are more or less those of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, just somewhat adapted to more modern times, claiming for instance that Jewish people are controlling every social and governmental institution. It was popularized in part by David Duke, who would use if for more or less everything that doesn’t adhere to the principles of white supremacism.

Thomson was also co-author, with famous neo-nazi Ernst Zundel, of The Hitler We Loved and Why, which argued that “Hitler was well loved and loved in return, but this relationship between the Leader and his people was not the gushy, sickly sweet effusion of an obese Jewish mother for her pimply, draft-dodging son. This was Aryan love. Strong, steady and uplifting.”

Diagnosis: Though apparently somewhat influential, Thomson remains obscure and some of his activities lay so far back in time that we cannot take it for granted that he is still around. It is, in any case, worth being aware of him and his acronym. 

Hat-tip: rationalwiki

#2342: Tom Thompson

Tom Thompson is a former city planner in New Bern, North Carolina, and climate change denialist. He is a fairly typical specimen, and would have flown entirely under our radar if a 2013 Spiegel article hadn’t featured him and his tireless lobbying of local politicians as an example of wingnut denialism and the war on science. One of the politicians who apparently listened to him was Pat McElraft, who subsequently wrote climate change denialism into bill HB 819, banning the state from basing coastal policies on the latest scientific predictions of how much the sea level will rise due to climate change.

Thompson, a God-fearing wingnut, put the main focus of his lobbying on the costs of measures to protect New Bern from rising sea levels “just because a few scientists are claiming that that’s what will happen.” But according to Thompson “they have no evidence. We’re supposed to spend money on something that might not happen at all.” Or in other words: they have no evidence for their claims since Thompson can’t be bothered to look and it would be bad if their claims were true. As Thompson sees, there are simply too many numbers and too many estimates that seem contradictory to him, who has no expertise in or understanding of the field, so he just rejects the whole thing. So it goes.

Diagnosis: Yes, a fairly typical specimen, and mostly included to have a representative of a frightening number of denialist loons who are, in all the relevant ways, much like Thompson. Individually their power to do harm is limited, but the size of the group makes them collectively one of the most effective threats to civilization at present.

#2341: Melvin Thompson

Melvin Thompson is a former pastor of the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church in Pike County, Kentucky. Thompson is oldschool. So while other fundies were railing against and gnashing their teeth over same-sex couples a couple of years ago, Thompson and his congregation went on to ban interracial couples from their church. The church went on record saying that while all people were welcome to attend public worship services there, the church did not condone interracial marriage; in particular “parties of such marriages will not be received as members, nor will they be used in worship services” or other church functions (with the exception of funerals.) Officially, the recommendation “is not intended to judge the salvation of anyone, but is intended to promote greater unity among the church body and the community we serve,” which, if true, doesn’t exactly paint that community in a particularly sympathetic light. It is correct, by the way: the congregation put the resolution to the vote, and it passed 9–6. Thompson was of course quick to emphasize that he is not racist, and went on to lament how he and the resolution were portrayed in the media, i.e. as being somehow racist – “but it is not,” asserted Thompson; rather, the resolution is an “internal affair” of the church.

The Sandy Valley Conference of Free Will Baptists, of which Thompson’s church is part, quickly went on to nullify the resolution. Thompson himself was replaced as a pastor, but remained a member of the congregation and apparently brought the issue up again later, asking for it to be discussed at a business meeting among the church’s men. Yes, the context of the request includes another little detail that shouldn’t exactly help enhance the image of the Gulnare Freewill Baptist Church.

Diagnosis: Fill in whatever you fancy.

#2340: Gary Thompson

Gary Thompson is a climate change denier (of some stripe) who has at least on two occasions published climate change denialist articles for the wingnut website American Thinker. The website unfortunately provides no more information about him, and we have thus been unable to locate any reliable background (his name is hardly unique). But the articles themselves are instructive. “The AGW Smoking Gun”, for instance, does cites peer-reviewed papers, but what he calls “analyzing” e.g. graphs is not analyzing but rather quickly eyeballing graphs while dismissing peer-reviewed data analysis to lead himself to the opposite conclusion compared to the authors of the papers in question (“Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth’s greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate”). So instead of disproving the enhanced greenhouse effect, Thompson’s article merely provides, instead, further evidence for the Dunning-Kruger effect, and/or for the pernicious influence of bias . For more detailed criticisms of the article, this one is helpful.

Diagnosis: Thompson really is a good example of denialism at work – he is certainly a smart guy, and certainly a far cry e.g. from some of the wild-eyed creationists we have covered when it comes to being thoughtful and measured. But bias and a little knowledge can fell the smartest, and Thompson is not the smartest.

Hat-tip: Skeptical science

#2339: Damon Thompson

Damon Thompson is a South Carolina-based fundie preacher formerly associated with The Ramp – a revival cult thing somewhere in Alabama run by preachers affiliated with the New Apostolic Reformation and apparently aimed at young people (this story might provide an illustration) – and more recently something called “Carolina Revival”. Thompson claims that being “saved” actually changes your DNA. Indeed, it changes your DNA so much that if you committed a crime and left behind DNA, then if you afterward became “born again” it will ensure that your DNA doesn’t match that left behind at the scene. Let us just say that anyone gambling on this idea will be in for an ugly surprise. Thompson has, as fundie preachers are wont to, of course made up an anecdote to make the claim vivid for his listeners.

He is, of course, also virulently anti-gay, offering kids “deliverance from homosexuality” at his prayer rallies. “You may think you were born gay, but you cannot be born again gay!”, says Damon Thompson.

Diagnosis: Dangerous madman. He does have the power to ruin lives, and seems unafraid to use it.

#2338: Theresa Thombs

William Thomas, popularizer of paranoid chemtrail conspiracy theories, is apparently Canadian. Theresa Thombs, on the other hand, is not only American, but a representative for a very familiar, very American type of denialism. Thombs was a 2014 candidate for the Texas state board of education, whose campaign was largely based on warning people that the then-current board was “using your tax dollars to brainwash our children into socialist issues and ideas.” Among those socialist ideas were, unsurprisingly, the theory of evolution, and Thombs firmly denounced “people from socialist higher education” who support the teaching of evolution. “We know we didn’t come from monkeys!” exclaimed Thombs. She later said that people who criticized her attack on evolution at a school board candidate forum are actually trying to take away the right of Christians to speak freely and run for public office, because there is no difference between criticism and persecution when the criticism is directed at her. 

Thombs considers herself an “international evangelist” who was in the running to fight “adgendas and ideoligies” (yes, that’s her spelling – she also asserted that parents are “criticle,” and that she’s an “advicate” and “expereinced”) and to defeat “Devil worshipers”. Her “Mission and Issues” statement also described her goal to “stem the tide of our best and brightest teachers leaving the classroom to pursue other carriers, because they can no longer live with the policies and mandates they no are harmful to their students.” We are not convinced her idiosyncratic spelling would actually count against her in a Texas schoolboard election.

On other issues, Thombs emphasized the importance of asserting “straight pride” to stop “political correctness.” To clarify her position she did say that she is “not bigoted or hateful” and that she in particular didn’t hate gay people, and then she compared gay people to murderers.

Diagnosis: Colorful village idiot, mostly. Thombs didn’t win a seat this time around, but it is worth pointing out that she probably didn’t lose because of her views as much as her tone.