#1553: David M. Dosa

Psychic pets are pets that some, uh, “researchers” claim are … psychic. They communicate using ESP. These researchers generally know that the animals in question are psychic because the researchers are now able to predict what the animal wishes in certain situations (yeah, that’s pretty much it). Having lived with the animals for a while has also provided plenty of … uh, “evidence” for the assessment. Bringing up Clever Hans when commenting on these people’s abilities to critically assess evidence is probably too charitable.

One of the most famous “psychic” pets is Oscar, a cat who lives on the third floor of a Rhode Island nursing home. Dr. David Dosa, a geriatrician there and an assistant professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, claims that Oscar can tell when a patient is about to die, since when a patient is about to die, Oscar curls up next to that patient and leaves after the patient dies. Dosa has published an article in the New England Journal of Medicine and even written a book about Oscar. As Robert Carroll puts it, “[n]obody doubts that Oscar curls up on the beds of patients and leaves when they die. He also curls up on the beds of patients who don't die. He leaves those beds, too.”

The book (German translation).

During his research for the book, Dosa – rather predictably – failed to make any records or apply any methods to control for bias; instead, he relied on his memories of the events. Nor did he control for any confounding factors (such as activity around the beds of dying patients). In other words, the “research” was conducted precisely the way all research “establishing” the psychic abilities of animals is conducted. Dosa could report that Oscar had curled up to patients “50 times”, but provided no further information about the patients and didn’t actually count the instances (he did admit that the cat didn’t always do this, but often). Why he chose to interpret Oscar as a “gentle angel of death” rather than something more sinister is not clear either.

Of course, news outlets picked up the story en masse, followed by a plethora of silly “natural explanations” for the correlation between the cat’s behavior and patients’ deaths. Too few pointed out the obvious: Dr. Dosa had given not a shred of evidence that a correlation existed in the first place. (And if there were a correlation, the obvious explanation would of course be that the cat was spreading some kind of infection, a possibility that Dosa doesn’t consider.)

Dosa also made it to Renée Scheltema’s ridiculous Something Unknown is Doing We Don’t Know What (yes, note the What the Bleep do We Know inspiration), a “spiritual journey into the science behind psychic phenomena,” with his cat musings.

Diagnosis: Dosa makes it really, really hard for us to avoid concluding that he is very much aware of the absence of any indication of evidence for his claims. Out of generosity (if it is) we choose to conclude that he is seriously deluded and utterly deficient in critical thinking skills.

Most of the information for this article is credited to the skepdic website.

#1552: Kurt Donsbach

Dave D’Onofrio appears to be a creationist and David Abel’s coauthor on those few papers they actuall got published in some low-tier but peer reviewed science journals (and has accordingly been lauded by the WND as making significant scientific breakthroughs) but I struggle to find much further information about him. We’ll leave him be for now. 

Kurt Donsbach, however, is a legend. Donsbach is an unlicensed chiropractor and altmed promoter, whose Hospital Santa Monica operated in California until 1987, whereupon it moved to Mexico and was in operation until the death of Coretta Scott King – widow of MLK – while under treatment at the clinic in 2006, when Mexican health officials promptly shut it down. Donsbach moved his practice to Mexico after several troubles with American authorities, first in 1971, when he was convicted of practicing medicine without a license in California after undercover agents observed him prescribing unproven remedies and claiming e.g.  that various vitamins, minerals, and herbal tea were effective against cancer, heart disease and emphysema to patients while claiming to be a medical doctor. Many of the remedies prescribed were only available from Westpro Labs, a company – coincidentally, of course – operated by Donsbach himself. (He pleaded guilty and received a fine and two years’ summary probation).

Coretta King was one of many desperate people who sought out Donsbach’s clinic during its two decades of operation in Mexico, where they would be treated with vitamins and herbs, iron lungs, and a variety of other useless procedures (the clinic was recommended to King by members of her church.) Of course, clinics like Donsbach’s thrive on survivors providing compelling (and personalized) anecdotes and the dead telling nothing, which they usually don’t unless the victim was a celebrity of sufficient note for the press to care. Had it not been for King, who knows how long Donsbach would have been allowed to continue.

Donsbach’s list of troubles with the authorities is extensive, though. Apart from the 1971 incident and the 2006 closing of his hospital, incidents include at least the following:

- In 1973, he was charged with nine more counts of illegal activity, including misbranding of drugs and manufacturing drugs without a license.

- In 1974, he was found guilty of violating his probation and was fined again.

- In 1975, Donsbach owned and operated Metabolic Products, a company that marketed supplement products with claims they didn’t bother to back up. That year, he also began his fourteen years of service as board chairman of the National Health Federation, a true quack organization if there ever was one.

- In 1976, he acquired a license to practice naturopathy in Oregon, based on a document that was later revealed to be a forgery (authorities prohibited him from holding the license in 1990). If you have to commit fraud to be able to even practice naturopathy …

- In 1979, he began operating Donsbach University, a nonaccredited correspondence school that awarded bachelor, master, and doctoral “degrees” in nutrition. That the “institution” was  unaccredited did not deter Donsbach from claiming that it was (by the National Accreditation Association, which consisted of a telephone in the living room of a single quack with a fake degree in Maryland – the California Department of Education was not impressed). He was also operating the International Institute of Natural Health Sciences, through which he marketed numerous misleading publications and a “Nutrient Deficiency Test”: The test consisted of a questionnaire about symptoms, and the answers were fed into a computer that issued a report of supposed nutrient deficiencies and medical conditions – the answers, however, did not affect the printout of supposed deficiencies in any systematic and reliable way.

- In 1982, Donsbach formed and became board chairman of Health Resources Group, Inc., which sold supplement products to health-food stores through HRG Enterprises and a multilevel company named Nutrition Motivation.

- In 1985, the FDA sent Donsbach and HRG a regulatory letter indicating that claims made for Orachel made it an unapproved new drug that was illegal to market.

- In 1985, the New York Attorney General brought actions against Donsbach, his university, and his International Institute, on the grounds that they lacked legal authorization to conduct business within the state and that it was illegal to advertise nonaccredited degrees to state residents. The Attorney General also charged that the “Nutrient Deficiency Test” was a scheme to defraud consumers (duh!).

- In 1988, the US postal service ordered him to stop claiming that a hydrogen peroxide solution he sold could prevent cancer and ease arthritis pain (it can’t).

- A 1996 case, based on a 1993 Complaint for Forfeiture, states that Donsbach obtained money from insurance companies by misrepresenting the nature and location of treatments he rendered there.

- In 1997 he was sentenced to a year in federal prison for smuggling more than $250,000 worth of unapproved drugs into the US from Mexico.

On April 9, 2009, he was arrested again, this time during his Internet radio health show, and charged with 11 felony counts, including dispensing unapproved drugs and offering neuropeptides to his patients (which contained nimesulide, which is banned in Europe because they cause high rates of liver failure and have resulted in some deaths). The case ended with a plea deal with Donsbach facing up to a year in jail, followed by probation. In 2010, however, he pleaded guilty to 13 additional felony charges, including practicing medicine without a license and selling misbranded drugs.

That should give you an idea. Donsbach himself is a pupil of Royal Lee, who – at least before Kevin Trudeau – was “probably the largest publisher of unreliable and false nutritional information in the world” (according to an FDA official). His website states that he has produced more than 50 books and pamphlets that have sold a total of 14 milion copies (most of which were titled “Dr. Donsbach Tells You What You Always Wanted To Know About …”)

Donsbach’s partner Harry R. Alsleben used to run his own correspondence school offering pseudo-credentials in nutrition, such as “Clinical Nutrimedicine and Biological Sciences”, “nutri-medical dentistry”, “nutri-medical eye and visual health care,” “nutri-medical homeopathy” and “therapeutic nutrimedicine”.

Diagnosis: It’s hard to believe that Donsbach actually thinks he is helping people, but I suppose the powers of delusion should not be underestimated. At least the continued success of Kurt Donsbach demonstrates how and why there’s still a market for spam. A horrible, horrible person.

Note: Most of the information for this entry was taken from Quackwatch's very informative articles on Donsbach and his antics.

#1551: Elaine Donnelly

Wikipedia sums her up rather pithy in the first sentence of their entry: “Elaine Donnelly is an American conservative activist and anti-feminist principally concerned with preserving the traditional culture of the U.S. military.” Now, you might wonder what “the traditional culture of the U.S. military” might be, but you probably have an idea what Donnelly might mean by it.

Donnelly is the founder of the Center for Military Readiness, and has spent several years in opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment as National Media Chair of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum. Her stance is aptly summed up in her claim that “[t]he concept of equality does not fit in combat environments .... Women in combat units endanger male morale and military performance.” Sort of like how women failing to cover their hair are just inviting otherwise honorable men to rape them. In 2006, when the Department of Defense considered addressing sexual harassment and violence in the military by creating an Office of the Victim Advocate in the Pentagon, Donnelly wrote that it would serve as “an ‘Office of Male Bashing,’ which nuclearizes the war between the sexes;” in other words: Addressing sexual harassment and violence is unjustly antagonizing the perpetrators. Such is the warped world of Elaine Donnelly (and yes, she’s been pretty explicit about that being her argument). She has also said that allowing women in combat is like forcing cheerleaders to play in NFL games, which is an interesting analogy on so many levels (Sandy Rios blamed Spider-Woman, but that’s a different story).

As you might imagine, Donnelly is no fan of gays and lesbians in the military either, and she called efforts to repeal the DADT a “big P.R. campaign” (yeah …), claiming that “[t]he law is there to protect good order and discipline in the military, and it’s not going to change.” She has also “argued” that allowing gays and lesbians to serve in the military would lead to a draft, as well as “forcible sodomy,” “introducing erotic factors,” and the proliferation of “HIV positivity”. She actually used the draft argument against women serving in the military in the 1980s as well, but is apparently unfazed by the poor performance of her predictions back then. (In fact, Donnelly doesn’t even really seem to realize that her predictions have failed.)

In short, allowing gays to serve will lead to the military’s downfall. Thus, the culture of the military (yeah, that one again – think 300) is in grave jeopardy due to the “process of diversifying and imposing LGBT agendas.” Such agendas would at least put an “immediate strain” on the defense budget (no, she didn’t elaborate). Donnelly could, accordingly, not help but lament how “the civil rights movement is being co-opted by the advocates of diversity, by advocates of the LGBT equality group.” Indeed.

Allowing gays to serve in the military will also make straight people feel unwelcome: You see, not allowing straight people to throw gay people out is as bigoted as bigotry comes. Allowing gays to serve is also a threat to religious freedom, because that claim resonates with Donnelly’s target audiences; and the military evidently has a duty to prevent opponents of homosexuality from feeling offended – wasn’t that perhaps what all that civil rights stuff was all about?

Diagnosis: Completely deranged. Elaine Donnelly is a Phyllis Schlafly-protégé, for crying out loud. She is also, apparently, pretty influential.

#1550: Richard Dolan

Richard Michael Dolan is a ufologist and television personality. Initially he had some success with his deranged conspiracy rants in book form, such as UFOs and the National Security State: Chronology of a Cover-up 1941-1973 (with a preface none other than Jacques Vallée, one of the most delusional crackpots to walk the face of the Earth). The basic idea, as you’d expect, is that UFOs are ubiquitous but systematically covered up by the US government because, well, that’s what governments do. Sequels include National Security State: The Cover-Up Exposed, 1973-1991, which doesn’t really seem to have exposed anything converts in various conspiracy communities weren’t already convinced of, and (with Bryce Zabel) A.D. After Disclosure: The People’s Guide to Life After Contact. As for the quality of his works, I’ll quote UFO enthusiast GhostofMaynard: “My take on Mr. Dolan is that he uses a vast number of sources, and from that perspective his work is quite good. However, Dolan doesn’t do a good job at verifying the veracity of sources.” I am not sure GhostofMaynard ranks his parameters of assessment appropriately. (Dolan’s work includes e.g. “deathbed testimonies” from anonymous “CIA officials”. Right.)

Dolan may be most familiar from 2006 Sci-Fi Channel television show Sci Fi Investigates, where he was part of a team that looked into various paranormal and unusual events with as much credulousness as possible, including Roswell. He also appeared in Sci-Fi Channel’s UFO Invasion at Rendlesham. Currently he teaches the Introduction to Ufology class at the International Metaphysical University as part of its ufology program. Yup, such a thing really exists, and it is probably magnificent.

Diagnosis: As a deranged conspiracy theorist Dolan has had some success, probably because he – unlike most – tends to meet the minimal criteria for grammatical coherence and intelligibility. There is a very, very long distance from that achievement to being worth taking seriously.

#1549: Gil Dodgen

An admittedly pretty old picture

Gil Dodgen is a software engineer, classical pianist and exasperating creationist who writes for the creationist tripe-pit Uncommon Descent, mostly about scientific topics he really doesn’t know anything about (including topics one would expect him to know something about), predictably failing to be even remotely aware that he doesn’t know anything about them – a familiar cognitive shortcoming. He is also a member of Dembski’s Evolutionary Informatics Lab, which is a website and not a lab. He provides a brilliantly apt summary of his efforts (and those of his fellow bloggers) here.

A large part of his rants about evolution seems to be written under the assumption that evolution is random (“tornado in a junkyard”), which it isn’t, but Dodgen seems rather uninterested in actually trying to understand how it is supposed to work since strawman caricatures are much easier to overturn. Another fine example of his argumentative powers can be found here. Dodgen has, like many of his fellows, for years predicted the imminent demise of Darwinism, which is just about the only (reasonably precise) prediction the ID folks have come up with. It has also been falsified. To which the ID folks usually respond they way they usually do to empirical data.

Diagnosis: Well, the Dunning-Kruger effect hardly comes any denser than this. Completely exasperating.