#3011: Mark Hertsgaard & Mark Dowie

Hertsgaard

Silly fear-mongering about new technology is as old as technology, and although one could very well argue, in a non-lunatic way, for applying some version of a cautionary principle, the level of caution should at least be sensitive to the level of evidence: for a lot of technology critics, however, credences aren’t budged by evidence; rather, their worries get augmented with conspiracy theories instead. We have had several opportunities to write about baseless scaremongering concerning cell phone radiation and wifi, and the idea that electromagnetic radiation from cell phones and wireless networks causes adverse health effects, from cancer to mental illness, is an idea that, like homeopathy, just won’t go away, regardless of the evidence and has instead given rise to a whole industry of fake diagnoses like “electromagnetic hypersensitivity”. It doesn’t help that the idea has sufficient sensationalist potential for shoddy pseudoresearch to be picked up by mainstream media, or that the IARC erroneously categorized cell phone radiation as a “possible carcinogen” (even if “possible” in their classification system actually means probably not).

 

But yes, mainstream media must take part of the blame. Nothing draws media – yes, most definitely including mainstream media – like an opportunity to spread fear, and they seem to have few qualms about giving microphones to the most deranged cranks. Like what journalists Mark Hertsgaard & Mike Dowie did in their 2018 sensationalist piece for The Nation, “How Big Wireless Made Us Think That Cell Phones Are Safe: A Special Investigation” with the tagline “the disinformation campaign – and massive radiation increase – behind the 5G rollout”, which is basically just a megaphone for ultracrank and conspiracy theorist George Carlo to spew pseudoscientific paranoia without having to deal criticism. Most of the piece consists of suggesting that “big wireless” is hiding the science and trying to prevent research because paranoid crackpots are unable to get their incoherent screeds published in good journals – yes, it’s the same strategy employed by antivaccine activists and pseudoscientists everywhere. And though Hertsgaard & Dowie recognize the need for a disclaimer (“this article does not argue that cell phones and other wireless technologies are necessarily dangerous; that is a matter for scientists to decide”), they try mightily to obfuscate the actual status of science, going so far as to suggest that scientific consensus is the opposite of what it, in fact, is by e.g. misrepresenting studies. The trainwreck of an ‘investigative’ article is discussed in some detail here. Despite being shit, it did apparently have quite an impact, and is at least partially responsible for  much noise and chaos e.g. in the British Parliament and for various pointless legislative moves and hearings around the world, from Australia to Oregon.

 

Now, Hertsgaard is otherwise a somewhat celebrated journalist and author, but the shoddiness and deceptiveness of his and Dowie’s ‘investigative’ efforts in the case at hand should really make you seriously doubt any other claim he makes. And there is, indeed, some evidence that he’s toyed with similar crankery with regard to e.g. nuclear energy.

 

Diagnosis: Yes, they are both apparently widely recognized as serious people and have been pretty good at cultivating that image. But Hertsgaard and Dowie obviously have no qualms about pivoting to stock conspiracy theory mongering, pseudoscience promotion and rank denialism when it suits them. They do not deserve to be trusted on anything.

 

#3010: Sonny Hernandez

Sonny Hernandez is a fundie associated with Reforming America Ministries and an Air Force Reserve chaplain. Hernandez is no fan of religious freedom, and has declared that “Christian service members who openly profess and support the rights of Muslims, Buddhists, and all other anti-Christian worldviews to practice their religions – because the language in the Constitution permits – are grossly in error, and deceived;” the comments were targeted at Air Force service members (”Counterfeit Christians”) who might in their missions and work errouneously “put the Constitution – particularly the establishment clause of the First Amendment – above a Christian God”. When his comments created some controversy, Hernandez claimed to be misunderstood, but was not very clear about what his critics had misunderstood or how a correct interpretation would diverge from the one his critics attributed to him. Paul Hair attempted to portray Hernandez as a victim of Christian persecution and steadfastly failed to see the irony.

 

Otherwise, Hernandez appears to be a typical fundie with a typical fundie’s view of e.g. reproductive rights, and keeps warning those who disagree with him not only of Hell and “everlasting conscious torment” but of the ever-imminent “great storm that is coming”. He has also written at least one book, The Atheist Fairy Tale, which purports to refute all sorts of ideas and features Hernandez associates with atheism (“a fictitious, inane, and blasphemous religion that denies the existence of God”), such as the theory of evolution (“pond scum that developed itself into a self-replicating cell”)

 

Diagnosis: Stock fundie. The US is brimful of them, of course, and Hernandez doesn’t seem to be among the ones with the largest impact area. No denying his level of angry delusion, though.

 

#3009: Drew Hernandez

Drew Hernandez is a wingnut activist, conspiracy theorist, sometimes host of Turning Point USA’s daily show Frontlines, and producer of a web show called “Lives Matter” as well as videos for the wingnut Tatum Report website. His videos have often focused on violence he claims is carried out by Antifa and BLM. And since the police, according to Hernandez, “have their hands tied by leftists”, he is a staunch supporter of groups like the Proud Boys, who are willing to employ extrajudicial violence to get anti-fascist “absolutely mopped on the floor”.

 

Apparently he has some clout in wingnut circles and has, for instance, appeared on Tucker Carlson’s show and on Fox News a substantial number of times. Part of his rise to prominence is due to his ability to insert himself into wingnut coverage of high-profile events. He was, for instance, on the ground in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when the Kyle Rittenhouse affair took place and served as a defense witness for Rittenhouse to claim that the protesters in the area were “antifa”.

 

Hernandez, who believes that the 2020 election was a massive fraud based on paranoia-fuelled conspiracy theories, was not a fan of the Biden administration. Complaining (falsely) that Biden is unwilling to denounce violence by leftist activists, Hernandez also offered an explanation for what was not the case: Biden was unwilling to denounce leftist violence because it would cause him to lose support from the mythical “deep state”. Biden was also a “communist agent”; said Hernandez: “Every single one of us know that Joe Biden is literally, literally [if you repeat a word twice it means the opposite] in the back pockets of the Chicoms. He is a communist agent and we all know that.” Hernandez isn’t profusively concerned with using evidence to support his claims to knowledge.

 

Most importantly, however, Hernandez is a significant producer of QAnon content who has suggested e.g. that the US is plagued by a large numbers of Satanists that are seeking to eat human fetuses. Apparently gay people play some important role here, too: No fan of such people, Hernandez has not only referred to Pride Month as “groomer month” and called LGBTQ people “mentally ill”, but, as Hernandez sees it, the LGBTQ movement’s “end game is to sterilize humanity, depopulate, so that the homosexuals can just abduct children” – one of the means they dispose is to ensure that “the economy is not going to be accessible to you if you do not worship homosexuality”, whatever that means. More nefariously, perhaps, he has made several concentrated efforts to encourage violent wingnut groups to show up at various LGBTQ events.

 

Diagnosis: No, we can’t be bothered to follow the paranoid lunacy and conspiracy nonsense that falls out of his mouth with in any detail; consider the examples mentioned in this entry as a collection of snapshots from Hernandez’s wide-ranging and variegated derangements. But although there are many like him, and hard to keep track, he does seem to be one of the more central one in contemporary boogaloo and fundie-Christian-nationalist-nihilist-‘burn-it-all-down’ movements.

 

#3008: Patricia Herman

Patricia Herman is a behavioral scientist at the RAND corporation and Co-Director of the RAND Research Across Complementary and Integrative Health Institutions (REACH) Center. She is also a “licensed naturopathic doctor”, which makes her qualified for an entry here by default – even though she might immediately come across as one of the less chaotically delusional figures in naturopathy (the comparison class is … colorful), something that ultimately probably makes her more dangerous than some of her colleagues.

 

Herman is a pusher of the de facto CAM scam-by-smoke-and-mirrors known as non-pharmacological interventions, and has, most notably, published papers e.g. on the ‘cost-effectiveness’ of alternative medicine approaches, thus making her a figure of some importance in the grand strategy of trying to provide a sheen of legitimacy to the nonsense practices falling under the heading ‘complementary and alternative medicine’. Her contributions to the study of the economics of CAM include e.g. a paper attempting to do something close to a systematic review by applying economic analysis quality checklists to a number of what the authors deemed “high-quality” studies of alternative treatments to conclude, of course, that there seemed to be a number of “highly cost-effective, and even cost saving,” such therapies. And that, of course, is entirely what you’d expect them to find given the standards they use for “high-quality”. In reality, given that the treatments in question don’t offer meaningful clinical benefits, any cost-effectiveness analysis is meaningless, making their effort an instance of tooth-fairy science. Her paper “The Problematic Economics of Integrative Oncology” is discussed here (yes, she does recognize that the costs of woo are high but fails magnificently to draw the proper conclusions from that recognition).

 

Diagnosis: Yes, she does come across as a Very Serious Person on the issue of complementary and alternative medicine. And no, you shouldn’t listen to what she has to say.

 

Hat-tip: Science-based medicine

 

#3007: William James Herath

Nothing says ‘paradigm-shattering discovery’ like a book on a scientific topic published by a vanity publisher from an author with no background in the relevant scientific field. There are plenty of these. William James Herath’s WHAT IS EVOLUTION?, published by something called ‘Createspace’, purports to show “how evolution is undefined, unscientific, and unlawful” and outline “why evolution is, in fact, illegal and unfit for the public classroom”, and though we haven’t bothered to actually look at its contents we nevertheless feel confindent about giving the author an entry here. Apparently, Herath presented some of his main findings at the Pensacola Truth Conference in 2018, where he ostensibly demonstrated “how to scientifically and legally shut down the claims of evolution, along with explaining destructive aspects of the false theology of God using evolution to create, aka theistic evolution,” accompanied by “a 4-week discussion guide designed to help youth pastors open a conversation addressing the ‘Faith Cavity’ of biological evolution” entitled HOW DID WE GET HERE?. He also shared “tips, tricks, stories, and secret weapons from his youth pastor experiences.”

 

Apparently, the book shows that teaching evolution in public schools is illegal because “it is only a theory” and because “there is no accepted definition of what evolution actually means”. On reading the latter, we immediately suspected that Herath – given his demonstrated level of scientific wherewithal – had looked at a couple of dictionaries and found discrepancies. And indeed, that’s precisely what he did: “The National Academy of Sciences also claims evolution to be a fact and offers three definitions of the term, and all of which conflict with Webster’s definition of evolution.”

 

According to his bio, Herath is an apologetic speaker with the Ratio Christi Speakers Bureau and has served on the National Vineyard Church Curriculum Team. He is also a filmmaker, though we haven’t had the opportunity to delve into his cinematic oeuvre. Moreover, “in addition to being an author/speaker, Herath has appeared in over forty national television commercials.” So there.

 

Now, Herath modestly admits – in the Kickstarter campaign he used to launch his book project – that “I am not the most qualified person to write this book, just being honest”, but “Like atheist and New York Times Bestselling Author Richard Dawkins not being the most qualified person to to write The God Delusion, I am equally unqualified to write a book about the constitutionality of evolution”. At least there is an inimitable personal style to his prose.

 

Diagnosis: Writing in 2026, his discoveries hasn’t yet quite managed to turn the wheels of science, but that’s presumably because it takes a while for scientists to become aware of what hit them when the impact is as earth-shattering as Herath’s.

 

#3006: Jami Hepworth

Jami Hepworth is not herself an MD but she is, apparently, the wife of an MD. Hepworth therefore does her antivaccine activism under the moniker “Skeptical Doctor’s Wife”. Whatever skills and knowledge of medicine her husband had access to in medical school has not been transferred to her by osmosis; indeed, she readily admits that her “increasingly unorthodox views according to the Western medicine paradigm have presented a bit of a rocky road for us”.

 

So Hepworth parrots all the standard anti-vaccine tropes, and although she claims to be “steeped in knowledge of the most relevant peer-reviewed literature”, she was apparently unaware that vaccines do not contain cell lines derived from aborted babies (which is, of course, a stock piece of intentional deception widely regurgitated on anti-vaccine sites). A perhaps more telling self-ascription of competence is her claim to also be steeped in “the gaps in the story about vaccines as shared by official sources” – yes, the stuff they don’t want you to know about. Like all anti-vaccine activists, Hepworth is more than anything else a conspiracy theorist.

 

Hepworth’s actual credentials consist of a BA in German literature from Brigham Young University, something she informed the public about when testifying against Nevada bill AB123, which was designed enhance the data collection process and centralize immunization information for rapid use during an outbreak. During the testimony, Hepworth referred to vaccination as an “example of medical cannibalism” and also stated that, over time, the cell lines actually used to grow viruses to make some vaccines “wane” (Hepworth avoids mentioning what mechanism she thinks is in play), meaning that vaccine manufacturers repeatedly “have to get new cell lines” (yes, it’s the vaccine manufacturers are engaged in the purchase and sale of abortion conspiracy theory because of course it is – this is the kind of person we’re dealing with here). She also, of course, asserted that vaccines are not tested against saline controls, because that’s what she has decided to believe; damn the facts and damn understand how vaccines or scientific testing works.

 

But yeah, it’s all there. Hepworth denies that herd immunity is real, because she confuses waning immunity from pertussis vaccination with lack of herd immunity, and she denies that anyone in developed countries dies of the diseases that wevaccinate against. And so on.

 

Diagnosis: In fairness, Hepworth is ultimately a minor figure – a conspiracy theorist with a facebook page where she complains about how ‘uncivil’ pro-vaccine advocates are because they refute her nonsense and advocate for vaccines. But she did try to get attention, so we’ll oblige her.

 

Hat-tip: Respectful insolence

 

#3005: Tyler Henry

A.k.a.  Tyler Henry Koelewyn – the full name he used when he was working as a clairvoyant for a new-age shop in California before being picked up by TV.

 

We suppose Greg Hendrix is too minor, and the stories of his antics too old (though one wonders what he’s up to these days), even for us. Tyler Henry, however, is not a minor figure. Tyler Henry is a major celebrity and heir-apparent to charlatans and delusional dingbats like Sylvia Browne and John Edward. Henry is a self-declared ‘clairvoyant’ and ‘medical intuitive’ (“Tyler can often physically sense the prior medical conditions of the spirits he is attempting to communicate with”), and a reality show personality who has appeared in in reality show series like Hollywood Medium with Tyler Henry and Life After Death with Tyler Henry, after getting his breakthrough following a 2015 appearance on Keeping Up with the Kardashians, where he gave a reading to one of the Kardashian sisters. He has subsequently gone on to give multiple readings to a variety of celebrities, including Megan Fox and Kristin Cavallari – of course, to make his show work, Henry usually has to claim that he doesn’t know who the celebrity he is talking to is so that they can be impressed when he relates information about them that is readily available via Google (yes, that’s the level of silly we’re talking about) – the most famous one being perhaps his reading with La Toya Jackson, in which he claimed to contact Michael Jackson (he didn’t), and the Alan Thicke affair, on which Henry largely bases his claims of being a ‘medical intuitive’. He has also published some books (Between Two Worlds: Lessons from the Other Side and Here & Hereafter: How Wisdom from the Departed Can Transform Your Life Now; yes, he mixes his psychic bullshit with bullshit selfhelp bullshit – what did you think?).

 

Henry, who needless to say has no more psychic powers than a bathtub, uses a mix of deceptive cold reading and hot reading techniques to get his results, which tends to produce the usual responses among the silly-of-mind partially in virtue of the Forer effect and partially because mundane predictions that an average 10-year-old could have made or providing information that’s readily available through Google (or, usually, nothing of substance whatsoever) sound impressive to idiots (like Jeryl Lippe of lifeandstylemag) when it is coming from a celebrity.

 

But although Tyler Henry and his antics may immediately strike you as light and laughable entertainment, there is a serious and tragic side to it. Tyler Henry is a grief vampire, a self-proclaimed psychic medium (one of many) who ‘prey upon the loved ones of those who have recently died [to] exploit the grieving for their own monetary gain’; and such actions are not only exploitative but risk causing significant harm to people in already difficult situations. And Henry isn’t only claiming to contact long-ago grandmothers but to put grieving relatives in touch with victims of suicide. This is, needless to say, not a good idea. Henry’s efforts has of course been promoted by Dr. Phil, but then Dr. Phil is himself a dangerous loon. Fortunately, good people are paying attention as well.

 

There is decent coverage of Henry and his ilk here.

 

Diagnosis: No, it’s not really funny even though it’s hard not to laugh. Henry himself can laugh, too, of course – all the way to the bank – for Henry is, regardless of whether he himself genuinely believes he has the abilities he claims to have or not (he probably does believe so), a fraud and a dipshit.