#2064: Preston Noell III and the TFP

Preston Noell III is the Chicago bureau director the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, Property (TFP) –  a Catholic extremist, fundamentalist, pseudo-military, anti-gay group linked to Brazilian neo-fascists; the American branch is one of many autonomous national TFPs that together claim to form “the world’s largest anticommunist and antisocialist network of Catholic inspiration”, a “counter-revolution” to combat “The Protestant ‘Pseudo-Reformation’ and its rejection of religious authority and inequality,” the “‘Enlightenment’” and “its rejection of temporal authority, in particular the King and nobility”, any “rejection of economic inequality”, as well as communism’s attempts “to eradicate the Church and Christian civilization while […] implementing neo-paganism” (they seem to have read Marx somewhat cursorily). The American TFP accordingly campaigns for gun rights, capitalism, war and theocracy, but as a group it is perhaps even better defined by the long list of things they oppose, including “contraception, abortion, euthanasia, human cloning, the social acceptance of homosexual practice, anti-discrimination laws” of the kind “that give homosexuals a privileged status” [i.e. that actually protects them from discrimination], “homosexual adoption; domestic partnerships, civil unions, and same-sex ‘marriage’, transgenderism,” as well as “homosexual films, theater plays [and] events;” moreover “pro-homosexual clubs on Catholic college campuses [apparently a particularly sore point], public blasphemy, nudism, socialist childcare, socialist healthcare, socialist allocation of federal waters,” and anything that smacks of communism according to how they define communism, which seems to be more or less as whatever they don’t fancy at any particular point for whatever reason. Moreover, they are opposed to “progressivism, liberation theology, […] the enactment of State laws forcing clergy to violate the seal of Confession in cases of child abuse [militant Catholics, remember], […] the ecological movement, pacifism, imprudent [any, really] nuclear disarmament and the Occupy Wall Street movement.” You cannot really parody a group like this. And yes, its arguments against gay marriage are the common ones: gay marriage is an attack on Christianity, “an unprecedented assault on the First Amendment” (an Amendment they explicitly don’t support themselves anyways, as spelled out in the above list), is extremely intolerant (therefore homosexuality should be banned), and poisons “the soul of America”. The arguments are light on the hows, beyond theological handwaving and red-baiting.

The TFP is possibly most famous for Noell’s America Needs Fatima campaign, which apparently visits private homes with a four-foot statue of Mary, opposes all the stuff mentioned above, and focuses in particular on protesting movies, shows and art Noell doesn’t like, including (a small sample) The Da Vinci Code, The Crime of Father Amaro, Dogma, Jerry Springer: The Opera and the A Fire in My Belly art show.

Diagnosis: Profoundly silly and rather scary at the same time. A bit like Pennywise. In all manner of respects, really. 

#2063: Wade Nobles

Wade W. Nobles is professor emeritus in the Department of Africana Studies at San Francisco State University, and a pioneer of the African-American psychology movement. Now, Nobles has indeed made some serious and notable contributions to research. But Nobles is also a promoter of some baffling pseudoscience and pseudohistory, including the magic melanin theory. According to Nobles, white people stopped evolving with the development of the central nervous system (CNS), whereas black people continued to evolve an essential melanic system (EMS). Accordingly, Nobles proposed, in his book Seeking the Sakhu: Foundational Writings for an African Psychology (he appears to reject any distinction between his roles as a psychologist, as a spiritual healer and as a prophet), an “equation”, CNS + EMS = HB, where “HB” is short for “human being”. So yes: white people are not fully human, because they are deprived of humanity-defining melanin: “That the central nervous system combined with the essential melanic system is what makes you human. That in fact, to be human is to be black” (and no: people with albinism need not apply for the category of being fully humaneither.) Together with pseudoscientists like Hunter Adams, Leonard Jeffries and Frances Cress Welsing, Nobles apparently thinks that such nonsense should pass as educational material for African-American kids. One can probably imagine some possible consequences of going down this road.

Diagnosis: Yes, as a response to racist IQ-“research” this kind of stuff is eminently understandable. It is no less dumb for that. 

#2062: Art Nitz

Yes, that list again. The Discovery Institute’s petition A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is, if the purpose really was to showcase the scientific dissent for Darwinism, a pretty self-undermining affair, something that is splendidly illustrated by this effort. Anything that could walk or crawl apparently qualified as a signatory as long as it had a PhD, and preciously few of the signatories would qualify as working scientistsby any stretch of the imagination, and even fewer have any background in a field remotely relevant to the topic of the petition. 

A typical example is Art Nitz. Nitz has a Ph.D. in Anatomy & Neurobiology, University of Kentucky, and is currently apparently a Professor of Physical Therapy at the same institution with some publications on sports medicine to his name – nothing to do with biology, much less evolution. But Nitz is also chairman of the Kentucky Family Foundation (related to this group?) and president of the Frankfort Alliance Church Of The Christian And Missionary Alliance, Inc, and has a side job as speaker giving creationist talks at various venues – completely outside his area of expertise, of course, and his rejection of the theory of evolution is equally obviously not founded on scientific grounds. So it goes.

Diagnosis: Fundie denialism. Entirely unsurprising, and yet so ridiculous. 

#2061: Sandy Nichols

Sandy Nichols is an alleged alien abductee and Founder and President of the Alien Research Group (ARG) (website here), a Tennessee organization ostensibly created “for the study of alien abductions” but that really just works to help alleged abductees get their stories out. The ARG laments that people tend to limit their beliefs to “only those things that can be detected by our five senses or confirmed in a scientific laboratory,” and considers itself (or himself – it’s probably just Nichols) to be a group working in the spirit of Galileo by disregarding narrow-minded scienceand mathematicsin its investigation of alien activities and abductions. Nichols himself is an abductee whose memories of alien abductions “resurfaced” later in life, as detailed in his self-published book Different Child. 

Apparently the ARG doesn’t limit itself (himself) to UFOs and alien abductions, but do “extensive research” (they keep using the word “research”, but with a strange and new meaning) into the “paranormal realm” related to “ghosts, ESP, poltergeist activity, life after death experiences, astrology, dimensional beings, time shifts and time travel and spiritual enlightenment to name just a few.” The ARG “welcomes submission stories, strange photos, drawings, etc dealing with unusual phenomena,” which strongly suggests that what they are doing is not research (hypothesis testing) but attempting to judiciously select evidence that confirms what they have already convinced themselves is true.

The website posts include (in addition to “How Can I Receive the Best Auto Insurance in Maryland”) posts about mothman sightings in Tennessee, orbs, telepathic contact with aliens and an incoherent ramble (possibly) about alien viruses. Apparently Nichols himself is the father of alien-human hybrid children.

Diagnosis: One of many such websites littering the internet, and Nichols’s is overall a rather toned-down, friendly and boring example. That the nonsense is common doesn’t make it any less nonsensical, however.

#2060: Diem T. Nguyen

Diem T. Nguyen is a chiropractor, “functional wellness practitioner” and conspiracy theorist who runs something called the NorCal Natural Integrative HealthCare (oh, yes: both natural and integrative, since neither word means anything in this context, but are good dog whistles for her intended audiences). According to Nguyen, America’s “Medical Monopoly” is actively promoting diabetes as some sort of conspiracy, but fortunately Nguyen is there to help you – she even offers “free seminars” for diabetic patients. The treatments she offers, however, are about as free as they are effective; an unsatisfied customer claims Nguyen charged her $8,500 for a six-month supply of useless supplements, for instance.

In more detail, Nguyen promotes the idea that type 2 diabetes is an “insulin- and leptin signaling disease” – it is not – and that  supplements, detox treatments and various nonsense such as spinal decompression are effective means to reverse and prevent it. This is, of course, not the case.

As for the conspiracy telling you that her nonsense is nonsense: According to Nguyen, science-based medicine (a.k.a the “medical monopoly”) doesn’t want to cure you but rather “to treat your symptoms until you die” because “that’s where the money is – dependent patients for life” (which is rather easily demonstrably false). How Big Medicine deals with Big Insurance, which has opposite interests – or how the conspiracy is supposed to work in other countries with government-run and government-paid-for healthcare – is left vague (Nguyen’s target group is probably those who don’t think about such issues anyways); Nguyen’s handwaves – “[p]owerful lobbies and huge corporate interests shape the insurance model of traditional medicine,” and these interests “always center on profit, control of the population through government regulation, and long-term self-survival” – do, in a rather striking manner, exactly not address the “how” and “why” questions, but that’s what she’s got. According to Nguyen this is nevertheless why science-based medicine only treats symptoms of disease (with “stress-creating drugs”), not the disease itself, and doesn’t want you to know about the drugless, natural approaches that help you achieve “balance” and “improved well-being”. How supplements, detox therapies and spinal decompression became “natural” is anyone’s guess, but again: “natural” means exactly what Nguyen wants it to mean in this context.

Apparently Nguyen also offers treatments for overweight, thyroid problems and autoimmune disorders. According to Nguyen, “[i]t is estimated that nearly 70% of all Americans suffer from some form of autoimmune disorder, mostly undiagnosed,” with “it” in this context being Nguyen’s own ass. In reality, between 5% and 8% of Americans have one of the more than 80 identified autoimmune disorders, but we suspect that Nguyen will be able to give you a diagnosis that she will, coincidentally, have an expensive treatment for no matter what your doctor says.

Diagnosis: Spam. This is spam. Pushed by a disgusting excuse for a human being who does by all ethical measures appear to be practicing medicine without a license for those who may be interested in such issues.

Hat-tip: Skepdic

#2059: Troy Newman

Yeah: that Troy Newman. Troy Edward Newman-Mariotti is the president of Operation Rescue and a board member of The Center for Medical Progress, which has nothing to do with medical progress. (The Center was, for instance, behind the phony Planned Parenthood “sting” videos.) He is also the author of Their Blood Cries Out, in which he compares George Tiller to Adolf Hitler (a signed copy of the book was among Scott Roeder’s possessions), likens abortion to “sacrifice to demons” (this is apparently not only a simile) and argues that doctors who perform abortions should be executed by the government “in order to expunge bloodguilt from the land and people”. It is sometimes a bit unclear whether he has actually read his book himself.

Newman, who compares his fight against Planned Parenthood to WWII and anti-abortion demonstrations to abolitionists working in the Underground Railroad, apparently thinks that women’s health centers that offer family planning are filthy, “demonic” places where “the abortionist takes every drop of money that he can get” to feed his many addictions, including drugs, alcohol, sex and gambling, since if you disagree with someone they’re obviously demons. Dr. Tiller, for instance, was according to the deranged mind of Troy Newman a raging alcoholic, drug addict and sexist, who only performed abortions to satisfy his addictions. Apparently the pro-choice movement is also responsible for NSA spying, in one of the flimsiest connections ever drawn in the history of argumentation (American Life League’s Jim Sedlak has actually tried to make a similar connection, which tells you a bit about the minds of these people and nothing about any putative connection between the pro-choice movement and NSA spying). You can, if you wish, read more about Newman’s anti-abortion activities here. More recently, Operation Rescue has branched out into more general Alex Jones-style conspiracy mongering, however, concerning not only Planned Parehthood but a wide variety of stuff – partially, it seems, under the influence of its domestic terrorist and house-conspiracy theorist Cheryl Sullenger.

Newman is also firmly opposed to marriage equality, and has claimed that the very existence of LGBT communities poses a threat to the United States. For instance, according to Newman the late 2000s recession and extreme weather events of the same time were brought upon by God as retributive punishment for legal abortion and tolerance for LGBT people. As Newman sees things, the American society has made it “too easy” to be LGBT, and God will accordingly actively harm and pass judgment on persons who show tolerance and acceptance of gay people to reestablish natural balance.

With his group Pro-Life Nation, a division of Operation Rescue, Newman was also part of a 2012 effort to “encircle” the Supreme Court  while “praying that Obamacare is Declared Unconstitutional.” According to Newman, people should rely on God, not government, to cover their medical costs. In 2013, he therefore suggested that “civil disobedience” may be “the only solution for an increasingly totalitarian state.” Part of the reason Obama’s presidency was totalitarian is because it looked, at one point, like he would be in a position to appoint Justice Scalia’s successor on the Supreme Court, which is definitely totalitarian (Operation Rescue also dabbled in conspiracy theories surrounding Scalia’s death). Operation Rescue suggested appointing Roy Moore instead.

For some unfathomable reason, PBS has used Newman to talk about guns in a documentary about gun violence. Newman dutifully parroted NRA talking points. He is also a sometime member of the wingnut Council for National Policy. There’s a decent Troy Newman resource here.

Diagnosis: Completely and utterly deranged.

#2058: Cynthia Nevison

Cynthia Nevison is a climate scientist, and although she is right about climate – as far as we can tell, her efforts support the consensus among experts thoroughly anchored in an enormous body of evidence pointing in the same direction – that doesn’t make her an expert on other areas of science, areas on which she has no relevant expertise but nevertheless opts to disagree with just as firmly established scientific conclusions. Unfortunately, going idiotic denialist about other areas of science tends of course to jeopardize her position of authority, at least in the public eye, on climate change. And it will be used against her, and against climate science in general, by climate change denialists.

So, what’s up? Well, Nevison is also a board member of SafeMinds, an anti-vaccine organization, and has herself pushed some serious antivaccine nonsense. Officially, Nevison’s position is a call for moderation: “In the majority of mainstream articles in newspapers, magazines, and on-line sites, one is either for vaccines or against them. The possibility of a middle ground is not acknowledged,” which is simply the familiar false compromise fallacy. (It’s interesting to see the hoops she’d have to go through to avoid making the same argument with regard to climate change denialism.) Of course, Nevison is really against vaccines, but it sounds rhetorically better to tout herself as the moderate voice. And her arguments for her anti-vaccine position are, of course, the usual combination of non sequiturs, post-hoc fallacies (reminder) and bad science and pseudoscience, with the usual dash of conspiracy theories. For instance, Nevison complains that parents are “mocked” for “for wanting to protect their children from developing these chronic, sometimes debilitating, and often lifelong health conditions” (“[t]he most pressing health problem facing American children today is not measles, but rather the rise in chronic immune system and neurological disorders,” which is true since few people today actually contract measles because of vaccines), which is false but tellingly assumes that there is a link between vaccines and these conditions, which, of course, there isn’t.

Nevison’s position is apparently based on the following five “facts” (for a more thorough discussion of these “facts”, go here):

1. Autism is caused by improper brain synapse formation (true).

2. Empirical data shows autism is on the rise (false: empirical data strongly suggest that the rise in autism diagnoses is a combination of changing criteria and increased awareness.)

3. Autism is caused by environmental triggers but the government continues to spend most of its money searching for the elusive “autism gene” (false: autism is to a large extent genetic, regardless of what denialists claim, and it is interesting that Nevison just assumes that the environmental component must be vaccines without further evidence).

4. The increase in the number of childhood vaccines correlates with the increase in autism (no: see point 2; the increase in autism diagnoses also correlates at least as well with the change in sales of organic food, by the way.) 

5. Asking whether our packed vaccine schedule might be a trigger for autism is a scientifically plausible question that is not equivalent to climate change denial (false: the hypothesis might not have been prima facie stupid, but at present it is as thoroughly refuted as any scientific hypothesis has ever been, and continuing to stick with it is probably even more delusionally denialist than sticking with the claim that climate isn’t changing; Nevison, though, supports her claim by claiming, laughably falsely, that “[e]pidemiology cannot address underlying biological mechanisms” and that there is a conspiracy to cover up research fraud – yup, it’s the CDC “whistleblower” conspiracy (background here)).

Of course, Nevison herself actually tries to compare those who deny that vaccines cause autism with climate change denialism, in what must be close to a world record in tortured reasoning.

Diagnosis: Crazy, hardcore denialist, but it is at least a very good example of how compartmentalization works, when she engages in precisely the same types of denialist gambits about a field in which she has no expertise, that she at the same time lament that people are using against her own field of expertise. The comparison should be telling, but to someone like Nevison it isn’t.

Hat-tip: Respectful insolence.