#501: Timothy Birdsall

No, this is not the famous British poet. This Timothy Birdsall is a naturopath and Vice President of Integrative Medicine for Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA). As a naturopath he is of course in no way involved in actually treating cancer, but he does indeed believe that he is. Naturopathic oncology is an “emerging field” within naturopathy concerned with applying naturopathy to cancer, in much the same way tarot card reading is an “emerging field” in, well, whatever psychics think tarot cards can be used for. They even have their own board certification, just like real oncologists, and put a series of letters after their name, “FABNO”, which stands for "Fellow of the American Board of Naturopathic Oncology." Just like cargo cult sciences are wont to do.

Like all woo-meisters Birdsall doesn’t like science. He claims that he likes science, of course, but he really doesn’t, and one main reason for his inclusion in our Encyclopedia is his hilariously tragic display of this attitude. As a response to research finding that his favored therapies don't work, he wrote an essay “The Problem With Research” particularly concerned with the fact that clinical trial results show, unequivocally, that selenium doesn't help patients with lung cancer, and which included things like this question: “why do therapies which seem to make biological and physiological sense, which have some epidemiologic data to support their use, and which naturopathic physicians (and other alternatively-minded practitioners) have been using for decades (or much longer), seem to fail in double blind, randomized clinical trials?” Well, Tim, there is a very, very obvious answer to that if you knew the first thing about psychological biases and the point of scientifically testing things in the first place.

That’s not Birdsall’s response. His response is “’What's wrong with research?’ A part of me becomes enraged at the reductionistic, allopathic, biomedical model, which breaks things down into components so small that all synergism, all interdependence is stripped away, and then declares those components to be ineffective.” Indeed, and “[m]uch as the homeopaths of 2+ centuries ago created the proving as a way to better understand and utilize their remedies [and just like other dogmas, it hasn’t changed since, regardless of evidence], we must refuse to be limited by the way conventional medicine views health and disease.”

Words fail. How his feeble complaint is supposed to be a response to the fact that controlled studies fail to show an effect of his treatments is of course left unclear. There’s more here.

Diagnosis: Ghastly crackpot, completely insane, and a true danger to civilization and human welfare

#500: Mike Bickle

Mike Bickle, erstwhile member of the Kansas City Prophets (several of whom have later ended up in various adultery and sex-related scandals), is the leader of the International House of Prayer (IHOP-KC), which recruits young people into “radical” devotion to prayer and fasting (i.e. 24 hour praying). As such he oversees several ministries and at least one Bible school, has written a number of books, and has served as the pastor of multiple churches. He’s absolutely insane, but I guess you saw that coming.

Bickle is a hardcore dominionist who believe he is ushering in a new Christian church that will take its rightful place of dominion over every aspect of government and society, and claims to have had several encounters with God, including talking to him on a personal level on several occasions. One assumes that these conversations was what lead him to preach his premillenialism (imminent return of Jesus – but after some unfortunate incidents involving his colleagues Bickle seems to be careful to avoid setting specific dates) and pray for the spiritual salvation of the Jews of Israel. Though he is reluctant to be specific about that one (but he has claimed that the Holocaust was sent by God because the Jews refused Christ), he has been very specific about other things. In a GOD TV video about the End Times, he claimed that Oprah Winfrey will be one of the principal “pastors” of the “Harlot Babylon” (the precursor to the coming of the Antichrist), and although Winfrey is certainly responsible for much shit, this one is kinda taking the criticism in the wrong direction. Bickle predicts that progressive Christians and humanitarian activists will work with Winfrey to create a unified one-world religion based on tolerance (i.e. true tyranny, since tolerance is the same as persecuting Christians), which will ultimately be used by the Antichrist to take global power and introduce demon-worship. Bickle goes on to argue that the End Times will see marriage outlawed due to the legalization of same-sex marriage (a contradiction, but never mind): “Marriage as an institution will be forbidden in parts of the earth, as one of the signs of the times, the gay marriage agenda, which is rooted in the depths of hell, this is not about love, this is deception.” Indeed, “sexual immorality,” according to Bickle, “grants Satan legalized entry to affect our life at various levels,” and homosexuality “opens the door to the demonic realm”  – hence gays and lesbians who don’t “declare war” against their sexual orientation will face “flaming missiles of the Evil One” (like a 1st level wizard, apparently).

Bickle’s – and especially Lou Engle’s – involvement in attempts to murder homosexuals for their sexual orientation is investigated here.

Bickle is famous for being one of the main guys in Rick Perry’s prayer rally, and Perry has refused to denounce him. Cindy Jacobs credits Bickle with prophesizing 9/11.

Diagnosis: An appallingly shitty human being Bickle does his best to make the world a bad place for as many people as possible, and since relatively powerful people lend him a lot of help he has had some success.

#499: Harvey Bialy

Harvey Bialy is an American molecular biologist and AIDS denialist, who claims to represent something called the Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV–AIDS Hypothesis. He has even written a biography of Peter Duesberg. On the other hand, he has written preciously few peer-reviewed papers supporting his denialism. That, of course, indicates a conspiracy or at least heavy bias from the editors of those journals. But Bialy has figured out that opinion pieces and activism may do just as much damage as, you know, scientific investigations.

Insidiously enough, Bialy was also a member of the South African Presidential AIDS Advisory Panel  convened by Thabo Mbeki in 2000. As such Bialy should be held responsible for actual human suffering and death, but probably won’t be. It has been reported that Mbeki’s government was, through denialism and promotion of quackery, responsible for 330,000 deaths.

A useful resource on AIDS denialism can be found here (and the main denialists are biographed here); another one is here. Some of Bialy’s explanations concerning the issue can be found here.

Diagnosis: Raving mad and extremely dangerous – his impact in the West may be relatively negligible (though his brand of denialism is a worry even here), but his impact in Third World countries may have caused extensive harm to real people already, and continues to do so.

#498: Anne Beversdorf

Update: Beversdorf has denied any involvement with the website quantumbalancing.com. Fair enough. Consider this entry and entry on Beversdorf and, separately, on the people behind that website, whoever they might be.

The inclusion of Anne Beversdorf in our Encyclopedia calls for some stage setting. Well, part of it doesn’t. Beversdorf is an astrologer who runs, or is at least involved in, the website quantumbalancing.com, which is – as the name implies – a vortex of absolutely astounding woo. Purchase your water resonator here, and add in various instruments for frequency research (which looks suspiciously like microphone sets you could buy from ToysRus in the eighties) and an Advance Bio-Photon Analyzer (it’s a little hard to determine what a bio-photon is supposed to be, but you kinda get the drift anyways). You can also get a free one-minute healing.

Then you can check out their news section. Monday, October 24, 2011 the latest top headlines were “New World Order Chemtrails & Olgacom connection explained” (it didn’t meet my obviously too rigorous standards of explanation), “Obama Birth Certificate – Positive Proof of Forgery”, “Scientists cure Cancer but nobody notices!”, “Breast Cancer and Parkinson's are cured, yet organizations such as Komen continue to bleed women of their money and energy”, “Directed Energy Weapons – 911 and Beyond”, “The Fluoride Deception – Do You Know What It Is?” and “60 Lab Studies Now Confirm Cancer Link to a Vaccine You Probably Had as a Child.” To complete the insanity, all of the news and products are astoundingly amateurish, showing not the faintest trace of reading comprehension or understanding of scientific methods, evidence, critical thinking, or what an explanation of a phenomenon is – it’s really the quantum woo response to Biblelandstudios.com (as their statement of purpose you’ll find “We believe in the philosophy of Dr. Nikola Tesla”.

It is hard to determine Beversdorf’s full contribution to the site, but at least she has contributed to their ORMUS stuff, and in a way that hilariously underlines the amateurishness of the whole thing. ORMUS, or “Orbitally Rearranged Monoatomic Elements” (yes, the “US” part is unclear) is explained here. It is, in general, cotton farmer David Hudson’s feeble attempt to get prana, chi, manna and the Fountain of Youth into the periodic table by appeal to wishful thinking, delusions, conspiracies, and blatant contradictions and through adding a “third dimension” to the table. Beversdorf, who titles herself “Inner Growth Counselor Western and Vedic Astrologer”, apparently caught on, providing a highly complex, quantum-involving procedure for creating ORMUS at home. Of course, Beversdorf doesn’t have any formal training in physics or chemistry (and no real idea what those sciences really involve), so she seems to have drawn on her background experience and cursory understanding of chemical experiments, and came up with this (“only for research purposes”). I suppose anyone with a background in chemistry and physics could continue her work – but be sure that Beversdorf gets equal credit when the Nobel prizes get awarded.

You can contact her “for more information on Ormus, combining Ormus with essential oils, or for astrological insights into personal growth.”

Diagnosis: One wouldn’t think it would be possible by now, but yes – some loons still manage to surprise.

#497: Tom Bethell

While Kentucky governor Steve Beshear deserves honorable mention for his endorsement of the expansion of the Creation Museum, it may be hard to take it as evidence for lunacy rather than opportunism. No such doubts surround Tom Bethell.

Bethell is a senior editor at American Spectator and “media fellow” at the Hoover Institution (he is also originally British, but appears to work primarily in the US). Bethell is famous for endorsing virtually every brand of wingnut pseudoscience and every denialist position ever invented. That commitment is summed up in his magnum opus, the frighteningly well-known Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (reviewed here), in which he endorses them all: Intelligent design creationism (all the standard canards, including this, and most of these; some Bethell quotes on evolution are discussed here), AIDS denial, including denying that there is anything such as an AIDS epidemic in Africa (it is duly taken down here), that radiation is good for you, stem cell lies, anti-environmentalism – particularly, of course, global warming denialism (some Bethell quotes are discussed here), but also the DDT idiocy (he further popularized the Rachel Carson smear), and claiming that endangered species aren’t really endangered – and cancer quackery. It is truly an astonishing display of all and every crank fallacy and gambit there is, from the Galileo gambit to the Ham hightail, through “science was wrong before”, the “evil liberal science conspiracy”, science is a “secular religion”, and so on. Even the title should give you an idea that Bethell has fundamentally misunderstood something, and a good article on Bethell and fellow denialist John Tierney discussing their failure to distinguish science from politics can be found here (see also this). This one is also pertinent.

Of course, the overall theme of the book is that the the scientific establishment is constantly sidelining “politically incorrect” dissent in order for scientists to boost liberal ideology and take out mountains of grant money. Anyone who has ever known a scientist should see that there is something not entirely coherent about that picture. Bethell’s stance on general science policy is duly discussed here. A comment on his positive review of Expelled, which also highlights some of these problems, can be found here.

Bethell has subsequently published “Questioning Einstein: Is Relativity Necessary”, in which he plumps for relativity denial based mostly on the work of übercrank Petr Beckmann (this one is informative as well). Beckmann’s bullshit is, of course, complete nonsense and should serve merely to establish once and for all that Bethell does not have the faintest clue what he is talking about (as if more proof was needed).

Bethell is currently fellow-traveller with the Discovery Institute, and often publishes on their website. You can read Bethell trying to explain natural selection here. He doesn’t have the faintest clue.

Diagnosis: An absolute moron who takes denialism and confirmation bias to the extreme (as if that needed saying) – he is, in Myers’s words, a “gumbyesque crackpot” – who appears to try to promote wishful thinking as a valid form of inference (a rule that would of course be self-validating). His book remains relatively popular, and it is probably safe to say that Bethell is the epitome of what is wrong with the world.