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American Institute for Technology
& Science Education Newsletter
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January, 2012
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Greetings!
 First of all, THANK YOU to all who participated in our survey! The results were so encouraging, with 89% of you saying that our newsletters are relevant, 86% saying that they are the right length, and 71% reporting that they like getting them monthly. So does anything need to change? Of course. Our goal is to always be improving.
So, you will see that in response to some of your constructive criticism (and it was all constructive), the typeface on this newsletter is larger. Next month we will only give you the first paragraph of each article and link the rest to our website. This will make it easier for bloggers and the rest of you to point others to any articles of interest, but does require Mario Lopez (the webmaster, not the movie star), to do some work on our website! You can follow our progress at the new "Articles" page. Finally, some of you commented on the format of the newsletters--unfortunately a lot of that depends on the computer you are using to view the newsletter. We are hoping that the other changes will help with this issue.
Next, thanks for all the great ideas on possible content. In the next year we will be much more focused on getting input from all of our consortium members (several are featured below), thus expanding the range of topics discussed. To facilitate this process, we are seeking an AITSE Communications Officer who could volunteer four hours per week sorting through the article requests and possibilities and bringing them to the attention of the individual Consortium members who are experts in the relevant disciplines. If you are interested in the position, please email.
In this vein, I am also very grateful to those of you who send me interesting articles by Email, Facebook, and Twitter. It is encouraging to see how together we can make a difference and raise awareness of the need for integrity in science.
Finally, some of you commented that you do not have time to read the entire newsletter. So, we have made the articles "skim-friendly" by bolding the important points. In addition, let me encourage you to "like" us on Facebook to receive frequent science updates in a shorter (much shorter) format on your Facebook page. Or, if you rather, you can get the same information in manageable bites by following me on Twitter or Linked in.
AITSE: Your one stop source for information about integrity in science, cheating, nutrition, pharmaceutics, technology, evolution, alternative medicine, and other hot button issues in science. |
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 Chiropractic Therapy
Helpful or Harmful?
Americans spend more than $34 billion per year on alternative medicine therapies, with approximately 5.9 billion of that being spent on chiropractic therapy. Many people swear chiropractic treatment helped them (even getting pregnant!), others lament about how it has harmed them, and still others are pretty ambivalent. What is the truth? AITSE decided to investigate, starting with a peer-reviewed article with 208 references. Since many chiropractors earn more than physicians and expansion of chiropractic practice is in their interest, some of their publications may not be completely balanced. In fact, according to E. Ernst, MD, PhD, FRCP, the "chiropractic research literature" is "overtly biased," being focused on "aggressive marketing" and proving efficacy. Therefore, we have taken information both from publications by practitioners of chiropractic and from peer-reviewed publications by medical doctors. So, what is chiropractic? Founded in 1890, chiropractic was originally based on the pseudoscientific idea that the body heals itself through "innate intelligence," a vital force or the god within each person that regulates all bodily function. According to chiropractic's founder, chiropractic is a type of religion. Current practitioners would like to distance themselves from the "innate" concept, but still speak of vertebral subluxations, which "block the flow of the innate." Other terms used for these subluxations are vertebral blockages, spinal lesions, or spinal stenosis. The purpose of chiropractic manipulations, then, is to correct vertebral subluxations, thereby improving health.
Since the idea that subluxation causes disease has no actual basis in science, diagnosis of them or the diseases they are said to cause can be problematic. Some chiropractors resort to applied kinesiology, a pseudoscientific technique that seeks to discover medical issues by subjectively measuring muscle strength. Others use blood and urine analyses and 96% of American chiropractors use X-rays. Interestingly, Dr. Scott Haldeman
states that "minor misalignments of vertebrae are normal and not necessarily a sign of trouble," and the National Association of Chiropractic Medicine seems to agree when they say that most people have these irregularities.
Nonetheless, chiropractors continue to treat a variety of medical ailments, including respiratory illnesses, digestive problems, skin disease, reproductive system malfunctions, infections, hypertension, urinary problems, colic, and bedwetting, to name just a few, through spinal adjustment to relieve vertebral subluxations. Remind anyone of snake oil? Their treatments may include massage, traction, electrotherapy, and of course cervical or lumbar spinal manipulations or adjustment, whether by hand or by machine. Many chiropractors will also "prescribe" use of homeopathic remedies, which are pharmacologic substances that are diluted until only diluent is left.
Interestingly, both according to conventional medicine and to one of their own, chiropractic is ineffective in treatment of anything other than musculoskeletal problems. But, is it effective there? Thirty-four leading chiropractors speculated that at least 50% of the pain-relief benefit their patients experience is probably due to the placebo effect. Since chiropractors routinely "pop" the back, it is also likely that there is a release of endorphins. This would result in temporary relief of pain. Moreover, even with lower back pain, where chiropractic therapy should be at its most helpful, it is only as effective as conventional therapies. But it is much riskier.
Of course, those who suffer with chronic pain will understand that, when desperate, we are willing to try anything. So, besides the obvious financial investment, what are the drawbacks of chiropractic therapy? First, approximately 50% of patients experience mild to moderate adverse effects after "adjustments" are performed. These include pain, headache, and fatigue, and are hardly surprising when one considers that spinal manipulations may stretch the tissues beyond their physiologic limit. More seriously, spinal manipulations can cause serious and even fatal vascular accidents (tearing of major blood vessels), bone fracture, and permanent neurological injury. More information can be found in Table 5 of Dr. Ernst's paper.
There are also indirect problems with chiropractic. Consultation of a chiropractor instead of a primary care physician can lead to "delayed or missed diagnoses." The possible consequences of taking a 2 week old infant with a fever or an elderly person who is experiencing unexplained changes in weight, possibly indicating cancer or heart disease, to a chiropractor instead of a licensed physician do not bear thinking about.
Finally, much has been written about the radiation risks in the use of X-rays, often repeatedly, in chiropractic diagnosis and treatment. Amazingly, just one lumbar series will expose the reproductive organs to more radiation than over 2000 chest X-rays over a period of six years! And, since much disease is not effectively diagnosed through X-rays, the only purpose of the X-rays are to convince the patient that chiropractic treatment is necessary and useful. Apparently, full spine radiography is more likely to cause bone cancer than to detect it. Obviously, there are ethical problems with the use of X-rays by chiropractors.
Having said all this, there will still be people who opt to seek help from a chiropractor. If you are one of those, please do be aware that the chiropractic literature itself lists several conditions as absolute contraindications for chiropractic treatment. These include osteoporosis, bone fractures, tumors, local infections, and bleeding disorders, to name a few. Then, if you are still determined to go, let us recommend that you at least read this article by a chiropractor before you do. The purpose of AITSE is to provide the public with the information necessary to make a good decision. What you do with it is up to you.  |
 Video by AITSE Consortium Member Dr. Robert Marks
Dr. Robert Marks, an electrical and computer engineer with over 250 publications, joined the AITSE consortium in 2011, after encouraging AITSE to form and incorporate way back in 2008. To find out more about this highly educated scientist, just watch what he teaches. |
 Sweeteners Harmless, Poison, or Fattening?
We've heard about the dangers of sugar, whether it comes as granulated cane sugar, the dreaded high fructose corn syrup, or "natural" honey. All of these high calorie sweeteners will cause spikes in blood sugar and insulin secretion, with the associated energy high and subsequent crash. Over consumption can lead to the obesity-related illnesses of which we are all becoming aware: heart disease, Type II diabetes, stroke, and more (See metabolic syndrome).
But, we like sweet stuff! So, how can we, as the saying goes, have our cake and eat it? Many have turned to artificial sweeteners like sucralose (Splenda), saccharin (SweetnLow), aspartame (Equal) or its derivative neotame (Nutrasweet), and the latest, Truvia. These chemicals can now be found in diet drinks, baby foods, diet ice creams, diet candy, and even Lean Pockets. They are said to be safe (and Truvia is even touted as natural), but do they help you lose weight?
According to a paper in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine, no. In fact, they report that epidemiological data show a "positive correlation between artificial sweetener use and weight gain." Controlled studies indicate that this increase in weight is not because the artificial sweeteners are in themselves fattening, but because those using artificial sweeteners eat more.
Some have speculated that this is because dieters over-compensate for the calories they think they "save" by using artificial sweeteners. How many of us have ordered a Big Mac meal with a diet Coke?
But Dr. Yang is suggesting that there is a more insidious mechanism at work. It is known that, in humans, sweet taste enhances appetite. However, because we are "wired" for a balance between energy consumption and expenditure, the postingestive effects of eating real sugar reduce subsequent enjoyment of sugar--we lose our appetite. Artificial sweeteners do not trigger these natural energy balance mechanisms simply because they do not make us "full." In fact, it has been hypothesized that consumption of these noncaloric and extremely sweet substances desensitizes us to our natural "stop" signals, so we eat even when not hungry and crave increasing amounts of sweet flavor. So, we eat more.
Take home message? Artificial sweeteners may be safe, or so we are told, but they do not help reduce weight. So why use them?  |
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Eyes and Intelligent Design 
with input from Dr. Curt Deckert
According to an article written by AITSE Consortium member Dr Curt Deckert, our eyes out-perform even the "Hasselblad H4D-200MS, a 200 megapixel camera designed for use in high-end commercial photography studios," and they do it in 3-D! Moreover, our retinas each contain about 100 megapixels in multiple layers of sensor cells that have "millions of pathways that allow information to be partially processed on the way to the brain."
Therefore, up until now, treatment of those rendered blind by retinitis pigmentosa, a disease that kills the retinal cells that convert light into electrical signals, has been more than we are capable of. Retina Implant AG took on the challenge. And, they are making headway, having invented a retinal implant consisting of a "three-by-three-millimeter microelectronic chip containing about 1,500 light-sensitive photodiodes, amplifiers and electrodes..." This has given nine of ten patients "a narrow field of vision" in black and white--basically they can distinguish light sources and and "lighted objects against dark backgrounds." According to the company's director, they are now working on expanding the field of black and white vision. However, giving patients the ability to see in color is a long way off and there was no mention of the ability to see 3-D.
Note that there were obvious and massive amounts of intelligent design that have had to go into making the Retina Implant, which gives patients rudimentary vision. But, Darwinists often point to the suboptimal design of the eye as evidence against intelligent design. They choose rather to believe that the amazing functional complexity of the eye arose not once, but many separate times, as a result of random mutations followed by natural selection.
Makes a person think that what was reported by a group at Ohio State University is true: "Belief in evolution boils down to a gut feeling." But, good science is based on impartial evaluation of evidence, not mere consensus.
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Quote of the Month 
Bunk Science
"The debate about free will, long the purview of philosophers alone, has been given new life by scientists, especially neuroscientists studying how the brain works. And what they're finding supports the idea that free will is a complete illusion."
This scientific bunk was written by Jerry Coyne and published in USA Today. According to the article, "everything that you say, or do, must come down to molecules and physics." Sez who? So, because we understand a little about molecules and physics and we learn science by discovering the laws that govern the behavior of matter and energy, that is all there is?
This conclusion is premature at best. After all, physicists are still speculating about the nature of the atom and subatomic particles, biologists are still trying to figure out how emergent properties work, and neurologists are still discussing what consciousness is.
Beware of those who make grandiose claims. Check the AITSE bunk detecting principles.
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Fraud What to Do About it?
The president of a busines working with the defense and intelligence community recently drew AITSE's attention to an article that was written for those in business. But, since it gives advice on how to handle fraud, it also has applicability to science, technology and medicine. The article advises us to:
1. Pay attention. That is one of the functions of AITSE: to highlight issues of integrity in science, to enable balanced evaluation of scientific claims and to empower the public to notice scientific bunk.
2. Stem the tide. Through AITSE's almost  daily Facebook updates (photo of the page on the right), we are doing our part in spreading the word about science scams. By "liking" our page, you can both get daily updates and help us spread the word.
3. Set the stage. Here the article encourages employers to let employees know that reports of wrongdoing will be welcomed. In the same way, AITSE is grateful to those of you who send relevant articles our way.
4. Root out the cause. In our case, this is a lack of scientific integrity. That is, students are not doing their own work, teachers are not teaching the whole story, and scientists are not allowed to follow the evidence where it leads.
5. Speed it up. The article says that a fraud episode takes an average of four years to investigate. This sounds a lot like the amount of time that it takes the FDA to sound a warning about medications that have been found to be dangerous. AITSE is doing its part in spreading the word about infractions in integrity in science, thereby doing our part in speeding up the process.
6. Move it. The advice here is to fire the ones who engage in the dishonesty, not the ones who report them! We could ask AITSE Consortium member Dr. Jim Enstrom for more information about that.
7. Gather data. The article encourages employees to watch for the misdeeds of others. Frankly, we all make mistakes, so instead of viewing this as spying, let's call it teamwork.
8. Dig deep. Firms are encouraged to "go beyond dealing with the fraudster." In science, this could mean educating employees about the fact that scientific dishonesty ultimately ends up costing the company more than is gained by covering mistakes; in medicine, this will include things like standing up for the patient, even when the insurance company is demanding one spends 10 minutes or less per appointment; in education, this may mean teaching on the importance of integrity in science. AITSE is currently planning a conference where a team of experts will be strategizing on how to better achieve just this.
Good science is based on evaluation of evidence, not political, finanical or even religious expediency.
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 Get to Know Dr. Dembski Interview of an AITSE Consortium Member
"Caroline, I can tell you have the fire in your belly. Follow that passion and I will support you all the way." This is what Dr. Bill Dembski, now a member of the AITSE Consortium, said to Dr. Crocker in the summer of 2008. This was soon followed by encouragement from several other leading scientists and professionals. AITSE incorporated in 2009, gained nonprofit status in 2010, and added a consortium of scientists, physicians, and engineers in 2011. We now have a monthly newsletter (as you know), have published numerous on line and magazine articles, have given talks in many and various venues including the United States Capitol building, and have a robust social media presence. One might think that Dr. Dembski has a lot to answer for.
So, this is your opportunity to get to know him better. Dr. Dembski gave a lengthy interview at the Best Schools website. We will leave you to read the entire article for yourselves, but will give you this taster,
"what decided me against Darwinism wasn't its unacceptability to any preferred construal of Christianity. It was this.
We all have intuitions about what's within the reach of chance and what isn't. If I get out a fair coin and flip it three times, I might witness three heads in a row, no problem. I might even flip 10 heads in a row if given an hour or two to toss the coin. But getting 100, to say nothing of 1,000, heads in a row by chance seems completely absurd.
Well, when I was reading about the origin of life (this was in 1980), it seemed to me utterly ridiculous that chemistry left to its own devices could pull off this feat of forming first life. Once naturalism lost its hold on me with regard to the origin of life, skepticism of Darwinism vis-à-vis the subsequent history of life followed. Indeed, without naturalism to prop up Darwinism, the evidence for this unguided form of evolution is underwhelming, to say the least."
With a PhD in math and another in philosophy, Dr. Dembski's views are worth considering.
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In closing, as always, thank you for your past gifts and support. It is a fact that AITSE cannot function in its efforts to educate to increase scientific understanding and integrity without contributions. Please consider helping us with a special donation or a commitment to give on a monthly basis. Please make checks payable to AITSE and send them to PO Box 15938, Newport Beach, CA 92659. Alternatively, you can donate on line through PayPal or credit card.
Sincerely, Caroline Crocker
American Institute for Technology and Science Education |
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