The Extraordinary Claims Campaign Hits Canada

I wouldn’t oppose alternative medicine all together. Western traditional medicine has taught us that it’s ok to put Lithium, Vicoden, Prozac,& thousands of other drugs into our systems to be “normal”. I know alternative medicine won’t cure a broken leg, but in a stress sense yoga is relaxing and good for me (I by no means worship anything about it…) I think it’s more healthy to promote eastern ways of lifestyle coping than western’s version- neither should be worshiped, I just don’t want to promote putting battery chemicals inside of people’s bodies instead of stretching 🙂

Ooh, purty. They should really consider selling poster versions of that. I’d buy one.

@Kaitlin: It’s great if you are able to relieve stress by doing vigorous stretching. There’s plenty of evidence that exercise is good for you in many ways. But there are legitimate medical reasons for prescribing all those drugs. The fact that you personally get by without them is apropos of nothing. (am I even using that phrase right? 🙂 )

The saying goes: If it worked, they wouldn’t call it “alternative medicine”. They would just call it “medicine.”

“Alternative” is the label that marketers use when they can offer no evidence that their product/technique has any beneficial effect.

I wouldn’t oppose alternative medicine all together. Western traditional medicine has taught us that it’s ok to put Lithium, Vicoden, Prozac,& thousands of other drugs into our systems to be “normal”. I know alternative medicine won’t cure a broken leg, but in a stress sense yoga is relaxing and good for me (I by no means worship anything about it…) I think it’s more healthy to promote eastern ways of lifestyle coping than western’s version- neither should be worshiped, I just don’t want to promote putting battery chemicals inside of people’s bodies instead of stretching 🙂

I wonder if yoga destroys brain cells, so blithely ignorant is this little screed. What the hell is “western traditional medicine”? Not everyone’s body works the same way, and what works for one does little for someone else. The medicine is fine, but it’s the bullshit American system that keeps advertising all kinds of medicine for people who don’t need it. “Ask your doctor if this shit is right for you” is absolute bullshit. You go to the doctor with an ailment, not because you think you need some damn pill. One of the medicines you mention has rid me of panic attacks completely, which is pretty good for “battery chemicals”, don’t you think?

And I highly doubt stretching would have done jack shit to help.

Anybody else kind of disappointed it’s not in alphabetical order?

I just got back from my first visit to Vancouver. In the Midwest where I live, it always seems trendy to joke on Canada as being secondary to the US, but this campaign is ballsy as hell and you’d be hard pressed to find something this blatant and awesome in the states. Love it

I was wondering why there was no acknowledgment of Carl Sagan on the web site, but then I clicked through to the video and was pleased to hear his voice.

I agree that this needs to be exported south of the border.

I realize that some chiropractors make silly claims about what they can do, but chiropractic treatment can actually help with certain health issues. It won’t cure blindness or the common cold, but it can certainly help with joint related problems. I’m not sure why it is being placed in the same camp as homeopathy, which is proven to be BS.

@Flail

Actually Flail, have a read at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiropractic#Evidence_basis and you will see that there isn’t much evidence at all to support Chiropractic claims: even the results for lower back pain are far from overwhelming.

Speaking of “western medicine,” are we just randomly throwing out shit in this thread?

Because I’d like to say that, as a skeptic, I am far less interested in God than I am in ghosts.

It takes an entire culture to keep a god alive, but all ghosts need are a quiet room, low light levels, a bit of suggestion, and a bit of grief.

Explain ghosts, and you explain everything from Bigfoot to ET to Yahweh.

This ad campaign is AWESOME. It “NAILS IT” for me, in the sense that I don’t “just” not believe in god(s), it’s that I don’t believe in ANYTHING that is SUPERNATURAL.

When I tell believers that I am an atheist (when that comes up), I usually tell them that I don’t believe in anything supernatural, and then I mention ghosts, the boogie-man, tooth-fairy, various gods, etc.
I really think they are less prepared for hearing their god myth lumped in with other stuff they know is myth. (Rather than just hearing me challenge one idea: God, where my failure to believe sounds crazy to them.)

Keep up the good work, Canadians!

for all those who want to see this come south…..support it in Canada so that it is successful….then it probably will. OR contact your local skeptic/atheist chapter and make sure they know about it. Maybe YOU can bring it to your country!

WHAT? OGOPOGO ISN’T REAL??

As someone who actually grew up with Ogopogo legends (you try living in a community on the lake and not hear them), it actually pleased me to no extent to see the lake monster listed. You wouldn’t believe the number of people who you would expect to have a much higher level of sanity in the area who have a “you don’t know what is down there, there could be a giant water monster” attitude about it all.

I LOVE that video and that ad poster. Very well thought out! Everybody needs to favorite that video, and share this post.

Your prejudice is showing.

and you sound like a junkie.

it’s so amusing to me how quickly people forget: for hundreds and thousands of years, people lived and thrived without happy pills. but if you ever want to get a million hits on your website, and a boatload of angry, pathetic comments from people, point this out to them, and point out that the “science” behind a lot of the “research” that “proves” many of today’s popular drugs work? that much of the modern day research process is utterly corrupted and biased by the tremendous power of the pharmaceutical industry. you’ll never hear the end of it. “a man in a white coat on the TV told me it’s safe and effective, so it must be true!”

skeptical, people. it’s what we’re supposed to be. i accept your skepticism about “alternative” therapies that obviously a lot of people here have never tried, studied or used. but you better apply that same standard to those pills you can’t believe you could live without. i speak from a position of some knowledge and experience about science and research, btw.

@chicago dyke:

You might want to rethink your stance on accupuncture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acupuncture#Efficacy. The overall result from studies shows that accupuncture doesn’t outperform the placebo effect nor does it outperform sham accupuncture. To call it an “actual medical science” is completely incorrect. We know exactly how it works: by placebo effect (or possibly distraction from pain, but we don’t call biting a piece of leather medical science either).

I will agree with you that there is monetary gain fueling medical research and treatment.

I think you’re being disingenuous with “for hundreds and thousands of years, people lived and thrived without happy pills”. You do realize that our life expectancy was less than 30 years old? I shudder to think what the infant mortality rate was, or what it would be like to contract a staph infection from a cut…

“Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”

Oh this is good. God an extraordinary claim? Begging the question. “God doesn’t exist; therefore, he is an extraordinary claim. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence! I see no evidence; therefore, God doesn’t exist!”

I’ve got an extraordinary claim for you atheists. “A baby in her mother’s womb isn’t really a baby!” Pretty extraordinary, yet you’re content to flush out a woman’s uterus whenever it’s convenient, without extraordinary evidence that it’s not murdering a child to do so!

If atheists weren’t so disingenuous, I’d expect to see an even split among pro-life and pro-abortion atheists. But you’re all, every one of you, pro-abortion. Why? Pretty simple, really. If there’s no God to tell you it’s wrong, and you can just kill your babies instead of taking responsibility for your actions, and you can take a pill for your STD, then whoopee! No more consequences for sex!

Think about this: Paying for sex is illegal, but murdering for sex is not. It’s illegal to use a human being for sex, but it’s not illegal to use and throw out a baby for sex. Why do you think that is? To say it’s because a baby isn’t human is just forcing your hand; you have no proof that it’s not human, just that until the second half of the first trimester, it doesn’t quite look like one yet! Extraordinary evidence? More like a wild guess!

You’ll never reverse your opinion on abortion, though, even despite the total absence of evidence in your favor, because it’s too important to prove to yourselves that sex is consequence-free so you can believe fornication is somehow not immoral.

It’s clear beyond a shadow of a doubt to me that your loud clamoring for “extraordinary evidence” is little more than a manufactured front that you hide behind. Otherwise, you would apply it equitably and not just in cases where it benefits you.

@ Anon at 8:30 am.

Do you have some sort of evidence that all atheists are pro-abortion?

It seems very narrow-minded of you to think you know how everyone feels about any topic.

Or, was this just supposed to be another extraodinary claim?

Hmm, not a fan of CFI but overall fairly nice. However, let’s remember that extraordinary proof often comes from the ability to make extraordinary claims.

CFI would not have approved of Queen Isabella financing Columbus’ trip to the New World because it was an extraordinary claim. If science was left to CFI’s standards, we’d have no airplanes because man having the ability to fly is certainly an extraordinary claim.

In other words, I don’t like the limitation of it. Let’s let imagination roam free. It’s what new inventions and understandings of our world come from.

Yes, extraordinary claims do indeed require extraordinary evidence but, hey, let them be explored. You can’t prove shit without exploring its possibilities. And it’s exploring the possibilities that is so disproving the god nonsense these days. Just as no one believes in the ridiculousness of leprechauns these days, gods’ days are numbered due to greater knowledge and understanding.

Also too many things are lumped under one umbrella. I frown on alternative medicine but I’ve been thinking about this since the last post and last attack on Chicago Dyke for (for which I am among the guilty and hence must, therefore, apologize, CD, and say you got me thinking anyway) and we lump things like herbs and acupunture yoga minus the woo in with faith healing? Why exactly?

We are way too quick to resort to big pharma’s claim despite the harm often later found resulting in class action suits. I took heat for refusing Vioxx then it was recalled. I take heat for refusing a knee transplant and now they and hip replacements are being recalled. This tells me I was wise to be skeptical of so-called real (vs. alternative) medicine and I will remain so.

Likewise with alternative medicine and the reason it’s called alternative is it hasn’t been examined for it’s effectiveness. Herbs aren’t regulated by the FDA and, frankly, I just wonder why the fuck not? But how can we know their effectiveness or lack thereof if there’s no verification or disproval? Same for big pharma. It should not be self-regulating and the FDA has become a joke pushing shit through that it shouldn’t be resulting in later class action law suits.

Let’s examine the harm that can be done. I won’t risk chiropractic for instance because if you get the wrong practitioner, great harm can be done. But if I take onion and garlic for congestion relatively none beyond bad breath can be done unless I ignore congestion not clearing up after taking it. Same thing for Mucinex, frankly. Only can Mucinex have side affects?

We should protect our bodies as skeptically as we do our minds.

@ hnutzak
Check out wikipedia on homeopathy: It is an easily definable practise that has nothing to do with Yoga whatsoever. It is also one of the most widely tested and debunked alternative medicines out there.

Check the link I put in above for chriopractic studies (it’s also from wikipedia); there have been plenty of studies. Well designed studies always trump anecdotal evidence: that’s the entire basis of scientific research, and I think science’s track record speaks for itself: we certainly wouldn’t be having this discussion on the internet without it 🙂

Please remember not to feed the trolls, anon is surely one of those…

Hi Muggle, I always enjoy your thoughtful comments.

I think you’re mixing up hypotheses with truth claims:

If science was left to CFI’s standards, we’d have no airplanes because man having the ability to fly is certainly an extraordinary claim.

The statement, “I think that with the right mechanism modeled after what we observe in birds, that man would be able to fly.” is a hypothesis. At the time shortly before the Wright brothers it was an extraordinary proposal, or hypothesis to some, but not so much to others. But extraordinary or not, it was not a truth claim.

The statement, “I can fly!” is a truth claim, and without any qualifying or clarifying elaboration, it sounds like a very extraordinary claim, and so begs for the appropriately matching extraordinary evidence: “Oh okay, please fly for me.”

The fact that we do have airplanes attests to the fact that visionary, imaginative, outlandish and extraordinary hypotheses are entertained and given a chance all the time. Sometimes it can be tough for an unusual hypothesis to get funding if it’s going to be expensive to try it out, but that’s life in general. Most hypotheses in science are falsified, and money for cutting edge research is limited. You have to be able to convince people to give a new idea a chance, and that can be as much about emotions and hunches as it can be about reason. If there’s any merit to a hypothesis, it will probably eventually be tried. Then the evidence either supports it or not, either justifies further inquiry or not.

People’s specific defenses of their favorite ideas here aside, I think the list on the poster is referring to the extraordinary truth claims that have been made about each item. For a few of these, there may be some merit or usefulness, just probably not the outlandish and amazing notions that have become attached to them. If there is some merit in them, people will persist in trying to demonstrate it with evidence until they either show the evidence that matches the claim, or they finally give up.

Old Earth,

What we are doing is defending the right of women in extreme situations to have legal access to sage medical procedures that will allow them to have an abortion.

I think this statement is not a correct statement of those that defend a woman’s choice to abortion. It seems like they want it available for all reasons and in all situations as chosen by the women, not just in extreme situations.

What the “pro-lifers” always fail to reognize is that the people who have abortions are overwhelmingly people in dire straights and many of them are survivors of rape (not exactly having fun “consequence-free” sex is it anon?).

As it applies to rape or sexual assault that is simply not true. Approximately 5% of sexual assault victims of reproductive age get pregnant. That doesn’t account for the number of abortions performed in this country.

“Rape-related pregnancy estimates and descriptive characteristics from a national sample of women,” MM Holmes et al, Am J Obstet Gynecol 175(2): 320-324, 1996

A national probability sample of U.S. women found that rape-related pregnancy was 5% among victims of reproductive age (12-45) ; 32.4% did not discover they were pregnant until the second trimester ; 32.2% opted to keep the infant, 50% had an abortion, 5.9% placed the infant for adoption, and 11.8% had a spontaneous abortion.

Old Earth,

Here is a little more info on that topic:

Indeed, in a 1987 survey by the Alan Guttmacher Institute in which abortion patients were asked why they were having an abortion, only 1 percent of the 1,900 women questioned named rape or incest. And 95 percent of those who mentioned rape or incest named other reasons as well for deciding to abort, the institute said.

In a separate 1979 analysis, when federally financed abortions were available in cases of rape or incest or where the pregnancy threatened the woman’s life or physical health, the institute said that a total of 3,675 women had abortions paid for by Federal money. But the institute said that it knew which category qualified only 2,444 of the women, and of these, 72 were eligible because of rape or incest.

”The 1 percent number from the 1987 survey is really the best we have on abortions because of rape or incest,” said Susan Tew, a spokeswoman for the institute. ”And there is no good hard data on how many pregnancies, over all, result from rape or incest.” #1.6 Million Abortions a Year Douglas Johnson legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee, said that while estimates vary, ”I don’t think there is any evidence for a number higher than 1 percent.”

There are about 1.6 million abortions in the United States each year, so 1 percent would be 16,000. Before Congress cut off Federal funds for most abortions under the Federal-state Medicaid health plan for the poor, about one-quarter of the women getting abortions were poor enough to qualify for public funds. So if that ratio continues, there would be about 4,000 poor women a year qualifying for Federal money for abortions where the pregnancy resulted from rape or incest.

I’ll go with what works for me.

I had severe atrial fibrillation for 22 years after being diagnosed in my late teens. A cardiologist or two later, I have a normal heart rhythm; I had a cardiac ablation (which kills little parts of the heart muscle where the electrical impulses are misfiring), a cardioversion (electrical shocks to the heart), and anti-arrhythmic drugs. About four months after all that, I was in a normal cardiac rhythm, and still am, four years later. I expect to have a normal heartbeat until I die of the cancer that runs in my family.

On the other hand (ha ha!), I have some kind of hand/arm/shoulder nerve problem, diagnosed in my early twenties; I had a carpal & cubital release done back then, but the pain came back within six months. For years it wasn’t too bad, but then it got worse, excruciatingly worse. Painkillers didn’t work. Saw two neurologists, a thoracic surgeon, an orthopedic surgeon who specializes in the lower arm, x-rays, CAT scans, MRIs, etc., etc. No nerve damage, but no one could say what the problem might be. Finally went to a chiropractor recommended by a friend. After about four spine adjustments and a couple of acupuncture sessions, the pain was back to the “normal” level that I can live with. The really bad pain just … went away.

I do love this poster, BTW.

@Kaitlin

If one person stating something that appears to not even have been directed at you, and that statement offends you so much as to leave the community… it is probably for the best. Wishing you much success in the future.

Honestly, I feel like lumping in extraordinary claims that some take seriously with extraordinary claims that no one has ever taken seriously harms the original thesis. The title seems to say “these claims are extraordinary,” but the content comes across as more “these things are fake.”

The purpose of the argument that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence is to counter a common complaint that we simply refuse to take an open mind towards things that are counterintuitive, improbable, distasteful, or strange. It emphasizes that that, yes, we do keep an open mind towards all ideas, but we do not simply accept them wholesale; instead, we judge them individually by their own merit.

A more effective list would contain extraordinary claims both with and without evidence to emphasize that we don’t just reflexively associate God (or “alternative” medicine) with the Tooth Fairy. For example, evolution, the moon landings, quantum mechanics, and special relativity are extraordinary claims with extraordinary evidence. Why aren’t they on the list?

The moon landing had 10 years of society watching and trying to make it happen.

The very idea of propelling a rocket into a stable trajectory is an extraordinary challenge of engineering, let alone attaching it to a habitable structure that can ferry humans to another astronomical body and back safely. That it has been accomplished doesn’t make it less so.

Evolution in the simplest terms is the principle states that everything changes, changes that are better suited for survival survive, how is that extraordinary.

Sure, it’s simple. It’s elegant. It doesn’t change the fact that it was and still is an extraordinary idea in that centuries later, it still continues to provide useful, even life-saving insights into biology.

Quantum Mechanics is the claim that light is quantized, that light is both a wave and a particle. The rest of QM is the mathematical product of that claim as supported by experimentation. How is thinking something can be described in two ways? Weird, I will admit, counter intuitive, maybe, but it is a simple, testable claim that is not vague or broad. So no it is not extraordinary, just evolutionary.

QM is far more than just the dual nature of light. The more layers we uncover on QM the weirder it gets. Its results baffle even the brightest of scientists with their counterintuitive nature and defy all but the most un-nuanced, simplistic attempts at explanation. As just one example, scientists have not been able to empirically verify decoherence ever happening, yet decoherence is necessary to explain why we don’t observe entanglement effects at the macroscopic level. This is the essence of the Schrodinger’s cat thought experiment.

Special relativity is perhaps the only extraordinary claim in your list. It does have extraordinary evidence, to the point where some have called it the most experimentally proven theory in science. (Others have said the same about QM or General Relativity).

But by your same criteria, we can say special relativity is no more than thinking about space and time as the same “kind” of thing and all its results as the mathematical conclusions when Newtonian mechanics are re-evaluated under those constraints. It only required a slight change in how we view the world and the rest just comes out in the math. So if you’re going to be pedantic you can’t even accept special relativity as extraordinary.

An extraordinary claim doesn’t cease to be extraordinary just because it’s shown to be true.

Thanks Hermant for plugging our Campaign, which is being unveiled tonight. Trust me, Canadians are no less credulous than Americans in many fields, especially altmed, beliefs in psychics, and other elements of woowoo. And if the response to our Canadian Atheist Bus Campaign is any guide, we’re expecting a lot of attention, especially as CFI in Canada has established an influential network of media resources, as our spokespeople appear on radio, TV and in national newspaper columns on a regular basis. Thanks again!
– Justin Trottier, CFI Canada National Executive Director

Out in the west we do need it.

When it is minus 30 and I get stopped on the street asking if I have found the word of Jesus walking from the dry cleaner to the liquor store, it is needed.

When I am told that “I can’t date you because you don’t believe in the same god as I do and thus you are evil” from someone that has known me for years and been my friend, we need it.

When I am told that women cannot choose abortion because they will go to hell (proselytized many times on a university campus with gruesome holocaust photos in the background) we need it.

When I am told that the secular agenda is destroying this nation, we need it.

When it has been shown that there is no longer effective separation of church and state in our country then we need it (The Armageddon Factor).

And finally when people ignore the constitution’s right to freedom from religion, we need it.

So unfortunately yes we need it. There are some areas in this country where it is sorely needed. I am happy to hear Extro that for you it may not seem that way. That gives me great hope for the future.

Actually Extro, from my experience the % Non-religious map from the last census is a pretty good indicator of where it is needed. (And the question is non-religious not non-faithful) Since being in overly religious areas, or areas dominated by one religion can create a self enforcing zone of ‘everyone must be ___’. In areas like Vancouver and Toronto the issue is not nearly as important as say rural BC or SK. That is not to say that people in the big cities are not religious, it is just to say that people are less likely care what you are.

But that is kind of beside the direct goal of this campaign. The organizers are hoping that by showing the question more people will think critically about their beliefs. Critical thought leads to open discussion, and eventually greater acceptance of people with different viewpoints. It is also a vehicle for people looking to avoid religion to realize that they are not bad people for questioning their parent’s faith.

The final point I missed from my previous ‘rant’

When whole groups of the population refuse modern vaccines for various reasons they put the rest of the population at risk. When the bible cannot be discussed as philosophy or literature for fear of parents’ objections then it is most definitely needed. When biology funding is controlled by evolution deniers it is needed.

Extro, I guess that was a bad assumption that you were religious on my part, the how it is in my region statement threw me. I knew that a simple comment of yes would have sufficed for you. But I need to make it clear to all the Americans here as well that things, while better than the Southern states, are not all rosy up here.

And just to be clear to all the Americans, while supposedly we enjoy more freedom of speech up here, it still took more than 3 months of negotiating to get the first bus ad up and running in one city even though there should have been no grounds for municipalities to reject the ads.

Extro if you would like to put one up all you need to do is ask. Go here and get your very own poster. If you would like to buy in bulk or would like to get CFI to cover the cost read this document. I would be proud to walk past it in the halls. (That is of course if we are at the same school)

That is a difference, Richard, and I admit I didn’t consider it but I think there’s also a problem of the extraordinary claim could need study before the extraordinary proof would exist.

Some of it falls into out and out woo. When the only proof is “faith” and personal testimony, meh, but okay there’s a difference between man can fly and man can fly with the help of technology. Still, haven’t these very things been pooh-poohed as extraordinary claims before the technology was developed. I seriously don’t believe CFI (they have a somewhat condescending attitude towards anything they’ve already pooh-poohed) would consider Columbus’ extraordinary claim if shown why he believed that he could travel around the world. I doubt they’d even give him a chance to explain.

So, if someone thinks a herb can benefit a certain disease, and they laugh, you really think they’re giving the person the chance to explain their theory or how they want to go about trying to test and develop it? I don’t.

Let’s face it. Before any invention you can name or any progress science has made, someone had to have the audacity to imagine it or to be curious about such and such and then investigate and find what they find upon investigating the possibility of what they imagined. We would not be flying in airplanes if someone (and there were many someones who tried very preposterous things before the Wright Brothers) if the extraordinary claim had been shut down because it couldn’t be proved.

Here’s an interesting timeline of the history of flight btw:

http://www.aiaa.org/content.cfm?pageid=260

It appears that the Wright Brothers had to finance their experiments themselves:

http://www.wrightflyer.org/Background/facts.html

Despite the financial burdens of all their research, testing and many aircraft built, the Wright Brothers were never financed by outsiders. The bicycle was a hot item at that time, and their bicycle shop financed everything. Their father gave them one thousand dollars each in the beginning, but they invested it wisely, and had they ever needed funding, it was there, but it was never touched.

If they had been unable to do so (and if you click on the time line I linked, the US government did refuse to), I doubt progress would have been stopped but it surely would have been delayed.

We need a wild imagination to move forward. We need people thinking extraordinary things are possible. We need people having the imagination to turn extraordinary claims into ordinary ones.

This NEEDS to be in Alberta.

@LouLou

As someone in the middle of Alberta, I totally agree 🙂

@Icaarus

I’m not sure what the point of your lecture was. Do you assume that I am unaware of the adverse affects of the lack of information, or that my statement somehow meant that one has to choose between the two? Both are incorrect.

Richard Wade wrote:

The fact that we do have airplanes attests to the fact that visionary, imaginative, outlandish and extraordinary hypotheses are entertained and given a chance all the time. Sometimes it can be tough for an unusual hypothesis to get funding if it’s going to be expensive to try it out, but that’s life in general. Most hypotheses in science are falsified, and money for cutting edge research is limited. You have to be able to convince people to give a new idea a chance, and that can be as much about emotions and hunches as it can be about reason. If there’s any merit to a hypothesis, it will probably eventually be tried. Then the evidence either supports it or not, either justifies further inquiry or not.

Great point/comment Richard, and expressed perfectly, imo.

Love it!

… although saddened to see the Flying Spaghetti Monster not included 🙁