'He used to be a serial rapist. Then he really went bad: He took a job at AIG.'

Lest anyone who stumbles across this morning's tweet thinks I'm being glib ... I'm not. Given events in the financial community as a whole in recent years—and especially in light of the deplorable counter-market hedging strategy that Goldman-Sachs traders apparently thought would secure its future, and theirs—I honestly believe that going from being an equity trader to a bank robber may be a step up in life. It's all in keeping with my theories on the nation's inconsistent and often schizophrenic posture on crime and criminality, as sketched toward the beginning of last year's Skeptic piece on same.

I didn't go too far down that road in the piece, because I didn't want people dismissing me as a nut-job and thus marginalizing the balance of the article. Still, I thought some of those questions bore raising. So I ask you again now: If we reconfigured the penal code based not on a rigid/facile interpretation of the Ten Commandments but rather in recognition of the greatest/most far-reaching damage to the greatest number of people (and the social fabric as a whole), who would draw the most severe penalties? A teenager who kills somebody while holding up a 7-Eleven? A wife who shoots her husband after catching him in bed with another woman? Or an executive at, say, Enron or Bethlehem Steel? Don't give me a knee-jerk answer. Think about it for a while: What should our laws punish most harshly?

'Alternative health'-minded parents, take note.

If it's one thing to embrace a CAM mindset for yourself, it's another matter entirely when you inflict your unorthodox beliefs on your children. New research raises troubling questions for parents who indoctrinate their kids in the alt-med lifestyle.

By the way, if there was ever any doubt about the "treatment modalities" that fall under the CAM umbrella, take a look at the way the community's own lobbying arm within the federal health bureaucracy, the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, describes the very remedies the agency was chartered to promote. (And make no mistake, NCCAM was a promotional boondoggle from the start, designed to validate the methods rather than objectively test them.) One after another, NCCAM's "endorsements" read like an SNL parody: an object lesson in damning with faint praise.

Just wanted to wish a happy holiday to all of you who've participated in SHAMblog over the past year—with a special note of gratitude to those few who've been with us throughout the bulk of this blog's five-and-a-half-year (!!) existence. I've said this from time to time here, as well as in email exchanges with individual contributors, but you cannot imagine how humbled I am by the idea that you folks take time out of your busy schedules to (a) visit my blog on a regular basis, and (b) sit down and compose something in response. I am especially amazed when I get comments that go on at well-reasoned length (and sometimes even need to be split over the course of several comments due to Blogger's limitations), or where people engage with me or other contributors in a dialogue ("multilog"?) that spans several days and thousands of words. I never lose my sense of wonder at that.

It still awes me that anyone might be intellectually stimulated by the stuff I randomly churn out, and that people stick with me despite my occasional over-the-top tirades, off-the-wall observations, and other impolitic remarks. Our community remains a relatively cozy one as these things go, but I appreciate each and every one of you. And on this Christmas morning, I hope that you all receive something—a gift, a word, a hug—that enriches your day.

And if you're fat and failing, you're extra-special!

Early December gave us a pair of headlines that on the surface seemed unrelated but at a deeper level are unmistakably linked to one of the more unfortunate story lines given us by SHAM. First came word that a 10-member FDA advisory committee had recommended the agency loosen the belt on its guidelines for Lap-Band bariatric surgery, lowering the body-mass threshold required for the surgery to be deemed medically appropriate. Lap-Band manufacturer Allergan (which also makes Botox and Latisse) unsurprisingly framed the vote as a historic victory for the 12 million American adults who, though obese, aren't quite obese enough to meet existing clinical guidelines for the procedure. Less enthused, no doubt, are the health insurers who, pending FDA approval, will have to foot the bill for all those additional procedures, which cost between $15,000 and $30,000 a pop. (Of course, those costs ultimately will be passed on.)

A few days later we learned of the nation's latest humiliation in the Programme for International Student Assessment. The PISA tests compare basic academic skills among 500,000 15-year-olds in some 65 nations; U.S. participants upheld an inglorious tradition by finishing well off the lead in reading, math and science. Notably, U.S. students came in 25th in math, tied with Portugal and trailing Estonia and Hungary, among others.

Despite their differing topics, both stories are mile markers in an ongoing movement that seeks to detach individual behavior from individual responsibility, then spread the resulting literal and figurative costs to society-at-large. These days, we seldom force people to toe the line. Instead we move the line to where the people already happen to be standing. The late, brilliant Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan referred to this phenomenon as "defining deviancy down": We act as if the best way to eliminate a nonconforming behavior is simply to normalize it—to drag it under the tent of orthodoxy.

As veterans of this blog know all too well by now, ever since the 1960s, when the forefathers of modern pop-psychology began lamenting the wounded inner child and related forms of dysfunction, America has approached few tasks as diligently as creating new classes of victims and entitling them to redress/recompense. In the bargain, we have not only undercut time-honored standards but also wiped away the consequences for falling short of same.

Take primary education. Beginning in the '70s, "enlightened" educators championed the (arbitrary, baseless) notion that lousy students were actually victims of low self-esteem. Working from the premise that improving a child's self-image would improve his or her schoolwork, teachers morphed into cheerleaders, while schools everywhere softened grading criteria and implemented other measures designed to buck up fragile young psyches and protect them from further damage. Curved grading became the norm; teachers were encouraged to weight overall grades toward effort rather than absolute results. Many school districts embraced "social promotion," which keeps an underperforming student with his age-appropriate friends despite his lackluster grades. Some districts prohibited teachers from making corrections in red ink, lest F-level work be observed by others in the class and the failing student be forever stigmatized and unable to go on...

Today, self-esteem-based learning is repudiated even by some of its loudest erstwhile advocates. An almost unbroken 30-year downturn in uniform test scores, highlighted since 1997 by the nation's dismal performance in PISA testing, has helped educators see that accommodating failure does not motivate success; it merely makes students comfortable with failure. Meanwhile, it's clear that the "I CELEBRATE MYSELF!" climate that accompanied early confidence-boosting assembles and workshops is correlated with feelings of entitlement that do not end at the school gates.

Too bad that acknowledgment of a mistake doesn't magically erase its after-effects. The teeming hordes who departed the great American self-esteem mill were unprepared for the rigors of traditional college coursework, so colleges too found it necessary to flex their standards. Grade inflation metastasized throughout the university system. More recently, colleges began weighting curricula toward easier electives and away from the more challenging core competencies whose mastery one rightfully might expect of a college graduate. None of this bodes well for U.S. competition in the global marketplace.

However, as bad as all that was (and remains), the nadir of America's culture of victimization would have to be the so-called disease model of behavior. Codified in 1965 when the American Psychiatric Association formally pronounced alcoholism a disease, this mindset conceives people as helpless against shortcomings that once were labeled vices or personality flaws. Further, having been applied to a given flaw, the disease metaphor is reinforced and extended in every way imaginable. Such is the case with the FDA advisory panel's vote on the Lap-Band: We say that such steps are necessary because obesity is a national epidemic, as though it were smallpox or typhus and the sufferer's own behavior played no role in his condition. I don't know about you, but I find it fascinating that a remarkable 64 million U.S. adults, or roughly one-third of the total adult population, have somehow contracted a disease to which their counterparts in other industrialized nations, like France and Japan, remain virtually immune. (For the record, 134 million adults are classified as either overweight or obese. That is two-thirds of the total adult population.)

But here's the killing irony: Whether or not it's true that a troubled childhood or other environmental circumstances predestine a flawed adult, the point is finally moot. Social theorists who urge indulgent handling of all these victims overlook the fact that penalties clearly are integral to the "cure." Absent such correctives, the undesired behaviors may continue unabated.*

No, we don't want to play political or word games with health. Obesity is a serious problem and must be addressed. However, history underscores a simple truism: You get the behavior you reward. Maybe it's overstating to imply that better access to bariatric surgery encourages people to get fat, but it's also beyond dispute that such access provides little incentive for people to develop healthier eating habits. Telling Overweight America that it's entitled to free surgical intervention isn't that different from telling schoolkids that they're special and brilliant despite their inadequate work. It's not your fault if you're fat. It's not your fault if you fail.

Is it so unthinkable to contemplate a return to that quaint time when moderation, self-denial and personal responsibility were considered virtues?

* This is also an aspect of determinism that many people misconstrue. The mere knowledge that life is predetermined is no excuse for failing to try to change unpleasant or unproductive behaviors.

'On the 12th day of Christmas, my shylock came to me...'

"People are sick of saving. It's not fun."
—Woman quoted in Los Angeles Times article on shoppers who are queuing up at stores like Tiffany & Co. and Louis Vuitton.

An aptly named twitpic showing Joe Vitale's long-time squeeze, Nerissa Oden, enjoying what's described as a "30 ounce filet at Vitale Cigar Bar" made me mindful once again of how uncomfortable I am with grand-luxe advertising this holiday season: all those Beemers and Mercedes under the tree, festooned with ribbons and bows; all those gaudy diamonds and other jewels that are supposed to make "her" love you forever. If I see prissy Jane Seymour one more time, telling me in that snooty, pretentious accent to "keep my wallet ope...," no, wait, I misspeak, I meant "keep my heart open," I swear I'm going to dig up Christian Brando and hire him to go have a little chat with the woman. (And let me add peevishly that old Husky-eyes was never as beautiful as she seemed to think she was.)

I'm not saying or even implying that we're supposed to wallow in poverty and deprivation. Nor, for the record, do I see this as a political schism that supposedly pits Republican profligacy and indifference against Democratic compassion and reserve; I'm quite sure the Kennedy and Kerry clans (among many other wealthy Dems) will be soaking up the Christmas joy at their respective compounds. What it comes down to for me is that even though the recession is over (yeah, right), I just don't think it's a good time for us to be celebrating extravagance; and Christmas or no Christmas, it would be nice if advertisers of luxury goods (of all goods, for that matter) showed a bit more sensitivity to the fact that so many of their target demographic's friends and neighbors—certainly a lot of their countrymen—are without jobs, behind on their mortgages, living from week to week, hoping against hope that "something will change, something good will happen."

What irks me even more is that a lot of these luxury purchases are not going to be bought outright; they're going to be paid for with plastic or collateralized bank loans. Millions of Americans who can't afford to give glitzy gifts will cave to the SAP (that's "seasonal atmospheric pressure") to give them anyway. That will include folks at the upper strata of national income, the only difference being that they'll be operating at much higher levels of debt, making purchases that consist entirely of vanity taxes, financing a $100,000 car or a $25,000 necklace instead of the pedestrian $25,000/$500 counterparts in which the rest of us trade. So we have still more debt pyramided atop the insane amount of debt we've already compiled as a nation. And why do we do this?

Because, as the epigram above this post says, saving "isn't fun." (Can't you just picture a cranky kindergartner grimacing and saying that?)

Lord knows, we Americans love our fun! Notice, too, that we say such things as if for decades now we've been hoarding every last penny, living monkish lives of utter self-denial, and we're just sick of it, do you hear me?, sick of it...when in fact the U.S. savings rate has long been on a downturn, has in recent times dipped to zero or below, and remains one of the most meager in the industrialized world.

I ask you: Is this really helpful? Is this what we mean by "consumer confidence"? Going out and spending more money we don't have on things we don't need?

...And a happy, happy to all of you, too!

Byrne-out: a tale of two cancer victims.

Today, boys and girls, we have one of my occasional guest columns, this time by a regular who pops in now and then under the name "Frances."

A few prerequisites. First—as is always the case when I present these columns—they are not to be interpreted as anything beyond "one person's opinion."* I am showcasing the following thoughts not under the guise of presenting universal truth (though I do think they cut pretty close to the heart of the matter, or perhaps in this case the breast of it); I'm showcasing them because I find them interesting and on-message. Second, by their nature, all posts of this type deal in anecdotal evidence. Frances is comparing the plight of one high-profile cancer victim who turned to conventional medicine to the plight of another high-profile cancer victim who turned to The Secret. Bear in mind, however, that in the latter instance, anecdotal evidence of failure carries more weight than in the former instance, because devotees of The Secret, beginning with its creator, claim that its core methods always work. Therefore, in theory, all one need do to refute The Secret is find a single case where its methods didn't work.

That said, I now give the floor to Frances.

=============================

Kim Tinkham is the woman who famously said on Oprah that she was stopping all science-based cancer treatment, and was only going to rely on The Secret. Well... the cancer magically got attracted to her again after she thought it was no longer there, and she died last Tuesday:

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/301197

http://skepchick.org/blog/2010/12/dear-oprah-you-stole-kim-tinkams-chance-of-surviving-breast-cancer/

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/12/a_tale_of_two_victims_of_breast_cancer.php

The last link compares Tinkham's cancer with Elizabeth Edwards' (coincidentally, they died on the same day). Edwards, of course, chose standard science-based medicine. I thought this quote was very telling:

Now, a cancer quack would argue that Edwards "only" lived six years.

And this paragraph about Tinkham was very interesting as well:

The reason [she chose The Secret over standard medicine], I suspect, is that she was the type of person who needed answers. Remember, she wasn't satisfied that conventional doctors couldn't tell her why she got this cancer. Even though conventional doctors could treat it with a fairly high likelihood of success, they could not tell her with 100% certainty the answer to the question: Why me?

Promising certainty, and an all-or-nothing attitude about survival ... I have always said that money isn't the root of all evil nearly to the extent that seeking comfort through black-or-white thinking is. But it's something humans just want, whether it's good for them or not. Emotional junk food.

Meanwhile, the very definition of humanity is complexity along a continuum. We need to teach comfortability with complexity/ambiguity as an essential life skill.

Tinkham was stage III and would have had a 40-70% chance of surviving 10 years with standard treatment. Without standard treatment, however, her chances of surviving 10 years dropped to 3.6%. She ended up surviving four.

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I (Salerno) would also add that this site is a treasure-trove of info on cancer incidence, prevention and mortality.

* For that matter, my own thoughts are not to be interpreted as anything beyond one person's opinion, either, except that I can vouch for the time, thought and spadework that informed that opinion, especially on SHAM-related topics.That doesn't mean I expect anyone to buy what I say hook, line and sinker. It just means that I'm usually not speaking off-the-cuff, at least when it comes to the self-help realm.

A Christmas message from your Philistine host.

Following is a holiday-themed op-ed I sat down and wrote one morning that no one wanted, though I did get some interesting feedback. The consensus from my usual outlets for such work was that (a) the piece probably demanded too much background knowledge on the reader's part and (b) I was being a tad presumptuous in setting myself up as a supposed higher authority in these matters than all those Nobel laureates with their profound and collective intellectual horsepower.

Maybe so. Nonetheless, I put it forward for your reading (dis?)pleasure.

Incidentally—lest anyone conclude that I am, in fact, a moron—I "get" the idea that things that appear on the surface to be standing still are actually in motion if examined on a different scale. I also get the fact that light appears to act as both a wave and a particle. But those are just appearances. In the case of the moving/non-moving duality, just as in the case of the wave-particle duality, the appearances are deceiving, as there is a deeper truth that has not yet been elucidated. Or there is something else going on entirely. Hence my op-ed.

===========================

EARLIER THIS YEAR, University of California-Santa Barbara physicists caused a good deal of excitement in the scientific community's small but highly influential quantum-mechanics ("QM") wing. They took a metal filament the width of a human hair, placed it in a jar, sucked out all air, then jolted it with some juice. The results they announced were stunning: The filament had been observed vibrating and standing still—simultaneously.

I don't claim to be a scientist, nor do I even play one on TV, but this finding, albeit intriguing, sounds suspiciously like observational error: a trick of eye, mind or measurement. In any case, the UCSB episode joins a growing body of theories, equations and experiments churned out by QM researchers that, taken together, supposedly prove that nature is riddled with physical paradoxes. That notion becomes all the more important as we come upon the keynote event of this holiday season, because physicists use evidence of these so-called "multi-state" phenomena in arguing against the very reason for the holidays: God.

Small-scale experiments like the one at UCSB become the substance of monumental propositions that attempt to address the biggest questions of all: How did we get here? How could something come from nothing? Generalizing from lab-work like the foregoing, today's QM brain trust argue that such questions have perfectly rational (that is, secular) answers. Rather than being vexed by contradiction—as a scientist normally would be—they embrace it. They maintain that existence doesn't necessarily preclude nonexistence, that something can be not dead or alive but both or neither (e.g. Schrodinger's apocryphal cat-in-a-box). Some propose parallel universes within our own universe than "run along a different spacetime continuum." They tell us that astronauts who've spent a week traveling at a certain velocity in certain regions of space actually return to earth a few milliseconds older or younger (I forget which) than the rest of us who lived through that same nominal week here on earth.

It should not escape anyone's attention that these lab and thought experiments run counter to all observed and measured experience throughout the whole of recorded history. In the world as we know it, things are alive or dead, stationary or mobile, at any given point in time. Speaking of time, in real life it tends to unfold in orderly fashion, and to the best of my knowledge and belief has never failed to do so. Our perception of time may differ depending on circumstances, but time itself is oblivious, independent. All clocks in the same time zone that are accurate and working properly strike noon at the same precise instant.

Nonetheless, we're told that in the subatomic and cosmic realms—which, conveniently enough, just happen to be realms to which only the scientists themselves are privy—all bets are off, and the usual rules don't apply. How easy it is to be "unimpeachable" when your theories don't need to pass the acid tests of wide observation and real-world repeatability!

The notion that incongruous explanations for life's mysteries can be plausibly reconciled into a valid whole flies in the face of everything science historically has tried to do in seeking consistent explanations for observed phenomena. Where else would you accept the kind of reasoning that poses that things can be there but not there, dead but alive? ("Mr. Jones, I'm happy to inform you that your wife made it through surgery. On the other hand...") On what basis does science exempt itself from its own rules in promoting such stunningly dichotomous ideas—and why do we buy in? Maybe it's because it all sounds so damned "cool," or because it's so impossibly obscure, involving reasoning and jargon that leaves us average mortals in the cosmic dust.

Today's physics reasons from the circular premise that "there simply can't be anything supernatural going on, so we need an alternate explanation." Among the scientific elite, godly intervention is unacceptable-by-fiat, period. Yet every time I hear a scientist proffer some grandiose theory and then, when pressed for specifics, fall back on, "Well, see, we just don't know that part yet," I'm reminded of what Sister Anne-Marie would say during my confraternity classes: "It's a mystery."

A cynic might easily infer that these quantum theories are attempts to contrive a god-like mechanism of action without the (offending) presence of an actual god. This branch of science, then, becomes a quasi-religion unto itself, where we are asked to accept on faith "truths" that cannot be seen in life and have never been empirically documented through the millennia. Worse, non-believers are marginalized or treated with high-minded disdain. Scientists chortle at supernatural explanations for the universe, turning the argument on its ear: "Oh really? But if God made the Universe, then where did God come from, huh? Huh!?" They play the line as a supercilious trump card, even though it makes the colossal mistake of assuming that God-based explanations must meet the same logical and scientific bar as science-based explanations.

Religion doesn't have to conform to classical notions of logic and physics. Science, however, ought to.

'Just put your feet in the stirrups, baby. It's OK. I'm a journalist.'

As a habitue of college-employment sites like AEJMC and UniversityJobs.com, I find that I'm seeing more and more journalism programs giving at least a token nod to so-called "new media" like Facebook, Blogger, etc. In some cases it's more than just a nod, but rather a full body-slam's worth of credibility. I quote from one current ad from Northwestern's Medill School—this is a world-class institution we're talking about—that seeks an individual who offers "expertise in emerging social media technologies."

Folks, just because bloggers regard themselves as "citizen-journalists" doesn't make it so. (As much as I admire Markos Moulitsas, I may never forgive him for popularizing and promoting that particular hyphenate.) Furthermore, it is not breaking news every time someone updates his Facebook status; nor has he "published," in the professional sense, and certainly not in the journalistic sense.

A journalist is a person with specific skills, competencies and, perhaps above all, responsibilities. (That's the part that tends to get forgotten in today's brave new world of wall-to-wall, real-time coverage of everything by everybody. "Oh, we got it wrong? We libeled someone? Big deal, we'll fix it next time ... What's that you say? Masson v. The New Yorker? Huh?") We don't have citizen-gynecologists, after all. Then again, maybe we do, but they operate outside the law, and will be arrested and almost surely prosecuted if, in the course of their activities, they harm someone.

And before you accuse me of an obvious and hypocritical contradiction—"Ah-ha! Just a few weeks ago you said you were in favor of free speech, but now..."—let me emphasize that I still have no problem with anyone exercising free speech. Or at least I don't have any problems I didn't have last time around. The only problem I have in this case is that not all speech = journalism. Just like, again, not all contact with a woman's genitals = gynecology.

I admit that colleges are up against it. They're in a hyper-competitive environment in the middle of a recession and straining to remain relevant at a time when standards and orthodoxies are dropping like Barack Obama's Q rating, a time when the knowledge base is expanding exponentially on a daily basis and in unforeseen ways (e.g. WikiLeaks.) But just as editors used to decide what readers should read—and readers accepted their part in that bargain—colleges used to decide what a well-rounded collegian ought to know. (They did not, as a rule, design courses or hiring criteria around "what's hot right now!?") Beyond that, we as a society had a reasonable expectation that the holder of a college degree boasted at least a working familiarity with math and the sciences. That is increasingly less the case, as colleges flex their curricula to accommodate student interests, mandating fewer and fewer core courses and permitting larger and larger amounts of electives. Seems to me that within a decade or so you may be able to graduate with a degree in journalism from certain colleges without having taken any actual courses that involve journalism in the traditional sense.

It is not a good thing to allow students to decide what they're willing to learn in order to graduate from college with a degree in something. It is not a good thing for colleges to scrap time-honored standards of what constitutes a given profession in order to adapt their coursework to latter-day pop culture. If you think about it, that's just another form of SHAM.

'Beware of waking up in the morning. That may indicate...'

This column on the warning signs of a heart attack is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read, and, once again, illustrates the folly of trying to write broad prescriptives, in almost any realm, that apply to all comers (especially when you're interpreting a complex topic for a non-specialized audience). What you end up with is something like this, which basically implies that everyone is having a heart attack at all times, and therefore we should all be seeing our doctors constantly for evaluation. By extension, this is also the fatal flaw in self-help products that distill life, or even any particular precinct of it, to "7 Keys" or "10 Steps" or whatever.

Ultimately, by trying to be comprehensive, all-inclusive and general, you fail to provide an actionable benefit to any specific anyone.

'Anti-free speech rally at the courthouse today! All speakers welcome!' (And an un-Merry Christmas to you, too.)

It's that time of year again: which is to say, the time when non-Christians and total nonbelievers transform from their usually passive selves to vocal and, sometimes, litigious opponents of all things Christmas. We're seeing this here in eastern PA. The city of Philadelphia, in the personage of mayor Michael Nutter, initially decided to rename its festive and traditional "Christmas Village" display, outside City Hall, "Holiday Village"—and then reversed itself within 48 hours. (The breakneck, back-and-forth mood swings in this drama perfectly capture the schizoid nature of society's feelings on the matter.) Also, not far from Philly, Chester County has decided to bar atheists from putting up their own, cheeky "tree of knowledge"—which touts a secular world-view and includes recommended reading—alongside the official tree, the expected nativity scenes and the like outside the county courthouse. Closer to home, there have been minor skirmishes of a similar nature in Allentown and Bethlehem (and could there possibly be a more ironic venue for such a skirmish than a town called Bethlehem?).

This is another one of those imbroglios where I'm not at all sure how I feel. By now you know my general thinking on free speech, and my melancholia over the progressive loss of same throughout America. But does "free speech" imply that a person ought be allowed to blithely crap all over any and every occasion that's important and/or meaningful to his or her neighbors? Does it mean that a minority of one can, if he or she so chooses, suck all the joy out of something for a vast majority of hundreds or thousands or millions? As you're waiting with your kids or grandkids to see Santa, do you want to also see a man next to the line holding the following sign?:

MOMMY AND DADDY ARE LYING TO YOU. THERE IS NO SANTA. THAT'S JUST A MAN IN A FAT SUIT AND A FAKE BEARD.*

And if the Christmas motif mucks things up, let me ask the question a different way: If you were spending your life savings to create a wonderful wedding for your daughter, would you want some overzealous, sign-bearing advocate for gay marriage to camp outside your event, insist on insinuating himself into the background of all the photos you hoped to take in that pretty park near the church, etc.? Is that a legitimate price we pay as a society for having free speech?

Once again, those are not rhetoricals. I'm honestly askin'.

* As a practical matter, anyone carrying such a sign would almost surely be run out by mall security, and their right to do so would be upheld. But that's not the point. How do we feel about this?