Natural News - What "Skeptics" really believe...

Natural News writer Mike Adams had an article entitled "What 'skeptics' really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe[1]." In the article Mike jumps to conclusions and makes huge leaps in facts in order to push his agenda, basically claiming skeptics believe things they don't actually believe. As usual Mike provides absolutely no evidence what so ever of his "facts" about skeptics, not even so much as linking to a skeptic's blog post where a skeptic says it. In a move to steal ideas from as many people as possible, I'm going to analyze his article like SM Elliott over at Leaving Alex Jonestown, who also covered this article.

In the world of medicine, doctors and science are the sole protectors of truth. While some skeptics are stubborn, most aren't and will listen to what you have to say and take it into consideration; Mike Adams will not. In fact, Big Mike will likely just say "well X had Y, so therefore Z is true and all non-'natural' medicine is wrong!"

Mike is simply upset that science and evidence come before blind faith in an ideology which directly opposes science and evidence for the sake of opposing it.

I can't believe he actually considers it an insult to point out that someone favors vaccines, mammograms, pharmaceuticals, and chemotherapy.

(Click link for Conspiracy Science article on subject)

Vaccines

Vaccines save lives, period. What's the all natural way to prevent and/or cure: small pox, cholera, polio, typhoid, and many other disease? Oh wait, there are none; these diseases have killed millions of people, but thanks to vaccines they are falling off, except in areas where vaccines are hard to get.

Mammograms

What's this guy got against smashing boobs to check for breast cancer? That's right, he thinks they cause cancer, and of course he believes (or at least Natural News promotes) that the higher the risk of you getting breast cancer, the more you should avoid mammograms. Sort of like the higher chance you have of getting HIV, the more should avoid condoms.

Pharmaceuticals

Mike also believes that pharmaceuticals, i.e. medications, cause massive damage to the gastrointestinal tract, not unlike a bomb (his description, not mine)[2].

Chemotherapy

No stupid, chemotherapy doesn't cure cancer. Only all natural cures work, even though many of those who do natural cures for cancer die, or if they're cured, and they also were undergoing evil scientific treatment... just trust me, it was the all-natural cure.

Mike's gotten off to a great start, he's already lumped all of his enemies into a single group so he can easily create lies about them. It's no different than if I said "all conspiracy theorists are like Timothy McVeigh, so therefore..."

Some natural supplements can be good for you, or help your body do things like increase breast milk production, so right off the bat Mike is throwing shit like a chimp swinging from a tire in a tiger cage.

Nutritional Supplements

Like I said, some of these can actually work well for you, but some do nothing, and even some can be harmful.

Herbal Medicine

As with natural supplements, some can help you, like garlic, cranberries, and so forth; but none will cure your cancer or prevent you from getting a virus or bacterium that will kill you. They didn't stop the plague, small pox, or HIV, and they won't stop big bugs now either.

Chiropractic Care

This can help some people with back pain, but some like Mike believe that, with repeated treatments, you can cure pretty much anything, which is totally incorrect. Overall, however, the chiropractic philosophy is rife with pseudoscience.

Massage Therapy

Basically the same here goes with chiropractic care. I'd trust my message therapist, he or she, to give a great happy ending, but I wouldn't trust their advice that special massage oils will cure my cancer.

Energy Medicine

This covers acupuncture, qi gong, reiki, and even therapeutic touch and homeopathy (which he mentions later). It's basically modern day magic, and not the fun kind of magic, more like the Peter Pan magic.

Homeopathy

This is basically a philosophy where water "remembers" what it was in contact with previously. For example, in homeopathy, I can take medicine, say Nyquil and I can dilute it with water, over and over, and then each dose of water is just as effective as the original dose because it remembers it. Yes, it really is that stupid.

Prayer

Usually prayer does nothing, but sometimes it provides a placebo effect, or is used beside some scientific method and then the prayer is considered the cure, instead of the scientific method.

Therapeutic Touch

This is where you can heal someone, reduce pain, etc by hovering your hands around them. This was originally debunked by a 9 year old. The entire philosophy is based on the concept of the bio-energetic field, which contradicts not only logic, but also science -- physics and chemistry, among others.

Once again, his gross overgeneralizations completely fail him.

In other words, "don't be skeptical of anything I tell you, believe it completely, I'm never wrong and anyone who even suggests I'm wrong is simply against us." He wants the reader to be blind, and that's something I never ask my readers to be.

By consciousness he doesn't mean what you think he means, instead he means a magical connection between everything in existence. When it comes to soul, god, etc, a lot of skeptics do believe in this stuff.

This is the one thing he was right about, but I assume he's using it as a way to say "haha, they're so stupid, they don't believe in God or the afterlife." Actually, I've run into a lot of religious, and semi-religious, skeptics. Once again, not true. Except for me, I don't believe in an afterlife.

Keep in mind, he didn't provide evidence of a single instance of any of the following being said by a skeptic.

What Skeptics Believe

No, they don't, Mike is lying.

You can read more about vaccines on my vaccinations page, where I go into greater depth on this subject. In short, however, vaccines that have been tested and proven safe and effective are the ones skeptics believe in. Typically only one to three vaccines are given at a time, over several years (or longer) to avoid any problems. No idiot actually believes what Mike is saying here, except Mike.

Mike's trying to make you believe that fluoride (see my fluoridation page) is simply piped from smoke stacks into the water supply. Actually water naturally has fluoride in it. Holy Shit! Water fluoridation isn't just adding fluoride, it also is regulating it, either adding or taking out based on what's already in the water.

Nobody believes this, he's lying again. The type of medication you take, the amount, and so forth should be left up to a qualified doctor, not some douche bag on the Internet named Mike. No one thinks babies should take antidepressants, that's just moronic. I myself even question giving teenagers antidepressants (see my antidepressants article), and no one believes you can take whatever you want as much as you want, except for probably John Belushi.

I'll continue this article later, I'm going to go down 400 tablets of Adderall, Alprazolam, Zantac 75, Tylenol PM, Lasix, and Crestor, because after all Mike says skeptics believe you can take as many as you want, and it be safe!

Okay now that I've awoken from my coma and simultaneous stroke and heart attack, I'll continue.

Any skeptic that says the body can't defend itself is probably not a skeptic and some kind of nancy ass conspiracy theorist like Mike. The reason you get over a cold is because your body is defending itself.

The reason your skin heals from a paper cut, or a minor infection goes away, or your spend a lot of time away from you desk after a night of Indian food, is because your body is healing itself. In fact the entire premise of vaccines is that you can basically make your body resistant to diseases by more-or-less showing it what to defend itself against if it comes in contact with it. If skeptics didn't believe in the body to naturally defend itself, they wouldn't believe in vaccines, as vaccines require this function from the body -- they're not magic. Only Mike believes in magic here.

But, you aren't the Terminator, you are not indestructible. Your body has to learn from experience, and experiences with small pox, polio, and so forth end in disaster for most people -- which is why we have vaccines, sort of like providing a mugshot so your body doesn't fall victim.

Sounds like Alex Jones or something here. I'm not against natural childbirth, assuming he's referring to homebirth or something like that. What happens if something goes wrong? You better be prepared to rush to the hospital. Thankfully, a lot of people don't run into problems with home birth, but some do, and avoidable deaths go unprevented because some people decide to give birth in a nasty bathtub.

General consensus is that a woman in labor should go to a hospital, not something just skeptics believe.

That's true, a lot don't, and I don't either -- see my hypnosis article. Since the world is black and white to Mike, anyone who disagrees with him automatically agrees with whatever the media says. Ironically, the media promotes hypnosis as a real science more often than not, making Mike wrong in his analogy as well. Mike definitely makes me question my position on hypnosis, because he's clearly hypnotized himself to believe that anything science says is absolutely wrong, except of course when he can use it to prove his point. Say, that's exactly like a conspiracy theorist!

Mike is indeed hypnotized, by his religion of anti-science.

This is just Corky speak here. I wouldn't equate "free will" and "soul", because one's a real thing and the other is supernatural. Skeptics do believe in all of the above, except for the soul, that really depends on the person.

What the hell is he even talking about? I'll make the assumption he's referring to processed foods and raw foods, of which you can see my articles on. Nobody believes that french fries have the same nutritional value as baked potatoes, but it's a part of Mike's religion that he project these things onto people he disagrees with.

Mike believes that everything about science is 100% wrong, except for what he can use against skeptics and people he doesn't like. I also have pages on the FDA, genetically modified foods, and pesticides.

As opposed to what? Oh that's right, Mike believes water is magical and has memory. Well that's completely unscientific and childlike thinking. Say, I wonder if that snowman in the yard is alive, or the water that makes it up will always remember the shape of the snowman for years to come?

Here's the conclusion:

Mike is a liar, period. He doesn't care how much he has to lie, so long as his readers continue to blindly believe what he says.

"Question science, do not question me!"
- Mike Adams