The Skeptic podcast, bringing you the best of the magazine’s expert analysis of pseudoscience, conspiracy theory and claims of the paranormal since its relaunch as online news source in September 2020.
Since the Chinese Communist Party took power in 1949, China has maintained a fundamentally hostile stance toward religion, rooted in the promotion of state atheism and Marxist ideology. This has manifested in systematic campaigns of persecution against religious groups that the government perceives as threatening, such as Falun Gong – subject to mass arrests, torture, and forced labour since 1999 – and Uyghur Muslims, who face mass detention, surveillance, forced assimilation, and severe restrictions on religious practice. Even for religious communities deemed more tolerable, such as officially recognised Buddhist or Christian groups, the state insists on strict control, exemplified by its attempts to designate Catholic bishops and, most prominently, to assert authority over the succession of Tibetan lamas.
The Chinese government’s hostile approach to religion has led to many tragic stories, with one of the most poignant being the case of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, a six-year-old boy recognised by the Dalai Lama in 1995 as the 11th Panchen Lama – a key figure in Tibetan Buddhism. Just days after his recognition, Chinese authorities forcibly disappeared Gedhun and his family, and they have not been seen or heard from since, making Gedhun one of the world’s youngest political prisoners. In a calculated effort to assert control over Tibetan Buddhism and undermine the Dalai Lama’s influence, the government then named its own Panchen Lama, Gyaincain Norbu, attempting to legitimise his authority with orchestrated trips abroad and public appearances. However, Tibetan Buddhists widely reject his status, remaining unconvinced of his legitimacy and steadfast in their support for the missing Gedhun Choekyi Nyima.
Tensions are mounting as the Dalai Lama approaches his 90th birthday this weekend, with widespread concern that the Chinese government may attempt to manipulate the selection of his successor in much the same way it did with the Panchen Lama. The apprehension is rooted in China’s repeated assertions that it holds the exclusive right to approve the reincarnation of Tibetan religious leaders, including the Dalai Lama, and its demonstrated willingness to install its own candidates to legitimise its control over Tibetan Buddhism. This has led many Tibetans and international observers to fear that, following the Dalai Lama’s death, Beijing could use its influence to appoint a successor who would serve its political interests.
In response to these concerns, the Dalai Lama has taken the unprecedented step of declaring in his most recent book, Voice for the Voiceless, that his successor will be born outside China – in what he calls the “free world” – to prevent the Chinese government from controlling the next Dalai Lama. On Wednesday, he elaborated further on his succession plan as part of events around his birthday on July 6th, signalling a clear rejection of Beijing’s claims over the process. Previously, the Dalai Lama had raised the possibility that the institution of the Dalai Lama itself could end with him, a move that would be aimed at preventing the office from being co-opted by Chinese authorities and preserving the integrity of Tibetan spiritual tradition.
The debate over the Dalai Lama’s succession is rooted in a long-standing dispute about the proper method for recognising his reincarnation. Historically, Tibetan Buddhists have relied on a process guided by spiritual signs, oracles, visions and tests to identify a child with precocious spiritual knowledge who is believed to be the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation; this method is led by senior monks and oracles and is considered sacred and authoritative within Tibetan tradition.
In contrast, the Chinese government asserts that the 1793 “Imperially Approved Ordinance for Better Governance of Tibet” mandates the use of the Golden Urn – a ceremonial lottery where names of candidates are drawn from a golden urn, with final approval required from Beijing – to ensure state control over the process. While the Golden Urn has been used for some Dalai Lamas and Panchen Lamas since the late 18th century, it was often bypassed when spiritual signs were considered unequivocal, and Tibetan Buddhists generally reject the idea that the Chinese state has the right to dictate the process.
Many Western governments have taken significant steps to support Tibetan claims, openly criticising China’s intent to use the Golden Urn and expressing disdain for Beijing’s interference in what they view as a spiritual and internal matter for Tibetan Buddhists. As skeptics, we can certainly sympathise with the Tibetan people as the oppressed group, recognising their right to preserve their own traditions and resist external imposition. However, at its core, this is a dispute that requires taking sides in what is, frankly, an absurd debate. The entire controversy hinges on the assumption that the Dalai Lama will be reincarnated – a metaphysical proposition that simply does not make sense. While the political and human rights issues at stake are real and important, the underlying premise of the succession – the belief in reincarnation – remains an extraordinary claim that lacks empirical foundation.
At first glance, the Tibetan method of identifying the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation appears more credible than the Golden Urn lottery. Rather than leaving the selection to chance – a process that ought to be dismissed as mere superstition akin to ancient oracles – the Tibetan approach involves a seemingly rigorous, multi-layered investigation: senior monks subject candidates to tests of spiritual knowledge and recognition of personal items from the previous Dalai Lama. This process gives the impression of empirical grounding, as the chosen child often demonstrates remarkable familiarity with the life and possessions of his predecessor, which might suggest a deeper, if not mystical, connection.
The phenomenon of children claiming to remember past lives is precisely the sort of thing that psychiatrist Ian Stevenson investigated in great detail throughout his career, gathering thousands of cases worldwide where young children described details of allegedly past lives, sometimes with birthmarks or behaviours that eerily matched those of deceased individuals. However, skeptics have long debunked such claims, pointing out that many cases rely on confirmation bias, unreliable testimony, or even outright fraud, with children sometimes being coached or influenced by family members eager to believe in reincarnation – and perhaps make a buck.
Tibetan methods for identifying the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, such as asking children to choose objects belonging to the previous Dalai Lama, are open to similar objections; senior monks could subtly – or not so subtly – guide children toward the “correct” choice, or children could be influenced by the ideomotor effect, unconsciously responding to subtle and unconscious cues from those around them. This is one reason the Chinese eventually favoured the Golden Urn, as a supposedly more transparent way to avoid corruption – though, of course, that method is not without its own problems.
The only way to even begin to consider the Tibetan methods as remotely reliable would be to conduct a rigorously blinded trial, but, as you might expect, the monks are not exactly following double-blind protocols or peer-reviewed scientific procedures – they are simply repeating practices rooted in medieval tradition.
Even if we were to grant that a child can identify objects or recall details about the Dalai Lama’s life that seem otherwise inexplicable, this still does not resolve the fundamental philosophical problems with the idea of reincarnation. The core issue is personal identity: our sense of self is most reliably grounded in the continuity of our bodies and conscious experiences, and many philosophers argue that bodily continuity is the superior criterion for identity because the body is unique and cannot be duplicated; identity follows the body in a way that is both observable and verifiable. In contrast, psychological continuity – such as memories or character traits – can be ambiguous and even duplicated, as seen in cases where more than one child claims to be the reincarnation of the same individual; if we accept such claims, it would imply – on account of transitivity – that the children are not separate persons, which is absurd.
Crucially, neurological evidence – like the fact that injuries to specific brain regions can dramatically alter personality, memory, and even fundamental aspects of consciousness – shows that our minds are not separate from our brains. This supports the idea that the mind depends entirely on the brain and body, and there is no independent “soul” that could survive death or transfer to another body.
There’s also the classic “growing population” puzzle that tends to crop up in any discussion of reincarnation. When the current Dalai Lama was born in 1935, the world’s population was about 2 billion; by the time his successor is chosen, there will be over 8 billion people on the planet. So, where did all these new souls come from? Are we to imagine a cosmic waiting room, packed with spiritual newcomers, all jostling for a chance at a human birth?
This objection is a favourite among skeptics and armchair philosophers, and it does highlight the oddity of trying to square reincarnation with demographic reality. However, in fairness, reincarnationists have developed a variety of creative explanations: some propose that souls migrate from other realms or life forms, while others suggest that new souls are continuously created. Whatever the solution, though, it is plainly ad-hoc and seemingly desperate, amounting to a far-fetched patch rather than a genuinely convincing way forward.
The Dalai Lama deserves real credit for his modernizing stance and openness to science, as shown by his willingness to engage in dialogue with scientists, encourage scientific education among monks, and even state that Buddhist beliefs should yield to scientific evidence if conclusively disproven. This is a refreshing contrast to many religious leaders and has helped foster a more nuanced conversation between Buddhism and modern science.
However, it’s important to recognise that many in the West have hyped the Dalai Lama far beyond what is warranted, sometimes casting him as a beacon of modernity when, in reality, he remains deeply rooted in traditional beliefs and practices. Yes, Buddhism has its merits – it is often less dogmatic and historically less violent than the Abrahamic faiths, and as Robert Wright points out in Why Buddhism Is True, it offers valuable insights into moral psychology. But at the end of the day, Buddhism is still layered with irrational elements, especially regarding metaphysical claims like reincarnation. When these irrational beliefs become entangled with politics, the results can be tragic, as seen in the 1995 kidnapping of the Panchen Lama.
I sincerely hope the Tibetan people achieve their liberation, but I also hope that, as their political consciousness matures, they will look to rational principles for guidance – rather than relying on ancient superstitions about souls migrating from one body to another.
“I don’t need to see a therapist, it’s not a big deal.” That was what I kept telling myself as a teenager whenever the weight of my thoughts became too heavy. Just 3 years ago, The Straits Times reported that 1 in 3 youths with severe mental health symptoms did not seek help, with about 300 to 400 suicides each year in the last 5 years.
Keeping quiet and getting by was easier than admitting I needed help, and easier than wondering if therapy would actually work. After all, I have seen behind the curtain, and what I saw left me doubtful.
Growing up, I saw psychiatrists, counsellors, and social workers. But each visit felt the same. Predictable, rushed, and disconnected. It was like walking into a room, handing over your pain, and walking out with a standard response. Nothing changed.
In many Chinese households like mine, emotions are not meant to be explored. Instead, they are meant to be contained. Crying means weakness. Sadness means shame. The solution? Toughen up. Be stronger. Don’t make it a big deal.
I remember sitting in a family service centre, overhearing a group of professionals discuss a case just before our turn. “Just use the same solution for that family,” one of them said. That sentence stuck with me. It felt cold, mechanical, like they were applying a one-size-fits-all solution to something deeply personal. I could not help but wonder: Is this how all of it works?
Later, I went to the Institute of Mental Health. Each month, I meet a different psychiatrist. They asked the same questions, scribbled something down, and prescribed the same medication. It felt clinical, like I wasn’t a person, just another file on a desk.
School counselling did not help much either. The sessions were short. Surface-level. I remember walking in, answering a few questions, and walked out wondering, That’s it? That’s supposed to help? I never went back. I stopped trusting the system. Not because I do not believe in mental health care, but because I have never seen it work. And I had never met anyone who had either.
Until university where I met a friend, Bryan, 25, who shared a different experience. “If you need help, don’t be afraid to reach out. It’s not embarrassing. I’ve gone to therapy before, and it really helped me.”
His words did not convince me instantly. But they stayed with me. For the first time, I wondered: Maybe therapy is not the problem. Maybe I just haven’t had good experiences.
Mental health conversations in Singapore have come a long way, but for many, seeking professional help still feels uncomfortable, unnecessary, or even shameful. The Singapore Mental Health Study found that 1 in 7 Singaporeans have experienced a mental disorder in their lifetime. Between 2022 and 2023, a study of 2,600 Singaporeans and permanent residents found that anxiety and depression are the most common conditions. In 2025, among working adults, 4 in 10 report high mental health risks, with nearly half at moderate risk. Among youths, 1 in 3 experience severe or extremely severe symptoms of depression, anxiety, or stress. Yet a large proportion never seek help.
Research showed that the major reasons for avoiding mental health help were a belief that specialists are not able to help, a fear of being judged, and stigma towards mental health as a sign of weakness or an admission that something is “wrong” with you. However, the challenges still remain: suicide is the leading cause of death among Singaporeans aged 10 to 29, with academic pressure, interpersonal conflict, and career anxiety pushing many youths to crisis point.
To change this, Singapore launched the National Mental Health and Well-Being Strategy in 2023, aiming to build emotional resilience across society. Schools now teach mental wellness, and parents have access to structured toolkits. But stigma isn’t erased overnight. Many still grow up in homes where mental health is dismissed or kept quiet. And for those who have had poor experiences with school counsellors, therapy can feel ineffective or impersonal.
I don’t believe in the whole therapy thing. I think being resilient is key because you can’t be broken or beaten down by a lot of things. I mean, life is never fair.
This sentiment is not uncommon. It reflects a broader belief system where silence is seen as strength, and vulnerability is misunderstood. In that silence, people look elsewhere, and increasingly, when they shy away from people, they turn to the next most convenient alternative: social media.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram have made mental health more visible than ever. Bite-sized advice about trauma, anxiety, and self-care is shared with millions, making terms like “boundaries,” “gaslighting,” and “emotional regulation” part of everyday language. On the surface, this helps normalise mental health conversations.
Unpopular opinion: therapy is so overrated. Been in therapy since 3 years old. Stop telling people “Go to therapy” everyone I know is in therapy. Go talk to your granny instead and save the co pay baby.
It’s sarcastic, but it’s also understandable: some users who have tried therapy report feeling no better. In fact, some say they feel more drained, more stuck, and more misunderstood. When that happens, can we really blame people for turning to social media?
There is a reason why these messages are everywhere, they can help. Exercise, fresh air, and journaling can be powerful tools for managing everyday stress. Moreover, in a world where therapy can feel slow, expensive, and emotionally exhausting, a 15-second video with five steps to “fix” your mood feels way more manageable.
But here’s the catch: these tips might offer temporary relief, but they rarely address the deeper issues – grief, trauma, chronic anxiety or burnout. These do not go away with a nice walk or a good playlist. The more we consume these bite-sized strategies, the more we may start to believe that therapy is overcomplicating things. That maybe all we need is another morning routine or mindfulness tracker. That professional help is for people who “can’t figure it out themselves.”.
That is where social media does not just reflect our skepticism, it shapes it.
The more we engage with such content, the more the algorithm starts to feed us mental wellness tools, mindfulness trackers, and AI therapy bots, all promising healing at your fingertips. But behind the wellness branding is a booming industry of emotional consumerism, a world of subscriptions and upgrades profiting off people who just want to just feel ‘normal’.
Out of curiosity, I created a blank TikTok account to see how quickly the algorithm would begin to curate my experience. I searched for mental health terms, and within minutes a paid mental wellness app appeared as an advertisement on my feed. It was a small but telling moment that the algorithm doesn’t just respond, it anticipates. And it quickly converts vulnerability into a sales opportunity, especially for people who are desperate.
These tools may feel supportive, but they subtly reinforce a new message: you don’t need a therapist, you just need the right app. As a result, more and more people are turning to AI tools like Woebot or Character.AI. These services promise 24/7 access and responsive conversations, but what they are not able to offer is clinical insight, long-term accountability, or genuine human care. In some cases, this illusion of connection becomes dangerous.
One tragic example is the case of a 14-year-old boy from Florida. In 2024, he died by suicide after forming an emotional bond with an AI chatbot on Character.AI. The bot continued to engage with him, even as he expressed suicidal thoughts, but did not offer help or escalate the concern. Later, his mother filed a lawsuit, stating that it was the bot’s failure to recognise a crisis that contributed to her son’s death. This case reveals a difficult truth that AI can simulate empathy, but it cannot replace professionals. Yet for many who feel that therapy has failed them, these tools still feel like the safer, faster, and more practical option.
Take James, a 29-year-old senior director. Under immense work pressure, he made it a point to eat healthily, exercise daily, and use a wellness app to track everything. On the surface, he seemed like someone managing stress well. But one evening, James collapsed at home from exhaustion, knocking out his front teeth. His doctor later told him his body had simply burnt out. When I asked if he had ever considered therapy, he said: “It felt like a waste of time, and time is precious to me.”.
Later, he reflected, “I thought these apps would help me. Tracking my sleep, my exercise, my eating habits, I thought I would be fine, but I felt my anxiety got worse before I know it.”.
James had done everything the wellness app recommended him to do. He ate clean, exercised, and tracked his habits. But he still burned out. James’ story is not just personal. It reveals something more troubling: social media has oversimplified mental health, turning complex struggles into quick fixes.
That is where the deeper issue begins. It’s easy to understand why people turn to social media instead of seeking professional help. Social media doesn’t just make mental health advice more accessible – it makes it free, fast, and convenient. For many, disappointing past experiences with therapy only reinforce the idea that professional help is underwhelming. But as mental health content floods our feeds, the topic itself becomes diluted. We take advice at face value, rarely pausing to question whether it is accurate.
With so much therapy-related language being casually tossed around on social media, terms like “trauma,” “boundaries,” or “therapy” are often used out of context. This kind of oversimplification can feel invalidating, almost like gaslighting, for someone going through real, chronic mental illness. But the truth is, therapy is not just talking. It is science. Research has shown that effective therapy changes the brain. Through a process called neuroplasticity, therapy can help rewire thought patterns, strengthen emotional regulation, and support long-term behavioural change. In fact, studies have found therapy to be just as effective as medication for many mental health conditions, especially when it’s tailored, and evidence based.
James, who once called therapy a waste of time, eventually gave it a shot. “It wasn’t about solving everything,” James said. “But for the first time, I felt like I wasn’t carrying everything by myself. Therapy isn’t just talking for the sake of it. It’s about uncovering patterns and working through events I didn’t even realise were affecting me. It’s not an overnight change, but it’s been meaningful to see this growth in myself. I thought I understood therapy from social media and the apps I tried, but when I actually sat in a session, it felt completely different and honestly, more uncomfortable than I expected.”.
His journey reflects what social media often overlooks, that therapy, while slow and often uncomfortable, can be deeply transformative when approached with the right support.
When I look back, I realise my skepticism toward therapy did not come from nowhere. It came from my own negative experiences, and in creating a gap I turned to what was always there: social media. It felt safer, less judgmental, more convenient. The advice was comforting, even empowering. But it also became easy to confuse emotional validation with actual help. In hindsight, I realise that my rejection of therapy was not really about therapy itself, but how poorly it had been delivered, and the bad experience does not mean the entire system was broken. I never gave myself the chance to imagine that it could be different.
Bryan, put it well: “Therapy gives you space to be honest with yourself. The questions they ask help you uncover the ‘why’ behind your choices. That alone makes it worth trying.”. Therapy can help, while what social media offers as mental health advice is not enough to heal something as deep as trauma or depression.
I have not considered therapy since my past experiences. But perhaps what we can do to help ourselves is to pause, reflect, and reach beyond quick fixes. Writing this, and reflecting on James’ story and my own, makes me wonder maybe this time, I’ll consider giving it a real chance.
One of the criticisms frequently levelled at supplements is that they produce expensive urine. If you take a pill supplementing something your body really doesn’t need, it will often be broken down through digestion, and filtered out of the body through the urine. It’s a valid criticism, but one that Kind Patches would like to avoid. They claim
unlike oral supplements, they deliver ingredients straight into your bloodstream, bypassing digestion for potentially better absorption and reduced stomach upset.
I first came across Kind Patches on Instagram – the ad had a photo of a person’s arm wearing a purple round sticker on her wrist, alongside the promise that their product would improve focus, specifically for those with ADHD. I have pathological focus issues, most likely because as a diagnosed autistic woman, I’m more likely to also have ADHD . If I could switch on my hyper-focus by wearing a sticker on my wrist, I would be very much all for it.
If you don’t struggle with focus, it will always be difficult to understand what lacking focus really means. It can be absolutely debilitating. Lack of focus can make it hard to do even basic tasks like brushing your teeth or washing your hair. It can make it hard to maintain friendships, because you get distracted during conversations and forget important dates and commitments. It can make maintaining a job difficult, as you miss important deadlines or meetings. It even makes having hobbies hard as you bounce from hobby to hobby, never able to focus on one thing at a time. Of course, a lack of focus isn’t the only focus related thing that neurodivergent people struggle with – the other side of the coin is hyperfocus.
Hyperfocus can be an absolute joy – we can suddenly complete three complicated projects consecutively and meet those deadlines we were certain were unmeetable. And we can get a lot of pleasure from spending a few hours in uninterrupted focus on our hobbies and interests. My ability to hyperfocus is almost certainly part of why I am incredibly productive. But there are downsides too – hyperfocus can be all consuming. When you resurface from a hyperfocus spell you can realise you haven’t eaten all day, and you now have a dehydration headache, and bladder pain because you forgot to pee. And if you’re hyper focusing on the ‘wrong’ thing, it can contribute to judgement from others as you inadvertently deprioritise high priority things because you got trapped in hyper focus on a lower priority task.
For me, the biggest challenge when it comes to hyperfocus is that I can’t will myself into it. I can’t always switch it on when I need it. It comes to me when I’m not looking, and it can disappear as quickly as it arrived. If I could take a pill or wear a sticker that turned on my focus, I would pay the person who made it a lot of money. A lot of neurodivergent people would. To be able to take away the shame that comes with focus difficulties. To be able to take away the judgements people make of us. That would be worth a lot to very many neurodivergent people.
All of which makes the claims from Kind Patches so deserving of skeptical scrutiny. According to their website:
the Focus Patches deliver a steady release of Lion’s Mane Mushroom, essential minerals, and adaptogenic herbs like ginseng to enhance concentration, mental clarity, and cognitive performance. Designed to sharpen your mind while promoting calm and sustained focus, these patches help you stay productive and clear-headed throughout the day.
There is something available that is proven to help with ADHD lack of focus – it’s not available online, or over the counter, and it can be hard to get even with a prescription: stimulant medications. I find it hard to believe that Lion’s Mane Mushroom and ginseng are going to do the trick, but if they did, given they are ingredients that have been around for a long time, we would have heard more about it by now.
Despite the contents of the ad that first drew my attention, the web page for the Focus Patches is notably lacking any mention of ADHD. What is present on the site is a “caution” disclaimer, “These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or health condition.”
This is interesting, because the Food and Drug Administration are an American organisation, while Kind Patches explain in their FAQ section that:
We are a UK-based company, and our products are shipped from the UK and US. Kind Patches operates under the umbrella of KINDPATCHES LTD, our London-based company. Additionally, our logistics center is located in Birmingham and in Seattle and our offices are located in London, Marbella, Stockholm and Hong Kong.
Of course the focus patches aren’t the only patches they sell. They also have “Dream Patches” with valerian root to “help you drift off more easily and enhance sleep quality”; “Energy Patches – Extra Strong” with B12, caffeine and red ginseng to “help you stay focused and revitalized throughout the day”; “Period Patches” with chamomile, camphor and eucalyptus oil to “target menstrual discomfort and support overall reproductive health”; “Menopause Patches” with black cohosh, curcumin and dong quai root, which they say is “to help manage common menopause symptoms such as hot flashes, mood swings, and fatigue, providing you with consistent relief and support throughout the day”; “Wake up Patches” which, similar to the energy patches, contain caffeine and B12; and “Stress Down Patches”, which, similar to the menopause patches, contain B12, black cohosh root and curcumin to “soothe your mind and promote relaxation”.
In fact, if we compare the menopause patch ingredients list to the Stress Down patch ingredients, the two products appear to be identical:
Also available in the range are their “Boost Patches”, “Glow Skin Patches”, “Defence Patches”, “Recover Patches”, and “Anti-Motion Sickness Patches”. Each of these patches cost £12 for a month’s supply.
There are also a selection of patches that don’t fit this model – lip masks and under-eye masks, mosquito repellent patches that can be stuck to your clothes, blackhead removal patches, and a UV patch which changes colour when exposed to UV light.
The majority of patches from Kind Patches are transdermal patches. They explain:
Our patches have clinically tested ingredients that are blended into a gentle adhesive layer, then coated onto our discreet and powerful patches.
Did you know that our skin has the ability to absorb certain vitamins and minerals directly? When these nutrients have a molecular weight of 500 Daltons or less, our skin can pick it up. This means we can get the same benefits from a smaller dose, just like we would from taking capsules or gummies.
It is true that we can absorb some compounds directly through the skin. It’s also true that we do use this in medicine to deliver medications that benefit from a steady, continuous delivery. Transdermal patches have been around since the 1970s, the first of which contained a medication to prevent motion sickness, and now we have transdermal patches for nicotine delivery in smoking cessation protocols, opioid medications for people with chronic pain, hormone replacement therapy or contraceptives, and medication for Alzheimer’s disease and even ADHD.
However, there are some downsides to transdermal patches. The skin is designed to be a barrier, so you have to be quite selective of what you use in a patch, or you need to modify the patch somehow. These days we have microneedle patches which have small needles on the surface. These penetrate the skin to make it easier for the medication to cross the barrier.
The Kind Patches don’t claim to be microneedle patches. They claim to have a biodegradable outer layer, then an adhesive layer, then the vitamin and nutrient layer – which consists of things like Lion’s Mane Mushroom. I don’t think they’re implying that Lion’s Mane Mushroom can cross the skin barrier; they may well be implying that an active ingredient inside the mushroom does cross the skin barrier, but they don’t tell us what they think that is.
They do say that only things smaller than 500 Daltons can cross the skin. Yet, vitamin B12, one of the vitamins they have in many of their patches, is over 1300 Daltons. Vitamin D, is, at least, much smaller – around 416 Daltons. Indeed, many of the vitamins used by Kind Patches should be small enough to be administered transdermally. But does that mean these patches work for those ingredients?
It depends on the definition of “working” here. We have two separate questions: can the patches get the vitamins into the body, and do they do what they say they do?
I think it’s highly unlikely these patches do what they say they do – we don’t have good evidence that vitamins and supplements help with period pains or improving the skin, nor can they improve the immune system or reduce hangover symptoms in most people. If you are experiencing skin or immune issues because of vitamin deficiency, supplementation might help, but this should be something you identify and discuss with your doctor.
While it’s technically possible that vitamin transdermal patches allow vitamins to get into your body, many of the active ingredients here aren’t clear: chamomile isn’t crossing the skin barrier, but is there an active ingredient in the chamomile that could? If so, Kind Patches don’t tell us. Even with the vitamins that are small enough to make it through – it’s technically possible for us to absorb them, but the data just isn’t there to support it. Speaking to Laura Onstot for Well + Good website, Fatima Stanford a physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and member of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee said,
The thing with transdermal patches is that we just don’t have the same amount of data in terms of studies [being] done on them as compared with oral supplementation.
The same article talked about a study conducted by a surgeon who compared tablet versus patch use in post-operative patients and found that there was a higher likelihood of vitamin D deficiency in those using patches compared to those using tablets. This wasn’t a randomised controlled trial, it was a retrospective analysis, so those patients might be using patches due to some kind of incompatibility with tablets, which might also influence their vitamin levels. But that’s part of the problem – there’s a lack of RCTs looking at this topic.
The jury is still out on whether vitamin patches are a reasonable way to supplement vitamins, and I stand by my usual position that, with the exception of vitamin D for certain people or in certain parts of the world and at certain times of the year, vitamin supplementation is only useful if you are medically deficient.
These patches are not likely to help with sleep or menopause symptoms or period pains or immune health or hangovers and are, at best a waste of time and money. But the adhesive might cause skin irritation and, of course, even allergic reactions for some people.
This article originally appeared in The Skeptic, Volume 5, Issue 5, from 1991.
Arguments advanced against Darwin’s theory often take the general form, ‘Such-and such a biological phenomenon could not possibly have developed by natural selection’. For instance, Bishop Hugh Montefiore, in The Probability of God, argues that since polar bears are not preyed upon by anything, there would seem to be no selective advantage in the white colouration which camouflages them in snow. For another instance, the Open University course, Science and Belief: Copernicus to Darwin, argues that since small projections on an exoskeleton would be useless for flying, insect wings could not have developed by small increments over many generations.
We might expect both these sources to be well informed, but their supposed counter-examples to Darwin’s theory present no difficulty. A polar bear needs to be inconspicuous, not because it is preyed upon, but because it would starve if its intended prey saw it coming and cleared off. David Attenborough’s Life on Earth (published a little before the OU course), conjectures that the proto-wings of proto-insects may have functioned in temperature regulation.
‘Creation science’ tracts are full of further examples, all of which can be answered with a little common sense or a plausible conjecture (and since the question is one of possibility rather than fact, a plausible conjecture is a complete answer). Curiously, however, the opponents of Darwin, ignore a well known biological phenomenon for which there is as yet no explanation consistent with Darwin’s theory: sex.
Organisms which are male and female, or hermaphrodite, use up a lot of energy on the uncertain business of getting the sperm or pollen to the eggs. Parthogenic organisms like dandelions and stick insects can breed without the pother and waste of getting fertilised. Sex benefits the population by genetic recombination over many generations. But natural selection operates on individuals, not populations, and parthogenic individuals clearly stand a better chance of passing on their genes. The Darwinian presumption is that some ancestor gained some individual advantage from sex, but nobody can think what the advantage might have been.
Single-celled eukaryotes reproduce by simply dividing, but as anyone may learn from a GCSE biology text, they also have sex, uniting in pairs for the sole purpose of rearranging their genetic material. In the animal Paramecium, two individuals occasionally stick together while their nuclei divide, and each transfers half of its genetic material to the other. In the plants Spirogyra and Chlamydomonas, two individuals occasionally merge into a single individual with double the number of chromosomes, which divides again with the genetic contents recombined. Again, the genetic combination is of long-term advantage to the population, but it would be easier and safer for the individuals if they stuck to reproduction by dividing. Genetic recombination certainly occurs among bacteria, but the mechanics of transfer are still in doubt because it is difficult to catch them at it. When sex among simple organisms is better understood, we may be able to say what started it. For the time being, however, imaginations are flummoxed.
One might expect opponents of Darwin’s theory to attack this point of weakness with enthusiasm, banging on about sex at every opportunity. But in fact they hardly ever mention the subject. Why not? I do not know, but I offer a plausible conjecture.
Argument from design.
There is a classic argument for the existence of God called the Argument from Design. In the lucid language of William Paley (Natural Theology, 1815), ‘Suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place, I should hardly answer that for anything I knew, the watch might always have been there. The watch must have had a maker, who comprehended its construction and designed its use. Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design which existed in the watch, exists in nature, with the difference on the side of nature of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation’ .
This is an elegant argument, of which creation science writers seem very fond. Their books have chapter headings like ‘The Amazing Design of Living Things’ and ‘The Incredible Cell’. Darwin’s theory does not logically imply the non-existence of a Divine Creator, but it answers the Argument from Design. Perhaps the main intention of creation science is to rescue the Argument from Design from being answered.
It is difficult to talk of sex without thinking of our own sexuality. If creation scientists were to mention sex, that would draw attention to human reproductive organs, and to the messy way in which our reproductive organs are conflated with our excretory organs. One can hardly rescue the Argument from Design by mentioning that. What sort of Designer puts the nursery in the sewer?
What do you want in life? There’s an innate, evolutionary basis to the basic desires we all have. For example, we all want people to like us, think of us highly, and treat us with respect. This is our ‘social status’, and even if our internal monologue doesn’t use that term, it’s something we think about all the time. We also spend a lot of time thinking about sex, romance, and attractiveness: and we want to be attractive to others.
Our preoccupation with these things makes sense: evolution shapes our minds as well as our bodies, and given that humans need to stick together to survive and pass on their genes, you’d expect evolution to have made us concerned about social and romantic dynamics.
But the actual views and behaviours (to use a term in social psychology, the ‘norms’) that lead to social status and desirability aren’t so clear. There are actually some universals here, but we’re not really aware of them. Different societies, cultures, and subcultures have different norms, and have different ideas of what they think makes us successful, status-ed, and sexy.
Take, for example, the phrase ‘nice guys finish last’. You might have heard this before, or you may even believe it yourself. ‘Nice guys finish last’ is the worldview that being dominant, outcompeting others, and being traditionally masculine is what gets you ahead in life, and it’s what women look for. Conversely, being ‘nice’ – being socially submissive/subordinate – means you get exploited by others, and strips you of any respect from both men and women. The well-known description of ‘alpha males’ and ‘beta males’ essentially divides men on whether they are exploiters (‘dominant’) or exploited (‘nice’).
This is a viewpoint expounded by influencers in various online subcultures, such as the manosphere, pick-up artist culture, and other male-dominated spheres, and is quickly absorbed by the audience, drawing them deeper within these spheres and instilling more and more of the subcultures’ ideologies.
The speed at which the ‘nice guys finish last’ worldview can get internalised makes sense from a scientific perspective. It is a universal desire among people to be liked, respected, and considered attractive. Many who frequent these online spaces are people – often teenagers – who haven’t received guidance on how to be perceived in the way they desire. Schools generally do not teach their pupils about how to meet basic needs like being liked and having status: in short, how to live.
Teenagers and other potentially vulnerable people may therefore turn to the manosphere as a source of guidance on how to meet those needs (often only semi-consciously). The phrase ‘nice guys finish last’ is ultimately a code on how to perceive the world and how to behave. In the absence of legitimate, educational teachings on this, online influencers have filled the gap that many people feel keenly. ‘Nice guys finish last’ is not merely a throwaway phrase, it’s a framework teaching heterosexual men how they can be happy.
Whether this viewpoint actually works (i.e. makes heterosexual men feel liked, respected, attractive, and happier) is ultimately a question for science. Status, popularity, and attractiveness are all scientific concepts that we study in anthropology, psychology, sociology and so on, which means we have empirical data. Evolution is not a caring force. It doesn’t select for happiness, or justice, or palatable values: it selects for what works. So the fact that niceness and altruism exist in our species at all is both fascinating and telling. Altruism, by definition, is doing something nice for someone without expecting anything in return. It’s exactly the kind of behaviour that the ‘nice guys finish last’ worldview would discourage. However, ‘guys’ would not have evolved at all, and their ancestors would not have survived, without altruism. Niceness is an evolutionary adaptation, a psychological mechanism to make humans work together and cooperate with each other.
People who think ‘nice guys finish last’ might argue that while cooperation is important, you still need to be socially dominant to ensure you don’t get walked all over. This misses two important things: firstly, aggressive competition for social dominance inhibits cooperation, and as a result evolution has given us a spate of adaptations to get round this problem by tying social status (and thus attractiveness) to different things. And secondly, it’s entirely possible to stand up for yourself without being aggressive: this is called ‘assertiveness’, and it is in fact universally tied to our social status.
Let’s look at point one first. People who say ‘nice guys finish last’ often point to primates like chimpanzees to show the importance of social dominance. But these primates are entirely at the mercy of a planet-ruling humanity for a reason. Humans still have social dominance, but it does not dominate human psychology and social dynamics in the same way. Chimps gain social status by dominance and aggression: they are nearing extinction. Meanwhile, humans have evolved to gain social status by ‘prosociality’ – doing things that benefit their group – and humans are the ones doing the extinguishing.
Prosociality can take many forms. For hunter-gatherers, it’s bringing back lots of food for the group. For soldiers, it’s defending their comrades. For band members, it’s turning up to practice. Prosociality universally involves being ‘nice’ to other members of the group, because social dynamics (such as friendliness, trust, harmony) are essential for cooperation. And in our society, while it is true that people with higher social status are seen as more attractive, that social status is not gained through dominance and aggression. It’s gained through niceness. This is not a fringe or political view: it is a repeatedly validated scientific consensus (Egilmez & Naylor-Tincknell, 2017; Kafashan et al., 2014; Wentzel, 2014).
The idea that niceness leads to being trodden on is one of the greatest scientific misconceptions in our society: niceness, and building connections, gives you the social support and allies to prevent you being trodden on. You cannot rise to the top by yourself; humans are not and have never been that way. Of course, standing up for yourself and being assertive is important, but the view that ‘nice guys finish last’ conflates assertiveness with aggression.
Missing in much of this line of thinking is the obvious question: what do women look for? In other words, what do empirical, scientific, peer-reviewed studies tell us about what women perceive as attractive and what makes men seem desirable? Considering that prosociality and assertiveness are the bases of social status, the answer isn’t surprising. Women consistently say that they prefer more altruistic partners and that they perceive altruistic people as more attractive (Barclay, 2010; Farrelly et al., 2007). And empirical data has shown that people who do more altruistic things (and thus behave more ‘nicely’) get more attention and attraction from the opposite sex, and have more sexual partners (Arnocky et al., 2017).
Hunter-gatherer societies also show similar results: for example, hunter-gatherers who share more food have more sex, and more partners (Smith, 2004). This is essential as it tells us that the prosociality-status/attractiveness link isn’t just an artifact of our modern values, but reflects something real and deeper about human nature. Computer simulations modelling different kinds of human behaviour using game theory (a kind of mathematics) have repeatedly shown that the best strategy for people to survive is by being nice to each other, but by being able to stand up for themselves and stop the niceness if they’re taken advantage of (Tobin, 2025). All of this provides multidisciplinary evidence that social status comes from prosociality and assertiveness: not dominance and aggression.
Ultimately, a lot of it comes down to common sense. Women are human beings, and human beings like it when people are nice to them. Human beings do not like it when people are aggressive to them. All the evidence and science centres around that one simple point. Being cool and likeable can, in fact, make you more attractive. Trying to be ‘dominant’ will prevent you from being either of those things, and the arguments presented by manosphere influencers don’t make scientific sense. Even the source of the alpha/beta male typology, comes from a flawed study in wolves that has since been disproved: wolves do not have hierarchies in this way.
So the idea that ‘nice guys finish last’ is not a scientific one: it can be disproven anthropologically, psychologically, mathematically, and empirically. As ever, it is better to get your views on human nature from actual science than from online influencers who are trying to rile you up so they can sell you their solution.
References
Arnocky, S., Piche, T., Albert, G., Ouellette, D., & Barclay, P. (2017). Altruism predicts mating success in humans. British Journal of Psychology, 108, 416-435. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12208
Barclay, P. (2010). Altruism as a courtship display: Some effects of third-party generosity on audience perceptions. British Journal of Psychology, 101(1), 123-135. https://doi.org/10.1348/000712609X435733
Egilmez, E., & Naylor-Tincknell, J. (2017). Altruism and Popularity. International Journal of Educational Methodology, 3(2), 65-74. https://doi.org/10.12973/ijem.3.2.65
Kafashan, S., Sparks, A., Griskevicius, V., & Barclay, P. (2014). Prosocial Behavior and Social Status. In J. T. Cheng, J. L. Tracy, & C. Anderson, The Psychology of Social Status (pp. 139-158). Springer.
Lu, T., Li, L., Niu, L., Jin, S., & French, D. C. (2017). Relations between popularity and prosocial behavior in middle school and high school Chinese adolescents. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 42(2), 175-181. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025416687411
Wentzel, K. R. (2014). Prosocial Behavior and Peer Relations in Adolescence. In L. M. Padilla-Walker, & G. Carlo, Prosocial Development: A Multidimensional Approach (pp. 178-200). Oxford Academic.
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The election of Pope Leo XIV, the former Cardinal Robert Prevost, has been met with welcome by some who have praised him as “a calm and grounded leader”, with a former colleague saying: “No matter how many problems he has, he maintains good humour and joy.”
Others are less enthusiastic, some using blunt insults I’m not keen to share here, even if it is regarding a leader of a faith I don’t personally follow (my own opinion? Anyone who plays Wordle religiously can’t be all bad…)
One thing that every news outlet could agree on: the number of Catholics that Pope Leo XIV would be leading:
As the leader of close to 1.4 billion followers, a population that equals the size of China or India, Pope Leo’s words matter to nearly one out of every six people in the world.
But where exactly does this number come from? According to the Catholic News Agency earlier this year, these figures come from the 2025 Annuario Pontificio and the 2023 Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae reports, which are published in Italian, aren’t available as a PDF or from a library, and must be purchased for €74 and €48 respectively. I must confess that while I’m curious about how these figures were reached, I’m not a-hundred-quid-and-learn-Italian levels of curious.
With my apologies for relying therefore on the Catholic News Agency and Vatican News coverage of the numbers, it seems that the Central Office for Church Statistics collects numbers of Catholics reported by dioceses and adds them all up.
How do the dioceses know how many Catholics there are in their patch? The simple answer would seem to be that they count the number baptised – after all, the Code of Canon Law considers that a person is Catholic if they’ve been baptised and haven’t officially repudiated the faith. There are a few complications, of course: most obviously, keeping track of the baptised people who all eventually die, but also – and probably of less concern to the church – that some baptised people stop being practising, believing Catholics.
Diocesan statisticians take various approaches to this conundrum, including a method suggested by American researcher Michael Cieslak of the Catholic Research Forum, which takes account of secular records of births and deaths, Catholic records of baptisms and Catholic funerals. Cieslak then uses these figures to come up with a reasonable estimate as to the proportion of the population who are baptised Catholics at birth, remain Catholics at death, and smooths the number over the population to come up with a reasonable estimate.
To his credit, Cieslak doesn’t shy away from some of the issues with this approach:
The single greatest weakness lays in the fact that measurements only are taken at two points of a person’s life: birth and death.
While he focuses on people moving house and migrating in the intervening years, something else important can happen in that time that he indirectly acknowledges:
The Code implies that a person is considered a Catholic if he/she is baptized a Catholic and does not formally repudiate his/her faith.
Plenty of other people do of course stop being a Catholic during their lives without formal repudiation, but this method would only find out about their leaving the religion when they die, potentially many decades after the fact – and even then, only if they do not receive a religious funeral, which anecdotally many atheists still receive in order to placate still-believing family members.
If you were baptised and are wondering if the Roman Catholic Church is still counting you, it seems highly likely that it is. Carefully and demographically smoothed statistics won’t register if – for example – significant events cause a sudden precipitous drop in adherents, as has happened with the various church child abuse scandals around the world.
Cieslak also adds that it is not clear that all – presumably US – dioceses use as rigorous a method as this, and while he was writing in 2012, it seems highly likely that the same issues exist today:
The burden lies with the local researcher to catch these anomalies and adjust the final counts.
It is also unclear that territories outside the USA are as rigorous as Mr Cieslak.
In England and Wales, the Benedict XVI Centre for Religion and Society at St Mary’s University reports that 6.2 million people in the UK say they were brought up Catholic in their 2018 report Contemporary Catholicism in England and Wales: A statistical report based on recent British Social Attitudes survey data, but that only 3.8 million consider themselves Catholic. While I was unable to establish how England and Wales’ dioceses report to the Central Office for Church Statistics, it is notable that the Bishops Conference of England and Wales uses the higher of these two figures, the 6.2 million who were brought up Catholic – essentially those who are baptised.
This rather suggests that those responsible for reporting such numbers aren’t overly worried about overreporting by including lapsed Catholics when discussing numbers.
The same issue exists in many other countries, in some cases far more clearly. For example, we know quite precisely how many people no longer consider themselves Catholic in Germany each year, as the nation registers believers in the tax system, and so when 400,000 people left in 2023 and more than half a million left in 2022, this was recorded by the government. In the last ten years, the Catholic population of Germany has dropped by 4 million, from nearly 24 million in 2014 to less than 20 million in 2024.
Even beyond increasingly-secular Europe, it seems clear the church is overcounting – by more than 40 million people in Brazil. There, government census records 64% of its 212 million population as Catholic – around 135 million – which is a large discrepancy against the 182 million the Vatican counts. Not overcounting by its own measures, of course, as it seems likely the Church remains happy with the Canon Law approach to counting: once baptised, you’re in for life.
Based only on the ten countries (Congo, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Colombia, Philippines, Italy, Spain, Poland, India) that the Vatican’s press coverage listed in enough detail to compare with people’s actual response, only in India was there no discrepancy between the church’s figures and the likely real figure. The other nine were all overstated, by a cumulative total of 126 million people. Adding in reported large drops in other big-population Catholic countries, like the USA and Mexico, the discrepancy seems likely to be much larger than this.
The giddy news reports of the last month, excited about the new leader of 1.4 billion faithful, have been bizarrely happy to buy into this number. It is as if Tesco insisted that everyone who ever had a Clubcard is still a loyal customer who does their full grocery shop there every week. If a corporation made such a claim, then they’d be hauled over the coals by their shareholders and mocked in the press. It is a pity that journalists are so willing to take the Vatican’s count – which I acknowledge it believes to be true by its own rules – rather than the clear sentiments expressed by many millions of ex-Catholics worldwide.
