In today’s information-driven world, where misinformation is widespread, it is crucial to cultivate critical thinking skills and approach claims with skepticism. However, scientific research, one of the cornerstones of progress, often remains confined within the realms of academia. Limited accessibility and complex language in traditional scientific publications are barriers to accessing and understanding scientific knowledge. Paywalls and expensive subscriptions exclude people who cannot afford them, while technical language alienates non-experts who may be interested in engaging with science.
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Our free online repository serves as a platform where vetted lay summaries of peer-reviewed scientific articles are published in various accessible formats. Our mission is to increase access to fast, reliable, and easy-to-understand scientific research for students, academics, professionals, and the wider public. By encouraging users to make informed decisions, explore multiple sides of an argument, and delve deeper into the complexities of the world, we want to foster intellectual empowerment.
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It was this concern that led me to report a doctor to the UK regulator – the General Medical Council (GMC) – for spreading false information about the COVID-19 vaccine. To my great surprise, the GMC has up to now refused to even investigate the issue, despite dozens of complaints.
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, is a private practice cardiologist and author whose works includes “The 21 Day Immunity Plan” – marketed as boosting immunity to COVID-19. Throughout the pandemic, he has used his status as registered medical practitioner to spread COVID-19 vaccine misinformation to over 550,000 followers online.
In September 2022, and ever since, Malhotra has asserted controversial links between mRNA vaccines and heart disease, and led a call to suspend the UK vaccination program. He has used Twitter to voice his concerns, stating,
As a cardiologist, it’s my responsibility to urgently inform every doctor, patient, and member of the public that the mRNA product likely contributed to all unexpected cardiac arrests, heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias, and heart failures from 2021 until proven otherwise.
Yet, there is no scientific evidence that supports his claim.
Malhotra cites a narrative review that he authored, published in the low-impact Journal of Insulin Resistance – a journal that hadn’t published for years, and where Malhotra sits on the editorial board – which veered entirely off the journal’s intended scope. The review was littered with non-peer-reviewed references, inaccurately attributed sources to prestigious journals, data figures from a recognised anti-vaccination organisation, and sources that bore editorial “expressions of concern.” Given the subject matter was beyond the journal’s communal expertise, it raises serious questions about the availability of suitable peer reviewers, beyond potential biases from the editorial board.
I reported Malhotra’s behaviour to the GMC in late 2022. Although the GMC conceded that his statements deviated from standard medical perspectives, they chose not to investigate. Their decision was partially driven by a fear of inadvertently boosting his media presence, implicitly acknowledging that his message was not in the public’s interest. They argued that his comments were not “egregious enough” to question his professional competence. Despite additional requests from myself and others for an internal review, backed by evidence of further outlandish claims, the GMC remained unresponsive.
As a result, I have initiated judicial review proceedings, asking the High Court to examine the GMC’s decision. Judicial review allows the court to scrutinise public bodies’ decisions, assessing alleged flaws in reasoning or legality. My legal argument contends that the GMC wrongly applied an absolutist free speech defence, rather than properly considering whether Malhotra used his medical status to spread vaccine falsehoods.
Doctors deserve considerable latitude to express dissenting scientific opinions informed by evidence. However this freedom doesn’t absolve professionals of their fundamental duties to demonstrate integrity and honesty, avoid conflicts of interest, and maintain public trust. These principles, emphasised by the GMC in their Good Medical Practice guidelines and social media advice, are fundamental. Disseminating clearly misleading claims about vaccines breaches these widely recognised professional duties.
Malhotra’s behaviour appears to be escalating, with unvalidated claims that regulators criminally colluded with pharmaceutical companies to hide vaccine harms. His aim no longer appears to be constructive scientific discourse, and there are multiple examples of him insinuating, without any evidence, that various high profile deaths were due to vaccines. His statements risk fuelling paranoia and mistrust, discouraging vaccination against a deadly virus and driving paranoia about the future use of mRNA platforms.
Research shows vaccine misinformation on social media deters uptake. When doctors spread unproven assertions to hundreds of thousands of followers, consequences for individual and for public health are profound. If regulators like the GMC ignore doctors who promote medical misinformation, public confidence plummets, while vaccine hesitancy climbs. This jeopardises community protection against infectious diseases and risks public health in future outbreaks. Doctors spreading online misinformation must be seen to be violating professionalism as seriously as they would be in the context of serious clinical errors. Protecting patients demands consistent regulation in both spheres.
Most doctors recognise that disseminating misinformation contradicts their ethical responsibilities. However, inconsistent oversight allows a vocal minority to endanger public health while retaining professional legitimacy. This judicial review is a defining moment in which an independent body will pass judgement on whether the GMC can abrogate its responsibility when doctors misbehave on social media. The ramifications of this case stretch far beyond one doctor: they will influence future decisions by the GMC and, conceivably, regulators in other countries.
The social contract that a doctor has balances our privileges with our duties to honesty, integrity and public wellbeing. Free speech doesn’t absolve professionals from these obligations. I’m legally challenging the GMC to establish that doctors must be held accountable for online misinformation, as they are for clinical negligence in person. This will help restore public trust and safeguard patients from medical disinformation. If this case fails, it could have wide-reaching implications that harm the safeguards for the public – the very safeguards the GMC was formed to ensure work correctly.
If you agree that this is an important cause, one way you can support us is to sign our petition to the GMC, and to share details about it with your friends and colleagues.
While I have been given support in taking this case forward by the Good Law Project, there is nonetheless some personal financial risk in taking this case forward, if the High Court decides that costs cannot be capped. As such there is a real risk this action could falter before it is even tested in court. If you are able, you can support this legal action by making a donation at actions.goodlawproject.org/gmc.
I think it is vital that doctors with fringe and false beliefs are not able to undermine the public’s trust in life-saving medicines, and if you agree, I’d greatly appreciate your support.
Numerous studies have linked vaccine hesitancy or refusal with the belief in so-called alternative medicine (SCAM). Yet, large-scale data on this topic were so far scarce. Now, two sizable investigations from France shed more light on the issue.
In the first study, the researchers investigated the factors associated with the coverage of seven childhood vaccines or vaccine groups in the 96 French metropolitan departments. One of the factors investigated was the local interest in SCAM.
In order to assess it, the investigators created an ‘Alternative Medicine Index’ based on departmental internet searches regarding SCAM. The assumption was that internet searches being a reliable indicator of the public’s actual interest in a given topic. They then conducted multiple regression analyses. The results showed that the Index is a significant explanatory factor for the departmental variance in vaccination coverage rates, exceeding in importance the effect of other relevant local sociodemographic factors.
The second study presents the results of a survey conducted in July 2021 among a representative sample of the French adult population (n = 3087). Using cluster analysis, the researchers identified five profiles of SCAM attitudes. They then compared these SCAM attitudes to vaccine attitudes. Attitudes to SCAM had a distinct impact as well as a combined effect on attitudes to different vaccines and vaccines in general.
The results showed that the hesitant, pro-SCAM attitudes are often combined with other traits associated with vaccine hesitancy such as distrust of health agencies, radical political preferences, and low income. Both SCAM endorsement and vaccine hesitancy are more prevalent among the socially disadvantaged.
Drawing on these results, the researchers argue that, to better understand the relationship between SCAM and vaccine hesitancy, it is necessary to look at how both can reflect a lack of access and recourse to mainstream medicine and distrust of public institutions.
The complex relationship between enthusiasm for SCAM with vaccine hesitancy is fascinating and has thus been discussed repeatedly over on my own blog:
What seems to emerge from this body of evidence is the notion that a cross-correlation exists: an attitude against modern medicine and the ‘scientific establishment’ determines both the enthusiasm for SCAM and the aversion to vaccination.
What, however, seems far less clear is what we could do about it, and how we can educate people such that they no longer are a danger to themselves and to others.
Have you seen the new hugely successful/box office bomb (delete as necessary) Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? I haven’t, but then again if I wanted to watch an old man riding a horse down St Vincent St, I’d just pop over to Glasgow Skeptics.
In the film, as in all the others in the franchise, there is a MacGuffin to drive the plot along. In this case, it is the Dial of Destiny, aka Antikythera mechanism, sometimes referred to as the Archimedes dial. The previous films’ plot devices ranged from the Biblical Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, to The Hindu Shankara stones and, in the fourth (and by far the worst) movie, Mayan crystal skulls.
I think we can safely ignore the ridiculous movie plot depicting the crystal skull as the head of a literal glass-boned skeletal alien waiting to be reunited with its body, so it and its companions can return to their home planet. But this film’s MacGuffin is at least a real phenomenon. Strange crystal skulls do exist – Arthur C. Clarke used one to represent his Mysterious World TV show and subsequent book, and many believe them to have supernatural powers, or at the very that they prove neolithic native Meso-Americans had some incredible and unknown ability to fashion glass, but not metals.
But where do these objects come from? How were they made? And what do they tell us about their maker?
The real Indiana Jones?
Let me introduce you to Mr Frederick Albert (F.A.) Mitchell-Hedges (1882-1959), as it was he who first brought a crystal skull (the one featured on the cover of Clarke’s book) to the attention of the wider public. A seasoned traveller and self-proclaimed adventurer, Mitchell-Hedges had a radio show in 1930’s New York, where he regaled his audience with tales of escaping from “native savages” or wild jungle animals in dramatic fashion, when searching for lost civilisations. A proto-Indiana Jones in many ways.
In 1954, he published the modestly titled book Danger My Ally, detailing his ‘True-life adventures’ exploring lost-cities and lost-worlds. In the chapter The Skull of Doom and a Bomb he reveals that his daughter, Anna, was in possession of a crystal skull that she had found 30 years before in the jungles of Belize when she had accompanied her father exploring the Mayan ruin of Lubaantun. Mitchell-Hedges senior concluded that the skull was over 3,600 years old, and that it was used by Maya priests to strike people dead by the force of their own will. But, he added, “It has been described as the embodiment of all evil. I do not wish to try and explain this phenomena.” [sic]
Several other skulls have been identified around the world. There is one in the British Museum which they describe as:
Purchased from Tiffany of New York in the late 1890s, the skull had passed through many hands and was said by G. F. Kunz in 1890 to have originally been brought from Mexico by a Spanish officer ‘sometime before the French occupation of Mexico’ [1860].
Another was sent to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. anonymously in 1992 and the accompanying letter said it was part of an 19thC Mexican general’s collection of ancient Mayan artefacts. A third is in the Musee De L’Homme in Paris, and a further 9 are in private hands.
There are modern reproductions. However, it is generally accepted there are twelve surviving Mayan skulls. Innumerable legends have grown up, usually about thirteen such skulls being gathered together in a Mayan temple to complete some sort of task – often to save humanity, or affect the Mayans’ enemies, or similar.
The objects are a perfect synthesis of numerous pseudosciences: they are made from a single quartz crystal with all the woo associated with crystals, they are representative of a little-known and mysterious ancient culture who could seemingly do things we cannot now do, and of course, they are human-like skulls – they look freaky. All of this gives them a prominence that most archaeological objects would never normally obtain.
Maya Mackems
But, how on earth did the ancient Mayans make them?
The truth, of course, is that they didn’t.
Tellingly, no skull has ever been found in any official or academically driven excavation in Mexico or elsewhere in Central America. Indeed, in December 1943, F.A. Mitchell-Hedges disclosed in a letter to his brother that he had purchased the skull (the one he says his daughter found in the 1920’s) from London art-dealer Sydney Burney, for £400. Despite this, right up to her death in her 90’s, Anna Mitchell-Hedges continued to claim that the skull was found by her in Belize when she was a child.
Analysis of the British Museum skull and other examples show that the quartz itself is chemically identical to natural crystals found in southern Brazil – a distance that would not have been insurmountable for Central Americans, but a highly unlikely location, given that no trade route has ever been identified over that sort of distance in that period.
The same analysis found that using traditional tools and resources available in pre-Columbus America would have taken over 150 years constant work to have sanded quartz into such a smooth finish. However, the skulls themselves showed marks consistent with post-industrial rotary power tools.
Mexi-con
Eugène Boban, main French dealer in pre-Columbian artifacts during the second half of the 19th century. Source: Wikipedia
In 1870’s France, an antiquarian called Eugene Boban was commissioned by Napoleon III to collect Aztec and other native American artifacts for display in Paris. He travelled to Central America in search of objects for his Emperor, and after his return opened a shop in the French capital, called Antiquites Mexicaines, specialising in Meso-American objects. He later moved his business to New York via Mexico City, and was responsible at the very least for the British Museum and the Parisian Musee sales. In all likelihood, he was responsible for selling many of the skulls to the wider public.
Boban had collected innumerable objects over the years spent in Mexico, and when he left for France with his haul, his friend sent him a bon voyage letter, adding:
Flood France with your curiosities, and squeeze all the ugly metal out of them that you can in exchange …
Unfortunately, not long after his shop had opened, the Prussian army laid siege to Paris and that was soon followed by the Commune Revolt. It would be several years before he made a major sale.
Southern Brazil, where the quartz comes from, has a large immigrant German population. Many emigrated there in the mid-19th Century, a few from the little Rhineland town of Idar-Oberstein where they took with them their professional and long-standing skills of gemstone cutting. They retained close links with the town of their birth and sent several examples of quartz and other gems back to Germany to see what the skilled artisans could make of them.
They fashioned the quartz into skulls. Most likely as an object for marketing the skills of the cutters in turning a lump of quartz into a beautiful object. There is good reason to believe that M. Boban later visited the German town (just a few miles over the French border) and purchased some or all the skulls to sell in his old curiosity shop, passing them off as ancient Aztec/Inca artifacts due to the style. It is possible, but cannot be confirmed, that he commissioned the objects and asked for them in the style fashionable at the time, following recent European involvement in Mexico.
Dismissed as novelties in museums, they were largely forgotten about until Mitchell-Hedges claimed the one he had bought from an art-dealer was a mysterious Mayan object with an evil history found by a young girl in a lost-city. From there the skulls became more well known to the wider public and took on supernatural connotations thanks to a continuous stream of “believe-it-or-not” books and magazine articles.
There is no doubt they are interesting curiosities and excellent examples of the gem-cutting skills found in 19thC Idar-Oberstein but ancient Meso-American objects with supernatural powers they almost certainly are not.
The menopause, or the time of cessation of menstrual periods, is a near-universal experience for women. Women can have very different reactions to it, from feeling devastated that they have lost their womanhood, being no longer fertile or desirable, to relief that sex can now be enjoyed without the risk of pregnancy. Socially, it has ranged from the onset of invisibility for women, to a time of active denigration (Phrases like ‘dried up old prune’ come to mind). The archetype of the wise old crone is not common in western society. Recently however the menopause has been more visible, even celebrated by, for example, Bridget Christie in her TV series ‘The Change.’
The menopause is caused by the ovaries ceasing to function, meaning they stop secreting oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone. This commonly happens at around the age of 50, with a gradual decline for about 5 years before that, but it can happen at any time after puberty. Under the age of 40 it is known as premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) and affects one in every hundred women under 40, and one in every thousand women under 30. Women with POI can wait years for a diagnosis, and have difficulty being heard despite clear advice to professionals.
Oestrogen is a hormone with receptors in every cell, so it is unsurprising that its steady decline has many effects. There are the immediate peri-menopausal symptoms, and there are long-term effects of having low hormone levels. Symptoms are many and various, ranging from the mild to the life-changing, even becoming part of the reason why women might seek a divorce or have to leave their jobs. For example, vaginal dryness can be so bad that sitting down is painful, intercourse is impossible and urinary tract infections are frequent, yet many women are still embarrassed to talk about this very common symptom. Vaginal oestrogen is now available without a prescription and is particularly valuable for women who choose not use systemic HRT.
Despite its sometimes devastating symptoms, the inevitability of menopause, has led to it being thought of as natural, and therefore something which should not be treated as a disease state. This view is in stark contrast to attitudes to erectile dysfunction, which becomes increasingly common and pervasive with age, often with no organic cause, and therefore could also be seen as equally natural, yet there is a multi-million dollar industry aiming to help men who suffer from it.
Hormone replacement therapy (HRT) is now recommended as first line for some symptoms such as hot flushes, but some GPS are still wary and offer other medications first, believing HRT to have more risks than benefits. Women are often prescribed other medications targeted at specific symptoms such SSRIs for anxiety, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for muscle and joint pain, and bisphosphonate for osteoporosis. Unfortunately, many of these drugs have more side effects than the replacement oestrogen – for example, bisphosphonates increase bone density, but result in bones which are more brittle and less elastic. A new drug for hot flushes has recently been very positively received, but like all drugs has side effects. Fortunately this is becoming less common since the menopause has been more in the public eye.
We can therefore say the menopause is already treated as a disease by the fact that women can end up on wide variety of drugs treating individual symptoms. These treatments may be life-long and do not address the underlying hormone deficiency causing those symptoms. They each carry their own risk of side-effects, which don’t then enter into the risk/benefit calculation for HRT.
Why did HRT suddenly become a dirty word?
Until 2000, HRT was widely prescribed, and women were told that it was likely to be a lifelong therapy. A long-term study, the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI), looked at the benefits and risks of HRT. In 2000 it was stopped, early, because the participants showed an increased risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots, breast cancer, and dementia. Breast cancer was specifically highlighted, despite the data showing there was no increase in women prescribed oestrogen in the absence of synthetic progestogens. Many women found their HRT stopped abruptly with numerous consequential health problems.
This study is now over thirty years old, the types of hormones and doses used are no longer the standard treatment, and a re-analysis of the results has shown that they were misinterpreted and misapplied. Unfortunately the study is still quoted as a reason to only prescribe HRT short term and for severe symptoms only.
Given the limited number of good studies which use the standard hormones, teasing out risks and benefits is extremely difficult, because of the almost impossibility of disentangling the type of hormone prescribed. The majority, like the WHI study, used outdated oestrogen treatments, in contrast to the modern body-identical oestrogen (which has exactly the same chemical structure as oestrogen produced in the body).
The transdermal route for oestrogen also bypasses the liver, so is less likely to cause other problems such as blood clots associated with oral dosing. We now also know that women prescribed body-identical progesterone have no increased risk of breast cancer.
Continuing misleading information
A widely reported recent study has linked use of HRT to an increased risk of dementia but, as usual, the situation is complicated, and a causal link remains unlikely.
Another example is recent prescribing advice which suggested an increased risk for deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism and — most concerning to many women — an increase in the risk for breast cancer, in the range of 30-60% (up to 100%, a doubling of the risk). Looking in a little more detail at this, we find that the subjects in the study were given outdated hormone types and dosing regimen, even though it is a modern study. The data therefore does not correlate to current standard practice.
In essence this study says that it confirms the scare of 2000, when the WHI was cut short because of adverse findings. As it used the same drugs as in these findings, this is hardly surprising. The advice they give to well-meaning doctors trying to stay up to date, in what isn’t their specialism, is both wrong and massively disadvantageous to women.
Testosterone
Although testosterone is known as the male hormone, women produce more testosterone than they do oestrogen or progesterone. As with these other hormones, testosterone declines with age. Symptoms of low testosterone are well known. They include reduction in muscle mass, an increase in body fat, loss of body hair, depressed mood, low sex drive, osteoporosis, difficulty with concentration and memory (brain fog), and erectile dysfunction in men.
If a man were to have his testes removed, he would not leave hospital without being prescribed replacement testosterone. For women in the UK, however, it is only recommended for low sex drive. It is being increasingly prescribed by menopause clinics for women who can afford it, but otherwise it is under prescribed on the NHS. Young women with POI, or those who have had a surgical menopause, even if they are fortunate enough to be offered HRT, are not routinely given testosterone – and too often GPs will offer them other treatments for their symptoms, which have worse side effects, and which treat the consequence, not the cause of their problems.
In addition, there is no testosterone formulation in the UK which is licenced, or designed, for lower doses for women. GPs can prescribe a smaller dose of a formulation licenced for men, while private clinics can supply a cream imported from Australia which is licensed for provision at a female dose.
Testosterone is also specifically forbidden for female athletes competing at national or international level, not matter the severity or cause of her symptoms. It is a point made in the guidelines under which a man can get a therapeutic use exemption
Why the reluctance to supply for women?
One can only speculate on why there is such a reluctance to prescribe long term hormones for most women; why even a small increased risk is taken as a reason to withdraw treatment without reference to the severity of the symptoms it is being used for, or a long-term risk- benefit analysis.
This is at odds with the prescribing guidance for specific groups such as trans women and those with POI. Long term therapy is recommended in these groups, with only a recommendation to discuss possible risk factors. This seems an entirely reasonable approach.
It has been suggested that there is little interest in drug companies pursuing HRT, as it is cheap, and will yield little return. It has also been suggested that there is a not-very-benign paternalism at work, essentially “I can’t let you choose to take even the smallest potential risk, no matter how much you are suffering.” Alternatively, there may be a sense that the suffering of older women is something just to be borne, preferably uncomplainingly.
The idea that older women are capable of choosing which risk they want to take, of making a personal risk/benefit analysis, is absent with HRT in a way which it isn’t with any other drugs. It is hard not to reach the somewhat paranoid conclusion that older women either don’t matter, or are considered incapable of informed consent.
Hemlock, Conium maculatum, is an incredibly common plant that grows across much of the UK. It favours damp, high-nitrogen grounds, so is common in verges and near footpaths. It is part of the carrot family and has white umbrella-like flowers at the top of long stems. Its leaves look like parsley. It is toxic when eaten, and there are some reports that prolonged touching can enable toxins to penetrate the skin. It was famously used to execute the ancient Athenian philosopher Socrates, following his conviction for impropriety and corrupting the youth.
My social media was full of people – quite rightly – condemning the terrible risk assessment that has resulted in people thinking that walking on the road is safer than walking past this plant. Children are not being harmed by hemlock. A German review of reports to poison centres regarding accidental ingestion of outdoor plants by children found that there had been a total of 19 cases reported between 1997 and 2013, of which 7 had mild symptoms, 1 moderate symptoms and the rest no symptoms at all. A quick literature review of the last decade revealed one case that led to hospitalisation – a 6 year old girl in Turkey ate some thinking it was parsley – but she had a full recovery and was released from hospital after three days. As long as your children don’t have a habit of eating random plants growing on the side of the road, they will not be harmed by having to walk past hemlock on their daily commute.
Walking in the road to avoid the plant, however, is much more fraught with danger. While I was unable to find recent data specifically regarding the school run, a Department for Transport factsheet from 2015 showed that an average of 1 child per week was killed and 37 seriously injured using roads with the majority occurring at times coinciding with travelling to and from school. 58% occurred in the hours just after school (3pm – 6.59pm) and a further 13% occurred between 8am and 8.59am.
More recent data is more circumspect. Using the Department for Transport’s dashboard and selecting accidents involving pedestrians aged 15 or under in areas with 20mph or 30mph speed limits, we can find 17,588 casualties between 2018 and 2021, including 63 fatalities. While these numbers are still far too high, the good news is that the 2015 factsheet showed that casualties had decreased significantly over the years, dropping 92% between 1979 and 2013, and the latest figures show this trend is continuing.
However, regardless of this decline, it is clear that children are far more at risk from cars than they are from hemlock, or indeed from any of the other plants that the BBC has chosen to scaremonger over as a result of this non-story.
But is this really a case of people being more scared of plants than cars?
Digging slightly deeper – by which I mean looking for local news reporting rather than relying on the BBC’s narrative – it seems that hemlock isn’t really the issue here. It’s being used to attract attention for a problem that many pedestrians will recognise – that of poorly maintained footpaths. The Ipswich Star reports that
The public footpath leading towards the primary school has become so overgrown with hemlock, as well as brambles and stinging nettles, that pedestrians were having to being forced to walk in the road. (sic)
Pedestrians were being forced onto the road by the volume of vegetation, not its composition, but no-one in positions of authority seemed to care. Cutting back the vegetation meant closing the road to traffic, and that wasn’t something the council seemed prepared to do. They needed to be forced into action, and hemlock seems to have been the solution.
While hemlock does have its own dangers, I suspect that some people were getting confused – or hoping to exploit the potential confusion – with giant hogweed. This invasive plant has phototoxic sap, meaning it causes burns when exposed to sunlight. This phototoxicity can last for days, even months or years in some cases. It looks similar to hemlock, and in England and Wales councils have legal powers over landowners where it obstructs a public footpath.
In England and Wales, councils or unitary authorities are responsible for ensuring that public footpaths are accessible to people on foot and those using mobility scooters and powered wheelchairs. This means they should be free of obstructions and the surfaces should be sound. Yet anyone who has spent time walking along the UK’s pavements and footpaths in recent years knows that many do not meet this criteria. Surfaces are often cracked and uneven, and spring and summer growth can lead you to fighting through a jungle in places.
While the government has been promoting active travel, it has done very little to ensure that pedestrian and cycling infrastructure is safe to use by everyone. People are being encouraged to ride bikes on pothole-riddled roads, and walk on uneven pavements and footpaths which can end with no warning, be blocked by vehicles parking on them, or disappear into the undergrowth, leaving people with no choice but to walk on roads, and put their lives at risk.
In other words, this isn’t really a story about hemlock. It isn’t even a story about people being unnecessarily scared about hemlock. The real story is poorly maintained pedestrian access and council neglect. But where’s the clickbait in that?
The perception of Skeptics as cold, hard logic machines couldn’t really be further from the truth. Especially when it comes to popular culture. When the harsh realities of the world surround you, who doesn’t enjoy a bit of escapism?
Magic – Absolutely!
Dragons – Bring ‘em on!
Superpowers – The more the better!
Paranormal activity – Go on then!
Deities – If you must.
Suspension of disbelief is not a problem. So, set the stage, frame your universe, and stick with it. It’s not that hard. Want to explain a plot point using science of some sorts? Sure, try asking someone with a little bit of knowledge, and don’t stretch things too far. This simple formula seems hard to get wrong, but some still manage.
So, let’s take a look at some of those times when TV and film was spoiled for the skeptical audience. Please be warned though, these spoils also contain spoilers. If you haven’t already sat through them, then we may be helping you dodge a bullet anyway. You’re welcome!
1: Red Lights
In a different universe this could have been a favourite with skeptics; We have an impressive cast including Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, and Robert De Niro before he blotted his copybook with antivaxxer sentiments, and the plot circles around successful attempts at debunking alleged paranormal phenomena.
The climax of the movie hints at satisfaction too, as De Niro’s character is exposed as a fraud, but that was clearly not enough of a payoff. Instead, we find out that Murphy’s character has real powers, and his lifelong crusade to seek out and test people with such alleged abilities was really a subconscious attempt to find more people like him. Shouldn’t have been given the green light.
2: Interstellar
Another example of a film which should have been a tasty treat for skeptics, but was contaminated by just enough nonsense to leave a bad taste in the mouth. We’ve got a picture of an earth in crisis (which we can certainly empathise with), space and time travel, exoplanets, wormholes, and a more than reasonable attempt to tip the hat towards actual scientific concepts. There’s also strong themes of love, compassion, and sacrifice for the greater good – all fine and dandy so far.
Perhaps it would require a theoretical physicist to explain how the third act of the film collapses into its own hole though, as we see the protagonist finding himself in a five dimensional tesseract and being able to communicate with a younger version of his daughter using morse code (yes, really). Even though that’s hard enough to swallow, the concept of the power of love (not the Huey Lewis / Jennifer Rush / Frankie Goes To Hollywood songs) is overplayed to the point of nausea and incredulity. To quote the movie: “Love is the one thing we’re capable of perceiving that transcends time and space”. Perhaps Christopher Nolan was a bit too ‘into Stella‘ at the time of co-writing the movie.
3: Signs
Back in the days before Mel Gibson had revealed the depths of his religious extremism by venturing into torture porn territory with The Passion of the Christ (and other even less pleasant shenanigans), he teamed up with the poster child of diminishing returns M. Night Shyamalan for the movie Signs. By the time of its release, we already had nearly a decade’s worth of the X-Files to fulfil all our alien visitation desires, so the strong box office showing was much more of a surprise than the premise of the movie.
Jump scares aplenty, crop circles, and literal tin foil hats were entertaining enough, but the movie fell foul in two major ways: firstly, having aliens with the capability of intergalactic space travel visit a planet whose surface is over 70% water when they themselves are harmed by water doesn’t seem entirely plausible. You’d imagine with such advanced technology they might have at least got around to inventing raincoats.
Much more importantly though, divine intervention is given much of the credit for foiling the aliens, with Gibson’s lapsed catholic character returning to church at the end of the movie. Should have been called ‘Warning Signs’.
4: 2012
Disaster movies should be easy. The audience aren’t expected to engage their brains, and the writers barely need to. Think of some form of threat, exaggerate it, pick a random A-lister (or at least a B+lister), then blow the rest of your budget on CGI and marketing. Simple. In this round of apocalypse roulette we have solar flares, and John Cusack – what could possibly go wrong?
Well, firstly, in what might be a gold medal winning round of “this meeting could have been an email”, scientist A travels half way around the world to have a conversation with scientist B. Since they were using words rather than interpretive dance or sign language there was no need for physical proximity, and much of the scary stuff would have really been in the form of data.
More importantly though, it was the nature of the scary revelations that really did the damage, with Scientist B telling us “It looks like the neutrinos coming from the sun have mutated into a new kind of nuclear particle.” A premise so bizarre that it prompted an entire routine from Dara Ó Briain. Truly a disaster movie.
5: Miami Vice S4E07: Missing Hours
Ok, so no-one ever treated Miami Vice as a gritty, realistic portrayal of south Floridian law enforcement in the first place, but as the programme began to dip in the ratings and run short of ideas, at least a shark jump would have been more plausible compared to what we got in this episode, particularly considering the proximity of Crocket and Tubbs’ stomping ground to the ocean.
Instead, we get a credulous plotline about alien abduction, a pre-SNL appearance from Chris Rock, and a truly baffling cameo from James Brown. You won’t feel good. I know that you won’t.
6: Lucy
Ok, so many might have written this movie off pretty early-on due to the shaky principle the entire plot sits upon about humans only using ten percent of the potential of the brain. It’s clumsy and it’s wrong, but that doesn’t really matter. All it needed was a quick rewording for Morgan Freeman’s character (whose name isn’t important, as he was portraying movie cliché Morgan Freeman): how about something like “The right stimulus could push our already powerful brains into overdrive, and the limits are almost endless”? There, fixed it!
From that point onwards Scarlett Johansson getting increasingly intelligent, intertwined with some cool fighty-shooty stuff, would have been reasonably fine in the universe the movie was set in. What we see instead is ascending levels of ridiculous as our protagonist repeatedly breaks the laws of physics (intertwined with some cool fighty-shooty stuff). Just make it a superhero movie – that would have been fine!
All we can say with confidence is that Luc Besson was clearly using less than ten percent of his brain when writing it.
7: Manifest (tv series)
When I was a teenager I got talking to some Mormon missionaries. They were a few years older than me, and American, hence cool. We talked about music, skateboarding, and not religion (which is my favourite aspect of religion). They came to my house a few times over the course of a few weeks. As things progressed they slowly introduced some of their real message, and on what turned out to be their final visit, they said that they wanted to save me and have me baptised. That was awkward. I asked them not to come round after that.
This is exactly what Manifest does, with the excellent sci-fi concept of a plane landing after a routine flight only to find they’ve been missing for over five years. With a few hints along the way, it took multiple seasons to finally confirm that the who in the whodunnit was God. I presume my Mormon ‘friends’ enjoyed it though.
8: The New Scooby-Doo Movies
Generally hailed as a great piece of skeptical television, the initial series Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! featured a strange collection of free-range teenagers and their talking dog encountering and solving mysteries which appear paranormal at first, but always resulted in the unmasking of a very real human. Inspiring enough to get a shout out in Tim Minchin’s ode to rational thinking Storm, but sadly those good times were never going to last. The 1972 revamp of the franchise saw a different format, with longer episodes, and real ghosts. Zoinks!
This terrible disappointment was however put into perspective with the introduction of Scrappy Doo in 1979. Perspective helps.
9: Phenomenon
1994’s Pulp Fiction is generally regarded as a classic, with a plethora of awards to its name. This was not all good for the world of cinema though as it’s widely credited with reviving the somewhat ailing career of controversial actor John Travolta. It would be another six years before he fully shot himself in the thetan with Scientology shambles Battlefield Earth, which doesn’t make this list because you need to achieve a reasonable level of quality in the first place in order to be ruined.
Eighteen years before Lucy, Phenomenon was ahead of the game in terms of its ‘superbrain’ plot, but was sadly lacking in cool fighty-shooty stuff. It did however explore some interesting themes about small town mentality and friendship. It’s not long before Travolta’s superbrain starts breaking the laws of physics, but with the door open to the cause of his ‘condition’, including alien or divine intervention, the audience are kept onboard right up until the reveal.
The reveal is both dissatisfying, and somewhat tasteless, as the real cause is a brain tumour. He dies, although thankfully that happens before the terrible Eric Clapton soundtrack kicks in. Merciful.
It’s hard to call any fault with such a long running, consistently excellent show. M*A*S*H managed to squeeze great comedy out of the medical horrors of war for over a decade, and on the occasions when it got serious, the impact was huge. With a very strong content warning, you can watch Hawkeye’s breakdown scene for an example just how dark and brilliant it could get.
With a reasonable attempt at realism of the difficulties of running a mobile army surgical hospital during the Korean war for the vast majority of the show’s long run, they fell out of line seriously on one occasion as they mistakenly endorsed the placebo effect as a real treatment. With a bad batch of morphine proving to be unusable, the team conjure up the idea of giving out sugar pills to their badly injured patients to get them through the night, and the results are quite literally unbelievable.
For a deeper breakdown on the episode and the legend of the wartime placebo check out this article from friend of The Skeptic, Jonathan Jarry, and Mike Hall’s excellent talk on the Placebo Myth from QED 2022. It’s a little sad though that the only sour taste left by such a great show was caused by sugar pills.
Once again, a big thanks to my friends in the skeptical community who helped me crowdsource input for this article. If your suggestion didn’t make it into the list then either you got it wrong, or I was too lazy to watch the film/show in question (or even read the plot synopsis on IMDB) – you can decide which.
If you want to fight me about my selection, you should probably get a hobby, but you’re welcome to seek me out on twitter anyway!
Have you ever wondered how superstitions affect your mental health? Superstitions are incredibly enthralling – people believe in them even when we know they cannot be real. We believe in them anyway, because of the common saying: it’s better to be safe than sorry. More often than not, we notice how superstitions alter our behaviour and mindset, but we may not consciously realise the effects they have on our mental health, especially during auspicious seasons when our anxieties come out to play. Superstitions can affect mental health both positively and negatively, but changes we make to our behaviour are more likely driven by what we fear would happen otherwise. This phenomenon is also known as phobic superstition, where a superstition can result in anxiety and worry, resulting in changed behaviour to avoid negative outcomes.
As a mental health advocate and a student majoring in Psychology, I find myself drawn to understanding the implications of our thoughts and how they influence our mental health. Superstitions are subjective, abstract and interpreted differently by every individual, so it is difficult to label them as purely “good” or “bad”. However, the effect of superstitious beliefs on mental health are rooted in concrete concepts that can help us determine if they are doing more harm than good or vice versa.
The Hungry Ghost Festival is deeply embedded in traditional Chinese culture and takes place in the 7th month of the lunar calendar, usually in mid-August. During the period of the festival, people believe the gates of hell are opened, freeing the souls in the underworld to look for food in the realm of the living. The Chinese will make offerings and sacrifices to ensure those who are still alive will live peacefully, while feeding and appeasing those who have passed on. These ritualistic practices and beliefs are part of superstitions the Chinese have passed down from generation to generation.
There are certain superstitions specific to the Hungry Ghost Festival that the Chinese are encouraged to practise. Some examples of these superstitions include not borrowing an umbrella, not tapping on someone’s shoulder and not to schedule celebratory events like weddings during the 7th lunar month. The reason behind avoiding these actions is to ensure people do not anger the spirits and ghosts who have been freed and are existing amongst the living. These superstitious beliefs are tied to the presence of ghosts and spirits, beings that humans are unable to touch and see according to scientific reasoning. So why do some people still believe so strongly in something they cannot even see?
Dating back to primitive times, our ancestors came up with superstitions as a means to “feel more in control” of their lives since they “lacked concrete ways to influence their survival outcomes”. Since then, these beliefs have trickled down all the way to generations today, who still believe in them in spite of how much our society and cultures have evolved. We have more control and autonomy over our lives today, compared to our ancestors, and we live in an age of science and technology. Science is the basis on which any phenomenon and concept is reasoned and proven. Ghosts have yet to be a proven phenomenon, as most of us know, yet we still find ourselves subscribing to superstitions.
Possible encounters with ghosts result in people experiencing a great deal of anxiety, driving them to religious and cultural practices to keep ghosts at bay. While there is no scientific evidence to prove the existence of ghosts, science offers explanations as to why some people believe that they have encountered ghosts and spirits. Our brains merely perceive what we receive through our senses, and ghost encounters occur most often at night, when our senses are most heightened as we are unaware of what lurks in the night… plus, there are fewer people are around once the sun has set. Anxiety and fear are two of the main causes that lead people to believe that they have truly encountered a ghost, and since our brain can only perceive the information we feed it, it only reinforces the belief that ghosts exist around us. The brain can sometimes picture things that are not really there, and this is a form of inattentional blindness.
Someone’s religious background also influences whether or not they might believe in ghosts. Our perception is shaped by our expectations, needs and beliefs, especially when the information picked up by our senses is ambiguous, leaving our brain to fill in the gaps in what we perceive. While religious practices such as those practised during the Hungry Ghost Festival can help to keep people safe and relieve them of their anxieties about being haunted by ghosts, it can also do the opposite. Believing that certain rituals must be adhered to in order to keep ghosts at bay could make people feel on edge, and make them carry out the rituals more compulsively. Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is commonly associated with a belief in superstitions, and is a form of mental health disorder that requires treatment. Over time, people with deeply ingrained superstitious beliefs could exhibit symptoms of OCD and eventually be diagnosed with the disorder.
How our mental health is affected by our superstitious beliefs is often overlooked, and most people probably do not realise the toll superstitions can take on their overall well-being. Having more control and autonomy leads to superstitious beliefs to appease people with a sense of security. Anxiety, tension, worrying and obsessive thoughts are all signs of concern and could be attributed to or lead to more repetitive ritualised behaviour that could grow out of control if left unchecked and untreated.
Superstitions mainly arise from cultural traditions or individual experiences. People who grow up in cultural and religious households are more likely to believe in superstitions and partake in ritualistic practices. For the most part, superstitions are relatively harmless. However, when they interfere with one’s day-to-day functioning and result in one intentionally taking drastic measures to alter their behaviour, it could indicate an underlying mental health condition.
Superstitions are unhealthy and problematic in cases where they greatly impair one’s state of mental health which affects their overall day-to-day functioning. Prolonged distress that goes untreated can be extremely damaging, and superstitions propagate this distress through compulsive and repetitive practices to keep the bad and “evil” away. This, however, should not be taken to mean that all superstitions are bad for our mental health, as most superstitions that have long existed in tradition and culture are healthy, harmless and do not affect our day-to-day lives.
I interviewed Ms Gan, 24, about her experiences with superstitions and the practices she has implemented in her life as a result. She shared with me that she is someone who is quite superstitious in many different aspects of her life, and subscribes to the auspicious and superstitious practices surrounding the Hungry Ghost Festival.
She expressed feeling anxiety during the Hungry Ghost Festival period, as she fears being on the receiving end of a haunting if she comes across an angry ghost. She makes sure to participate in all the ritualistic activities to safeguard both her physical and mental well-being.
She did say that taking part in the rituals for the Hungry Ghost Festival does give her a peace of mind, too, since she is aware of the ghosts and can take precautions to keep them at bay. She makes sure to be respectful not only of those who have passed but also of the offerings made by others that eventually litter the environment, by not stepping on them and walking around them. This ensures she will not be disturbing the ghosts who have joined the living to feast on the offerings. It was very insightful getting to hear both sides of the story from Ms Gan’s own experiences with superstitions.
This brings me to the other side of the coin: how superstitions can also help to relieve anxieties, and allow people to have a greater feeling of control over the outcome of their actions (even if it is a false sense of control). People often wear a lucky piece of clothing or jewellery at important events, to bring good luck; when the good luck comes true, we believe that it was because of the lucky item, reinforcing the confirmation bias we have that the item worked. This encourages us to be consistent with this behaviour to invite more good luck.
There is a very simple explanation for this behaviour, that is our mindset reinforces our beliefs and superstitions, in this case making one believe that there was good luck because of a lucky item. This can lead us to see the world more positively, and perhaps make us more open to seeing and taking advantage of opportunities that come our way, or make us respond more positively to people, in turn making them see us more favourably.
Superstitions like these help to encourage people to do better and feel more in control, and explain why superstitions are more likely to arise in situations that elicit insecurity, danger, fear and anxiety. Though there is a possible inverse effect: for example, if someone were to misplace the item they believe to be lucky, they could feel stress or anxiety, which will infringe on their mental health and cause their mental well-being to deteriorate.
Superstitions can affect our mental health both negatively and positively. For the most part, superstitions can be relatively harmless, and something people follow ‘just in case’, as a precaution to ensure the best outcomes for themselves and their loved ones. In that case, superstitions are used as motivation to keep up positive behaviour to ensure a better state of mind.
It is only when superstitions become compulsive and overly repetitive that they become a real cause for concern, and signal the need for one to see a mental health professional for help.
Some of us may be contemplating whether we need to unlearn our superstitious beliefs and deprogram their effects on our mental health. Ultimately, even with all this information in your pocket, it is still up to you to decide for yourself how superstitious you want to be. Just bear in mind that the thoughts you feed your mind ultimately shape your mindset, which can set the tone and direction of your life.
