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The Oceangate tragedy has brought some of society’s ghouls to the surface

Brian Eggo
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The Oceangate tragedy has brought some of society’s ghouls to the surface

There’s nothing like a tragedy to bring out the best and worst of humanity. On one hand there’s lessons to be learned, acts of kindness or bravery, and societal progress that can be made; but on the other there’s fame to be earned, derision to be spouted, and money to get paid.

The recent implosion of Oceangate’s Titan submersible, resulting in the death of the five people aboard, and its aftermath is proving to be a perfect case study, with the whole gamut of actions and reactions on display. As the international maritime community scrambled to conjure up some kind of rescue mission, the speculation and hot-takes quickly piled up. When the worst news was confirmed, things really went into overdrive.

There were of course some comparisons made between the huge media reaction to the plight of five rich men (or, more accurately, four rich men and one child of rich parents) and the seeming apathy towards the plight of migrants who are dying on the seas in far greater numbers.  Also of note is the intense, and highly justified, scrutiny now being placed on the apparently cavalier attitude that was taken towards safety, with the recently-deceased CEO Stockton Rush frequently parroting silicon valley tech-bro mantras like ‘regulation prevents innovation’, and ‘move fast and break things’. In the same way that opponents of gun control get just a little bit quieter every time there’s a mass shooting, we may get a temporary suspension of libertarians glorifying the elegance of free market solutions. Probably not though.

Of course, as Skeptics, it’s only natural for us to turn our eyes towards the usual suspects whose heads bobble up to the surface when disaster strikes. Namely,  grifters, ‘psychics’, lazy journalists, and conspiracy theorists. Unsurprisingly, the pickings were plentiful, so here’s a quick tasting menu of bad taste.

Grifters

There’s money and notoriety to be had from rabble-rousing, particularly when it comes to the carefully orchestrated culture wars we’re currently being subjected to. Whenever there’s a relevant news craft in the waters, you can almost guarantee there’ll be a right-wing outrage barnacle clinging to the hull and trying to pin the blame on whatever the moral panic-du-jour happens to be.

In this case they failed to find a transgender angle to the tragedy, so had to go to the backup option of ‘wokeness’. Those accusations were largely based on Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush’s statements from a few years ago saying he wouldn’t hire ‘50 year-old white men’ who knew how to command submarines and would rather train others.

Instead of identifying this as a somewhat transparent attempt to save money and employ people who are less likely to be in the position to be able to say no (and perhaps less likely to have the experience and knowledge to identify showstopping safety issues), this has been portrayed as a misguided attempt at diversity and equality employment policy. Unsurprisingly, some of the culprits are already well known lubricators of the outrage machine, including successor to Tucker Carlson’s throne of misinformation at Fox News Jesse Waters, and Charlie Kirk, the public face of the highly-funded right-wing American think-tank Turning Point USA.

Psychics

Tireless skeptical crusader Susan Gerbic first drew my attention to psychics’ attempts to gain traction from the Titan tragedy with a TikTok video from ‘psychic medium’ Gemma Lonsdale, which is now being touted as a prediction of the disaster. In a video on the subject, Susan clearly calls out the obvious flaws in the prediction: it is incredibly vague, and clearly mentions a ship (a cruise ship to be precise) rather than a submersible. Susan also highlights how ghoulish it is to claim to channel the deceased actor from the Titanic movie, Bill Paxton. If that wasn’t bad enough, Gemma is now claiming to be connecting with recently deceased Oceangate CEO Stockton Rush.

Of course, Gemma isn’t the only one claiming supernatural powers have given her insight. We also get Kamela Hurley claiming she knew of the fate of the Titan well before it had been confirmed, and even a return for Jessica Adams, who was last mentioned in The Skeptic by me back in 2021, in a piece about people who (falsely) claimed to have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic. A quick Google will find you many more jumping on the submersible bandwagon, but I’d recommend you don’t.

Lazy journalists

The thought experiment of the Infinite Monkey Theory is likely at some point in the not too distant future to be renamed to the ‘Simpsons Writing Room’. Paleontologists don’t fully agree on exactly when The Simpsons started, but there’s general agreement that in the post-apocalyptic wasteland of the earth we’ll be left with cockroaches and Homer in an endless search for surviving donuts.

The somewhat laboured point here is that we’re well past the point where you can find a Simpsons plotline which will intersect with pretty much anything happening in the real world.

This has of course already been covered for The Skeptic by Mike Hall, but it appears that some of the writers for the Daily Record haven’t read it yet, as we get another slightly tasteless and entirely vapid article claiming that the Simpsons ‘eerily predicted’ the Titan tragedy. Credit where credit’s due though, in terms of animated comedic longevity, Family Guy is getting there too, so it’s getting in on the action with a tenuous story as well.

Conspiracy theorists

Unusually, we haven’t heard anything from speculator-in-chief Alex Jones about the Titan tragedy. Presumably he’s somewhat reticent to cry foul and talk about crisis actors these days, so it’s not all bad news. Also unusually, we didn’t get David Icke playing the badly concealed antisemitic card. Instead, we got a much more overt accusation from Stew Peters, where he ties in a long-running conspiracy theory about The Titanic and the Federal Reserve with a fresh new one about the Rothschilds funding the Oceangate company.

The final sprinkling of conspiratorial nonsense comes from the GOP in America, with Senator Marsha Blackburn making a spectacular red-thread connection on her pinboard between a Coast Guard announcement and a testimony to congress about now-permanent fixture on the conspiracy theory bingo card Hunter Biden.

Closer to home

Unfortunately, it’s not just those ‘usual suspects’ who are blotting their copybook. There are some areas in social media tangentially related to the wider Skeptics community where we’re seeing some disappointing ‘Darwin Award’ type nastiness in social media comments, and many who think that the phrase ‘eat the rich’ is a literal culinary suggestion rather than a metaphor.

At a time when those who should know better could be promoting rational thinking and scientific rigour, with a focus on human wellbeing, they’re busy sharing f*ck around and find out memes for cheap laughs.

We could all do better. We should. Hopefully this time we’ll learn, but probably not.

“Natural” health influencers claim sunscreen is bad for you – but are they right? (No)

Alice Howarth
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“Natural” health influencers claim sunscreen is bad for you – but are they right? (No)

The weather has been glorious here in the UK, which means out come all the warnings to apply sunscreen copiously and frequently. It also means out come all the warnings that chemicals in sunscreen are dangerous.

But what does the science say?

Types of sunscreen

There are two main types of sunscreen: chemical or mineral. Chemical sunscreens contain chemical UV filters such as octinoxate and oxybenzone and some have retinyl palmitate added to them. Mineral sunscreens contain mineral compounds like titanium dioxide and/or zinc oxide. Chemical sunscreens absorb UV light and convert it whereas mineral sunscreens are reflective and act as a physical barrier. This means mineral sunscreens are often thicker and have a less pleasant texture on the skin and they leave your skin a little ghostly.

Chemical sunscreen – the warnings

When we see warnings about the dangers of sunscreen it tends to be related to three things:

  • Does chemical sunscreen cause skin problems such as contact dermatitis?
  • Does chemical sunscreen cause cancer?
  • Does chemical sunscreen cause birth defects?

So what are these concerns based on?

Contact dermatitis

Some people have skin reactions to chemical sunscreens – this occurs in less 1% of users and can be a response to fragrances, preservatives or the UV absorber itself. Sensitivity can develop after using a particular formulation for a long time. If you have a sensitive reaction to sunscreen you can try switching formulations, or you can switch to mineral sunscreen which is less likely to cause a reaction. And of course, see your doctor if you’re worried.

Causing cancer

Some studies suggest that oxybenzone can cause hormonal changes in cells grown in the lab. These hormonal changes have been confirmed in animals like mice but have not been reliably shown to occur in humans. Hormone changes can cause cancer so some people believe that oxybenzone can cause cancer. To date this has not been shown to be the case. Oxybenzone has not been shown to cause the DNA mutations needed to cause cancer and hormonal changes are not always linked to cancer. This evidence is insufficient to prove any link between oxybenzone and cancer.

an image of a small white mouse standing on a white background

Retinyl palmitate is sometimes found in sunscreen. Retinyl palmitate is derived from retinol or vitamin A and it acts as an antioxidant. Retinol generates reactive oxygen species (ROS) when exposed to UV radiation and ROS are able to damage DNA. This is the basis for the concerns that Retinol will cause cancer.

Studies in mice did not show that retinol combined with UV radiation causes cancer. There is no data published in humans to suggest that retinyl palmitate causes cancer.

A recent meta-analysis confirmed that there is no evidence supporting an increase in cancer risk caused by sunscreen use.

Causing birth defects

There is evidence that medicinal retinol pills can cause birth defects however this has not been shown to be the case with topical retinol application. Still, as a precautionary method it is advisable that pregnant women do not use a sunscreen containing retinols for the duration of their pregnancy.

The context

It is important to note that while there may be some evidence suggesting some level of risk associated with chemical sunscreen – this must be taken within the wider context.

There are two main types of skin cancer – melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer. Non-melanoma skin cancer includes basal cell carcinoma and squamous cell carcinoma and is largely treatable if it’s caught early. Non-melanoma cancers are the most common type of cancer. Melanoma skin cancer is an invasive form of cancer that is the 5th most common and at late stages is usually considered incurable. At early stages it is highly treatable but this form of cancer can progress rapidly and requires early intervention.  Both types of skin cancer are on the rise in the UK and this is linked to increasing sun and sunbed exposure. UV light exposure accounts for 86% of all melanoma cases, in the UK. Studies in Australia have shown a reduced rate of melanoma with regular sunscreen use.

Does sunscreen prevent cancer?

A white sunhat with a black ribbon on a table with a pair of blue lensed sunglasses

There is evidence that regular sunscreen use reduces pre-cancerous conditions and prevents skin cancer. However, the research into the efficacy of sunscreen is highly variable. This is partly because people are prone to using sunscreen in order to extend their time in the sun and misunderstand the most effective ways to use sunscreen.

Chemical sunscreens should be applied to the skin 30 minutes before going into the sun and should be reapplied every two hours or more often if you are perspiring or swimming. Even waterproof sunscreen will be removed by towelling down after a swim. Sunscreen does prevent sunburn however research shows that people who only rely on sunscreen to protect themselves from UV damage burn more often than people who also practice sun avoidance habits. A person who has suffered sunburn more than twice in their life is twice as likely to get melanoma.

So what should you do?

While there is evidence that chemical sunscreens can have some detrimental effects on the body – the evidence is overwhelmingly clear that over-exposure to UV light causes skin cancer. Not only that, the research shows that the benefits of using sunscreen far outweigh the risks. Unless you are completely avoiding any UV light exposure then in my opinion, using sunscreen is a risk worth taking.

In addition to wearing sunscreen and reapplying regularly, you should aim to avoid direct sunlight during the hottest hours of the day or wear clothing that covers your skin. And don’t forget, you might not burn through glass but you can still get UV skin damage through glass!

Extra reading:

Joss paper offerings: how to make Chinese hell a fun place for your ancestors

Lee Siew Yee
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Joss paper offerings: how to make Chinese hell a fun place for your ancestors

If hell is truly what the Chinese people believe it is, I am quite excited to die. Having spent my whole life with a family who strongly believes in the afterlife and in burning paper offerings for our ancestors, I never found it to be a strange concept. That was, until recently, when I entered my uncle’s joss paper shop and was faced with a huge assortment of paper luxury goods and “American Hell Money”

a stack of "hell bank note"s tied together with red ribbon.

A joss paper shop, as the name suggests, sells that and other goods that Chinese people burn as offerings to their ancestors. Needless to say, I was pretty caught off guard by seeing these million dollar American hell bank notes. My first thought was: we are Chinese, why are we burning American Dollars for our relatives? 

To answer that, I asked the owner of the store, my great-uncle Vincent. Vincent is a man in his seventies who has been working in this joss paper store since its opening in 1962, and the third generation owner of this store, having taken over the store in the 1980s after his own grandfather wanted to retire.

“Why American Dollars? It’s because their currency is stable and stronger!”

His reply only caused me even more confusion. Was there a foreign exchange system in hell? And why is the American Dollar stronger, even in Chinese hell?

Before I continue into the rest of this story, let me briefly explain the afterlife and the point of this practice of burning paper offerings.

The Chinese concept of hell, usually called 地狱 (dì yù) literally translating to “earth prison”,  is very different from the Christian idea of hell. Rather than it being a final stage in the afterlife that someone will be condemned to forever, it is usually seen as a place where people must first pay for the sins committed in their lifetime, before being reincarnated.

There are many different beliefs about the amount of time spent in hell, and how reincarnation occurs, and it can differ from family to family, as many of these traditions and beliefs are passed down from generation to generation through word of mouth.

During this period in hell, the Chinese people believe their deceased loved ones still need houses, cars, money and other essentials, to get by in their time spent in earth’s prison before they get their chance at reincarnation.

Hence many Chinese people, mainly Taoists, burn paper offerings. Traditionally, people would burn Joss Paper (A rectangular piece of paper with gold or silver foil in the middle that would be folded into the shape of an ingot) or Hell Money (Fake currency, usually with the Jade emperor’s face on it) as offerings to their ancestors.

Ever since I was a young child, I had always seen my grandmother folding joss papers into ingots as she watched her soap operas. These were not used for our own offerings, but instead sold in Vincent’s store. So I asked what was the difference between these ones and the stacks of paper, to which Vincent replied, “In the past, people would fold the joss papers into ingots themselves to show their love. Now, people are busy, they just pay us more for ones that we have already folded. To them, it’s the same thing, the extra money they spend is also a form of love”.

Paper shirts

Joss papers are burnt during the funeral of the deceased, on death anniversaries, and during the Qingming Festival (a tomb sweeping festival), or during the Hungry Ghost festival (which occurs during the 7th month of the Lunar calendar, and is where the souls of the dead can come back roam the earth).

Classic paper offerings that people burn would be things like food and snacks, clothes, shoes, or houses. There are also more modern items like paper phones, computers, and their respective chargers. Things that would be considered daily necessities.

My own family only burns these traditional items as offerings, and I tend to visit the joss paper store only once a year during the Lunar New Year, so I was not very familiar with all the types of paper offerings. Only after seeing the American Hell Money did I gain an interest in this tradition, and made another trip back to his store recently to ask more questions.

A paper bird cage, wine bottles and a hi-fi system.

To my amusement, when I asked to see what other paper offerings he had available, Vincent began taking out paper versions of bird cages (fake pet bird included), wine bottles (with paper bottle openers), huge speakers, and even slot machines.

I asked Vincent which of these items were his bestsellers. “Actually, these things are seasonal too. Other than the traditional things that always sell well, my customers love buying whatever new products we bring in. Whatever is new here, they want.” 

It seemed that most people were not really thinking about what they burned, just picking up whatever was new and shiny at the store, once again reiterating to me that something about this tradition had really changed.

Given that gambling is considered a sin that someone can be sent to the seventh chamber of hell for, I could not help but feel amused looking at the bright blue paper slot machine sat in front of me. Someone in hell trying to repent for gambling could continue to indulge in their vices in the afterlife if their relatives sent them a jackpot machine.

the blue slot machine as described in the text

If I could have all the latest technological devices, branded clothing, and my own personal jackpot machine in hell, I would be better off there than I am here.

This made me wonder what the true reason was behind people burning paper offerings. When it was just the basic necessities, I never thought twice about it, after all, everyone needs money, food and shelter to survive. However, when these offerings became excessive, with items that were more like luxury goods than necessities, it made me wonder if the reasoning behind it was something else.

Perhaps it is a case of overcompensating due to guilt. Everyone wants to give their loved ones the best, but for many, being able to afford expensive watches or clothes to give to relatives may not be a possibility.

A paper handbag and matching paper shoes

Curious to know Vincent’s point of view on this theory, I asked him for his thoughts, but he would not give me a straight answer. Instead, he told me a story of one of his customers, Ong (name changed to protect privacy) and his motivations for wanting to start burning paper offerings.

Ong walked into Vincent’s store looking anxious one day and said: “Uncle, I don’t know what I need but can you just give me one of everything that I should burn for my mother? It’s been about one year since she passed.”

A relatively young man in his thirties, Ong told Vincent that he had never burned or even purchased joss papers before and had only ever seen his parents do it for his grandparents when they were still alive. This was a rare case, as most of Vincent’s customers were in the older demographic, and the younger ones were usually just tagging along with their parents. Customers usually also have at least a basic idea of what they want.

Paper watches in a watch case

Upon further questioning, Ong revealed to my great-uncle that two nights ago, he had had a dream about his mother, in which she had been scolding him for being unfilial. In the dream, she had shouted at him: “I have no money to eat, no clothes to wear and no house to live in! For one entire year you have not burned anything for me. Why did I raise a son like this?”

Shocked and alarmed by his dream, Ong rushed to the joss paper shop to purchase some offerings for his deceased mother at the first chance he got. He then proceeded to purchase everything Vincent recommended to him without asking for any prices, and only asking continuously if what he was buying was sufficient. Randomly pointing to items in the shop asking if this and that was good to have, as the only thought on his mind was to “appease” his mother. 

After making his selection, the store assistants packed all the items into a bag, where Vincent then proceeded to ask him for his relation to the deceased and for her name and his name in Mandarin characters. Ong did not know the characters for his mother’s name, and hence they had to make do with writing it in English.

At this point, I interrupted to ask why he would need their names, to which he replied without skipping a beat, “When you send a letter you need to write who it’s addressed to and who it’s from right? We need to write so that the deceased can receive it.” I could not argue with that logic.

Filial piety is extremely important in Chinese culture, to the point where some see it as the overall foundation of Chinese society. So important that being unfilial is a sin that is seen as being even worse than committing murder, not being filial can land a person in the eighth chamber of hell, while murder or rape would only land them in the fourth.

Paper smartphones, a paper watch, a paper paid of ear buds.

Hence, it is not surprising that even after the passing of a parent, a child would feel a strong sense of guilt for not being able to provide them with certain luxuries while they were still alive. This felt even more true as I walked around the store, looking at the packages of luxury watches and branded bags, shoes and clothing. Items that the large majority of people would not have been splurging on while still alive.

The story of Ong, I believe was Vincent’s way of telling me that he, too, felt most of these purchases of paper offerings were more guilt driven than from belief in the actual practice. A son who did not know how to write his mother’s name in mandarin, having that realisation for the first time, further adding to his guilt, then making it up with even more items to send her.

Despite his occupation, Vincent has said that he is a freethinker, but believes in some aspects of these practices. He mentioned that whether or not one believes in the tradition of burning paper offerings, it still has its value in reminding people that they should not forget their ancestors, and also to be filial to their parents.

However, knowing his stance on the tradition, I felt that he was not the best representation of people who practice burning joss papers and offerings. Instead, I decided to turn to my extremely religious and superstitious grandmother, subtly hinting to avoid offending her, wanting to know if she actually believed that burning paper offerings was necessary for her ancestors to have a more comfortable stay in hell.

She laughs a little before saying to me “Some people have children who never call them and only visit them once a year and forget them for the other 364 days. Rather than a child like that who burns every luxury item for me after I’m already gone, I think I would prefer it if my children just spent time with me. No need to buy any bags or clothes, we can just go have a simple meal together.”

My grandmother is so superstitious that even in this day and age, she gets very angry if I go to her house wearing all black, as she tells me I am bringing bad luck into her house. Hence, through her reply, I knew that she did not fully believe in needing to burn paper offerings for actual use in the afterlife. Nevertheless, she continues to burn the offerings together with her siblings whenever there is a necessary occasion for it.

In our modern world, I think that many people no longer truly believe that they need to burn paper offerings to help their deceased relatives get by in hell, but continue carrying out this tradition instead just for the sentiment of it. Even for many people in the generation who did believe it, Vincent told me that although many hope their relatives will be reincarnated one or two years after their passing, they continue to burn paper offerings every year, as a way to remember them.

It can also serve as a reminder to younger generations to be filial, seeing their parents burn offerings for their grandparents or great-grandparents could remind a child that they should do what they can for their parents in life, before the only way they can show their love is through burning offerings.

With every tradition based on superstition, there will be people on the opposing end that believe it does more harm than good. In this case, there are some who feel burning Joss Paper is very harmful to the environment, as mass burning during festivals can cause a reduction in air quality, especially in urban areas. Others think it is a fire hazard, and some simply dislike it, as they think it is a way of earning the money of people who are grieving and vulnerable.

However, as Vincent told me, people are getting more and more busy, and have little time to spend with their family. Many might not realise how lacking they were as a child until the parent is gone, and by the time they want to do better, it may already be too late. In cases like these, if the tradition of burning paper offerings and joss paper helps them feel like they are still able to show their appreciation to their parents and ancestors, I do not think that there is much harm in it. As long as they take caution when they are doing their burning, ensure they do not start fires, and reduce the amount of pollution by burning only the papers rather than the plastic packaging, of course.

Though the items are not cheap, given that they will almost immediately be burnt to ashes, the cost of these offerings are also not exorbitant. People might pay around £40 for a bag that will include joss papers, some food and snack items, clothing, and maybe a phone or two. If that is the price to pay for someone to feel like they have given their loved ones an easier time in the afterlife, in their eyes, it may be a price worth paying.

If you should go at midnight: legends and legend tripping in America

Mark Horne
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If you should go at midnight: legends and legend tripping in America

Readers may not have heard the term ‘legend tripping’ before, but you’ve probably been legend tripping, and you’ve quite likely watched one of the many extraordinarily popular movies about the practice, from The Blair Witch Project to The Conjuring. You may even have had the fortune to stumble across one of the many legend-tripping TV shows, from the UK’s Most Haunted to American paranormal investigator Zak Bagan’s Ghost Adventures. 

Legend tripping, for the uninitiated, is a pilgrimage made to a site with some kind of legend, extraordinary or supernatural occurrence – perhaps most obviously ghost hunting, but also to sites of UFO encounters, urban legends, historical sites and scenes from true crimes like The Historic Lizzie Borden House. 

The book cover of "If you should go at midnight: legends and legend tripping in America".

Legend tripping has become a subject of some discussion for folklorists and anthropologists in recent decades, especially in the USA, and the practice is the subject of If You Should Go at Midnight: Legends and Legend Tripping in America, a new volume by sociologist Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl. 

Drawing on online accounts, more traditional documentary evidence and his own extensive fieldwork, Debies-Carl breaks down legends trips into their component stages in the book, before going on to some interesting discussion around the purpose of legend tripping in modern society. 

The archetypal legend trip involves a legend recounted, often by bored teenagers with access to a car, that relates to a particular site of mystery, perhaps a cursed or haunted graveyard or house, and often off-limits – especially at night for the bored adolescents! This is a fascinating insight into American legends in particular, some of which were quite unfamiliar to me, such as the eye-bulging, goblin-like, degenerate humans known as “Melon Heads” in the Midwest and Connecticut. 

Preparations are made, from a quick Google for directions for the more spontaneous trip, to packing electronic ghost-detecting gear or Bigfoot-hunting equipment for the more carefully-planned adventures. While Debies-Carl is more interested in how legend trips work than whether the legends themselves are true, he does characterise much of what takes place from a sensible standpoint, for example arguing that these preliminary activities “prepare the legend trippers for the events to come… a sense of expectancy and a willingness to accept wondrous, otherworldly possibilities that they might not otherwise find easy to entertain.” 

Then comes the journey itself. Legends trippers may encounter trials as they hunt for the entrance or location of a certain graveyard or an abandoned hospital, which may be unclear or even deliberately obscure. Further tribulations include the intentional hindrances that authorities or even private property owners may have in place; Debies-Carl reminds us that the owners of houses associated with legends don’t appreciate the endless troupes of legend trippers, which has led, unsurprisingly, to violent confrontations, including a 2006 shooting in Ohio that left a girl partially paralysed and the shooter serving a sixteen-year sentence. 

The destination for one’s legend trip need not be far, though, as long as there is a boundary of some sort to be crossed, which could be as simple as climbing the stepladder into your dusty, ill-lit loft. 

Rites and rituals follow, whether to inflame or summon the spirit or supernatural happening, or to placate them. Debies-Carl notes that the effect is the same either way; they reinforce the fear expectation and make the encounters more likely. 

Although Debies-Carl visited plenty of legend sites and slept in haunted bedrooms, the supernatural encounters the rituals were meant to provoke never seem to happen to our enthusiastic but dry author, for whom prosaic explanations for flickering lights seemed understandably more plausible than the alternatives, though he notes that being primed with the previous steps did at least make him consider the supernatural alternatives. 

He explains that “legend trippers frequently interpret even subjective feelings or ‘mood’ as having been caused by some supernatural source,” before recounting a tale of a midnight adventure at Saint John’s University in Minnesota, “where the ghost of a drowned monk is said to roam.” These Minnesotan legend trippers didn’t actually see or hear anything at all, but say that the experience of being there was so spooky that they left before anything ghostly or supernatural could happen. As Debies-Carl notes, “even the absence of evidence can be interpreted as the proof.”

It should come as no surprise by this point in the review that the book is full of references to work by Chris French, Elizabeth Loftus, Richard Wiseman and even Carl Sagan.

The legend tripper must then retreat, potentially in haste, to return to the normal world, and go on to tell the tale of the adventure. They may have something relatively concrete (though hardly supernatural for those who know the science) such as orb-photos or, if they were especially well-prepared, EVP recordings, or just a tale to tell of the adventure. The author recounts a particular experience from his own childhood, where lights seemed to be moving inexplicably, that he only learned the explanation years later: the autokinetic effect and social psychology. 

Debies-Carl finishes with a discussion of the role of legend-tripping as a rite of passage – or rather, as he is at pains to point out, an activity that is rather better than traditional adulthood rituals and rites of passage. While legend tripping can have dangerous consequences, from the aforementioned shooting to a role in causing the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, he convincingly argues this is a more positive and enjoyable activity than, say, the hazing involved in fraternities. 

It’s almost certainly not true that one in four British people think Covid was a hoax

Michael Marshall
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It’s almost certainly not true that one in four British people think Covid was a hoax

Conspiracy theories are having a moment right now, there’s no denying that. Five years ago, the notion that the earth was flat was the pet theory du jour of “independent thinkers”, and when that particular movement lost momentum, QAnon rose up to take its place. When the pandemic came along – coinciding with a conspiracist-in-chief in the White House – conspiracy theories went truly mainstream. They’ve been a primary focus of this magazine ever since my first article after taking over as editor, and they are unquestionably a threat, to some degree, to social cohesion in almost every part of the world.

As someone who spends far too much of his time looking for the next conspiracy theory – and the next prominent promoter of the theory, so I can secure an interview – it has certainly felt to me like there has been a noted uptick in the prevalence of conspiratorial thinking. But how big of a problem actually is it, and how many people are drawn into these paranoid and demonstrably false beliefs?

Answers to these questions came in the form of a report this week, which suggested that conspiratorial thinking is widespread and wildly out of hand. As the Guardian’s coverage explained:

Quarter in UK believe Covid was a hoax, poll on conspiracy theories finds

The UK is home to millions more conspiracy theorists than most people realise, with almost a quarter of the population believing Covid-19 was probably or definitely a hoax, polling has revealed.

This is obviously a striking finding – the UK has a population of almost 70 million people, so a quarter of that is a staggering number of people. Even if we discount children, we’d still be looking at the best part of 12 million people in the UK who don’t believe that the pandemic was real.

It gets worse, too, because the conspiracism is not merely around the pandemic:

About a third of the population are convinced that the cost of living crisis is a government plot to control the public, and similar numbers think “15-minute cities” – an attempt to increase walking in neighbourhoods – are a government surveillance ruse, and that the “great replacement theory” – the idea that white people are being replaced by non-white immigrants – is happening.

If anything, this is an even more concerning finding than the last; the great replacement theory (otherwise known as the Kalergi plan, as discussed in depth elsewhere on The Skeptic) is an explicitly white supremacist and antisemitic notion, which posits that a shadowy cabal of “elites” (read: Jews) are deliberately driving mass immigration into nations like the UK and US, in order to flood the country with people of colour, thus diminishing the power, purity and bloodlines of the white race. For more than 15 million adults in the UK to believe in this idea – and, according to the chart released alongside the data, for 12% of Britons to think this is “definitely true” – would be deeply worrying.

The chart as described in the text. Three bars showing proportions of respondents who believe that "The 'great replacement' theory", "The 15-minute cities" and "The terrorism 'cover-up'" are "definitely true" "probably true", "don't know", "probably false or "definitely false". In each case around one third believe these are definitely or probably true.

The results came from a survey conducted by Savanta and commissioned by The Policy Institute and the BBC, in which 2,274 adults were asked a series of questions about their conspiratorial beliefs. Those numbers were then weighted so as to be representative, and extrapolated into these incredibly attention-grabbing headlines.

However, before we accept these findings at face value, and begin decrying the widespread death of critical thinking and basic humanity, it’s worth asking: do these findings actually make sense?

Take, for example, the quarter of people who said they believed Covid was a hoax. How does that finding fit with the fact that, according to the ONS, 93.6% of people aged 12 or older had received at least one dose of vaccination against Covid, and 88.2% got their second dose. These numbers were from August 2022, so the rates are likely to be even higher than that.

For both of these sets of figures to be simultaneously true, there would need to be huge numbers of people who thought that Covid was merely a hoax perpetrated by the UK government, who still allowed that same government to give them two doses of the vaccine that they believed to be dangerous. Something here just doesn’t seem right.

Similarly, the strength of feeling about the notion of 15-minute cities seems deeply unlikely: I wrote about the 15-minute city panic in March, just one month before Savanta conducted their research. In the article, I spent some time explaining what the concept of a 15-minute city actually is, because at the time, nobody I spoke to seemed to have heard of it. Yet, one month later when this survey was conducted, 12% of people thought it “Definitely true” and 21% thought it “probably true” that it was a government plot to surveil people and restrict our freedoms. How did this idea go from obscurity to something that 33% of all adults were certain was a tool of totalitarian control?

There are a number of possible explanations. One option is that the people I was speaking with happened to be among the 17% of people who would go on to say “don’t know” in the survey. Another is that, in the time between March 10th and April 28th, the awareness of 15-minute cities skyrocketed – it’s possible, though from a glance at the analytics for my article, it seems unlikely that the subject matter suddenly got picked up by the Zeitgeist. Or the third option is that there were flaws, errors, noise or statistical weirdness in Savanta’s survey data, that renders it of relatively little use for extrapolating up to a population level. Call me a skeptic, but that third option feels by far the most parsimonious.

There are other clues that suggest this data may not be usefully reflective of the whole UK population. In the summary put together by Savanta, they summarise that one in seven people in the UK have heard of The Light paper, an anti-vax, conspiracy heavy, freely-distributed newspaper that emerged during the pandemic. Of those who have heard of it, 51% of people help distribute it and 40% subscribe to it (by which I assume they mean make donations to keep the paper operational).

A table showing that 14% of people have heard of the light paper. Of those 62% have read a copy, 51% have helped distribute it and 40% subscribe.

These numbers seem extraordinary – this would give The Light a reach of 6.7m people, of whom 4m are readers, and 3.4m take time out to volunteer to distribute it. If “subscribing” means donating as little as £1 per month, these figures would give The Light an income of £32.25m annually – more than the Daily Telegraph (OK, possibly a bad example).

Is it possible that this free antivaxx newspaper is actually such a powerhouse of publishing? Again, familiarity with the subject matter allows for a reasonable sense-check. Mark Horne covered The Light paper for this magazine in April 2022 – it is handed out by the White Rose antivaccination movement, and by activists from Stand in the Park, and it was founded by Darren Smith/Nesbitt, formerly one of the UK’s most prominent flat earth proponents. Darren, by odd happenstance, is someone I know: I saw him speak at the flat earth conference in 2018, and interviewed him later that year to talk about his flat earth beliefs; I then interviewed him again in February 2021 to talk to about Covid and The Light paper. I have been in the Telegram group for The Light paper since 2021 – it currently has 19,955 subscribers there (fortunately, the recent publicity it has received has not substantially increased that number – according to one of the channel’s moderators, the spotlight put on it by the BBC resulted in only around 50 new subscribers).

When you spend any amount of time researching and understanding The Light paper, it becomes abundantly clear that it cannot possibly be true that millions of people volunteer to distribute it, nor that it makes seven-figure profits and has a circulation four times larger than the Metro and five times larger than the Daily Mail.

National newspaper circulations in April 2023 with the Metro reaching 956,317 and The Daily Mail reaching 780,779

So if these findings fail a basic sense-check, what might be going on to give these extraordinary and headline-making results? There’s a few possible explanations, some of which are outlined by Stuart Ritchie in the i-newspaper – such as the possibility that respondents had a wide range of interpretations of quite what is meant by a “hoax” in relation to Covid. There’s also the fact that a certain number of respondents will give unexpected and untrue answers in surveys – either because they want to please the interviewer by telling them what they think they want to hear, or because they want to appear more knowledgeable than they are and thus will report having heard of something they haven’t, or because they want to disrupt the survey as a bit of fun.

There’s also the issue of representativeness – survey methodologies vary quite wildly, but even surveys that are sampled and weighted to try to be as representative as possible can still get it wrong. This is especially the case once the data starts getting segmented out – like the analysis of the number of people who distributed The Light paper, which was a subset of the 14% of people who say they’d heard of the The Light paper. Once data is split and then split again, it’s incredibly hard to maintain that representativeness, and anomalies can slip in – which is fine, that’s part of the art and science of polling, but it has to be accounted for, especially if the poll throws up wildly unlikely findings.

As Anthony Wells, Head of European Political and Social Research at YouGov UK, wrote in reaction to the story:

Often, the most eye-catching and surprising results are the ones most likely to be suspect – they’re surprising for a reason, after all. One way to avoid falling victim to over-hyping an anomaly is to do the kind of basic sense-checks I’ve tried to do here. Another way is to check the results against other findings – like, for example, YouGov’s 2021 poll, which found that 3% of Britons agreed that COVID-19 was a hoax. Or perhaps to turn to the academic literature, where a 2022 study published by Uscinski et al found that, contrary to popular wisdom (and, I’ll be honest, my own gut feeling), there is scant evidence for a rise in conspiracy theory across the world.

None of this, of course, is to say that conspiracy theory is not a problem, nor that The Light paper is not worthy of concern; as someone who regularly speaks with conspiracy theory proponents, and who as spent the last few years watching The Light move from misreporting Yellow Card data on vaccine side effects to directly sharing white supremacist Great Replacement messages in their Telegram, I do believe we should be paying attention to the radicalisation pipeline that conspiracism offers. But for us to deal with the problem effectively, we need to have a genuine understanding of the scale of it, and over-stated and obviously implausible headlines claiming a third of the country are conspiracy theorists does nothing to further that cause.

Celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo isn’t dead… but the credibility of Twitter ads might well be

Michael Marshall
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It isn’t uncommon for news of celebrity deaths to break on Twitter, but it was still slightly surprising to see, on Monday morning, a touching and heartfelt black-and-white tribute to the Italian chef and restaurateur Gino D’Acampo.

“Parting is always difficult”, Twitter user @_malloriehoward wrote, “yet we take comfort knowing that Gino lived a fruitful and noteworthy life, leaving an enduring legacy of love, gentleness, and compassion”. The tweet included a photo of D’Acampo, in which he seemingly mourned his own passing, along with a preview of an article on theguardian.com, titled “Gino: A Remarkable Journey and Cherished Memories”.

The tweet from @_malloriehoward as described in the main text.

The tweet had twenty retweets, seventy-nine likes, and over 113,000 views. It was also, curiously enough, a promoted tweet – meaning that @_malloriehoward had paid for their mourning of a beloved celebrity chef to appear in the timelines of more than a hundred thousand strangers. And, at an average cost of around $1.35 per click, reply or retweet, they may have paid as much as $135 for the privilege.

The idea of someone paying to promote a tweet that mourned the death of celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo seemed deeply weird to me – but not, I imagine, as weird as it would have seemed to the very-much-still-alive celebrity chef Gino D’Acampo.

How had Mallorie and the Guardian got this celebrity death announcement so far wrong? I opened the article to find out, though rather than being greeted with a heartfelt recollection of Gino’s “cherished memories”, instead I found a piece by the Guardian’s tech editor Alex Hern, about a recent appearance D’Acampo made on The Graham Norton Show, in which he accidentally let slip something that caused the Bank of England to call the BBC and demand the broadcast be pulled immediately. What’s more, the Bank of England, so incensed by an off-hand remark by the affable Italian, had apparently taken the unprecedented step of launching legal action against D’Acampo.

A screen shot from The Guardian with the headline "Bank of England sues Gino D'Acampo for what he said on live TV"

Now, it’s not uncommon for the amiable atmosphere, genial host, and liberal alcohol policy of Norton’s late night chat show to loosen celebrity lips to the point where they say something they shouldn’t have, but it is rare that those revelations result in legal threats from the Bank of England – especially, one assumes, threats against a recently-departed Neapolitan cook.

At this point, the reader ought to be smelling a number of rats. The Graham Norton show is not actually broadcast live… it also hasn’t been on air since March. The Bank of England is not currently trying to sue Gino D’Acampo. This isn’t even a real article from Alex Hern, or the Guardian; no such article appears on the Guardian website, and the links on this page don’t go anywhere – not even the curiously-Canadian selection of popular articles in the sidebar. This site has been designed to mimic the Guardian’s design closely enough to fool the casual observer, but it doesn’t survive any degree of scrutiny. The website address isn’t theguardian.com at all; it lives at the address – and it’s really hard not read some significance in this – musknews.sbs.

It might not be immediately obvious what could be gained from setting up a facsimile of the Guardian’s site in order to make up stories about a particularly charismatic celebrity cook, but a read of the purported transcript of the supposed conversation makes it clear:

[Not] Graham Norton: “You want to say that there is a way you can earn money and it works for everyone? Sounds unbelievable…”

[Not] Gino D’Acampo: “If you do not believe me I will prove you are wrong. Just give me £250 and with this platform Immediate Connect I will make a million in just 12-15 weeks!”

[Not] Graham Norton: “Oh, I have heard that there is a program that uses artificial intelligence to trade cryptocurrencies. Now everyone who watches us knows what it is called”.

For the avoidance of doubt, this isn’t the typical tone for the frothy late-night banter of The Graham Norton Show. It wouldn’t even seem natural on the Martin Lewis Money Show.

[Not] Gino D’Acampo: “I am ready to pay £20,000 right now if you cut this off. I did not want to say it. Just cut it off the air”.

[Not] Graham Norton: “Just a reminder, we are on LIVE. All our viewers have heard that you are getting rich on the Immediate Connect platform. You already spilled it out. Tell us, ordinary Britons, how we can earn money the same way as you”.

Again, The Graham Norton show is not broadcast live. Also, Norton probably wouldn’t describe himself as an “ordinary Briton”, given that he is Irish.

It’s fair to say, this exchange never happened, and D’Acampo didn’t really take Norton’s phone and use it to start making investments, live on air… nor did Norton spend 20 minutes making trades, before marvelling at the £47 profit he’d made. Nor did the following exchange take place:

[Not] Gino D’Acampo: “I just signed you up for Immediate Connect on your phone. This platform is a 100% perfect solution for those who want to get rich quickly… I do not only recommend it. I insist that every Briton should use this platform. Then, you will forget once and for all that you need to work”.

[Not] Graham Norton: “Sounds really good and legit. However, how much can you really earn on this?”

The article claims this is a screenshot of Graham admiring his transactions during the broadcast. This obviously never happened. In the screenshot one side is an account with three transactions. The other side is Graham Norton staring at a phone in disbelief.
The article claims this is a screenshot of Graham admiring his transactions during the broadcast. This obviously never happened.

The rest of the faked exchange imagines D’Acampo schooling Norton on how to use the cryptocurrency trading platform, Immediate Connect, before the Bank of England calls up the show to demand the broadcast cease immediately, lest too many viewers rush over to Immediate Connect (using the referral link provided by Gino D’Acampo / the scammer who made this fake website) and get rich quick. The fake article even includes the seven-day-diary of Martin Walsh, “News editor” of The Graham Norton Show, as he turns £4,000 into £9,856 using the crypto exchange. As proof, it includes a shot of an “official statement from Barclays Bank”:

A (faked) official statememnt from Barclays Bank showing a payment of £4000 and a balance of £9856.
This is not an official statement from Barclays

The statement is dated 24 hours before the fake article appeared in the fake Guardian (fake Alex Hern works fast!), and even includes an IBAN number… an invalid one, at that, for a Dublin-based bank that isn’t Barclays:

A screenshot of an IBAN checking tool showing that the IBAN is incorrect.

Crypto trading scam

This article is very likely an example of the scam end of affiliate marketing – a scam I’ve written about previously, in relation to the adverts that are algorithmically inserted into the websites of national news titles (including the Guardian). In this case, the scammer is attempting to trade off the credibility of The Guardian and the popularity of Gino D’Acampo, in order to persuade users to try cryptocurrency investments. The person who created this fake site and fake story may be part of the investment platform, or they may merely get a referral fee for every customer they send to the platform.

While in the article the fake D’Acampo raves about a platform called “Immediate Connect”, the referral link provided actually took me to a different website, called “Immediate Edge”, housed on the domain “gratefuloffers.org”.

A screenshot of Immediate Edge's home page

Entering contact details here takes the user through to yet another site, the actual trading platform, which is currently called BitWest Group:

A screenshot of the trading platform BitWest Group

It is a warren of redirects and referrals, designed to confuse the user and to put as much distance between the start and end of the process. User confusion could arguably be essential to the business model: two minutes after I entered my phone number in the BitWest site, I received a call from “Thomas”, who was working in BitWest’s London office, who told me he was my Senior Account Manager, and that once I completed my registration on the phone with him, I’d get a phone call from my “professional financial advisor with ten-plus years in the business”. Completing the registration involved moving at least £210 into my account, right then, within minutes of completing the inquiry form.

Interested to know more, I asked “Thomas” for the address of the London office where he was currently calling from. After a slightly long pause, he told me he could give me the postcode: E1W 1AW. “Is that in Farringdon?” I asked him. “Yes, that’s right”, he told me. It isn’t. After sixteen minutes of me asking questions about how BitWest works and what they would do with my money – questions “Thomas” never actually answered – he told me he was fed up, that he was sick of my “sneaky” questions, that I am not a serious person and that he deals with annoying calls like mine all day. Perhaps “Thomas” ought to look for another job.

At one point “Thomas” asked me: “Oh my god Michael who is going to risk their whole reputation for your two hundred and ten British pounds?” I don’t know which reputation he was referring to – that of Immediate Connect, Immediate Edge, or BitWest. Or, I guess, of Gino D’Acampo. One thing I do know is that the reputation of BitWest is not great – in May, the Financial Conduct Auhority issued a warning to potential investors that it may be a scam

This firm may be providing financial services or products without our authorisation. You should avoid dealing with this firm and beware of potential scams.

The Financial Conduct Authority page on Bitwest which reads "this firm may be providing financial services or products without our authorisation. You should avoid dealing with this firm and beware of potential scams"

“Thomas” wasn’t the only member of the BitWest team to call me – an hour later, I received a call from “Hayley”, who told me that she was Polish, living in the UK, and making large sums of money using the platform. I asked her why BitWest were advertising via lies about celebrity deaths, pushed via promoted tweets from unofficial Twitter profiles.

“Anything is OK when it comes to promotion,” she told me. “But it wasn’t a lie, it was on television. It was disconfirmed, but at the period of time when we launched that advertisement, it was on TV [that D’Acampo had died]. Afterwards, we found out that it was not what had really happened”. This story obviously does not make sense: I could find no TV references to the death of Gino D’Acampo, but even if it were true, at any time the company could have pulled the promoted tweets from their (variously fake or stolen) Twitter accounts.  

I also asked “Hayley” why she thought the FCA so explicitly warned users against investing with her company. “The FCA says it may be a potential scam,” she told me, “Not that it definitely is a scam”. She went on to claim that BitWest did not need to be FCA regulated, as it was not giving financial advice (this is not true). She also told me the FCA warning was just proof that the government-run FCA doesn’t like it when people take control of their own finances, and so they try to punish companies that allow people to make so much money outside of the system.

I was unconvinced by the claim that BitWest was the innocent victim of a government conspiracy, nor that they were standing up to the mafia-like protection-racket demands of the FCA – particularly because BitWest’s modus operandi so perfectly resembles that of the Milton Group, which was the subject of a BBC World Service documentary in April called The billion-dollar scam.

The BBC found that the Milton Group also operated via a network of other business names, and while I don’t know whether Immediate Connect, Immediate Edge or BitWest are part of that same network, I did put that question to the “Grace” who called me two days later. Though “Grace” seemed confused as to who she worked for, introducing herself as a representative of “Streetwise”.

I asked her whether Streetwise and BitWest were part of the Milton Group set of companies. “Erm, yeah, it should be,” she told me. “So, you are part of the Milton Group, is that correct? Is it owned by the Milton Group?” I asked her. “No, it’s not”, she said. It remains unclear whether BitWest is part of the Milton Group, or if its practices merely resemble those of the Milton Group, or whether they’re genuinely the crypto-trading miracle they claim to be. But “Grace” was unwilling to be drawn on the subject – a minute later, she hung up on me. In all, within 48 hours of filling in the Immediate Edge contact form, BitWest (or whoever they may be) had called me thirteen times.

A promoted tweet problem

While the FCA has warned users not to deal with BitWest lest they be taken in by a scam, Twitter’s role as a recruiter of potential victims cannot be overstated. This all stemmed from a promoted tweet, which was seen by at least 113,000 people. That tweet came from an account that was paying Twitter $8 per month for access to the ad platform, and likely in excess of $100 for this particular ad. That money almost certainly comes from the profits of the scam, and without Twitter’s ability to reach hundreds of thousands of users, the scam would be far less likely to turn a profit. These adverts were accepted by Twitter, despite being obvious scams.

It’s not even the only promoted tweet associated with this scam: I was directed to two other promoted tweets, each from Twitter Blue accounts, each posting a seeming tribute to the departed Gino D’Acampo, alongside a link to the fake Guardian article. One had been viewed by over 260,000 people, another by over 278,000. Obviously, some of the users in each of those numbers may overlap, but clearly Twitter has promoted this scam to a huge number of its users, and it’s likely at least some of those users have handed money over to BitWest.

The tweet, identical to the one at the beginning of this article, from a twitter user called Luke Britto.
The tweet, identical to the one at the beginning of this article, from a twitter user called Miss. Hughes.

What’s more, this isn’t even a scam that’s unique to Gino D’Acampo and the Guardian. In May, 248,000 Twitter users were served a promoted tweet eulogizing Gordon Ramsay, which pivoted to a fake article about crypto trading. Elsewhere, Twitter accepted money to promote Wayne Rooney’s apparent death to over 156,000 users, in another ad for a crypto scam.

A tweet about the passing of Gordon Ramsey - the tweet is identical to the Gino D'Acampo one, only replacing the name and the photo for Gordon Ramsey.
A tweet about the passing of Wayne Rooney which reads "it's never easy to say goodbye, but we take comfort in remembering Rooney's remarkable life and the legacy of kindness and love he left behind"

In some of these cases, the promoted tweet was later removed, and in some cases the associated account was suspended.

In researching this story, I was actually contacted by Aaron Rodericks, head of Threat Disruption at Twitter, who thanked me for flagging this scam promoted tweet. Soon after, the tweet and the account it came from had been removed by the platform. However, this approach to advert regulation is far too little and way too late – this scam had been promoted by Twitter to more than a hundred thousand users. By the time any action at all was taken, the scam has been run, and some people will have bought into it. When the scammers want to find a fresh set of victims, they know that Twitter will – seemingly without knowing or caring – help them facilitate the next scam, and the next after that.

I emailed my concerns to Twitter directly, and asked them how these profiles came to be able to promote a crypto scam into the timelines of hundreds of thousands of people, what checks Twitter carry out on potential adverts to avoid directing users to scams and exploitative products, and what steps Twitter will take to ensure they’re not facilitating the exploitation of their users.

A screenshot of the email response from Twitter

I got an immediate (auto) response from Twitter: a poop emoji. Which may well be the perfect illustration of how much Twitter cares about their profiting from the promotion of scams.

The shaky evidence for medical cannabis

Dave Hahn
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The shaky evidence for medical cannabis

Being a skeptic is easy. All we must do is not accept a claim unless we see evidence for it. Then we must examine that evidence, but before that we don’t have to do anything. The point of skepticism is not to deny but to withhold assent. If someone tells me that I should get up in the morning and hand over 10% of my income, I don’t have to do that until I see some evidence for why. It’s a worldview that appeals to my laziness; I don’t have to do anything because the burden of proof is on the person making the claim.

Being a skeptic is easy — until it suddenly is not. Skepticism is hard when we have to defend concepts or people that we would normally despise. During the pandemic years I found myself defending the pharmaceutical companies — notably Pfizer, for whom I have a lecture on their practice of price inflation (Epanutin), and marketing of drugs for uses other than intended (notably Bextra). The practice was highly unethical and not unique to Pfizer; but I found myself saying and writing, “yeah, I know they did those things, but the vaccine seems to be effective and largely safe…”

Then several months ago, I found myself earning scorn from some and credit from others because I was defending the former Pope against people labelling him a Nazi. I tried to point out that the evidence is clear that all German boys were conscripted in the Hitler Youth at the age of 14, with the threat of criminal prosecution if they did not comply. So, yes, while he did wear the uniform, it’s more akin to being a child soldier than a willing participant, and there is a salient difference between being forced to do something and wanting to do it. Here I am, an avowed atheist and skeptic defending the individual singularly responsible for enforcing the crimen sollictationis — the document which guided the Vatican’s behaviour in hiding priests from legal consequence. His actual crime is reprehensible enough that it is unnecessary to have to make up another for him. In both cases I feel an ethical obligation to adhere to what seems to be the truth.

Evidence, we say, will move us. That mantra is the one thing that I brag about the most when people ask me what the advantage of skepticism is. Sure, we tend to care less about a person’s race, sexual orientation, gender identity, or any of the other things that have been historically used to devalue entire groups of people; that is the moral position, but it is the moral position because there is no evidence that any of those things makes an individual less of a person. It’s the suspension of assent without evidence that is, again, our greatest virtue.

Inevitably, this becomes very difficult when the evidence runs counter to something we want to be true. Which brings me to the topic of Medical Marijuana/Cannabis. I know plenty of cannabis enthusiasts who have assured me that the plant has medical benefits. Some of these people are even skeptics, so it should be an easy enough task to find the evidence that confirms the medical benefits of the marijuana plant. Unfortunately, the evidence is not as robust as the legends make it out to be.

There are two disclaimers I have to put forth: the first is that in the US and the UK; legal restrictions on the substance have made it difficult to even research it for medical reasons. In the UK this restriction was repealed in 2018, while in the US the problem varies between jurisdictions but as a drug, it remains a schedule 1 — the most serious of classifications, which renders research into it very legally odious to conduct.

The second is that I am not anti-marijuana. I personally don’t care for it, and as someone with a PhD in Philosophy I know that I’m in the minority of non-pot smokers in my discipline. My position is similar to Mill’s: do what you want, as long as everyone consents, and no one is being harmed.

The concept of medical marijuana seemed to be nothing more than a gateway argument. It was a way to open the door to full legalisation. I thought it was similar to the way that people, during the American experiment with alcohol prohibition, could get medical whiskey prescriptions (including a certain UK Prime Minister). Yet smokers assured me that it had benefits that were as good, if not better, than their pharmaceutical counterparts. Given the fervour by which they advocate for its effectiveness, it felt like the evidence must exist.

Glaucoma

There are two frequent claims I have heard advocating medical ganja, and the first is that it helps with Glaucoma. Glaucoma is a condition affecting the eye that can result in total blindness. There are a number of factors that cause glaucoma, and a few different kinds of glaucoma as well. Whatever vision loss an individual receives from the condition is considered permanent.

The most common factor in developing the condition is internal eye pressure, with family history being a close second. Though I should communicate that family history means an elevated eye pressure which causes the glaucoma. There is no known cure for the condition, but there is treatment to stem its development. But why would anyone think that smoking the reefer would help with glaucoma?

In 1980 a study, “Effect of Marihuana on Intraocular and Blood Pressure in Glaucoma,” (Merrit et al 1980) found that after use the internal pressure of the eye decreased enough to provide relief. In 1978 Green et. al found the same thing in rabbits using a topical oil treatment. This was an important finding, because the treatments for glaucoma at the time had deleterious side effects. Lighting up a spliff seemed to be effective and with fewer and less severe side effects. So, the evidence supports the claim, right?

Well, no. The first problem is that there is a difference in the concentration of THC. According to Pujari and Jempel (Pujari and Jempel 2019), the Merrit study used a concentration of 2%, while concentrations today greatly exceed that, and we should all understand that dosage matters. Secondly, it must be understood that the undesirable side effects for glaucoma medication were present in the 1970s. Medical science has developed treatments that have mitigated those side effects and are more effective at treating the condition. Most importantly though, the treatment works temporarily – very temporarily. According to Sun et al, to keep the condition under control would require frequent use though out the day; and while that may appeal to some people, the point here is to be treating a condition not spending the entire day blazed.

Cancer

The second most common claim about smoking endo was that it helped with cancer. This would mean that we could place this substance next to literally every other alternative medicine. The trouble with calling something a “cancer cure” is that the term is basically a red flag for a CAM treatment. Can the devil’s lettuce cure cancer?

The main problem with this claim is that there are a lot of different cancers. “Cancer” is more of an umbrella term than a specific disease, so the claim that one substance can cure all cancer is a bit farfetched to begin with. I’m not going to run through each of the different type of cancers and whether smoking a blunt will help treat it; so, I’ll make a general claim that there does not appear to be evidence that bud is going to help treat cancer. One study showed some promising signs that THC combined with Temozolomide (the standard chemo-therapy agent) could help stem the growth of a particular form of glioma (Torres et al 2011). The important thing about this study is that the combination of THC with the Temozolomide was not the animal subject getting baked and then undergoing chemotherapy, it was purified THC administered to target glioma cells that were chemo-resistant.

An XKCD comic which reads "when you see a claim that a common drug or vitamin "kills cancer cells in a petri dish," keep in mind: so does a handgun" A classic XKCD character stands on a chair. They're wearing a lab coat and pointing a handgun down at a petri dish which is on a lab bench alongside a microscope.
As XKCD has taught us, many things can stop cancer cells in a lab, not all of which are clinically useful for patients (image credit: XKCD #1217)

In breast cancer the effect seems to be null. In pre-clinical settings there was evidence that THC worked to inhibit some of the growth of oestrogen receptor positive breast cancer cell lines (Dobovisek et al 2020). However, this claim was based on a pre-clinical overview of research, which was theorising on the interaction between cannabinoids and sex hormones. While this does show the possibility of effectiveness, more research is certainly needed. Many things can stop cancer cells in a lab, not all of which translate well to actual human patients, and the authors warn about the interaction between THC and established treatment regimens.

Another claim is that dagga helps fight lung cancer. Despite what enthusiasts want to claim, smoking anything is bad for you. Inhaling smoke should not be considered “healthy.” While inhaling some burning substances may be healthier than others, this is in relative terms and not in absolute terms. Aldington et al (2008), showed an 5% increase in lung cancers in young adults who are habitual users of the wacky backy. Given that habitual use actually increases the risk of lung cancer, it’s contradictory to assume that it would help.

As a cancer treatment it looks like there is no sufficient evidence to make the claim. However, as some of the more zealous advocates are probably screaming at their screen, it doesn’t help treat cancer, what it does is help treat side effects of chemotherapy.

To be as brief and glib as possible: chemotherapy is a carpet bomb tactic. The treatment attacks everything with the understanding that cells which normally belong to the body will begin reproducing and the “flukes” will have been eradicated. As a treatment it is devastating to the human body. The side effects of chemotherapy include all manner of digestive complications: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, anorexia, and constipation. These conditions may create an unwillingness to eat in the patient. There is evidence that suggests medical marihuana will alleviate these problems while improving the quality of life of patients undergoing treatment (Worster et al 2022). Unlike those people who claim that diet helps treat cancer, refusing to eat is not going to help the patient get better. One side effect of getting ripped is that the user gets “the munchies” – the irresistible craving for Funyuns, takeaway tacos, and sliders. It’s not a direct medical benefit, but it does help the patient overcome the unwillingness to eat.

Pain

That herb treats pain seems obvious. However, we should be clear on what we mean by a “treatment.” Are we asking whether a substance addresses the cause of a condition which is causing chronic pain or are we asking if the intervention covers up the sensation of pain with a different feeling? Cannabis-based pain therapies have so far only been suggested to do the latter. In this manner they function no differently than alcohol—if I’m drunk, I don’t feel the pain; likewise, if I’m blitzed, I do not perceive the pain.

A meta-study released in 2022 by Gedin et. al argues that cannabinoid success in treating pain is not objectively verifiable. They concluded from an overview of 20 studies involving 1,459 individuals that what seems to be the mechanism of action is our good friend the placebo effect. The presence of the placebo effect is easy to explain here – reported pain can be modified by the expectation of a positive result due to the favourable press coverage of a once illegal drug, as the authors write, “The unusually high media attention surrounding cannabinoid trials, with positive reports irrespective of scientific results, may uphold high expectations and shape placebo response in future trials.”

To conclude, more research is certainly needed. The restrictions on running studies on the substance are being slowly chipped away and its placement as a schedule 1 drug in the US is an absurdity. However, as Science Based Medicine has written, the current state of the science does not provide the conclusions that advocates have claimed.

What’s in Lake Champlain? Analysing historic sightings of the cryptid known as “Champ”

Floe Foxon
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What’s in Lake Champlain? Analysing historic sightings of the cryptid known as “Champ”

Lake Champlain is a large lake spanning two US states and one Canadian province, with a maximum depth of 122 meters, and a surface area of over 1,000 square kilometers (Myer, 1979). Not unlike Loch Ness in Scotland, an unknown aquatic animal is alleged by some to inhabit Lake Champlain, variously dubbed ‘The Lake Champlain Monster,’ ‘Champy,’ ‘Champ,’ and the trinomen Belua Aquatica Champlainiensis (a nomen nudum, as there is no formal diagnosis differentiating it from other taxa). Champy has been speculatively identified as outdated reconstructions of such extinct forms as plesiosaurs and archaeocetes (Earley, 1985; Mackal, 1983, Chapter XI).

Perhaps the strongest evidence presented to support the existence of an unknown animal in Lake Champlain is the 1977 ‘Mansi’ photograph, which depicts a dark shape above the lake surface resembling a longnecked marine reptile. Apparently, the picture was not tampered with in any way, but may feature a sand bar upon which a model could have been placed (Frieden, 1984). LeBlond (1982) used the Beaufort scale to estimate the wind speed and wavelength in the photograph, and from these estimated the size of the subject at 4.8 to 17.2 meters. Field experiments have reduced this estimate to 2.1 meters (Radford, 2003) or 1.3 meters (Raynor, 2015). Whatever the size, it has been suggested that the publication of the Mansi photograph may have led to an increase in the number of sightings at the lake due to ‘expectant attention’; the tendency for observers to ‘see’ what they anticipate they will see (Radford and Nickell, 2006, Chapter 2). Evidence for expectant attention in the Lake Champlain context may come from statistical analysis of Champ ‘sightings’.

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the Lake Champlain Phenomena Investigation (LCPI) and associated organisations attempted to collect further evidence with sonar, shoreline and vessel surface surveillance, scuba dives, hydrophones, and a remotely-operated submersible (Deuel and Hall, 1992; Smith, 1984, 1985; Zarzynski, 1982, 1983, 1984b, 1985, 1986b, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990). Hundreds of eyewitness testimonies were collected, as well as a dozen or so ambiguous sonar contacts, but no definitive autoptical evidence was obtained.

In the absence of physical material, purported sightings of unknown animals at Lake Champlain have been studied statistically. In a previously-published analysis, Kojo (1991) reported that Champ sightings most frequently occur just before sunset, in contrast to how most lake visits occur earlier in the day. Kojo interprets this as evidence for the existence of nocturnal unknown animals. However, qualitative descriptions of sightings times such as “late afternoon,” “dusk,” and “about midnight” were excluded, which has the potential to bias the analysis. Thus, a reanalysis including these data is warranted to determine how robust that conclusion is.

The previous analysis reported that the majority of sightings with descriptions of locomotion describe vertical undulation of the body, but did not emphasise how few sightings included any description of locomotion, nor how many sightings were missing data in general.

Finally, data on other aspects of sightings – such as the diversity of morphological descriptions, the distance to the object, estimates of its size, and whether distance and size are associated in a statistically significant way – were not reported in the previous analysis.

Given all of the above, I undertook a study to re-analyse over 300 Champ ‘sightings’ with statistical methods, including sightings which were not previously analysed. Methodological details are available in a technical report online along with the data and code used in the analyses.

Figure 1 shows the cumulative number of purported sightings of unknown animals at Lake Champlain across the period of time ±10 years around the 1977 Mansi photograph (published in 1981). As detailed in the figure, numbers of sightings per year were over twice as great in the periods 2, 5, and 10 years after the publication of the Mansi photograph in 1981, compared to the periods 2, 5, and 10 years before publication. The increase in number of sightings per year after the Mansi photograph diminished around 1987/8 when sightings per year returned to pre-Mansi levels.

This finding, that the rate of sightings increased significantly after the publication of the Mansi photograph, may be interpreted by a cryptozoologist as evidence of publicity driving more cryptid-seekers to Lake Champlain, and therefore more sightings being made (since the number of sightings is a function of the number of visitors). A skeptic may interpret the same finding as evidence of expectant attention; after seeing the Mansi photograph, lake-goers may be more likely to think they have seen Champ because that is what they have anticipated they will see.

Figure one as described in the text and figure legend. A bar chat showing cumulative sightings by year.
Figure 1: cumulative number of purported sightings of unknown animals at Lake Champlain across the period of time 10 years either side of the 1981 publication of the Mansi photograph.

The conditions under which sightings were made were largely consistent; the majority of sightings occurred in Summer (70.1%) under calm lake surface conditions (83.9%), between Noon and Evening (73.9%), and were made by more than one witness (72.9%). A cryptozoologist may interpret the consistency of sighting conditions as evidence of consistent behavioural characteristics among Champ animals, while a skeptic may interpret this consistency as evidence of regularity of wind/wave effects (Bauer, 1992), sampling error or other bias, and/or characteristics not of the Champ animals but of the observers (Mackal, 1992).

Indeed, in the case of the cryptozoologically-related coelacanth, catch data describes more about the habits of Comoran fisherman than about the fish (Thomson, 1992, Chapter 6). For example, Kojo (1991) suggested that most Champ sightings occuring in Summer is evidence of seasonal heterothermy, but this may also be explained by seasonal tourism in and around Lake Champlain.

Descriptions of the characteristics of the animal observed are much less consistent. Just 27% of witnesses described the appearance of the animal they had purportedly seen. Among those reports with appearance descriptions, the largest category (serpentine) consistent of just 36.5% of sightings, with the next largest specific categories being reptilian (15.3%) and marine mammal (11.8%).

Over 68% of sightings were missing data on one or more of appearance, motion, speed, height above the lake surface, and the number of humps, loops, coils, or portions seen. The characteristic with the most agreement was integument; 98.2% of sightings with data for integument described the animal as dark, which is unsurprising in a lake setting.

Thus, despite the claim that Champ has been seen by hundreds of eyewitnesses, detailed eyewitness descriptions of these alleged animals are few and disparate. Most sightings are missing data pertaining to morphological description, and those with data describe very different-looking objects; Champ sightings are not nearly as consistent as claimed by some (Radford and Nickell, 2006, Chapter 2). That a large proportion (27.4%) of sightings were described as appearing like logs, land mammals, birds, fish, and boats is logical because all of these are present at Lake Champlain. For example, in 1987 the LCPI observed deer swimming across the lake. Unknown animals are therefore unnecessary to explain many sightings. Sightings that occurred in late evening with low visibility are perhaps explained by observers being more likely to confuse ordinary phenomena with Champ in low light conditions.

The reported length of objects sighted in the lake varied massively from less than one meter to nearly 60 meters, with an average of 6.6 meters and the median was 6.9 meters. The average reported distance between the observer and the object sighted was 247.2 meters, with a median of 91.4 meters. When outliers were excluded, there were no statistically significant correlations between any of reported length, reported height, and distance to the object sighted. The most parsimonious explanation for these non-associations is that eyewitnesses over- or underestimate distance and size, or have witnessed entirely different events occurring in the lake.

In conclusion, if not a fake, what’s in the lake may be ordinary phenomena innocently mistaken for unknown animals, in part driven by expectant attention and the publicity of the Mansi photograph. Alternatively, Lake Champlain is inhabited by multi-humped, dark-coloured serpents approximately seven meters in length, which locomote in a fast and sinuous fashion, and which prefer pleasant Summer afternoons and evenings, as well as appearing before crowds. Deciding which explanation best accounts for the data is left as an exercise for the reader.

Regardless, Champ research and advocacy has apparently advantaged the local people and animals; in 1986, the Vermont Senate followed the New York Senate in adopting the “Champ Resolution,” calling for the protection of possible unknown animals in the lake, which likely benefited the known lake fauna. Systematic searches at Lake Champlain have also enabled the discovery of many archaeological artefacts (Zarzynski, 1986a) such as the shipwreck of the tugboat William McAllister, which was discovered off Schuyler Island during a six-day search of the lake bed designated ‘Project Champ Carcass’ (Zarzynski, 1987). Each year since 1985, the Moriah Chamber of Commerce has hosted the annual Champ Day: Lake Champlain Monster Festival, which undoubtedly supports local businesses with the crowds it brings to the lake.

Many thanks to paleontologist Tyler Greenfield, who highlighted that the original “binomen Beluaaquatica champlainiensis” should actually read “trinomen Belua Aquatica Champlainiensis“.

References

  • Bauer HH (1992). Analysis of Sightings at Lake Champlain. Cryptozoology 11, 138–139.
  • Deuel RA and DJ Hall (1992). Champ Quest at Lake Champlain, 1991-1992. Cryptozoology 11, 102–108.
  • Earley GW (1985). Book Review: Mysterious America. Cryptozoology 4, 93–94.
  • Frieden BR (1984). Interim report: Lake Champlain ‘monster’ photograph. In: Champ – Beyond the Legend. Ed. by Zarzynski JW. Port Henry, New York: Bannister Publications. Chap. Appendix 2.
  • Kojo Y (1991). Some Ecological Notes on Reported Large, Unknown Animals in Lake Champlain. Cryptozoology10, 42–54.
  • LeBlond PH (1982). An Estimate of the Dimensions of the Lake Champlain Monster from the Length of Adjacent Wind Waves in the Mansi Photograph. Cryptozoology 1, 54–61.
  • Mackal RP(1983). Searching for Hidden Animals. Cadogan Books.
  • Mackal RP (1992). Are Lake Monster Sighting Times Biologically or Culturally Based? Cryptozoology 12, 114.
  • Myer GE (1979). Limnology of Lake Champlain. Vol. 30. Lake Champlain Basin Study, New England River Basins Commission.
  • National Center for Health Statistics (2021). Measured average height, weight, and waist circumference for adults aged 20 and over. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/body-measurements.htm.
  • Radford B (2003). The Measure of a Monster. Skeptical Inquirer 27.
  • Radford B and J Nickell (2006). Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World’s Most Elusive Creatures. University Press of Kentucky.
  • Raynor D (2015). A Study of the Mansi Photograph taken at Lake Champlain. https://www.academia.edu/11573500/A_Study_of_the_Mansi_Photograph_taken_at_Lake_Champlain.
  • Smith RD (1984). Testing an Underwater Video System at Lake Champlain. Cryptozoology 3, 89–93.
  • Smith RD (1985). Investigations in the Lake Champlain Basin, 1985. Cryptozoology 4, 74–79.
  • Thomson KS (1992). Living fossil: the Story of the Coelacanth. WW Norton & Company.
  • Zarzynski JW (1986a). Monster Wrecks of Loch Ness and Lake Champlain. MZ Information.
  • Zarzynski JW (1982). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1982. Cryptozoology 1, 73–77.
  • Zarzynski JW (1983). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1983. Cryptozoology 2, 126–131.
  • Zarzynski JW (1984a). Champ – Beyond the Legend. Port Henry, New York: Bannister Publications.
  • Zarzynski JW (1984b). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1984. Cryptozoology 3, 80–83.
  • Zarzynski JW (1985). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1985. Cryptozoology 4, 69–73.
  • Zarzynski JW (1986b). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1986. Cryptozoology 5, 77–80.
  • Zarzynski JW (1987). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1987. Cryptozoology 6, 71–77.
  • Zarzynski JW (1988). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1988. Cryptozoology 7, 70–77.
  • Zarzynski JW (1989). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1989. Cryptozoology 8, 67–72.
  • Zarzynski JW (1990). LCPI Work at Lake Champlain: 1990. Cryptozoology 9, 79–81.
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