Law and Magic Blog

The Failure of Psychic Detection

From Benjamin Radford on LiveScience, "Jaycee Dugard Abduction Case Highlights Failure of Psychics."

Tanzanian Court Sentences Four To Death For Witchcraft Killings

A Tanzanian court has handed out a death sentence to four persons convicted of murdering albino individuals for their body parts. Some people believe albino body parts can be used in charms by witch doctors to bring good luck.

The death sentences are the second handed down in trials conducted in Tanzania over this kind of murder. Last September the same court sentenced three to death by hanging for the same crime. Read more here, and read more here and here in previous posts about killings of those murdered for body parts in Tanzania and other countries.

Will Health Care Insurance Plans Include Complementary/Alternative Medicine Coverage?

So, have you thought about whether any of the health care bills would require that insurance plans cover alternative or complementary medical treatments? No? Check out this story from Newsweek magazine, which suggests that the CAM lobby has already made its arguments to the Hill.

Requiring insurers to cover therapies with unknown outcomes runs counter to the White House's push for medicine with a proven track record. The basic idea behind evidence-based medicine is that doctors ought to use treatments that have the best possible evidence that they work. What counts as the best possible evidence? Randomized clinical trials.... Clinical trials work fine for drugs, where trials can quantify and compare outcomes. But for alternative treatments, things like prayer or even yoga, the evidence gets much less clear; randomized trials are more difficult to conduct. "For drugs you have placebos and double-blinded studies," says Timmermans. "But you cannot have a placebo for testing behavioral interventions." So alternative treatments are essentially on an uneven playing field when it comes to evidence-based medicine. Timmermans admits that "it's not an equal-opportunity methodology."

...

Requiring insurers to cover prayer treatment may be a bit too extreme for health-care reform. More interesting to explore though, are other forms of nontraditional medicine, floated in reform bills, that have a stronger claim to an evidence base. Take, for example, complementary and alternative medicine, a field often criticized for unproven therapies. Some 38 percent of Americans use some form of it. Moreover, the field has increasingly embraced traditional research methods. Just a decade ago, the government established a National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. The center studies "alternative healing practices"—anything from the use of echinacea to treat colds, to acupuncture for irritable bowel syndrome—"in the context of rigorous science." They use that gold standard Timmermans mentioned: randomized, clinical trials.

Here's a link to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

Now, I admit to practicing yoga, off and on, and I think (I think) it helps me feel less stress and it helps me calm down after a long day of magical legalizing. I know it helps my flexibility, but then so would, I suspect, going back to my ballet exercises. I do feel better when I downward dog and make like a tree, even though I don't Om. It annoys the felines. But I don't try to bill my health insurance company for my trips to the yoga studio. Hey, I've tried feverfew for my migraines, too. Zippo. But one of my physicians explained that outcome--there's no quality control in the feverfew you buy OTC. Better to rely on the meds the neurologist prescribes, and mirabile dictu, my migraines have decreased significantly over the past few years. Hooray for modern medicine and Big Pharma (waving imaginary flag).

Magical Internet Thinking

From PC Magazine, "10 Most Heinous Hoaxes on the net." Some of them appeal to magical thinking, like the "we captured BigFoot and we've got him in a freezer" hoax. The one about legislatively setting the value of pi to 3? Here's the text of that Indiana bill. Some of the other hoaxes listed are no laughing matter, such as the one that led to the suicide of young Megan Meier. Federal prosecutors charged Lori Drew, one of the people behind that hoax, under the Computer Fraud and Abuse act. A jury found her guilty of three misdemeanor counts, but a judge threw out the verdict this year.

BigAppleCOR Good Without God Ads Will Adorn New York Subways

Reports CNN, groups calling themselves the Big Apple Coalition of Reason have commissioned ads to appear in the New York subway system beginning October 26 with the label: "A million New Yorkers are good without God. Are you?"

According to the Metro Transit authority, it will accept ads that don't contain nudity or offensiveness. Other than that, its walls are open.

According to the BigAppleCOR (get it?) website, the organization that make up the coalition are

[C]ommitted to a more compassionate world; we are working for a more reasonable citizenry and a higher level of discourse; we are striving to increase the quality of life for all; and we find fellowship an integral part of the human condition. Theists and nontheists alike are the same people: we go to work everyday; we have families and friends; we are involved in our communities, state, and country; and we care deeply about life.
 
Big Apple COR aims to inform New Yorkers that there is a community of people who share a rational basis for their worldviews, who attend intellectual public lectures, enjoy philosophy discussions, and socialize. We invite you to visit our various websites, to contact any of those in which you are interested, and to feel free to attend the public gatherings of any of our organizations.

One supporter of the BigAppleCor is magician Jamy Ian Swiss.

An Interview With Jon Ronson (the Men Staring at Goats Guy)

eSkeptic has an interview with Jon Ronson, author of The Men Who Stare at Goats, here. The film opens wide this November.

The Charm of Making Money

In this week's eSkeptic, Karen Stollznow writes about psychic advisors and the economy. People continue to seek out such advice, especially in rough times. She gives examples of individuals who rely on advice from psychics for business deals and real estate (people wanting to sell their homes sometimes  bury statues of St. Joseph in their yards). She also notes the example of the recently charged Jerome Kerviel, who seems to have relied on psychic advice and ended up in a quite a financial mess. But hope endures.

I've posted about these topics a couple of times already (see here and here). But they continue to enchant.

Freemasonry and Free Association

On NPR's All Things Considered, discussion with Mitch Horowitz, author of Occult America, of Jay-Z, and his interest in things metaphysical. There's something of a link, says Mr. Horowitz, with the Freemasons, and with our Founding Fathers, although it might be tenuous. Interesting.

How Tricks and Illusions Work

From Forbes.com, "The Truth in llusions," explained in an article by Jonathan Fahey, and demonstrated by pickpockets and magicians.

Big Bang Theory Premiere

Very funny "Big Bang Theory" third season premiere. Sheldon quits his position at Cal Tech and runs away after discovering that his colleagues falsified his North Pole data. They come after him, all the way to Texas. He tells them he plans to stay at his Mom's home, "trying to teach evolution to creationists." His Mom Mary Cooper (played expertly as usual by Laurie Metcalf) tells him that "everyone is entitled to their opinion." "Evolution isn't an opinion," he informs her. "It's fact." Since she clearly disagrees, he tells Leonard, Raj, and Howard he forgives them and hightails it backs to Pasadena. Apparently satisfied with this outcome, Mary says cryptically, "Don't tell me prayer doesn't work." Whatever her philosophical conflicts with her son, she's a loving mother, understanding that he needs to live his life as a scientist with his colleagues, searching for whatever it is that drives him, even if she doesn't understand it.

With regard to "teaching evolution to creationists," Sheldon is referring to the ongoing debate over teaching the controversy in Texas public schools. The Texas State Board of Education voted earlier this year to eliminate the requirement to do that. Considering Sheldon's lack of tact and failure to understand the point of view of those who disagree with him, as neighbor Penny would say, good luck with that, sweetie.