SGU Episode 7

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SGU Episode 7
20th July 2005
(brief caption for the episode icon)
SGU 6                      SGU 8
Skeptical Rogues
S: Steven Novella
B: Bob Novella
E: Evan Bernstein
P: Perry DeAngelis
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Introduction

S: Hello and welcome to the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe. Today is Wednesday July 20th, 2005. With me today are Evan Bernstein...

E: Hello.

S: Perry DeAngelis...

P: Good evening.

S: and Bob Novella.

B: Hello everyone.

News Items

Joint Government Agency Announcement: No Link Between Vaccines and Autism (0:28)

S: Couple, quick item in the news before we start. Yesterday officials from the CDC, that's the Centers for Disease Control, the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, and the National Institutes of Health, NIH, held a joint news conference where they announced that there is in fact no link between vaccines and autism. There are parent groups and some scientists and some commentators like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. he's not a scientist he's an environmental lawyer who are claiming that there's a link between mercury preservatives in some vaccines and, which are actually no longer present in childhood vaccines, and autism, although the scientific evidence shows that there is, in fact, no link. We will probably be dealing with this issue in more depth in a future podcast and I have an article coming out within the next week or two in the New Haven Advocate covering this issue in depth, but I thought I would mention this joint press conference essentially announcing that the scientific evidence does not support a link and that vaccines are, in fact, a safe public health measure.

E: Well, hopefully people will listen.

S: Hopefully. I mean it's interesting that in the U.S. we still have a very very high compliance rate. Higher than in many other countries, but, this is-t's a very interesting issue and one-one we'll go into in more depth. An author, a report for the New York Times, David Kirby, wrote a book that came out in early April covering this issue from a somewhat, ya know, neutral...

P: Called Evidence of Harm.

S: Evidence of Harm, right. Which I thought was, he says was from a neutral point of view, but was, tended to uncritically present the point of view of the believers in a link, but perhaps we will have him as a guest on our show when we discuss this issue.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince Released (2:28)

S: Other things that have been in the news recently, the new Harry Potter book is out.

B: Whoopee. (unenthusiastic)

S: Bob what's the title of that?

B: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

S: Breaking all book sales.

E: I read that.

S: I think Rowling may...

P: How'd you like it Evan, was it a good book?

(laughter)

E: No, I mean I... (laugh) thank you. I mean I read that it was breaking book sale records. Thank you.

B: Absolutely. They printed like over 10 million copies which is the most books printed for a hard cover first publishing of a book.

E: And they've printed another, there are, another 3 million I think are in print now. Beyond the 10.

B: Doesn't surprise me.

S: R. K. Rowling has quite a following. Both adults and children. I think she made $26 million in a day when that book it the stands. Quite and accomplishment, but the Harry Potter books do have their critics. Among them our new pope. Pope, former Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict.

B: Yeah he came out, one of his quotes came out from a couple years ago, and it was actually revealed in a book written by Gabriele Kuby. She wrote a book, Harry Potter: Good or Evil, and she, Gabriele attacks J. K. Rowling's series, and in her book she published two extracts from Cardinal Ratzingburg-Ratzinger, Cardinal Ratzinger in 2003, who is now, of course, our Pope and in-here's this quote, writing to Gabriele the then cardinal says, "It's good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter because these are subtle seductions which act unnoticed and, by this, deeply distort Christianity in the soul before it can grow properly."

P: So easy.

(laughter)

P: Good or evil and apparently he's evil.

B: Welly, Kuby herself also didn't have some very nice things to say about the Potter series either. She said the series corrupts the hearts of the young preventing them developing a properly ordered sense of good and evil, thus helping their relationship with God while that relationship is still in its infancy. So I guess they're going to start banning, ya know, Snow White and these other fantasies stories from our youth that we loved. Just because this is such an immense cultural phenomenon, it's such a huge target, for these weirdos that just think that it's corrupting and defiling people and it's bringing them into the paranormal fold and into the occult.

S: Right. Well, this has to do with the age old conflict between mainstream religions, especially Christian religions, including the Catholics and new age mysticism or anything fantasy oriented. Oriented around, ya know, witchcraft or elves.

P: Or role-playing games.

S: Role-playing games...

B: Right.

S: They feel that belief in anything or mystical or new age contradicts Christian faith. It's not about the character Harry Potter or what happens in the book, in fact, he's a good kid who has good moral and ethical values. He's a hero. Wouldn't you agree?

B: Absolutely. I mean he's brave. He deals with forms of evil in the series of books and book after book he faces evil and defeats it and he's trustworthy and he's loyal...

P: Yeah. I'm not familiar...

B: and he's all these great things and it's like what do you have against this kid who is such a great role model?

S: But he casts spells.

(laughter)

B: Right. Right?

P: I'm not familiar with the series. Is there mention, is God mentioned?

S: No.

P: It's just, there's no divinity in the books?

B: No. There's no real, yeah, deity is not stressed at all, and also, importantly though, it's also not invoked in the spells themselves. Usually modern day witchcraft, as it exists today, there is some sort of invocation of some sort of deity, usually, but these, but in the series there is none. There is absolutely no...

S: It's completely secular.

B: it's completely, right, it is. And all the magical phrases and words are really pseudo-latin.

S: Yeah.

B: Ya know, Libre corpus...

(laughter)

B: ...to raise a body in the one I'm reading now. I mean it's, ya know, Occulo repairo to finish your glasses.

S: Right. Pseudo-latin.

B: Come on. I mean...

E: E pluribus (unintelligible)

S: E pluribus unum.

(laughter)

S: Habeas corpus.

(laughter)

B: Right.

E: If it's good enough for our money it's good enough for Harry Potter.

B: And some of these quotes, I've got a couple quotes here. When I wrote my, I wrote an article on this. Actually, with you, Perry. That article we wrote a few years ago for one of the other books. Some of the quotes I dug up, they're really great here. One guy, Daniel Zanoza was saying, "Tampering with the occult is potentially far more dangerous for children, often leading to spiritual confusion, psychological problems, and in all too many cases suicide. The Potter books, under a cloak of innocence, are infecting the minds of millions."

E: Where is the evidence for that?

P: Yeah. How many suicides have been tied to the Potter books?

E: None.

(laughter)

E: Well, I don't have the data. I'm going to guess it's none. So...

(laughter)

E: I'll just go out on a limb, I guess, and say that.

B: Here's one more guys. John Watkins a Baptist activist, he warns, "Satan is up to his old tricks again and the main focus is the children of the world. The whole purpose of these Potter books is to desensitize readers and introduce them to the occult."

P: Desensitize them to what?

S: To make them, witches are good people, I guess.

B: Desensitize them to, maybe, harming people or...

P: To the occult?

B: No, no, desensitizing, well it says, the quote just says the whole purpose is to desensitize the readers. I don't now you could read into that but...

S: Well the underlying assumption here is that the, for those are Christian who criticize this is that the occult is real. The reason why they're afraid of this is cause they think witches are real.

B: Right.

S: If you think that this is all fantasy and they're not real you would have nothing to fear from these stories.

B: Right. And I dug up quotes of people who actually were saying hey mom and dad what are you gonna do when you son puts a spell on you or puts a curse on you and I'm like wait, you actually believe in this stuff?

P: (laugh)

B: Some people think that it's an actual guide, a teaching tool, to carry out these spells...

S: It's not, of course. I mean, I've tried to cast these spells.

(laughter)

S: They don't work.

B: I mean, and where are you gonna get a unicorn hair to put in your wand? Cause all their wands have these magical ingredients in them.

P: Well, I mean now you're talking about unicorns, Bob. You're getting ridiculous.

(laughter)

S: Bob, Bob, you could substitute a bigfoot hair for that, though.

B: Ohhhh... well, damn.

P: I didn't know that. Now that I didn't know. I'm going to have to back and re-read some...

S: Well, it's interesting. I think we need to follow the, with interest, the stances that this new Pope is going to take. Another, other than the occult, another area where the Catholic church's position has been of interest is that with evolution. Now the prior Pope, Pope John Paul II, had made statements to the effect that there is no conflict between Catholic faith and scientific theories like the theory of evolution.

P: That is currently still the dogma of the church.

S: That's correct. There hasn't been any, sort of, formal pronouncements. However, there have been some statements by cardinals and other individuals that suggest that this, that that doctrine of no conflict between faith and evolution within the Catholic church may not be held by all, for example, Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, who is reported to be an influential theologian within the church noted that the modern theory of evolution may be incompatible with Catholic faith. Some scientists have, in fact, asked for clarification of the churches position given statements that have been made at the level of cardinals.

P: Well, until the Pope makes a formal announcement the stance of the church is that evolution is not contradictory to their belief. They say that evolution occurred and it occurred because God chose to make the world in that way.

E: Do we think the, this current Pope might go back, take a step back?

B: It sounds like it.

S: It remains to be seen.

P: Personally, I'd be very surprised.

S: I'd be surprised and disappointed, but there are some evolutionary scientists are just asking the new Pope to reaffirm Pope John Paul II's prior statements. To date I don't know if that's been done, that there has been a reaffirmation.

P: Well, I think, the guy is alleged to be very conservative and so forth and I think people are, creationists want to take a stab at it. They want to say let's see if we can force his hand.

B: Well, yeah. They got the President in their pocket let's see if they can get the Pope, too.

P: Yeah.

(laughter)

S: Maybe the creationists...

B: Yeah.

S: Certainly unwilling to make any critical statements of that belief system.

References