It goes without saying that homeopaths will be doubting that such a sophisticated and hard hitting campaign could be set up by a bunch of feckless, workshy scousers who sit around all day drinking in Liverpool pubs and discussing their nerdish obsession with ghosts and UFOs. Surely, Big Pharma is behind this?

Indeed, it does appear unlikely that such a move could be set up by dole-cheating scallies and alcoholic cynics. So, who is really behind all of this? The clues are in the name of the campaign.

What do the numbers 10 and 23 mean for this organisation? To understand the significance of these numbers, you need to know not just where to look, but how to look. The Sceptics themselves show that they hold the numbers to be significant by holding a mass homeopathic overdose by 300 sceptics at exactly 10:23 in the morning in a few days time.

The numbers 10 and 23 were deeply significant to the founder of homeopathy. Samuel Hahnemann was born on the 10th of April in 1755. He became a doctor on the 10th of August in 1779 and his groundbreaking book, The Organon, was first published in 1810. Hahnemann studied medicine in Vienna (German, Wien W = 23rd letter of the alphabet) for 10 months. He died in July 1843, signified by the number 23 (7 + 1 + 8 + 4 + 3). The name of the campaign would look to be a reference to the death of homeopathy – a stated campaign aim.

The numbers also have deep occult meaning. In tarot, the number 10 is highly significant, being the end of the pip sequence and indicating that ‘the cycle has ended and a new one is beginning.’ In astrology, the number ten is associated with ‘intelligence and integrity’, an obvious conceit on the part of Merseyside sceptics. It is also associated with great rises and falls, and also is the number of the Sun. Although Boots appears to be the target right now, perhaps the homeopathic pharmacy Helios (the sun personified) is their real target. Whatever the target, the number ten has been chosen to signify the end of one era and the heralding of a new beginning.

The number 23 is an even more powerful occult number and is also very important for scientists. Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species was published in 1859 (1+8+5+9 = 23). The Hiroshima bomb was dropped at 8.15am (8+15= 23). It has more terribly auspicious associations: Julius Caesar was stabbed 23 times. The terrorist attacks on New York happened on 9/11 2001 (9+11+2+0+0+1=23).

The number 1023 would also appear to contain a little joke from the sceptics who believe that homeopathy is nothing but magical thinking as, according to Jules Bass and Arthur Rankin, 1023 was the year that all fairy tales happened. It is also worth noting that Oliver Wendell Holmes was the early arch nemesis of homeopathy and first completely debunked the practice in a lecture given in 1842 entitled Homeopathy and its Kindred Delusions. His initials, OH, add up to 23 (O=15, H=8) and his middle initial is the 23rd letter of the alphabet.

Given the significance of this number, could the 10:23 campaign have bigger aims? Although targeting homeopathy right now, it is worth looking at the other targets of these sceptic groups. One of the most significant set-backs to the so-called sceptic movement was when chiropractors won a historic suit against the American Medical Association and stopped AMA campaigning against chiropractic and calling it quackery.

That court decision was now exactly 23 years ago.

It would appear to be an extraordinary coincidence that 23 years later the chiropractors are back in court. On the 23rd of next month in the 10th year of the millennium, Simon Singh will be in court to appeal in his case against the British Chiropractic Association.

This hearing will be highly unusual in that the presiding judges will include the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales and also the Master of the Rolls. These are two of the most powerful judges in Britain. Why would they be presiding over a relatively minor appeal court that is only hearing an appeal about a preliminary decision on meaning and not even the full case?

We need to look a little deeper and go back to Liverpool, the home of the campaign. Indeed, we find the number 23 has deep ties with Merseyside. Liverpool art school student William Ernest Drummond set up the mysterious group known as the Justified Ancients of Mu Mu (23 letters), sometimes known as the KLF or K-Foundation. He once wrote the line “23 years is a mighty long time”. They famously presented an award for the ‘worst artist’ to Rachel Whiteread on 23rd of November 1993 and burnt a million pounds on the 23rd of August 1994. More worryingly, Drummond was involved in the Liverpool production of the Illuminatus!, a musical story of conspiracy theories about the hidden rulers of the world. It opened on the 23rd of November 1976 (1+9+7+6=23) and the show consisted of five acts (2+3=5), each 23 minutes in length, with 23 actors on stage.

Robert Anton Wilson once claimed in a 1988 interview that “23 is a part of the cosmic code. It’s connected with so many synchronicities and weird coincidences.” Given that the number 23 is so significant, could the Secret Rulers of the World be somehow behind the 10:23 campaign? Could they be using their minions, the CEOs of the pharmaceutical companies, and their minions, the skeptics in the pub drones, to direct this attack against alternative medicine?

One clue comes from the Merseyside Sceptics statement that they want to have 300 people in the campaign taking homeopathic overdoses. Surely, it will be very hard to get exactly 300 people to do this? This is quite likely to be a code for the real intelligence behind what is going on: The Committee of 300.

The Committee of 300 is a secret society formed in Britain in the 18th Century, and is also known as the ‘Hidden Hand’. An MI5 officer once wrote a book exposing their antics and they are thought to be in charge of the banking system, judiciary (hence the Singh case) and the media (which explains why sceptics find it so easy to publish their denouncements of alternative medicine). The Committee is thought to be even higher up in the Illuminati than the Bilderberg Group.

One surprise is that the campaign was not launched on the 23rd of October (10/23). Indeed, this date is known to many scientists as International Mole Day (http://www.moleday.org/) and is celebrated annually on this date from 6:02 a.m. to 6:02 p.m. It is a strange celebration that seeks to enrol children in a strictly materialistic view of the world. In rituals that mirror the ceremonies of the satanic, Illuminati group, the Bohemian Club, who worship a giant owl, they do not have a flag to salute, but instead ask new members to bow their heads towards the ground (where the moles are) and repeat the scientistic pledge of allegiance: “I pledge allegiance to the mole, to the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, and to the atomic mass for which it stands, one number, most divisible, with atoms and molecules for all.” A chant which would be anathema to all homeopaths.

It is difficult to ignore the significance of the chosen numbers. The Knights Templar had 23 Grand Masters. William Shakespeare was born on the 23rd of the month and died on the 23rd. Adam and Eve were supposed to have 23 daughters. Princess Leia was held in detention block AA23 on the Death Star (AA = 1 + 1 which equals 10 in binary arithmetic, look it up on Wookieepedia). John Nash, Nobel Prize winning mathematician was obsessed with the number 23. He wrote exactly 23 papers. It is one of only two numbers that need nine cubes to represent it . (The other being 239.)

(Incidentally, 23 was the date of death of a Wilhelm Hahnemann. Hahnemann was noted for playing exactly 23 games for the Austrian football team, 23 games for the German national team and scoring exactly 23 goals for his club to become the league’s top scorer. He once achieved a remarkable double (2) hat-trick (3) whilst playing for Germany. Of the 46 (23+23) caps he won, his teams won 23 of these matches. )

Portentous stuff. So soon, in many cities we are going to see many demonstrations against Boots selling homeopathy. My advice to homeopaths on the their day of reckoning would have to come from Matthew Chapter 10, verse 23: “But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another”. One day though, you are going to run out of cities.

The homeopaths may well think this is just a nerdish group showing off a bit. My analysis would suggest there are much darker forces at work here.

Remember: 10:23. There’s nothing in it.

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2. 10:23, Homeopathy and the Shame of the Pharmacy Profession This Saturday, hundreds of people, in many cities,  will be demonstrating outside Boots the Chemists about their selling of homeopathic remedies. Each volunteer will be taking a homeopathic ‘overdose’...
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Many people in the UK are unable to identify the location of their major chakras, a study warns.

A team at the Institute of Magical Thinking found public understanding of basic alternative medicine has not improved since a similar survey was conducted 40 years ago.

Less than 50% of the more than 700 people surveyed could correctly place the anahata chakra, Moonbat’s Holistic Drop-in Centre says.

Under one-third could place their gall bladder meridian in the correct location, but more than 85% got their kidney meridian points right. 37% did not know what 37% meant.

There are concerns that the British public’s poor grasp of pseudoscience could potentially compromise the struggling alternative health industry.

WHERE ARE YOUR RENAL REFLOXOLOGY PRESSURE POINTS?

The researchers asked more than 700 people to look at outlines of both a male and female ear and identify which of several shaded areas corresponded to particular organs.

Those asked included apparently healthy members of the public and then people undergoing CAM treatment for blocked chi within specific organs.

Even those for whom the organ was particularly relevant often performed poorly – more than half of those with renal problems did not correctly identify the kidney’s auricular acupuncture points.

“We thought that the improvements in Sunday Supplement health bollocks seen since then, coupled with an increased media focus on quackery and growing access to the internet as a source of daft medical information, might have led to an increase in patients’ pseudo-anatomical knowledge,” said lead researcher John Warlock.

“As it turns out, there has been no significant improvement in the intervening years.”

There was little difference between men and women, although women did perform better in knowledge of made up chemical names for skin and hair products.

Unsurprisingly, given the raft of pseudoscience degrees in Universities, the better educated identified more nutritional supplements correctly.

Communication concerns

Don Dumb, head of policy at the Pixey Institute Europe, a pretend research group, agreed.

“There is a real problem with alternative health literacy – people’s ability to unquestioningly accept and process bullshit health information – which this study is indicative of.

“It really does matter, particularly as we look ahead to an NHS where NICE are starting to promote nonsense back pain treatments, like chiropractic and acupuncture.

“If people are going to use the NHS Royal London Homeopathic Hospital in an effective way they need to be able to understand just how important it is to keep their vital force in balance.”

Ellen Fluffhead, from the British Mountebank Foundation, said: “Ideally the public would have a better knowledge of the location of their crystal meditation balancing points than this study suggests.”

“This would hopefully produce a more meaningful dialogue with their high street charlatan when they start to feel vaguely in need of some self-centred, indulgent, nonsensical affirmation of their illusory sense of control in their otherwise completely vacuous lives.”

“However, it is ultimately more important to for us to know how to take money out of their wallets than for them to know any of this made-up rubbish.”

(With thanks to the BBC – Basic anatomy ‘baffles Britons’ )

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Of Lordly acquaintance you boast,
And the Dukes that you dined with yestreen;
Yet an insect’s an insect at most,
Tho’ it crawl on the curl of a Queen!

But what wonderful words: toadying and sycophancy. Where do they come from?

One dictionary definition gives this delightful word history:

The earliest recorded sense (around 1690) of toady is “a little or young toad,” but this has nothing to do with the modern usage of the word. The modern sense has rather to do with the practice of certain quacks or charlatans who claimed that they could draw out poisons. Toads were thought to be poisonous, so these charlatans would have an attendant eat or pretend to eat a toad and then claim to extract the poison from the attendant. Since eating a toad is an unpleasant job, these attendants came to epitomize the type of person who would do anything for a superior, and toadeater (first recorded 1629) became the name for a flattering, fawning parasite. Toadeater and the verb derived from it, toadeat,influenced the sense of the noun and verb toad and the noun toady, so that both nouns could mean “sycophant” and the verb toady could mean “to act like a toady to someone.”

I am not sure if this is true. But if it is, am an appalled that such techniques for quackery promotion do not go on today. The quacks of today have lost their bottle. Who would not delight in seeing a homeopath getting their Saturday intern doing a floor demonstration in Boots the Chemist by eating a live toad and then taking some Nux Vom to ensure she does not throw up. There would be queues around the block to see that, and I would be so impressed I would buy the sugar pills. And, of course, Roger Daltry on stage eating toads in front of Prince Charles whilst singing a medley of hits from Tommy would have really hit the headlines.

The etymology of sycophant may be a little harder and require some Latin and Greek.

My own personal favourite usage of the word appears in the film “101 Dalmatians” when Glenn Close’s Cruella de Vil berates her manservant by saying “What sort of sycophant do you think you are?”. To which he replies, “What sort of sycophant would you like me to be?”

We are told that the word is derived from συκος sykos, “fig”, and φανης fanēs, “to show” so basically sycophant is someone who shows figs. Not a lot of sense there. One explanation is that,

the Greek suko-phantes, “fig-blabbers.” The men of Athens passed a law forbidding the exportation of figs; the law was little more than a dead letter, but there were always found mean fellows who, for their own private ends, impeached those who violated it; hence sycophant came to signify first a government toady, and then a toady generally.

Do we believe that? The Oxford English Dictionary disputes this explanation and instead offers that it comes from an obscene gesture of “sticking the thumb between two fingers” in the shape of a fig. We are told that “The story goes that prominent politicians in ancient Greece held aloof from such inflammatory gestures, but privately urged their followers to taunt their opponents.”

Why this is obscene may be reflected in the fact that sykon has an alternative meaning of vulva.

On that note, I think we had better leave it there.

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There were two doctors in a bar, spending the evening moaning about the current state of the NHS, government interference, hospital managers, crap IT, abusive patients, litigious patients, rotas, paperwork, overwork, lack of time with patients who need it – you get the picture.

The first says, “You know what? It has got to the state where I want to jack it all in and get into alternative medicine. Frankly, I quite fancy being a chiropractor.”

“A chiroquacktor?” Laughs the second doctor. “You have to be kidding?”

“No, I’m serious.”, says the first. “Think about it. I can keep my “Dr” title and a have brass plaque on the front door of my own private practice. I can see a string of patients with mainly back problems and a few crying babies. Nothing we can really do about either of them, but I can crack their bones, charge them, they will get better anyway, no matter what I do, and they will be eternally grateful to me. I can set my own practice hours. Go home at regular times. Play some golf. It will be fantastic.”

“What’s stopping you then?” Says, the now understanding second doctor.

“Well, unlike the title ‘Dr’, not just anyone can style themselves a chiropractor. You have to have been on a long training course and get a new BSc and then be registered with the GCC. I could just do a part time McTimoney course, but even then it could take years and I would have to listen to all that hogwash about subluxations. I just want to get through all that and start cracking bones.”

“Mmmm”, says Doctor number two. “Maybe I can help you there”.

“How?”

“Well, you know I am a brain surgeon. I have been trialling a new procedure. It’s experimental, but I am having a few successes.” says the brain surgeon.

“The operation will basically instantly transform you from a doctor into a chiropractor.”

“Is that possible?” asks the first.

“Yes, in layman’s terms, what we do is remove half your brain”.

Looking rather alarmed, the first says, “Good grief! That sounds serious. I’m not sure I could go through with that!”

“Well, its not so bad.”, reassures the brain surgeon. “We are very particular about which parts of brain we remove. We shall pick out all those bits that got stuffed full of anatomy and physiology at medical school. Obviously we shall leave some remnants of basic medical knowledge there and let you believe that you have a fully equivalent medical training in such areas. Out will go all that stuff on pharmacology, biochemistry, anaesthesiology, surgery and psychiatry.  Immunology will have to go. You can quickly make stuff up to replace your real knowledge, and before you know it, you will be condemning MMR and the vaccination schedule. No need for medical ethics probably too. Your evidence empathy areas will go, along with any basic understanding of science that may interfere with a belief in ‘innate intelligence’ or ‘subluxations’. “

“We shall obviously leave in the business skills area. That will be very important. Get a car crash victim in and after a few sessions you will be able to sign up his whole family, including children, grandparents and pets into a ‘family wellness’ programme for the next five years.

“Wow! Fantastic!”, says the first.

“I can fit you in this afternoon, if that’s OK?” says the second.

And so, the operation was performed. But due to some iatrogenic catastrophe, negligence, arrogance, complacency, mix up, and, possibly some underhand Big Pharma foul play, the operation does not go too well.

As the first doctor starts coming round from the anaesthetic, the surgeon is waiting to break the bad news. “I’m afraid, the operation did not go as planned”, he says.

“What do you mean?” says a rather alarmed and definitely not a chiropractor patient.

“Due to a mix up with some paperwork, we accidentally removed your whole brain. We tried our best, but were unable to restore those areas you will need to become a chiropractor. I am afraid you have no brain”.

“Never mind.”, says the  surprisingly chirpy and optimistic patient. “I think I will just become a homeopath”.

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Dirty electricity’ is a phenomenon few of us have heard about but it could be affecting the lives of millions of people around the world, according to new research. Basically, dirty electricity is a power quality problem generated primarily by modern electrical appliances and lighting systems.

Until recently, dirty electricity was thought to be a problem only for the utility companies, but it is now emerging as a serious public-health issue – possibly responsible for a host of common illnesses including asthma, diabetes, depression and cancer.

A good joke. But of course we have heard it before. Here is Austin Tassletine’s orginal ground breaking report… (just for your amusement.)

(For those of you expecting something about Ben Goldacre’s new book, Bad Science, launched today, I am sorry. I expect someone else will read it and review if for you soon.)

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My reaction was of course total disbelief. For years I have been getting in lifts, pressing the button and then the doors close. My actions have been effective nearly every time. There is a near perfect correlation between my actions of pressing the button and the doors closing shortly thereafter. Case closed.

But stepping back for a moment and it is easy to see that my certainty may well be misplaced. I still believe that the button works but there is room for doubt. I can recall several times where I have had to press the button impatiently twice. Maybe if the door always closes after a fixed time I had pressed it the first time very soon after getting in. And of course, if the button was not working, then the doors would still close after a set period anyway. It is conceivable that my actions have nothing to do with when the doors close.

But would lift manufacturers really put a redundant button in there just to play some sort of psychological mindfuck on the users of their products? My doubts get stronger when I read that the button does work, but only when the lift is in ‘fireman’ mode and the maintenance key is turned. A little more plausible, but really?

So, I have now sufficient doubts to suspend my initial judgment of the effectiveness of my lift button pressing prowess. I could be kidding myself, but I am not sure. I do not want to fall for the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. “After this, therefore because of this”. Just because one event happens after another does not mean that the first event caused the second event. A dog barks at the postman and is convinced the barking makes the postman go away. You swear at the traffic lights (robots, for my South African friends) and they go green. I press the lift button, the doors close. I am ill, I take my homeopathy pills, I get better.

How we respond to such information helps to define us as to what sort of thinker we are. Human brains are finely tuned belief engines. Millions of years of evolution have honed our grey stuff to spot causation in the world and form beliefs about what causes what. It helps us survive when we notice that certain events always follow other events. Such knowledge helps us reliably find food, mates and shelter. But our brains are taking efficient shortcuts. We filter out and ignore failures and remember and reinforce successes. And most of the time this works. But beliefs formed in this way can lead to mistakes. My pressing the lift button may well be a false conclusion drawn from my experience because I have failed to spot hidden causes and alternatives to the obvious. Maybe it really is just the lift closing the door without my intervention. Maybe the postman will just leave anyway without the dog barking and maybe my cold will clear up without the homeopathic sugar pill having to remember any ‘vibrational energies’. It takes care, training and caution to spot when our monkey brains might not be instinctively getting things right. And it is not easy.

James Randi gave a talk this weekend in London with Sue Blackmore, Simon Singh, Ben Goldacre and other sceptics. Everyone there was familiar with his work, but he wanted to remind us that even us die hard sceptics are easy to fool. He stood in front of the microphone and talked to us and then at the end revealed that the microphone was not on and the glasses he was wearing had no lenses in them. He could not see us. Our brains were inventing information about the experience to make sense of it. What sort of idiot pretends the standing microphone was on when really he was using a collar device? What sort of idiot wanders on stage without being able to see? What sort of idiot puts useless buttons in lifts? Or takes useless sugar pills for that matter?

Now, one factor that prevents us testing our cherished beliefs is our investment in them. For the beliefs we value and have spent time and money nurturing there is a natural aversion to testing them. We just do not want to find out that our effort was for nought. The greater the investment, the more inclined we are to only seek confirmatory evidence for our beliefs and the less notice we take of negative evidence. I can honestly say that despite the thousands of times I have pressed the close door button, I do not feel wedded to the idea that my actions have been effective. I am happy to admit that I may have been taken for a fool.

Maybe if you were an old fashioned lift attendant in a posh department store, you might have more psychological investment in your beliefs about button pressing. You have been doing it for years, helping customer up and down between floors. They have been happy customers and pleased that you shortened the journey by pressing the close door button when everyone was ready. They tip you. They would not tip you if you had actually been doing nothing. You spent three years training (by correspondence) on effective lift management. You have a diploma (unaccredited). Your parents are proud. WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME THAT THE BUTTON DOES NOTHING!

So, there is only one answer: science. Test my assumptions. Collect some objective data and see if it confirms my expectations about my ability to influence lift doors. I can do a simple trial. I can time the interval between the doors fully opening when the lift in this building arrives at the ground floor and when the doors finally close before we move off. I can do this six times with a button press and six times without. There is probably no need to invent some sort of blinding mechanism as the opening and closing events are not overly susceptible to subjective interpretation and the lift will probably be unaware that a trial is going on. Maybe I will randomise the trial by tossing a coin as I step in – just in case there are trends or other factors that might make the interval different over the day. I will seek ethical approval.

Will you do the same? Can we settle this issue and see if we really are powerless and dehumanised in the face of the cold reality of vertical transportation mechanisms? Let me know.

(Mind you. I have always been a big fan of paternosters. Much more gentle, holistic and natural – and no need for reductionist, mechanical, electrosensitivity-inducing close door buttons. Why have they taken the paternosters away? Where is our choice?)

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They say,

“For some reason, many homeopaths feel they have to tell their patients lies and fairy stories, and try to baffle them with pseudo-science. Here at FairDeal Homeopathy, we treat you like adults, and only tell you the truth.”

For example, on their FAQ, they ask the question: “What side effects can I expect?”. They respond,

None. That’s one of the great things about homeopathy – there are no side effects (unless you’re allergic to sugar, or water) as there are neither actual medical effects, nor active ingredients in the remedies!

They point out the power of the the placebo effect and that it is very effective for certain conditions, but echoing the smoking patches that “require willpower” to give up, homeopathy “requires belief” to be effective in any way.

Refreshing stuff from FairDeal Homeopathy. I suggest we all buy our “Remedies” from them straight away!

We at the Quackometer welcome this innovation in the world of self-empowered healing.

Talking of miraculous innovations, not quackery related, but another great little website that you may wish to peruse: bovine descenders. We have all done it. Accidentally, lead a cow upstairs only, to find that it is impossible for a cow to walk down stairs. You prayers are now answered with these specialists and “world-wide leader in the getting-cows-down-stairs field”.

Marvelous. The white hot pace of technology amazes me.

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Here is the latest attempt to reduce the grand holistic arts to beano style ridicule. Joseph Hewitt’s Ataraxia Theatre obviously has a thing going on about homeopaths. His latest scribble is a beautifully observed mocking of the absurdity of homeopathy. Joseph Hewitt is an English teacher living in South Korea. He likes iced tea and he says,

If you know me, and I know a few of you do, you’ll know that the thing I hate most in this world is quack medicine. I have nothing but contempt for those who make their living fleecing money from the desperate.

He also refers to me as an ‘internet celebrity’ which is why I am plugging him here.

Which brings me onto an aside: I did not do a review of my last year of the Quackometer. Maybe I should have done. Lots happened and my readership has gone through the roof since I became an ‘internet celebrity’. There is only one person I could thank for that and so I dedicate this cartoon to this person and give a special Quackometer ‘Services to Stamping out Quackery’ Award to Paula Ross, Chief Executive of the Society of Homeopaths. Thanks for all you did for me last year. If this was a real awards ceremony, now would be time for tearful hugs and the handing over of a crystal glass duck trophy. I couldn’t have done it without you.

May 2008 be an even more exciting year! Happy New Year to all visitors to my site.

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But not all is at it seams. I have done some photo analysis on the pictures on that page and uncovered a disturbing truth. Look at the picture below. After some photo manipulation I have been able to reveal this…

Look at the picture close up. Who do you see? Now get out of your chair and look again from ten feet away.

Proof that this is a Big Pharma stitch up by getting novelist to defend homeopathy and make it look silly. Or was Goldacre behind the whole thing? Is Jeanette Winterson for real? Who can we trust? Is Jeanette Ben’s nom-de-Friday-night after a hectic week at the hospital and delivery of his Bad Science copy?

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