Entry #058: Jim Carrey

I am sure this will disappoint a lot of people, but the famous actor Jim Carrey is unfortunately a first-class loon, who demands an entry in our Encyclopedia under the densely populated category “celebrities who should have remain modestly ...silent about issues they have absolutely no knowledge of understanding of”. Well, I guess people should be excused for letting blithering idiocy fall out of their mouths on certain occasions. Carrey, however, has swallowed the anti-vaccinationist lunacy hook and sinker (through his relationship with the abysmally ignorant loon Jenny McCarthy), and emerged as an ardent opponent of science, reason and rationality. Sorry, Jim, you’re a crackpot.

What else but crackpottery can get anyone to concoct this string of logical fallacies and poorly disguised conspiracy theories of the worst Roswellian kind from the depths of confirmation bias. It is properly and even-handedly evaluated here and here.

To twist the knife around, have a look at the following.

In other words: A typical example of what happens when people who are already convinced of a certain claim on the basis of intuition or nothing obtain their biology or medical degrees from google and fellow actors. A disgrace. A first-class village conspiracy theorist. Who knew “Dumb & Dumber” was a biographical documentary?

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Diagnosis: Clueless moron with an incoherent cause and lots of ardour. His influence should not be underestimated, however.

On the other hand, he recently broke up with McCarthy and was subsequently thrown out of Generation Rescue – maybe he’ll take a Bailey-Shermer-Easterbrook and come to his senses? In Carrey’s disfavor, however, he doesn’t – unlike B-S-E – come across as particularly bright.

Entry #045: Rashid Buttar

Among the most belligerent quacks in the States, Dr. Buttar is a medical doctor who, apart from his genuine qualifications, espouses a line of treatment for autism that is as bereft of scientific rigor as transcommunication (see previous post).

Buttar has been under investigation by the North Carolina State Medical Board for a decade and for a variety of misconducts involving "unconventional treatments" to which he subjects autistic children and cancer patients - all for lots of money to line his pockets. He views the medical board, in his own words, as a "rabid dog."

Ultimately, the medical board has recommended restricting Dr. Buttar's license to prohibit him from treating children or patients with cancer. That hasn’t stopped him (discussed here; for a more neutral assessment go here).

Among his more famous autism treatments is the transdermal chelation cream (a.k.a. “Buttar’s butter”). He has been known to come up with some truly bizarre protocols to treat autism, with rumors that Dr. Buttar's armamentarium of woo even included urine injections to "boost the immune system". Of course the fees are exorbitant.

His cancer quackery is even worse, and Buttar has apparently said that ”it didn't matter what kind of cancer anybody had, he could cure it."

Uh oh.

And yes, it is there, all of it: Buttar believes most patients with cancer also have high levels of heavy metals, such as mercury, and other toxins, such as pesticides, because of environmental exposure”. His treatments include chelation, ozone therapy and hyperbaric oxygen chambers – dangerous, potentially lethal devices or regimes with not the slightest trace of evidential support for any claims to efficacy. He even has an AirEnergy Machine.

His website is here.

Buttar is most prominent, however, for being a rabid anti-vaccinationist, running all the usual canards. Remember Desiree Jennings? The gal who claimed to have her walking impaired by the H1N1 vaccine (but got magically cured right after the media forgot about her?) Guess who her accomplice was, the doctor who “diagnosed her and helped her”.

Btw, his website prominently displays the following quote: "All truth passes through 3 phases: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed, and Third, it is accepted as self-evident." (Schopenhauer). Anyone who uses this quote as support for his or her ideas is a seriously delusional crackpot. That’s a law.

(Come to think of it, it’s a strikingly stupid and magnificently false claim Schopenhauer is making to begin with.)

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Diagnosis: Crackpot, and a severe case of confirmation bias coupled with belligerence. Very dangerous – many of his treatments are definitely harmful (and hardly beneficial), and they are being used. Should be stopped as quickly as possible.

Entry #029: Mark Blaxill

Blaxill is not a scientist. Nor is he a doctor, though he plays one at SafeMinds. Blaxill is a former businessman turned spokesperson for the anti-vaccinationist movement (Vice President of SafeMinds). Fancies himself a self-made expert epidemiologist. In the grips of extreme confirmation bias (science doesn’t support his views, hence scientists are probably mislead by their own personal interests – having no clue as to how a controlled experiment is carried out).

Liar, crank and conspiracy theorist (Big Pharma is out to get us – Blaxill actually terms it the “autism holocaust”), as discussed here; also a professional shifter of goalposts (without necessarily being aware of it himself).

Among his most prominent techniques are faking statistics to show an explosion in autism the last thirty years, and looking at new studies to determine whether they are scientifically "solid" or not (meaning he determines whether they can be interpreted as agreeing with his lunacy or not).

Blaxill meets Dunning-Kruger here...and Blaxill and Olmsted confuse correlation with causation here.

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Diagnosis: Delusional and belligerent crank; relatively influential and quite dangerous.