Caption Contest

As always, place your entries in the comment thread below. (As always, the only prizes around here are fleeting fame and the admiration of regular readers.) 

Background: This week’s contest is in honour of David Bullard, who took to Twitter in early February to accuse Michelle Solomon of fabricating the account of her rape. It’s hard to believe that anybody would sink so low. But if you missed the ruckus and don't believe me, here’s the Tweet:

(Bullard starts, as you can see, with a call to “face facts”. When challenged later -- also on Twitter -- about how he could possibly know what he implied, he said that he didn’t “claim to know any facts”. We leave the task of working out whether or not Harry Frankfurt's analysis of bullshit applies in this case, or whether this falls into some other category, to the reader.)

Some related links:

No thanks, rape NGO tells Bullard.
Bullard slammed over rape talk tweet.
Bullard criticised for tweets over rape.
David Bullard provokes outrage over offensive rape tweets.

Exploiting gullible South Africans (BPSDB)

Over the past month or so I’ve published brief accounts of a series of what I’ve called mad ads. There’s a full list of links to the ones I’ve written up so far at the bottom of this article. These are mostly simple and naïve looking pamphlets handed out at traffic lights and stuffed into mail boxes. A few appear in the print media, and so far there’s also been one web site. All of them offer a range of treatments for genuine medical conditions (including diabetes, HIV infection, fertility, sexual function). Almost all offer to effect anatomical changes, including penis enlargement, vaginal reduction. A very high fraction claim to be able to help influence events in the world at large, including finding employment, finding love, achieving business success, winning court cases, preventing or effecting divorce, winning lotteries.

The supposed means of achieving this impressive range of services varies in detail, but is always some kind of mish-mash of divination and magical intervention, and often involves herbs.

I admit that these adverts are, to a critical and naturalist eye, pretty funny, which is part of why I scan them and write them up. The typos and spelling mistakes and bold claims are easy to laugh at. (‘Dr Raju’ apparently ‘has the power to sit on a crocodile & lion skin while floating on water and communicating with the dead’.) The clearly naïve presentation encourages finding this amusing.

This is also rather serious stuff. Almost all of the claims are close to guaranteed to be false. None of them are supported by anything that looks remotely like good evidence. For this reason I expect that most or all of them would be found to be in breach of advertising standards regulations in South Africa.

Even so, they keep on being produced and distributed. I’ve mostly described ones from Durban, which is where I live. But similar material can be found elsewhere in South Africa. It has been like this for some time. The most obvious explanation for this is that enough people are willing to pay for the bogus services. Why else would those who try to sell them keep on promoting them? How else could they afford to keep on advertising?

It would be surprising, therefore, if there weren’t some people with genuine and sometimes serious medical conditions (diabetes and HIV among them, damnit) who were wasting their time and money, and harming themselves, by responding to these adverts and being charged for rubbish instead of seeking proper medical care. That's not acceptable. It also seems likely that there are people wasting their time and money trying to get semi-magical solutions to problems at work, or in relationships, or in efforts to make money. These people are being shamefully exploited, and that’s not acceptable either.

I will, I promise, get around to reporting at least some of these adverts to the Advertising Standards Authority in South Africa, and I’ll report on the results of those reports. In the mean time, please keep on sending me additional examples, and try not to forget to be outraged as well as amused.

The list of mad ads (to date):

Professor Madu. I kid you not

Brown-nosing

The less awesome Dr Jadhu

Study in Brown

Dr Jose Buba - all the way from Mauritius

But still, they come: Dr Mama Hafisa & Dr Hashiraf...

The incredible 'Dr Maama Mzei Ndimungoma'

The amazing 'Dr Mama Simba'

The amazing 'Dr Raju'

Professor Madu. I kid you not

I've been collecting more mad ads for the current series, including a few print ads, which I'll scan and comment on soon. A big thank you to those who've sent me links and scans of additional examples. This one really is a cracker - spotted by a reader in Gauteng. It's also unusual in being a web-site. Yup, you can email this guy, and specify what spell you want casting.

And there's a pretty cool menu of spells. You can apparently make people marry you, or just be your Valentine. You can get luck, or be a 'Warlock Lover'. The 'Krakow Spell' will help you 'Become the master of your life and determine the course of your destiny!' which seems pretty cool. Obviously there's much more than this, including 'Aura cleansing', some 'Authentic Voodoo Spells' (clearly there's a worry about the efficacy of fake voodoo...), and the 'Black Curse Spell' that, because 'it can bring about horrendous times for the person to whom' it is directed, you are thoughtfully asked not to request 'unless it is absolutely necessary'. Not only can you, as always, get an enlarged schlong, the Professor will also help you get a 'more vascular look' for your member. If your intended is into veins or something. (Sings: "You're so vein...".)

There's loads more, including a startling biography of the good Professor, who, among other things, was 'anointed' by the 'gods of his fore father's ancestral powers' to 'heal and solve most of the problems and ailments that are failed to be healed by others doctors'. It's awesome, and it's all in delightful clunky web 0.6 style, with flashing stuff and lurid backgrounds, and bizarrely selected images.

You can check out the site here: http://www.profmadunativehealer.co.za/index.htm

My favourite odd image on the site is the one at the top of this posting. Except it flashes

Dr Jose Buba - all the way from Mauritius

Here's one more mad ad before the week is done. I hope to set the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa (see earlier post) on a few of these next week if I can find the time to prepare complaints.

This time we've got Dr. Jose Buba. Here's another guy who can apparently do divination with a 'mirror and water' (although unlike the good Dr. Raju he does not claim he can 'sit on a crocodile and lion skin while floating on water and communicating with the dead'). And he can supposely organise you the usual things like a large penis, a job, winning the lottery, not to mention less common services like treating epilepsy and sorting out any hassles you might have with "bewitched people".

Note, if you can be bothered to check out the small print, that this guy gets his leaflets printed by the same establishment as Dr Raju, and Dr Mama Simba, not to mention Dr Mama Hafisa & Dr Hashiraf and Dr Jadhu (and associates). This print shop is getting the lions share of the trade in quack flyers, at least the ones that have come to my attention. The phone numbers for the quacks are all different, though. And the indicated places of business differ too. So it seems as though the number of quacks is large, but for some reason they're using one print shop to do most of their work. I'd be interested to know more about what that is about...

Here are the two sides of the flyer - one in isiZulu, the other in English. Notice the AIDS ribbon in the top left corner of each version. (Larger versions display when you click on these ones.)

Brown-nosing

Not long ago I posted Study in Brown, noting some of the bold claims made about the services of one KS Brown, one of Durban's merry band of peddlers of services including supposed penis-enlarging personal problem solving. Those services were, like most of the competitors who I'm documenting in this series on mad ads, promoted by means of a fairly crudely designed pamphlet. (Many of the pamphlets are strikingly similar, a matter that deserves further investigation.) But KS Brown seems also to have an eye on a somewhat more upmarket crowd of gullible and supersititious types, as the bit of advertising below suggests. I also had it handed to me at a traffic intersection, but the original has the dimensions of a business card, it's printed on card (not low grade paper) and in full colour. Wow.

Otherwise it's pretty much the usual stuff - larger penises, treatment for chronic conditions, fixing relationships. All, of course, 'guaranteed'. And she or he will do 'ancestral problems'. Also, this one has a proper address. Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa here we come!

Advertising standards and mad ads

In one of my mad ads postings I mused about the state of advertising standards in South Africa. Michael Meadon over at Ionian Enchantment sent me a link to a bit of good news. This is that the Advertising Standards Authority of South Africa ruled against the makers of the herbal supplement Revivo, requiring that the product must be withdrawn in South Africa, because the advertising makes unsubstantiated claims that the product works as a treatment for HIV. You can read an article about the ruling on the website of the Treatment Action Campaign.

Apparently it is possible to complain by email. I suspect that the operators I've been publishing about are moving fast and light, and may change premises regularly, making it more difficult to deal with them than a formal business with a proper address. still, I'll try to find time to write in, and then post updates about what ever happens here. In the interim, I'll keep on scanning and posting mad ads, because they aren't running out just yet.

The less awesome Dr Jadhu

After some of the recent mad ads in my series, I have to say Dr Jadhu is initially something of a disappointment. OK, he uses the title 'Dr', and claims guaranteed results, using 'spiritual powers and astrological charts'. But the list of promised therapies is rather short. No direct reference to enlarged penises, no specific mention of diabetes, AIDS, etc.

Then again, some of the more general claims are still rather impressive. For me "achieve and do whatever you want with the one you love" stands out. This compares rather favourably with the claim by Dr Mama Hafisa & Dr Hashiraf that they'll organise you a penis of "any size you want". And is actually very creepy indeed, given a moment's thought. (What about whatever the one you love might want?) I suppose if you get your monstrous member from the first lot, and your intended doesn't respond as you'd hoped, you head on down to Dr Jadhu's place to deprive them of any say in the matter. How very romantic. And 'Kings of Tokoloshe' would be a pretty good name for a band.

Study in Brown

So, maybe your penis is still too small. Maybe you have financial problems. You want a job, or to pass and exam. You might have AIDS complications. You need to win a court case, ovecome an enemy. Perhaps you want to go 'more rounds' during sex, or have more sexual power (hardness, and strength). You might be married, unmarried, or divorced, or getting divorced and want to switch to one of the others. You could be paralysed from a stroke. Or maybe you just have a cough, or swollen feet. (Or other things I can't be bothered to list.)

But don't worry. K S Brown, who interestingly does not use the title 'doctor' can help. With a belt, braces and who knows what combination of 'God, herbs and ancestors' offerring a range of 'guaranteed' services, including the '4 in 1 sexual gear', and they'll work within 3 to 7 days.

This pamphlet (handed to me at two different traffic intersections last week alone) arrives folded, so the first image below is the front and back cover, the second the inside. Click on images for larger versions.

































This is the most recent in my mad ads series. If you see ones I haven't covered, as long as they're recent and from South Africa, please email me scans. Once the pile has grown enough I may stop this lazy blogging and write something considered about them.

But still, they come: Dr Mama Hafisa & Dr Hashiraf...

I'm continuing with my series on mad ads for this or that spooky, pseudo-scientific or otherwise problematic adverts for services relating to health. Since I started I've run into the pamphlets of several practitioners who are new to me. A trip down town got me two new exhibits, handed out by people on the pavements. I don't know if I'm just noticing it more because I'm paying attention, but it still seems to me as though there's a bit of an upsurge in this kind of advertising.

I mean to make enquiries into what laws cover advertising, and if there are public bodies that it is possible to make complaints to. But I'm kinda busy, and only get to blagging late at night. So for now I'll just carry on scanning and posting the things for your delectation and amazement. The latest one is for the combined services of Dr Mama Hafisa & Dr Hashiraf. In many ways it's similar to the others, including the prominent focus on penis size, and sexual endurance, along with claims to assist with infidelity, court cases, and so forth. And of course the scandalous claim to help 'people with HIV'. The scans are below, and you can check the advert out and form your own opinion. I found a few features of this one especially striking:

First, the appearance of the crescent moon and star symbol of Islam. It seems as though there could be a niche market here, or subtle differences of style and emphasis in the quackery. It would take more than looking at the adverts to figure this out.

Second, the penis related claims are most impressive. Apparently these two can organise 'any size you want'. The typo infested sentence reading "Bring your Penis your Penis to us you will not regreat" inspires a strong version of the fear occasioned by a tattooist who can't spell, as well as raising the question of how you might visit without bringing your penis.

Third, the interventions that can supposedly help win court cases, etc., are herbal, and "100% natural". Boggle.

The incredible 'Dr Maama Mzei Ndimungoma'

Here's another in my 'mad ads' series. This follows earlier postings about The amazing 'Dr Raju', and the (also) amazing 'Dr Mama Simba'. Again, there are some interesting similarities in the services offered, including penis enlargement, crime prevention, court cases and treatment for diabetes and HIV/AIDS, although this one is a little more modest, insofar as there's no talk of a 'guarantee'. You'd think that if she could use super-powers to attract customers, there would be no need for advertising.

Here's the pamphlet, front and back. Enjoy.

The amazing 'Dr Mama Simba'

Not long ago I posted details of the pamphlets of a certain 'Dr Raju' and the remarkable claims made in them. There's more - in fact there are a few regular sources of these amazing adverts. Another that I receive junk from at least as often as from Dr Raju is 'Dr Mama Simba'. Here's the pamphlet (front and back) and then some sardonic comments.

































So there's quite a bit of overlap here. Enlarging penises and shrinking vaginas for example. Not to mention assisting with career advancement and winning court cases, and managing the Tokoloshe. But there's some more conventional medical stuff here too, such as claims to help with diabetes, blood pressure, and (especially alarmingly) AIDS.

There's also the 100% guarantee. This is dreadful exploitative nonsense that in most cases is contingently very false: nothing has 100% effectiveness with any medical condition. And in some cases it's necessarily false, unless Dr Simba would honourably refuse to take the money of one side in a court case, having already rendered a service to the first. Perhaps we could do an experiment on this some time...

If you're in Durban, or elsewhere in SA, and have similar adverts please either email me, or if you've blogged them send me links - I'd like to keep on tracking this stuff.

The amazing 'Dr Raju'

It could be difficult for people outside South Africa to appreciate the level of popular superstition, and the brazenness of those who exploit it. So I'm starting a little series, showcasing some of the advertising. First up one of the pamphlets promoting 'Dr Raju', who offers an impressive array of services including some top of the line divination, and medical interventions that will change physical proportions (making penises larger, and vaginas smaller, 'like a virgin'). Readers should note that the service comes with a 'guarantee' and includes offers to help at the 'Gambling Cassino' (sic). My favourite, though, is the assertion that the good doctor is able to 'sit on a crocodile and lion skin while floating on water and communicating with the dead'. I would totally pay ZAR200 (about USD 26) to see that.

Here's the front and back of the pamphet. I get these dropped into the mailbox where I live regularly (around once a month) and also get handed them at traffic lights, and find them generally lying about the place. Dr Raju is not the only such service provider - I'll follow up with other examples in the future.

































Oh, and ... uh ... I seem to have recovered the will to blog. For a bit. Maybe.

Bad Vibrations at UKZN

This posting is cross-posted at Intrepid Aardvark, which should be considered as its primary home. I've mostly put it here because I'm feeling a bit down about the low posting rate I've managed over the past few weeks. - Doc S.

Far too much pseudo-science and useless or harmful health 'interventions' huddle under the umbrella of 'alternative' medicine or 'alternative' healing. These 'alternatives' thrive in 'alternative' places (such as dubious 'societies' of homeopaths), and with 'alternative' people (exploitative weasels who market their products as 'nutritional supplements' precisely to avoid the standards applied to licensed medication).

Occasionally, though, the nonsense secures some kind of status at a formal research institution - one where proper science normally goes on. This status makes matters worse: it gives a veneer of respectability to dangerous rubbish, when alternative medicine should be robustly criticised and scientifically tested. When this happens, people who care about evidence and effectiveness should kick up a stink.

David Colquhoun has written several fine articles on this phenomenon in the press, and on his blog DC Science, where he also criticises the running (all too often the wronging) of universities. I've included links to a selection of his pieces on this topic near the end of this article.

Here at Intrepid Aardvark, we're going to keep an eye on instances of this in South Africa at least, and to the extent we can, in Africa at large. Here's the first installment.

A recent issue of UKZNOnline (an electronic brag-mag at the University of KwaZulu-Natal) includes an article enthusiastically reporting on a talk on 'body alignment as a healing strategy' presented to the university department of Physiotherapy.

The speaker was Mr Jeff Levin. Looking at his website I see no evidence of any scientific training, but rather a worryingly long list of fields ("architect, nutripath, author, healer and pioneer in the world of energy medicine"). The webpage as a whole gives no indication of the existence of any rigorous trials, or peer-reviewed research. There's a typical list of testimonials and anecdotes but no sign of a randomised double-blind trial with a placebo condition. So no indication of meaningul evidence.

Jeff waffles; mostly about 'energy' including 'vibrational energy' and 'fields'. There's a description here.

The article in UKZN on-line burbles on enthusiastically about the waffle and the waffler. Levin, we are told, is "internationally renowned for his healing work." Levin, "demonstrated how electromagnetic influences caused by cell phones, electric devices such as tooth brushes, geopathic stress from earth grid lines and negative emotions, can shrink an individual’s energy field. In the same way, positive emotions and the creation of healing vortices can expand energy fields and promote healing."

Here's most of the rest of the article, with quotations from Levin:

"To maintain health the body must maintain optimal vibrational frequency. Any change in the ordered frequency of the body manifests as disease."

"The human energy system is powerfully affected by emotions and the level of spiritual balance. Negative emotional experiences become subconsciously locked into the body at a cellular level and contribute to the disease."

"Body alignment technique lifts the body’s vibrational frequency to its optimal level thereby relieving bodily manifestations of pain, fatigue, chronic and acute conditions and structural imbalance, as well as learning difficulties," said Mr Levin.

During his introductory talk, Mr Levin demonstrated the effectiveness of this modality in relieving pain using some volunteers. The responses were almost immediate to the astonishment of those involved.

It makes sense that Levin doesn't have much to say about evidence, because there's little if any evidence for anything he says, significant evidence against much of it, and the general framework is sharply at odds with some of the best established science from over 100 years ago. Among other things, it's quite clear that:

• There's no good evidence at all of health disruptions from power grids. (And see this related article on 'magnet therapy' .
• On alternative Chinese medicine, much of it also regularly talked about in terms of energy, Chi and other flim flam, see this piece.
• There's a substantial body of science stretching well over 100 years on the conservation of energy, and the fact that the same small set of fundamental [note 1] forms of it are to be found in all systems whether living or not. There's no evidence for the kinds of gaps that would be needed for the woo-energy to fit in. For a recent short review, see here.

In endorsing this stuff, UKZN have scored an unfortunate own goal.

[note 1] That is, if you take 'fundamental' to mean strictly fundamental physics, then the number might be very small, even one, depending on how the unification of fundamental forces plays out.

--oOo--

Relevant articles in DC Science:

Quackery at Leicester (with a little help from Human Resources)

The Salford 'MSc' in complementary meds, now dropped.

General problems with alternative medicine.

Westminister University (quackery central?).

Amethysts and 'yin energy' (with specific remarks on vibrations).

African naturalist blogroll

Michael Meadon over at Ionian Enchantment has compiled a blogroll of African blogs with a pro-science, or sceptical orientation. There aren't very many, but that's not so surprising on a continent with so little internet penetration. The blogroll is a useful service, and I'm reproducing it here:

• 01 and the universe
• Acinonyx Scepticus
  
• Amanuensis
• Ambient Normality **New**
  
• Botswana Skeptic **New**
  
• Effortless Incitement
• Ewan's Corner
  
• Ionian Enchantment
• Irreverence
• LimbicNutrition **New**
  
• other things amanzi
  
• Orion Spur **New url**
  
• Pause and Consider
  
• Pickled Bushman
• Prometheus Unbound
• Psychohistorian **New**
  
• Scorched
  
• Science of Sport
• Stop Danie Krugel **New**
  
• subtle shift in emphasis
• Timbuktu Chronicles **New**
  
• the little book of capoeira
• The Skeptic Blacksheep
  
• The Skeptic Detective
• Yet Another Sceptic's Blog

Since Michael is the one doing the maintenance and updating, if you see a blog that you think belongs on the list (whether or not it's yours) you should contact him. Here is his most recent posting of the blogroll.

(I prefer 'naturalist' for one who takes science to be our best guide to how the world is. It's not clear what word is best here, because at least in SA English 'sceptical' doesn't carry the associations it does in much of the rest of the English-speaking blogosphere.)

Undiluted detox bollocks in the Daily News

Today's Mercury (A Durban based daily rag) contains an article headed "A detox takes a lot of will-power, but it is definitely worth it" (page 8). The article rattles though a bunch of the usual bollocks, in breathlessly uncritical vein, with no evidence at all.

As scientifically minded blog readers will know, there's been a surge of recent criticism of the detox industry. Ben Goldacre has weighed in, as has David Colquhoun. This is well-deserved. The Mercury piece provoked my mate Dave to write in - here's his letter (I don't know yet whether they'll print it):

Dear Sir,

In your edition of 8 January you include an article headed "A detox takes a lot of will-power, but it is definitely worth it" (page 8). In the article you parrot a number of claims regularly made by the detox industry as though they are true. You give no evidence. In fact, you could give no evidence. No scientifically rigorous clinical trial has ever shown a measurable benefit of a "detox" regime, and the pseudoscientists who peddle them barely agree about what "detox" amounts to. Some of the purgative measures suggested are potentially dangerous. Vitamin supplementation gives either no benefit, or (again, according to clinical trials) in the case of high dosage anti-oxidant supplements can be positively harmful. Everyone should get a decent amount of exercise and eat healthily most of the time, perhaps especially after festive over-indulgence. That much is obvious. Your uncritical regurgitation of unsubstantiated pseudo-science passed of as journalism is shameful, and given that the topic is human health, dangerous.

If the letter is published and I notice, I'll post an update. It's hard to read the Mercury every day, so I might not notice. (The offending article, by the way, is cut and pasted from, according to the attribution, the Belfast Telegraph.)

*Note on the picture: As usual, I'm grabbing something that comes up high on a Google Images search for a keyword. This picture is from a gallery of frankly rather striking images at Dr Natura. Only the very strong of stomach should browse this gallery while consuming a chili dog.

Undiluted astrology bollocks in Sunday Tribune

Here's a useful rule of thumb: any publication with an astrology column shows thereby that it is willing to print utterly unwarranted bullshit. It should make you worry about the editors' ability to distinguish evidence from rubbish elsewhere in the publication.

The Economist and The New York Times don't have horoscopes. Cosmopolitan and Hello magazine do. Go figure.

Daily newspapers might try to excuse themselves by saying that an astrology column is like a crossword, or a bridge column - only some readers like it, but they like it enough to care, and it doesn't do much harm. That strikes me as a weak excuse, but to invoke it the astrology rubbish needs to be carefully ring fenced.

The Sunday Tribune (South Africa, January 4, 2009) shows that it respects no such boundary.Page 8 includes an article under the headline "2009, Year of the ox, will be more stable". The article includes a bunch of the usual nebulous waffle, presented in a totally uncritical register. Key claims are asserted as fact, rather than opinion of an astrologer, for example that "The Chinese calendar moves in 60-year cycles, meaning the world will experience similar events in the new year to those that took place 60 years ago."

There is nothing in the article (zero, not a bit, bugger all) about whether there is any evidential basis for the claims made. Garbage is simply presented as news.

(For non-SA readers, the Sunday Tribune is not a generally nonsense publication. No alien abduction stories, relatively little superficial tosh about celebrities, and astrology generally coralled next to the funny pages. So this is a serious own goal.)