Sorry for the delay

I figure this picture makes it even?..

Before starting this blog I must do a few things; it has been a while after all. Firstly, I apologise sincerely for any of you that were actually waiting for this blog. I've been distracted and lazy, but most of all demotivated. I also didn't want to just release something trashy to fill the gap.

Secondly I must say that reading this blog will probably be quite time consuming, it is a little under t3400 words and it has many videos interwoven into it. I would consider approaching it in segments, reading the Inattentional Blindness bit and then coming back. It certainly makes the blog more effective though if you read the sections without distraction.

Thirdly, watch each video when I display it, without reading any further or the visual effect of some of the videos will be ruined, it's for your own benefit. On that note, here is the first video for you to watch. This blog is largely to do with attention in relation to transparency. You will see the players are semi-ghost like, so try this before I say anything; just count the passes.



Inattentional Blindness

When you're looking at your lovers face, or seeing your house for the last time before you move away, it is comforting to know that you're taking in the moment, every little detail. In dire situations, where your life may very well depend on you doing this before you act, it is nice to know that every bit of the puzzle is in place before you look down upon it. This however, as lovely and as commonplace as the concept is, is not the truth.

We are not taking in everything there is. Every day, when we choose to cross the road and when we ride our bicycles and drive our cars we are working with a puzzle with many invisible pieces. Sometimes they are small, seemingly irrelevant pieces, other times they might be vital. More confusing however is that when you learn of these once invisible pieces they often become the most obvious pieces in the box and it is hard to understand how you or anyone else in the world could not have seen them. The problem it seems, is that our consciousness has become very good at working around these gaps in information (it may even be important to our development that we do not know about them), so good in fact that it's hard now to notice any gaps at all. The main two phenomena can be reasonably split into not seeing things that are there, and not noticing changes in what we are seeing.

Inattentional blindness is the bizarre but frequent phenomenon of not being able to see fully visible but unexpected objects. These objects will usually become obvious when expected. It is a phenomenon that is constantly occurring and is restricting our very perception of the world. It is sometimes difficult, and perhaps counter intuitive, to accept it. People like to think (as would I) that when they look out upon the many scenes of life that they can trust what they see, that they are seeing it all. As I mentioned above, the trust in the senses would probably have been important for evolution and the development of a sane mind through childhood. Re-analysing if everything is real or not is time consuming and often impossible, and probably makes for an apathetic hunter/gatherer and is evidently not what became of us through evolution. But, whether evolutionary, developmental, or something entirely different there are many problems arising nowadays from inattentional blindness, and other perception phenomenon.

Although it may seem trivial, the phenomenon can interfere with many important areas of life. Witness reports of crimes and referee decisions are some more obvious examples of the many things that can be inhibited by inattentional blindness, but there are other less obvious activities as well. In an experiment talked about in the book Animals in Translation NASA conducted an experiment using a flight simulator where commercial pilots were tested to see if they would notice distractions on a runway during landings. Trained pilots failed to notice distractions ¼ of the time compared to the controls who would usually see the distraction. The explanation on the face of it seemed to be that, the pilots simply did not expect to see these distractions so did not look for them. It runs deeper than this though. Not only did the pilots within rational thought not expect to see the distractions, because of the way our brains have developed the brain had already decided for the pilots that it was not important, relevant information to be seeing in the first place. The distractions were filtered out well before they could have consciously decided their relevance 75% of the time. However, for someone who did not fly a plane, and whose brain had no conscious or contextual screen for information, these distractions were obvious. This is inattentional blindness, the obvious becoming the invisible.

Humans, regardless of our large developed brains, have a limited capacity for attention. Thus the brain is forced to 'decide' which bits of information to process at any given time. What the brain deems relevant, what the brain deems important. That is our consciousness and that is what, from your perspective, you see, smell, hear, feel and taste. The sad thing is however, the world in which we live our life is far greater then the world which we consciously explore. I hate to think how small the fraction of information that makes it through to us is, and it is likely not "regardless of our developed brains" but because of our developed brains that this is the case.

“There are a few things that always do break through to consciousness. I mentioned that people almost always notice their names in the middle of a page of text no matter how hard they’re concentrating on something else; they will also notice a cartoon smiley face. But if you change the face just a tiny bit—turn the smile upside down so it’s a frown, for instance—people don’t see it. This is more evidence for the fact that your brain thoroughly processes sensory data before allowing it to become conscious. With the smiley face your brain has to have processed it to the level of knowing it’s a face and even that it’s a smiling face before it lets the face into conscious perception. Otherwise you’d see the frowny face as often as you saw the smiley face. It’s the same principle with your name. If your name is “Jack,” the word “Jack” will pop out at you in the middle of a page. But the letters “Jick” won’t. That means your brain processes the word “Jack” all the way up to the level of knowing that it’s your name before your brain admits “Jack” into consciousness." - Dana Foundation - Animals in translation

The most popularised inattentional blindness study was done by Daniel Simons and Christopher Chabris. In the study subjects would watch a short video of 2 teams passing a basketball around. The subjects were told to either count the number of passes by one team or to note the number of bounce passes in comparison to aerial passes. The videos were further divided into different versions; one where a woman with an umbrella walks through and in another she walks through wearing a full gorilla suit. 50% of subjects failed to report seeing the gorilla when asked after watching the video. I put a video from from the same experiment at the beginning of the blog and although some of you would have seen something similar to this before, or had it ruined for you by others (especially if you read the comments of the video etc) I wonder how many of you that watched saw the woman with the umbrella? I like to show people in person, because at the very end is where the people who saw it nod and the people who didn't race back to watch it over.

Here is a modern take on the same experiment.



I happen to like this video better, but many people have seen it and I didn't want it to be no fun for them. Ask your friends and parents to watch it in an unsuspecting way. Eg. "Me and my friend have been arguing about how many passes they make, what do you think?" I made sure to embed all the videos as well because some idiots actually put "Can you see the bear?" as the name of some of the videos or in the descriptions, and you get the usual youtube comments of "THERE'S A BEAR".

Daniel Simons who conducted the study gave his interpretations as thus; people mistake how distracted they will be due to important events, this is especially the case when the subject is forced to concentrate attention on one specific goal. I find these videos helped just to show how little we are actually consciously processing. So how do we know that we aren't just missing these things when we are looking, and that we actually are seeing them and filtering them out of our consciousness? Well one way to know would be if it made any impact on our subconscious, an impact that could be measured at that. Well it seems that it does indeed do that, at least some of the time.

“They’d do things like ask their subjects to tell them which arm of a cross that flashed onto a computer screen for about 200 milliseconds was longer. Then, on some of the trials, there’d be a word like “grace” or “flake” printed on the screen, too. Most people didn’t notice the word. They were paying attention to the cross, so they didn’t see it. But Dr. Rock and Dr. Mack showed that many of them had seen the words unconsciously. Later on, when they gave subjects just the first three letters of the word—gra or fla—and asked them to finish them with any word that came to mind, 36 percent answered “grace” or “flake.” Only 4 percent of the control subjects— these were people who hadn’t been subliminally exposed to any words at all—came up with “grace” or “flake.” That’s a huge difference and can only mean that the subjects who were subliminally exposed to “grace” and “flake” really did see “grace“ and “flake.” They just didn’t know it.” - Dana Foundation - Animals in translation

Change Blindness

Change blindness is a phenomenon that is also constantly occurring throughout our lifetimes and it can interfere with countless activities that require focus and observation (and if you gain nothing else from this, you can at least use this as a reason for not noticing your friends new hair cut). It is the phenomenon that occurs when a person fails to detect a large change or changes in any scene that they are viewing. The scene could be any level of complexity; from a city landscape or a person in a booth all the way down to a computer graphic of simple shapes appearing and moving around a screen. Usually the change will happen with some kind of visual obstruction such as the obscuring of a scene for a short moment. For example, watch the following videos in order.

With visual obstructions, the image will flicker. The image will change every now and again. Try count the number of changes.


The very same, but without visual obstructions. Notice how ridiculously obvious they without obstruction.


Some visual disruptions can be like the flickering in those videos, or other disruptions put there on purpose in experiments such as blacking out an image momentarily or etc. These are good experiments and the flickering video is interesting, trivial perhaps, but it is hardly applicable to real life changes right? Well that is at least what I was thinking, however let's delve a bit further into change blindness, tumble down the rabbit hole a little longer. The most common forms of significant visual disruptions I can think of are biological in nature. These include rapid eye movements known as saccades, and the obvious disruption; - blinking. I did some quick googling and although it obviously varies from person to person, I found some average figures on blinking. There were only two figures I could see quickly that were sourced however;

• “Once every five seconds. That's equal to 17,000 times each day or 6.25 million times a year.”- enotes
• “Women and men do not differ in their rates of spontaneous blinking. Generally, between each blink in intervals of 2–10 seconds; actual rates vary by individual averaging around 10 blinks per minute in a laboratory setting. However, when the eyes are focused on an object for an extended period of time, such as when reading, the rate of blinking decreases to about 3-4 times per minute." -Wikipedia; source - M.J. Doughty, 2002, Optom Vis Sci
  

So taking only blinking into account there is already ample opportunity for you to experiencing change blindness in your day to day activities. So if this isn't just a laboratory phenomena, what other examples can be found of this. Now for the more exciting side of change blindness. Take this following video, an ordinary situation; merely handing in a form. The actual experiment appears at 1:17, but I would watch the beginning if you have time. They don't allow their video to be embedded for some annoying reason, so just click the link.

THEY HAVE CHOSEN TO NOT ALLOW EMBEDDING SO CLICK HERE

I must say I find that to be an excellent video, and a much better explanation than I can give, partialy because of my restricted medium and this is just very well done. For those who couldn't watch the video (definitely try to at some point in the future) it was an experiment done where the subjects were asked to sign a form and then hand it in to a man at a counter. The man would duck down as if putting the paper away below the counter but would instead crawl out of view while a second man promptly appeared.



Now these 2 men barely look alike; their hair, faces and shirt colours vary dramatically and yet 75% of people failed to report noticing that there was actualy a second man. And it isn't just that they didn't notice, it also failed to register when they were told. The penny never dropped so to speak, they simply sat there astounded at their seeming lack of observation. As the video says at the end, magicians use this all the time. Heres another example, popular magician Derren Brown showcases the phenomena to unsuspecting people on the street.

SIGH. ALSO WON'T EMBED, CLICK HERE

It's very hard not to think “I would have noticed that”, and maybe that is the case for some of us. But, statistically, it is the case for few of us. Although you may have seen the woman in the first video - but then again you were probably suspecting some alternative motive for the video rather than me simply testing your basic numeracy skills - I will have 2 polls on the left hand side of the blog. One will be asking if you saw the woman in the very first video, the second will be asking about how accurate you were in counting the changes in the flicker video. Please answer them if you can, if you had either of them ruined for you then don't worry about it, I'm just curious.

So, what has this all got to do with a skeptic blog anyway?

Essentially, it gets super boring hearing "but I saw it happen". More generally, "but it worked for (instert friend or family member). I'm going to go through the major reasons you can't trust yourself, probably interjected with less heavy blogs, and the next one will most likely be on memory. I realise that there are differing standards of what defines acceptable evidence in the community, and I'm going to try and raise that. After the memory blog, anyone who still says "But I saw it" or anything other than "but I read this well received, blinded study that was posted in a respected peer-reviewed journal" can at least just be refferred to these blogs instead of having it explained to them personally each time. Also, double-blinded studies are ideal but can't always be done due to certain complications.

Anyway, thanks for reading this. I hope it was interesting, and I hope you're all little bit more skeptical about what you think you're seeing. Give me some positive/negative feedback if you have time. If there's anything I've missed let me know and I'll make sure to edit it in,

Samael

Messing with Nature

Sorry again for the delay in post, I've had some educational commitments to study for and have another one this Saturday so the delay will last a little longer. I have a Vaccination related post coming, but it's taking a long time to cover so I decided to do a short one on something that seems to come up a lot in the mean time. I should warn you that this one is straight opinion and philosophy, it had to be to publish it quickly.

Anyway, it's on the claim that varying actions, often scientific, are 'messing with nature' and that this in turn is a negative thing. There are a heap of different things I have heard labelled 'messing with nature' as well as being used later as evidence that you shouldn't do the very same.

I do not think that anyone can deny there has been a plethora of problems that have come from things like introducing foreign animals and plants to a foreign environment. The Australian Cane Toad plague is an example of this, however this to me is seemingly more an example more of human negligence over evidence against messing with nature and there have been examples of this working out(look up the Cactoblastis moth, this worked completely in Australia yet the moths are detrimental in the states). The other areas under attack by the 'messing with nature' proponents extend to genetic modification, selective breeding and a whole assortment of areas. So the Cane Toad plague is bad, right? Of course, so why isn't this an open shut case of that we shouldn't mess with nature. It comes down to; what is messing with nature? From what I've seen, it seems to be whatever people need it to be, an easily appliable argument against whatever people don't like.

So where do you draw the line. I'm pretty certain we didn't evolve with a shirt on our back. Are the creation of various fabrics messing with nature. We aren't living in caves or trees so what happened there? Were the houses we live in natural phenomena? If so I'm going to have a whole new view of wonder when I walk through Sydney and look up at the buildings. Are the cars we drive in messing with nature? If so. I guess we better ride, oh wait I guess that would be messing with nature too. My point is that almost everything we do is messing with nature. The average person's food is likely have been selectively bred in some way, grown in farms created by humans, and shipped to your human created store by human created vehicles along human created roads. So I guess every single thing we interact with is messing with nature.

The fact is that the concept of 'natural' is vague and undefined. Take the example of human's use of fire. What is natural not only has grey areas, it is a grey area. I saw an example on a site that goes over the difficulty in the 'natural' argument given to show why natural is better then unnatural that went on to say;
"a diet rich in natural foods―such as fruits, vegetables, and whole grains―is probably better than one based on more artificial foods―such as candy, pastries, and sausages. Also, it seems likely that a natural lifestyle―that is, one based on a natural diet and exercise―is in general a healthier one than a sedentary life spent watching television and eating doughnuts."
The major error in this logic is that you are unfairly comparing 2 sets of things. Just like you can't fairly compare natural poisons with candy, pastries and sausages etc. In the above quote the "natural lifestyle" mentioned is obviously more beneficial for your health then the "artificial" based one but it is an irrelevant comparison to the subject.

For instance ursodeoxycholic acid is used for cholesterol regulation in humans. It's natural source is bile. Otherwise, it can be synthesised. To my knowledge there is no difference in effect on the human body using the same dosage of either synthesised or naturally occurring ursodeoxycholic acid. This is a fair comparison, and looking at it like this there is no preference to be taken.

Human's ability to alter genetics is a way to work with something that we couldn't before but it's no worse then anything else we've been able to do so far. To say there are risks involved with something like GM is a truism i.e. a self-evident, obvious truth. But there are risks involved with everything. Crops will outcross whether they are genetically modified or not.

Another way you can look on this is just another way that humans like to put themselves on a podium. “Animals, whom we have made our slaves, we do not like to consider our equal." - Charles Darwin. For example, Egyptian vultures have learnt to break ostrich eggs with rocks held in their beaks. New Calledonian Crow's have the intelligence to use tools to achieve a variety of tasks. Yet, we aren't running around snatching away the tools used by the animals and telling them off for messing with nature. So why should it only be actions undertaken by humans that can be seen as messing with nature? In my opinion we aren't so great that we should be taken to be the only species who's actions should bear such a label.

Related Article of the Blog
GM Crops: not against nature

Word of the Blog
sacrosanct \SAK-roh-sankt\, adjective:

1. Extremely sacred or inviolable.
2. Not to be entered or trespassed upon.
3. Above or beyond criticism, change, or interference.

Video of the Blog

Patent This

Recently there has been an ongoing debate in both the legal and scientific communities, my two favourite communities, over the controversy of gene patenting. Isolating and identifying genes, as well as the uses for those genes, are all becoming increasingly important and these advancements are occuring more frequently with improved technology.

So, what's a gene patent and why should you care? I guess I should start by describing what a patent is for all of those out there who aren't familiar with it, or aware of it's changing standards.

Patents
Patents are licenses granted by a government to an inventor to give them more exclusive rights to their invention. Through the courts it allows the prevention of rivals or other people from using or selling a patented invention without permission. It allows the invention to be treated as property and therefor, the patent can be bought, sold rented or hired.
In Australia there are 2 types of patents;

• "a standard patent gives long-term protection and control over an invention for up to 20 years.
• an innovation patent is a relatively fast, inexpensive protection option, lasting a maximum of 8 years. The innovation patent replaced the petty patent on 24 May 2001"

Gene Patenting
"A patent is a right granted for any device, substance, method or process which is new, inventive and useful." - government patent site

As can be seen in the quote patents can be given only to something that's both inventive and useful. The "inventive" requirement for patents is one of the major focuses in the debate of gene patenting. Gene patents are "patents that claim genetic materials or biological materials in various ways, either as the materials themselves, and the uses of those materials in various medical and scientific ways." - Luigi Palombi, Law Report
Being able to isolate genes is incredibly important as their use is a key element in a variety of research. Recently there has been a senate inquiry into gene patenting that has been looking at
"The impact of the granting of patents in Australia over human and microbial genes and non-coding sequences, proteins, and their derivatives, including those materials in an isolated form, with particular reference to:

• the impact which the granting of patent monopolies over such materials has had, is having, and may have had on:

1. the provision and costs of healthcare,
2. the provision of training and accreditation for healthcare professionals,
3. the progress in medical research, and
4. the health and wellbeing of the Australian people;

• identifying measures that would ameliorate any adverse impacts arising from the granting of patents over such materials, including whether the Patents Act 1990 should be amended, in light of the any matters identified by the inquiry; and
• whether the Patents Act 1990 should be amended so as to expressly prohibit the grant of patent monopolies over such materials." - Senate Website
  

So essentially what's happened with gene patents so far and what might happen, what that will effect, and then either what can be done to reduce negative effects if gene patenting is allowed or should it be prohibited explicitly in an amendment to the Patents Act.

'An article in 'The Australian' reported that "Restricting the research use of a gene sequence could delay the development and testing of truly inventive and practical uses of the gene and its protein product for diagnosis and therapy. This would be to the detriment not only of the wider community, but also of the biotechnology industry itself." This can be seen in the following case.

The senate committee was a result from a letter sent out mid last year. The letter was one of a series of letters from an American company called Myriad Genetics demanding that all public labs in Australia cease performing breast and ovarian cancer gene testing within 7 days because it was in violating 4 patents granted to them, and that the Australian company Genetic Technologies was the only Australian licensee.

The test in question was one where they would look for mutations within the specific BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. The US National Cancer Institute gives the following explanation of the genes;
"A woman's risk of developing breast and/or ovarian cancer is greatly increased if she inherits a deleterious (harmful) BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation. Men with these mutations also have an increased risk of breast cancer. Both men and women who have harmful BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutations may be at increased risk of other cancers..."
As can be seen from this, testing for the gene mutations is fundamental in identifying elevated risk of breast cancer in men and women.

So if there had been compliance with the demands there would have been the instigation of an exclusionary monopoly on gene testing all throughout Australia. All labs and the hospitals that used these labs woulds be directed to send samples to be tested at the Genetic Technologies' laboratories in Melbourne.

The Country Woman's Association is one of the many groups that are taking part in the senate's hearing. They argue that currently woman can receive these tests at public laboratories and those scans will be done without charge. They say however that if the company were to be granted it's legal rights, and were to assert them as it seems they will do, those scans will be done at a figure closer to $2,100 per test. They conclude that this will not be a public good.

In the ABC law report interview of Patent Lawyer Luigi Palombi by Damien Carrick, Palombi went on to say the following about Gene Patenting;

Luigi Palombi: Strictly speaking, the patent monopoly should only be granted in respect of something that is an invention, and that's one of the things that this inquiry's going to be looking at: are genes in an isolated form — and by that I mean genes that have been removed from the human body or removed from their natural environments — are these inventions? And the scientific community seems to be pretty clear that they're not, and I'm certainly of the view, and I have been for many years as a patent lawyer, of the view that they are not inventions and cannot be inventions, because essentially they are identical or substantially identical to what exists in nature.

Damien Carrick: So you would argue that when scientists identify or isolate a gene or similar sort of material, they are discovering something that already exists, they are not inventing something, and therefore they are not deserving of an exclusive right, which is traditionally seen as a reward for inventiveness.

Luigi Palombi: Well that's correct. In short, a patent is about an invention, and if you don't meet that threshold for whatever reason, you just don't have an entitlement to a patent.

Damien Carrick: Isn't in the modern day, the test a little more complicated? You need to establish these days, in order to get a patent that there is a new and practical use for the sequence that you've isolated, or identified. That is evidence of inventiveness, that there is a practical application sometimes.

Luigi Palombi: Well I don't think it's evidence of inventiveness, it's just evidence of further discovery. Merely linking an isolated gene to a particular function, whether it be in the form of the production of a hormone, or linking it to a mutation which is associated with a particular disease, that's just no more than an extension of discovery, that's still not an invention.

The company is also being fought domestically within the USA on pretty much the same grounds that are in dispute here. There is however a great importance in patenting for the scientific community and the general community if patents are issued appropriately. Patents allow for an increase in investors who see a probable return, these kind of developments aren't free and therefor there needs to be means for financial reimbursement for advancements. However, it comes down to that these are not inventions, they are discoveries. Discoveries, even if they are of something as complex as a gene, can not be patented.

Patents do still play an important part in gene technologies. If something useful is invented using genetic material that achieves a new and useful result then it should be entitled to a patent. Things like vaccines, treatments and things like that are all examples of gene related inventions that can be patented. Palombi argues that some things, like the test for BRCA1 and BRCA2 was "so elementary, so obvious, that it really lacks inventive steps". He claims that this was more a discovery of correlation. Requiring a higher level of an inventive step is something also required to issue a patent.

Even with all this debate, there is debate over whether or not gene patents have had an actual negative effect so far. There have been studies in Canada finding no evidence of any negative effects of patents so far. These studies are restricted however and though they do hold some weight they are limited in scope; they had a small amount of respondents and limited questions being asked. It is clear to me though, that whether or not they had caused problems, if this injunction is forced upon Australian hospitals and labs, there will be.

Word of the Blog
Dalliance
–noun
1. a trifling away of time; dawdling.
2. amorous toying; flirtation.
3. a tongue beast?

Video of the Blog
If you thought guns were just generally a bad idea, this ridiculous invention won't be inspiring any hope. Watch till the end for the grenade rounds. No surprise, there are some really offensive comments on the video so I advise not paying any attention to there.

Burning The Candle At Both Ends

Ear Candling
Today, looking for something to write about, I went about thinking of some of the quackery I had heard about. I wanted something risky, something funny, and something semi popular so I figured, what fits this criteria more then shoving a flaming pipe in your ear? Not to much. So hear we go, it's called Ear Candling.

So what is it?
Yet another alternative medicine, Ear Candling involves the placing of a hollow end of a candle into your ear, either vertically or horizontally, and the lighting of the other end. Why would anyone light a candle in their ear you say? Going through the easily findable websites that both sell and advocate ear candles and ear candling I found that a lot of them don't actually tell you what they are for. Some who sell them are more honest claiming only relaxational (so not a word) benefits and, though I don't see how it would be relaxing having a burning tube coming out of your ear, I commend them for showing some honesty...even though it is crap.

One one site I found the following answer in the FAQ section of the website;

"Q. What is the primary purpose of Ear Candling? Does it have a therapeutic or medical basis? A. Ear Candling is a pleasant non-invasive treatment that can help to promote an enhanced state of health. It is used primarily to relieve conditions in the head and ear area, such as sinus problem, compacted ear wax, tinnitus and headaches or simply as an enjoyable means of relieving stress. Research for our book indicates that ear candling has a beneficial effect on the subtle energy – helping to calm and revitalize the chakras. Ear Candling is used as a complementary therapy and in recent years is gradually being embraced by the National Health Service. Some medical practices are using ear candling as an alternative to syringing for the treatment of excessive earwax - this is because, in some cases, syringing can perforate the eardrum."

Man. Firstly they avoided the question of 'medical basis' completely. In fact, they spent the second half of this lengthy paragraph trying to detract from the lack of medical basis. Where a simple no would suffice they have to go and mention chackras. I shed a single, skeptical tear every time I read the word 'chakra' or 'energy' in this kind of context. I would like to see the "research" for their book that was able to show a beneficial effect on chakra.

Secondly, no. No to everything but the purely subjective calming effect. There is no suction or heat produced in the ear, one of the founding principles of ear candling. On the efficacy, pubmed has a relative abstract from a study.
"This study evaluates the efficacy and safety of this alternative method for cerumen management. Tympanometric measurements in an ear canal model demonstrated that ear candles do not produce negative pressure. A limited clinical trial (eight ears) showed no removal of cerumen from the external auditory canal. Candle wax was actually deposited in some. A survey of 122 otolaryngologists identified 21 ear injuries resulting from ear candle use. Ear candles have no benefit in the management of cerumen and may result in serious injury."

Another abstract, this one from 'Ear candles: a triumph of ignorance over science - ERNST E.'

"The procedure is used as a complementary therapy for a wide range of conditions. A critical assessment of the evidence shows that its mode of action is implausible and demonstrably wrong. There are no data to suggest that it is effective for any condition. Furthermore, ear candles have been associated with ear injuries. The inescapable conclusion is that ear candles do more harm than good. Their use should be discouraged."

So with evidence mentioned but unlisted by the ear candle advocates and evidence stacking against them what else can we say. Well, it probably doesn't help that even manufacturers don't believe in the candles. I found on one site that sells candles the following disclaimer,

"DISCLAIMER.......please be advised that © Alternet Detox Hopi Aromatherapy Ear Candles for sale are not intended to diagnose, cure, mitigate, prevent or treat any disease or health condition and they are not a Medical Device. Please, consult your primary health care provider if you have any questions on the use of any of our Products...."


That can't be a good sign, what else you ask? Well, the candles are actually banned in Canada, and i've been teasing Canadians for being slow. So, Whats the worst thing about Ear Candles you most definitely ask? These things can be bought in chemists. Banned in Canada, yet we happily sell them along side our medicines. Furthermore, googling (what a verb) ear candles and ear candling brings up at first a majority of sites selling and advising on use of ear candles. I had to put in 'skeptic ear candles' to get to the debunking sites, though the Skeptic Zone has a good page on ear candling.

One last thing, many of the Ear Candle sites and promoters claim reasoning for the candles to work as to their cultural underlying in many indigenous peoples and particularly the Hopi Indian tribe. Not only is this a great example of the Cultural Origins logical fallacy, where someone claims something is good because it is popular in a certain culture or group, but it seems to be entirely incorrect.
"M Harmony PhD shared her search result looking into verifiable ear candling data. She researched what constitutes a safe and healthy candle as well as the origins of ear candling and the ancient practices that have lead to ear candling. She caused controversy when she stated that the Hopi Native American tribe has been stunned by the revelation that they were supposed to have lent their name to the most famous ear candle in the world. Michelle said she had spent a lot of time with the Hopi's to find out that the Hopis have never used ear candles and have never heard of it." - http://freespace.virgin.net

So if you see these for sale in a local pharmacy, or see anyone advertising these as a medicine, be sure to ask about them and their evidence. Remind pharmacists that they have a duty of care and that people trust them to be selling evidence and science based medicine. You can contact the PureCalma website, who so generously gave me material with those FAQ questions here.

Samael O'Neill