In the News

A Mountaintop Experience?

Apparently in an attempt to take Isaiah 52:7 literally, representatives of major world religions are planning an expedition to the world’s highest peak, Mt. Everest, to promote peace. The expedition will take place this year, 2003, in honor of the first ascent of Everest fifty years ago. However, there is little indication that these “beautiful feet” will be proclaiming the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ. Instead they will be celebrating the virtues of religious tolerance, as expressed in the expedition “vow”:

I will climb Mt. Everest not as a Hindu (Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Taoist, Confucian, Atheist), but as a fellow citizen of the world. The earth is a beautiful and magical place that we all call home. From space there are no barriers or borders and therefore, in my heart there will be no barriers and borders. I will climb with my brothers and sisters as a team, with an open mind and compassionate heart. I climb for peace, and as an inhabitant of this wonderful world that we all share. (http://www.everestpeaceproject.org)

This team of climbers will consist of representatives of seven world religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Confucianism and Taoism), an atheist, a Western guide, and Lance Trumbull, the expedition’s organizer. Guiding and assisting them will be roughly a dozen Sherpas, natives of the Himalayan mountains. The atheist climber is included because “it is their belief that part of religious tolerance and freedom is the freedom not to believe in religion.” (http://www.everestpeaceproject.org)

Columbo They Ain’t!

Despite the claims by psychic “detectives” of their effectiveness in solving crime, the psychics involved in the Elizabeth Smart case made a huge blunder: they claimed that the kidnapped fourteen-year-old was dead.

After Elizabeth’s disappearance, her uncle, Dave Smart, contacted PSI Tech to investigate the mystery. The Seattle-based company deployed a “special operations team” of fourteen psychic “remote viewers” to utilize their paranormal powers to determine the location and status of Elizabeth Smart. The psychics determined that Elizabeth had been killed shortly after being kidnapped, and that her body would be found concealed in a monumental crypt a few miles southeast of Elizabeth’s home. However, a search around the crypt, which contains the bodies of Native Americans uncovered during construction projects,revealed no Elizabeth Smart, alive or dead. (Provo Daily Herald, 9/08/02)

Now that Elizabeth Smart has been found alive and well, PSI Tech has come under criticism for its fuzzy “remote viewing.” However, PSI Tech defends its record, maintaining that its failure in this case in no way invalidates its methods. According to Joni Dourif, PSI Tech’s president, the crypt was “never identified by us as data of ‘Elizabeth's location.’” Instead, Dourif blames this misunderstanding on the searchers who attempted to follow the directions PSI Tech provided them. As for the erroneous claim that Elizabeth was dead, Dourif explains that the psychics were exhausted from their previous case, and so made a “human error”—”We stretched ourselves too thin and we pushed ourselves too hard for too long, without taking a rest.” Despite the mistake, Dourif still claims that PSI Tech is “a reputable intelligence gathering company” and that there can be no doubt of “the veracity of Technical Remote Viewing.” According to Dourif, “In fourteen years of performing work on cases involving runaways, kidnappings, missing persons and even pets, this was the first time we were wrong determining mortality.” In this case, we can’t imagine that Elizabeth Smart’s family regrets that the psychics were wrong. (http://www.psitech.net/news/tsl_031403.htm)

Needles In, Magnets Out

In alternative health care’s battle to establish its legitimacy, there are victories and defeats. One victory was won recently in Washington state, where a class-action lawsuit against one of the nation’s largest HMOs has resulted in millions of dollars in reimbursement claims for alternative health care procedures. HMO members challenged a requirement that they exhaust traditional treatments before turning to alternatives. They also disputed the HMO's strict requirements for referrals by traditional physicians.

Washington, as well as some other states, requires insurers to cover alternative health care treatments from state regulated practitioners. These alternative treatments include acupuncture, chiropractic therapy, osteopathy, midwifery, dietetics, nutrition and other practices.The settlement may cost the HMO, Group Health Cooperative, as much as $10 million, lawyers estimated. "It's a victory for consumers who want choices," said Jane Guiltinan, dean of clinical affairs at Bastyr University, a school of alternative medicine in natural medicine and health sciences school in Washington. (AP 2/12/03)

While it is usually a positive thing to have choices, the terms of this settlement may have a detrimental effect. By giving HMO members access to alternative medical treatments without first seeking the advice of traditional physicians, alternative health care procedures may be relied upon in inappropriate circumstances. As Steve Godwin’s article in this issue of the Update points out, the faulty reasoning underlying many alternative medical practices can result in ineffective or harmful treatment. (See Steve Godwin’s article “Evaluating Acupuncture”)

This crucial point may be demonstrated by examining a recent defeat for alternative health care. Proponents of magnet therapy, a popular alternative medical treatment, claim that the application of a magnet to the human body increases blood flow. However, researchers at the University of Maryland have found that the very magnets sold by magnet therapy adherents were ineffective in their alleged purpose. In this study, twenty healthy men wore either real therapeutic magnets or fake magnets for a period of time, during which their blood flow was carefully monitored. As it turned out, the average blood flow during the test was not significantly different between real and fake magnets. Conclusion: commercial therapeutic magnets do not result in significant alterations in blood flow. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/htbin-post/Entrez/query?db=m&form;=6&dopt;=r&uid;=12403203)

This study clearly illustrates the risk alternative health care presents. Those relying on magnet therapy to improve blood flow are not helped at all—and if the magnets are used instead of conventional medicinal remedies, the lack of effective medical treatment could be detrimental to the magnet user’s health.

The End is Near, Says Isaac Newton

In addition to his revolutionary work in physics, astronomy and mathematics, Sir Isaac Newton was also a highly religious man. One of the ways this religious bent expressed itself is familiar to modern Christians: he tried to interpret biblical prophecy to find the date for the end of the world. And according to Britain's most renowned scientist, the end is only 57 years away.

Newton’s manuscript of apocalyptic speculations was discovered in a Jerusalem library, where it was stored since its purchase by an eccentric collector, Abraham Yahuda, in the 1930s. The manuscript was unknown to scholars until recently, and it sheds new light on one of Newton’s private obsessions:

He spent something like 50 years and wrote 4,500 pages trying to predict when the end of the world was coming. But until now it was not known that he ever wrote down a final figure. He was very reluctant to do so.

This massive handwritten volume records Newton’s attempts to decipher the secrets of Bible prophecies. According to Newton, after plagues and war Christ will return to establish an earthly kingdom in which He and His saints (including Newton) will reign for 1000 years. His date for the consummation of all things: 2060. (Telegraph 2/22/03)

While we can appreciate Newton’s faith in Christ’s Second Coming and his respect for the Bible’s prophecies, it is regrettable that he succumbed to the temptation to set dates for the end. After all, Jesus Himself said in Matthew 25:13 that “ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.” No man knows the time of Christ’s return, not even the brilliant Sir Isaac Newton.

Raelian Clones: Phantom or Menace?

After several weeks of mystery in December and January, the buzz about clone babies died down, leaving many with the same question: were there ever any clone babies at all?

The furor began on December 26, 2002, when a French scientist boldly announced, “I have created life.” Brigitte Boisselier, director of the rogue cloning company Clonaid and bishop in the Raelian movement, declared to the world that Clonaid had successfully cloned a human: an infant girl named Eve, born to the 31-year-old American women from which she had been cloned. However, the DNA evidence proving the claim was not forthcoming, so that even the founder of the Raelian movement, Claude Vorilhon, suggested that it may be a hoax. (WorldNetDaily 1/21/03)

In the meantime, Clonaid also announced that another clone baby would shortly be born in the Netherlands and in Japan. In these instances, as before, no evidence ever came forward, and the truthfulness of Clonaid’s pronouncements is still in question. While Clonaid did put a short film clip of their cloning lab on their web site, according to William Muir, a geneticist at Purdue University, this proves nothing: “It shows they have the basic equipment, but it's like showing a picture of a race car and starting it up; it does not mean they know how to drive it.” (Washington Times 1/3/03, USA Today 1/03)

Regardless of the veracity of Clonaid’s claims, the Raelians’ founder Claude Vorilhon is delighted by the publicity:

A media analyst said the Raelian movement got about $500 million worth of media coverage across the world and I think it is true, and it is not finished . . . This event saved me 20 years of work.

According to the Raelians, humans were originally cloned from alien beings called the Elohim about 25,000 years ago, an insight Vorilhon claims he learned from the Elohim themselves. The goal of the Raelian religion—and Clonaid—is to achieve human immortality through cloning, extending individuals’ lives indefinitely by “uploading” their personalities and memories into “blank” adult clones. Eventually, humans will also become god-like and travel the stars, seeding empty planets with clone races of ourselves. In the meantime, we are still no closer to knowing if the Raelians have achieved the first step in their interstellar utopian vision.