For a long time I have been interested in the question of what may motivate people to invest a lot of time and energy to make life difficult for others who have done nothing to them. As alternative healers we only want to do our work and offer medical help to those who wish. We do not proselytize and do not want to convince anyone of our method or our view of the world, at least not without being asked and not aggressively. Why do groups of people organize themselves to discredit alternative medicine? Even fanatics and muddleheads need a motive and - if they invest a lot of time - also a financial basis.

In my search for targeted manipulations of Wikipedia, I came across an interesting interview with a young woman who was a newcomer at this year's GWUP conference. The GWUP (Gesellschaft zu wissenschaftlichen Untersuchung von Parawissenschaften) is a German association of so-called "skeptics", that is: of fundamentalist materialists who fight in the name of "science" everything they cannot or do not want to understand. Apart from homeopathy and all other medical methods outside a very narrowly understood conventional medicine (in which even an average doctor would not feel particularly comfortable), this also includes all other alternative or even spiritual views of the world and life styles.

When I read the title of the interview "Homeopathy, Conspiracies & Glyphosate: The Recipe for SkepKon 2018", I became alert. What does glyphosate have to do with the ideas of these pseudo-sceptics? A look at their conference program showed me that in a two-day conference half a day was actually dedicated to the benefits of glyphosate and genetic engineering. Participants and moderators of the conference were Norbert Aust and Natalie Grams, who otherwise insist on evidence-based medicine. Now little in medicine is as well documented as the dangers of glyphosate. Even the EU Commission, which is certainly not suspected of pursuing anti-lobbyist policies, could not escape the evidence. If the GWUP now gives Monsanto advertising a lot of space, even though the subject does not fit into its framework at all, then that makes us listen attentively. Of course it is far from me to spread conspiracy theories here, haha, but how blind would we need to be, not to carefully consider a possible connection here .....

One must know that the GWUP did not only organize lectures against alternative medicine, but particularly created an organization in order to manipulate the large on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia in their sense. This organization is called GSoW (Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia) - no joke; and it specifically trains people, e.g. here, to make clever and strategically considered manipulations in Wikipedia.

When we look at these connections, the question of who we are dealing with becomes clear. Without having to speculate ourselves, we can directly read from the publications of the "skeptics" that the manipulations of Wikipedia are not part of a broad public opinion-forming process - as it was once the original idea of mankind's largest encyclopedia - but that this is carried out by specially trained groups and networks that learn to (mis)use the open structures of Wikipedia for their purposes.

On the other hand, it becomes obvious that all of this is not a matter of evidence or science, but of corporate interests that rudely oppose any evidence. They seriously argue that glyphosate is healthier than meat, coffee or beer(1) - perhaps the "skeptics" should not drink harmless Ars C 30 for public evidence, but a bottle of evidence-based healthy glyphosate. Cheers !

Just another detail I found confusing: A Satanist was also invited to the GWUP Congress(2), who was to testify that there is no satanistic world conspiracy. Really not?! Who would have thought?! Since everyone is talking about it! Next they invite a "real" Assassine to testify that he is not part of a conspiracy to kill the American president with a dagger and that Assassin's Creed is just a simple computer game that does not serve to prepare for attacks. - I love comedy, especially the involuntary.....

One last observation: The main topic of this conference was no longer homeopathy, but osteopathy, whose ineffectiveness was to be proven. So my supposition that homeopathy is just first in a long line of those to be bullied, seems to come true.

Footnotes:

1. https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/the_skepkon_report_with_susan_gerbic#footer

2. https://www.csicop.org/specialarticles/show/the_skepkon_report_with_susan_gerbic#footer. „The next topic was completely different, but it can also be seen under the bigger topic of “conspiracies.” Lydia Benecke illustrated the difficulties behind the so called “satanic panic.” It is interesting that the world-wide satanic group still couldn’t be found, although it is claimed they are actually even in positions of power. It really blew my mind that most of the torturing sects are thought to be a conspiracy, too! A Satanist was invited and answered a few questions after Lydia Benecke’s presentation.“ – a contribution that is not being mentioned in the program but only occurs in the interview.

Share this article on: