A recently-published Harvard University meta-analysis funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has concluded that children who live in areas with highly fluoridated waterhave “significantly lower” IQ scores than those who live in low fluoride areas.

In a 32-page report that can be downloaded free of charge from Environmental Health Perspectives, the researchers said:

A recent report from the U.S. National Research Council (NRC 2006) concluded that adverse effects of high fluoride concentrations in drinking water may be of concern and that additional research is warranted. Fluoride may cause neurotoxicity in laboratory animals, including effects on learning and memory …

To summarize the available literature, we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of published studies on increased fluoride exposure in drinking water and neurodevelopmental delays. We specifically targeted studies carried out in rural China that have not been widely disseminated, thus complementing the studies that have been included in previous reviews and risk assessment reports …

Findings from our meta-analyses of 27 studies published over 22 years suggest an inverse association between high fluoride exposure and children’s intelligence … The results suggest that fluoride may be a developmental neurotoxicant that affects brain development at exposures much below those that can cause toxicity in adults …

Serum-fluoride concentrations associated with high intakes from drinking-water may exceed 1 mg/L, or 50 Smol/L, thus more than 1000-times the levels of some other neurotoxicants that cause neurodevelopmental damage. Supporting the plausibility of our findings, rats exposed to 1 ppm (50 Smol/L) of water-fluoride for one year showed morphological alterations in the brain and increased levels of aluminum in brain tissue compared with controls …

In conclusion, our results support the possibility of adverse effects of fluoride exposures on children’s neurodevelopment. Future research should formally evaluate dose-response relations based on individual-level measures of exposure over time, including more precise prenatal exposure assessment and more extensive standardized measures of neurobehavioral performance, in addition to improving assessment and control of potential confounders.

Studies Have Repeatedly Linked Fluoride to Reduced IQ and Brain Damage

There are so many scientific studies showing the direct, toxic effects of fluoride on your body, it’s truly remarkable that it’s NOT considered a scientific consensus by now. Despite the evidence against it, fluoride is still added to 70 percent of U.S. public drinking water supplies.

It amazes me that the medical (and dental) communities are so stubbornly resistant to connect the dots when it comes to the skyrocketing increase of cognitive decline in adults and behavioral issues in children (ADD, ADHD, depression and learning disabilities of all kinds). In fact, there have been more than 23 human studies and 100 animal studies linking fluoride to brain damage. Fluoride can also increase manganese absorption, compounding problems, since manganese in drinking water has also been linked to lower IQ in children.

Reported effects of fluoride on your brain include:

• Reduction in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors
• Damage to your hippocampus
• Formation of beta-amyloid plaques (the classic brain abnormality in Alzheimer’s disease)
• Reduction in lipid content
• Damage to purkinje cells
• Exacerbation of lesions induced by iodine deficiency
• Impaired antioxidant defense systems
• Increased uptake of aluminum
• Accumulation of fluoride in your pineal gland

Six Facts You Need to Know About Water Fluoridation

Harmful Effects Have Been Known for Half a Century

What is perhaps most surprising is that the harmful effects of fluoride have been known by conventional medical organizations for over half a century. For example, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) stated in their Sept. 18, 1943 issue that fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons that change the permeability of the cell membrane by certain enzymes. And, an editorial published in the Journal of the American Dental Association on Oct. 1, 1944, stated:

Drinking water containing as little as 1.2 ppm fluoride will cause developmental disturbances. We cannot run the risk of producing such serious systemic disturbances. The potentialities for harm outweigh those for good.

Part of the problem is that it’s an accumulative toxin that, over time, can lead to significant health problems that are not immediately linked to fluoride over-exposure. In a 2005 paper entitled “Fluoride — A Modern Toxic Waste,” Lita Lee, Ph.D. writes:

Yiamouyiannis’ book, Fluoride, The Aging Factor, documents the cumulative effect of tissue damage by fluoride, commonly seen as aging (collagen damage), skin rashes and acne, gastrointestinal disorders, and many other conditions, including osteoporosis. The U.S. Center for Disease Control and the Safe Water Foundation reported that 30,000 to 50,000 excess deaths occur in the United States each year in areas in which the water contains only one ppm fluoride …

Fluoride suppresses the immune system: Fluoride inhibits the movement of white blood cells by 70 percent, thereby decreasing their ability to reach their target. Yiamouyiannis cites 15 references in his pamphlet, Lifesavers Guide to Fluoridation, that document immunosuppressive effects of as little as 10 percent of the amount of fluoride used in fluoridated water … Immunosuppressive effects run the gamut, from a cold that won’t go away to increased risk of cancer and other infectious diseases.

Studies have shown that fluoride toxicity can lead to a wide variety of health problems, including:

• Increased lead absorption
• Disrupts synthesis of collagen
• Hyperactivity and/or lethargy
• Muscle disorders
• Thyroid disease
• Arthritis
• Dementia
• Bone fractures
• Lowered thyroid function
• Bone cancer (osteosarcoma)
• Inactivates 62 enzymes and inhibits more than 100
• Inhibited formation of antibodies
• Genetic damage and cell death
• Increased tumor and cancer rate
• Disrupted immune system
• Damaged sperm and increased infertility

Suppressed Science: Fluoride Link to Cancer

Long-lost research linking fluoride to cancer has resurfaced in a Dutch film clip featuring Dr. Dean Burk, who in 1937 cofounded the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and headed its cytochemistry department for more than 30 years. In the taped interview, he equates water fluoridation to “public murder,” referring to a study that had been done on the 10 largest U.S. cities with fluoridation compared to the 10 largest without it. The study demonstrated that deaths from cancer abruptly rose in as little as a year or two after fluoridation began. This and other studies linking fluoride to cancer were government-ordered but were quickly buried once fluoride was found to be linked to dramatic increases in cancer.

The universe obeys certain rules—laws to which all things must adhere. These laws are precise, and many of them are mathematical in nature. Natural laws are hierarchical in nature; secondary laws of nature are based on primary laws of nature, which have to be just right in order for our universe to be possible. But, where did these laws come from, and why do they exist? If the universe were merely the accidental by-product of a big bang, then why should it obey orderly principles—or any principles at all for that matter? Such laws are consistent with biblical creation. Natural laws exist because the universe has a Creator God who is logical and has imposed order on His universe (Genesis 1:1).

The Word of God

Everything in the universe, every plant and animal, every rock, every particle of matter or light wave, is bound by laws which it has no choice but to obey. The Bible tells us that there are laws of nature—“ordinances of heaven and earth” (Jeremiah 33:25). These laws describe the way God normally accomplishes His will in the universe.

God’s logic is built into the universe, and so the universe is not haphazard or arbitrary. It obeys laws of chemistry that are logically derived from the laws of physics, many of which can be logically derived from other laws of physics and laws of mathematics. The most fundamental laws of nature exist only because God wills them to; they are the logical, orderly way that the Lord upholds and sustains the universe He has created. The atheist is unable to account for the logical, orderly state of the universe. Why should the universe obey laws if there is no law-giver? But laws of nature are perfectly consistent with biblical creation. In fact, the Bible is the foundation for natural laws.

The Law of Life (Biogenesis)

There is one well-known law of life: the law of biogenesis. This law states simply that life always comes from life. This is what observational science tells us: organisms reproduce other organisms after their own kind. Historically, Louis Pasteur disproved one alleged case of spontaneous generation; he showed that life comes from previous life. Since then, we have seen that this law is universal—with no known exceptions. This is, of course, exactly what we would expect from the Bible. According to Genesis 1, God supernaturally created the first diverse kinds of life on earth and made them to reproduce after their kind. Notice that molecules-to-man evolution violates the law of biogenesis. Evolutionists believe that life (at least once) spontaneously formed from nonliving chemicals. But this is inconsistent with the law of biogenesis. Real science confirms the Bible.

Everything in the universe, every plant and animal, every rock, every particle of matter or light wave, is bound by laws which it has no choice but to obey.

The Laws of Chemistry

Life requires a specific chemistry. Our bodies are powered by chemical reactions and depend on the laws of chemistry operating in a uniform fashion. Even the information that makes up any living being is stored on a long molecule called DNA. Life as we know it would not be possible if the laws of chemistry were different. God created the laws of chemistry in just the right way so that life would be possible.

The laws of chemistry give different properties to the various elements (each made of one type of atom) and compounds (made up of two or more types of atoms that are bonded together) in the universe. For example, when given sufficient activation energy, the lightest element (hydrogen) will react with oxygen to form water. Water itself has some interesting properties, such as the ability to hold an unusually large amount of heat energy. When frozen, water forms crystals with six-sided symmetry (which is why snowflakes are generally six-sided). Contrast this with salt (sodium chloride) crystals, which tend to form cubes. It is the six-fold symmetry of water ice that causes “holes” in its crystal, making it less dense than its own liquid. That’s why ice floats in water (whereas essentially all other frozen compounds sink in their own liquid).

The properties of elements and compounds are not arbitrary. In fact, the elements can be logically organized into a periodic table based on their physical properties. Substances in the same column on the table tend to have similar properties. This follows because elements in a vertical column have the same outer electron structures. These outermost electrons determine the physical characteristics of the atom. The periodic table did not happen by chance. Atoms and molecules have their various properties because their electrons are bound by the laws of quantum physics. In other words, chemistry is based on physics. If the laws of quantum physics were just a bit different, atoms might not even be possible. God designed the laws of physics just right so that the laws of chemistry would come out the way He wanted them to.

The Laws of Planetary Motion

The creation scientist Johannes Kepler discovered that the planets in our solar system obey three laws of nature. He found that planets orbit in ellipses (not perfect circles as had been previously thought) with the sun at one focus of the ellipse; thus a given planet is sometimes closer to the sun than at other times. Kepler also found that planets sweep out equal areas in equal times—in other words, planets speed up as they get closer to the sun within their orbit. And third, Kepler found the exact mathematical relationship between a planet’s distance from the sun (a) and its orbital period (p); planets that are farther from the sun take much longer to orbit than planets that are closer (expressed as p²=a³). Kepler’s laws also apply to the orbits of moons around a given planet.1

As with the laws of chemistry, these laws of planetary motion are not fundamental. Rather, they are the logical derivation of other laws of nature. In fact, it was another creation scientist (Sir Isaac Newton) who discovered that Kepler’s laws could be derived mathematically from certain laws of physics—specifically, the laws of gravity and motion (which Newton himself formulated).

The Laws of Physics

The field of physics describes the behavior of the universe at its most fundamental level. There are many different laws of physics. They describe the way the universe operates today. Some laws of physics describe how light propagates, how energy is transported, how gravity operates, how mass moves through space, and many other phenomena. The laws of physics are usually mathematical in nature; some laws of physics can be described with a concise formula, such as E=mc². The simple formula F=ma shows how an object with mass (m) will accelerate (a) when a net force (F) is applied to it. It is amazing that every object in the universe consistently obeys these rules.

There is a hierarchy in physics: some laws of physics can be derived from other laws of physics. For example, Einstein’s famous formula E=mc² can be derived from the principles and equations of special relativity. Conversely, there are many laws of physics that cannot be derived from other laws of physics; many of these are suspected to be derivative principles, but scientists have not yet deduced their derivation.

And some laws of physics may be truly fundamental (not based on other laws); they exist only because God wills them to. In fact, this must be the case for at least one law of physics (and perhaps several)—the most fundamental. (Logically, this is because if the most fundamental law were based on some other law, it would not be the most fundamental law.)

The laws of physics (along with their associated constants) are fine-tuned in just the right way so that life, particularly human life, is possible. This fact is called the “anthropic principle.”¹

¹Anthropic comes from the Greek word for man, anthropos.

The Laws of Mathematics

Notice that the laws of physics are highly mathematical in nature. They would not work if there were not also laws of mathematics. Mathematical laws and principles include the rules of addition, the transitive property, the commutative properties of addition and multiplication, the binomial theorem, and many others. Like the laws of physics, some laws and properties of mathematics can be derived from other mathematical principles. But unlike the laws of physics, the laws of mathematics are abstract; they are not “attached” to any specific part of the universe. It is possible to imagine a universe where the laws of physics are different, but it is difficult to imagine a (consistent) universe where the laws of mathematics are different.2

The laws of mathematics are an example of a “transcendent truth.” They must be true regardless of what kind of universe God created. This may be because God’s nature is logical and mathematical; thus, any universe He chose to create would necessarily be mathematical in nature. The secular naturalist cannot account for the laws of mathematics. Certainly he would believe in mathematics and would use mathematics, but he is unable to account for the existence of mathematics within a naturalistic framework since mathematics is not a part of the physical universe. However, the Christian understands that there is a God beyond the universe and that mathematics reflects the thoughts of the Lord. Understanding math is, in a sense, “thinking God’s thoughts after Him”3 (though in a limited, finite way, of course).

Some have supposed that mathematics is a human invention. It is said that if human history had been different, an entirely different form of math would have been constructed—one with alternate laws, theorems, axioms, etc. But such thinking is not consistent. Are we to believe that the universe did not obey mathematical laws before people discovered them? Did the planets orbit differently before Kepler discovered that p²=a³? Clearly, mathematical laws are something that human beings have discovered, not invented. The only thing that might have been different (had human history taken a different course) is the notation—the way in which we choose to express mathematical truths through symbols. But these truths exist regardless of how they are expressed. Mathematics could rightly be called the “language of creation.”

The Laws of Logic

All the laws of nature, from physics and chemistry to the law of biogenesis, depend on the laws of logic. Like mathematics, the laws of logic are transcendent truths. We cannot imagine that the laws of logic could be anything different from what they are. Take the law of noncontradiction for example. This law states that you cannot have both “A” and “not A” at the same time and in the same relationship. Without the laws of logic, reasoning would be impossible. But where do the laws of logic come from?

The atheist cannot account for the laws of logic, even though he or she must accept that they exist in order to do any rational thinking. But according to the Bible, God is logical. Indeed, the law of noncontradiction reflects God’s nature; God cannot lie (Numbers 23:19) or be tempted with evil (James 1:13) since these things contradict His perfect nature. Since we have been made in God’s image, we instinctively know the laws of logic. We are able to reason logically (though because of finite minds and sin we don’t always think entirely logically).

The Uniformity of Nature

The laws of nature are uniform. They do not (arbitrarily) change, and they apply throughout the whole cosmos. The laws of nature apply in the future just as they have applied in the past; this is one of the most basic assumptions in all of science. Without this assumption, science would be impossible. If the laws of nature suddenly and arbitrarily changed tomorrow, then past experimental results would tell us nothing about the future. Why is it that we can depend on the laws of nature to apply consistently throughout time? The secular scientists cannot justify this important assumption. But the Christian can because the Bible gives us the answer. God is Lord over all creation and sustains the universe in a consistent and logical way. God does not change, and so He upholds the universe in a consistent, uniform way throughout time (Jeremiah 33:25).

Conclusion

We have seen that the laws of nature depend on other laws of nature, which ultimately depend on God’s will. Thus, God created the laws of physics in just the right way so that the laws of chemistry would be correct, so that life can exist. It is doubtful that any human would have been able to solve such a complex puzzle. Yet, the Lord has done so. The atheist cannot account for these laws of nature (even though he agrees that they must exist), for such laws are inconsistent with naturalism. Yet, they are perfectly consistent with the Bible. We expect the universe to be organized in a logical, orderly fashion and to obey uniform laws because the universe was created by the power of God.

 

Electric/acoustic guitar, electric bass guitar, acoustic bass guitar, up~right bass, violin, piano, keyboards, electric drums, soprano saxophone, clarinet, trumpet.

www.myspace.com/griotrecords

I  thought I had made a dreadful mistake with my own success. The temptation to sell out was enormous, and the rewards seemingly large. However, selling out may not get one the rewards one seeks; it always loses the most important reward of all, a sense of personal identity and integrity. Humans all need to find their own path. This need is why it is so important for mentors not to judge their mentees in terms of the extent to which the mentees reach the goals of the mentors, but rather, in terms of the extent to which the mentees reach their own goals. I view my success in terms of my own theory, which is to say, in terms of the extent to which may have furthered the accomplishment of my own goals.

In the course of your life, there will be many people who will try to set your goals for you. My advice is, well, to listen to their advice. Nevertheless, no one can set your goals for you. This is something you have to do on your own. There will be all kinds of pressure to listen to and follow the advice of others. Resist the temptation to succumb. Do what you believe is right for you; there is no other way in which you can be and continue to become yourself. The opportunities do not just come to you. Rather, you must seek them out. In addition, you must create the opportunities. In other words, you need to be proactive rather than reactive. No doubt, ability and luck both matter. Nevertheless, I am convinced that sheer persistence in the face of obstacles is an awfully large factor in the equation.

I have seen many people who started their careers successfully, then would encounter some kind of problem or another. Those who allowed themselves to be defeated would end up with their careers on hold or worse, in tatters. They could not take the heat, so they got out of the kitchen. However, the truth is that at some time or other, many people experience such losses. The question is not whether one will encounter obstacles, one will. The question is what one will do in the face of obstacles. Few attributes are more important then the willingness flexibly to surmount these obstacles. No matter how insurmountable they may seem at the time.

If there is one point I should make clear, it is that as often as not, the main obstacles to your success are within you. People who are optimistic often create the circumstances whereby their optimism ultimately will be justified. People who are pessimistic often create circumstances that result in defeat. So if you want to reach your goals and defy the obstacles to achieving them, maintain an optimistic stance .  It will not guarantee you success, nevertheless, it will go a long way. At the same time, there will sometimes be obstacles that you make every effort to surmount, and you just cannot do so. Sometimes there are things we really want in life, and for whatever reason, they are just not attainable, no matter how hard we strive. It is for this reason that, in life, it is important, always to have a “Plan B.”, just in case you’re “Plan A” fails.

As you proceed through your career, chances are you will have a variety of problems available for you to tackle and you may need to decide which one or ones are worthy of your attention. I believe that a major factor in deciding what to do is to find something that can distinguish you from the pack. No matter how bad things get, it is extremely important never to lose confidence in yourself to come to believe that you really cannot do much of anything. Strictly speaking, I refer here to loss of what sometimes is called self-efficacy,” not “self-esteem.” self-efficacy refers to your belief that you can accomplish the task you need to accomplish, whereas self-esteem refers to a more generalized high opinion of oneself that is not necessarily linked to performance. The problem is that once you lose your belief in yourself, you have nothing to keep you going. Telling yourself you can do something does not guarantee you can do it. However, telling yourself you cannot do it almost certainly guarantees that you won’t because you will not even try. It is thus important not to give up on yourself!

Dane B. Banks

(more…)