No, Humans are NOT Vampires…and this idiotic pseudo-science gibberish is NOT research.

Waking up to a news about the existence of Vampires can be pretty jarring, especially when you go on to read that it is a “scientific study” and is corroborated by a peer reviewed journal, and is being reproduced en masse as a serious research by thoughtless journalists and bloggers. Partly out of curiosity, partly with a deep seated skepticism rooted from the finest Hellenistic philosophical traditions, yours truly took it upon himself, to read the entire research.

The journal, Critical Social Work, this journal according to its foreword, intends to create constructive dialogue. But here’s the catch. It intends to create a dialogue, with an express interest in achieving “social justice”. It doesn’t even describe or define what social justice it strives to achieve, nullifying the entire concept as such, stating “We recognize the historical nature of both human capability and social justice. With such recognition, we do not attempt a definitive definition of either.”

So, not only does it makes the entire platform wedded to a specific task of achieving a politico-socio-economic goal, thereby questionably infusing activism in academia and taking off academia’s supposedly unbiased and neutral nature, it also keeps the definition open ended to further future spins.

The topic of the study paper is named “Do we Always Practice What we Preach? Real Vampires’ Fears of Coming out of the Coffin to Social Workers and Helping Professionals” by D J Williams (PhD) and Emily Prior (MA) from Idaho State University and Center of Positive Sexuality, an organization providing “research” on, well you guessed it, sexual minorities.

The abstract of the study maintains the theme of the journal, that of constructive dialogue, helping vampires come out of their coffin, and how medical professionals should be more compassionate in identifying and dealing with this “group”. It also thanks “vampires” for their helpful insights about their lifestyle. The first cognitive jerk comes in the first paragraph itself. “The present study focuses on a largely hidden population, people who self-identify as vampires, to gain their personal insights regarding how social workers and helping professionals treat them upon disclosing their vampire identities.” It carries on, “This study focuses on “real vampires,” in contrast to lifestyle vampires.”

Needless to say, that’s contradictory; the first assertion of this “study” is about a group of people, who “identify” as a vampire, a mythical creature, neither scientifically proven nor valid, which needs blood of humans to survive. Vampires, even in mythos, are not humans, they feed on humans. A group of people, who identify with such creature, are ofcourse not real, therefore any subset among them of real and artificial cannot possibly exist.

It also mentions, that this study is relevant to other groups like Goths and Furries and BDSM community. For the uninitiated, Goths, are a fashion lifestyle, and BDSM are a socio-sexual lifestyle, which are neither similar to vampirism, if there can be any such thing, which includes feeding on blood of humans, that by nature crosses the milestone of deviance to fall into borderline cannibalism. Furries on the other hand, are a group who identifies themselves as different animals, with primarily sexual motives, therefore might with a stretch fall into a similar category, with considerably less bloody effect, one might add.

The study then goes on to talk about “therapeutic alliance”, where a therapist needs to be equal to the client and non-judgmental to his/her position, which presumably means that the therapist needs to be compassionate and not openly laugh at their clients.

The paper then delved on to traditional social science jargon, about how people with identity crisis face micro-aggression and oppression from those in power. Microaggression, as evident, is a standard trope used by social science people, whenever talking points are lacked, and word limits are to be increased. Surprisingly enough, among all the hoopla related to microaggression in American discourse, one tends to forget that it is a theory which is not modern, first used in the 1970s, and it has been steadily discarded by subsequent research as being paranoid, and over sensitive.

Secondly by this period, I saw what I perceived a constant attempt at legitimizing a concept, by the use of repetition (Argumentum Ad Nauseum). The constant use of the word “vampires” in describing a group of individual who are clearly nothing but Homo Sapiens who like to drink blood of others, creates a minor subconscious hammer, where your brain is being constantly used to the term, although the repetition neither makes it true, nor does it justify the premise.

Here are a couple of examples.

“It has been widely believed on different continents and across various cultures that at death, souls hovered about their dead body for three days; in some places, that time span was considerably lengthened, and the vulnerable body needed to be watched to protect evil spirits from entering it, thus creating a vampire”

Completely irrelevant, in describing myths and beliefs in tribalistic and medieval cultures, which are not scientifically valid, just to promote the acceptability of the myths.

“Nobody knows an exact number, but there are many people worldwide who self-identify as vampires (Atlanta Vampire Alliance, 2007). Despite the use of the word “vampire,” people with such alternative identities do not seem to be psychologically and socially unstable (Browning, in press; Laycock, 2009a, 2009b; Williams, 2008, 2009). Even still, it is not surprising that vampires prefer to keep these alternative identities private (i.e., stay “in the coffin”) due to fears of being misunderstood and discriminated against (Williams, 2008).”

The numbers are not given, therefore no logical dataset is provided.

The difference of lifestyle vampires and real vampires are given, which ofcourse makes no distinction, as to why one is lifestyle and why the other one is real. The lifestyle vampire are apparently into role playing, sleeping in coffins, and going to vampire temples, whereas the real ones identify with vampires. That statement again itself doesn’t make the two terms different, as both are strictly speaking lifestyle choices, as identifying with something mythical makes it unreal.

But, after that the paper comes to its most bizarre part, the pseudo-scientific justification of blood drinking.

“In contrast to the tremendous diversity of various lifestyle vampires, the essential feature of real vampirism is their belief in the need to take in “subtle energy” (called feeding) from time to time from a willing “donor” in order to maintain physical, psychological, and spiritual health.”

It continues, “Many real vampires report feeding on psychic or pranic energy, and pranic energy is believed to be strongly connected to nature, generally, and often breathing, specifically (Belanger, 2004). Some vampires, called “sanguinarians,” seem to prefer feeding by consuming small amounts of human blood (or animal blood), which can be easily obtained, among other ways, by making a tiny incision (i.e., with a razor or scalpel) on the upper part of the donor’s chest and is then licked or sucked by the vampire. “Hybrid” vampires report feeding from more than one form (i.e., psychically or from blood).”

First of all, the assertion that Vampirism needs “subtle energy” from “willing donor” is complete pseudo-scientific hokum. The fact that blood gives lifeforce, a form of energy, is an assertion that has long been discarded by modern medical science. There is no peer reviewed evidence that asserts, blood provides any other nutrient or chemicals, that is exclusive to it, and cannot be achieved by other forms of food or minerals. Nor is there any evidence of the said Pranic Energy, a concept of Soul in humans, which is again, disproved under proper scrutiny by any proper scientific peer reviewed journal. Meanwhile the continuous assertion of “Real Vampires” continued throughout the paper.

By the time, I reached the methodology part, I was dying of curiosity to check the sample size. The size, is 11.

Let that sink in.

It’s 11. The contacts for the sample size were personally known, vampire leaders, and the sample was not random, but handpicked. They also displayed curious Liberal traits of having religions which are non-mainstream, like Wiccan or Pagans, and included females, intersexed, and transsexuals. Not my words, but disclosed in the study.

For an economist, dealing with heavy data set and big sample sizes, an entire “research” paper based on a sample size of 11, seemed, for the lack of a better word, incredible. I didn’t expect much, after that, and was not disappointed to find that the paper ended with a poem.

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Before ending, here are three concluding points.

First of all, identity is just that, a social construct. I can identify myself as a paraplegic communist transsexual raccoon; it won’t make me one, just as Rachel Dolezal won’t ever be an African-American. I will still stay a Homo Sapien, working to report on stupidity being published across the planet as science. It is a post-modern fad to attach extreme importance to different people identifying as something else, but it is also puerile to form policy based on a research on that matter, with a sample size of 11.

Similarly, the assertion that it is just a lifestyle, potentially harmless, with willing donors is also dangerous. Any lifestyle, which involves mutilation, cutting someone’s chest with scalpel, and drinking blood, is hazardous for health, and carries a chance of grooming innocent victims, and not just extremely ghoulish and macabre phenomena. Tomorrow someone can identify himself or herself as a vampire killer and would want to put a stake through the heart of these individuals; some of them even underage maybe, which will bring them in harm’s way.

Thirdly, and most importantly, one needs to understand and differentiate in this day and age, what is passed on actual science and what is not. To simplify it, anything that is proved with empirical evidence, is science, everything else, is not. We live in a unique time, where technology and mass media can influence naïve minds, and one needs to be extra cautious in promoting and preaching what they read. Anyone, especially in disciplines of social science, can start a University journal, and get like-minded people to have a peer review, that won’t make it scientifically valid. Studies such as these, and the subsequent media promotion and dissemination of such laughable assertions as real science is one of the reasons, why actual science is losing credibility in the eyes of general public. It is impossible to expect media to be completely responsible and it is against democratic spirit to censor the publication of these ludicrous research which pass on as science, but it is similarly democratic and socially responsible to mock and ridicule such arguments.

Atleast, only through incessant mockery of stupidity, one can maintain a balance, and sanity.

Sumantra Maitra is a foreign affairs correspondent and freelance writer for various organisations, and a regular columnist for China.org,cn. He also previously blogged for Washington Examiner. He is a doctoral student at the University of Nottingham, on Russian Foreign Policy and Economics. He tweets @MrMaitra.