1 A Meaningless Credential

This question comes up often. In fact, Null and friends are threatening to sue me[1] in part because I said that his degree is bogus[2], and other things about his credentials that seem to have hurt his feelings.

Gary Null is often in the position of defending his credentials on the air, particularly his doctorate. When doing so he sometimes talks about how hard he worked to get that Ph.D. from Union Institute and University, and that he is proud of it. He likes to get his audience on his side using this type of emotional appeal. These things might very well be true, but are not material.

During his long, Castro-like speech that he used to fill the airtime during my recent appearance on his show on April 29th, he further defended the significance of this Ph.D. by reading some fluff generated by the school that awarded it, to the effect that they think the degrees are meaningful and that they are proud of their alumni. Also, I think they gave an award to Mr. Null. It might not be surprising that a school that awards degrees, bogus or not, would be of the opinion that they mean something. I would certainly be surprised to hear a Union Institute dean say that, sure, we hand out Ph.D.s like candy but they're not worth anything. So this is nice, but also not material.

Mr. Null does finally get around to uttering a material fact in support of the idea that this degree actually means something: the school that awarded it to him is accredited. This is true, but misleading in this context, because of the details of that accreditation.

So it would seem that their granting of a Ph.D. in the health sciences, or any kind of science other than social science, is outside the realm of their accreditation, and was in 1989, when Null got his degree. This is as if a high school in Ohio, which is accredited by the same umbrella organization, decided to give someone a Ph.D. in physics in return for a fee. Yes, they are an accredited school, but their accreditation does not include the granting of Ph.D.s in physics, so the degree is bogus.

This fact about the status of degrees handed out by Union Institute in health science areas has been pointed out in several places on the web, and not been challenged by Mr. Null as far as I know. The Gary Null entry in Wikipedia[4] points out that This school is accredited by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools but its accreditation does not cover awarding of PhDs in the sciences, only in the humanities. An article[5] by Dr. Peter A. Lipson, who has written widely on quackery, mentions that A reader asked if Null really has a Ph.D. as he claims. The answer is ‘yes’—and ‘no’. Apparently, he was awarded a Ph.D. in a scientific field by a University that is accredited only to award Ph.D.s in the humanities.

Gary Null is in good company. Union Institute has granted more than one of these bogus nutrition science degrees over the years. If you are scientifically illiterate but want to be called Doctor to make it easier to sell your natural health products or services to a gullible public, it looks like Gary Null's alma mater will accommodate you.

For example, Annemarie Colbin got a Ph.D. from Union in 2002 with a thesis entitled Wholistic Nutrition: From Biochemisty to Chaos, Complexity, and Quantum Physics - applying some concepts from contemporary science to a new understanding of how food affects health. She summarizes her research on her web page[6], which is actually entitled About Annemarie Colbin, Ph.D. - Food and Healing, Ph.D., with two Ph.D.s right there in the title, so you know you can trust her. She clings to her Union Institute degree as proudly and tightly as Mr. Null; nowhere on her page is her name allowed to lie unadorned either by the Dr. in front or the Ph.D. behind. But read her description of her thesis work. Any scientifically literate person can see that she has an utterly garbled understanding of several fields of research that she claims to have incorporated into her theory of nutrition. There is practically zero chance of her dissertation making any sense.

In addition to all this, the famous deconstructor of quacks, Dr. Stephen Barrett, has taken the trouble to actually read Mr. Null's Ph.D. thesis, and concludes[7] that Traditional universities require that research for a doctoral degree in a scientific discipline make a genuine contribution to the scientific literature. Null's thesis made no such contribution. He also discovered several problems with the makeup of the thesis committee, and points out that Union Institute has no serious coursework requirements.

Given all of the above, I am confident that there is nothing libelous in how I have characterized Gary Null's Ph.D.: it is indeed bogus, and he in fact has not earned the credential, in the sense that that would be understood by bona fide members of the academic community.

2 Other Credentials

Mr. Null has a bachelor’s degree from an accredited school and is licensed by New York State as a registered dietician/nutritionist. In his rather desperate and peevish on-air rant during my appearance, and at other times, he has referred to this license with a formulation something like I’m a licensed dietician/nutritionist—I'm BOARD CERTIFIED, repeating the board certified part now and then.

Board certification is a credential earned by doctors that means they are qualified in a particular medical specialty. Gary Null is not a doctor and, needless to say, is not board certified in anything. I don't know whether he’s confused or is trying to create the impression, in his listeners’ minds, that he is a medical doctor, but either way, it should stop, especially since he shows no restraint in offering medical and even veterinary advice over the air for the treatment of specific diseases and conditions.

The requirements[8] for New York's dietician license are a bachelor's degree in a program in dietetics-nutrition or the equivalent, and six months of related work experience, which can be part of the degree program, and the passage of a multiple-choice examination. Another track is to have an associate's degree and more work experience. The examination is wide-ranging, covering topics as diverse as the design of facilities, the interviewing of patients, and the nutritional content of foods. Neither the agency nor the applicable statute define what is to be considered a passing grade, however.

Licensed nutritionists are permitted to do things such as interview an overweight person about his diet and recommend changes in his eating habits. They need not have any formal education beyond a two-year degree. This is a low-level vocational license granted by the Department of Education; dieticians are not health professionals in the sense that doctors, RNs, or physician assistants are. Having a dietician’s license does not confer any special credibility in discussions of current biomedical research. If a dietician tried to treat a cancer patient with a coffee enema, as Gary Null recommends[9], he would likely be prosecuted for, at the least, practicing medicine without a license.

3 Why Does it Matter?

Arguing about the significance of people's degrees and credentials is distasteful and rarely relevant to anything. A credential does not mean that you are right in any dispute; only your evidence and your argument itself can be convincing to a rational person.

Gary Null often reminds us that he is a scientist. The real scientists that I know don't usually bother to decorate their names with their degrees, except in certain formal circumstances. But there is an obvious reason why Dr. and Ph.D. cling so desperately to Gary Null's name everywhere on his website and everything else that he produces. The purpose of his website is to sell pills and tracts to the people who wind up there in a search for help for a medical condition, or to maintain a good state of health. Naturally, it is very important to his business to create an impression of credibility. Potential customers who arrive with sufficient gullibility may have any doubts assuaged when they see the degree; may even, perhaps not consciously, feel they are under the benevolent guidance of some kind of health professional, or even an actual doctor. A good part of the income of Gary Null & Associates can be presumed to depend upon this kind of credulity.

I summarized this state of affairs in my letter to WPFW[2], where I said that Mr. Null uses his broadcast as an infomercial to steer people to his commercial website. Mr. Null admitted as much in his long speech in answer to my brief remarks on his show, although I'm guessing he doesn't realize it. He pointed out that WPFW does not pay him for his radio show, and that by attacking his credentials and trying to get him kicked off the air I was putting his livelihood at risk. So he admits that his livelihood depends on his continued ability to broadcast, even though he is not paid for the broadcast. Therefore the broadcast must be directly connected with something else that is his source of income, which is what I asserted at the outset: he uses the radio show to steer potential customers to the website, where they will be impressed by the bogus degree and might buy some vitamin pills. Why on earth any radio station would want to lend their good name to such a fiasco is another subject.[10]

So what does not matter in the spheres of science or scholarship does indeed matter in the more practical spheres of engineering or medicine. You need a real engineer to build your bridge, and a real doctor to treat your disease, and they had better have the right letters after their names. Gary Null uses his titles and degrees to sell vitamins to the naive, exploiting their problems and feeding an irrational fear of standard medical treatment. In his case, it does matter.