BCA vs Singh update

On the offchance any of my readers do not also read the great bloggings of my friend Jack of Kent, I recommend that you take a gander at his new update on the preliminary hearing of the libel case brought against Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association (to be found here).

I have nothing to add, except in echoing Jack's sentiment that this is an astonishing, bizarre and horrendously illiberal ruling.

What else could it be?

Via Neil Gaiman on Twitter, comes the news that not only has Plato been revived from the dead, not only is he now writing for The Sun, but his fabled lost city of Atlantis has been found. Quite the news day.

In typical Sun fashion, the article could hardly be more credulous; nothing is considered as alternative explanation for the find. But when the Telegraph article on the same subject follows suit, perhaps credulity is indeed the answer. Especially if Plato says it's true.

Here are but a few reasons to be sceptical (other than the very good reason of simply having this as a default position): the reported "city" is the size of Wales. Does anyone else think that maybe that's just a little on the large side, even for a fabled city of legend? There isn't the kind of detail you'd expect to see in the outline if this was indeed a city the size of a relatively small country. There are only ten or so "streets" in either plane, and no less distinct, narrower lines in between to indicate smaller streets or buildings of any normal size.

Secondly, Atlantis is generally accepted in scholoarly circles as being nothing more than a narrative, heuristic device by Plato to illustrate his points and tell a story. In this way it can be seen as any product of imagination as opposed to history: nothing of the Atlantis myth (aside from the sheer scale, a classic exaggeration of such tales) cannot be traced to something historical with which Plato would have been familiar; wars were certainly no stranger to the Athens of his lifetime, and even a city lost to the sea overnight would have been a familiar concept.

Finally, we have the problem of all the other discoveries of Atlantis over the years; as recently as 2004, sites have been found and claimed to be the fabled lost city because of some feature or other that matches with Plato's rhetorical account. What makes this one more likely than the others?

Now, I don't know enough about oceanography or indeed Google Ocean to postulate convincingly on what this picture might show - the possibilities as far as I can think are some kind of geological formation, or perhaps an artifact of the mapping process. I'd welcome any suggestions, but will take some considerable convincing that what this picture shows is a city our only source of knowledge for which is the probably-rhetorical account of a philosopher well known for talking out of his arse.

----

UPDATE: The Daily Mail, of all things, has "dashed hopes" that Atlantis had been found. Guess what it was. Yup, an artifact of the mapping process.

"Details for the ocean maps on Google Earth come from sonar measurements of the sea floor recorded by boats - and the area around the Canaries was mapped by boats travelling in a series of straight lines."

Well that explains that, then. Is the magic gone, now that the truth is known? Only in a literal sense; the explanation of how this illusion happened is still very interesting. Or maybe that's just me.

Cursed Cowell

I'm almost one hundred per cent certain that Simon Cowell has been cursed more than once. So the question is, why did this instance become news?

"She [...] said, 'You're all doomed'.

"Then we had a really bad session, the worst ever, in fact."

Is there even a point playing the "spot the logical fallacy" game with this? I'm not sure I've ever seen a clearer case.

Does this mean a witch put a curse on the MSN news website? Because it's reall bad reporting, possibly the worst ever, in fact.

Dog bites man

The sexual-liberal community is apparently up in arms about the Pope's latest comments on gender theory. I, however, welcome this news because it contributes further to the exposition of the Pope as a right-wing, conservative religious crazy person. Yes, his remarks are offensive and ignorant; but they should not be surprising.

It is quite telling that the majority of negative comments in the article come from Christian sources. It is my fond hope that this trend continues, and the religious right does more to marginalise itself in the eyes of society. I look forward to the day when "Pope spews yet more hateful ignorant pigshit" is not news.

The Life, Death and Legacy of Deep Throat

Possibly the most famous informant since Judas, the man known until just three years ago only as "Deep Throat", has died, aged 95. There are a few reasons for mentioning this here.

Firstly, he is an interesting figure for sceptics - he contributed one of the greatest amounts of fuel to the fire of the conspiracy theory culture that any one person has managed. It finally proved, in the eyes of many, that the government cannot be trusted; that there really are conspiracies and cover-ups at the highest levels of government.

Despite this being a perfectly valid point, however, what is rarely if ever taken into account by conspiracy nuts theorists is that not only do conspiracies and cover-ups happen, but so does whistleblowing. Compared to some conspiracy theories, the Watergate scandal was relatively small in terms of how many people knew the truth; and yet someone spoke up. This is a perfect demonstration of one of the mainstays of arguing against conspiracies - the whistleblower argument. So not only did Deep Throat provide conspiracy theorists with the perfect proof, he also provided the perfect counter-argument.

The second thing I find interesting about Mark Felt is his expressed misgivings about what he did; apparently he felt guilty about "betraying his FBI badge". Some critics agree with this assessment and brand him a traitor for turning on the Commander in Chief - a strange assessment considering the FBI is not a military organisation but a civilian one. Either way, I disagree with his critics and argue rather that he upheld his oath as a federal employee; the oath he took bound him to uphold the constitution, not to defend the president.

Of course, it's not as simple as that. As associate director of the FBI, he was also supposed to protect the information relating to the investigation, and send it through the correct channels. This is the obligation he violated, and surely the source of his moral discomfort. What he did, though, fulfilled the spirit of his role rather than the by-the-letter procedure thereof.

Here comes the quick ethical philosophy section, because me being me I find it hard to resist. Mark Felt suffered a moral dilemma, which is what happens when one or more roles in which you sees yourself oblige you to take two conflicting courses of action. In this case, he was obliged to follow procedure, and also to see that justice was done. Normally these two obligations would not conflict - and indeed the theory is that they are more or less synonymous. However, with regards to the Watergate scandal, the procedure was blocked, hindered, and/or corrupt - giving rise to the dilemma.

I say he did the right thing. He chose principle over procedure, and in exposing the Nixon administration's misdeeds, he carried out the most important role of his position. It was, after all, an important founding tenet of the constitution that nobody would be above the law; his obligation to defend and enact this principle overrode his obligation to follow Bureau procedure. What's more interesting than the whole Watergate débacle is his later conviction (and pardon) for approving illegal raids. That has echoes in recent legislation, and involves arguments about the right to privacy and the measures necessary to combat terrorism.

That will have to wait for another day and another blog entry. For now, it is enough to remember the man known for over thirty years only as Deep Throat, and what he did. I only hope that his Alzheimer's provided him some degree of moral peace in his final years, and he died free of torment.

Too much to ask?

I have no problem with people believing in gods, or indeed holding any supernatural beliefs - I think I've made that quite clear in previous entries here. I also have no problem with people who believe that these irrationalities are compatible with science. I think they're horribly and utterly wrong, but I also accept that they're quite entitled to hold those beliefs.

What I do have a problem with, however, is when this sort of person is appointed to a top position related to science. Such as, oh I don't know, The British Science Minister, who claims to have a "sixth sense". Also, he believes in God and sees no conflict between these beliefs and science.

Also, apparently, the new Canadian Minister for Science and Technology is a doctor of chiropractic.

Is it too much to ask that our top science positions are filled by people with the ability to think critically, and in a scientific manner?

Apparently.

Dear YouTube...

Please stop censoring freedom of expression.

Either: reinstate fsmdude's account and his videos which offend only those who have some wacky beliefs in regard to a biscuit...

Or: define yourselves officially as a Catholic website for only Catholic-friendly videos, and I can begin looking for alternative video-hosting websites to frequent.

Thank you.

[Via here and here. (PZ, naturally)]

UPDATE: fsmdude is now back online. Thank you, YouTube. Now don't do it again.

On a personal note, the dissertation is handed in and the Masters degree is officially over and done with. Posting to this blog should slowly start getting back to normal now. Thanks for your patience.

Respect and Guilt

I will attempt to get through this post without intentional innuendo.

There has been an uproar in Australia recently over a book accused of encouraging girls to take up the didgeridoo. It seems that there are those among the aboriginal leaders who argue that the instrument is a male one and forbid women from even touching it, let alone playing it. [original story via BBC News Online]

The publisher has apologised for this "extreme faux pas", but I've heard nothing regarding what - if anything - they plan to do about it. I'm hoping it will stop at an apology, but would not be surprised if the book were retracted, edited and reissued to remove the offending section.

There is an automatic respect accorded to these ancient tribal customs which is comparable to (and indeed is in places literally) that accorded religion. I don't think I need to necessarily go into why this is unwarranted, especially where oppression based on gender is concerned. Why is sexual discrimination alright when it's done for reasons based on tradition alone?

But further to this, there is often a degree of racial guilt when dealing with the indigenous peoples of Australia, North America, and other such places where they have been less than generously treated in the past. There is a terrible fear of offending these aboriginal societies in the West, lest they bring up that touchy subject of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Now I'm not saying we need to stop respecting them - quite the opposite; I'm saying we need to respect them enough to tell them when they're doing something unjust. Irrational beliefs should not be accorded respect simply by virtue of their antiquity. This even applies to those cultures whose ancestors our ancestors greatly wronged.

Basically, if an aboriginal girl wants to give that big stick a damn good blow, she should be perfectly free to do so.

Damnit. So close.

Cows... with Magnets!

Now here's a headline to set off a healthy bit of scepticism:

"Cattle shown to align north-south"

I'm not going to rubbish that claim straight off the bat, but I'd definitely need a little more proof than a few anecdotes and images before thinking there was something to it. Why would they do that? I'm well aware that a sense of magnetic direction is seemingly quite a widespread phenomenon among Terran fauna, but I have a hard time understanding why this particular ability would be of any use to cattle.

Over eight and a half thousand images of cattle were examined, apparently. That's a pretty good sample size, I'd say; but nowhere do I see the numbers involved in working out the incidence of north-south alignment (if anyone can grab access to the actual article, I'd be grateful for a link).

A couple of other points stood out for me in the BBC report of this: firstly, that in Africa and South America, the scientists carrying out the study noted a north-east/south-west alignment rather than the north-south seen elsewhere; they explain this by pointing out that the magnetic field is weaker there. OK, granted. But why then are they still aligning along a different line? Without seeing the data itself, that sounds to me like whatever method they used to determine significant alignment might be a little too generous.

Secondly comes the speculation of reasons why this north-south alignment might be happening; the lead scientist is quoted as speculating that it could be anti-predatory behaviour.

I'm sorry, what?

Do most predators come from the north or south? Would it not be a more effective technique to have the herd facing in different directions if it's an alert system you're looking for? I can appreciate the use in having the herd facing the same direction - if the need to flee arises, it makes that safety-in-numbers thing much easier to manage. This would seem to be the most reasonable explanation for a herd facing in generally the same direction as each other. But if this is the case, why north-south? Perhaps they just like facing south; perhaps it feels like going downhill...

Basically this sounds like fluff reporting of a half-baked investigation. I'd like to see the numbers involved, but at the moment I remain unconvinced that there is a phenomenon to explain here; I'll agree that in general a herd will face in more or less the same direction. That much is hardly news. The north-south thing, though? Needs a little more work.

--------------------------

EDIT: The story has been taken up by Ed at Not Exactly Rocket Science, and it seems that he's read the article! Here's his take on it. Reading through, it seems like those numbers I was after do actually add up quite nicely; as for the reason behind it, the general notion seems to be that they have as much reason to line up in this way as a compass needle does. It's just what they do. Some intriguing ideas are being thrown around about physiological processes running smoother when aligned with the poles, but these are still at the hypothesis stage.

I wouldn't be much of a sceptic if I didn't change my tune when faced with the numbers. I still maintain my opinion of the original piece on the BBC, though. The quality of science reporting is, as I should have come to expect by now, somewhat south (haha) of optimal.

Crackers

My profound apologies for not updating more often over the last few weeks, I don't really have an excuse. There is another Fictional Sceptics entry in the making, but it may take a little while. In the meantime, I'll point you at a great post from PZ Myers, who is getting irate over a cracker:

I find this all utterly unbelievable. It's like Dark Age superstition and malice, all thriving with the endorsement of secular institutions here in 21st century America. It is a culture of deluded lunatics calling the shots and making human beings dance to their mythical bunkum.

He does get so wonderfully eloquent when he's mad. The comments are also, as always, worth reading; the first one makes a very strong point - basically, that you'd think passing the body of Christ through one's digestive system would constitute significant abuse.

Blink 7: The Moon Effect

A classic anecdote, particularly among such people as police and paramedics, is that (for example) the real nutters come out when there's a full moon. They don't usually go so far as to say that with every full moon comes a night with nothing but nutters, but do seem to suggest that there is a significant trend. If you want a good selection of anecdotes on this score, head over to the Yahoo! Answers page, "Full moon - does it bother you?" (be prepared for some industrial-strength ignorance).

The full moon has also been popularly associated with all sorts of things, like rises in suicide rates, crime rates, accident & emergency admission rates, alcoholism, natural disasters and many many more. Here's the important factoid for you to remember: there is no evidence to support these hypotheses. And yes, studies have been done.

What this is is a classic example of confirmation bias - one only notices the events which confirm the hypothesis that one has (consciously or otherwise) adopted. I won't spend a lot of time debunking all of this - it's a "Blink" post after all - so I'll just point you at a very useful SkepDic entry: "Full moon and lunar effects". There's a substantial reading list at the foot of that article if you want to look further into this subject.

Blink 6: Beaten to it.

I was planning a nice short entry in my "In the Blink of a Sceptical I" series to start me back after being MIA in Essayland - this one about the preposterous claim that vaccines cause autism. They don't. The "rise" in autism is a statistical anomaly caused by broadening definitions, greater vigilance and improving detection methods.

However, while reading through my week's worth of RSS updates, I found that I had been beaten to it on this score. Rebbecca Watson of Skepchick.org - a woman with whom, it seems, I am more deeply enamoured every time she blogs - explains it all on her parody Crap-Based Medicine blog:

Do Vaccines Cause Autism?

She has such a way with words.

Substantial post to follow sometime in the next few days.

Vatican't

Today, the news rang out that the Vatican officially recognises the possibility of extraterrestrial life. I caught this news from the BBC, wongaBlog and Unscrewing the Inscrutable. As I search for the topic in my RSS feed, I find that Way of the Woo and Pharyngula now also carry commentary on the matter.

Now, one of the arguments you sometimes hear from the frothing lips of creationists is that dinosaurs never existed (fossils are there to test our faith), because it's nowhere mentioned in the Bible. Where, pray tell, does it mention extraterrestrial life? Nowhere that I've heard about. You'd think, if the Bible were the word of God, he might have mentioned somewhere that we weren't his only creation - his only world-building project.

I'd like to present you with an analogy which occurred to me, in thinking about the Vatican's latest madness. It's a desperate act taken to appear relevant to an increasingly outward-looking society; it's an aging dad trying to convince his kids he's still cool. "Look," he cries, as he gets to his feet to the dismay of his offspring. "I've still got it - the old moves are still sharp!" He proceeds to strut some abysmal approximation halfway between the rock & roll two-step of his youth and the moves he's seen his kids watch on MTV. Accordingly, his children react in the only way they can:

"Please, dad, you're embarrassing everyone."

"Deep Esteem"

Oh those crazy Catholics and their inability to feel the slightest bit of cognitive dissonance. It takes a special kind of mind to continue spouting this kind of nonsense.

Yes, this is about the "news" that Britain's top Catholic, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, has called on religious believers to be more tolerant of atheists and other non-believers. Here's the BBC article. I agree with him on a couple of points - that "proper talk about God is always difficult", and that "God is not a 'fact in the world'". It's an issue of faith, not of reason.

This, to me, is the desperate act of someone who realises that reason is winning. The only way religion can survive is by retreating to its last stronghold where nobody can touch them - faith. It denies any kind of logic, proof, or sense - in fact, anything we routinely use to gather information about the world in which we live.

The real cognitive dissonance, however, comes when you come back from examining the implications of what he said to the words themselves. The first phrase of the BBC article:

The Archbishop of Westminster has urged Christians to treat atheists and agnostics with "deep esteem".

Right.

Anyone else recalling the special places in their crazy Catholic afterlife reserved for unbelievers, particularly those who are outspoken as such? Lakes of fire wasn't it? Something like that anyway. Not exactly places in which one might comfortably feel accepted and treated with anything remotely resembling "deep esteem".

The Daily Mash says it better than I.

Quaint beliefs...

Periodically in the news, you'll hear about a backwards society somewhere in the world who have stoned, burned or otherwise persecuted someone on some charge of sorcery, wizardry or witchcraft. There's not a lot you can do except shake your head in dismay and consider yourself lucky you don't live there. Oh, those poor deluded [blank]ians, you say. Maybe one day they'll live in a modern civilised society where we habitually scoff at such things.

One such story surfaced today, about a teacher who performed a magic trick and lost his job as a result - on a charge of wizardry. I felt the usual dismay, shook my head, and counted myself lucky I don't live there.

"Oh, those poor deluded Floridians", I said. Maybe one day they'll live in a modern civilised society where we habitually scoff at such things.

This is why PZ Myers can't believe in Florida any more.

Blink 4: Scientific Theories

Just a quick post for a large topic here, because it's covered well in other places. Critics of evolution (almost entirely made up of religious, anti-rational crazies) have certain mantras they like to repeat often; one of the most common of these is "evolution is just a theory!" ... Apparently this is supposed to discredit it, and portray it as somehow being in serious doubt.

If only they knew what an idea has to go through in order to become a scientific theory. They are actually confusing "theory" with "hypothesis", the latter being a far weaker position prior to testing. There is very little you can say to people who put forward this view - because it is itself ample demonstration that they don't think for themselves in a critical, rational way and are thus unlikely to be swayed by any argument.

You could try showing them some pretty convincing (and very cool) evidence.

But at the end of the day, elegance lies in simplicity - and I normally end up replying "so is gravity".

Two Quickies

The news spat out a couple of interesting items today (well, a few actually, but at least one deserves a bit more thought and planning before making it into a blog entry).

Firstly, this article at BBC News holds the important facts for all those who insist on an anthropocentric approach to life: if we keep killing off those other species which share this planet, we will be losing out on a lot of potential medical advances. I'd rather this wasn't the only reason people were out to reverse the worrying trend in species extinction, but if that's what it takes I'll make do.

Second, my heart sank in expectation of ridiculous levels of credulity when I read the heading to this article: "Satan" driver cleared over crash. A woman took two lives with reckless driving, and blamed Satan. She was cleared of the charges. Thankfully for my sanity, hers was found to be lacking - which was the reason she was cleared.

Appeal to Common Practice

It is strange that in the world's first secular republic, it is as necessary to be christian in order to become president as it is for a British royal to be Anglican in order to become our monarch.

While this thought has been on my mind for many years, and more so recently due to the ongoing presidential primaries, what sparked this blog post was a report of an interview that Senator Clinton gave in June of 2007 (full transcript here). The quote that was taken for the article was:

Reporter: Can I ask you theologically, do you believe that the resurrection of Jesus actually happened, that it actually historically did happen?

Clinton: Yes, I do.

Oh dear. Why is it that candidates for high-level political office in the United States of America are expected to answer these questions in this way? It makes as much sense to say "I believe in zombies", but of course someone saying that would do tremendous political damage to themselves and any campaign they might be promoting at the time. Why? Because it's what everyone else believes. This is the only thing separating the stories of the Bible from the stories of a Flying Spaghetti Monster - that millions of people believe in one, whereas only a few thousand (probably) believe in the other. I don't count the argument from history (that the Bible has been around for thousands of years) because this would not make the claims of Pastafarianism valid after the same amount of time. It is simply that it is a popular superstition.

Why do we need people with imaginary friends running our superpowers, just because a lot of other people have the same imaginary friend?

An Oversight, I feel

The wonderful website "What's The Harm?" has been getting widespread acclaim from sceptical blogs for the last month or two, and rightly so. As I mentioned briefly in a previous post, it's an ongoing catalogue of the actual harm done by pseudoscience, bogus medical claims, religion and other delusions.

While I realise that that site is still in its infancy, it does seem to me to have a major flaw in being overly anthropocentric. Nowhere does it take into account the terrible toll that certain deluded practices have on the wildlife in the world - a toll which is still terribly heavy, particularly on tiger and rhinoceros.



The worst offender in this regard would almost certainly have to be the voodoo that is traditional Chinese medicine, which creates great demand for tiger and rhino carcasses to treat ailments which are just as treatable (in fact more so) with so-called "Western medicine". While information campaigns and the increasing cosmopolitanism of China has meant that these practices are on the decline, it's getting close to being too late for the tiger and rhino.

For some pretty shocking facts on man's effect on the world's animals, head over to this page from the always-superb David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation. The most relevant to oriental medicine is this one:

Tiger products are still widely and legally on sale in 6 out of 10 pharmacies and 'virility product' shops in Japan and the going rate for a tiger penis in Hong Kong is £110.

A complete tiger carcass is worth around $30,000. Granted I can understand people valuing an animal life slightly lower than they value the life of a human (though I don't share this view myself); but the life of an entire species? Do we really value the life of a species over the "financial cost" of pseudoscience (et al) to the gullible fools it dupes?

Of course, crazy beliefs about the powers of tiger parts is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to man's damage to the creatures with whom we share this Pale Blue Dot, but it's the area with the most relevance to scepticism. When we argue about the real cost of pseudoscience, we should at least include a nod in the direction of the destruction of some of the world's most precious resources.

Bad Sceptics

A problem with calling oneself a sceptic (or indeed a skeptic, if you're Americanistically-inclined) is that there is a widespread misconception of the meaning of this word. Or rather, to be more generous, there are various different meanings depending upon the context in which the word is used. In philosophy, for instance, a skeptic is one who doubts everything except the existence of their own mind as a doubting entity. While this is an oversimplification of the term (head over to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's page on scepticism for a more in-depth discussion), it certainly demonstrates that there is a clear difference between a philosophical sceptic and a sceptic as might be referred to in this and similar blogs, for instance. The only really central theme throughout is that a sceptic is a person who doubts.

Thus, when one identifies oneself as a sceptic in everyday discussion with those who may not be engaged in the same communities, there is often a confusion. The listener perhaps takes this to mean that you doubt everything, or automatically dismiss anything that seems remotely unconventional. Believe it or not, there are those who see sceptics as a force against progression - continually holding back innovation in many fields. While this is true to some extent (insistence on proper scientific method does tend to slow down the process after all - it's such a drag having to be accurate all the damn time), it overlooks the fact that sceptics are usually at the cutting edge of innovation. Indeed, it is scepticism in science which allows it to admit when it is wrong, and adapt to new ideas - a process of constant self-improvement. It is the dogmatic approach opposed by scepticism that causes ideas to stagnate; and while proper process necessarily means that research must move slowly, it ensures that it moves accurately.

What in part prompted me to write this entry is this post over at Science-Based Medicine. While this is hardly my area of expertise, it is disturbing to find an organisation, which sets itself in opposition to widely-researched scientific fact, describing itself in terms of scepticism. They are not "cholesterol skeptics" just because they doubt the majority view on cholesterol any more than a UFO nut is a sceptic. A sceptic does not doubt in spite of the evidence - the evidence is a sceptic's tool, and a good sceptic always examines the evidence in as non-biased a way as she can before adopting a position. It will not help the profile of true sceptics to have these anti-science loons using the moniker as their own.

On an entirely unrelated note, if anyone asks you what the harm is in entertaining the occasionally-seductive claims of pseudoscience, you can now direct them to What's The Harm?, an ongoing collection of data concerning harm done through pseudoscience and woo. (hat-tip to Skepchick for this).