A Glasgow Skeptic

Bad apples?

2010-04-04T00:30:00.001-07:00

Well, this has been a bad month for the church.

Where to begin. This is not a phrase to be used for rhetorical effect; I am genuinely unsure of what should be mentioned first; there is such a torrent of news of vile, repulsive acts of child rape, cover-ups and complacency that it is becoming harder and harder to imagine the church as an institution which has found itself unfortunately perpetrated by a few paedophiles.

Within the past few weeks, we have heard of cases of abuse in Ireland, France, Spain, Germany, and the USA. Within the past two weeks, a customer of the shop where I work, a Catholic, commented that the abuse was a problem only for Ireland, for which he was ashamed, given that he counts himself as an “Irish Scot”. However, it has become abundantly clear that this is not the case. The problem is not one for the Irish, but one for Catholicism.

In September 2009, Archbishop Silvano Maria Tomasi read out an official Holy See statement, declaring:

We now know that in the last 50 years, somewhere between 1.5% and 5% of the Catholic clergy has been involved in sexual abuse cases.

One thing that strikes me about this – besides the astoundingly high figure – is the implication. If 1.5% were taking part in child rape, then how many were aware of it.

Last night, I printed off an article reporting on the Archbishop of Canterbury slamming the Catholic Church for its failings. I then got out a piece of paper and began scrawling on it. What I began with the intention of writing a short note, pointing out some fantastic contradictions, turned into a five page scrawl. I outlined all of the reasons I felt that my mother should want to distance herself from the Catholic Church, including the suggestion that she is tainting her relationship with her god by sharing it with an institution of liars and boy-rapists.

When I handed her the papers, she put forth a gem of a rebuttal. Firstly, that it wasn’t always rape (I, too, was gobsmacked.) But secondly, that every institution has bad apples.

Well, as ridiculous as the first refutation was, the second is perhaps more valid. However, in the case of the Catholic Church, the apples are bad, the branches are bad, and the trunk, the central support, the entire edifice of the Catholic Church is rotten.

Recently around 120 cases of child abuse emerged in the diocese of Munich; the diocese presided over by current Pope, Joseph Ratzinger. We now know that in 1980, Cardinal Ratzinger was copied in a memo about a German priest who was under psychiatric treatment for paedophilia. There was no criminal action taken against the priest, who was simply reassigned to another parish. He continued his reign of abuse here as well.

We have also heard that the Pope was personally aware of the case of Reverend Lawrence Murphy, who abused 200 deaf boys, and that it was only through the influence of the Vatican office led by Ratzinger that he was spared a de-frocking.

We have news of Father Marcial Maciel. The dear Father was a paedophile and a drug user, but, must importantly of all, an effective fund-raiser for the church. Throughout his life, he was tainted by allegations of “reprehensible actions”; however, an investigation was blocked from delving into the details of Maciel, by Pope John Paul II. The year before coming pope himself, Ratzinger ordered an investigation himself. Upon becoming pope, he did little less than sacking Maciel; he put him into retirement, but did not even de-frock him. Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger did not see fit to alert the police, nor to remove strike Maciel from the priesthood.

And now, in the April 4th edition of the Sunday Times, it comes to light that everyone’s favourite saint-to-be, Pope John Paul II “ignored abuse of 2,000 boys”. A friend of his, Cardinal Hans Hermann Groer abused an estimated 2,000 boys over many years, but never faced any punishments or sanctions. In addition, he protected Archbishop Julius Paetz, who made the unprecedented move of sexually abusing adults (there’s a novel idea!) Of course, these adults were not as malleable to the wills of their superiors as younger children, and so he was found out. This man, also, spent more than ten years within the Vatican.

As I said before, it is not the case that there are a few bad apples; it is my sincere belief that the organisation is one of paedophiles and those complicit in child-rape. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to refer to a few good apples. However, I do not think that the few good influences within the church will be enough to save it from the doom to which it has damned itself.

To quote Richard Dawkins:

[Benedict XVI] should remain in charge of the whole rotten edifice - the whole profiteering, woman-fearing, guilt-gorging, truth-hating, child-raping institution - while it tumbles, amid a stench of incense and a rain of tourist-kitsch sacred hearts and preposterously crowned virgins, about his ears.

Homeopathy a waste of NHS Funds, concludes House of Commons Committee

2010-02-22T14:39:00.000-08:00

It was with little surprise but great delight that I saw the second item on BBC News at 6. On this, the day it emerged that the National Bullying Helpline received calls from Downing Street, for a story on homeopathy to be second item was fantastic; but not quite as fantastic as the report itself.

The House of Commons Science and Technology Committee has said that NHS money is being wasted on homeopathy, stating:

“We conclude that placebos should not be routinely prescribed on the NHS. The funding of homeopathic hospitals... should not continue, and NHS doctors should not refer to homeopaths.”

To re-emphasise that, homeopathic hospitals in London, Bristol and Kent, amongst other cities, face having NHS funding removed. In addition, this conclusion might influence the Scottish Government to reconsider their position. In combination with ceasing the prescription of homeopathy, this would save the NHS £4million a year. This may not seem like much, but every decision to spend public money must be made using reason, especially in a time of such economic turmoil. Homeopathy is not based on reason, nor on evidence.

The committee also decided that spending money on further research into homeopathy would be wasted. It stated:

“There has been enough testing of homeopathy and plenty of evidence showing that it is not efficacious. Competition for research funding is fierce, and we cannot see how further research on the efficacy of homeopathy is justified in the face of competing priorities.”

Dr Ben Goldacre, writer of the fantastic Guardian Bad Science column, giving evidence to the committee, was also quoted.

“There have now been around 200 trials of homeopathy against placebo sugar pills and, taken collectively, they show that there is no evidence that homeopathy pills are any better than a placebo. [...] it is not worth doing any more placebo controlled trials because you would be throwing good money after bad and you would have to have a huge number of very strongly positive trials to outweigh all of the negative ones.”

This fantastic result comes only two weeks after it was revealed that the British Homeopathic Association had misled MPs in this very same Evidence Check. Of the four “positive” trials submitted by the BHA, two were actually studies into bias in homeopathy research, finding that studies of a higher quality produced results less favourable to homeopathy. The third concluded that the data were “not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions". And from the fourth paper, the homeopaths omitted an update, more critical of homeopathy than the original paper. The update was published in 1999.

I suspect that the reason for the attention this decision is receiving is due almost entirely to the 10:23 campaign, and the skeptical blogosphere. Even if the HoC SciTech Committee had, for whatever obscure reason, decided that it was justifiable to continue funding homeopathy with taxpayers’ money, the 10:23 campaign would not have been a waste. For one, the skeptical community in the UK was strengthened, intensified and embiggified.

More importantly, however, public awareness of homeopathy, and what it actually is, has been raised enormously. A survey published in the New Zealand Medical Journal found that 94% of those who use homeopathy are not aware that it contains none of the “active ingredient” listed on the bottle. A few days before the event, a comedian on The Wright Stuff confused homeopathy for herbal medicine, stating that “Marijuana is homeopathy”. A few days later, India Knight, writing for The Times, made the same mistake, claiming, “It’s just ground up plants.” As a result of the campaign, a far greater number of the public is now aware that homeopathy is not just “ground up plants”, but a poison, diluted to the point of non-existence, and then dropped onto a tasty sugar pill.

No doubt there will be a backlash, with petitions with hundreds of signatures bemoaning the fact that quackery is no longer available on the NHS - well... not the sugar-water brand anyway - and demanding that funding be continued. However, science does not care what people would like to be true. Science doesn’t care at all. All that science tells us is what is true. And what science has told us is that homeopathy does not work. Thankfully, more people know that than ever before.

Thanks for today's result must be paid to Dr Evan Harris MP for his relentless grilling of the quacks homeopaths present at the meetings, to Martin Robbins of The Lay Scientist for consistently high quality coverage in The Guardian, and to Michael Marshall, Andy Wilson and everyone else at Merseyside Skeptics Society for arranging the national 10:23 campaign. A special mention goes out to Jack of Kent blogger David Allen Green for his offer (and in my case, supply) of legal advice. And finally to all the Skeptics in the Pub organisers, and especially to everyone who turned out to overdose at 10am on a sub-zero Saturday morning. Each and every one is worthy of praise.

What a skeptic accepts with good evidence

2010-01-24T12:57:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I was browsing Google News for any new stories about the upcoming 10:23 mass "overdose". I stumbled upon an article from "Natural News" and decided to investigate. The "article" was titled:

"What 'skeptics' really believe about vaccines, medicine, consciousness and the universe".

What a broad topic to cover. Expecting masses of wrong generalisations, I read on. Even I was shocked at the ignorance and lies expressed in the list of words (article is too nice a word). I decided to address his each and every point, in an attempt to enlighten him. I know it won't work. I know that nothing I say will change his mind. But I hope that I can perhaps enlighten readers to the ignorance and deception over at naturalnews.com.

Skeptics believe that ALL vaccines are safe and effective (even if they've never been tested), that ALL people should be vaccinated, even against their will, and that there is NO LIMIT to the number of vaccines a person can be safely given. So injecting all children with, for example, 900 vaccines all at the same time is believed to be perfectly safe and "good for your health."

This is a ridiculous idea. Of course they need to best tested. The recent debate concerned whether it was more important to test the swine flu vaccine more thoroughly or to have it in use more quickly. Also, the basic serum, the medium that the virus is delivered in, has already been tested; adding a different type of virus to it is not going to change that. The poorly worded NHS leaflet stating that a baby could manage 10,000 vaccines at once was simply trying to indicate how little stress a vaccine places on the immune system. Simply put, giving a baby 100 vaccines would use up only 1% of its immune system.

Skeptics believe that fluoride chemicals derived from the scrubbers of coal-fired power plants are really good for human health. They're so good, in fact, that they should be dumped into the water supply so that everyone is forced to drink those chemicals, regardless of their current level of exposure to fluoride from other sources.

The source is irrelevant, and the argument seems to be a simple guilt-by-association.
(You homeopaths believe that arsenic - a poison - will cure... Arsenic poisoning. Ridiculous, eh?)

Skeptics believe that many six-month-old infants need antidepressant drugs. In fact, they believe that people of all ages can be safely given an unlimited number of drugs all at the same time: Antidepressants, cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs, anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping drugs and more -- simultaneously!

Perhaps many six-month-old infants do need antidepressant drugs. I have neither the knowledge nor the expertise to judge either way. However, through the fog of ignorance, I will point out that simply because antidepressants are recommended does not mean that it is thought babies are suffering from depression. For example, the painkiller aspirin is used to prevent heart attacks.

Skeptics believe that the human body has no ability to defend itself against invading microorganism and that the only things that can save people from viral infections are vaccines.

No skeptic believes this. Skeptics believe (due to evidence in the form of antibody counts) that vaccines BOOST the immune system. A defunct virus, unable to replicate, is injected. The body detects it and triggers an immune response. In this way, if the person comes into contact with anactive virus, the immune response will be faster, stronger, and for a prolonged period of time.

Skeptics believe that pregnancy is a disease and childbirth is a medical crisis. (They are opponents of natural childbirth.)

Again, a ridiculous idea. Presumably infertility is, therefore, a sign of good health? A disease is “a disorder of structure or function”. We need to reproduce; pregnancy is the method of achieving reproduction (for now). I’m not quite sure what you mean by “natural” childbirth. However, referring to the idea that childbirth is a “medical crisis”, it may interest you to know that “as recently as 90 years ago” as many as 1% of births resulted in maternal death. That figure is now 0.013%, thanks to modern medicine.

Skeptics do not believe in hypnosis. This is especially hilarious since they are all prime examples of people who are easily hypnotized by mainstream influences.

Recent research has shown that those who are hypnotised are simply in a very very relaxed state; an extreme form of an already known state - NOT a separate state. Being skeptical often puts you outside of mainstream views, actually. "Chiropractic? Isn't that real medicine?" "Homeopathy? It's ground up plants! That works!"

Skeptics believe that there is no such thing as human consciousness. They do not believe in the mind; only in the physical brain. In fact, skeptics believe that they themselves are mindless automatons who have no free will, no soul and no consciousness whatsoever.

I don’t even know how to respond to that one...
I believe in the brain, and believe that the mind is derived from it. That my mind is derived from the laws of physics and chemistry. I believe I am conscious, and that I have free will. A soul though? Nope.

Skeptics believe that DEAD foods have exactly the same nutritional properties as LIVING foods (hilarious!).

I guess it depends on how long they’ve been dead...

Skeptics believe that pesticides on the crops are safe, genetically modified foods are safe, and that any chemical food additive approved by the FDA is also safe. There is no advantage to buying organic food, they claim.

Just like with homeopathy, the levels of these pesticides are too low to affect health. We have been genetically modifying food for years. The wild cabbage has been genetically modified over the years to produce “brocolli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, kale, Brussel sprouts, spring greens, romanescu and, of course, the various kinds of vegetables that are still commonly called cabbage.” [Richard Dawkins - The Greatest Show on Earth (page 27)]

Skeptics believe that water has no role in human health other than basic hydration. Water is inert, they say, and the water your toilet is identical to water from a natural spring (assuming the chemical composition is the same, anyway).

What other use would you suggest?

Skeptics believe that all the phytochemicals and nutrients found in ALL plants are inert, having absolutely no benefit whatsoever for human health. (The ignorance of this intellectual position is breathtaking...)

A simple lie. See Taxol. The ignorance of your... position is breathtaking.

Skeptics believe that the moon has no influence over life on Earth. Farming in sync with moon cycles is just superstition, they say. (So why are the cycles of life for insects, animals and humans tied to the moon, then?)

I was not aware that the “cycles of life” were tied to the moon. A reference, please? (Insects and humans are animals, incidentally). See here

Skeptics believe that the SUN has no role in human health other than to cause skin cancer. They completely deny any healing abilities of light.

Again, completely ridiculous bullshit. See here.

Skeptics believe that Mother Nature is incapable of synthesizing medicines. Only drug companies can synthesize medicines, they claim. (So why do they copy molecules from nature, then?)

Again, lies. It is well known that aspirin is derived from the bark of the willow tree, for example. Humans simply synthesize and purify it, to ensure that the correct dosage is given, and that there are no contaminants.

Skeptics do not believe in intuition. They believe that mothers cannot "feel" the emotions of their infants at a distance. They write off all such "psychic" events as mere coincidence.

Line of sight, sound, pheromones. All viable methods of emotional communication. Telepathy is not.

Skeptics believe that all healing happens from the outside, from doctors and technical interventions. They do not believe that patients have any ability to heal themselves. Thus, they do not ascribe any responsibility for health to patients. Rather, they believe that doctors and technicians are responsible for your health. Anyone who dismisses doctors and takes charge of their own health is therefore acting "irresponsibly," they claim.

This is completely ridiculous, no surprise. Fighting of the common cold, headaches, stomach aches? Do you think that skeptics suppose that humans popped into existence with full medical knowledge? No. We acquired this knowledge over hundreds of years, and it is that knowledge that has driven down death rates in EMDCs.

Skeptics believe that cell phone radiation poses absolutely no danger to human health. A person can be exposed to unlimited cell phone radiation without any damage whatsoever.

Thank you for mentioning that one. New research here.

Skeptics believe that aspartame and artificial chemical sweeteners can be consumed in unlimited quantities with no ill effects.

False. Consuming ANYTHING in large enough quantities will kill you. 3 litres of water in one sitting can do it. “...aspartame does release a tiny amount of methanol. It's less than the amount you get from eating a piece of most any fruit. Tomato juice, for example, gives you four times the methanol of a can of diet soda.”

Skeptics believe that human beings were born deficient in synthetic chemicals and that the role of pharmaceutical companies is to "restore" those deficiencies in humans by convincing them to swallow patented pills.

Are you not simply stating here that “skeptics believe that human beings sometimes need modern medicine”?

Skeptics believe that you can take unlimited pharmaceuticals, be injected with an unlimited number of vaccines, expose yourself to unlimited medical imaging radiation, consume an unlimited quantity of chemicals in processed foods and expose yourself to an unlimited quantity of environmental chemical toxins with absolutely no health effects whatsoever!

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong. Pointless, baseless, ungrounded lies!

All the beliefs listed above were compiled from "skeptics" websites. (I'm not going to list those websites here because they don't deserve the search engine rankings, but you can find them yourself through Google, if you wish.)

How very noble of you. I don’t want my readers to be able to fact check, so instead I shall invent some wacky bullshit excuse. Fantastic!

Skeptics aren't consistently skeptical
If you really look closely at the beliefs of "skeptics," you discover their skepticism is selective. They're really skeptical about some things -- like vitamins -- but complete pushovers on others such as the scientific credibility of drug company studies.

Here are some of the many things that "skeptics" should be skeptical about, but aren't:

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the corruption and dishonesty in the pharmaceutical industry. They believe whatever the drug companies say, without asking a single intelligent question.

No, we acknowledge that the pharmaceutical industry is open to “corruption” (whatever that means), that it is driven by profit, and that it can often be quite unethical. But even so, their treatments work!

Skeptics aren't skeptical about medical journals. They believe whatever they read in those journals, even when much of it turns out to be complete science fraud.

Peer-review tries to filter out bullshit, and in the overwhelming majority of cases, succeeds. A paper to be published is sent out to several experts in the field who will check the paper, noting criticisms etc. See here

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the profit motive of the pharmaceutical industry. They believe that drug companies are motivated by goodwill, not by profits.

You must have spoken to some confused skeptics.

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the motivations and loyalties of the FDA. They will swallow, inject or use any product that's FDA approved, without a single reasonable thought about the actual safety of those products.

This may be the first (and only) reasonable claim. Most people will not consider the idea that the medicine they are taking might do them harm if they follow directions. But if we do not trust the FDA to confirm the safety and efficacy of products (homeopathic remedies have to go through these same tests, right? No? Oh...) then who are we to trust?

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the safety of synthetic chemicals used in the food supply. They just swallow whatever poisons the food companies dump into the foods.

Is there any reason that we should be more wary of "synthetic" chemicals? Personally, I'd rather be slugging down some aspartame-filled Diet Coke than munching on a capsule containing naturally occurring hydrogen cyanide. Mmmm, tasty. Again, these food companies are FDA-regulated.

On a side note, why would the food companies aim to poison their customers? The motive is never really explained adequately.

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the enormous dangers of ionizing radiation from mammograms and CT scans. They have somehow convinced themselves that "early detection saves live" when, in reality, "early radiation causes cancer."

There is great debate amongst scientists and skeptics about the safety and effectiveness of mammograms. Don’t make too wide a generalisation.

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the mass-drugging agenda of the psychiatric industry which wants to diagnose everyone with some sort of "mental" disorder. The skeptics just go right along with it without asking a single commonsense question about whether the human brain really needs to be "treated" with a barrage of mind-altering chemicals.

And yet many people come out psychiatrists with only therapy. Why would a psychiatrist miss those many chances to prescribe a drug and pocket the profit themselves? Their big-pharma overlords won’t be happy about that...

Skeptics aren't skeptical about mercury fillings. What harm could mercury possibly do anyway? If the ADA says they're safe, they must be!

Low exposure levels, amalgam is stable etc.

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the demolition-style collapse of the World Trade Center 7 building on September 11, 2001 -- a building that was never hit by airplanes. This beautifully-orchestrated collapse of a hardened structure could only have been accomplished with precision explosives. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwSc...) Astonishingly, "skeptics" have little understanding of the laws of physics. Concrete-and-steel buildings don't magically collapse in a perfect vertical demolition just because of a fire on one floor...

Skeptics are open-minded. I would be open to the idea that the government pulled it off. It’s a nasty thought but I would be open to it - but it can be better explained without government involvement. However, you closed-mindly state that the collapse could “only have been accomplished with precision explosives.” Astonishingly, it seems that YOU have no awareness of the notion that fire spreads. The fire could have started in a wastebin, but if it spreads, it can move from taking up a bin, to an entire floor to, well, many floors. And has been pointed out many times, whilst the temperatures reached would not have been enough to melt steel, at 1000 degrees celsius, steel has only 10% of its strength at room temperature.

Skeptics aren't skeptical about the safety of non-stick cookware, or the dangers of cleaning chemicals in the home, or the contamination of indoor air with chemical fumes from carpets, paints and particle board furniture. To the skeptics, the more chemicals, the better!

No, but often it is many years before any effects are noticeable. Once they are noticed, the offending chemicals are likely to be phased out.

I chose to stop my response there, as the rest is purely drivel. Fictitious, imagined, ad-hominems come as strong as they get. Feel free to take a look for yourself, but there is nothing intellectual to be garnered from such a torturous experience.
Feel free to comment if you have any criticism (of either party) or if you see anything you think I might have missed. Thanks for reading.

There's Nothing In It

2010-01-21T17:41:00.000-08:00

10:23 - Homepathy: There's Nothing In It.

2010-01-09T00:23:00.000-08:00

Gloria Thomas is dead.

Gloria Thomas was just nine months old when she died, as a result of eczema. Why did eczema, an ailment routinely treated with a simple moisturiser, cause her death? Was it because she lived in a third world country, where even the most basic medicines are unavailable? No. Was it because she had a particularly rare form of eczema - an incurable form? No. Was it because she was abandoned by her parents, and not given the treatment that she needed? Well, yes. They gave her homeopathy.

The condition developed by the time Gloria was four months old, and within two months, her skin was constantly torn when she was being dressed and having her nappy changed. Such tears would allow bacteria to enter her bloodstream. Despite being fed properly, by the time she died aged nine months she weighed less than a 12-week-old baby, as her body used all of the nutrients to fight off infection. Little Gloria's defences were so worn down by constantly warring against septicaemia, that, when her parents finally saw sense and took her to a hospital, critically ill from an eye infection, she was unable to fight it off, and died within days.

The parents, from India, where homeopathy is considered to be on par with real, evidenced-based, science-based medicine, have recently been jailed for gross criminal negligence. Their treatment of their child using was deemed to be negligent.

Quite simply, that is down to the fact that homeopathy is a bogus treatment, with no pharmacological effects. The pills are sugar, and nothing but sugar. It is frequently pointed out that homeopathy is not dangerous. If the skeptics are right, how can a sugar pill be dangerous? But the real danger comes from the fact that patients believe that they are being treated for their ailments, when in fact they are receiving no treatment at all. No, sugar won't kill you. But that cancer you're trying to cure with homeopathy? That'll kill you.

Homeopathy is entirely lacking of worth. Boots itself has said that it has no evidence to suggest that homeopathy is effective, and yet it continues to sell it because it is popular. This is the argument of a drug dealer. There is demand, and Boots is simply the supply. You can't take something popular from people.

Boots is taking advantage of the public's ignorance to sell them so-called "remedies" that are completely ineffective. Boots is the leading pharmacist in the UK, and the public trust them to be able to provide them with real medicine, and to not supply them with snake oil.

It is for these reasons that the 10:23 campaign is taking place. Headed by the Merseyside Skeptics Society, it seeks to pressurize Boots into removing homeopathy from their shelves. More information to follow.

For information on how you can get involved, please visit http://www.1023.org.uk, sign the Open Letter to Boots and get in touch with your local branch of Skeptics in the Pub. Glaswegians can find the GSitP website here http://glasgow.skepticsinthepub.org/.

'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

2009-12-06T17:49:00.000-08:00

'Fourteen days to seal history's judgment on this generation'

Today 56 newspapers in 45 countries take the unprecedented step of speaking with one voice through a common editorial. We do so because humanity faces a profound emergency.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet, and with it our prosperity and security. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation. Now the facts have started to speak: 11 of the past 14 years have been the warmest on record, the Arctic ice-cap is melting and last year's inflamed oil and food prices provide a foretaste of future havoc. In scientific journals the question is no longer whether humans are to blame, but how little time we have got left to limit the damage. Yet so far the world's response has been feeble and half-hearted.

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

Few believe that Copenhagen can any longer produce a fully polished treaty; real progress towards one could only begin with the arrival of President Obama in the White House and the reversal of years of US obstructionism. Even now the world finds itself at the mercy of American domestic politics, for the president cannot fully commit to the action required until the US Congress has done so.

But the politicians in Copenhagen can and must agree the essential elements of a fair and effective deal and, crucially, a firm timetable for turning it into a treaty. Next June's UN climate meeting in Bonn should be their deadline. As one negotiator put it: "We can go into extra time but we can't afford a replay."

At the deal's heart must be a settlement between the rich world and the developing world covering how the burden of fighting climate change will be divided — and how we will share a newly precious resource: the trillion or so tonnes of carbon that we can emit before the mercury rises to dangerous levels.

Rich nations like to point to the arithmetic truth that there can be no solution until developing giants such as China take more radical steps than they have so far. But the rich world is responsible for most of the accumulated carbon in the atmosphere – three-quarters of all carbon dioxide emitted since 1850. It must now take a lead, and every developed country must commit to deep cuts which will reduce their emissions within a decade to very substantially less than their 1990 level.

Developing countries can point out they did not cause the bulk of the problem, and also that the poorest regions of the world will be hardest hit. But they will increasingly contribute to warming, and must thus pledge meaningful and quantifiable action of their own. Though both fell short of what some had hoped for, the recent commitments to emissions targets by the world's biggest polluters, the United States and China, were important steps in the right direction.

Social justice demands that the industrialised world digs deep into its pockets and pledges cash to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, and clean technologies to enable them to grow economically without growing their emissions. The architecture of a future treaty must also be pinned down – with rigorous multilateral monitoring, fair rewards for protecting forests, and the credible assessment of "exported emissions" so that the burden can eventually be more equitably shared between those who produce polluting products and those who consume them. And fairness requires that the burden placed on individual developed countries should take into account their ability to bear it; for instance newer EU members, often much poorer than "old Europe", must not suffer more than their richer partners.

The transformation will be costly, but many times less than the bill for bailing out global finance — and far less costly than the consequences of doing nothing.

Many of us, particularly in the developed world, will have to change our lifestyles. The era of flights that cost less than the taxi ride to the airport is drawing to a close. We will have to shop, eat and travel more intelligently. We will have to pay more for our energy, and use less of it.

But the shift to a low-carbon society holds out the prospect of more opportunity than sacrifice. Already some countries have recognized that embracing the transformation can bring growth, jobs and better quality lives. The flow of capital tells its own story: last year for the first time more was invested in renewable forms of energy than producing electricity from fossil fuels.

Kicking our carbon habit within a few short decades will require a feat of engineering and innovation to match anything in our history. But whereas putting a man on the moon or splitting the atom were born of conflict and competition, the coming carbon race must be driven by a collaborative effort to achieve collective salvation.

Overcoming climate change will take a triumph of optimism over pessimism, of vision over short-sightedness, of what Abraham Lincoln called "the better angels of our nature".

It is in that spirit that 56 newspapers from around the world have united behind this editorial. If we, with such different national and political perspectives, can agree on what must be done then surely our leaders can too.

The politicians in Copenhagen have the power to shape history's judgment on this generation: one that saw a challenge and rose to it, or one so stupid that we saw calamity coming but did nothing to avert it. We implore them to make the right choice.

This editorial will be published tomorrow by 56 newspapers around the world in 20 languages including Chinese, Arabic and Russian. The text was drafted by a Guardian team during more than a month of consultations with editors from more than 20 of the papers involved. Like the Guardian most of the newspapers have taken the unusual step of featuring the editorial on their front page.

Tyranny of the Majority

2009-12-06T06:15:00.001-08:00

I was recently told that the views of the majority should overrule the rights of the minority. I was told this in a heated debate with a bigoted Christian, who had begun arguing with me simply for criticizing religion. At one point I was told “I don’t mind if you don’t believe in god, but I mind when you start criticizing Christianity”.

The notion that any idea should be exempt from criticism has been dealt with repeatedly, most recently by Richard Dawkins at an Intelligence Squared debate (the motion, “Atheism is the new fundamentalism), and so I will not go into it. However, I began trying (and never getting very far, not through the slew of ad hominems) to explain that it was not the belief itself that I found so objectionable, but when the beliefs are i) bigoted or ii) forced upon others.

It just so happened that the subject of gay marriage fell into both of these categories. I referenced Ireland’s referendum on divorce, and how Mother Theresa was brought in to campaign for a “No” vote. Had she been successful, the right to separate from an unloving partner would have been denied to the 800,000 or so who voted “Yes”. I was told that this was fine, because that was democracy.

I tried to explain that the views of the majority should not overrule the rights of the minority, but the torrent of bullshit did not cease. I put it to him that, by his ideals, it was right that black people were denied seats on buses, because that was the preference of the majority. The bigot attempted to divert the question by opining that my suggestion that “black people shouldn’t be allowed to marry” (pulled straight from his ass) was racist. I never got the chance to ask if he would be so supportive of the Tyranny of the Majority if (and when) Christians are in the minority. I suspect not.

Which relates quite nicely to some news from this week. The construction of minarets has been banned in Switzerland. This comes after an astonishing 57% of voters elected that the Swiss constitution be edited to include a clause stating that “the construction of minarets is prohibited”.

Aside from the (I’d have thought) unmistakable fact that this act significantly increases Switzerland's chances of being a victim of terror, this is a bad outcome simply because of the intolerance and illiberality that comes with it. Switzerland has now taken a ridiculous decision, to oppress a religious minority, in a showing of nothing other than thinly veiled Islamophobia. In Switzerland, 82% of the population are Christian and 11% irreligious, with only 4% of Swiss conforming to Islam. However, now the views of the 57% are being used to deny the 4% their rights.

Whether there is truth to their views or not (and my views on the veracity of Islam’s claims should be pretty obvious), Muslims should be allowed to practice their beliefs as long as others are not affected unwillingly. Again, if the Christian majority slipped into minority and a vote was held to decide on the prohibition of church spires, I doubt that the Christians would be quite so pleased.

For a much more in-depth post on the minaret ban, visit The Not-Quite-So-Friendly Humanist.

Thanks for reading.

Ariane Sherine at Glasgow Skeptics in the Pub

2009-12-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

On Thursday 17 December, journalist and comedy writer Ariane Sherine will talk about creating the global Atheist Bus Campaign, now running in twelve countries across the world, and how it started with just 700 words on The Guardian’s website. She’ll also talk about editing the new charity book The Atheist’s Guide To Christmas, which features 42 of the world’s most entertaining atheists, including Richard Dawkins, Charlie Brooker and Derren Brown. Ariane Sherine is a television comedy writer, journalist and the creator of the Atheist Bus Campaign.

She writes regularly for The Guardian, and has also contributed to The Observer, The Independent, The Sunday Times, New Statesman and the NME, as well as writing for television shows including My Family (BBC1) and Countdown (Channel 4). Ariane won a Special Award from the National Secular Society for the Atheist Bus Campaign, and was a nominee for Secularist of the Year 2009. She was asked to give the first humanist equivalent of Thought For The Day, which was broadcast on Radio 4 in January. She was born in 1980 and lives in London. You can find out more about Ariane on her official website.

Having heard Ariane speak at TAM London in October, I can personally guarantee that her talk is brilliant and that she is very friendly and open to questions. She also has a penchant for writing massive screeds of text when asked to sign a book - and it must be done using a fountain pen!

Our Skeptics in the Pub Saturnalia Special is bound to go down fantastically, so I hope to see you there.

If you wish to get the book signed, and don't yet have it, you can get it cheap here:

Requested donation: £3, to pay for the speaker's travel and accommodation.

A systematic destruction of Melanie Phillips’ pitiful Question Time rant

2009-11-28T13:44:00.000-08:00

“Is global warming a scam perpetuated by a vocal minority, which has been seized on by government as an excuse to raise taxes, and promote false green credentials?”

David Dimbleby turns first to Melanie Philips, who begins, “Yes.”

And it only gets worse. After a 100-second rant, condemning a small group of four or five scientists who seem to have been tampering with data, she was then pressed to conclude, and delivered 17 seconds (a mere 15% of her total time) of scientific claims. They were as follows:

The seas are not rising any more than is any way out of the ordinary
The ice is not decreasing

It is increasing

Polar bears are increasing in number
Temperature is going down, not up

I was impressed with Marcus Brigstocke’s refutation of Phillips’ claims (less so with her infantile giggling), but some felt that the 105 seconds of evidence given by Brigstocke was too much (517% more time than Phillips gave to evidence, anyway), whilst at the same time criticizing his evidence for being “too narrow”. However, I decided that it was important to deconstruct exactly what she said, and to ensure that it was indeed a truthful statement.

The first specific(-ish) claim, after the blanket statement, “there is no evidence for global warming” is “The seas are not rising in any way that is out of the ordinary.” I suppose that that depends on how you define ordinary. All that can be said is that for 100 years, sea levels have been increasing at a mean rate of 1.8 ± 0.1 mm/year [1], but have accelerated within the past decade resulting in sea levels rising at rates of 3.1 ± 0.7 mm/year [2].

“The seas are not rising any more than is any way out of the ordinary”? DEBUNKED

The next two claims will be dealt with as one, as along the way to disproving the first, we disprove the second. Phillips claimed that the ice is not decreasing, and that it is, in fact, increasing. The raw data is unavailable to me, but NASA has helpfully constructed a diagram, to effectively convey the required information.

As is explained on the NASA webpage from which the above image originates, the yellow contour line shows the median minimum from the years 1979 to 2000. The red line indicates the 2007 minimum ice extent. What is most spectacular is that the green line, the line which represents the 2005 minimum is the previous minimum. Each of the lines is based on sea ice extent. As NASA explain, for each pixel, a threshold of 15% is set. If more than 15% of the pixel is ice, the entire pixel is taken to be so. Because of this, the above image over-represents the spread of the ice, and so, for this reason, the reality is actually bleaker than that suggested by the above diagram. [3]

“The ice is not decreasing, it is increasing”? DEBUNKED

Next was a claim I had not expected to hear, that polar bears are increasing in number. I think that the Question Time audience may have been amused, but I’m not sure; the laughter from the arctic ice claim was still going strong. Only the slightest bit of research was required to vindicate my presupposition that Melanie Phillips was wrong.

A New Scientist article [4], dated May 2007 explained that “there are thought to be between 20,000 and 25,000 polar bears in 19 populations around the Arctic.” For most of the populations, numbers are not known [5], however the article concedes that two of the populations are increasing, but that these two populations “both in north-eastern Canada, were severely reduced by hunting in the past and are recovering thanks to the protection they and their prey now enjoy.”

It turns out that the best-studied population of polar bears fell in number by 22% from 1987 to 2004. A similar trend has now been seen in another group. The US Fish and Wilidlife Service concluded that “shrinking sea ice is the primary cause for the decline seen in these populations”.

So, yes, some polar bear populations are increasing in number, but irrelevantly so. The populations which do not have such a crucial reason for doing better than in the past are decreasing in number, and the US Fish and Wildlife service believes that this is due to shrinking ice.

“Polar bears are increasing in number” DEBUNKED

And so now, to the final, ridiculous claim. The most ridiculous of them all; that temperatures are not increasing, they are, in fact, decreasing.

Well, as Marcus explains “2009 was amongst the top five hottest years on record; 2010 is predicted to be the hottest year on record [as of June 2010, it has been the second hottest [*]]. The last ten years have all been amongst the hottest 15 years on record.”

NASA once again supplies the data [6] that contributes to this diagram. It can very clearly be seen that the global temperature is increasing [7].

Climate “skeptics” frequently point out that 1998 is the hottest year on record, and that all years since have been cooler. This is true, but is a ridiculously shameless example of cherry-picking. 1998 featured a rather significant anomaly; the strongest, warmest El Nino of the 20th century. Not only is picking the year of 1998 as a comparison cherry-picking, so is referring to that particular source, the Climatic Research Unit [8]. For whilst the CRU lists 1998 as the warmest year on record, NASA's data suggest that 2005 was warmer, though only by a small amount [9].

There is still an upward trend in the mean temperature of the earth [10] and while the extent to which the earth may heat up (and cool in places) may not be known, one thing that is certain is that the earth is not cooling down.

“Temperature is going down, not up”? DEBUNKED

A friend of mine, who happens to agree with Melanie Phillips, refuses to hold accounts on social network accounts and refuses to attach his name to his words online. He is concerned that one day in the future, when he may be under scrutiny, what he said in the past may return to haunt him.

If I am going to give a message, I do not want to be ashamed to have my name attached to it. If I am going to make a claim, I want to be able to stand behind it and defend it. If I want to assert that something is true, I want there to be evidence that it is so; I want there to be justification behind my words. I can only help but feel that Ms. Phillips and my friend would do well to abide by the same rule.

As Adam Rutherford, an editor at Nature, stated whilst watching Question Time:

“It is astonishing how much more the general public knows about climate change than climate scientists. Who knew? Well she certainly knows much more about her science than I.”

[1] http://bit.ly/5B8709 - Sea Level Rise: 1880 - 1980

[2] http://bit.ly/7GvPdd - IPCC Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Levels

[3] http://bit.ly/77eTGA - NASA Sea Ice Minimum

[4] http://bit.ly/4K5ssg - New Scientist - Polar Bears Increasing

[5] http://bit.ly/68dyv8 - USFWS Polar Bears

[6] http://bit.ly/7nUMAY - NASA Temperature Data

[7] http://bit.ly/7DXeGX - Global Temperatures

[8] http://bit.ly/85Cinj - CRU Temperature

[9] http://bit.ly/6ghkD8 - NASA Temperature Graph

[10] http://bit.ly/7z88bR - Surface and Satellite Temperatures Summary

[*] http://bit.ly/dhlQ1d - First Six Months of 2010 Second Warmest on Record

Homeopathy, from Boots and the NHS

2009-11-26T21:58:00.000-08:00

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday.

In the conclusion to a conversation, I asked my boss, who is not anti-skeptic, but seems to enjoy disagreeing with me, “is it unethical to sell someone a “medicine” that doesn’t work?” And he replied: “Yes”.

This astounded me simply because for the entire preceding conversation, he had been agreeing with a co-worker, who is happy to accept any form of alternative medicine as “medicine”. (Chiropractic? Check. Acupuncture? Check. Herbal remedies? Check.)

However, despite the fact that it is my views that are supported by evidence, it is me that is mocked for them. I will try and discuss these issues with my colleague, and explain to him why he is wrong. But it doesn’t matter, because “65 million herbal remedy buyers can’t be wrong.”

Which is an interesting thing to claim, given yesterday’s admission by Boots that they sell homeopathic remedies not because they work, but because they are popular. In a debate hosted in Parliament, evaluating the merit of supplying homeopathy on the NHS, Mr Bennett, employed by Boots to be their Professional Standards Director revealed:

“There is certainly a consumer demand for these products... I have no evidence to suggest they are efficacious. It is about consumer choice for us and a large number of our customers believe they are efficacious.”[1]

Customers believe they are efficacious? Is that relevant? Doctors are employed to diagnose the general public, and to treat them. But why, why don’t members of the general public decide what disease they have, and how it would best be remedied? Is it because the general public are not trained in medicine, not qualified or knowledgeable enough to make decisions on what is effective or not? I think that yes, yes it is. And so arguing that it is okay to sell it, simply because it is popular (which seems to be approaching circularity) is simply passing on the blame to the consumer.

Racking my brains (yes, I have several) to come up with an analogy, the best I could conceive is the issue of an electronics store salesman. He tells you that your TV could be even better if you bought a fancy HDMI cable. He explains that it’s so brilliant because it has four layers of high-density shielding, along with a “dielectric”, which will provide maximum signal strength. However, research into such monstrously priced TV cables has yielded that the picture quality does not improve enough to be noticed by the human eye. But of course, the buyer, having just spent $100 on their cable will convince themselves that their purchase was worth it. A placebo effect if you will - simply by treating their system, they have improved the picture.

A salesman/a homeopath will dazzle you with fancy words, explaining how the cable improves your picture, or how the sugar pill will cure your malaria. However, a scientist will say, “Unfortunately, there is no evidence that these treatments are efficacious.”

As it so happens, The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain also gave evidence yesterday. The recommendations made by this body included:

“Unless or until such a time as efficacy of a homeopathic remedy can be proven... claims of efficacy should be removed from the label of a homeopathic product.”

“Unless or until such a time as efficacy of a homeopathic remedy can be proven... labelling on the homeopathic product should make it very clear that the efficacy of the homeopathic preparation has not been proven.”

“Patients are made aware of the fact that there is no scientific basis for the use of homeopathy.”[2]

The Merseyside Skeptics Society has written an open letter to Boots, requesting that they “remove this bogus therapy from [their] shelves. The full letter can be read on MSS’s website, and I fully recommend that you do so. I was rather shocked to read that “the Boots website even went so far as to tell patients that ‘after taking a homeopathic medicine your symptoms may become slightly worse,’ and that this is ‘a sign that the body’s natural energies have started to counteract the illness’”[3]. What a dangerous thing to say. This advice tells the patients to expect their condition to get worse, and advocates doing nothing about it. This is highly irresponsible behaviour to recommend.

It is horribly unethical to sell patients a “medicine” that does not work beyond the placebo effect (which a real drug would deliver in addition to its real, pharmacological effects). Much worse is to recommend that they seek no attention when their condition deteriorates.

Take, for example, the case of Paul Howie from Ireland. He died in 2003 due to untreated cancer. Which is to say that he was treated by a “natural health therapist” who warned that death would await if he took conventional (i.e. real) medicine. He was instead prescribed some homeopathic uselessness, and his condition deteriorated - remember, Boots recommends that this should be of no concern. He died of suffocation. The tumour obstructed his airway.[4]

Boots is seen as a reliable source of medical advice. By promoting homeopathy, and by encouraging complacency at the complication of an illness, Boots are failing to meet customers’ expectations; the expectations that Boots will sell products and give advice that will help the customer back to health. Often, what they get is a lie, a sham. Bogus. And these bogus treatments they are happily promoting are sold because they are popular; that is, they make Boots a lot of money.

Supplying homeopathy on the NHS lends it a credibility it clearly does not deserve. This unwarranted reputation will make the general public more likely to request this fabled medicine, which, they have heard, causes no side effects. Such a venture into the land of woo woo would waste taxpayers‘ money, which could otherwise have been spent on effective medicine, or on reducing waiting lists, or on purchasing better equipment to replace outdated technologies.

Giving homeopathy on the NHS would result in deaths, and the blame would lie entirely at the feet of the dyed-in-the-wool homeopaths who are unbudging in their irrational faith in the efficacy of their treatment. The homeopaths, and the useless MPs who failed their people.

For a full list of the evidence given at yesterday’s parliamentary debate, see: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmsctech/memo/homeopathy/contents.htm

[1] http://bit.ly/60f4ua - Paul Bennett, Boots

[2] http://bit.ly/5SN8D4 - Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

[3] http://bit.ly/8kHLHV - Merseyside Skeptics Society Open Letter

[4] http://bit.ly/8cUf0y - Paul Howie, untreated cancer