As I'm sure you'll be able to tell, the text below is not my blog post. I've happily agreed to support the libel reform movement by posting their message as part of a mass blog event featuring some of the biggest blogs of all. In my more humble capacity, I heartily endorse this initiative. New post by me to come in a few days.
This week is the first anniversary of the report Free Speech is Not for Sale, which highlighted the oppressive nature of English libel law. In short, the law is extremely hostile to writers, while being unreasonably friendly towards powerful corporations and individuals who want to silence critics.
The English libel law is particularly dangerous for bloggers, who are generally not backed by publishers, and who can end up being sued in London regardless of where the blog was posted. The internet allows bloggers to reach a global audience, but it also allows the High Court in London to have a global reach.
You can read more about the peculiar and grossly unfair nature of English libel law at the website of the Libel Reform Campaign. You will see that the campaign is not calling for the removal of libel law, but for a libel law that is fair and which would allow writers a reasonable opportunity to express their opinion and then defend it.
The good news is that the British Government has made a commitment to draft a bill that will reform libel, but it is essential that bloggers and their readers send a strong signal to politicians so that they follow through on this promise. You can do this by joining me and over 50,000 others who have signed the libel reform petition at http://www.libelreform.org/sign
Remember, you can sign the petition whatever your nationality and wherever you live. Indeed, signatories from overseas remind British politicians that the English libel law is out of step with the rest of the free world.
If you have already signed the petition, then please encourage friends, family and colleagues to sign up. Moreover, if you have your own blog, you can join hundreds of other bloggers by posting this blog on your own site. There is a real chance that bloggers could help change the most censorious libel law in the democratic world.
We must speak out to defend free speech. Please sign the petition for libel reform at http://www.libelreform.org/sign
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Is it too early to ask the big questions?
So this is the difficult second blog entry. I wasn't sure whether or not to do it at first and then, if so, what to talk about. But an obvious topic presented itself, so here it is. I attended the first Cardiff Skeptics in the Pub meeting last night. It was a great evening and Simon Perry, who spoke in some detail of his adventures in skepticism, was extremely entertaining. Being the first of these events in Cardiff, everyone was getting to know each other and trying to connect. A common question I encountered was "what brings you here tonight?" and on the way home afterwards this made me think about that question: "why am I here?"
I think I'm skeptical by nature and I associate this with having always been interested in understanding how things work. When I was 6 years old I used a screwdriver to take apart one of those old fashioned BT rotary telephones to see if I could make it into a walkie talkie. Not surprisingly I failed, fatally damaging the phone in the process, but what my parents lost in a working telephone, I gained in a new level of understanding into how the phone worked - I could see what happened when you turned the dial. For me, this is what science is all about - it's nicely summarised as "figuring out how stuff works" and it's a process for doing that in a robust, repeatable way. At the age of 6 I didn't understand deeper layers of understanding in the process - electrical pulses, the circuitry in the phone, switching networks, relay stations, electron flow, etc. I still don't understand many of these things in detail. But any and all of these could be described as "how it works".
I attended Skeptics in the Pub because I'm interested in how things work and I don't understand how people can believe in things that clearly don't work. If you read that sentence twice you'll note that consequently I'm also interested in understanding how those people work, too. My ambition as a skeptic is not to convert people to my way of thinking, it's just to make someone think "how does that work?" Because that's the start of critical thinking. Any conclusions that person draws from then on will be more valuable for having been understood rather than merely memorised. I'm always interested to know other people's reasons for getting involved in skepticism, too, as I think if it's to succeed in the goal of reducing the influence of pseudo-science and just plain fraud on the wider public then it has to appeal to a broad audience. And it's this goal that appeals to me and makes me want to be involved in Skeptics in the Pub. It may sound idealistic but I hope that we can each make the world even just a little bit better by helping expose fraud, question unfounded assumptions and publicise trickery.
But "why am I here" is of course also considered a metaphysical question. For me, it's a simple one - happenstance, or something like the anthropic principle, if you prefer a more scientific name for it. There is no "by design" reason. Why should one be required? However for many others this question seems to require a "meaningful" answer. And I think it's people for whom my answer is either not sufficient or just too alarming that are most at risk of accepting much of the pseudo-scientific nonsense without thinking it through. So perhaps the best way for us as skeptics to help is to encourage people to become more critical in their thinking. And for that I'd go back to the story of telephone dismantling - by helping people to enjoy the process of figuring stuff out they will naturally develop critical thinking skills. And by starting with that first level of explanation detail, we can hope to avoid immediate recoil from 'skepticism', 'rationalism' or, most scary of all, 'atheism'. So, the next time someone asks me "why are you here", I'll try to be more careful in my response.
I think I'm skeptical by nature and I associate this with having always been interested in understanding how things work. When I was 6 years old I used a screwdriver to take apart one of those old fashioned BT rotary telephones to see if I could make it into a walkie talkie. Not surprisingly I failed, fatally damaging the phone in the process, but what my parents lost in a working telephone, I gained in a new level of understanding into how the phone worked - I could see what happened when you turned the dial. For me, this is what science is all about - it's nicely summarised as "figuring out how stuff works" and it's a process for doing that in a robust, repeatable way. At the age of 6 I didn't understand deeper layers of understanding in the process - electrical pulses, the circuitry in the phone, switching networks, relay stations, electron flow, etc. I still don't understand many of these things in detail. But any and all of these could be described as "how it works".
I attended Skeptics in the Pub because I'm interested in how things work and I don't understand how people can believe in things that clearly don't work. If you read that sentence twice you'll note that consequently I'm also interested in understanding how those people work, too. My ambition as a skeptic is not to convert people to my way of thinking, it's just to make someone think "how does that work?" Because that's the start of critical thinking. Any conclusions that person draws from then on will be more valuable for having been understood rather than merely memorised. I'm always interested to know other people's reasons for getting involved in skepticism, too, as I think if it's to succeed in the goal of reducing the influence of pseudo-science and just plain fraud on the wider public then it has to appeal to a broad audience. And it's this goal that appeals to me and makes me want to be involved in Skeptics in the Pub. It may sound idealistic but I hope that we can each make the world even just a little bit better by helping expose fraud, question unfounded assumptions and publicise trickery.
But "why am I here" is of course also considered a metaphysical question. For me, it's a simple one - happenstance, or something like the anthropic principle, if you prefer a more scientific name for it. There is no "by design" reason. Why should one be required? However for many others this question seems to require a "meaningful" answer. And I think it's people for whom my answer is either not sufficient or just too alarming that are most at risk of accepting much of the pseudo-scientific nonsense without thinking it through. So perhaps the best way for us as skeptics to help is to encourage people to become more critical in their thinking. And for that I'd go back to the story of telephone dismantling - by helping people to enjoy the process of figuring stuff out they will naturally develop critical thinking skills. And by starting with that first level of explanation detail, we can hope to avoid immediate recoil from 'skepticism', 'rationalism' or, most scary of all, 'atheism'. So, the next time someone asks me "why are you here", I'll try to be more careful in my response.
Monday, 13 September 2010
Should your first blog be driven by bile?
I am not a blogger. That's to say I've never felt the need to blog. I never thought I had enough to say that was important enough. The most important things of my life are ordinary and average. I have a lovely wife and two great young kids, a job I enjoy and a good life. These keep me very busy. But here I am for the first time and it's because I read something today that genuinely disgusted me. Actually shocked me, despite my belief that I'm fairly hard to shock. It was this: http://bit.ly/aJuyMN (thanks to @rhysmorgan via @penguingalaxy).
I'm a recent signup on Twitter and although I've been interested in skeptical matters for many years, Twitter gives a sense of urgency that I now realise I had been lacking. That disgusting series of posts started less that a week ago.
Since becoming a father I've found it impossible to avoid fearing the worst for my children from time to time and I can only attempt to empathise with the truly horrific situation that this mother is in. I can easily imagine why a parent in that situation would try anything to save their child, no matter how irrational it may seem. To me, this only adds to my disgust that the response she had was to be told that she was responsible for his death if she didn't immediately stop all treatment based on thousands of man years of work, evidence, trials and the gradually incremental nature of scientifically based medicine, in favour of, and I still pause in disbelief to say this, cottage cheese, yoghurt and linseed oil (flax seed to the Americans).
Now I'm not naive enough to think that I could change these people's minds. However it's made me think about what skepticism can hope to achieve and if all I could ever hope to do would be to make one person be slightly more thoughtful about what these people and any anyone else like them are doing, I'd consider the time spent here completely worthwhile. Plus if I decide to do this again then it can only help to start with an analysis of such an easy target as Health Wyze.
So, I'd like to pick apart some of their content a little. First and foremost, faith. These people are religious. Fine. I'm not, but fine. Their website may indeed be "Powered by God's Medicine" as they claim. This does not excuse an unwillingness to acknowledge scientific method and historical facts. What bothers me most about their wielding of religion is the aggression:
Back to those historical facts. Their apparent heroine Johanna Budwig, the inventor of the "Budwig protocol" of cottage cheese and linseed oil, may or may not have been Nobel nominated six times, I don't know, but neither do they, since Nobel nominations are always kept secret for 50 years after the award[1]. Aspartame was not banned by the FDA in 1980. Approval was delayed whilst evidence that it causes brain tumours in rats was investigated and proven dubious and irrelevant to humans[2]. Amish communities do suffer from autism[3]. Needless to say, their statements lack citation to support them.
They appear to be believers in a number of conspiracy theories. Most notable to them is the 'big pharma' nonsense based on the assumption that every pharmaceutical firm and, presumably, most if not all of their employees, all the peer reviewers of every medical journal, the American government and all the world's journalists have managed to keep secret for at least 50 years a system of ignoring cures, promoting ineffective and unnecessary medicine and actually causing disease. Cancer, Swine flu, HPV, SIDS, Thiomersal, you name it, they'll include it. They also have personal links to at least one other similarly evidence lacking conspiracy website - ae911truth.org.
Finally I'd like to end on a more positive note by highlighting the presumably unrecognised irony in their comments about another group referring to themselves as Health Wyze:
[1] http://nobelprize.org/nomination/nomination_facts.html
[2] http://archive.gao.gov/d28t5/133460.pdf
[3] http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/Seizures/2954
I'm a recent signup on Twitter and although I've been interested in skeptical matters for many years, Twitter gives a sense of urgency that I now realise I had been lacking. That disgusting series of posts started less that a week ago.
Since becoming a father I've found it impossible to avoid fearing the worst for my children from time to time and I can only attempt to empathise with the truly horrific situation that this mother is in. I can easily imagine why a parent in that situation would try anything to save their child, no matter how irrational it may seem. To me, this only adds to my disgust that the response she had was to be told that she was responsible for his death if she didn't immediately stop all treatment based on thousands of man years of work, evidence, trials and the gradually incremental nature of scientifically based medicine, in favour of, and I still pause in disbelief to say this, cottage cheese, yoghurt and linseed oil (flax seed to the Americans).
Now I'm not naive enough to think that I could change these people's minds. However it's made me think about what skepticism can hope to achieve and if all I could ever hope to do would be to make one person be slightly more thoughtful about what these people and any anyone else like them are doing, I'd consider the time spent here completely worthwhile. Plus if I decide to do this again then it can only help to start with an analysis of such an easy target as Health Wyze.
So, I'd like to pick apart some of their content a little. First and foremost, faith. These people are religious. Fine. I'm not, but fine. Their website may indeed be "Powered by God's Medicine" as they claim. This does not excuse an unwillingness to acknowledge scientific method and historical facts. What bothers me most about their wielding of religion is the aggression:
You are planning to willingly submit your own child to their dangerous and ineffective sorcery, and yet you expect a miracle to fix what you are unwilling to fix yourself? Will God really help you if you refuse to have faith, and refuse to help your child, or must you learn the hard way like 99% of the people?What a truly Christian attitude. Apparently their God demands no doubt. Nor even an entirely understandable desperate search for anything that may help this seriously ill child.
Back to those historical facts. Their apparent heroine Johanna Budwig, the inventor of the "Budwig protocol" of cottage cheese and linseed oil, may or may not have been Nobel nominated six times, I don't know, but neither do they, since Nobel nominations are always kept secret for 50 years after the award[1]. Aspartame was not banned by the FDA in 1980. Approval was delayed whilst evidence that it causes brain tumours in rats was investigated and proven dubious and irrelevant to humans[2]. Amish communities do suffer from autism[3]. Needless to say, their statements lack citation to support them.
They appear to be believers in a number of conspiracy theories. Most notable to them is the 'big pharma' nonsense based on the assumption that every pharmaceutical firm and, presumably, most if not all of their employees, all the peer reviewers of every medical journal, the American government and all the world's journalists have managed to keep secret for at least 50 years a system of ignoring cures, promoting ineffective and unnecessary medicine and actually causing disease. Cancer, Swine flu, HPV, SIDS, Thiomersal, you name it, they'll include it. They also have personal links to at least one other similarly evidence lacking conspiracy website - ae911truth.org.
Finally I'd like to end on a more positive note by highlighting the presumably unrecognised irony in their comments about another group referring to themselves as Health Wyze:
We have no desire to be associated with these "spiritual energy" healers, who are less than a stone's throw away from open witchcraft. At best, it is faith healing minus the faith; but we doubt this is a best case scenario. Unfortunately, heathenistic people have overrun and infected natural medicine.There's really nothing I can add to that. I'll just back away slowly...
[1] http://nobelprize.org/nomination/nomination_facts.html
[2] http://archive.gao.gov/d28t5/133460.pdf
[3] http://www.medpagetoday.com/Neurology/Seizures/2954
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