Keep the Libel Laws out of Science

I don't have much time to write about this at the moment, but I've meant to put something up here about Simon Singh's libel case for a couple of weeks now.

Singh wrote a piece for the Guardian in 2008, in which he stated the following;

The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

The British Chiropractic Association objected to this passage (and this passage alone) .They were offered a right of reply in the Guardian and various other non-legal courses of action, but declined the opportunity to present evidence that would have shown their remedies to be efficacious . Rather than present the evidence to the contrary, the BCA sued Singh for libel.

This is most worrying. Under British libel laws, Singh must now prove that what he said is correct. Even worse, in a preliminary hearing, Justice Eady determined that when Singh wrote that "[the BCA] happily promotes bogus treatments." he meant that the BCA knew that the treatments were bogus.

Singh disputes this interpretation. He is quite prepared to believe that the BCA honestly believes their treatments work. His point is very specifically that the treatments have not been shown to work. He should know. He's the co-author of Trick or Treatment?: Alternative Medicine on Trial, a book that sceptically examines alternative medicine claims. Edzard Ernst, with whom he wrote the book, examined 70 trials that looks at the effects of chiropractic on non back-related conditions and found no evidence to suggest it worked. Despite not accepting Justice Eady's interpretation of his intent, Singh will be forced to defend that meaning in court, a ludicrous situation.

Fighting a libel claim in the UK is 140 times more expensive than the European average. It frequently has the effect of protecting those who deserve to be exposed, simply by dint of the fact that most people do not have the money to fight it.

The bottom line is this: it should be acceptable for legitimate concerns about issues affecting the health and welbeing of the public to be examined by informed writers. If they get it wrong, simply showing the evidence should be sufficient. Running to the libel courts suggests something else entirely.

Simon Singh, as a successful author, has decided to fight the BCA. His initial plan is to appeal Justice Eady's ruling on Singh's intentions when writing the piece. He says he's fortunate enough to be in a position where he can afford to fight, but he has asked people support the Sense About Science campaign to change the libel laws. Please take a look at the Facebook group and consider signing the petition to get the disgraceful UK libel laws changed.

Music Time

Every Friday, my daughters go to 'Music Time' at the local baptist church. Since I have wangled it so I get every other Friday off, one week in two, I take the girls and give K___ a bit of time off.

My mother-in-law often makes cracks about me going to something being put on by a church. I do point out to her that I'm an atheist not a Satanist and consequently not actually all that concerned about a fictional entity. I'm not entirely sure that she doesn't think I'll melt as soon as I step over the threshold.

Music Time is run by a few women from the church and there are a few mentions of God and Jesus. Mostly it's just Humpty, Incy Wincy and counting songs about monkeys jumping on beds. 95% of it is entirely secular.

There are one or two things that do make me wince a bit. They do a song about God's flood killing all the sinners which concludes with a verse proclaiming how this demonstrates God's love for humanity. Disregarding the fact that the Biblical flood never happened, what struck me about the song was the disconnect between the verses about God killing all the sinners and then this lovely-dovey coda. There was no attempt at a rationale as to how God killing all these people equated to love and it just made my brain stutter and go, 'eh?' Only a child could sing such things and accept there was a no problem there.

They also do a song that includes the lyrics, "This is the nose God chose for me, thank you Lord!" and in my head, I always substitute the word 'genetics' for 'God'. I'm aware this is wanky, and I don't attempt to stop my daughter singing their version, but it is nonsense. Would someone who was facially-disfigured also be expected to praise God for gifting them a schnoz that they couldn't breathe through, for example?

The song I do enjoy is the old one about the wise man building his house upon the rock:

The Wise Man Built His House

The wise man built his house upon the rock (*3)
And the rain came tumbling down...

Oh, the rain came down, And the floods came up (*3)
And the wise man's house stood firm.

The foolish man built his house upon the sand (*3)
And the rain came tumbling down

Oh, the rain came down, And the floods came up (*3)
And the house on the sand fell down!

The only reason I like that one ('like' being a relative term pertaining to children's songs you hear waaay too often rather than music one might listen to through choice) is that I amuse my small brain by pretending the rock is analogous to reason, science and scepticism, and the sand is analogous to religious faith, thus cleverly satirising the intended point of the song. I am aware this may also reveal something quite pathetic about me...

Anyway, after the singing is done, they put out a few snacks and we all natter about how awful little Tarquin and Jemima are. Friday just gone, a man wandered into the hall and started chatting to me. I recognised him as the minister of the church from photo on a board in the entrance hall, though I couldn't have told you his name. He asked me about what I do for a living and probed me as to whether I'd always intended to do what I do as a profession. I said that I hadn't, and explained how I'd had to get a post-graduate degree in order to allow me to take up my current discipline.

"And what about you?" I asked. "Did you always intend to go into the church?"
"No, I was a scientist," he revealed. "In fact, I was in the middle of a PHD in biology when I became a Christian."

A biologist who became a baptist minister? Could my ears be hearing correctly? Thing is, I've always steered clear of getting involved in any religious discussions at Music Time. It's not like the subject came up a lot, but obviously, with the people organising the thing being in the church, naturally it was mentioned in passing a few times. However, no one ever asked a direct question, so I never felt the need to say anything about my own beliefs (or lack thereof), but this was too good to let go.

"May I ask you a somewhat loaded question?" I asked.
He cocked an eyebrow but said that I could. "If you were a biologist, where do you stand on the issue of evolution versus Creationism?"
He considered this and then answered. It hadn't occurred to me at the time, but of course, he might have thought I was a Creationist, so was weighing what he said from that perspective. He told me that when he'd first become a Christian, he had felt it was important to believe the Bible literally, but, having considered his position further, he concluded that it wasn't important to believe in a six day creation, and that it was, in his opinion, metaphor designed for the bronze age target audience. What was important, he said, was that God was behind it.
I told him that although I wasn't a believer, his position seemed to me to be the logical position to take if one were one (which is not to say there aren't still issues with cognitive dissonance, but at least you're not constantly organising tag team cage fights between reality, logic and evidence in the blue corner versus faith, wishful thinking and putting your hands over your ears and going 'la la la' in the red in your own bloody head).

We ended up having a good chat about what his biological discipline had been (regrettably, it was a very narrow field of interest and I wasn't familiar with the area, so I've forgotten it) and discussed the Simon Singh libel case among other things science-related. It was something of a relief to know that whatever differences we may have - and I'm 100% sure we do - they're not Creationists.

Since first becoming interested in the evolution\Creationism battle a few years back, I've spent quite a lot of time and effort in attempting to do my bit to hold back the encroaching tide of stupidity, and a good number of the people I've had discussions with, particularly online, have been so egregiously idiotic that it's difficult to not fall into a lazy default characterisation of everyone with a religious belief. Once you've been told the most blatant lies by someone, you start to tar everyone with the same brush. It's not something I'd do with the sort of C of E type of Christians, but anyone "with a personal relationship with God", I'll admit I have a tendency to prejudge. It's good to have such things brought to your attention.

It was still genetics that gave 'em that snout though.

Electioneering

Oh fiddlesticks! Who to vote for tomorrow?

Lincolnshire is a traditionally Tory county, and I suspect that's unlikely to change, especially given these elections (both local and European) will unquestionably be treated as a referendum on national politics even if it is a mind-bendingly idiotic way to behave.

What is in contention locally is the second party. Traditionally, it's Labour, but they're unlikely to do well given the general contempt in which they're currently held, and regrettably, given the large numbers of immigrants in the county - mainly Eastern European and Portuguese - and the issues around this, the BNP have made headway too. They may do quite well and though my vote isn't going to amount to a whole hill of freshly picked beans, I am morally obliged to cast it against them.

The BNP are also seeking to make gains at the European level too. With a low turnout expected, they could make big gains. The fucks.

UKIP are, as comedian Mitch Benn so succinctly remarked, the Waitrose BNP and the BNP themselves are, of course, the same knuckle-draggers they've always been (perhaps, I grudgingly concede, wearing a slightly better ironed shirt than previous years), and obviously neither of them gets my vote.

All the main parties are tainted by the expenses debacle and in any case, the Tories are just going to be horrific when they get in at the next general election and Cameron's just a joke, Labour are scaling new heights of incompetence by the hour and the Lib Dems are, damningly, the Lib Dems; nice people but you'd feel nervous about letting them have the steering wheel.

Greens are, in my limited experience, also nice and well-meaning people and I broadly support their views on the environment, but they've also got some fairly ridiculous views about a lot of pseudo-science, and I'm not about to vote for that.

Then you've got the independents, who are generally single issue campaigners. Just white noise, essentially. Maybe something for the political equivalent of My Bloody Valentine fans.

Where's my "None of the above" box? In reality, I probably do know who I'm going to vote for, but they're not votes I'm casting with a great deal of joy, but rather with obligation.