I note your angry rant on Watts Up With That. I see it as another in a series of posturing but pointless open letters that find a circular filing cabinet at their destination and one of those thank you slips that tells you, in words of one syllable, to go forth. What did happen to that petition Monckton got up at WuWT?
Anyway, why should the producers of a TV show listen to you? Why should ey listen to me? They are a business and their main thought is profit. A few people with an axe (I'm British) to grind aren't going to change their minds.
One of your main objections is to "climate expert" Daniel Abbasi. Perhaps he is, perhaps he isn't, but I'm not taking your word for it.
You see, my definition of climate expert relies on the idea that someone really has come up the hard way to reach the summit of climate science. Not just someone who has spent an armchair thinking about it.
Thing is, Bob, I don't seem to be able to find out what you actually did for a living, what your qualifications really are and other than having a research interest, what reason I should choose to take what you say seriously. I know that Lord Monckton and Willis Eschenbach have no qualifications in climate science. I know that Anthony Watts is a weatherman for a little radio station in California and weather gear salesman (no conflict of interest there). And over at WUWT we have a range of engineers, park rangers, failed bankers and the like posting their incoherent (as a collection) of ideas on climate. Your thoughts turn up there too. So you must be happy in that company.
I know that many climate change pseudo-skeptics have no proper credentials in the area of climate science. Nor do I. But I'm not pretending to save the world from the global climate conspiracy (sic) or anything of the kind. I'm just pointing out hypocrisy.
I hate hypocrisy and I hate fake bluster. The TV company wants to make a TV show you don't like e look of, well, so what. It's a free market, isn't it. They can make what they want.
Or is your complain like mine against What Doctors Don't Tell You? That perhaps the TV company should be better with the science. I bet they are, because you are not careful with the science and you have a proven track record of being very poor with criticism. In my moan about WDDTY the science is on my side as it is with climate change. You might not like the science but in the end it will be the evidence that gives us the answer. Since the last decade was the hottest on record, it gets harder and harder for you to deny what stares us in the face, those of us prepared to look.
Never mind. You will have a seond chance to koan when the series is broadcast. Or you could watch Ancient Aliens or whatever it's called. Complain about that please, if you are so concerned about science. Thought not.
Yours
Catmando
Monday, 16 December 2013
Sunday, 15 December 2013
Scientists are humans too
There is a theme running through a lot of the contrarian strands: scientists should do science. Since I have spent a good deal of this year, and many of the previous ones as well, defending science from those ignorant of it, I must stand up and say something here.
The argument goes something like this. Scientists make comments about policy or society that are outside of their job description. Therefore scientists should only do science and not make any pronouncements on things as vile and sullied as policy and how their discoveries might be of benefit to humankind in general.
In other words, leave policy to the policy makers.
I'm not convinced, for several reasons.
1. Scientists are part of the wider society themselves. In some ways they have a bigger appreciation of the impacts of their discoveries than the policy makers. There is reason to believe the IPCC have not been as "scaremongering" over the impacts of climate change as they might have been.
2. Scientists are human. They want what is best for themselves, their families and humanity in general. They are not stupid, which might be why few of them end up in politics. Why should scientists be excluded from trying the make things better for their families?
3. Much of science is done with a positive outcome for society in mind. It is in lots of grant application forms in one way or another. Both industry and government want some return on their investment. It's only to be expected, so it is only to be expected that one scientist or another in the team will have to justify the money spent. Tax payers seem to bulk at huge, blue sky projects. They want to see their tax money spent wisely.
4. It would be totally wrong of scientists to remain silent about some discoveries. Richard Doll could have kept his mouth shut about the link between smoking and lung cancer but he didn't and rightly so. Let's assume a scientist makes a discovery about, for example, a commonly taken over the counter medicine, that is is causing birth defects or something similar. Would it be right for them not to mention anything? To publish their results and not mention the implications? Of course not. The backlash were they to remain silent would be worse than going public.
The reasons for asking scientists to keep out of the policy field seem obvious to me. It is about keeping them in their place. Science deniers don't like the power that scientists have, the power to uncover something new that adds to our understanding of the universe. They also have a power most of us don't have. They can truly make a difference, not for a day or two but potentially for all time. Alexander Fleming did precisely that, Edward Jenner too. A few words on a blog or in a newspaper column, they might bring a smile or a frown but they don't do much to change the world.
This year I've spent much of my precious spare time in the company of scientific illiterates. I've hung out at websites that make my blood boil because of their ignorance and their willingness to misrepresent the science, yet pretend they are still doing science. If people deny science, why do they wear its clothes?
Because science does have power. It has the power to find what it right from what is wrong. Science deniers would like to make up their own universe. Having heard and read the words of such luminaries as Deepak Chopra, Rupert Sheldrake, William Tiller and Lynne McTaggart, I did not realise how far removed from reality some alternative thinking actually is, yet it desperately clings to science as a crutch. But only if those scientists are kept in their kennels and not allowed to bark. And especially if those scientists bark that the deniers have got it wrong. Careful because they might proclaim free speech but they don't mean it. Expect to be censored or even deleted.
The longer I have spent reading the words of science deniers (I began years ago with UFO, PSI and other crank claims), the more I have come to realise that the denier wants another truth. They go looking for another truth. And they don't accept alternative explanations or contradictory evidence. But as that builds up, it becomes harder and harder to deny (although clearly not impossible) so other arguments must emerge to keep the denial flame flickering. One of those is the argument that scientists should do science and nothing but. So I guess economists should stick to economics and not venture into the policy field then. And historians should just write history books and not tell us the lessons they learn from studying all those documents.
What rubbish! Scientists, as much as anyone else, should be encouraged to see where their research has a wider benefit to society. Why on Earth not? It would ground some scientists if they had to think about what their research actually means, not just to themselves but to the wider world.
But we should remember that a lot of what looked like pure research many years ago is now part of applied research. Someone is always on the look out for something they MIT be able to apply and make a profit from. Just look at the exploitation of electromagnetic waves, radioactivity from the last century, to quantum computing now. It doesn't take many brains to see that both pure and applied research is important. I doubt we will ever see an application of black holes or the Higgs boson, but you can never quite rule it out. Remember that the greenhouse properties of carbon dioxide were discovered as part of pure research - that bit of science is long since settled. The implications of that discovery might be argued about, but it is hard to see how they are arguable. Some would like the scientists who study it to keep quiet about what it all might mean.
I finish on an optimistic note. Here is a list of all the UK MPs who have worked as scientists:
Julian Hupper (Cambridge).
Perhaps I am wrong to be optimistic.
The argument goes something like this. Scientists make comments about policy or society that are outside of their job description. Therefore scientists should only do science and not make any pronouncements on things as vile and sullied as policy and how their discoveries might be of benefit to humankind in general.
In other words, leave policy to the policy makers.
I'm not convinced, for several reasons.
1. Scientists are part of the wider society themselves. In some ways they have a bigger appreciation of the impacts of their discoveries than the policy makers. There is reason to believe the IPCC have not been as "scaremongering" over the impacts of climate change as they might have been.
2. Scientists are human. They want what is best for themselves, their families and humanity in general. They are not stupid, which might be why few of them end up in politics. Why should scientists be excluded from trying the make things better for their families?
3. Much of science is done with a positive outcome for society in mind. It is in lots of grant application forms in one way or another. Both industry and government want some return on their investment. It's only to be expected, so it is only to be expected that one scientist or another in the team will have to justify the money spent. Tax payers seem to bulk at huge, blue sky projects. They want to see their tax money spent wisely.
4. It would be totally wrong of scientists to remain silent about some discoveries. Richard Doll could have kept his mouth shut about the link between smoking and lung cancer but he didn't and rightly so. Let's assume a scientist makes a discovery about, for example, a commonly taken over the counter medicine, that is is causing birth defects or something similar. Would it be right for them not to mention anything? To publish their results and not mention the implications? Of course not. The backlash were they to remain silent would be worse than going public.
The reasons for asking scientists to keep out of the policy field seem obvious to me. It is about keeping them in their place. Science deniers don't like the power that scientists have, the power to uncover something new that adds to our understanding of the universe. They also have a power most of us don't have. They can truly make a difference, not for a day or two but potentially for all time. Alexander Fleming did precisely that, Edward Jenner too. A few words on a blog or in a newspaper column, they might bring a smile or a frown but they don't do much to change the world.
This year I've spent much of my precious spare time in the company of scientific illiterates. I've hung out at websites that make my blood boil because of their ignorance and their willingness to misrepresent the science, yet pretend they are still doing science. If people deny science, why do they wear its clothes?
Because science does have power. It has the power to find what it right from what is wrong. Science deniers would like to make up their own universe. Having heard and read the words of such luminaries as Deepak Chopra, Rupert Sheldrake, William Tiller and Lynne McTaggart, I did not realise how far removed from reality some alternative thinking actually is, yet it desperately clings to science as a crutch. But only if those scientists are kept in their kennels and not allowed to bark. And especially if those scientists bark that the deniers have got it wrong. Careful because they might proclaim free speech but they don't mean it. Expect to be censored or even deleted.
The longer I have spent reading the words of science deniers (I began years ago with UFO, PSI and other crank claims), the more I have come to realise that the denier wants another truth. They go looking for another truth. And they don't accept alternative explanations or contradictory evidence. But as that builds up, it becomes harder and harder to deny (although clearly not impossible) so other arguments must emerge to keep the denial flame flickering. One of those is the argument that scientists should do science and nothing but. So I guess economists should stick to economics and not venture into the policy field then. And historians should just write history books and not tell us the lessons they learn from studying all those documents.
What rubbish! Scientists, as much as anyone else, should be encouraged to see where their research has a wider benefit to society. Why on Earth not? It would ground some scientists if they had to think about what their research actually means, not just to themselves but to the wider world.
But we should remember that a lot of what looked like pure research many years ago is now part of applied research. Someone is always on the look out for something they MIT be able to apply and make a profit from. Just look at the exploitation of electromagnetic waves, radioactivity from the last century, to quantum computing now. It doesn't take many brains to see that both pure and applied research is important. I doubt we will ever see an application of black holes or the Higgs boson, but you can never quite rule it out. Remember that the greenhouse properties of carbon dioxide were discovered as part of pure research - that bit of science is long since settled. The implications of that discovery might be argued about, but it is hard to see how they are arguable. Some would like the scientists who study it to keep quiet about what it all might mean.
I finish on an optimistic note. Here is a list of all the UK MPs who have worked as scientists:
Julian Hupper (Cambridge).
Perhaps I am wrong to be optimistic.
Monday, 9 December 2013
At last I can come clean, I am a denier - now read on
I have spent many a merry hour in recent months in the debunking of some pretty serious misinformation, wondering all the time what goes on in the mind of a denier. Now, at last, I can come clean. I am a denier myself.
While going down some of the tributaries of misinformation and woo that I never realised existed, I came across a paper called "The Antique Roadshow: How Denier Movements Debunk Evolution, Climate Change, and Nonlocal Consciousness" by someone called Stephan A Schwartz, published in NeuroQuantology, volume 9, issue 1, pages 118-128 (March 2011). Full text is here.
Now, I am not an evolution or climate change denier, so that only leaves me the option of being a nonlocal consciousness denier. I should have known, but I must have forgotten, that there are some people who claim there is nonlocal consciousness. That is consciousness that is not confined to that grey walnut like organ inside your cranium. Indeed, there are those like Rupert Sheldrake who reckon that the Sun might be conscious.
You don't have to watch. Quality is not great - sound mostly, but information content too.
I will probably mischaracterise nonlocal consciousness but as far as I can tell it is the suggestion that consciousness is not the product of the physiology of the brain but something spreading out wider, throughout the universe, and perhaps even part of the properties of inanimate objects and fundamental particles.
What is there not to deny? Like the Ruler Of The Universe who solipsistically explains that his cat may or may not like fish, I have as much of a clue as anyone else whether my cat or an electron has consciousness. I reckon my cat does and that an electron doesn't. I reckon my cat has consciousness because he behaves in a way that suggests as much. An electron doesn't. I have no way of proving either but I do know something about consciousness.
You see, I have one. I've had it for as long as I can remember and roughly once a day I switch it off because it needs a rest. On a couple of occasions I have had it switched off for me, by a bang on the head. I don't lose consciousness when I stub my toe, only when I bang my head. This is trivial evidence that consciousness is situated in my head in some way, and probably my brain. There is obviously more (I must read Daniel Dennett), abundant evidence that consciousness resides within the brain in some way. We don't know how yet and we may never know.
Schwartz links climate change, evolution and nonlocal consciousness denial into one paper as if they were equal. In order to do so, he states:
So I can proudly proclaim that I am a nonlocal consciousness denier. Not a consciousness denier, as Schwartz flips the terminology.
There's something just plain strange about Schwartz's paper. He admiring quotes Rupert Sheldrake:
So perhaps Schwartz isn't a scientist. I'll let you make up your mind by visiting here.
Or I could answer for you: no.
Well, now I know I am a denier, I can truly understand the mind of Anthony Watts or Lynne McTaggart? Actually, no. Because my denial of nonlocal consciousness is not the same as the denial of climate change or evolution. In both of those it is silly to deny the heaps of evidence in favour of those fields of study. In the case of nonlocal consciousness, the laws of physics, the biological evidence, all weighs in favour of a material basis of consciousness. I deny nonlocal consciousness because it doesn't exist and never will. Everything points in the consensus opinion that consciousness and the brain are indivisible. End of story.
Schwartz's sleight of hand is that of a poor magician. He won't get many gigs at the top scientific parties if he tries that trick too often. We can see what's up his sleeves. We spotted the swap. We know it is rubbish.
While going down some of the tributaries of misinformation and woo that I never realised existed, I came across a paper called "The Antique Roadshow: How Denier Movements Debunk Evolution, Climate Change, and Nonlocal Consciousness" by someone called Stephan A Schwartz, published in NeuroQuantology, volume 9, issue 1, pages 118-128 (March 2011). Full text is here.
Now, I am not an evolution or climate change denier, so that only leaves me the option of being a nonlocal consciousness denier. I should have known, but I must have forgotten, that there are some people who claim there is nonlocal consciousness. That is consciousness that is not confined to that grey walnut like organ inside your cranium. Indeed, there are those like Rupert Sheldrake who reckon that the Sun might be conscious.
I will probably mischaracterise nonlocal consciousness but as far as I can tell it is the suggestion that consciousness is not the product of the physiology of the brain but something spreading out wider, throughout the universe, and perhaps even part of the properties of inanimate objects and fundamental particles.
What is there not to deny? Like the Ruler Of The Universe who solipsistically explains that his cat may or may not like fish, I have as much of a clue as anyone else whether my cat or an electron has consciousness. I reckon my cat does and that an electron doesn't. I reckon my cat has consciousness because he behaves in a way that suggests as much. An electron doesn't. I have no way of proving either but I do know something about consciousness.
You see, I have one. I've had it for as long as I can remember and roughly once a day I switch it off because it needs a rest. On a couple of occasions I have had it switched off for me, by a bang on the head. I don't lose consciousness when I stub my toe, only when I bang my head. This is trivial evidence that consciousness is situated in my head in some way, and probably my brain. There is obviously more (I must read Daniel Dennett), abundant evidence that consciousness resides within the brain in some way. We don't know how yet and we may never know.
Schwartz links climate change, evolution and nonlocal consciousness denial into one paper as if they were equal. In order to do so, he states:
Materialists here means those that persist in believing only in physical causes for phenomena. It is a term used in insult. Note, Schwartz doesn't give any references to any of these hundreds of studies which I, for one, would have welcomed. Perhaps he doesn't want anyone to read them. After all, they are probably tat but we'll never know.Consciousness deniers are materialists who conceive of all aspects ofconsciousness as entirely a construct of physiological processes, in spite of hundreds of studies demonstrating this conclusion is not justified.
So I can proudly proclaim that I am a nonlocal consciousness denier. Not a consciousness denier, as Schwartz flips the terminology.
There's something just plain strange about Schwartz's paper. He admiring quotes Rupert Sheldrake:
I'm not sure that's a good thing. When blinding has been introduced into parapsychological studies, the effect under study tends to evaporate. It happens in alternative medicine studies too. So I wouldn't proudly announce the fact that 85% of parapsychological studies do not use blinding, especially when suggesting this means parapsychology cannot be dismissed on methodological grounds Whoops.English biologist Rupert Sheldrake (1999) conducted a survey of leadingjournals published between October 1996 and April 1998. The papers these journals had published were broken into three categories: “1.) Not applicable: papers that did not involve experimental investigations, for example theoretical or review articles; 2.) Blind or double-blind methodologies used; and, 3.) Blind or double-blind methodologies not used” (Sheldrake, 1999; p. 90). Thereader may find the results surprising. As can be seen in Table 2, parapsychology overwhelmingly utilizes this third protocol more than any other discipline.
So perhaps Schwartz isn't a scientist. I'll let you make up your mind by visiting here.
Or I could answer for you: no.
Well, now I know I am a denier, I can truly understand the mind of Anthony Watts or Lynne McTaggart? Actually, no. Because my denial of nonlocal consciousness is not the same as the denial of climate change or evolution. In both of those it is silly to deny the heaps of evidence in favour of those fields of study. In the case of nonlocal consciousness, the laws of physics, the biological evidence, all weighs in favour of a material basis of consciousness. I deny nonlocal consciousness because it doesn't exist and never will. Everything points in the consensus opinion that consciousness and the brain are indivisible. End of story.
Schwartz's sleight of hand is that of a poor magician. He won't get many gigs at the top scientific parties if he tries that trick too often. We can see what's up his sleeves. We spotted the swap. We know it is rubbish.
Wednesday, 4 December 2013
Dumb or what?
Lynne Habermacher Ritalin is high in fluoride. Also how many children suffer dyslexia who are not bad enough to be 'diagnosed'. I'm totally shocked at how many young people are dyslexic and are not aware of it, but they manageThis is from the What Doctors Don't Tell You facebook page, in a short thread about ADHD.
Ritalin, as I am sure you know, is full of...er....well, here is the structural formula.
C = carbon
H = hydrogen
N = nitrogen
O = oxygen
Cl = chlorine
Now let's play the game of spot the fluorine atom. Yes, that's right. Fluorine has the symbol F. If you put your cross anywhere on the diagram at all, you lose. There isn't any there.
It isn't hard to find out, if you try. But I notice that those with alternative beliefs, in other words those that deny science in one form or another, don't really try to find out. Some track down scientific papers but it would appear they don't read them properly, just cherry pick some conclusion or result and use that as a peg to hang their wrong belief upon.
Booby prize, if you put a cross on the chlorine atom, you can have a millionth of a point for at least finding a fellow halogen.
Friday, 29 November 2013
People die after vaccinations - shock, horror, probe
Apparently, people are interested in the last meal of a condemned man. Why, I don't know. That's not the cause of death.
Curiously, Lynne McTaggart is keen to push her anti-vaccine agenda and prints a news item in her journal ofrecord rubbish with the title "People do die after vaccination". Well, duh!
Her expose says that, for the first time, it is admitted that people have died after having had vaccinations. In fact, 15,000 of them over a three year period in the US. Sounds frightening, doesn't it?
The link given is to this paper, Mortality rates and cause-of-death patterns in a vaccinated population (Am J Prev Med. 2013 Jul;45(1):91-7. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2013.02.020). Luckily, and in something that is becoming a bit of a habit at WDDTY, this looks like another foot in mouth for the plucky investigative journalists at the esteemed journal. If only they learned to read.
As the authors of the paper put it:
So although Lynne McTaggart would rather have us believe that vaccination is evil somehow, the paper she cites suggests very much the opposite. The fact that people die after vaccination is not surprising. They die after all sorts of activities. Can I get funding for a study to find out how many people die within 60 days of reading McTaggart's rag?
Not that McTaggart or her magazine are in any way anti-vaccine. Perish the thought. Though in order to muddy the waters clarify matters, the article does say:
There is a trend at What Doctors Don't Tell You clearly emerging. Take a health story, twist it so it looks as if it supports the agenda you are pushing and hype it up to make it more scary. Oh, and trust the intelligence of your readership does not actually rise to the level where they begin to read for themselves and check the references.
It didn't take me long to find the paper McTaggart refers to. If I can do it so can almost any reader with internet access. And an inquiring mind might be disappointed to find that the news story and the paper don't support one another.
And she wonders why true skeptics aren't taken with the magazine's efforts. It's because it isn't honest with its sources.
Curiously, Lynne McTaggart is keen to push her anti-vaccine agenda and prints a news item in her journal of
Her expose says that, for the first time, it is admitted that people have died after having had vaccinations. In fact, 15,000 of them over a three year period in the US. Sounds frightening, doesn't it?
The link given is to this paper, Mortality rates and cause-of-death patterns in a vaccinated population (Am J Prev Med. 2013 Jul;45(1):91-7. doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2013.02.020). Luckily, and in something that is becoming a bit of a habit at WDDTY, this looks like another foot in mouth for the plucky investigative journalists at the esteemed journal. If only they learned to read.
As the authors of the paper put it:
In other words, causes of death weren't related to the vaccinations but to pre-existing conditions, SIDS and accidents. They also found that deaths occurred more commonly in the winter months, in elderly people and the causes of death were consistent with the wider population.In the overall distribution of cause of death classified bybody system among all ages, the categories that represent themajority of the distribution include diseases of the circulatorysystem (32%); neoplasms (24%); and diseases of therespiratory system (10%). In children aged 0–18 months,congenital malformations, deformations, and chromosomalabnormalities (22%) were the leading cause of death within30 days of a vaccination visit; sudden infant death syndrome(SIDS) was the second-leading cause of death (16%). Theleading cause of death within 60 days of a vaccination visit inchildren aged 0-18 years was external causes of morbidityand mortality (21%); next in leading causes of death werecongenital malformations, deformations, and chromosomalabnormalities (18%), and SIDS (13%).
So although Lynne McTaggart would rather have us believe that vaccination is evil somehow, the paper she cites suggests very much the opposite. The fact that people die after vaccination is not surprising. They die after all sorts of activities. Can I get funding for a study to find out how many people die within 60 days of reading McTaggart's rag?
Not that McTaggart or her magazine are in any way anti-vaccine. Perish the thought. Though in order to muddy the waters clarify matters, the article does say:
What the researchers actually say is this (my bold):Aside from the elderly, other vulnerable groups include pregnant women and those with chronic health problems, so doctors perhaps need to think carefully before vaccinating these people, say the researchers.
Although there is currently no evidence to support a causal relationship between vaccinations and death, this study provides background mortality rates following vaccinations to be used as a baseline when examining the safety profiles of new vaccines and during mass immunisations campaigns.
and
Similar analyses should be conducted when new vaccines are added tot eh ACIP recommended schedule, and also would be useful in other populations, including vulnerable subpopulations such as pregnant women and people with underlying health conditions.So that's not quite what WDDTY would have you believe.
There is a trend at What Doctors Don't Tell You clearly emerging. Take a health story, twist it so it looks as if it supports the agenda you are pushing and hype it up to make it more scary. Oh, and trust the intelligence of your readership does not actually rise to the level where they begin to read for themselves and check the references.
It didn't take me long to find the paper McTaggart refers to. If I can do it so can almost any reader with internet access. And an inquiring mind might be disappointed to find that the news story and the paper don't support one another.
And she wonders why true skeptics aren't taken with the magazine's efforts. It's because it isn't honest with its sources.
Friday, 22 November 2013
Natural medicine is a human rights issue, same old Lynne McTaggart
Update at the end
Lynne McTaggart has really got angry when confronted with that old skeptical stand-by, evidence. So she avoids it by ignoring real criticisms and inventing a spurious human rights issue. She wants you to have a choice that you already have. If you want to take your chance amongst the unevidenced, mostly unregulated world of natural remedies then no one can stop you. It's your choice. Barry Sheene did it when he was diagnosed with cancer and look how healthy he is today.
Let's look in more detail.
But no one has said you can't take your leaves. What they are saying is stop playing fast and loose with published evidence and misleading readers. It's not rocket surgery.
Does that mean responding sensibly to questions and criticism or more deletion and banning? I don't think McTaggart is really interested in a mature debate but on assertion, misguidance and carrying on as she has been so far. An empty request, in other words. She continues in a comment:
So by asking for evidence of McTaggart's claims, showing other evidence to contradict her assertions and pointing out where she is wrong is, er, wrong. McTaggart, on the other hand, is the one raising the human rights flag that has long since been conceded by the skeptics. How about that mature debate? Not interested, is she?
True. Instead they said up to 1700. A difference but as all those stores promising up to 70% off in their sales know, the public are gulled into thinking the store has better offers than it really does.
Well, the report quotes VAERS data, which is often self reported and makes no distinction over whether there is cause and effect. Besides:
Compare that last quote, from here, with what McTaggart says next:
So, sorry, Lynne. I don't think you want a mature debate. You could have had one by now. But you didn't bother so I can't believe you'll have one now. When confronted with evidence, you avoid answering the true concerns raised by skeptics. And as for human rights - look at yourself in the mirror. Can you look yourself in the eye and say that the medical establishment forces you to have the mainstream treatment (ie the one demonstrated to do good). If you, your mates, hangers on and followers want to take leaves, nuts, berries, vitamin pills, sugar pills, distiller water, powdered mummy, stick pins in your skin or whatever, no one can stop you. Just don't go running to say sorry to that gp who spent years of their lives learning real medicine and pleading for them to help you.
Spoiler: Barry Sheene wasn't exactly cured by his natural healing regime. Actually, he wasn't cured at all. Sadly he died. His oesophageal cancer has a five year survival rate of 15%. Sheene died eight months after diagnosis. Update McTaggart is so wedded to the idea of free speech that, on the same day she winged about a "campaign" to hide copies of her atrocious magazine, she chose to have another clear out of her Facebook page, deleting comments that she doesn't like. So, free speech is fine of she is doing it but reason for censorship if she is being criticised. If anyone who reads this page wishes to correct me, feel free. I don't censor any comments on this site. Only, so far as I know, one comment has been deleted and that was one I made and rethought. McTaggart does not want free speech. She wants her unscientific way.
Lynne McTaggart has really got angry when confronted with that old skeptical stand-by, evidence. So she avoids it by ignoring real criticisms and inventing a spurious human rights issue. She wants you to have a choice that you already have. If you want to take your chance amongst the unevidenced, mostly unregulated world of natural remedies then no one can stop you. It's your choice. Barry Sheene did it when he was diagnosed with cancer and look how healthy he is today.
Let's look in more detail.
During these past tumultuous weeks, where angry messages have been flying back and forth between two very polarized camps about alternative medicine and WDDTY, one contributor wrote that it was like watching two soccer teams whacking the ball back and forth.Nice metaphor.
The problem with that analogy is that, in this instance, team A isn’t interested in a fair game. Team A wants to outlaw team B, and will stop at nothing – installing a biased umpire, beating up the opposition, calling foul on perfectly good passes – in pursuit of that objective.I know you're American, Lynne, but you ought to know that it is a referee in soccer. Oh, and your metaphor now looks silly because what team A wants is fair play and how team B responds is by deleting critical comments and banning commenters. Did she mention free speech yet?
Make no mistake. This is not a fair debate, a reasonable discussion of the issues. This is a blatant attempt to deny you one of your basic human rights: the right to effective health care.There it is, free speech, as upheld by Team McTaggart by deleting comments and banning... I already said that. And reasonable discussion? Try treating evidence with proper respect, Lynne, and reporting it fairly.
At the moment, as I have written earlier on these pages, conventional modern medicine kills thousands more people than it cures. Despite all the disingenuous attempts by ‘new’ visitors to these pages to cast doubt about the quality of our research, there is no argument about the fact that modern medicine remains the third deadliest killer in the West. No one in Establishment medicine disputes this.When asked for a source for the assertion, Lynne is rather vague. When shown the source, she chooses to ignore it because it doesn't actually say what she says it says. There is doubt that modern medicine is the third deadliest killer (tautology) in the West. That's why skeptics doubt it - they want to see the evidence.
Cochrane Collaboration co-founder and esteemed medical researcher Peter Goetzsche refers to the statistics in Deadly Medicine and Organized Crime, and it was first cited more than a decade ago by the Journal of the American Medical Association. At that time, said JAMA, medicine was ranked the fourth leading cause of death – since that time it’s moved up in the league tables of things most likely to kill you.References please? Show us the paper if it so important to you, then we can judge for ourselves. "So we have a system of medicine that, by its own admission, kills more people than anything other than heart disease and cancer every year, and yet is carrying out a systematized attack on anything else that might actually work and work safely." Well, only in part. Doctors now that some treatments are harmful but they proceed on the balance between benefit and harm. Chemotherapy has many downsides but the big downside of not having chemo for cancers it works well on is rather more severe. That's why it is used.
What this means is that modern medicine, infiltrated and now run by the pharmaceutical industry, is attempting to deny you access to safe and effective health care. That, to my mind, is a violation of your basic human rights. In fact it is essentially a form of persecution – no less than it was to deny a black in the pre-1960 American South a seat on the bus.Not quite a Godwin but I'm sure se was tempted. This paragraph is classic conspiracy ideation and basically so wrong. Indeed, pharmaceutical companies also make vitamins so they can have a foot in both camps. But I can't remember ever being forced to take what Big Pharma sells me. Indeed, I'm pretty poor and have a cupboard with partly empty packets of pills. No one has yet been round to arrest me for this apparently hideous crime of not taking my medication. Lynne, you are talking rubbish.
"What are we to do about this in a positive way? We can take the lead from Iceland, where a group of 500 concerned citizens launched Heilsufrelsi (Health Freedom), a new health freedom association, to ensure that natural medicine is safeguarded and Icelanders have access to natural ways of maintaining their health.
But no one has said you can't take your leaves. What they are saying is stop playing fast and loose with published evidence and misleading readers. It's not rocket surgery.
"Instead of acting like a oppressed minority or continuing to play a game with loaded dice, it is now time for all of us interested in natural health care to unabashedly stand up for natural health freedom, organize together and insist on that mature dialogue.
Does that mean responding sensibly to questions and criticism or more deletion and banning? I don't think McTaggart is really interested in a mature debate but on assertion, misguidance and carrying on as she has been so far. An empty request, in other words. She continues in a comment:
"Once again the trolls on this site deflect from the important issues I raise in this blog by attempting to undermine our reporting on other issues, or criticizing other aspects of our business, and the comments are beginning to take on an air of desperation.
So by asking for evidence of McTaggart's claims, showing other evidence to contradict her assertions and pointing out where she is wrong is, er, wrong. McTaggart, on the other hand, is the one raising the human rights flag that has long since been conceded by the skeptics. How about that mature debate? Not interested, is she?
"The subject of this blog is not the cervical cancer (HPV) vaccine, but just to clarify, we never wrote that the vaccine KILLED 1700 girls.
True. Instead they said up to 1700. A difference but as all those stores promising up to 70% off in their sales know, the public are gulled into thinking the store has better offers than it really does.
"In our weekly WDDTY e-news, we reported on the figures appearing in an issue of Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (July 26, 2013 / 62(29);591-595), the weekly report prepared by the America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a US government agency charged with the job of tracking infectious disease and vaccination.
Well, the report quotes VAERS data, which is often self reported and makes no distinction over whether there is cause and effect. Besides:
"Among the VAERS reports coded as “serious,” headache, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, dizziness, syncope, and generalized weakness are the most frequently reported symptoms.
Compare that last quote, from here, with what McTaggart says next:
"Between June 2006 and March 2013, said the report, the US’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System has received approximately 1700 - 1675 reports to be exact – of ‘serious’ adverse events occurring in girls who’d received the HPV4 vaccine. Reports are classified as ‘serious’ if they include one or more of the following, said the CDC: hospitalization , prolongation of an existing hospitalization , permanent disability, life-threatening illness, or death. Please see: cdc.gov/.../mm6229a4.htm#figI didn't look at the definition of serious, I looked at what serious included. Now I'm not sure how the two actually mesh, but having seen actual girls in the aftermath of their HPV jabs, I can report that there are plenty of pretty psychosomatic responses. Thirteen year old girls don't like having injections and many react with headaches, queasiness and so on. I don't want to diminish their suffering, just that it isn't as serious as McTaggart likes to paint it. And there is an issue. Take the worst case and present it as typical. Don't check whether there is more to this than meets the eye. Miss out important details. All things McTaggart does repeatedly. Isn't that hypocritical? My favourite word.
"As for the idea that we charge £83 for a DVD, we don't sell DVDs. Besides a magazine, downloadable reports and online subscriptions, we sell courses that include both audio and written material – the costs of which are in line with or far cheaper than similar products on other similar sites.This was in response to a comment about DVD sales. Now when I searched the WDDTY website, all the DVD mentions returned 404 messages so I can't check the truth of McTaggart's statement. I can, however report that £54 gets you one of those courses - a 90 minute mp3 file and some, presumably, word or PDF documents. That sounds like rip off prices to me. And they reckon Big Pharma is after your money. (I searched the net a bit harder and found this page which links to the WDDTY site where you can apparently buy a DVD of some scam conference starring McTaggart and Rupert Sheldrake (ohnothimagen) which might put the lie to what McTaggart said. Strangely, click on the link to buy the DVD and you go to a page where you can buy a subscription to your favourite health disinformation mag.)
So, sorry, Lynne. I don't think you want a mature debate. You could have had one by now. But you didn't bother so I can't believe you'll have one now. When confronted with evidence, you avoid answering the true concerns raised by skeptics. And as for human rights - look at yourself in the mirror. Can you look yourself in the eye and say that the medical establishment forces you to have the mainstream treatment (ie the one demonstrated to do good). If you, your mates, hangers on and followers want to take leaves, nuts, berries, vitamin pills, sugar pills, distiller water, powdered mummy, stick pins in your skin or whatever, no one can stop you. Just don't go running to say sorry to that gp who spent years of their lives learning real medicine and pleading for them to help you.
Spoiler: Barry Sheene wasn't exactly cured by his natural healing regime. Actually, he wasn't cured at all. Sadly he died. His oesophageal cancer has a five year survival rate of 15%. Sheene died eight months after diagnosis. Update McTaggart is so wedded to the idea of free speech that, on the same day she winged about a "campaign" to hide copies of her atrocious magazine, she chose to have another clear out of her Facebook page, deleting comments that she doesn't like. So, free speech is fine of she is doing it but reason for censorship if she is being criticised. If anyone who reads this page wishes to correct me, feel free. I don't censor any comments on this site. Only, so far as I know, one comment has been deleted and that was one I made and rethought. McTaggart does not want free speech. She wants her unscientific way.
Monday, 18 November 2013
Great granddad is a star
Tonight my dad found the unequal struggle against cancer too much. He has, in the words we've chosen to use with my not quite four year old granddaughter, gone up to be a star.
I was blessed to have him as a father, someone willing to support me in my many enthusiasms, those fleeting and those permanent.
I was blessed that his taste in music influenced mine - he bought a handful of Beatles singles all those year ago.
He endowed me with a love of cricket - summers will never be the same again. His seat at Essex where he was once a member will remain forever empty.
He fostered my love of science, buying me books, putting up with my astronomy, fossil collecting, and anything else sciencey that came my way.
He picked me out of bed so I could watch Armstrong and Aldrin walking on a dusty world a quarter of a million miles from home.
He gave me laughs by the bucket load, with his bad jokes, his tricks and his enthusiasm for life.
I was truly blessed to have had his love, his encouragement, his patient parenting over all those years.
I miss him.
I was blessed to have him as a father, someone willing to support me in my many enthusiasms, those fleeting and those permanent.
I was blessed that his taste in music influenced mine - he bought a handful of Beatles singles all those year ago.
He endowed me with a love of cricket - summers will never be the same again. His seat at Essex where he was once a member will remain forever empty.
He fostered my love of science, buying me books, putting up with my astronomy, fossil collecting, and anything else sciencey that came my way.
He picked me out of bed so I could watch Armstrong and Aldrin walking on a dusty world a quarter of a million miles from home.
He gave me laughs by the bucket load, with his bad jokes, his tricks and his enthusiasm for life.
I was truly blessed to have had his love, his encouragement, his patient parenting over all those years.
I miss him.
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