Scientists are arrogant, unimaginative and quite possibly insane. But luckily, AN Wilson is here to save us from the worship of science, the great superstition of our age.
He opens with: "the row between the Government and its scientific advisers blazes on like a forest fire."
And then proceeds to throw petrol on it.
First up is David Nutt and "the uproar of self-pity and self-importance" that his sacking has caused in the scientific community. But this is not just about Nutt, science itself is in the dock because "what scientists say must be taken as true. The trouble with a 'scientific' argument, of course, is that it is not made in the real world, but in a laboratory by an unimaginative academic relying solely on empirical fact". Of course.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Wilson has no understanding of scientific methodology - randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, peer-reviewed - you know how it goes. Or the way that, if a scientist gets something wrong, it is very often other scientists who point this out because they are the only ones who understand the mistake. Or the way that science is not a monolithic body - conservative, ignoring evidence, resistant to change, oblivious of the 'real world' and condemning anyone who dares to challenge orthodox views. That would be religion.
But he doesn't need to know any of this because he knows he is right. He is on his high horse - and from up there it's hard to see what is really happening on the ground.
So the 'scientific' argument (why the inverted commas?) is made in a laboratory, not in the real world? Well yes, scientists come from a parallel universe and have cloven hooves, for a start. They wear Star Trek T shirts to distract us. But look carefully and you will see that the crazy hair conceals tiny horns. Didn't you know that? It's a conspiracy theory! How do you make an argument in a laboratory? What kind of test tube would you need?
Wilson next objects to any suggestion that E may not be as bad as certain people in Government would like us to believe because of the "devastation wrought in sink estates not only on the youngsters themselves, but on whole communities by the casual abuse of drugs".
He admits that smoking and drinking have more casualties "but this does not mean it is safe to take ecstasy".
Two things. Firstly, no one is saying E is safe, just that it is not the danger to civilization that some people are making out. Perhaps some degree of rational and objective enquiry would be a good idea? Perhaps Government policy-makers might like to consider some evidence?
No. He doesn't want to know if it is less dangerous or should be re-categorized. Drugs should be presented as the Great Evil because of their effects on what he charmingly calls "the murkier parts of our society". Lie to the plebs for their own good. Drugs bad. All drugs bad. Much easier than trying to educate people or to look at the underlying causes of drug and alcohol abuse among low-income groups. No Mail reader would want to hear about that.
Incidentally, I doubt if the average teenager of whatever background gives a stuff whether drugs are Class A or otherwise.
He goes on to say that "what is on trial is the reputation of science". Not so much a trial as a kangaroo court presided over by Judge Wilson.
However, he does kindly allow a case for the defence: it would be folly to deny that we all owe a vast debt to scientific discoveries, made by patient, intellectually rigorous men and women over the past few centuries. Just think what we owe to developments in medicine, let alone all those technologies we now depend on, from cars to computers.
These Good Scientists presumably do not work in labs relying solely on the empirical method. Maybe they are the ones working in garden sheds or on the kitchen table using guess work.
How do you tell a Good Scientist from a Dangerous Lunatic? This is a serious point - how is the public to know? Who can understand the issues well enough to judge when science is good (useful to decent upstanding society) and when it is bad, and to inform us all? Never fear, Wilson is here. And it's not just the plebs on estates who need his wisdom.
"There is an increasing presumption among many intelligent and good-hearted people that science is an absolute truth, that its methods of arriving at the truth are infallible and that scientists must be listened to at all times."
Aw, bless the poor little intelligent fools with their great big hearts cruelly deceived by wicked scientists. I presume he has a list of names and addresses to back up this claim?
To prove their wickedness and arrogance, he lists some science fails (according to him). The foot and mouth outbreak of 2001 and BSE, for example. Then he brings out the big guns.
The only difference between Hitler and other governments was that he believed, with babyish credulity, in science as the only truth.
With his wonderful grasp of history, Wilson sees "the same habit of mind at work in Professor Nutt and his colleagues as made those mad scientists of the 20th century think they were above the moral law which governs the rest of us mortals."
This is stoking up the forest fire big time. We've gone from scientists = arrogant fools having hissy fits when anyone disagrees with them to scientists = Nazis. Nice move, Wilson.
Just to underline the comparison, he reminds us that scientists are "tampering with the origin of human life itself in so-called stem cell research." So-called?
Not only are scientists dangerous, "those who dare question science are demonised for their irrationality."
Two sorts of people questions science. Scientists who are doing their job and people who don't understand science but think it should serve their own moral, religious or commercial ends.
In Wilson World, scientists hate free discussion and are often seen burning down the houses of those who disagree with them - or taking them to court for libel. In his words: "cast doubt on these gods of certainty and you are accused of wanting to suppress free expression... it is the arrogant scientific establishment which questions free expression."
Like the free expression of those who promote bogus cancer cures or claim that vitamins alone can cure HIV/AIDS or that God made the world in six days? Or just anyone who doesn't like the facts?
Don't scientists just love playing god - meddling with nature and claiming their own omniscience. That's when they're not too busy playing Dungeons and Dragons (or whatever it is - I have a life).
He continues:
"Think of the hoo-ha which occurred when one hospital doctor dared to question the wisdom of using the MMR vaccine."
Ah, those scientists and their hoo-ha. How dare they slap down one brave man who dared to tell the world that MMR was a Bad Thing for all those poor little children? He had so much solid evidence after all. Oh wait, evidence is an empirical tool of the unimaginative scientists.
Then it gets a bit weird. After saying that scientists are up in arms about Nutt's sacking because they are arrogant etc etc, he talks about "the way in which the scientific establishment closed ranks in order to assassinate him." Huh? This logic truly surpasseth all understanding.
He ends with a final fanning of the forest fire flames in case there are a few tiny creatures not yet burnt to a crisp.
"And to everyone who thinks otherwise, I would ask them to carry out a simple experiment. Put a drug, bought casually on the street corner, and a glass of red wine on the table when your teenager comes home from school. Which of them, in all honesty, would you prefer him to try?"
The irony of him suggesting an experiment is not lost. Mail readers skulking on street corners trying to score. Then standing over their kids wearing white coats, clutching clip boards, stop watches and whatever else it is that scientists do in their crazy labs (while lightning crashes around them). Don't forget to have a few monkeys on hand and some unspeakable things in jars. But only after the kids have done their homework, of course.
The article matters not because one silly bugger has got the wrong end of the stick and is using it to beat his moral agenda drum (sorry about that metaphor) but because it is another blow against the public trust in science. It matters because scientists have a hard enough time without being caricatured as arrogant, unfeeling, cold-hearted, hoo-ha-ing empiricists with a god complex. It confuses morals, evidence, social factors, logic, truth, half-truths and hysteria. And it matters because more and more money is being spent on 'alternative' medicine and dietary supplements because 'it worked for me' and 'science doesn't know everything'.
We all know that scientists sometimes get things wrong, even badly wrong. But relying on a journalist to sort out good science from bad or to judge which truths the public can handle is the real danger.
He accuses scientists of being like the Spanish Inquisition, trying to destroy all opposition, but he is the one mounting a witch-hunt. Maybe it's because it's Bonfire Night tomorrow and he's looking for something to throw on the fire - a bundle of scientists would do nicely.
There is so much more to say about this article but that will do for now.
http://layscience.net/trackback/723
....Not that I think any of this would get through to the Daily Mail readers, but I'll be referring a few other people here.
By the way, I think I love you for this.
While I agree with the point of your post, I think you misconstrued Wilson's point when he stated "the way in which the scientific establishment closed ranks in order to assassinate him." He was referring to the doctor (don't know the name) who "dared to question the wisdom of using the MMR vaccine."
That said, he's still a fool.
I'm actually quite comfortable with the concept of relying on 'empirical fact'. I tend to prefer basing my decisions on facts than otherwise. Why is that a bad thing?
And given the choice between red wine and a drug bought on a street corner (isn't alcohol a drug and can't you buy it on a street corner?), I would rather my teenage children tried both. I want them to understand what the implications of both the use and abuse of them are.
While the issue here has become the acceptance of scientific advice - and it would be naive to think that governments should always act on the advice they are given - the issue of the hypocracy of our drugs policy is even more important. Marijuana IS less harmful than alcohol and tobacco, of that there can be no doubt. Its status has nothing to do with its safety - its all about vested political interests, international politics and business decisions. Unfortunately that's just the way the world is and we have to learn to accept much of it. I deplore the behaviour of the various politicians in this saga. Their role is to make decisions based on all the evidence and information they are given - and sometimes it will mean going against the advice of some of their advisors. In this case, the process was poorly handled and they deserve to be roundly criticised.
I think you misconstrued Wilson's point when he stated "the way in which the scientific establishment closed ranks in order to assassinate him." He was referring to the doctor (don't know the name) who "dared to question the wisdom of using the MMR vaccine."
The Doctor in question was Andrew Wakefield. His work was seriously compromised and he later admitted in court that he had a direct conflict of interest - he was at the time appointed as the medical expert in a class action lawsuit by a group of parents of autistic parents who wanted to sue vaccine manufacturers for their perception that the MMR vaccine had given their children autism.
That not-withstanding his research methods were seriously flawed and his findings have never been replicated, you can read more about it here: http://www.cispimmunize.org/fam/autism/a_wake.html and here:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683643.ece. Dr Wakefield no longer practices in the UK, he has since decamped to the US where he is making lots of money giving lectures to 'anti-vaxxers'.
Since his first study millions of research dollars have been poured into efforts to try and find any link between the MMR vaccine, and indeed vaccines in general, and autism. In 14 years there had not been ONE study that has shown any positive correlation between autism and MMR vaccination.
Measles, Mumps and Rubella infection rates have soared in the last decade in the UK and other areas of the western world where the autism/MMR myth has taken root. Note that vaccination only works to eradicate a disease if there is almost blanket coverage, 95% of the population or greater - so called herd immunity. Vaccination does not make you immune to these diseases, they just make your immune system better armed (primed as it were) to fight them, you can still get these diseases if you have been vaccinated but your risk is greatly reduced. Some people will, and do, argue that they don't need to get their kids vaccinated because it's their personal choice - by doing so they are placing not only their own children at risk as well as those who haven't received vaccination shots for whatever reason (and there are legitimate, very rare medical reasons why some people should not be vaccinated) but they are also placing those people who have been vaccinated at (a reduced) risk.
The fact that this myth (originally perpertuated by the Daily Mail) still perpetuates to this day is a bewildering tragedy; undoubtedly young children and immunosuppressed people (the elderly, transplant recipients, AIDS sufferers) have died as a result. Another example of exemplory 'research' by British tabloid journalists, A N Wilson is in good company.
There was so much in this article - dealing with each paragraph could have been a long post in itself. So any additional bits of dissection are very welcome.
I don't think I did misconstrue the Wakefield comment - Wilson was being inconsistent about scientists en masse being arrogant etc and then switched tracks for a moment to MMR before going back to 'they are all Frankensteins'. So it was his style I was commenting on rather than the Wakefield case itself.
"I'm actually quite comfortable with the concept of relying on 'empirical fact'. I tend to prefer basing my decisions on facts than otherwise. Why is that a bad thing?"
"Facts" does not an issue of The Daily Mail make.
Good scientists suggest that some facts might be true.
Crap journalists know that some facts are true.
"Put a drug, bought casually on the street corner, and a glass of red wine on the table when your teenager comes home from school."
Let's overlook, if we can, the failure to state which "drug" is to be considered: apparently Wilson seems to think that all illegal drugs are the same and no further information needs to be given.
I think it's not the "drug" versus the "wine" that's the issue, it's the "street corner" versus "shop". But that distinction only exists because one is illegal and the other isn't.
To put it another way, let's imagine alcohol was made illegal and red wine could only be bought in possibly adulterated forms in dirty plastic cups from some unpleasant person on a street corner.
Then I'd start advising my child against risking it with either.
But if some currently illegal drugs were legalised and could be bought freely on licensed premises, and could therefore be effectively guaranteed to be unadulterated and of known strength, then I'd start to not mind which my child uses quite as much...
No way would I let any child of mine use drugs. Teenagers must be miserable and have a really horrible time. They are far too young to appreciate them as well.
Plus, you can't trust a teenager to know real drugs from fake ones. When I was a teenager the number of people getting sold garden herbs as weed, and sugar as cocaine, was truly shocking.
Why HIV/AIDS?
Should I assume that you believe in an invisible microbe called HIV which is the sure and sole cause of AIDS? That is the impression I get by your casual use of the term HIV/AIDS.
Perhaps you are unaware of the evidence against that hypothesis. I'm just back from a viewing of the newish documentary "House of Numbers" which explores that question by asking questions of both experts and ordinary folks on the street. I had the opportunity to ask folks there when they became skeptical of that hypothesis and why. One fellow who had been to seven showings of the video said that in his experience, almost everyone who saw it became skeptical. Perhaps you will too.
Would you like to discuss that?
Wilson article killed my brain cells.
Thanks for bothering with this. We must persevere through this tedium.
Just joined. Tessera, you rock for writing this.
Far apart from stating that taking "House of Numbers" to be a reliable source of information on medicine or immunology is akin to taking Star Wars to be a historic document there are many reasons that your comment is not particularly worthy of serious discussion.
First it would be useful to know if you reject or accept the "germ theory of disease". If you don't I invite you to eat shit and see if you contract cholera... If you do then it would be interesting to see why you believe this particular invisible HIV microbe causes AIDS. By which I assume you mean invisible to the naked eye and not under magnification. Otherwise does that mean logically you have to conclude blood doesn't clot because you can't actually see individual platlets?
Be mindful of the fact that your rejection of HIV causing AIDs flies in the face of scientific consensus as the evidence is considered scientifically conclusive that HIV does indeed develop into AIDs.
What other evidence, other then a film, have you to support your prejudices? Please bare in mind that many, if not all, denialist sources cherry pick information and misinterpret outdated sources to support their position.
Please also consider that your views have a real human cost. AIDs denialism, as practiced by the SA government, is estimated to have cost 330,000 to 340,000 AIDS deaths, 171,000 HIV infections and 35,000 infant HIV infections... Through rejection of proven treatments and interventions in favour of denying the disease exists.
There now follows a list of dead AIDS denialists. Who incidently contracted HIV then later died of AIDS...
Ken Anderlini
Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
Michael Bellefountaine
Sophie Brassard
Ronnie Burk
Jerry Colinard
Sylvie Cousseau
Boyd Ed Graves
Mark Griffiths
Robert Johnston
John Kirkham
Kelly Jon Landis
Jack Levine
Raphael Lombardo
Peter Mokaba
Christine Maggiore
Marietta Ndziba
David Pasquarelli
Casper G. Schmidt
Tony Tompsett
Huw Christie Williams
Jody Wells
Scott Zanetti.
Like Scopie's Law fallacy for those who cite whale.to as evidence for whatever magical treatment or conspiracy is the flavour of the day, we perhaps need a similar law for those who cite House of Numbers as conclusive evidence that HIV does not cause AIDS.
I like it.
How about "Zeno's law"?
"In any discussion involving HIV/AIDS, citing "House of Numbers" as a credible source loses you the argument immediately ...and gets you laughed out of the room."
With a bit of tweaking we could get it to be one of Zeno's paradoxes.
Interesting that, out of my whole post, he chose to pick HIV/AIDS - seems he was just looking for somewhere to vent.
I don't believe that malaria is carried by mosquitos. After all, the word means 'bad air' and the people who named it can't have been wrong, can they? They had centuries of wisdom behind them. Yes, I am a malaria denialist.
I don't think it's coincidence he found your post. What you tend to find is that people keep doing regular blog searches for their favourite topics - e.g. "HIV" and then leaving comments wherever it happens to turn up. I'd be surprised if they did more than skim-read the actual article.
As a side note to "Zeno's Law", there should be a term like "appeal to video" for the specific case of a form of argument where instead of making a case for themselves, somebody links to a video on the internet. Sort of a combination of appeal to authority and argumentum ad nauseum.
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How about calling someone who simply links to a film/tv clip in the absence of making an actual argument a "Video Nasty"?
Do you believe in the germ theory of disease? Before that theory was accepted, Ignatz Semmelweis thought that doctors should wash their hands after doing an autopsy and before delivering a baby, since so many mothers were dying of child bed fever. Doctors put him in an insane asylum since they knew they hadn't caused the child bed fever. They were the good guys, the doctors. Ignatz died at the hands of a guard.
The Semmelweis Society honored Duesberg and Farber with their Clean Hands award and orthodox HIV/AIDS believers complained so much that the society then hired an actual criminal investigator to check out their claims. Complainers then tried to get the investigator not to investigate. That raised a red flag for Clark Baker as he explained to me. The longer he investigated, the more he became convinced that Duesberg and Farber were right and the criminal conspiracy that was killing people with poisonous medications was the orthodoxy.
Do you believe that all shit contains cholera? Perhaps by spontaneous generation?
Do you believe that the classic test for discovery of an infectious agent has been performed by the orthodox view holders?
Do you believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny?
Do you believe that the plural of anecdote is data?
Do you believe that filmed statements of experts distort their views, and that estimates without validation are accurate?
"other then a film, ... Please bare in mind" Huh?
What test is known to be accurate in identifying HIV? What test is known to be accurate in determining the viral load? Where are the virus particles in the blood of patients with a huge viral load as estimated by a PCR based test rejected by the Nobel prize winner who developed PCR?
Why would anyone believe that the same virus infects different people and with different consequences in the US and in Africa? Why would anyone believe that most STDs are found in high numbers in some parts of our country, but only HIV and AIDS are found in high numbers in other, different parts of the USA? Why would anyone believe that an infectious sexually transmitted disease which kills mostly men in the USA would show up in roughly equal ratios in male and female entrants into our armed forces?
Hello gift from stupidity!
If you compare the death rates between the clinics that took up Ignatz Semmelweis hand washing procedures you can see the substantial differences in death rates from Puerperal fever.
year, no HW, HW. (HW= handwashing)
1841 7.8 vs 3.5
1842 15.8 vs 7.6
1843 9.0 vs 6.0
1844 8.2 vs 2.3
1845 6.9 vs 2.0
1846 11.4 vs 2.8
John Snows tracing of the Cholera epidemic to the Broad street pump also reinforced the theory.
I'm also not sure you understand what AIDS actually is...
The clue is in its name helpfully enough - acquired immunodeficiency syndrome...
If the virus indeed does produce different symptoms (I doubt it produces different consequences as apart from a lukcy few who may have developed immunity the ultimate consequence is death...) it's likely because there are a different population of opportunistic viruses and microbes that take advantage of someone with AIDs compromised immunne system.
It is a fact that scientists can be and have been wrong. It is also a fact that certain groups possess the knowledge and the money to persuade scientists to go along with their own theories. casino online
Of course it is a fact that scientists have been wrong. It's one of the central principles that allows scientific progress.
Which groups are suppossed to be influencing scientists pray tell?
Great blog. Believe me, we Yanks have just as much nonsense -- the Bush administration was infamous for (among many other things) suppressing reports by federally-employed scientists if they didn't fall in line with the right-wing political agenda.
And we also have plenty of anti-science windbags like AN Wilson. (Bill Maher has used his national tv show to advise people not to get the possibly life-saving H1N1 vaccine.)
Richard Karpinski: "Semmelweis thought that doctors should wash their hands after doing an autopsy and before delivering a baby, since so many mothers were dying of child bed fever. Doctors put him in an insane asylum since they knew they hadn't caused the child bed fever."
No, doctors put Dr. Semmelweis in a mental institution (in 1865, many years after Semmelweis' publication of his findings about handwashing and "cadaverous particles") because he was showing persistent signs of some kind of dementia, possibly Alzheimer's. That's tragic, but unrelated to the earlier controversy.