Synogenes.com

After more than a decade of stalled stem cell research, the US regulators have now approved thirteen new lines of embryonic stem cells. The restrictions put in place by George W. Bush in capitulation to religious prejudice, have now been lifted and the production of the thirteen new lines is invaluable in opening up research. The new lines were developed by the Chidren's Hospital, Boston, and Rockerfeller University in New York. There are another ninety-six stem cell lines in the process of approval.

BBC Report

The importance of the stem cell lines is that they can be maintained indefinitely, to produce an unlimited source of stem cells for research. In turn, the stem cells can be made to develop into any type of tissue, providing reproducible lines of cell types for controlled scientific studies.

By being able to control the variation, relying on identical cell types, controlled trials can be carried out in medical research ranging from transplantation and regeneration, therapeutic delivery systems for delivering drugs to specific tissues and experiments to understand chromosomal abnormalities, to replacements for animal testing experiments, and many more.

The religious right in the US campaigned for the restriction of stem cell research on the grounds that the source of stem cells were days-old embryos, which they claimed were detroyed in the process. Of course, the days-old embryo was not a foetus, nor any form of sustainable human life. They claim a moral case based on the belief that an undifferentiated collection of human cells possesses an immaterial entity called a soul and that their belief that this is the case, should override the case for research.

All those sufferers from Alzheimers, those needing tissue transplants, those suffering genetic illnesses, blindness, diabetes, and a host of others, apparently have less of a case than the unidentifiable, unevidenced, undetectable, insubstantial, immaterial existence of something they call a soul. What a strange irrational morality!

But even though the decision to release the cell lines is very welcome, we should still recognise the religious straight-jacket under which the authorities are working. It remains illegal in the US to use government money to create or destroy an embryo. For this reason, the stem cell lines were created with private money from cells left over by fertility clinics, embryos that would otherwise have been thrown away.

Miami Herald report

It only takes a few stolen emails and an article or two referring to Climategate to cast aspersions on the reputation of scientists investigating climate change. Suddenly, because someone has made allegations that the scientists were trying to bias the results of the work, the presentation of the story is shaped in the form that the evidence for climate change itself is somehow questionable.

This subtle ad hominem attack on the science is reminiscent of the campaigns in the US against junk science, by which was meant not badly conducted science or results presented as science but unsupported by evidence. Instead what was meant was that you should automatically discount the evidence altogether, not even reading it. The oil companies, following the disgraceful record of the tobacco companies, branded any scientific results they wished to ignore as junk science thereby hoping that no-one would actually look at it. The just raised the accusation of bias and let popular prejudice take its course.

This is the very opposite of a scientific approach. Science relies on publishing the evidence, presenting the theories, challenging the hypotheses that come from those theories, and testing the claims. In science, everyone has a vested interest in finding out the truth of the claims. That is why data is published, is criticised, is reproduced. It is as important for the scientist to find out that they are wrong, as to find corroborating evidence.

Until now, it may have been common for scientific results to be criticised on the grounds of inadequate methodology, or too small a sample size, or insufficient detail, or poor predictive capabilities in a theory. It has even been occasionally the case that an individual scientist will be challenged as to their results - sometimes, they've even been exposed to have fiddled their data. But it's the very fact of peer review, of reproducing the evidence and challenging published work, that enables such self-correction to take place.

But now, because of some stolen emails quoted out of context, Saudi Arabia is claiming that the whole of climate science is biased. A moment's thought tells us that this cannot be the case. Whether or not you think that the behaviour of any individual scientists deserves criticism, it is still a fact that the polar ice caps are melting, that the atmosphere of the earth is warming up, that carbon dioxide levels are rising. The evidence is still there regardless of anyone's particular beliefs - science is independent of anyone's particular beliefs.

Part of the smear story concerns the use of the word "trick" in an email to describe a statistical technique to remove bias in a sample of data. When we have a table of figures that already contains measurements from more than one source, we need to be able to process those figures to separate them out. Removing the influence of one cause to display an underlying trend is a statistical technique that is often described as a trick, rather like we describe a quick way of adding fractions, or dividing by a hundred. It doesn't mean a fiddle, or a con, or some deception. It means a technique.

There never was any indication in the emails that anyone was biasing or fixing the figures but calling into question the behaviour of the scientist is a classic case of trying to undermine the credibility of the scientific evidence. It is rather like finding that Einstein has stolen a pencil and therefore claiming he is dishonest, so he must have fiddled his scientific data. It's a nonsense. The scientific data stands on its own merits.

But the smear campaign does give states like Saudi Arabia, whose prosperity depends on increased oil use, an oportunity to try to discredit the case for global warming. This isn't a case of Climategate but of Oilgate, trying to tar good science with the smear of doubt to push a narrow economic agenda.

Already there has been an outcry from reputable scientists. Hopefully this disgraceful tabloid smear campaign will be left dead in the water and will serve only to highlight the narrow self-interests of those who put the interests of capital over global climate.

How many times have you heard that alternative medicine is holistic, and that by implication conventional medicine isn't? The idea is that the holistic medicine treats the whole person, and not just the symptoms, with the implication that conventional medicine doesn't.

But that's a complete misunderstanding of the word, what it means, and what it implies. Conventional medicine treats the whole person, but from a position of medical knowledge. As Professor Michael Baum argues, compassion without knowledge borders on the fraudulent, so when alternative medical therapists make claims to practice holistic medicine, in the absence of medical knowledge, they are behaving fraudulently.

Medical knowledge is based on detailed study over a very long period of time, with incorrect theories replaced by better ones based on evidence, with research published and shared to inform better, improving practices. By understanding the whole person, that complex biological organism, medical science integrates holistically, the hierarchy of organisation that makes a human being. When a medical practitioner treats a patient, they are using all of that accumulated knowledge, and providing fundamentally holistic care.

The trite and distorting use of the term holistic as a barely disguised accusation against conventional medicine, goes hand in hand with that other term of abuse, allopathic. Allopathic was a term coined by homeopaths to refer to anything that didn't fit their theory. It has no medical, scientific, or even colloquial meaning at all.

In April this year, Professor Michael Baum delivered a lecture at the Royal College of Physicians in which he looked at alternative and complementary medicine in the treatment of breast cancer. He looked at the complexity of the illness, the complexity of the issues surrounding patient care, the ethical decisions involved, the whole totality of the necessary care required for treatment.

It is one of the very best, real-world examples of the differences between those who claim to know about holistic medicine, and the actual practice of it. This talk is highly recommended to anyone interested in what the word holistic really means, and how it really relates to modern medical practice. It should be required viewing for any alternative practitioner who has ever used the word.

The Michael Baum Lecture

There have been articles in national broadsheets claiming that there's a massive conspiracy, that the data was fixed, that carbon dioxide is not the culprit, and that even if it is, it's not down to humans.

Despite the huge amount of climate research, the availability of public data, the detailed reports of the evidence, the consensus between diverse scientific bodies around the world, despite the correlation of the data from different satellites, different monitoring stations, different climate models, and even different sets of historical records, people still claim that it's a put up job. Why are the deniers so vocal? Why are they so convinced there's a conspiracy?

Big bad government?

Part of the answer lies in the idea that government is a bad thing, and therefore anything that requires governments to act to constrain the actions of its citizens is something to be resisted. In the US, there is widespread fear of growing government. It should be remembered that national government only came to the United States in order to constrain the growth in power of the federal governments. The aim was to prevent federal governments taking too much tax, and exercising too much power. National government was supposed to protect the rights of individuals to do just what they wanted.

So Americans see growing government with suspicion, as a reduction in their rights, curtailing their freedom. And talk of freedom gets a big crowd in the US. Whether it is the freedom to bear arms, or drive an SUV, many US citizens resent any limitations on them imposed by the state. The land of the free has an ingrained ideology against government control, whether it applies to industry or the individual.

This leaves it rather ill-equipped to deal with issues which require actions that the population as a whole will not like. Basing politics on populism means that such issues are never faced. If the electors don't want tax rises, you can't increase government spending. If they won't give up their SUVs, it's hard to promote lower fuel consumption. When it comes to climate change, American politicians typically run scared. Despite popular support for doing something, there is mass resistance against anything that will affect them personally.

This fear of government is behind some of the scare stories about global warming research. It is popular to make two related claims: that the data was fixed, and that there is a conspiracy to spread international government control. By linking the two, deniers of global warming can avert attention from the evidence at the same time as playing on anti-government prejudice. This stalls any moves to get people to wake up to the reality of climate change in the US.

Fixed data?

This claim is almost too ludicrous to take seriously but in the wake of the media frenzy over the leaked emails from the Hadley Climate Research Unit, it is important to make some points clear. Firstly, the data from Hadley corresponded perfectly to the climate data obtained by the two other separate independent sources, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Climate Data Center (NOAA and NCDC) and the Goddard Institute of Space Studies. If Hadley's data had been fixed, it would have been necessary to fix the others in exactly the same way. Secondly, they would have had to keep it secret. So the World Meteorological Organisation would also have had to be in on the conspiracy. It is inconceivable that this could happen, especially in view of the fact that the message is not what governments want to hear.

Conspiracy?

There are several versions of the conspiracy theory going around ranging from a plot to boost the sale of energy-efficient lightbulbs, through to the one about communists from Eastern Europe infiltrating green organisations to create a communist world government by stealth. This latter is favoured by American deniers who want to play on the prejudice against government control of anything. Somewhere in amongst that is the Telegraph line that it is all to do with the growth of European Union bodies and the removal of British national sovereignty. Hijacking the issue for such a strange political agenda encourages people to ignore the science.

If you doubt the accuracy of the data, you will be reluctant to base conclusions on it. If you question the motives of the people presenting the data, you will be reluctant to trust their conclusions, regardless of the data. And that's the idea behind the conspiracy theorists. But the data is solid, and the motives of the scientists are beyond question.

Not only are they presenting an unpopular message, unpopular for all governments, but even the sponsoring bodies would prefer not to have to listen to the it. It is a globally unwelcome message. If there was any conspiracy, it would be to promote the message of the global warming deniers, not the evidenced position of the scientists. The conspiracy theories just don't make sense.

The Evidence?

Here are some excellent and concise sources of information compiled by William R. Wilson, well worth reading. They give you the detailed facts which should help convince even the most adamant denier and many detailed links to further sources:
Evidence I
Evidence II Snow Cover
Evidence III The Arctic Ice Cap
Evidence IV Antarctic Ice
Evidence V Disappearing Glaciers