Synogenes.com

The supposed new College of Medicine?

2010-08-06T15:46:33Z

Many people will be staggered at the news that a so-called College of Medicine is to set up following the ignominious demise of the Prince of Wales' Foundation for Integrated Health in May this year amidst fraud and money-laundering charges. Four of the ex-directors or fellows of the disgraced Trust are directors of the new college although none of them have been charged with the previous fraud. George Gray, the charity's finance director has been charged with theft of £253,000. The registration documents of the new college are available on David Colquhoun's website. One of the aims of the new organisation (I can't bring myself to call it a college) is "7.4 establish an evidence base for integrated health and for individual complementary modalities;" which basically means looking for evidence in support of alternative medicine theories. In science, we start from the data, from observation and measurement, from real phenomena and only once we have evidence of the existence of the phenomena, do we start to theorise about them, to look for explanations for them. But these guys prefer to do it back-to-front. Start with the assumption that it works, then go trawling for something that they can pass off as evidence. That's a scandalous way to treat medicine and medical science and it has nothing to do with an honest assessment of the efficacy of the treatment. One of those modalities they talk about is homeopathy, discredited over and over by detailed scientific evaluation for more than a century. There is not a shred of evidence that it has any efficacy at all and there are countless evidenced reasons why it cannot work. Not only is it a stupid theory, but the practitioners themselves have consistently failed to provide any evidence of efficacy. How then can it be considered any kind of treatment, any sort of medical modality. Evidence based on anecdote is not evidence. A college of medicine that has nothing to do with medicine and isn't a college but a commercial promoter of Woo, is not a college of medicine.

Atheism is a far better morality

2010-08-02T14:51:54Z

It has always been popular amongst religious people to claim that atheists have no source of their moral values, that atheists are by definition immoral. Qualiasoup has an excellent video presentation which exposes this argument in all its glory and like all the other Qualiasoup videos, this one is highly recommended.

AIG fraud payout paid by the US public

2010-07-17T09:34:51Z

It might come as no surprise that a major international insurance giant gets involved in fraud, after all there are massive profits to be made by manipulating the markets. But AIG was being sued in a class action lawsuit alleging that they were involved in price manipulation, anti-competitive practices, and accounting fraud between 1999 and 2005. They were being sued by three Ohio pension funds but they've now settled the claim avoiding a court case. They've agreed to pay out almost three quarters of a billion dollars - a billion is one followed by nine zeros. That astronomical sum would be a scandalous admission of the kind of morality followed by the major industrialists, but the real scandal is that AIG is also the insurance giant that was propped up by US government loans. The US insurance giant was bailed out by the US government to the tune of $182.3 billion (those nine zeros again) so that the US now owns 80% of the company. So the really clever bit is that 80% of the cost of paying for the fraudulent activity is stumped up by the US government who gets the revenue from the US public. State sponsored fraud settlements! That's a new innovation for corporate capitalism. As long as you come clean, after the state has bailed you out, you get to keep the proceeds of the fraud, keep your reputation intact, keep control of your assets, and have someone else pay the fine. Sounds like a real result for the fat cats!

Vatican makes appealing losses

2010-07-11T18:11:43Z

The Vatican has announced losses for the third year with income of around €250m and expenditure at €254m. Donations from the faithful in churches were up 9% to $82m. What this shows is that even though the church has been involved in the most disgraceful actions over the exposure of child abusers in its organisation, including refusing to release name to an investigation, the faithful still rally around and give it money. With an income of a quarter of a billion Euros, it's obviously a very big international business but given that it's major iconic product is falling apart at the seams, that it's social influence attracts odium rather than passive acceptance, and that its political past is mired in right-wing dictatorships and repressive regimes, it's no wonder that it is beginning to lose money. With ethical positions that beggar belief from the refusal to allow condoms in the campaign against AIDS, through to it's appalling treatment of women, to its persecution of gays, it's a wonder any catholics remain who try to justify the church position. On a social level, parents must be very worried about the protection their children receive at the hands of catholic education. Even though the actual risks of crimes being committed is low, the fear is produced by the church's unwillingness to address the issue openly and forcefully. Hopefully this is a sign that people are waking up to the irrelevance of religion, to the distorted social reality it engenders, to the prejudice and moral bankruptcy of religious institutions. But then maybe we'll see a rebranding exercise. Isn't that what businesses do when they find themselves up against the wall? Change the logo? Change the name?

Climategate was media dishonesty

2010-07-04T11:25:49Z

You might have missed the hoards of media pundits falling over themselves in indecent haste to correct the appalling hackfest unleashed on the climate scientists earlier this year. Phil Jones, the climatologist in East Anglia, was accused of impropriety and dishonesty in his handling of climate data and the Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann was accused of falsifying and suppressing data. But the whole business was investigated and they were cleared, completely and unconditionally cleared. There was no conspiracy, no fiddling the data, no suppression of the facts, and the statements made by the scientists were supported by peer-reviewed research. Recently the Times retracted its version of events but did you hear the media celebration that the UK climate scientists were completely exonerated? Of course not. The problem with such apologies after the fact is of course that the damage is already done. The volume of the accusations far exceeds the whisper of apology and by the time it is made, everyone has got used to the idea that climate data was fixed. The sad fact is that once people have been told something, especially by someone trusted, then regardless of how much later contrary evidence is produced including retractions, a substantial number of people will continue to believe what they have been told. Propagandists have long known this and exploit it regularly. In this case climate science has been the victim. You can read the Times statement here.

Belgium teaches the church about the law

2010-06-26T12:39:55Z

Given the lamentable record of the Catholic Church in addressing the long-standing criminal activities of its child-abusing members, it is no surprise that the Belgian authorities saw fit to confiscate material which was being reviewed by the bishops. If the bishops had had a clear intention of addressing the issue, instead of working on the material themselves, they would have voluntarily involved criminal investigators. That they didn't do so is sufficient grounds for having zero confidence in their ability to address the issue. We are left wondering what, if anything, they intended to do. Suppose they found evidence of child abuse. Their first decision would have been whether or not to inform the criminal investigators and that allows for the possibility that they might not have. It is entirely possible that in the interests of their own institution, the church, they would make a decision to attempt to resolve the "problem" internally. That of course, it utterly unacceptable. The very fact that they were willing to filter through potential evidence and make a prior judgement about what if anything would be reported to the police shows how malleable is their sense of morality and justice. There should have been no question of the church looking into crimes committed within its ranks. Those criminal child abusers are subject to criminal law, defined and implemented by the state. They are not first accountable to the church. There is an important principle here. The church has always pretended that they are answerable to some "higher authority", as if that supersedes the laws of the state. The church has behaved as if it can pick and choose whether or not to subject itself to civil law and the Belgian authorities have demonstrated that they don't have the choice. The potential for incriminating evidence to be hidden away under the guise of "confidentiality" meant that the only way for the police to be sure of getting at the evidence itself was to seize it. The church should be ashamed of trying to conduct an internal review instead of voluntarily opening its documents to criminal investigators. This doesn't show the church implementing its so-called "zero tolerance" policy, but of once again trying to hide from the public gaze the shameful internal workings of the church administration. We can see why so many people have "zero confidence" in the morality of the church.

Prince William and the Royal Society? What?

2010-06-23T09:23:04Z

"The Society's foundation is its Fellowship, which is made up of the most eminent scientists, engineers and technologists from the UK and the Commonwealth. Each year, the Fellows elect 44 new Fellows and eight new Foreign Members, chosen for their scientific achievements." That's what the Royal Society website says. And it goes on, "The main criterion for election as a Fellow is scientific excellence." So there you have it. A scientific body which elects its fellows on the basis of significant scientific achievement. The Royal Society says "The election process for Fellows and Foreign Members is extremely rigorous and is based upon the established practice of peer review." But it seems there has been some exceptions made. The Princess Royal and the Duke of Kent are already Fellows. Already the Duke of Edinburgh is a Fellow, and now his grandson Prince William is to be made a Fellow as well. What, we might ask, is their scientific achievement? Why on earth would an eminent scientific society pander to royalty by degrading the significance of a Fellowship of the Royal Society and allowing in people who, apart from being very rich, have no distinguishing characteristics at all. The election of honorary fellows was supposed to be to be able to include those who "rendered signal service to the cause of science, or whose election would significantly benefit the Society by their great experience in other walks of life". But in this case, it's a throwback to the time in the seventeenth century when scientists were thin on the ground and in order to get any financial backing for scientific activity, you had to pander to the rich and famous. The clause to elect honorary fellows enabled wealthy folk to parade around with FRS after their name. The category of Royal Fellows allowed direct pandering to royalty which persists to this day. Of course, it won't make any real difference to anything much. Prince William has not shown any "significant scientific achievement", indeed he's not personally involved in anything much to do with science. He's just a name. But this is just another aspect of marketing, branding, and pumping up the Society's importance through the names it can list, rather than through the profoundly important scientific advances of its true Fellows. Does it really need to do this pandering? True, it is part of the long historical tradition of the Society and by pandering to the self-importance of royalty, it make funding a little more likely, so there's clearly an opportunist element to this act. But doesn't it look cheap? The spirit of rationalism that pervades the real work of the Royal Society ought at the same time to point to the need to drop the archaic pandering to royalty and other wealthy people.

BP assets should be seized

2010-06-16T11:51:02Z

The oil spill from the rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico on 20th April is the worst environmental disaster the US has ever faced and for the moment Obama is going after BP to pay for the damage. But we should think about what really caused this disaster. Certainly the company didn't know how it would deal with such a failure at that depth because it had never happened before. It's safety plans were clearly not up to dealing with the consequences of its own operations, so there is some culpability there. But we should ask why companies are undertaking such dangerous and environmentally hazardous procedures at all. The quest for more and more profit is not simply the result of greedy individuals although that's the way it is often presented. In fact, there is a compulsion in all businesses to increase their profits because failure to do so risks a takeover, or at worst going bust. So every company, every corporation, every global business, is in cut-throat competition to maximise the return to the shareholders. All else is a secondary concern. They will bend government policies, bribe states, corrupt politicians, and when it is expedient dismiss or downplay any environmental, social or economic consequences of their actions. Profit always comes before anything else and the shareholders, the owners of capital, sitting in the background expect board members always and unquestionably to act in their interests. That fundamental clash between the interests of the owners of capital, and society in general is often hidden behind an ideology that tries to convince us all that it is in our best interests for these companies to succeed, by which is meant to make increased profits. When these companies are in difficulty because of periodic crises, we are told that we have to accept austerity measures in order to keep up the profits for the shareholders. The system that creates the crises is deemed beyond criticism. We are even told that we are all shareholders now because our pension funds are invested on our behalf. Of course, the truth is that our pensions are deferred income, income that we have not yet been given even though we have earned it. Far from being something we should be grateful for, it is in fact capital that is being used by the major company owners to further their own interests. The oil spill should suggest to us all that a system that allows the owners of vast amounts of capital to undertake operations that kill their own workers and produce environmental disasters, is fundamentally flawed. A civilised society would not allow a minority of very wealthy people to take such risks just because they own capital. The social cost is simply too great. And to deal with the disaster, it is very reasonable to propose that the capital of BP be seized and applied to the clean up. No dividends, no profit to the owners, no compensation to the directors, unless and until the mess is cleaned up. Thereafter, it is questionable whether the same people should ever be entrusted with such power again. Often revolutionary and reasonable are the same thing.

Bhopal and Union Carbide - corporate crime

2010-06-07T13:29:41Z

Eight people were sentenced to two years each in jail and fines of £1500 in the Indian courts this week. You'd think it was a relatively minor offence but in fact it was the judgement in the Bhopal case, the world's worst ever industrial accident. They were convicted of negligence and the consequence of that negligence was a death toll of at least 15,000 and perhaps as many as 25,000 people. On 3rd December 1984, the Union Carbide plant was manufacturing pesticides and around forty tons of methyl isocyanate escaped and fell on the town killing over 3000 people in the first day. There followed decades of health problems including birth defects. For such a disaster you would have thought that if the company was found to be negligent, the CEO would be in the dock. After all, the decisions about how the plant was run, what it's profitability targets were, what style of management to impose, its operating procedures, would have been taken not solely by the eight Indians convicted and sentenced this week, but also by the Union Carbide chairman, Warren Anderson. He's been named as one of the accused, but not mentioned in the sentencing. Why is that? Well, back in 2000, Warren Anderson was reported to have gone into hiding to avoid being served a summons to appear in a Manhattan court to face civil proceedings against him. The Indian government had brought a civil case against him in 1989 and they agreed a settlement of $470 million. Nevertheless, the Indian Supreme Court issued an arrest warrant on the charge of "culpable homicide" but Anderson refused to be subject to the Bhopal Court jurisdiction. So whilst the big bosses behind the company get off without facing court, eight Indians including the Indian chairman, managing director, vice-president, works manager, a plant superintendant and a production assistant are jailed and fined. The current owners of Union Carbide, Dow Chemicals, are still resisting attempts to get the corporation to take full responsibility for the disaster. Union Carbide argued that the Indian branch should take full responsibility even though UC owner 51% of the Indian subsidiary. Such is the way with corporate responsibility - it doesn't count for very much at all. UC has effectively offered up eight Indian employees as sacrificial lambs whilst one of the biggest culprits in the case has managed to avoid extradition, arrest, and a court appearance. It is understood that Warren Anderson is a very wealthy mean. Cynics might think these two facts are related.

Will Willetts close homeopathy hospitals?

2010-05-21T12:27:24Z

Given the ardently pro-science views of David Willetts, and the announcement of very tight spending controls on science over the coming period, it is reasonable to ask if he will also be supporting demands for the closure of the London Homeopathic Hospital, that stain on the rational reputation of the health service in the UK. The last refit cost the country £20 million and the country subsidised this completely irrational nonsense. During a time of financial pressure, surely one of the most obvious cuts that would both improve budgets and the medical care of those who are deluded into attending it, the ending of funding for the London Homeopathic Hospital would be a positive step. It's early days but Willetts has a respect for science, so he can be expected to be sympathetic to the rational case against irrational alternative medicine. But he is keen to help meet the demands of the government for £6 billion cuts and that means that he will expect science to lose a share of its funding. Just whether he will exert any influence he has on those in the Department of Health remains to be seen. But this is an excellent opportunity, with justifiable spending reduction arguments, to rationalise away the nonsensical use of homeopathy in the National Health Service.

Political correctness and racist excuses

2010-05-06T11:37:16Z

These days it's becoming common for people to say they are opposed to political correctness. They are so fed up with stupid legislation, stupid rules, an apparent obsession with controlling people's behaviour, that they refuse to allow the free expression of their views to be curtailed just because someone might think them politically incorrect. Any viewpoint which can be labelled as politically incorrect acquires a kind of rogue currency, the cry of the rebel, the refusal to be kept quiet. Anyone who tries to limit the expression of those views is regarded as the enemy, someone to be campaigned against, fought against. What gets lost in this grass-roots rejection of control is any consideration of the content of the views. So the expression of any and every viewpoint, however odious or prejudiced, is regarded as a fight for freedom. And any criticism of those views is assumed to be on the side of the politically correct. This is a remarkably effective smoke-screen for extreme right wing views, racist prejudice, and anti-democratic campaigning. As a result of the highlighting of prejudiced attitudes, and various items of legislation to outlaw discrimination, those people who feel their views are under attack have used the term political correctness to imply that they are being forced to shut up. But in fact, what has happened is that a lot of people are so fed up with the xenophobic and racist prejudices, the little-England mentality, the scaremongering about people from other countries, that they want to live in a country that doesn't support those views. As cultures mingle and international influences are seen in the arts and literature, film and TV, those people who are open to outside influence, find the closed and suspicious attitude of nationalists quite offensive. Unfortunately, many of those people are so accommodating that they typically avoid confrontation. Instead of defending their viewpoint, their internationalism and open cultural attitudes, they keep quiet. The xenophobes spout their racist nonsense insisting that they are defending their right to speak and the liberals, who of course defend free speech, don't object. But what we need are clear arguments which oppose racist views, those snide prejudiced comments that the Brits often produce whenever they talk about immigration and foreigners. Anyone who opposes the arguments against immigration are dismissed as politically correct and the arguments are never addressed. Many newspapers love to pander to prejudice and dismiss any contrary views with the simple epithet. Sure, we can all be irritated by excessive legislation and silly restrictions, but there are some fundamental principles at stake. Why should someone's right to express racist views force foreign people in the UK to be subjected to prejudiced treatment? Why should someone have to experience discrimination so that some bigot can have free rein in expressing their views? Expressing views which encourage discrimination and prejudice is illegal for good reason, because doing do injures the rights of others. Expressing views implies some responsibilities too and that's why the law balances them. Unfortunately, with so many people objecting to political correctness without thinking through the consequences, the racists and xenophobes have found a comfortable cover behind which to hide, whilst continuing to spout their odious views. We can and should expose racism and xenophobia for what it is and challenge anyone who tries to hide behind some fight against political correctness. It is becoming too easy for odious views to find an acceptable justification behind a simplistic campaign against regulation. Racism is not politically correct because such views are prejudiced, ill-informed, and discriminatory. That's why they should be opposed.

The church is not above the law

2010-04-22T12:09:44Z

Whilst of course it is very welcome that the official catholic establishment expresses its own horror and dismay at the extent of child abuse within its institition, the concentration on feelings, with phrases like "deep sorrow" and "heartfelt sorrow", and their sense of "deep shame" serves as a smoke screen in front of the legal reality. The Pope was, and is, the CEO of a major international corporation in whose midst child abuse was carried out systematically and the institution itself participated both actively and passively to avoid it coming to light. And now we are asked to accept an apology and heartfelt sorrow in lieu of legal culpability. The idea that he is to do "penance" is simply insulting. He doesn't seem to acknowledge that he is legally obliged to conform to secular law. The truth of the matter is that in any corporation, the CEO is where the buck stops. Since the Pope's administration of the corporation played a significant role in preventing these crimes from coming to light sooner, there is no legal difference between that and any other conspiracy to protect the criminally guilty. As an accessory, the Pope should face charges along with all the Bishops who knowingly failed to act, who left child-abusers in post, or transferred them to fresh new pastures. And the hand-wringing apologies are simply not a way of addressing legal culpability. There is a popular myth inside the Christian churches that representatives follow a "higher law", that of God's law. They popularise the notion that judgement before this mythical superbeing is somehow more fundamental and significant than being answerable to secular law, the law governing our societies. And in the pretence of being deistically accountable, they seek to avoid being judged by a rather more mundane secular process. But that absolutely should not happen. The church is not above the law. Just because their representatives claim allegiance to a superbeing, that does not mean they have a "get out of jail card". Once convicted and sentenced, they may well take solace from the fact that they have at least paid an earthly price for their crimes but any claims they might have to be dealing with the superbeing, far less actually following his will, must remain outside the scope of law. Let them face charges in court and let them answer to our justice system. If they want to do religious penance as well then so be it but it absolutely is not a substitute for the legal process. The sooner prosecutors stiffen their backbone and address the legal issues, the better.

Simon Singh wins - chiropractors drop libel charge

2010-04-15T13:06:13Z

It is excellent news that after the hammering the BCA received in the courts on 1st April, they have now decided to drop the libel case against Simon Singh. Although he remains out of pocket by around £100k+ he has won the case convincingly. Not only did the chiropractors have no evidence to back their claims, but the courts have also heavily criticised them for bringing the libel charge in the first place. It is absurd that when chiropractors claim to be able to treat childhood colic, that they should be able to use libel laws to suppress the challenge that they have no evidence. Any reasonable person would expect them instead to offer their evidence and debate the case, not try to gag critics. Chiropractors make a lot of money from treating people and many of them have made claims which they cannot justify. The BCA itself had to warn its members not to do so. Patients who are handing over money for treatment which does not have evidence of efficacy have a reasonable claim that they are being deceived and they may now be encouraged to challenge the chiropractors. Despite a mealy-mouthed press release pretending that their case was justified, the BCA has been publicly humiliated and exposed as an organisation trying to use libel law to suppress very reasonable criticism of its unjustified claims. Hopefully there will now be a backlash from the very many chiropractors who treat back pain and don't make outlandish claims. They are justified in demanding to know why their representatives chose to waste their subscription money defending people who shouldn't have been making those absurd claims in the first place. They have seen their trade association bringing them all into disrepute. It may also have the perhaps unintended consequence of getting chiropractors themselves to start to appreciate the need to back up their claims with high quality peer-reviewed scientific evidence, the sort provided by controlled, randomised, double-blind trials, not the sort published in tame journals owned by chiropractic and alternative medicine companies. Onwards with the quacklash!

Sign the Libel Reform Petition

2010-04-07T17:43:30Z

The news of Simon Singh's win in the appeals court over his right to publish criticism of chiropractors is very encouraging but there is still an important battle to get the libel laws reformed in the UK. Until the law is changed, scientists and journalists arguing for evidence in the face of irrational health claims can be accused in the libel courts. You can do something really practical to help, simply by signing a petition. Simon Singh is asking for as many people as possible to support the campaign by signing the petition. It will take you a minute and cost you nothing. If you can persuade someone else to do the same that will help even more. The more people supporting the campaign, the more likely it is that the major parties will put something in their election manifesto. That's no guarantee that they'll implement it of course - political parties are notoriously dismissive of the electorate at all times except during elections - but at least they will be pushed to consider it. Please publicise this and try to get others to sign too. Every little will help.

Simon Singh wins right to appeal

2010-04-01T12:05:30Z

The ruling has just come in that Simon Singh, accused of libel by the British Chiropractic Association, has won the right to appeal. The case depends on the claim that the BCA was supporting the treatment of various childhood ailments including colic by chiropractic techniques. There is a dearth of evidence supporting these claims and Dr Singh, along with Professor Edzard Ernst wrote a book called Trick or Treatment, in which they explained this at great length. As the claimed evidence provided by the chiropractors was criticised for not having controls, for having small sample size, for depending on anecdotal accounts, and so on, it was clear to every reasonable person that the BCA did not have a case. This ruling now means that Simon Singh can actually fight the libel case using the fact that his article in the Guardian was "comment". This subtle point is crucial for anyone writing about science in which the assessment of evidence is critical. It means for example that someone can claim of another scientist that there is no evidence to support their claims - without the accuser being dragged into the courts. Most rational people would wonder why, faced with the challenge from Simon Singh, the BCA didn't simply offer to present the evidence to an independent panel and get it assessed. Or at least sue the Guardian newspaper instead of Simon Singh personally. If the intention was to suppress criticism, as was implied in the ruling issued today, then that constitutes a libel warming against those who criticise unevidenced alternative therapies. The ruling today is very welcome because it means that those of use who are critical of Woo therapies which lack supporting evidence, can offer opinion which challenges the claims, without the threat of libel action. Of course, Simon Singh is only half way through this ordeal which has already cost him £200,000. He still has to win the libel case, but now he has a very strong and credible defence. When he gets his day in court, he can easily justify his opinion by reference to the evidence and that's what it should have been about all along. There must be many BCA members wondering why their collective reputations have been dragged down by the involvement in such a ludicrous libel case in the first place.