parallel lives

As I've probably indicated before on Assistant Blog, I'm really a massive fan of BBC4; I think that something like 70% of my viewing comes from that channel, and I think it's worth making the point that the majority of those shoes (Comics Britannia, The Genius of Photography, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, some recent stuff on Ian Rankin) are, far from being highbrow intellectual toss, massively enjoyable.

I've been meaning all week to write about 'Parallel Universes, Parallel Lives', a fantastic documentary that aired last week, but I've not had time and - as you might have noticed - I've been quite lazy when it comes to blogging recently, which is really annoying me but I'm just not quite getting around to it.

I suppose I might just not mention it, but the thing about BBC4 is that it's great for repeating stuff, so it's not too late the programme if you keep you eye out. The show recorded the efforts of Mark Oliver Everett, who is better known to you and I as E of the ace pop group Eels, to belatedly find a way to relate to his deceased father, an eminent scientist who had little to do with his rock musician son.

I found the show immensely moving and beautifully filmed, well worth watching and exactly the kind of programming, simultaneously complex and accessible, that I love. Here's Ben from Silent Words Speak Loudest, whose description of the show is dead on.

"The journey wasn't always easy - E's discomfort and trepidation before listening to a collection of old tapes left lying in boxes was palpable, but it was poignant when he pressed play and heard his father's voice talking physics with his childhood self bashing away on the drums in the background. Inevitably, what with E being a bit of a prankster, there were laughs along the way (most memorably when the man who once dressed as the Unabomber for an album cover expressed his amazement at getting clearance to get into the heart of the Pentagon), and I was left thinking that there's a bit of father in the son, if you look at E's intense observation of the minutiae of life and appreciation of the enormity of the cosmos and our insignificance within it."

Here's the link to Ben's post. Go read.

bad science from sam

A bit of bad tempered guest-blogging from Sam...

I'm a regular reader of Ben Goldacre's Badscience column in the Guardian, and it's getting to the point where I can't control my anger and frustration.

As a psychology undergraduate I was astounded by students failure to grasp even the basic distinction between valid common sense empiricism and total nonsense. I lost count of the number of psychology students who didn't think that thought processes could be understood as arising out of neuronal processes, or that psychology shouldn't be a science (most psychology isn't science, or at least is bad science, but you can at least try!).

I had a conversation with an old friend of mine a few months ago. She is towards the end of her final year as a psychology undergrad, with straight-A marks. She was babbling about psychic healing, and some anecdote in which she has 'transferred' an injury from herself to her father through mind power. When I countered that this would violate some fairly fundamental laws of physics, she was incredibly defensive, and other people in the room reacted as if I was being the silly one.

I remember, when I was about 17, my school science department invited a 'well respected expert' to talk to us about 'parapsychology'. She rambled on for about 2 hours about 'quantum wave dimensions' in hyperspace, and the history of psychics (the ouija board is, apparently, a very effective scientific tool, if used correctly!). Afterwards, our physics teacher commented that he thought "she had a lot of good ideas" and that we should be open minded to possibilities, etc.

In Brighton, where I live, they distribute a free magazine called "Waves", which is stuffed full of adverts and editorial on alternative therapies. One of our favourites is the "School of Vibrational Medicine". Brighton must have more stupid people per capita than any other city or town in the UK.

Ok, I think I'm spent. I'm glad I got that off my chest.