Stories That Are Not Quite As Good As The Headlines Suggest

Cannibal star consumes neighbour

Who else was hoping to read about a celebrity who had been pushed over the edge by the b-list lifestyle?

Something To Get Rid Of

Hugh Muir's remarks on the idea of teaching school children about scientists depending more upon how they tick diversity boxes than on what they achieved hasn't impressed many people.

I like this paragraph:

There is black history month, I tell him. We are lucky to still have that. No sign of a Polish history month, a Chinese history fortnight or even a Pakistani history week. But it's stuck, he says. On Mary Seacole, and Martin Luther King.

No there isn't, yet amazingly despite not being given a month dedicated to Chinese role models, British Chinese pupils do extremely well academically and I'm not aware of Polish students doing poorly either. All of which suggests that Black History Month doesn't do much for any black children in terms of improving academic performance. I doubt that "role models" matter that much either. It seems to serve the interests of professional race obsessives instead.

Like Hugh Muir.

But really the big problem with the idea of stuff like Black History Month, is that it seeks to turn history from an inquiry into the past to a tool to promote certain preconceived ideas based purely on the race of the subject.

Ignorance Is Strength

Something to consider:

The accuracy of an expert’s predictions actually has an inverse relationship to his or her self-confidence, renown, and, beyond a certain point, depth of knowledge. People who follow current events by reading the papers and news magazines regularly can guess what is likely to happen about as accurately as the specialists whom the papers quote

......
On the first scale, the experts performed worse than they would have if they had simply assigned an equal probability to all three outcomes—if they had given each possible future a thirty-three-per-cent chance of occurring. Human beings who spend their lives studying the state of the world, in other words, are poorer forecasters than dart-throwing monkeys, who would have distributed their picks evenly over the three choices.

Maybe this says something about the increased specialisation of knowledge, as academics and pundits become ever more informed about the minutiae of their field they lose focus on the broader picture. Also perhaps some fields of 'expertise' are really job creation scams, the article mentions that when asked to predict grades of college students using a simple formula of test scores and high school grades is more accurate than the choices made by 'experts' based on assessments of personality and background, however using test scores and grades doesn't require much in the way of an admissions staff.

Science enables us to predict many things with great certainty but in most other fields the appearance of science is given to areas of study that cannot easily be subjected to scientific rigour, where things cannot be repeated multiple times and can't really be falsified.

Prevention Better Than Cure?

This is going to be controversial:

Addicts are being offered up to £200 cash to be sterilised so they do not give birth to drug dependent children.

The people funding this, Project Prevention, are doing so out of concern for the babies born to drug addicts but there is another aspect to the project.

There is probably a genetic basis to addiction so preventing it being passed on would be an effective means of reducing the problem in future generations but acknowledging the hereditary basis of negative traits is not considered acceptable, even though more and more human traits are found to be influenced much more by genes than the environment. So no one could propose it on that basis.

I'm not sure why pro-life groups like the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children oppose this though, it isn't as though they are aborting foetuses merely preventing conception. I don't see why it is any different from using contraception from their point of view. Surely even the broadest definition as to when a foetus becomes a child doesn't extend back before conception.

More Policy Based Evidence Making

Aren't these researchers missing something here:

Parents underestimate the influence their own drinking habits have on their children's attitude to alcohol, government research suggests.

A Department for Children, Families and Schools study suggests children from heavy-drinking households are more likely to use alcohol themselves.

Wouldn't a study also find that children from tall families are more likely to be tall themselves? Perhaps children copy their parents growing habits. Quickly googling 'Alcohol' 'environmental' & 'genetic' brings up studies like this which conclude:

genetic factors playeda major role in the development of alcoholism among males, withsimilar influence for alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence. ^....... in this population-basedsample, environmental factors shared by family members appearto have had little influence on the development of alcoholismin males.

I don't doubt that the influence of parents matters, but it is also beyond question that someone's susceptibility to alcohol is influenced by genetics. In other words you'd expect someone's drinking habits to resemble that of their parents.

Evolution In Action.

Interesting article on the development of stray dogs in Moskow in the Financial Times. They are no longer merely domestic dogs on the loose, but have evolved physically and behaviourally over the years (maybe even decades or centuries) into something separate that is more wolf like. The different niches the dogs occupy is also remarkable:

Neuronov says there are some 500 strays that live in the metro stations, especially during the colder months, but only about 20 have learned how to ride the trains. This happened gradually, first as a way to broaden their territory. Later, it became a way of life. “Why should they go by foot if they can move around by public transport?” he asks.

“They orient themselves in a number of ways,” Neuronov adds. “They figure out where they are by smell, by recognising the name of the station from the recorded announcer’s voice and by time intervals. If, for example, you come every Monday and feed a dog, that dog will know when it’s Monday and the hour to expect you, based on their sense of time intervals from their ­biological clocks.”

It possibly shines a light on dog evolution, if domestic dogs didn't exist then the "beggars" who have attuned themselves to human feelings would be good candidates for domestication.

They Are Here

Alien life, if it exists at, all is likely to be just like us, a leading scientist has claimed.

This seems more or less plausible, given how convergent evolution tends to produce remarkably similar looking species to occupy similar ecological niches in completely different parts of the world it seems logical that the same principle would apply to other planets. What I don't understand is the "leading scientist's" next statement:

However he also thinks that because much of the Universe is older than us they would have evolved further down the line and we should have heard from them by now.

He believes it is increasingly looking like they may not be out there at all.

"It is about time they turned up," he said. "It is very, very quiet out there. Suspiciously quiet. Where on Earth are they? I personally don't think that there is anything out there."

If they look like us, how does he know that they aren't already here?

Judging A Book By Its Title

Amanda Craig writes about the "pink stinks" campaign to stop little girls wearing pink. She references one of the most important popular science books of the last decade to make her point:

While our daughters squabbled over whose turn it was to use the glittery pink crayon, we would moan on about the tyranny of this repulsive colour.

Where had we all gone so wrong? If our children are born blank slates, as the scientist Stephen Pinker (no, I haven't made up his name) claims, then all this mania for a particular colour has to be culturally imposed, an addiction caused by nurture, not nature.

But there was just one problem with this theory: I kept a very close eye on everything my daughter was exposed to.

Pinker did write a book called "The Blank Slate". It was a book emphatically rejecting the blank slate theory and criticising those scientists who promote it. In other words he is making the precise opposite argument to the one she attributes to him.

She doesn't have to have read the book to know this, just a single review or even a Wikipedia article. She has not even judged the book by it's cover, but purely by its title.

When she writes "(no, I haven't made up his name)", she is also mistaken, as he is "Steven Pinker" not "Stephen Pinker", so she did make up his first name.

Via Neil at Harry's Place.

Those Climate Emails

Are all the environmental campaigners who are denouncing the leaking of the CRU emails as theft against direct action now?

It is reasonable for the proponents of climate change to point out that unethical practices don't invalidate the theory itself. Some of the world's greatest scientists have been gits of the highest order yet their work remains valuable, the feud between Isaac Newton and Gottifried Liebnitz doesn't show either man in a positive light even though they were both incredible polymaths. The Piltdown man hoax does not disprove evolution

AGW advocates George Monbiot in the Guardian and Eugene Robinson in the Washington Post have both robustly defended the theory of manmade warming without soft peddling the serious issues raised by the emails, Robinson writes:

From my reading, the most damning e-mails are those in which scientists seem to be trying to squelch dissent from climate change orthodoxy -- threatening to withhold papers from journals if they publish the work of naysayers, vowing to keep skeptical research out of the official U.N.-sponsored report on climate change.

Which is exactly right. Unfortunately most of the AGW advocates have twisted themselves in knots to defend, contextualise and explain away the behaviour of the CRU scientists.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy

Has the massive expansion of biodefence research in the US since the anthrax letters of 2001 made America a safer place, or more dangerous?

That's the burning question among specialists in infectious disease, after a flurry of concerns about safety at labs handling potential bioweapons agents.

The chief suspect in the 2001 anthrax case is thought to be Bruce Ivins*, a biodefence researcher who committed suicide shortly before charges were brought against him last year. It is a bit of a murky affair and lots of alternative theories of varying plausibility abound though.

However it seems likely that the anthrax was sent by someone who only had access to weaponised anthrax in order to prepare a response in case anyone use weaponised anthrax. In other words if it weren't for the efforts to prepare for an anthrax attack there would have been no anthrax attack.

So wouldn't the safest method of avoiding future attacks with biological weapons be to stop making them? As it is it seems to be somewhat of a self fulfilling prophecy, to prepare for biological warfare by getting leading scientists to develop more effective forms of biological warfare.

Most terrorist groups can't develop weapons themselves because they have neither the resources nor the expertise to carry out complex research and development. Countries can make them, and in some cases probably are doing so, but by and large those most likely to use them would be more likely to harm themselves than to harm the countries with the highest standards of public health and the best medical researchers on the planet.

* He appears to have been the scientific equivalent of those firemen/arsonists, releasing the anthrax in order to push the US government to increase research on anthrax.

Politics Disguised As Science.

The New York Times' science reported John Tierney has a couple of good articles about scientists who advocate political views by pretending that they are scientific, or perhaps honestly conflating the two:

Dr. Pielke, a professor in the environmental studies program at the University of Colorado, is the author of “The Honest Broker,” a book arguing that most scientists are fundamentally mistaken about their role in political debates. As a result, he says, they’re jeopardizing their credibility while impeding solutions to problems like global warming.

Most researchers, Dr. Pielke writes, like to think of themselves in one of two roles: as a pure researcher who remains aloof from messy politics, or an impartial arbiter offering expert answers to politicians’ questions. Either way, they believe their research can point the way to correct public policies, and sometimes it does — when the science is clear and people’s values aren’t in conflict.

But climate change, like most political issues, isn’t so simple. While most scientists agree that anthropogenic global warming is a threat, they’re not certain about its scale or its timing or its precise consequences

Read the whole thing as they say. The other article is here and covers similar ground.

Somewhat alarmingly two of President Obama's appointees- Energy Secretary, Steven Chu and Science Advisor, John P. Holdren- are examples of this error.

Start Smoking & Contract Herpes.

Unlike many bloggers I have a social conscience and like to provide health advice to my readers. Two of the medical conditions that I am keen to avoid like the plague are the er bubonic plague and Parkinson's. So how do you avoid these debilitating conditions?

• Parkinsons- The key to avoiding this tragic degenerative illness is to take up smoking. I'm not sure how much you need to smoke in order to prevent the condition arising but I'd start with 40 a day to be on the safe side. As a bonus it will also make you less susceptible to Alzheimer's (or possibly more susceptible).
  

• Plague- the best way of avoiding plague is to contract the protective Herpes virus.or nature's penicillin as I like to think of it. All that Herpy goodness appears to prevent plague in mice.

Fun With Eugenics.

It's almost the weekend and it's time for a light hearted topic. So lets talk about eugenics!

On another blog I got into a discussion about the topic yesterday, after initially making a half joking remark about wanting to stop the likes of Karen Matthews and 'Alfie' popping out dozens of kids for the good of society, I could have mentioned the mother of octuplets as well. Come to think of it I referred to preventing prisoners from breeding as being good for society for explicitly genetic reasons the other day.

Eugenics is strongly associated with the savagery of the Nazis and is therefore pretty much the ultimate taboo. Personally I think the ethical problem with 20th century advocates of eugenics is that they had no respect for civil liberties and believed in the right of the state to forcibly restrict people's right to reproduce. It doesn't therefore follow that there is something intrinsically wicked about non coercive eugenics.

However you can get away with advocating eugenic theories and policies as long as you avoid calling them eugenic take for example:

• The theory that abortion cuts crime.
  
• Singapore's policy of helping graduates have children whilst discouraging the less well educated from doing so.
• Screening among people of jewish descent for Tay Sach's disease.

All these make at least implicit eugenic assumptions yet spark little outrage so it seems safe to assume that the word "eugenics" sparks more outrage than the practice. I'm not endorsing any of these policies or theories (I'm sceptical about the abortion-crime theory) by the way so I don't feel any great need to defend any of them.

If it isn't morally wrong to try to improve the fitness of the population through selective breeding then the question will really come down to whether it is effective or not. For eliminating diseases with identifiable genetic markers- like Tay Sachs- it obviously is effective. When it comes to encouraging the well off to reproduce themselves and the less well off to not do so then it really depends to what extent socio-economic status is influenced by genes, which is altogether a murkier question.

Update: On the subject of how eugenics is socially acceptable as long as you don't call it eugenics see this-

A March of Dimes report released today says all 50 states and the District of Columbia now require newborn screening for 21 or more so-called core disorders recommended for testing. These core disorders, 29 in all, include many rare but potentially disabling or fatal metabolic disorders. Although all states have rules or laws requiring the screenings, Pennsylvania and West Virginia have yet to implement their expanded programs, according to the organization.

Update 2: Cabalamat at Amused Cynicism had a post on this very subject a few months back which is worth a read.

Normalising Deviancy.

I don't believe this claim for a moment:

About 1 in 10 children in the developed world is abused each year but official statistics indicate less than a tenth of those abused are investigated

This is a based on a study by the Lancet who as we all know never publish sensational inflated statistics. If there are over one and a half million abused children in Britain today then it would be horrifying. However as the article explains:

The definition of abuse was wide-ranging and included punching, hitting, beating, burning, rape, exposure to pornography as well as neglect and emotional abuse such as making a child feel worthless or unwanted.

Clearly punching, burning, raping and severe neglect are examples of child abuse (although I suspect 'hitting' means corporal punishment) but when you get into 'making a child feel worthless' then that could mean almost anything. A parent who snaps at a child to shut up might make the child feel worthless, but unless it is constant it is hardly abuse.

Is the reason they are defining child abuse so widely to make it appear as though we are all guilty and that real abusers are no worse than millions of normal people.

Update: More Lancet fun here.

Mystic Minister

Last month I wrote to the government's science minister, Lord Drayson, to tell him that the off the cuff remarks he was going to make this weekend about being able to predict the future were clearly nonsense. Now that the remarks have taken place, I still hold to this view.

He isn't actually claiming to be psychic but merely latching on the ideas in Malcolm Gladwell's Blink*, however if Gordon Brown had a sense of humour he might emulate Kelvin Mackenzie who famously informed the Sun's resident astrologer of his redundancy in a letter that began "As you will already know....".


* I haven't read Blink, but am I correct in thinking that the basic idea is that the subconscious mind can ofter assemble information and reach a decision before we are conscious of it?

Telling Their Arse From Their Antlers

As regular readers may know I am always keen to help scientists push forwards the frontiers of human knowledge. So 364 days after my last attempt to be helpful comes another opportunity. Scientists have discovered that cattle and deer tend to lie in a North-South axis rather than an East-West one, a useful thing to know as it obviates the need to carry cumbersome compasses, however there is a problem:

The scientists were unable to distinguish between the head and rear of the cattle, but could tell that the animals tended to face either north or south.

Ok the trick to identifying which end is which is fairly straightforward if you follow these suggestions:

• Count the number of eyes, if there are two it is the face, if there is one brown eye you may be at the other end.
• Try putting a treat in the animals mouth, if it swallows it then it's the face again, if you get kicked, don't blame me.
• Check which direction the animal moves in, usually the head is at the front.

Hybrids, Why Not?

In many parts of the world mixing human and animal DNA is something that rustic folk do in private behind closed barn doors. However this ancient practice is more controversial when done in a laboratory by scientists.

The Prime Minister has come out in favour of allowing human-animal hybrid embryos to be created, but apart from that I can't see any reason to oppose it. As far as I'm concerned a two week old embryo is simply a cluster of cells and not a distinct being is any sense and any moral dilemmas only appear once it develops a neural system.

Whilst human animal hybrids can be made to sound more dramatic than they are, the only coherent grounds for objecting to them are that one believes that life is sacred from conception onwards, and that is indeed the belief of organisations like the Catholic church. For other opponents it really doesn't make a lot of sense to allow foetuses to be aborted as late as 24 weeks whilst simultaneously throwing up one's hands in horror at the prospect of a two week old embryo being experimented on before being disposed of.

The creation of hybrid embryos has the potential to allow medical advances that would save many lives in the future and causes no suffering to anyone else.

World To End, Lawyer Objects.

The New York Times reports:

Walter L. Wagner and Luis Sancho contend that scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, have played down the chances that the collider could produce, among other horrors, a tiny black hole, which, they say, could eat the Earth. Or it could spit out something called a “strangelet” that would convert our planet to a shrunken dense dead lump of something called “strange matter.” Their suit also says CERN has failed to provide an environmental impact statement as required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

So not only will these scientists destroy the planet, they've also failed to produce an environmental impact study, the fiends!! Of course being the New York Times I'm surprised they haven't mentioned the impact that the end of the world would have on women and minorities.

Designing Disability.

A deaf couple who wanted to use IVF to ensure that they have a deaf baby are angry that the government is proposing to ban the knowing use of embryos with a genetic defect in IVF treatment. This isn't the first time that a deaf couple have deliberately tried to ensure that their child is also deaf. The reason why it is deaf couples trying to propagate their disability rather than couple's with another disability is because uniquely the deafness creates a linguistic minority and a subculture that goes with it.

The problem is that some deaf advocates take the view that because deafness is a cultural identifier it is therefore not really a disability. This leads to situations such as opposition to treating deaf children with cochlear implants because it shrinks the 'community' or doctors failing to offer easy genetic screening for deafness (ironic considering the first story I linked to) in foetuses because of pressure from deafness advocates.

I would guess that the initial reaction for most people to parents 'designing' their children for deafness is probably that it is abhorrent and close to child abuse, that was certainly my first reaction. Considering the matter in more depth certainly creates more sympathy towards the motivations of the parents but it doesn't change the conclusion. The absence of hearing impairs the quality of life of a child and increases the risks they face ( for example they can't hear fire alarms, oncoming traffic etc) and the benefits to the deaf community don't outweigh them.

Prosecute James Watson Say Race Groups.

The co-discoverer of DNA James Watson is being lambasted for making controversial remarks about race and intelligence:

The 79-year-old geneticist reopened the explosive debate about race and science in a newspaper interview in which he said Western policies towards African countries were wrongly based on an assumption that black people were as clever as their white counterparts when "testing" suggested the contrary. He claimed genes responsible for creating differences in human intelligence could be found within a decade.

Obviously this is extremely controversial viewpoint and people are entitled to disagree and criticise Watson for saying it. What isn't on is for organisations and MPs to try and have him prosecuted for expressing an opinion.

Anti-racism campaigners called for Dr Watson's remarks to be looked at in the context of racial hatred laws. A spokesman for the 1990 Trust, a black human rights group, said: "It is astonishing that a man of such distinction should make comments that seem to perpetuate racism in this way. It amounts to fuelling bigotry and we would like it to be looked at for grounds of legal complaint."

The 1990 trust is of course the organisation that promoted such laughably bogus accusations of racism against Boris Johnson earlier in the year, a fact which has a lot to do with their source of funding being from Ken Livingstone. Do these people really want Britain to regress to a country where Nobel winning scientists, or any scientists, cannot openly discuss ideas without facing the brunt of the law. It doesn't matter whether the ideas being discussed are right or wrong, it must be possible to discuss them openly.


Update: Incidentally whilst I deplore the thuggish efforts to prosecute people for what they say, it is a pity that James Watson will be cited by race cranks at tedious length for decades to come, much like a previous Nobel Laureate who delved into these waters. That can't be nice fate for the man partially responsible for the discovery of the century.