Archive for December, 2012

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Science and advocacy do not mix (the “Greenpeace syndrome”?)

December 4, 2012

It is not the first time that “activists” have turned to dubious and manipulated science to further their cause. And it will not be the last. The peer-review process which is supposed to catch this kind of politically motivated pseudoscience is often not capable of doing so – and certainly not when the purported science is presented in a stage manged  PR exercise. Anything published by an advocacy group may – sometimes – contain some science but – and it should be axiomatic – no advocacy report is ever science.

In this case a “scientist” – Gilles-Eric Seralini – who is also a well-known activist campaigning against GM crops managed to get the reputed Elsevier Food and Chemical Toxicology journal to publish some highly dubious results that genetically modified corn caused tumors in rats. Seralini is also known for making up honors or paying for them to be awarded to himself! Perhaps this should be called the “Greenpeace syndrome”. Greenpeace is not averse either to making up science to further their political goals. (In fact Greenpeace just today published another apparently independent study in favour of wind power but which they had themselves commissioned!)

Reuters reports today that

(Reuters) – The publisher of a much-criticized study suggesting genetically modified corn caused tumors in rats has come under heavy pressure from scientists to retract the paper and explain why it was ever printed.

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When “science” becomes a marketing tool for pharmaceuticals

December 3, 2012

There are many industries which play the “science as marketing game” but perhaps the most blatant are the pharmaceutical and medical industries. Sometimes researchers are just unwitting pawns in the marketing game but in a sense they are also at fault in being susceptible to becoming pawns. This cautionary tale about the diabetes drug Avandia reported in the Washington Post only enforces my view that since society invests the scientist with an aura of objective truth-seeking, then society must also demand a measure of responsibility and accountability from the scientist. And that can only happen if scientists have a measure of liability for the “product” they produce.

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COP18 in Doha: A convention of the cowardly in the “theatre of the absurd”

December 3, 2012

COP18 in Doha enters its second week and politicians are now arriving in droves. A small fortune has already been spent during the first week. But this is a gathering of an alarmist movement built on unprovable fears. Inevitably the greedy “groupies” gather (some 17,000 of them). A convention of the cowardly in the “theatre of the absurd”.

As The Economist puts it

NEVER let it be said that climate-change negotiators lack a sense of the absurd. Thousands of politicians, tree-huggers and journalists descended on Doha this week, adding their mite of hot air to the country that already has the world’s highest level of carbon emissions per head. The feeling of unreality is apt.  ……. The jamboree in Doha is the 18th UN climate-change summit, but the third since a landmark one at Copenhagen in 2009.

We shall see – and are seeing — new alarmist articles and press releases every day till the end of this week. But the fundamental problem is not so much the politics of alarmism connected with this one non-issue of climate change, but the fact that the once laudable environmental movement now resorts to the politics of fear. Courage is singularly lacking.

Courage is the subordination of fear to purpose. Today however with the politics of alarmism, fears dominate purpose. Inevitably these are fears which can never be disproved because they are forecasts of what lies a long way in the future. And the politics of fear generates its own greedy “groupies”

Once upon a time, the environmentalists were a courageous lot and were surely instrumental in the cleaning up of many areas from the effects of real pollution … But the simple virtues of keeping things clean and preventing disease and improving the standard of living for humans has given way to the more pompous and pretentious goals of preventing global warming (an unbridled arrogance), of maintaining bio-diversity (and why is this important?) and of preserving “scarce resources due to the “limits to growth”…  

… Inevitably the politics of alarmism are accompanied by the opportunists whose greed leads to all the scams surrounding environmental subsidies for renewable power or for carbon trading.

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Anamorphic Rubik’s cube and other illusions

December 2, 2012

Illusions on a Sunday morning:

Anamorphosis is a distorted projection or perspective requiring the viewer to use special devices or occupy a specific vantage point to reconstitute the image. The word “anamorphosis” is derived from the Greek prefix ana-, meaning back or again, and the word morphe, meaning shape or form.

These were created by Brusspup

Scroll down for how it is done.

From Colossal:

The trick is pretty simple: the photographs are skewed but then filmed at an angle where everything looks normal, but when the illusion is revealed it’s still pretty mind-bending. Brusspup also provided downloadable high resolution files of the Rubik’s cube, shoe, and tape so you can print them out on 8×11″ paper, trim, and try for yourself. 

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Aspberger’s syndrome is no longer an ailment

December 2, 2012

Sometimes I think that for psychiatry and psychiatrists, all behaviour is abnormal. Of course there is a vested financial interest for the discipline – which is a long way from being a science – to include as many behavioural conditions as possible within the definition of what is an ailment. In many countries it becomes of great benefit for the “patient” to be formally acknowledged to be suffering from an “ailment”. It can trigger insurance payments and be the qualification for financial and clinical support. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders produced by the American Psychiatric Association is the most influential standard for diagnosis in the US and is extensively used world-wide. Currently  the 4th edition is in use (DSM IV) and the 5th edition, DSM V,  is scheduled for release in May 2013. The debates and arguments about what is to be included or removed from DSM V is reminiscent of political lobbying!

I have the perception that far more behavioural conditions are included as “ailments” than should be. In that sense psychiatry causes more illness than it cures! The APA invites ridicule when it indulges in (Slate), 

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