Is it me or xkcd comics become more and more obscure^*? Paul Erdos would give out monetary prizes to whoever would provide solutions to unsolved mathematical problems. Are those students in the comic trying to claim such prizes? Anyone with a better explanation?

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Footnotes:

1. * I really like it though -it gives me a chance to learn or refresh my knowledge on some interesting, albeit very geeky subjects [↩]

A reminder for all of you to sign the statement to keep libel laws out of science -in a campaign initiated by Sense About Science, and just as the signatories have surpassed 10,000.

It is vastly important to keep scientific debates free, especially within the public health domain. Scientists and science journalists (damn, anyone for what matters!) should be free to criticize and question scientific matters and health treatments without the fear of a costly lawsuit. On this issue Simon Singh^* has written an article on the Times Online, from which I highlight the introductory paragraphs:

Last year I published an article in The Guardian about chiropractors who claim to treat childhood conditions such as asthma, colic and ear infection. My views on that treatment clashed with those of the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) and it threatened to sue me for libel.

Although The Guardian offered a right of reply, the dispute was not resolved and the BCA served proceedings. At this point, I could have backed down, apologised and paid a relatively small amount of damages. However, I believe that my article is important and covers a matter of public interest, so I have decided to fight the libel action.

So far, standing by my article and fighting the case has taken up a year of my life and has cost £100,000; the battle could continue for another year, and final costs could exceed £500,000. [emphasis mine]

BCA was offered space in the Guardian to put forth their evidence and resolve the issue in a proper scientific manner. Instead they sued. Of course we know we the BCA chose that pathway: because they needed too much time to collect their “plethora” of evidence that support chiropractice and until they did, their reputation would suffer significantly.

Sarcasm aside, I hope the public has seen just how disingenuously the BCA has acted, and just how pathetic their evidence base is, and maybe, just maybe, many have started to question (or dare I say, abandon?) this dubious treatment.

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Footnotes:

1. * for those of you living in another universe, Simon was sued by the British Chiropractic Association for labelling their pet therapies as “bogus” -i.e. for speaking the truth… [↩]

Ah yes. The British Chiropractic Association has finally released the “plethora” of evidence that support their non-bogus treatments, and that put Simon Singh in his place. Indeed, BCA has produced an immense list of… 29 references^*.

This vast amount of conclusive trials prove the efficacy of chiropractice for the conditions mentioned in Simon’s article beyond any doubt. One can understand why it took the BCA more than a year (after they chose to file a lawsuit instead of resolving a scientific and public health debate using -gasp!- science) to present their evidence: it was purely a matter of logistics! Someone (oh the hero) had to dig out and collect this abysmal number of references. I can imagine the endless hours spent in trying to order and arrange the list -presumably in order of importance (?)

Which makes the very first reference the most important piece of evidence that chiropractice is effective and safe. The Ace of Spades for the BCA; the mother of all evidences; the Optimus Prime of research pieces that completely thrashes Simon Singh’s unfounded claim. This masterpiece is none other than the General Chiropractic Council’s… code of practice!

[/sarcasm]

Not much to discuss here really. This is a truly pathetic evidence base, as Prof. Colquhoun notes, that if anything, totally proves Simon’s point: there is no solid evidence to back up a practise that claims to treat potentially serious conditions… in babies! If you cannot realize the seriousness of this issues I suggest you have your head checked by a homeopath and your spine manipulated by a chiropractor…

The Lay Scientist has a great post up, destroying the BCA’s “plethora” of evidence and providing a plethora of references to other bloggers that were quick to dissect BCA’s document. It’s funny though to go through BCA’s list through the eyes of the Lay Scientist, to try and understand what they think constitutes good evidence in the arena of public health. So let’s do that, shall we?

We start with 29 references:

Of the 29 references, 1 is just the GCC’s code of practice; 6 is an irrelevent paper about medical ethics; 8, 9, 10 and 17 are about osteopathy; 26 is a description of evidence-based medicine; 27, 28 and 29 are about NSAIDs. That’s 10 down straight away, but what’s interesting about these is that 6 of them are just attacks on conventional medicine. In other words, this is not a particularly comprehensive or focused review of the literature.

We are down to 19 already.

A further three papers, (12, 13 and 14) cover the safety of chiropractic, which has come under considerable criticism. Curiously, this brief selection ignores the numerous studies showing an increased risk from chiropractic. 14 isn’t a study at all, 12 is considerably less bullish than the BCA suggest it is pointing to a significant number of side-effects “with a possible neurologic involvement”, and 13 provided stronger support (”We found no evidence of excess risk of VBA stroke associated chiropractic care compared to primary care.”), but should be taken in the context of the wider range of studies finding the opposite.

Down to 16 possibly relevant.

Of those 16 papers, 9 cover infantile colic, 1 looks at asthma, 2 study ear infections, 3 look at bed-wetting and 1 at a variety of conditions.
[...]
Professor David Colquhoun has reviewed the 9 infantile colic papers on his own blog, and the results are, well, poor. 2 had no control group, [...] Ditto 3 and 25. 4 compares chiropractic with the use of dimethicone. Apparently, this is an ingredient in some over-the-counter remedies for colic, which are themselves unproven, so hardly the greatest thing to compare your treatment with - the results simply show that chiropractic is as good as another unproven remedy. Meanwhile, 5 [suggests] that the effect obseved [sic] is largely placebo.18 and 20 are both reports on a couple of individual case studies, and therefore simply anecdote rather than the sort of evidence you’d get from a trial involving hundreds of patients. 19 simply compares one chiropractic treatment against another [and] 24 isn’t actually a study at all.

We are talking serious research; conclusive trials; proven safety and efficacy. Oh poor Simon, the BCA has nailed you… Anyway, down to 7 possibly supportive references…

1 on asthma, 2 on ear infections, 3 on bed-wetting and 1 on ‘various’. 7, the asthma paper, is simply a letter to the editor and contains no actual evidence, so we’re down to six.

Of the ear infection papers, 15 is an uncontrolled study that simply shows that children with ear infections tend to eventually get better but can’t say if that’s down to chiropractic. [...] 23 [...] looks rather like the same sort of thing again.

So on to bed-wetting then [...] 22 is a study of one person (an anecdote), and 21 is another uncontrolled “they eventually got better” study

Good. We are down to… ONE paper that might possibly show some real supportive evidence. And guess what? The very last paper is actually a good one! It’s a Cochrane Collaboration meta-analysis! In their press release, the BCA states that “There was weak evidence to support the use of [chiropractic].”

Good, finally. We cannot really call this conclusive; strong; plethora; powerful; whatever; evidence. And it’s hardly what we were promised, or what we would expect when discussing public health issues. But at least, of the 29 references, there was ONE good piece of research that suggest chiropractice might be effective… Oh no, wait a minute. Something’s wrong here. The actual conclusion of the meta-analysis reads:

There was weak evidence to support the use of hypnosis, psychotherapy, acupuncture and chiropractic but it was provided in each case by single small trials, some of dubious methodological rigour.

F***! Are they completely useless, completely disillusioned, or completely dishonest? Their “plethora” of evidence consists of 10 completely irrelevant papers; a large number of uncontrolled trials; some case studies (!); a lot of inconclusive trials; a lot of cherry picking and “accidental” exclusions of unfavourable trials; and a misquotation from a Cochrane Collaboration review! And these people claim they can treat babies with their (non) bogus treatments!

When is someone going to take them to the court?

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Footnotes:

1. * You can find the document in BCA’s press release section here. A very interesting sidenote: the BCA, contrary to their previous habits, has locked this particular document and disabled copying! My naughty mind thinks this is probably to make life for their critics difficult. They were expecting a huge response -ridicule to be more precise, and for some reason decided to make themselves look even more foolish… [↩]

This might be old news to some of you, but with all the things going on lately I didn’t have much time to update the blog. When I read this one it shook me hard. It has happened before of course, and will probably happen again, but it just makes me stop to think how completely unnecessary such a death is: a nine-month old baby died of eczema (!) because her parents opted to treat her with magical water instead of proper medicine!

Gloria Thomas died aged nine months after spending more than half her life with eczema.

The skin condition wore down her natural defences and left her completely vulnerable when she developed an eye infection that killed her within days of developing.

[...] the couple took Gloria to various health professionals, but while they abandoned each conventional medication she was prescribed within a short time of starting it, they solidly pursued homeopathic remedies.

The Crown said these did not work, and all the while Gloria’s tiny body required more nutrition than her mother’s milk could provide, and her immune system became ever more depleted.

By the time she died, she was the weight of an average three-month-old, her body was covered with angry blotches and her once black hair had turned completely white.

[Source: Sydney Morning Herald]

So not only did the poor baby die, she suffered all the way through too!

But the couple, who were raised and educated in India where homeopathy is accepted as equivalent to conventional medicine, were steadfast to their homeopathic remedies and ignored completely or quickly discarded other treatment.

A general practitioner booked them an appointment with a dermatologist they did not attend because they took the child to India instead, a course of action the doctor told them was “cruel”.

They also visited two doctors in India, but discarded the advice of one to return to him every second day, instead consulting a succession of homeopaths including Thomas Sam’s brother, who had recently completed his dissertation on eczema.

His dissertation on eczema was an exercise in futility. Eczema cannot be treated with magical water unfortunately…

Gloria’s miserable life proved all the more poignant by the evidence given at the trial by Dr Orli Wargon, the dermatologist with whom Gloria missed her appointment when the family went to India instead.

Dr Wargon said she would have applied an aggressive treatment program that should have seen the child recover within 24 hours: “Not completely cured, but her skin would look better very, very quickly.”

Nine days after they returned from India, Thomas and Manju Sam finally took Gloria to hospital for an eye infection they thought was conjunctivitis, and she was immediately rushed into emergency to be treated by a team of medical experts. It turned out her cornea was melting.

Her ******* cornea was melting? MELTING? Why?!? Because her parents were criminally misinformed and/or misled. Because in India homeopathy has the same stature as medicine. Because all this flexibility and health law bending to accommodate homeopathy, has resulted in magic water being available everywhere from high street pharmacies to nutrition shops.

When are they going to provide evidence of safety and efficacy just like proper medicine? When are they going to back up all their health claims they make? When are they going to get properly educated if they want to give out health advices less lethal than: “do not take the MMR vaccine; it’s very bad for you“?

The only good thing that came out of this, was the conviction of the parents for manslaughter. This might just create a precedence and make the homeopaths think twice before prescribing their voodoo and making claims about more-than-half-serious conditions. I mean, it was eczema for crying out loud!

So it seems that Simon Singh will fight on against the British Chiropractic Association by appealing (for a brief background on the case please see my previous post: ‘For Simon Singh and free speech! (or else “bogus, bogus, bogus”)‘ where you will also find links to blogs that cover this story in much more detail)! This is only good news and I hope that he will be successful in his efforts.

A large number of (rational) people stand behind Simon at this point, and “Sense About Science“, an organization that helps promote science and evidence, kicks off a campaign to stop the ridiculousness that is the libel law in England, and especially when it steps on our freedom of speech. As I have said before, when a science writer is sued for criticizing a health organization, things are crazy indeed…

I copy below Simon’s brief statement on his libel case and the start of the campaign (taken from the campaign website).

It has been a stressful and frustrating twelve months since I published my article on chiropractors and their attempts to treat children with conditions such as asthma. The British Chiropractic Association’s decision to sue me for libel has been an enormous drain on my time and energy. However, the support that I have received from family, friends, readers, bloggers, scientists, journalists and those who care about free speech has been incredible, and it has played a crucial role in my decision to continue defending my article and fighting the libel action.

More importantly, everyone agrees that there is something fundamentally wrong with the English libel laws, which have a chilling effect on journalists, whether they write about science or anything else, whether they live in Britain or anywhere else. Hence, I am delighted that so many individuals and organisations have come together to launch a campaign with Sense About Science to highlight how the English libel laws clash with the right to discuss science in a frank and fair way. The Keep Libel Laws out of Science Campaign will also raise issues related to my particular libel case, and it will encourage a debate on the reform of the English libel system.

The campaign launch revolves around the statement shown below, and I would urge anyone who cares about science or free speech to show support by signing up.

And I would also encourage you to make your friends and colleagues aware of the issues at stake and ask them to sign up. It is possible that the time is right for major libel reform in England, which will then allow scientists and journalists to write with less fear of being intimidated.

No need to think twice; this is a no-brainer really. Let’s see how it progresses. From our part all we can do is support “Sense About Science” and Simon Singh any way we can.

So, please support this campaign, sign the statement, and help propagate the news: http://www.senseaboutscience.org/freedebate

Well worth to listen to this podcast and then follow the discussion at Panda’s Thumb. It’s a debate between Michael Schermer (editor of the Skeptic magazine) and Eric Hovind (err, young earth creationist and son of Kent Hovind, the bastion of rationality and honesty). Particularly funny conclusions can be drawn from this debate…

If you are worried you might burn some brain neurons from listening to a Hovind family member, I have two things to tell you: first, you are of course right and second, just move on and read my summary of Hovind’s opinions…



[original audio source]

Well there you have it: how the creationist mind works (or, more accurately, how it doesn’t work). Apparently, all different dating mechanisms are wrong, the thousands of scientists using them to promote our understanding of the world are all wrong, while at the same time the only true source of scientific “facts” is the Bible… And the Bible dictates that the Earth (and the Universe) is only a few thousand years old.

The Bible is the only dependable source of scientific directions and needs not to be proven correct, but instead opponents have to prove it wrong (all the while tackling the thousands of different interpretations that can be adopted based on what the creationists want to show…)

Also, there are no transitional fossils. There are only fossils of animals that looked a little bit like another more modern animal, and a little bit like another more ancient animal. Oh, and that are now extinct. But they are not transitional fossils in any way.

Dinosaurs? Lived together with humans, a few thousand years back. They were called “dragons” before the term “dinosaurs” was coined. And they went extinct because of dragon slayers. You know, like Dennis Quaid in Dragonheart…

Forget about genetics. These are only “interpretations” of the biased Darwinists that blindly follow their irrational presumption that there is no God. When it is plainly obvious that God needs no proving at all -it is the default position that opponents must prove wrong somehow…

And there are millions of “holes” in the Theory of Evolution -oh wait, excuse me, I meant the Hypothesis of Evolution, because according to Eric, it hasn’t stood the test of time! No sir, 2 centuries of piling data from a wide range of non-overlapping scientific fields, all converging to the same conclusions, all confirming the various predictions made by evolutionary theo… err… hypothesis, is not enough evidence when compared to… the Mighty Bible! The scientists are all biased and dogmatic. Eric Hovind and the young earth creationists are not -they just follow the facts… as laid out by their Bible. F*ck! My irony meter has exploded. Again.

All the sarcasm aside, I can somehow justify Eric Hovind for his distorted worldview. I guess growing up with papa-Kent must be really brain damaging…

In the atheist camp, there are two fundamentally different approaches to countering religious propaganda, irrationality and their attacks on science: the Dawkin-esque full out attack, and the milder “let-the-evidence-do-the-talking” technique that people like Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education have adopted. Richard Dawkins obviously doesn’t like the latter “soft” approach and has repeatedly made himself clear on that respect, lately by criticizing Scott (and others) for being too “accommodative”^*.

In a recent post of his, Prof. Massimo Piuglicci defends Scott and slams Dawkins as naive for thinking that more ridicule and sharper attacks are needed against the religious -who, after all, occupy that huge chunk in the relevant pie charts. Here is part of the Dawkins’ comment that prompted Massimo’s response:

I have from time to time expressed sympathy for the accommodationist tendency so ably criticized here by Jerry Coyne. I have occasionally worried that – just maybe – Eugenie Scott and the appeasers might have a point, a purely political point but one, nevertheless, that we should carefully consider. I have lately found myself moving away from that sympathy.

I suspect that most of our regular readers here would agree that ridicule, of a humorous nature, is likely to be more effective than the sort of snuggling-up and head-patting that Jerry is attacking. I lately started to think that we need to go further: go beyond humorous ridicule, sharpen our barbs to a point where they really hurt.

Michael Shermer, Michael Ruse, Eugenie Scott and others are probably right that contemptuous ridicule is not an expedient way to change the minds of those who are deeply religious. But I think we should probably abandon the irremediably religious precisely because that is what they are – irremediable. I am more interested in the fence-sitters who haven’t really considered the question very long or very carefully. And I think that they are likely to be swayed by a display of naked contempt. Nobody likes to be laughed at. Nobody wants to be the butt of contempt.

And here is Massimo’s commentary (in a post perhaps inappropriately titled “Is Richard Dawkins really that naive?“):

Scott — who is an atheist — has repeatedly said that one cannot claim that science requires atheism because atheism is a philosophical position, not a scientific one. She leverages the standard distinction between philosophical and methodological naturalism: if you are a scientist you have to be a methodological naturalist (i.e., assume for operative purposes that nature and natural laws are all that there is); but this doesn’t commit you to the stronger position of philosophical naturalism (i.e., to the claim that there really isn’t anything outside of nature and its laws).
[...]
both Genie and I [Massimo] do recognize that science is one of the strongest arguments for philosophical naturalism, and I suspect that in her case, as in mine, a pretty big reason for why we are atheists is because of our understanding of science.

Now, I never thought that science requires atheism per se, and I do agree that science is a very strong argument for atheism. That said, I am keen to take it one step further and opine that science inevitably leads you to atheism. Well, strictly speaking, and as I have said before, it can lead you to either atheism or madness:

Personally, I do not see how religion and science can coexist peacefully in one’s mind. Science regularly shreds to pieces religious ideas about our cosmos: from the creation of the world to the emergence of life, and from geocentric systems to flat earth ideas*, biblical (and other religious) accounts of cosmology, creation of life, astronomy, and basic biology come in direct contrast with scientific evidence. If one accepts such evidence (as one should) then faith in the holy scriptures (and therefore the relevant omnipotent, omniscient God-writer) must be shaken -if not abandoned altogether. Otherwise, schizophrenic mechanisms have to be employed in order to accommodate both reason and supernatural irrationality in the same mind! There are of course many people accepting the scientific explanation for the emergence of life and at the same time preserving some hints of faith as a matter of tradition, culture, or something socially relevant. But to accept both Evolution and Creationism at face value sounds a bit too weird…

[isn't self-quoting a great thing?]

Back to the “debate”: Massimo’s got it right, but I don’t think his attack on Dawkins is fully justified. Dawkins did qualify his comments by saying:

I emphatically don’t mean we should use foul-mouthed rants. Nor should we raise our voices and shout at them: let’s have no D’Souzereignty here. Instead, what we need is sarcastic, cutting wit.
[...]
Maybe I’m wrong. I’m only thinking aloud, among friends. Is it gloves off time? Or should we continue to go along with the appeasers and be all nice and cuddly, like Eugenie and the National Academy?

So, is Massimo quote-mining here? Naaah, two big contributors to science and the atheism ideals approaching the same issue from different perspectives. I think these “debates” will only do good in refining our techniques. By the way, I mostly agree with both parties here, since I believe it depends on who is sitting opposite you.

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Footnotes:

1. * by the way, this is reminiscent of the Southpark episode where, despite religion having been long eradicated, people still fight between them since they fall into distinct “cults” based on the different interpretations of the ideas of their great atheist ancestor that started it all: Dawkins :-). [↩]

Online Free Dictionary definition:

bo·gus (boh-guss), adj.
Counterfeit or fake; not genuine: bogus money; bogus tasks.

And may I add bogus treatments in the list of examples? Or will I get sued for using this simple term -evidently not as simple or innocent as we might have thought. I kid you not (as our beloved Sarah would say at the other side of the Atlantic), you can actually find yourself in deep waters if you say the ‘b’ word. Simon Singh got in a lot of trouble for using it… Thankfully a large number of rational people and supporters of free speech reacted. Jack of Kent being one of them, organized an evening of support for Simon. But let’s pause here and try to take things from the beginning^*.

Here is the juice of it: Simon Singh wrote a piece for the Guardian^** criticizing the British Chiropractic Association (BCA) for promoting their treatments without providing any solid evidence whatsoever. Under normal circumstances (oh, I don’t know, say like in a proper scientific debate for instance?), BCA would come back with a pile of papers proving the efficacy of their pet treatments. Instead BCA has chosen to sue Simon… Over this piece of writing:

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact they still possess some quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything. And even the more moderate chiropractors have ideas above their station. The British Chiropractic Association claims that their members can help treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying, even though there is not a jot of evidence. This organisation is the respectable face of the chiropractic profession and yet it happily promotes bogus treatments.

The main focus of the lawsuit is the term “bogus” and what Simon really meant by that. And despite the definition of bogus as something counterfeit or fake, the judge ruled that Simon by using the term in this case implied a “deliberate dishonesty” on the part of BCA -which brings him in a difficult position.

And this brings us to Monday evening. An evening where Simon would announce if he would continue to fight the case or if he would settle. An impressive “cast” of scientists and skeptics was also present, to express their support for Simon and give their views on the subject each one from their own perspective: journalist Nick Cohen discussed the ridiculousness of the English libel law; comedian Dave Gorman… well, entertained us! ; Evan Harris (apparently the MP behind the abolition of the blasphemy law!) opined from a political perspective on what can be done in order to change the libel law; Prof. Chris French, editor of “The Skeptic”, chaired the whole event; and finally Prof. Brian Cox introduced Simon Singh (not that anyone present on Monday really needed any sort of introduction…).

So, without further ado, here is Simon himself explaining the situation from the point when the BCA came knocking on his door:



As you can see, Simon leans towards fighting back and appealing, but he just cannot confirm that yet. We sure hope he does so…

Whatever Simon decides to do eventually, one things is for sure: there will be many of us behind him. As many of the speakers noted, this is a bigger issue that has to do with the stupidity of libel law in England. The time when a science writer cannot criticize an unproven medical treatment under the fear of a lawsuit, is a bad time for free speech indeed.

Please support Simon Singh and free speech in any way you can -by blogging about the case, by writing to the newspapers, by writing to your MPs regarding this obvious case of freedom of speech violation etc.

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Footnotes:

1. * I won’t go into too much detail about the background of this story as you can read about it in various places throughout the blogosphere (for a good account see Jack of Kent and the relevant Facebook group). [↩]
2. ** archived over at Svetlana Pertsovich’s website since the Guardian had to remove it… [↩]