Author Archive for badchemist

Expelled

Published
by
badchemist
on April 15, 2008
in Badscience, Creationism, Cunts, Education, Evolution and Religion
. 1 Comment

Most people who are likely to read this blog will have no doubt heard of Expelled by now. For those who haven’t Expelled is supposedly a documentary into the imaginary suppression of academics who question evolution. In reality it is a piece of creationist propaganda.

If you like to know more about Expelled go to this lovely website by the National Center for Science Education all about Expelled.

If you are wondering why the word Expelled is appearing so often in this post it is part of a nasty atheist, pro-science conspiracy to try and get the first hit on google for Expelled to be the NCSE site. Yes, that’s right, we’re google bombing Expelled.

If you’d like to join in just write a brief post about Expelled but everytime you write Expelled link it to www.expelledexposed.com.

Welcome to Deathrow

Published
by
badchemist
on April 7, 2008
in Random
. 0 Comments

Well I’m on my way to a conference in Edinburgh and I’m currently stuff in T5. Not a lot to say about this wonderful place except that it is the same as any other airport.

Oh well, at least I have the right to claim 250 euro compensation - screw you BA/BAA.

Homeopathy + Physics = Utter Nonsense

Published
by
badchemist
on March 30, 2008
in Badscience, Barking, homeopathy and video
. 1 Comment

I’m hosting this video here just in case it disappears from youtube again. This is Dr Charlene Werner butchering physics beyond all recognition and tarnishing the names of Einstein and Hawking along the way. Unlike Werner I won’t be removing the video if the comments become less than complimentary.

I won’t bother giving a critique of the errors in this video, they are all glaringly obvious, I’ll allow you to have the fun of trying to spot them all.

Netcetera are a pathetic, cretinous excuse for a webhost

Published
by
badchemist
on February 18, 2008
in Badscience, Joseph Chikelue Obi and Libel
. 0 Comments

Netcetera the ‘webhosts’ for the excellent Quackometer have bowed under the pressure of the Joseph Chikelue Obi and taken down the Quackometer site with immediate effect. Here we have the worst form of censorship. The Quackometer was one of the best resources around for the debunking of pseudoscience and because of a couple of quacks and charlatans complaining it has been removed. In both cases the complaints of defamation had no grounds, otherwise fellow bloggers, like myself, who mirrored the offending articles would probably be on the receiving end of legal letter by now. If Netcetera actually cared about their customers, or even had a backbone they would have read the offending pages, and those that followed, and realised that both the SoH and Obi were taking a speculative swipe at those who have criticised them.

Thankfully there are some webhosts who understand the idea of customer service. Positive Internet, saviours of badscience.net, are currently working with Le Canard Noir to transfer the Quackometer to there servers. This is how, in my ideal little world, all companies would be run - make you money from big customers and help out the underdog who is being treated unfairly. Long live Positive Internet, long live the Quackometer (once it returns) and all hail those who are willing to fight against the endarkenment and those profiteering of its back.

*Edit*

For those who are looking for shared hosting I though I’d give you a few more reasons to use Positive Internet over Netcetera if the above is not enough (this may display a slight bias).

1. Netcetera is cheaper per month compared to Positive but charge for MySQL storage.

2. Positive Internet host FOSS legend Richard Stallman as well as the mirroring Debian Linux

3. You get full shell access even on shared hosting

4. Netcetera use Windows servers, ’nuff said

Currently I’m using Lunarpages for my hosting who have thus far been excellent. I am tempted by a change to Positive though, full shell access is almost too tempting to resist.

Update: the netcetera quackometer fiasco has now been picked up by ZDNet.

The plane on a conveyer thing

Published
by
badchemist
on February 8, 2008
in Pointless Nonsense
. 2 Comments

Most people here will have heard of the plane on a conveyor belt puzzle (plane, conveyor belt, same speed, opposite directions, does the plane take off?). After reading the miniblog at badscience today I saw the video of the supposed mythbusting. At risk of opening a massive can of worms I’m going to reopen the debate here.

“A plane is standing on a runway that can move (some sort of band conveyer). The plane moves in one direction, while the conveyer moves in the opposite direction. This conveyer has a control system that tracks the plane speed and tunes the speed of the conveyer to be exactly the same (but in the opposite direction). Can the plane take off?”

The problem with this question is “What is the speed of the plane measured relative to?”. Relative to the ground it will be zero if the speed of the conveyor in the opposite direction is exactly the same. The planes propeller and the conveyor create an equal and opposite force on the plane and its resulting movement will be nil. Consequently no lift can act on the plane unless there is a particularly strong head wind.

Actually this argument kills the others, if the speed of the plane increases above zero relative to the ground then the conveyor must increase to compensate, resulting in an overall speed of the plane equalling zero. Thus air speed is only equal to that of the wind.

I know I’ve opened a can of worms but before anyone starts pointing at the video remember this. If a plane had was to move forward at X velocity and the ground it was standing on moved at -X velocity, whilst it was in contact with said ground it would have a velocity of 2X relative to the ground and zero relative to the air (assuming no wind and the negligible movement of air from the prop). Thus no lift. Watch the video above, the plane moves relative to the ground (watch the cones) therefore it gets lift.

I must admit I have now got to the point where I can explain/debunk both answers whilst writing this which is probably why this remains a rather pointless puzzle. (still don’t totally agree with the vid, the ambiguous nature of the original question doesn’t help). Anyway…

Detection of breast cancer by hair

Published
by
badchemist
on February 7, 2008
in Bad reporting, Good Science, KKKly Mail and Science Communication
. 0 Comments

From the KKKly Mail today:

Hair test to detect breast cancer could be on sale ‘within months’
A revolutionary test that detects the first signs of breast cancer from a few strands of a woman’s hair could be on sale within months.

Having scanned the references from the website of Fermiscan there doesn’t appear to be anything wrong with the research. I can only assume that when they say on sale they mean to someone with a lot of money. According to there latest paper (free when I tried) they used the Advanced Photon Source at the Argonne National Lab (US), this is a rather large synchrotron and not going to be available for the routine analysis of hair samples.

According to the Daily Hate:

When normal hair is put under a microscope, it appears as series of arcs. In people with breast cancer, a distinctive ring is superimposed on to these arcs, New Scientist magazine reports.

Yet the papers and website all take about synchrotron x-ray diffraction, a bit harder than popping under a microscope. From what I can read of the NS article there’s know mention of microscopes. If anyone can enlighten me please do. This just seems to be the Mail getting excited a little too early. At least this time the research seems to right (cf. MMR) it’s just got a way to go.

Update

I’ve been in contact with the (very nice) people at Fermiscan, once I have permission I’ll post some of their response.

Pearoast - the Bach Flower Remedies Shite

Published
by
badchemist
on February 7, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 2 Comments

A long time ago I set up a wordpress blog for the reason of following my participation in a trial on some complete bollocks. Nothing really came of it so I’m pearoasting the posts from there in one big post.

Bach Flower Essences - 09/09/06
The other reason I started this blog was to enable me to give people an idea of what happens in the “medical” trial I’ve just signed up for. Bach flower essences are marketed as

“The original Bach Flower Essences is a system of 38 Flower Essences that corrects emotional imbalances: negative emotions are replaced with positive.”

you can buy some if you believe such such bollocks without any proof (note: I mean real proof, the plural of anecdote is not data)

Recently, the BBC advertised a trial for these “remedies” so I, as well as some of the others from the badscience forums, decided to sign up and see how the trial was conducted.

I have enough spirituality in my life. Do you agree or disagree? - 09/09/06

Right, the first step in this trial was the signup, which involved a few pages of particularly tedious questionnaires. This is where I found the first flaw in the process, you’re not allowed to take part if you’ve used the product in the last 6 months; the only control being that you say you haven’t. Now, what stops someone attempting to sabotage the trial by signing up despite having used them recently? To be fair, this would only be counter-sobatage to what we are doing, so I can’t complain too much.

The majority of the questions asked centred around whether or not you were a “spirtual” person. Speaking as a scientist, whose understanding of energy comes from the laws of physics and not the Daily Mail health section, I’ve never really considered myself a spiritual person. Having answered several questions designed to determine whether I’m spiritual or not I come across the question that titles this post. I have a problem with this question, in itself it’s not ambiguous, but the answer can be misleading. I have to agree with the statement because I feel I have enough spirituality for my liking, i.e. none, but surely someone who is extremely spiritual could do the same; hopefully the person who designed the study will take this into account and not treat each question individually.

Anyway, I digress. The interesting thing about this study is that it seems to be trying determine if there is a link between the level of a persons spirituality and their opinion as to whether Bach Flower Essences work; to me this is a roundabout way of determining if the effect is psychosomatic and basically a placebo effect. If this is the case, why not do a randomised double blind placebo controlled trial and find out.

For now, I’m waiting for my bottle of hornbeam essence (for apathy etc etc etc according to the trial) to arrive. I’ll keep you posted, you never know I might be proven wrong and find that I suddenly have a whole new lust for life.

Take two drops of the essence twice each day in a glass of water - 11/09/06
Right, my bottle of Bach Flower Essences “Hornbeam” arrived from the trial today along with the usage instructions. Before starting to take the essence I must first register by calling an automated telephone line and entering my ‘participant ID number’. Unfortunately I managed to get through but it wouldn’t accept my ID number; I decided to take some essence anyway. Now, brace yourself, the instructions are very technical:

1. Take two drops of essence twice each day in a glass of water.

2 . Breakfast and supper are good times to remember.

3. If you have any problems during the study, please contact xxx xxx by email at xxx.xxx@plymouth.ac.uk.

I’ve already found another flaw in this study. I don’t drink water as often as I should, in fact I rarely drink anything that doesn’t contain caffeine or alcohol. Maybe any benefits I feel will be attributable to increased hydration rather than the essence itself.

Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

Waiting by the phone - 13/09/06
I’ve been taking the essence as instructed for 48 hours now. It cetainly hasn’t helped by apathy as claimed, but this may be more to do with spending 9 of the 10 days since I got back from holiday at work. I’m also becoming rather apathetic towards this trial; today I was supposed to receive my first phone call to check up on my progress but I’ve not heard a thing all day.

Oh well, off to bed, maybe they’ll perk me up in the morning and I’ll be raring to go…

Feeling rejected… - 14/01/07
I thought it was about time I udpated you all (I say “you all” like there’s actually somebody reading) on the old Bach Flower Essences fiasco. I have no idea what the result of this trial was or anything else about it as I haven’t been contacted once with regard to it. Consequently I stopped taking the stuff after about a week as if they couldn’t be bothered to follow it up why should I.

Pearoast from my old wordpress blog - Arnica and Bruising

Published
by
badchemist
on February 7, 2008
in Pearoast and homeopathy
. 0 Comments

A long time ago I set up a wordpress blog for the reason of following my participation in a trial on some complete bollocks. Nothing really came of it so I’m pearoasting this from it as I forgot it was there.

Following a discussion with a colleague of mine last week and a thread on the the badscience fora I did a little bit of research into the effect of homeopathic Arnica gel on bruising. Basically my colleague, who shall be known as Catherine, was trying to persuade me that Arnica gel definitely aided the healing of bruises as she’d had two bruises on her knee, one which she treated with said gel and one that she didn’t and that one stayed for longer. She wouldn’t accept that this is anecdote, and that maybe that bruise was less severe in the first place etc etc.

Anyway a quick search of PubMed for “arnica bruising” found a grand total of 8 hits. The earliest 2 are general homeopathy reviews[1,2] from Professional Care of Mother and Child (now the Journal of Family Health Care) which not only do I have no access to, but doesn’t even appear in the ISI Journal Citation Reports suggesting it may not be the most well-respected of journals. The 3rd appears to be a well-designed trial,[3] but againI only have access to the abstract which states “The role of homeopathic and herbal agents for recovery after surgery merits further investigation” no more, no less.

The 4th [4] is another randomised, placebo-controlled, double-blinded trial and this time I have full access! This investigated the effect of pre and post-operatively applied arnica gel on bruising caused by facial laser surgery. Unfortunately the groups are very small (9 pre-op and 10 post-op) but the results… “No significant difference was found between topical arnica and vehicle [placebo] in the prevention or resolution of bruising”.

Refs 5-7 were another trial on the effect of homeopathic arnica and subsquent letters claiming the invalidity of the trial (the results were negative by the way). As this involves a lot toing and frowing over statistical methods that I don’t fully understand I will refrain on commenting on these.

The final trial was another trial into arnicas effect on post-operatve bruising from facial laser surgery. [8] Those given arnica were found to have smaller ecchymosis on the days they were examined (1, 5, 7 and 10 days after surgery), but this was only statiscally significant on days 1 and 7. Now this seems odd to me, because if arnica gel does have an effect on bruising why does this effect undulate over time? I would be more willing to accept this if it either had an effect at the beginning and then tailed off, suggesting it could only do so much to help, or if its effects were only seen in the latter stages, suggesting persistent usage was needed to see an effect.

So, from this what can we determine? Not a huge amount really, arnica gel appears to have some effect in some cases, but requires larger, well designed trials to determine if it really does.

Now the thing that really pissed me off with the discussion I had with Catherine was that she ended her side of the argument by stating (I’m paraphrasing here) that “well you’re obviously not going to be convinced whatever I say”. Funnily enough I pointed out to her that she’d offered me know evidence and that’s what I form an opinion from rather than using anecdote and basically a belief system. At the end of the day if she wishes to waste her money on buying something that has no proven efficacy then bully for her, just don’t accuse me of being the one acting on faith, I’ll stick to the evidence available at the time.

[1] Prof Care Mother Child. 1994 Aug-Sep;4(6):185-7

[2] Prof Care Mother Child. 1994 Oct;4(7):212-3.

[3] Altern Ther Health Med. 2002 Mar-Apr;8(2):66-8.

[4] Dermatol Surg. 2002 Aug;28(8):686-8.

[5] J R Soc Med. 2003 Feb;96(2):60-5.

[6] J R Soc Med. 2003 Apr;96(4):204; author reply 206-7.

[7] J R Soc Med. 2003 Apr;96(4):204-5; author reply 206-7.

[8] Arch Facial Plast Surg. 2006 Jan-Feb;8(1):54-9.

Why I love xkcd.

Published
by
badchemist
on February 7, 2008
in Funny, Geek Stuff and Random
. 0 Comments

And now I might never get to again

BTW, for those who use Firefox and find you can’t always see all of the hover over text (the title tag) try the Long Titles extension

Ridiculous security check

Published
by
badchemist
on February 7, 2008
in Geek Stuff
. 2 Comments

I’m currently running no antivirus software on my computer (I’m installing some later) but decided to try out the Symantec Security Check. Unfortunately my scan couldn’t complete because:

The following checks did not run due to an error on the server. Please try again later.

* Hacker Exposure Check
* Windows Vulnerability Check
* Trojan Horse Check

Please note that the following checks were not able to complete because they require Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher with ActiveX and Scripting enabled:

* Antivirus Product Check
* Virus Protection Update Check

Why these checks did not complete for you:
You are not using Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 or newer.

So, in order to run a security check I need to use an insecure browser with activeX and scripting enabled further reducing my security. Muppets,