The Daily Mail has reported on the suicide of an Indian girl that they have attributed to fears over the LHC.

Indian girl, 16, ‘killed herself over fears Big Bang experiment could lead to end of the world’

I don’t wish to discuss the circumstances behind her death but further information may be found here.

Her father, identified on local television as Biharilal, said that his daughter, Chayya, killed herself after watching doomsday predictions made on Indian news programmes.

‘In the past two days, Chayya had asked me and other relatives about the world coming to an end on September 10,’ Biharilal said.

‘We tried to divert her attention and told her she should not worry about such things, but to no avail.’

So the Daily Mail are pointing the finger at Indian news programmes being responsible for inciting such fear in this girl that she may have killed herself because of it. Obviously the Daily Heil, being a responsible newspaper, would never publish ridiculous scare-mongering crap such as:

Are we all going to die next Wednesday?

Meet Evans the Atom, who will end the world on Wednesday

If I ever meet someone from the Mail I may just have to call them a cunt.

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Filed under: Bad reporting, Badscience, Cunts, KKKly Mail, Press, Science Communication by badchemist
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Michael Reiss, director of education at the Royal Society, suggested that creationism be taught along side evolution in schools. His reasoning being that if creationism is just ignored then it alienates those that follow it further from science.

He said that around one in 10 children comes from a family with creationist beliefs. “My experience after having tried to teach biology for 20 years is if one simply gives the impression that such children are wrong, then they are not likely to learn much about the science,” he said.

“I think a better way forward is to say to them ‘look, I simply want to present you with the scientific understanding of the history of the universe and how animals and plants and other organisms evolved’.”

Reiss, who is an ordained Church of England minister, told the British Association Festival of Science in Liverpool that science teachers should not see creationism as a “misconception” but as an alternative “world view”. He added that he was not advocating devoting the same time to teaching creationism or intelligent design as to evolution.

I can understand Prof Reiss’ point of view – telling a child that everything they have learnt from their parents/religion is bullshit is unlikely to help their education in the long run. When presented with two conflicting arguments from authority they are likely to side with the one that fits in with their current world view. I, however, do not agree with the teaching of creationism to school children.

Time for science education is already limited and the degredation of standards has been covered several times by Education Watch. Although I don’t know the current syllabus I would hazard a guess that only a matter of hours of childs education is concerned with the science behind the origins of life. Evolutionary theory is currently the only scientific way in which the origin of life has been explained and should be taught with explanation of both the theory and the evidence supporting it. To introduce creationism into the science classroom promotes  it above its standing in science. Creationism, including intelligent design, has no basis in science and is simply an answer of “God did it” to anything we cannot currently explain with science.

It is inevitable that, during the teaching of evolution, there will be occasions where pupils will challenge the teacher arguing that evolution is wrong and creationism is the correct explanation. Here, I agree, these childrens beliefs should not just be dismissed as being wrong. Instead this is an opportunity to explain the comparative evidence for both theories (I use the term loosely for creationism). The landslide of evidence for evolution over creationism should convert all but the most strident doubters and for these it is unlikely that any evidence will do.

Reiss’ regarding of creationism not as a misconception but as an alternative world view is a worrying one. Although I think that anyone has the right to believe anything they wish that does not mean we have to give equal credence to those views. If creationism is allowed into the science classroom as an alternative world view why not allow an alternative view of maths where . Or that incorrect spelling in an English Language class is an alternative view of how words are spelt.

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Filed under: Badscience, Creationism, Evolution, Politics, Religion, Science Communication by badchemist
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Over the last week or so the Daily Heil has published several stories about the LHC all using their typical non-hysterical, sensible style of reporting. We’ve had:

Are we all going to die next Wednesday?

Meet Evans the Atom, who will end the world on Wednesday

and rather more sensibly:

Scientists receive death threats over Big Bang experiment from critics who fear end of the world

Unsurprisingly, the comments section on each of these articles reads like the witterings of a deranged maniac interspersed with occasional lucid displays. Schizophrenic to say the least. Here I’ve going to work through some of those comments and counter them. A lot of them follow the same general trend (nothing like adding your opinion to a discussion when it’s already been said many times before) so I’ll use examples of each. A lot of the comment’s probably should invoke Poe’s Law. My comments are in red and I’ve bolded some of the more worryng parts.

The Worlds Biggest and Most Dangerous EVER EXPERIMENT which could mean the end of it all!

Why are these Scientists allowed to take such dangerous decisions and undertake such dangerous experiments without knowing the outcome before they proceed! Someone seems to have forgotten the point of an experiment. An experiment is used to test a hypothesis. In particle physics the current model hypothesises the existence of the Higgs Boson, this experiment is designed to determine if it exists. If we knew the outcome already we wouldn’t bother

What right do these Scientists have to take my life or anyone elses life for that matter. Why has there not been a Court Injunction taken out and served against these Mad Men. Some have tried and failed. They failed because the courts tend to go with the people who actually know what they’re talking about and can back it up with evidence rather than listening to the minority of cranks.

If it all goes wrong and it is the end of the World, who is going to take them to task over their massive micalculation? No one. If it does all go horribly wrong in the way you’re thinking you’ll be beyond the point of being able to care.

If I could, I would stop this experiment taking place any way I could, believing in my own mind that it is sometimes better that a few suffer than the masses! This will go ahead of course and it will not be stopped but it is not right, nor is it fair and Scientists have definitely overstepped the mark this time! This, to me, is a thinly masked death threat.

As the Article says, we all have to keep our fingers crossed and hope the Scientists have got it right! Stupid people!! Sorry Keith, you’re the stupid one.

- keith, winchester, uk, 4/9/2008 11:12

Would it not have been better to spend this amount of money on making the world a better place, why can’t these scientists put their energy and brains into helping people, instead into projects which do not really mean anything. Joan, if we all took that attitude we’d still be in caves.

- Joan Finegan, Montmorillon, France, 4/9/2008 12:41

Four years from now we will see a Quaser emanating through the earth? In 2012 This refers to a quote from Otto Rossler, one of the people trying to stop the LHC

The Mayans predicted the end of the world in 2012, and so have other theories within this, linked to the Bible and they too forecast the end of the world or Armageddon in 2012. The bible is not a source of science, it is a source of contradictory stories.

Is this a coincidence? It does seem scary Yes it is a coincidence. As is the London Olympics being held in 2012. Maybe lighting the Olympic torch will actually create this quasar and destroy the Earth.

- Sarah Jones, Brighton, England, 7/9/2008 2:15

If it’s that certain the earth will callapse, why does it take so long to decide and who is deciding on behalf of all of us….the same people that decide on laws from the EU? I wondered how long it would take for an anti-Europe comment. Now where’s the one about immigrants setting up the LHC to lower house prices in Tunbridge Wells? Oh, and how many times do you need to be told that IT’S NOT GOING TO DESTROY THE UNIVERSE!
Well here’s my vote now and it’s STOP THIS STUPIDITY NOW!-perhaps others will follow? Please do stop your stupidity, either that or shut the fuck up.

- s.francis, BROMSGROVE WORCS, 7/9/2008 8:07

You have got to be kidding me!
I all for science but why would people allow this to go ahead if this will end the world don’t they think about their family, friends and pets!
i wouldnt care about this going wrong and killing me but i care about how my friends family and pets would be affected! That’s right they’re doing it to kill your cat.
if scientists are watching this, plase find a better way to find out about the world rather than risking your lives! If annonymus is reading this learn about spelling, punctuation and grammar.

- annonymus, england, 7/9/2008 16:02

Interesting to see that Britain has contributed £34 million towards provision of energy for this monster machine! ( Thought we were supposed to be tightening our belts ! )  A lot of people seem to think that all money spent on research that doesn’t give them a new type of ipod next year is somehow a waste of money. Although this warrants a full post of its own people need to realise that the UK economy is heavily driven by intellectual property these days. Manufacturing has all but disappeared because it is cheaper to outsource to Asia. Science is rapidly heading the same way as labour is cheap and many routine experiments can be conducted with little knowledge of what is actually going on. Similarly, China etc. are investing huge sums of money in research facilities to produce high quality science because they know that it will boost their economy through increased IP.
Here we are told we must conserve energy, and we could be doing that all wrapped up in our extra cardigans and foot warmers,using our energy saving bulbs and candles, recycling our newspapers in the fireplace, eating less meat, walking to work, running up and down the stairs to keep warm and lose weight.
Good job I can see the funny side of this
Before we all disappear down a big black hole next wednesday, we could celebrate bonfire night early, say next Tuesday, party to end all parties, at least we could be warm, and instead of burning Guy Fawkes effigy he could be guest of honour.

- P.S., West Midlands, 8/9/2008 12:07

Dr Cox, who in the 1990s played keyboards in the chart-topping band D:Ream, will be in the CERN control room for the ’switch on’. He was indeed and in Dare before that

Well his excellent credentials are all in order, he played with D:Ream in the 1990’s, so what’s to worry about? Those of us objecting to this should now rest-assured we are in the best possible hands, It’s called being multi-talented. Maybe Brian May shouldn’t have been allowed in Queen because he could also understand astrophysics.

- A.Pamish, London, 8/9/2008 12:37

the same space..four things are wrong…there eagerness to throw the switch without thinking to much about the mechanical inspections..the amount of power it uses and where it is dilivered from?,,all of a sudden they have found anti matter and are firing it around on the second beam..and just by chance they are launching a very special sattalite 100 miles north of moscow the morning of the swith on, in stealth and disguise to monitor the effect this machine has on the gravitational and magnetic effects it has on this earth .if they do by chance find whatthere looking for we will be snuffed out in a nano second as the universe will cease to be…if they understood how god works they will realize that here is no begining or end to the universe.and no 2 universes can existin the same place…in a word itsall bad…as anything they do glean will not be for the good of man ,,not even god will be able to save us if we vanish without a trace .In a word its all bad and i,m petrified..

What?

- jeff, bournemouth, 8/9/2008 12:38

Update

Firstly, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, the universe has not been destroyed and so we’re still here. Secondly, just found this wonderful comment over on the Times website:

This is an over expensive man made, man controlled experiment. It was made by men, who controlled what happened and how it happened. This proves to me that in order to create anything, you need a creator.

Paul Peters, Merritt Island, USA

Logical fallacy. Just because we, by which I mean the human race, used our intelligence (I use the term loosely as there may be, either in another part of the universe or at some point in the future, an organism with a far greater intellect) does not mean that in order to create anything you require a creator. Unless of course you define a creator (or god) in the manner that Carl Sagan has previously:

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard, who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by ‘God’ one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying… it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.

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Filed under: Bad reporting, Badscience, Barking, KKKly Mail by badchemist
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NB: I started writing this months ago and just found it languishing in my drafts. I was planning on going through all of the Dana Ullman’s articles but I’ll see how it goes.

I found little gem earlier today. As these articles are supposed to ‘educate’ I feel it’s only fair for me to go through them and help educate people about homeopathy.

The first, A Condensed History of Homeopathy, I’ll skip – the history of homeopathy is dull. So straight on to, A Homeopathic Perspective on Health and Healing in the 21st Century. The first oddity in this article is this:

Each new technology, however, brings with it new problems and does not necessarily solve old ones. For instance, despite the many advances in medicl [sic] testing, most medical tests are accurate only 90% of the time. Thus, if a physician recommends a battery of 20 medical tests, only 36% of the patients would receive accurate results

I don’t now how they’ve calculated these figures but using the equation for a binomial distribution:

Binomial distribution for number of accurate tests

The accuracy of this value isn’t what annoys me though, its the use of the value to suggest that conventional tests and, by implication, medicine is very poor indeed. From the values used to produce the chart above 99.7% of people would have 14 or more tests return accurate results. From these it should be possible to perform the diagnosis and if there is some ambiguity a test may be rerun – the chance of an incorrect result twice being only 1%.

Later in the article we get treated to the well known canard that homeopathy has a good evidence base.

New research has been published in highly respected scientific journals on homeopathy which shows that the small doses of medicines that homeopaths use definitely have action,(6) and a meta-analysis of clinical studies which was published in the British Medical Journal found the medicines to be particularly effective in treating allergies, arthritic conditions, migraine headaches, common infections, and rheumatoid arthritis.(7)

Reference 6 is for Dana Ullman’s book which I wouldn’t waste my money on. Reference 7 is to this paper in the BMJ in 1991. The conclusions read thus:

At the moment the evidence of clinical trials is positive but not sufficient to draw definitive conclusions because most trials are of low methodological quality and because of the unknown role of publication bias. This indicates that there is a legitimate case for further evaluation of homoeopathy, but only by means of well performed trials.

Considering there are far more recent and stricter meta-analyses that have all found homeopathy to be no better than placebo (see this article by Ben Goldacre for more detail).

Dana then falls back to that other great piece of evidence for homeopathy

Sales of homeopathic medicines in the U.S. have grown from a $100 million market in 1988 to a $200 million market in 1992.

There you have it – misinformed people buy it therefore it works.

More Homeopathic Education when time allows.

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Filed under: Badscience, Education, homeopathy by badchemist
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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.

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Filed under: Badscience, Creationism, Cunts, Education, Evolution, Religion by badchemist
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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.

Get the latest Flash Player to see this player.

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Filed under: Badscience, Barking, homeopathy, video by badchemist
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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.

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Filed under: Badscience, Joseph Chikelue Obi, Libel by badchemist
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It’s been a while since I posted: thesis writing, job hunting and Xmas have taken their toll. Anyway hopefully I’ll be able to find some more time now.

Now for the point of this post. According to the Daily Hate there is to be new regulation of CAM. beginning in April. I’m all for proper regulation of CAM, too many charlatans have been peddling their snake oil for far too long, so this should really make me happy – unfortunately it doesn’t.

The Foundation of Integrative Health the organisation set up by probably the worlds most famous CAM advocate, HRH the Prince of Wales, are behind the scheme. More info about it can be found here. Apparently the scheme is

… being modelled on the General Medical Council and will follow Government guidelines for self-regulatory bodies.

but, with current legislation,

Although the council will be able to strike practitioners from the register there is nothing to stop them continuing to give treatments.

So although this will give the public a single place to see if their preferred charlatan CAM practitioner is recognised to practice to a professional standard there is still no way of preventing sub-standard quacks from practising their ‘art’ except in a few areas where statutory regulation already exists (chiropractors and osteopaths) or where such regulation is to be introduced (trad. chinese medicine and acupuncture). Hopefully this body will take their responsibilities more seriously than the SoH fiasco and the like and actually remove practitioners who fail to meet guidelines as otherwise this will be an utterly useless list.

UPDATE: When I wrote this earlier I was in a bit of a hurry and forgot one major point. The treatments/practices covered by this new regulatory body have very little, if any, evidence for their efficacy. Now I don’t care if someone wants to waste their money on useless treatments as long as the treatments are not being mis-sold as effective and they are being used for self-limiting conditions where the placebo effect can be of particular benefit. Unfortunately producing a regulatory body for snake oil only adds credence to the claims particularly as it is, in part, funded by the NHS.

EDIT: By way of Freudian slip I managed to put the Princess of Wales.

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Filed under: Badscience, KKKly Mail, Regulatory Bodies, Society of Homeopaths by badchemist
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I’m not sure I should really be commenting on this as some may consider it exploitation of someone else’s grief in attempt to prove my argument. If it comes across that way I apologise in advance, it is not intentional I am merely writing this to highlight the dangers that misinformed delusions can produce.

Many of you will already have heard about the tragic death of 9-month old Gloria Thomas. Briefly, Gloria died from sepsis which is likely to have been contracted through her cracked skin as a result of improper treatment of severe eczema; eczema that her father, homeopath Thomas Sam, had tried to treat with magic water. It has been announced today that her her parents may face criminal charges over her death.

This demonstrates the awful consequences that can befall those who are too wrapped up in their delusions to realise that proper medical intervention is required. I am sure that Thomas Sam believed he was doing what was best for his daughter when he tried to treat her with magic water, faith healing if you will, which makes this case all the more tragic. Due to his unwavering belief in a practice that has no basis or evidence not only has he lost a daughter but he and his wife may lose their freedom and their son may lose his parents, temporarily at least.

Can anybody out there continue to tell me that homeopathy is harmless, even for treating ailments that would generally be considered to be self limiting, such as eczema?

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Filed under: Badscience, homeopathy by badchemist
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I realise that I seem to be posting a lot tonight but boredom, beer and thesis avoidance has led to me following some interesting links. Thanks to the comments on DC’s latest post of homeopathy I’m come across this gem from Peter Chappell.

Those of you who read Bad Science will already have heard of this chap and his supposed ability to cure AIDS with iTunes. Not only can he do that but he cure H5N1 bird flu in humans with it too. You can download a free version of his resonance recordings from that site or you can download it here.*

Now to my, admittedly untrained, ear this just sounds a bit like rather mediocre jazz. Consequently I propose that if we take the Miles Davis back catalogue and use it to cure all ills. Although, as Peter Chappell is a homeopath, we may need to dilute it infinitesimally – Robbie Williams’ swing album should suffice.

Disclaimer

*According to the original download site:

In the event of Bird Flu (avian influenza – H5N1), we will endeavour to sustain pressure on our servers due to any increase in traffic however we are unable to guarantee uptime. Not only failure of the servers that support our site but electricity might fail, other unforseen factors may come in to play. For this reason, it is much wiser if you get supplied now.

Therefore I am mirroring the file here to reduce load on their servers in the event of a H5N1 break out. If the owners of the file wish for me to remove this file contact me at the email address here.

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Filed under: Badscience, Barking, Medicine and Health, Resonance, Society of Homeopaths, homeopathy by badchemist
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