Archive

Gratuitous Self Indulgence - Part 1.

Published
by
badchemist
on January 18, 2008
in Music and Pointless Nonsense
. 0 Comments

As my life is being dominated by thesis writing at the moment, and consequently I’m listening to a lot more music than I have done in a long time, I’m rediscovering a lot of music I forgot I had. In a gratuitous piece of self indulgence every couple of days I’m going to post a list of albums I’ve been listening to. I hope remind so you of some great music that may have slipped from your consciousness. Hell, you might even find something you’ve never heard of and really like.

Eels - Beautiful Freak - I still love the piano on “Susan’s House”

Lemonheads - It’s a Shame About Ray

Everclear - Songs from an American Movie Vol. 1: Learning How to Smile - “Thrift Store Chair” is one of favourite songs ever

Rise Against - The Sufferer and the Witness

Hell is for Heroes - The Neon Handshake

VAST - Visual Audio Sensory Theatre

Mr Bungle - California

Muscle Car - Sandra Sully and Single as Usual EPs - Australian punk, brilliant

Fundamentalist Christian Chemistry 101

Published
by
badchemist
on January 15, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

Having visited Pharyngula earlier I was reminded of fstdt.com. Generally I’m not a huge fan of this site as 1. so many of the comments could have been written by trolls and 2. it seems to suffer from a level of publication bias, although some atheist fundamentalist comments appear they aren’t overly common. Even as an atheist the atter of these annoys me as, although I consider myself an atheist, I would rather see a balanced collection (maybe we’re too rational).

Anyway, this comment I did rather like, it involves chemistry and one of the largest/most bizarre leaps of logic and complete misunderstandings I have come across. I really have no idea what the author was on about and can only hope this was someone trolling the orignal forum.

All elements in the universe (periodic table) get their properties based on their combinations of 3 specific sub-atomic components. Protons, Neutrons, & Electrons. No element has the same combination. (ie…Gold has 79 protons, 118 neutrons, 79 electrons)Carbon (man) has 6 protons, 6 neutrons, 6 electrons. [666]. This will be the number in which the Anti-Christ will be identified by. And because a clone does not have working sexual organs, this explains why a “cloned” Anti-Christ will not have need for a woman.

How do you think this was written in God’s word about the anti-Christ being a man that his number will be 666? When the knowledge of protons, neutrons, and electrons was not even known? It is because the word was written just like God said. It was inspired by God, to where man could write it without flaw. And the knowledge was God knowledge, not the knowledge of man.

So there you have it folks, carbon = man, carbon = 666, therefore man = antichrist. Clones are sterile and therefore have no need for a woman. I assume this also means that anything containing carbon (12C anyway) is also the antichrist and surely the more carbon something contains the worse it is. I have a feeling that wedding rings and pencils now contain the devil incarnate.

For the romantics out there…

Published
by
badchemist
on January 14, 2008
in geek and video
. 0 Comments

From here

Calling Ben and Steve R

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

Some may have noticed that badchemist has not been seen on the badscience forums for some time. Unfortunately I decided to update my email address on there a couple of months ago and since my account has been suspended and I haven’t received an email to either my previous account or the one I changed. I’ve tried emailing Ben but haven’t had any luck yet (trying again now). If any of the badscience posse would like to try and get my account sorted on my behalf it would be appreciated and you would win the interweb.

Username = badchemist

(new) Email =

email address

Greetings from Oxford

Published
by
badchemist
on January 7, 2008
in Housekeeping and Pointless Nonsense
. 2 Comments

I’m currently bored sat in a pub in Oxford drinking beer and abusing free wi-fi. Second time I’ve made the rather long journey down from The North in 3 weeks but it seems to have paid off and although I haven’t had a formal offer I will soon (a month or 2) be moving down here to take up a post-doc position in the Dept. of Clinical Pharmacology.

Once I’m down here proper I’ll update, I’ll be looking for any of the badscience posse in the area for potential drinking buddies.

Just need to finish that bloody thesis now….

Fight back against spam

Published
by
badchemist
on January 6, 2008
in Housekeeping and Spam
. 0 Comments

Recently I’ve received a couple of emails from a lovely lady called Barbara Couley.

I visited your site and contents of your site http://badchemist.net/c got my attention. I am interested in purchasing Text links advertisement on it.
If you are interested please inform me.
I can make an attractive offer.
Thanks,

Barbara Couley

and

Hi,

I sent you an email few days back, I am interested in purchasing text link advertisment place on your website http://badchemist.net/. Let me know if interested so we can discuss further details as well. I can make a good offer to make it worth your time.

Let me know!
Thanks
Barbara

This pisses me off, I don’t want advertising on my site, never have and never will. The only chance of it happening are if this site suddenly becomes extremely popular and I can’t afford to upgrade or my webhost will cut me off i.e. a last resort. More annoying my email address is only available as an image on this site to reduce spammers by making it harder to get it automatically.

I would suggest that everyone sends one to her (barbaracouley@gmail.com), but that might result in us all getting even more spam back. If anyone else gets this pain in the arse contacting them, I feel your pain, just ignore the twunt.

Voluntary regulation of CAM - more psuedo-regulation

Published
by
badchemist
on January 6, 2008
in Badscience, KKKly Mail, Regulatory Bodies and Society of Homeopaths
. 0 Comments

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.

The danger of delusions

Published
by
badchemist
on November 19, 2007
in Badscience and homeopathy
. 1 Comment

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 righting 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, she 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 is evidence not only has he lost a daughter but he and wife may lose their freedom and their son may lose his parents, temporarily at least.

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

Jazz to cure all ills

Published
by
badchemist
on November 18, 2007
in Badscience, Barking, Medicine and Health, Resonance, Society of Homeopaths and homeopathy
. 5 Comments

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.

Australian homeopaths flout code of conduct too

Published
by
badchemist
on November 18, 2007
in Badscience, Regulatory Bodies and homeopathy
. 2 Comments

In my previous post I commented on some rather dubious content on the website of an Australian homeopath. This website belongs run by Frances Sheffield, RN, CM, DRM, MHlthSc.Ed., a professional member of the Australian Homeopathic Association. The AHA describes itself as (emphasis mine):

The Australian Homoeopathic Association is the largest and only national association of professional Homoeopaths in Australia, with branches throughout the country.

consequently it has a Code of Conduct (PDF). Section 2.9 of this code of conduct reads thus:

In announcing homoeopathic services, members shall state no more than the place and time of their practice, their qualifications and the services they are offering. The information contained in such announcements shall be factual and explanatory, not in the form of emotionally persuasive advertising, not claiming superior competency or implying cure of any named disease and not offering guarantees of a particular outcome as an inducement.

Now does implying protection from a disease that can not be prevented using conventional medicine contravene these regulations? A complaint may have to be made…