Scientifically-Correct – David Aaronovitch
Sometimes you wait for months for good scientific articles to come along and then you get two in one day in the same newspaper. David Aaronovitch has written this piece in The Times entitled “Climate campaigners reap what GM sowed”.
He ranges through global warming, homeopathy and GM crops, an puts a healthy plea for proper research and not to ban something just because you think it is wrong. Think of all the things in our modern society; scientific as well as moral, that were once subject of a prison sentence or even worse.
The last three paragraphs are ones that we should all heed.
But there is a rich irony here, which it has taken me some time to appreciate and that I want to share. Back in the crop-burning days of the late 1990s, when green activists prevented even trials taking place to discover more about GM produce, they rode shotgun on the denialist wagon. They didn’t care that they didn’t have the evidence, or that much of their support was mystical.
“The war against nature has to end,” Lord Melchett, the executive director of Greenpeace, told Specter, “and we are going to stop it.”
And now the green movement is in the camp of the governments and scientists, bitterly fighting the new denialists who must surely, in the words of John Wayne, remind them of them. Reaping, not sowing.
If you have time, then read his full article. But sadly, if you are in favour of Mr. Aaronovitch you will, but the various flat-earthers and deniers wouldn’t go near his well-reasoned arguments.
Scientifically-Correct – Raymond Tallis
I have used the term scientifically correct several times in this blog and you’ll find out a bit more about the history of the use of this term here.
Today, Raymond Tallis in The Times has written a comment entitled, “Test medicine in the lab, not the court”. Here’s the first two paragraphs.
A while back, I wrote a piece arguing that the retired, such as myself, had a responsibility to speak fearlessly about what we saw to be the truth and to take unpopular stands on difficult issues. After all, we no longer had any hope of advancement and the execration of ill-informed, unthinking or self-interested opponents could not touch us. Recent events have awoken my dormant cowardice to question this bravado. Speaking out on some things might mean that Mrs Tallis and I could end our days on the parish, cleaned out by a ruinous court battle with individuals or institutions with deeper pockets than us. The libel case brought against Simon Singh is one such event.
Singh is one of the most brilliant, accurate and thoughtful science writers of his generation. In 2008 he wrote a piece in The Guardian to coincide with Chiropractic Awareness Week challenging claims that spinal manipulation could be useful for treating childhood conditions such as asthma and ear infections. (Yes, ear infections — I kid you not!) The British Chiropractic Association (BCA) protested that he had defamed its reputation and threatened to sue for libel. The Guardian offered the BCA a 500-word response and an entry in its “Corrections and Clarifications” column. This was rejected, The Guardian chose not to engage in a potentially costly battle, and Singh was on his own. He courageously decided to fight on, because of the principles at stake.
Now I was married to a barrister, who did one of her pupilages in libel chambers. In those far-off days of the early 1980s, libel was all about people with massive egos and often bank balances, who felt they had been wronged in the tabloids. Now, it seems it is being used in a much more general way to protect commercial interests.
In the next few years, how many writers and scientists will challenge the established view, if they felt that what they said despite the overwhelming evidence was against the commercial interests of a large company or professional organisation?
Raymond Tallis finishes by asking us to become a signatory on the National Petition for Libel Reform. I have done what he asked and suggest that all those who want scientifically correct, rather than lawyer derived truth, should sign.
No Cambridge Busway but Council Pays
This would appear to perhaps not be the best news for the taxpayers of Cambridgeshire County Council, who seem to be paying for the busway.
Millions of pounds will be handed over to the team building the guided bus – and then council chiefs will claw the cash back.
Cambridgeshire County Council has borrowed £40 million in order to pay for the work up front.
But it insists taxpayers will not be a penny out of pocket on the £116 million bill originally agreed with contractors BAM Nuttall.
As I said in an earlier post, this is looking more and more like one for the lawyers.
But we still haven’t got an opening date for busway.
Winter Olympics
I haven’t actually watched anything live at all, despite the fact that I’ll sometimes watch things like Ski Sunday on BBC.
Perhaps the time difference to Vancouver is just too great.
Watering Down Sex Education
The government has retreated on sensible proposals on sex education, by allowing faith schools to virtually opt out of reality and the truth.
I thought that it was no well excepted that the more and better you educated kids about sex, the less teenage pregnancies you get.
But think of all those religious votes!
The Anonymous Widower 