"Science"

The Daily Mail, neuroscience and an example of why an evolutionary perspective is so important.

2008-12-24T13:33:00.009Z

I haven't read anything recently that's made me angry enough to write a blog post... It's been a good year. However, finding the Daily Mail wading into my special area (!) is quite enough to get me riled, but when they do it with exactly the same approach a creationist would take, well, then Internet is going to hear about it.

The article is here, and just look at that headline. I almost don't know where to start.
The blind man who can 'see' - and how he shows that humans really DO have a sixth sense

You see, the "science" editor has written an article in today's paper about one of the most fascinating and already fairly well understood phenomena in neuroscience - blindsight. Blindsight is as oxymoronic as it sounds. People who are consciously blind (but still have working eyes and optic nerves) are able to see. Seriously. And there's a perfectly good reason why.

Blindsight is exciting on it's own, it doesn't need to be bulked out with bullshit to make it interesting. It certainly doesn't prove humans have a sixth sense, which is a completely semantic and meaningless concept anyway. I've written about blindsight before, so I won't go into too much detail, but basically it's a great demonstration of how the brain has been constructed from a bottom up process (eg. natural selection). Visual information sent from the eyes travels along the optic nerve and splits along two different paths at the Lateral Geniculate Nucleus (LGN). One of these pathways continues to the visual cortex, an advanced and evolutionarily new part of the brain, which is responsible detailed analysis of the information and our conscious perception of the visual information. The other pathway goes via the Superior Colliculus (SC) to an evolutionarily older part of the brain. This pathway conveys only very basic visual information and is evolutionarily ancient. That is to say it evolved long ago and is present in all animals with even the most basic visual capabilities. Significantly, the pathway is not conscious - it's part of our ancient brain that existed before consciousness evolved - the information is perceived, analysed and acted upon, just below our level of conscious awareness.

Another good example of an evolutionarily ancient sense is smell, which, coincidentally is also bastardised by this article. Ignore the evolutionary implications and our understanding of neuroanatomy and the salient memories smell can induce are indeed a mystery. Keep within 30 years up to date with the subject you're writing about in a national newspapaer, like any good science editor would, and you've got a nice logical, scientific explanation to use instead.

It's this older pathway that is still works in patients with blindsight. Imagine trying to explain the blindsight phenomena without considering this evolutionary perspective. Perhaps from a psychoanalytical perspective - where the hell would you start? It could lead to all sorts of crazy speculations... Which is what's going on in the media at the moment.

Mr. Michael Hanlon, the "science" editor does a spectacularly good job of ignoring what we already know about blindsight to strongly imply humans have extra supernatural senses, he never says it out right, but it's the only implication that fits with his daft assessment of the situation.

Just to piss me off more, probably, he even poses the question "How does this tell us about how we 'see' the world?" Then, rather than answering it, he ponders if it's "...conclusive proof, as many have claimed, that humans have a hidden 'sixth sense' that can detect all kinds of aspects of the world around us in a way that defies logical explanation". Well it fucking isn't is it? It's been explained in a logical way for years. Let's just ignore that though, 'cos that's like how science works 'n' shit.

Let's deal quickly with this sense concept. Senses are semantic. Mr. Hanlon never defines what he means by sense, but it's certainly different to what may be defined as a sense in a scientific concept. There are 5 classical and obvious senses, yes, but this is a rather antiquated view in science. There are good arguments for defining literally hundreds of human senses - touch for example, should that really be one sense or more? "Touch" in a classical sense is very broad involving all the receptors in skin - tactical, heat, etc. These can be subdivided yet further; there are multiple types of temperature receptors, for example. The same goes for vision - not only are there at least 2 distinct pathways in the brain, we have separate receptors that perceive different wavelength and intensities of light. It all depends on how you define "sense". Anyone claiming humans have a sixth sense is, well, spectacularly ignorant of the science.

So yeah, another shit article in the Daily Mail that ignores enough science to really mislead the reader. But going back to what I said at the start, this is exactly how a creationist would have to approach the subject. Without evolution and without evolutionary perspectives our understanding of biology simply does not work. Evolutionary theory has provided the foundation on a significant amount of modern biology is relies upon. I doubt the science editor in the Daily Mail is a creationist (although it's not an unrealaistic assumption), but if creationism ever gets a foothold in educations systems, this article is what our science will devolve into. It's a nice example.

Another Helium debate: Evolution vs. "Devolution".

2008-01-11T10:59:00.000Z

Helium.com might be a long way off the vast and reliable information source it wants to be, but it certainly does provide a nice platform for debating. I came across another yesterday that I couldn't resist, mostly because almost every contributor had spectacularly missed the point. The question posed was "Is the human race evolving or devolving?", which should immediately provoke an "eh?!" reaction from anyone who has studied evolution.

There are an equal number of replies on each side and the votes indicate 2/3rd of people still think we're evolving as a species. However, most of those on the evolving side argue along the lines of "well we don't live in caves any more, so yeah, we're evolving.". The devolving side echo Daily Mail columnists and spout the doom and gloom "when I was a lad we didn't have disease or crime..." crap. Not one of the replies I've read (not that I've read them all) even seems to realise how fallacious the question really is in the first place. Here's my argument, which has been voted up to position 2/20 on the evolving side, just behind the current first place article which ends with the sentence... "I think the best Teacher of mankind; Jesus Christ, said it best when he asked in Mt 16:26... ". I shit thee not.

Linky
"To answer or even ask the question "Is the human race evolving or devolving?" one must create the illusion that evolution itself has aims, goals or a predetermined direction; presumably with adaptation in the opposite direction accounting for "devolution". But this is a fallacy, evolution is defined simply as change, not a change towards a purpose or goal. The driving force behind the mechanisms of biological evolution (natural selection, sexual selection, etc.) is always "survival of the fittest", but the definition of fittest is constantly variable and determined by context; it is not a set end point all the species on the planet are working towards.

The fittest combination of characteristics is not only determined by the niche inhabited by the organisms, but also the genetic environment it competes in. The ever changing definition of "fit" is elegantly demonstrated by evolutionary game theory, with the relative fitness of one individual to the rest of the population determining its chance of survival.

Genetic diversity on the Earth is vast with millions of different species with different lifestyles and survival strategies competing for resources. All sorts of weird and wonderful evolutionary solutions are used by different organisms to the same ends, but again, the end point required to define "devolution" remains elusive. The evolutionary arms race doesn't have a finish line where a winner will be declared. Just because humans are the only species intelligent enough to muse about these matters doesn't make us quantitatively any more evolved that the billions of bacteria inhabiting almost every nook and cranny, however inhospitable, on the Earth.

It is often argued that modern medicine, with vaccines, antiseptics, reading glasses and general ability to prolong life past 25 years, is responsible for some sort of "devolution" of the human race. It is indeed true selective pressures on humans are far more lax in some respects than they once were. Minor injuries no longer guarantee death or inhibited reproductive potential and no longer are top of the range genes the determining factor in who gets to mate and who doesn't. Even if this does result in permeation of the gene pool by genes that would once have been selected against, it's purely an example of our continuing evolution as a species rather than backwards evolution. The same applies when the term "evolution" is used to describe cultural trends and change; no end goal means no direction can be determined.

Evolution is a scalar not a vector, it doesn't have a direction so cannot go backwards. By definition, devolution is impossible."

Magnets don't just attract metal....

2008-01-09T10:10:00.000Z

This is my short input into a "debate" about magnet therapy and well being. It attempts to demonstrate the uselessness of anecdotal evidence by dismissing it (with reason) before even attempting to address it point by point. I think this is a good approach in cases like this, as addressing vague anecdotes only serves to give them a little validity, rather than highlighting how ineffective they are compared to required scientific/medical standards.

"When discussing alternative medical topics a fundamental question must be borne in mind. Why is the remedy/cure/idea alternative in the first place? Why isn't it part of the mainstream?

Modern evidenced medicine based medicine is grounded in science. No longer does it accept old wives tales, time honored traditions or anecdotes as evidence. Modern medicine is skeptical and rigorous, and it is for these reasons that treatments such as blood letting, which persisted despite doing more harm than good thanks to an acceptance of anecdotal evidence, are no longer employed by doctors today. Rather they have been replaced by treatments that can objectively show their effectiveness and have plausible physiological mechanisms to work by.

So why isn't magnet therapy part of modern medicine?

Of the two requirements of scientific medicine, magnet therapy fulfills neither. It does not have a plausible mechanism of effect, nor has it ever demonstrated effectiveness over a placebo in any controlled trial despite its claimed anecdotal backing. No one would knowingly take a prescribed drug that lacked any evidence of a mechanism or effectiveness, but for some reason this reservation doesn't necessarily apply to alternative modalities.

Magnetism is by no doubt an awe inspiring force that profoundly affects the world around us, but it doesn't necessarily follow that it should have effect (beneficial or otherwise) on the human body. If it did, why don't we notice it? How would it have affected our evolution? There's no way to tell if a piece of metal is producing a magnetic force by putting a finger against it it needs to be objectively verified by another magnetic object. The claims that magnets can aid circulation fall down on a number of levels; iron in the blood is not magnetic, and even if it was, how would attracting blood to one area cause anything other than a pooling affect? Surely magnetic bandages would simple increase inflammation by drawing blood to the area and preventing it from leaving!

MRI scanners use very powerful magnetic fields generated from superconducting coils cooled near absolute zero within the machine. The field is designed to align all the charged molecules in the body along the same axis and then measure their resonant absorption of energy in order to highlight different tissue densities and produce a detailed body scan. That's a mouthful, and that's a lot of magnetism, but what qualitative affect on the body does it have? None. It rearranges all the molecules in the body a much more dramatic affect than could ever be achieved using a typical magnetic therapy yet this has no noticeable affect. MRI technicians don't have higher rates of caner, lower sperm counts, higher IQs or magical powers. If magnetism had even the tiniest effect on blood flow or nerves, something observable would happen when entering a magnetic field as strong as those produced by MRI scanners, let alone after chronic exposure to the field.

Not only does magnet therapy fail to demonstrate its ability to cure or treat ailments, it cannot demonstrate any effect likely to have any bearing on general well being whatsoever. Apart from, of course, being an expensive placebo that risks distracting a patient from a real treatment or cure. If it could, it would be welcomed into modern medicine along with vaccination, antibiotics, anesthetics, reading glasses, Viagra and all the other little things that improve our quality of life by an indescribable amount."

Update: I could have mentioned before, the above was posted in response to a debate at http://www.helium.com and is currently the highest ranked argument on the "magnet therapy is a crock of shit" side. The votes for the debate are still being tallied, but judging by the responses on each side (6 "No"s and 7 "yes"s) common sense doesn't appear to be significantly prevailing. The article.

"Natural chemical" is not an oxymoron

2008-01-03T12:24:00.000Z

In a medical context the media and supplement industry would have us believing the following, if they could:
"Herb" = good.
"drug" = bad.

But lets expand these definitions.
"herb" = Substance that apparently has an active affect in the body.
"drug" = Substance that apparently has an active affect in the body.

Hang on... Oh wait I see, I've missed out some words.

"herb" = Natural substance that apparently has an active affect in the body.
"drug" = Chemical substance that apparently has an active affect in the body.

Now there's a difference. Or is it? The colloquial definitions of "herb" and "drug" both hinge around the words "natural" and "chemical". "Natural" being associated with good, and "chemical" being associated with bad. But where do these associations come from? A good, simple definition of a chemical is "A substance with a distinct molecular composition". That's it and it encompasses every substance in the universe. Water is a chemical, air is a chemical, your body is a bag of chemicals, food and medicines are made entirely of chemicals. Everything is a chemical - where do the negative connotations come from? Not all chemicals are natural (assuming man made doesn't count as natural?), but everything natural is a chemical. In the context of herbal supplements, "natural" and "chemical" are interchangeable:

"herb" = Chemical substance that apparently has an active affect in the body.
"drug" = Chemical substance that apparently has an active affect in the body.

So we're back to both having the same meaning again. So what are the differences? Generally speaking, when a herb actually has good scientific evidence of efficacy and physiological plausibility, it can be promoted to a drug. Eating a leaf provides an unknown dose of active ingredient along with a cocktail of other chemicals also present in that particular plant. Drugs provide known amounts of a purified (and often chemically improved - ever heard of a stereoisomer?) active ingredient and have a lot of science backing up their efficacy. Of course pharmaceutical companies have a bias to making their drugs appear as effective as possible, but most people simply do not appreciate the years of work and amount of money that goes into proving efficacy in appropriate trials before something can be marketed as a drug. People are also unaware of how many potential new drugs fail this scientifically rigorous process. Herbal supplements on the other hand skip this part. Doses in herbal supplements aren't always accurate, if it's a crushed herb for example, it is impossible to know the doses (or even all) the chemicals present in the supplement. If the supplement is a purified chemical then it is possible to know the real dose. But wait, aren't "purified chemicals" meant to be bad? How can a term mean something good when talking about supplements, but something bad when talking about drugs?

Putting chemical names on bottles of real medicines makes them sound intimidating, but putting chemical names on some supplements lends them some credibility. This hardly seems fair. If the standard scientific definition of words like "chemical" were used automatically by people, rather than a definition that is allowed to change to depending on the bias defined by context, this confusion would not exist. Chemicals aren't defined as good or bad by their structure, but their effect can be described as good or bad and thanks to the scientific method, chemicals with bad effects don't become drugs (aside from a minute number of exceptions).

This argument may sound a bit wishy washy and... er... semantic, but that's the whole point. We need to use objective and fixed definitions here to avoid sudden, emotional alterations to meanings. If interchanging the words "chemical" and "natural" in a health context doesn't feel right to you, you're not being logical and any derived conclusion will be as useless as the anecdotes supporting the use of any snake oil "cure".

A large proportion of drugs are herbs that have passed the test; they have scientifically defined doses, defined effects, defined side effects, and defined physiological mechanisms. Herbal supplements merely have anecdotes, because if the science held up for them, they would be marketed as drugs too. If you're the type, just ask yourself next time you pop a supplement pill; if this chemicals in it really has an effect on my body, what side effects does they also have?

Drugs are good, mmmmkay?

"Hi, I'm an anti-MMR campaigner and I kill children"

2007-09-02T13:44:00.000+01:00

It's hard to decide who to blame for the whole MMR controversy. Andrew Wakefield? The original "doctor", now under investigation by the GMC, who proposed the link between MMR and bowl disorders and bowl disorders and autism from a study involving a mere 12 children? That's spectacularly inept science. Or maybe the media, for latching on this vague hypothesis and championing it as gospel truth for the sake of selling papers or grabbing viewers?

Personally I have to blame the media. Wakefield's hypothesis would never have got any attention without the help of sensationalist mass media. Science has never entertained any link between MMR and autism, but that's not a story. The potential to fear monger with a vaccine given to 95% of children since 1988 cannot be overestimated. I feel genuinely sorry for parents with younger children over the past few years, who probably not being privy to real scientific literature, have had an agonising decision to risk measles infection or risk autism. The amount of attention given to the MMR situation (I'm not going to call it a debate or a controversy again; there's no debate and there's no controversy) in the media wouldn't have happened if there wasn't at least some evidence, right? Wrong. This has to be one of the closest things to a flat out lie ever achieved without risking any legal liability. Either the original journalists involved in the MMR situation were too stupid to understand the topic, or they did but were morally lacking to such a degree that they carried on regardless.

The worst part, however, is that they still entertain this non-existent link to this day. Recently measles has been in the news because of the alarming rise of cases this year (up on last year, which in turn is vastly up on previous years thanks to a drop to 80% of kids having the vaccine). Despite this, every article I've read refers to the MMR vaccine as "controversial" or "questionable". Almost every article mentions Wakefield's original hypothesis. Hardly any have even the tiniest mention of the scientific time wasted over the past 10 years attempting to undo the damage the media did. Subsequent studies demonstrating no link are ignored. Studies showing increases in autism in countries that don't even have the MMR vaccine are ignored. Studies showing the rise in autism carried on unabated despite the drop in the number of kids taking the MMR are ignored. The media started this bandwagon, but they have no interest in stopping it. Why stop such a great story when, if you simply ignore the real science, most people will remain unaware of it, ensuring they remain perpetually confused and scared?

It's annoying that prats like Piers Morgan can be held accountable for publishing blatantly fake photos of British soldiers abusing prisoners, but when every media outlet is in on the same lie, the guilt is spread and no one is accountable. I have to wonder how many children have died or have been disabled by measles infection since the original scare. But the media is responsible; for starting the scare and for allowing it to continue. The MMR will always be seen as controversial now. Parents will always worry about allowing their kids to have it, and there will always be doubt hanging over its head. The chance of MMR causing autism is the same as MMR causing arthritis or elephantitis - so low it effectively doesn't exist, but some people will remain convinced of the link and a general mistrust of vaccines will remain. And as a result, children die.

Well done, I hope the profits were worth it.

Alzheimer's drugs require science too

2007-08-18T17:12:00.000+01:00

It's a relief that the recent court trial attempting to force the NHS to give early-stage Alzheimer's patients Aricept, Reminyl and Exelon failed. Doing so would undermine the safeguards controlling the development and prescription of new drugs, as well as setting a precedent that the guidance of educated advisory bodies should be ignored in favour of ill-informed public pressure.

The Alzheimer’s society, frankly, should know better. Its behaviour over the past few weeks has been on par with the sensationalist mass media; it shouldn't be surprising to learn that the court case was partly bankrolled by a Daily Mail campaign. The Daily Mail, being as intellectually dishonest as usual, has spun the story in such a way that it appears out heartless NHS is denying lifesaving miracle drugs for the sake of cost effectiveness. This simply isn't the case, yet it makes a good story, doesn't it?

The problem with Aricept and friends is that they don't work for the early stages of the disease. There is evidence acetylcholinesterase inhibitors slow decline in the later stages, but there simply isn't any proof they help in the early stages. In fact, it's reasonable to assume the possibility that they more harm than good - something modern medicine aims to avoid! Aricept contains donepezil hydrochloride, which inhibits acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme that breaks down acetylcholine (ACh) in the brain (thus acetylcholinesterase inhibitors increase the amount of ACh floating around the nervous system). ACh is one of the most prevalent neurotransmitters in the nervous system, and put simply, is rather important. Blanket inhibition of acetylcholinesterase is risky and likely to have very widespread number of effects, one of which may be the slowing of decline in Alzheimer's patients, but this needs to be balanced against the side effects and risks. In order to be effective and accepted, a drug needs to prove itself to be more powerful than the placebo effect and the side effects can't be too severe. For the early stages of Alzheimer’s, Aricept just ain't good enough. It's a relief to hear that the NHS won't be wasting money on it or potentially harming patients.

Of course, the testimonials championed by the media that convince us of Aricept's miraculous properties would have us believe differently. But this is exactly why science shouldn't, and doesn't, accept anecdotal and subjective evidence. Single patients are not evidence of anything apart from human nature; one guy I heard on the radio had been taking Aricept for 2 years and his Alzheimer's hadn't got any worse. Who knows what else he had been taking or doing during this time? What coping strategies had he learnt? Exactly how severe was his Alzheimer’s to begin with? How was he measuring his condition? How good is his memory? (That's not a sick joke, it's a rather important point). Scientific trials control for variables, people don't. Hell, if this guy had been taking a placebo for the last 2 years he'd probably be saying exactly the same thing.

The impression given by testimonials is that, if one exists, loads more do too, all of which are similar to the one presented. What about the patients who were taken off of Aricept trails because it made them too ill? If they're not in the mass media, they don't exist, right? Humans are by nature illogical and subjective. Proof requires objectivity, and scientific trials provide this. It's a proven system and modern medicine wouldn't exist or survive without it. If the recent guidance of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) and the NHS' decision had been overturned, it would have been a kick in the face for science. Emotional spin created by the media should never trump real scientific evidence, and thankfully it didn't.

The Daily Mail calls it a legal blow for Alzheimer’s campaigners, which is a callous lie. They may have lost the court case, but it's for their own good. Just imagine if the NHS was offering dangerous and unproven drugs to venerable patients. The hypocritical Mail would have a field day.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk

Oh shit, I'm psychic!

2007-08-15T17:44:00.000+01:00

I've just been watching Richard Dawking's new programme, early in the first part Dawkins recieves a reading from some dipshit off-target psyfraud. Suddenly the thought strikes me as I sat there giggling, wouldn't it be great if he has Derren Brown on here to explain cold reading - a feat Derren performs better than most psychics*, without ever having to evoke the supernatural.

And then it happened, my entire science education was blown out the water (along with all the points Dawnkin's is trying to make in the programme). The next scene is Dawkins talking to Derren about cold reading. Shit.

It's either because I'm a twin with enhanced ESP, or because Derren wrote one of the comments on the back of The God Deulsion (what's the proper name for those?), in addition to tearing psychics a new one in his own book, which I bought around the same time. Who knows?

Anyway, I'm going back to watching a conversation between two of the most interesting people walking this planet. I also predict Dawkins will next be seen talking to some sort of fraud....

* He also earns a lot more than most psychics, and doesn't look and sound like he should be on a Daz adevert or have a column in the Daily Star. His understanding of science is irnonically what makes his career so much more successful than the funny looking fat lady covered in crystals and chanting to herself in a cheap booth at a convention for people who should really be in rehab.

Melanie Phillips is a Moron

2007-08-06T12:58:00.001+01:00

I was interested to read a short article in today’s Daily Mail about Richard Dawkins' new TV documentary assaulting new age beliefs. Suspiciously the article, unlike most in this God awful paper, didn't go out of its way to get people angry. But never fear, the Mail hasn't gained any journalistic integrity - the first hint came with the "Melanie Phillips - Page 12" at the end of the article.

I don't usually read any of the columnists in the Daily Mail, they have to be the most short-sighted and ignorant collection of dinosaurs I've ever had the pleasure of skimming over (one tried to make out smoking was good because his dad did it the other day, really). However, there's no way I'm skimming over an article so guaranteed to entertain such as "Arrogance, dogma and why Science - not faith - is the new enemy of reason".

It's impossible to take such an article seriously of course, it's written by a woman who knowingly proclaims ... complex organisms evolved through random natural selection...". I doubt she could define science, let alone understand how it works. But ignorance doesn't stop her writing about it, so let me present the ironic premise behind her argument for comical value.

It starts off OK, Mel talks about the ludicrously of new age beliefs and conspiracy theories (interestingly, the kind of things the Daily Mail would have us all believing, if it could). But why, she asks, do so many people believe such crap? Human nature? Indoctrination? Psychology? Nah, its Dawkins innit. Apparently we British live in a scientific, post-religious era; our sacred religious beliefs have been replaced by science, thanks to people like Dawkins. However, science being the mere tool it is, is incapable of satiating our need for bullshit, sorry, our need to be good little white-middle-class-Christians. Science according to Mel, doesn't use logic and reason, it's not even objective you know; it's a religion known as scientism. High priest Dawkins has done such a great job indoctrinating us all that we now have such a empty void inside that we have to believe in new age crap. Maybe I’m sounding a little sarcastic, so let’s let Mel sum it up “The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality”. Let me just repeat that “The truth is that it is the collapse of religious faith that has prompted the rise of such irrationality”. That horrible noise was me kicking a puppy.

Yup, that's the argument; science is a religion, but unlike other religions it is incapable of babysitting society, and the reasoning behind it is that if you don't believe in one illogical idea, you therefore have to believe in another, one being "good" and the other "bad". "Good" and "bad" being defined by a seemingly uneducated Daily Mail Columnist.

It's sad really; her science bashing is exactly what must make Dawkins smack his head on his desk every night. It's the same crap 14 year old MySpace Kids recite in forum debates. The last few paragraphs of the article even champion Intelligent Design - apparently it proves that science is unreasonable as it doesn't accept this "theory".

If only she had read the God Delusion.

The article is online here , it’ll be interesting to see if my comment is subject to the same quality control as Melanie’s:
“Every time someone claims natural selection to be random, an evolutionary biologist dies. I'm afraid this article only serves to prove utter lack of understanding of not only the specifics of important scientific theories, but the fundamental workings of science itself.
I suggest Melanie actually reads the God Delusion, it deals with similar illogical and amateurish assaults on science.”

You can borrow my favorite gap; an open challenge to the fundamentally religious

2007-06-29T15:26:00.001+01:00

The creators of religious propaganda aren't stupid. It's designed to first elicit an emotional and familiar response - telling people what they want to hear, and move from this position of agreement towards its own paradigm. Well, that's one way of putting it anyway; from now on we'll shorten my explanation to "hopping on the fucking bandwagon".

So what are the hot topics in Western society at the moment? What's the dictated fashion (thank you media!)? Creation "vs" evolution is the big one certainly, but there are also topics like abortion, the rights of homosexuals, etc. that make up a significant proportion of religious propaganda, preaching, and in some cases, hate mongering. Note that topics currently not on the agenda include slavery, disrespect towards women, arranged marriages etc. etc. The Bible and other religious books certainly include instructions on these, but the opposite morals are so deeply entrenched in society that it's a lost cause to try and recruit believers by justifying racism or rape of virgins. Misleading people on evolution is easier, and gay bashing isn't quite socially unacceptable enough yet not to be exploited.

I was reminded of something I was going to write a while back after hearing Keith Allen make the bandwagon argument to one of the Westboro Baptist Church clowns in his recent channel 4 documentary "Keith Allen will burn in Hell". He was unable to make a decent argument for the most part, not through his own fault mind you; no one can argue with a door post. But the documentary was hilarious, as well as having that car-crash "Jesus these people are insane and I can't stop pointing and staring at them" mentality about it that everyone loves (I watch Jeremy Kyle too, it's great). Anyway I'm getting side tracked. He made the point to the aforementioned clown (before resorting just to repeatedly shouting "FOOL! FOOL! FOOL!" over him, which I now also do to my friends, to their great annoyance) that the Westboro monkeys currently have a rather staunch position on gays. Previously, when the hotter topic was abortion, that's what they latched on to.

Well, this article isn't going to be about any of the common bandwagons. This is going to be on a gap in science that never became a bandwagon, a gap that the religious lot have so far missed. A gap that would have been better than bastardising evolution and the big bang, a gap that they could still use - if they dare.

One of the things that got me into neuroscience is my almost indescribable awe of the brain, not just the human brain, but any neural circuit however small or specialised. The well described 9 neuron polymorphic circuit controlling the entire lobster foregut and the intricate chemical mediation of the circuit is interesting enough, but it doesn't scratch the surface of one rather massive question in neuroscience that we are still so far off answering. Specifically how are we - as bags of chemicals arranged in a particular fashion - able to think about why we're able to think? Put another way, how does the consciousness experience that makes us human, that allows us to appreciate that other individuals are also sentient beings arise from the chemical mush in our heads? There have been attempts by philosophers and religious types in the past, but nothing that appears to be competitive to the scientific method (competitive in the sense that creationism is apparently a popular competitor to evolutionary theory, note the "apparently").

We know that chemicals make molecules, that molecule make structures and that the right combination of structures makes a neuron. We know a dense network of neurons makes a brain and we know psychology exists, whatever the scientologists say. But here is the biggest gap in the biological sciences - bigger than any gap in evolutionary theory or the fossil record - the gap between biology and psychology is a very long way off being explained. Science can't currently do much better than speculate on the origins of consciousness and promise to diligently continue advancing. So why have the religious lot not latched on to this gap, which is yet to significantly shrink, and tried to make out that it's some proof of God? We can't explain what consciousness is, ergo God put it there. It's the same logic applied to their other arguments against science; we can't explain evolution, ergo "God dun it". What differs here is that the lack of understanding of evolution is entirely their own fault - how many times have you heard someone say "My granddad wasn't a monkey"? Well, real evolutionary theory never said that, only the ignorant strawman version created by creationists does. Compare this to consciousness. Neuroscience cannot currently explain consciousness; I don't need to create a strawman of any theory to say that with confidence, real scientists can't yet explain it. Surely then, this makes the consciousness gap a much better gap in which to evoke God than any made up gap in evolution?

But why isn't it used? I think the explanation is pretty simple. Evolution underlies almost everything in the biological sciences, so needs to be taught in early science education. Everyone has come across it at some point. Neuroscience on the other hand is a much more specialist field that isn't taught before undergraduate level in the UK, or often not before postgraduate level in the US. No evangelical Christian ever gets that far in science education, hell only a very small proportion of scientists ever study neuroscience in detail. Essentially the awareness of this massive hole in scientific understanding is much less than the massive hole of understanding created by misunderstanding evolutionary theory. Without a doubt I am unaware of other areas where scientific understanding currently lacks to a similar degree, which I haven't come across because I've never obtained a specialist understanding of the relevant field.

Here's the challenge. I've openly admitted science doesn't have a lot to say on the "consciousness gap" between biology and psychology (not that it was much of a secret in the first place). The gap is just begging to be filled with a deity, but no one is really putting much effort into doing so. I'm inviting a modern fundamental type to try and fill this gap with a "soul" or whatever. Why? because I firmly believe that over the next 100 years our understanding of neuroscience will advance far enough to rout the God back out of the gap, thus again demonstrating the sheer effectiveness of the scientific method. We replaced "God's wrath" as the explanation for lightning, we replaced demons as the explanation for mental disorders, and until our understanding of science advances and creates more gaps, the Gap God is fast running out of hiding places. I'm offering another, but use it at your own risk.

If homeopathy ain't just a joke, then why am I laughing?

2007-06-22T17:15:00.000+01:00

Being the up to date and regular blog this is, I thought I’d post a little something on homeopathy. It’s been a month or so since Gustav Born and friends stirred up the morons nest by daring to suggest that hospitals should provide evidence-based treatments rather than glorified placebos. Their letter is online here and received a generous amount of attention from both sides of the media and blogging communities.

One side, the side that is responsible for every technological advancement we enjoy in our lives, argues that there is no evidence that homeopathy works – there’s no plausible mechanism and there’s no evidence of efficacy. The other side argues that anecdotal evidence should trump scientific rigor, but only to their own ends, and that emotive use of the words “chemical” and “nature” prove that quackery is healthy and drugs companies are just plain evil really.

So who’s right? The irony here is if you can’t work it out yet, you should read on. But if you haven’t worked it out yet, you probably won’t quite grasp the next bit.

Let’s subject homeopathy to some scientific rigor and see if it holds up. We need to break it down into its fundamental hypotheses and see what evidence, from multiple perspectives, can be used to back it up. Most importantly, we need to consider evidence that’ll falsify any of these hypotheses.

Homeopathy works on two basic principles.
1)A symptom can be treated by dosing the poor patient with a diluted chemical that causes the same symptom. It’s like curing asthma by smoking.
2)Water memory - the dilutions used are so small, that the chance of there actually being a single molecule of the solute in all the oceans on earth is orders of magnitude smaller than the chance of homeopathic remedies ever been taken seriously by real doctors (the implication there is it’s smaller than a minute chance.... Just making sure). Therefore, it’s not the active chemical that does the healing; it’s the waters memory that the chemical was once dissolved in it. I’m honestly not making this up.

Right ok. So can we find any evidence that “negatives attract”, “two wrongs make a right” or that two pathologies equate to a miracle cure? Well, no, frankly. I won’t labour this point long, as it’s actually rendered entirely moot by the water memory idea anyway, but suffice to say there is absolutely no evidence for the blanket statement that ALL symptoms can be cured by their complimentary toxin. None. None. None. NONE. No other medical treatment works this way, not even vaccinations. Why would it? What’s the physiological evidence this happens? Or even that it might happen? There isn’t any. There’s not even suggested biochemical or physiological pathway for this kind of effect to occur in the body, let alone any known evidence, despite the fact it’s supposed to work for ANY symptom! The hundreds of years homeopathy has apparently been used and studied are yet to yield anything in the way of a scientific explanation, and it's scientific explanations that I want backing up the claims of any medicine I take. What about experimental evidence with real patients? Sadly there’s none there either. Oh dear.

Well good start... Now let’s dilute the useless chemical and make it even more useless. Homeopathic dilutions are measured in ‘C’s, that is 1C, 2C, 3C etc. 1C is one drop of “active” ingredient in 99 drops of water. 2C is 1 drop of the 1C solution in another 99 drops of water. 12C is one drop in the Atlantic Ocean. 30C is beyond comprehension, working on the scale of drops, there ain’t enough water on the planet. This is where the water memory comes in; 30C is 1 part in 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000, and a substance at this level of dilution is apparently capable of remembering what has been dissolved in it. There’s no suggested physical mechanism for how and here’s no evidence that is does, but anyone with any shred of common sense should be able to see how this principle cannot work. If water can remembers what’s been dissolved in it, then when and how does it forget? Surely it must remember everything that’s ever been dissolved in its entire history? Now that’s contamination. Let’s assume up to 30C concentrations can be remembered. That means any atom or molecule that has ever been on the earth is remember by every drop of water on the Earth. There’s more too; by the time concentrations get below 10C, the chance of a single molecule of the original compound actually be present in the solution is effectively 0. So as the dilution continues, how does the new 99 drops of water at each progressive stage gain the memory it requires? It never comes into the contact with the “active” ingredient, so are water molecules learning form other water molecules!? This is fucking insanity.

Both fundamental ideas behind homeopathy fail before even achieving hypothesis status. But let us humour them for a second. Maybe by some fluke it actually works, but the homeopaths are just wrong on the specifics. Well it does, but no more than the placebo effect. There’s a common trend in homeopathic trials – it’s a negative correlation between the quality (including size, method, etc.) of the trial, and the demonstrated effectiveness. In other words, its efficacy (more than placebo) has only been demonstrated in bunk trials, and isn’t observed in well controlled, large studies. The trial that sparked modern day interest in homeopathy was published in Nature in 1988 after it apparently demonstrated water memory in action. However, it was debunked after it was found the entire effect was an artefact of psychology – the experiments found what they wanted to find, not through deliberate deception, they were tricked by their own expectations. This is the exact reason double blind trials are used, to avoid psychological bias and other confounding factors. It’s a very interesting case, but its retraction was entirely ignored by the people who just plain want to believe it’s true.

Homeopathic treatments are nothing more than drops of water on sugar pills that are no more effective than placebos. Sorry.

Why evolution is so important

2007-04-30T20:11:00.000+01:00

Seeing as I'm always banging on about the importance of evolution to the biological sciences, neuroscience particularly, I thought I'd post something a bit less general on it. I keep saying evolution has profound implications on how we should understand our brains, but I haven't really given any specific examples.

This is a commentary I had to write for a psychology course I took last year, it received a very good mark, and I have a suspicion this may have been because I took an evolutionary perspective when writing it. One of the things that really bugs me about psychology, or at least the courses I've taken while doing neuroscience, is that it seems to cling a lot to the past. It hasn't incorporated our understanding of brain anatomy and evolution fast enough, and some of the core paradigms don't make sense when these are considered. They still teach Freud too - and not just for a laugh. This essentially mean the "default" view of neuroscience with all its newfangled "anatomy","natural section" and "biochemistry" is pretty cutting edge to some die hard cognitive psychologists. Actually saying that, I reckon at my university of the 400+ people taking psychology, a tiny minority could probably explain the difference between evolution and natural selection. Of the 10 of us doing neuroscience, we all can.

This commentary is on "Précis of The illusion of conscious will", published in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (2004), 27: 649-659 by Daniel M. Wegner. It is important to note that this is a commentary on this article, and not "The illusion of conscious will" the book, which I have not read (it wasn't required to for the course and as much as I'd like to read it, I haven't had time since). The book may address the points I make in the commentary, but it should still provide a good example of how evolution and anatomy should have a bearing on psychology.

I suggest reading the article, it's long but it is a very interesting viewpoint and will doubtless give you something to think about if you haven't encountered the illusion of conscious will debate before. I'll post the abstract below. Essentially my commentary looks at (the Précis of) Wegner's theory in light of what evolution should predict, and concludes it doesn't fit as well as I think it should.

Here's the abstract from Wegner's article:
"The experience of conscious will is the feeling that we are doing things. This feeling occurs for many things we do, conveying to us again and again the sense that we consciously cause our actions. But the feeling may not be a true reading of what is happening in our minds, brains, and bodies as our actions are produced. The feeling of conscious will can be fooled. This happens in clinical disorders such as alien hand syndrome, dissociative identity disorder, and schizophrenic auditory hallucinations. And in people without disorders, phenomena such as hypnosis, automatic writing, Ouija board spelling, water dowsing, facilitated communication, speaking in tongues, spirit possession, and trance channeling also illustrate anomalies of will – cases when actions occur without will or will occurs without action. This book brings these cases together with research evidence from laboratories in psychology to explore a theory of apparent mental causation. According to this theory, when a thought appears in consciousness just prior to an action, is consistent with the action, and appears exclusive of salient alternative causes of the action, we experience conscious will and ascribe authorship to ourselves for the action. Experiences of conscious will thus arise from processes whereby the mind interprets itself – not from processes whereby mind creates action. Conscious will, in this view, is an indication that we think we have caused an action, not a revelation of the causal sequence by which the action was produced."

And here's my word-limited commentary:
"When attempting to infer the functioning of a system from its external behaviour, it makes sense that the architecture and origins of the system must be considered. Computers may appear to have wills of their own, but we know they do not because any output comes solely from their silicon and electrical construction. However, in this article Wegner does not seem to consider the anatomy of the brain nor the evolution of the brain.

For example, the mechanisms by which phenomena such as blindsight occur can be inferred by observing behaviour, but the physiological reasons for why such a phenomenon occurs can not be reliably determined simply from external observation. By examining the anatomy of the brain, and determining the brain has various visual pathways – some conscious, some unconscious – the reasons become evident. The same applies for any study of the brain, human behaviour or other neural phenomena, observation of behaviour can produce a model that infers functioning, but does not necessarily reveal the physical reasons.

By observing the evolution of the brain, or by comparing the human brain with that of lower organisms, it is apparent that lower, unconscious “zombie” areas of the brain evolved first, with the higher cognitive areas appearing later on in. In essence, evolution created a brain that is a mechanistic device, with mentalistic (cognitive) elements tacked on later, and not necessarily tidily, in evolutionary time. This creates a working architecture in which the conscious elements emerged later and do not necessarily have ultimate control over unconscious decisions or behaviours arising from more primitive areas. For example, intense cognitive effort is unable to stop a heart beating, or to diminish primitive urges (this is not to deny the effect cognitive elements can have on the brain, however). For example, the frontal lobes evolved to work with lower areas, but the lower areas evolved with no consideration that the frontal lobes may evolve later.

This is very relevant to any discussion of conscious will, as any conscious will – illusionary or otherwise – is the product of the agreement or disagreement between two somewhat distinct decision making systems. For the illusion of conscious will as described by Wegner to occur, the unconscious must determine the action and the conscious must agree with it with such consistency that the conscious is convinced it determined the action. If this is indeed the case, where our actions are solely determined by unconscious elements of the brain, it begs the question why consciousness evolved at all.

The relatively large frontal lobes in humans evolved alongside language, increased intelligence and complex social interaction. They are the seat of consciousness and emotion and are essential for human social interaction, without them people are unable to communicate and interact effectively and damage to them can cause profound personality change (Phineas Gage being a famous example). Their role in conscious will can not simply be to agree with unconscious decisions, as this would render the function of these resource intense structures moot (and hence an evolutionary disadvantage rather than advantage). Unconscious interactions and decisions (and thus entirely illusionary will) are incapable of producing and supporting human society.

It is far more reasonable to assume that, rather to just observe and agree, consciousness (and hence conscious will) evolved not only to vet decisions made unconsciously, but to use its inherent intelligence to create its own decisions and actions. In a social context, one of the main functions of the frontal lobes is to inhibit inappropriate behaviour. Patients who have suffered frontal lobe damage often exhibit inappropriate behaviours, it is plausible these behaviours are ‘suggested’ as possibilities by unconscious regions, but are deemed inappropriate and inhibited by the frontal areas. Perhaps the presentation of many possible behaviours to the frontal lobes, and then the frontal lobes determination of the most appropriate can produce an illusion of consciousness will, but this does not rule out the possibility the conscious areas of the brain can generate and perform their own behaviours and decisions.

Wegner does say that “…action and feeling of doing …. may be produced by separate systems in the mind”. This fits with the idea of interactions between unconscious and conscious parts of the brain, however Wegner does not seem to consider the possibility that action and feeling of doing can come solely from consciousness, and he implies consciousness has no say in unconscious decisions. The example of alien hand syndrome, which Wegner uses, is one demonstration that the unconscious is perfectly capable of producing its own behaviours, but without conscious supervision these behaviours are useless, inappropriate and inadequate. Consciousnesses role can not simply be to agree with these behaviours and then convince itself it created them. It certainly seems plausible that illusions of conscious will can occur when the consciousness agrees with a behaviour – a feeling of total control would be an advantage to a conscious animal – but this need not necessarily occur for every choice made by an individual. An exclusive illusion of conscious will does not appear to make evolutionary sense but a system using a mixture of both conscious will and illusionary will does.

God is in the Dendrites? Only in your imagination

2007-04-29T11:32:00.000+01:00

It's certainly true that God is at least in part an imaginary being that resides in heads of believers, but attempts to use real neuroscience research as proof of God existence stinks of desperation. I've just been reading through an online article sent to me by a friend - Can "neurotheology" bridge the gap between religion and science? By George Johnson. It's published in Slate whatever the hell that is.

Examples of plasticity in the adult brain are used to try and give weight to the idea that God exists in the head. I'm not exactly sure where, but maybe they're trying to get at that pesky gap between anatomy and consciousness. It's a bit of a desperate ploy in my opinion, God has been replaced as the placeholder explanation for all scientific phenomena so why assume science will stop now?

Exactly how the research noted in the article can be interpreted as proof of God baffles me, it shows a complete misunderstanding of (or unwillingness to accept) what the research mentioned actually shows.

Apparently, parts of the cortex are larger in seasoned meditators, specifically areas dedicated to "attentiveness and processing of information". I say apparently because I haven't seen a real published article on this, only second hand pop science articles, and I can't be bothered to look at the moment. The concept is conceivable and I wouldn't be surprised if it is indeed true. However, according to the George Johnson this phenomena can be interpreted in two ways. Either it's evidence of anatomical plasticity in the adult brain, which it certainly is, or as proof that the visions believers have are "real", and hence prove the existence of God. Anyone who puts serious weight in the latter explanation is certainly relying far more on faith than good science.

Other work mentioned in the article includes brain scans on meditating nuns and Tibetan monks. The nuns, tended to meditate on a bible verse while the monks used visual objects. Surprise surprise, areas involved in language lit up in the nuns, and areas of the visual cortex lit up in monks. Apparently this can be taken as evidence of God's existence too. By the same logic, me opening my eyes and seeing an object that then causes part of my visual cortex to light up is further evidence.

What anyone who actually puts stock in these odd interpretations of neuroscientific evidence needs to realise is that if they want to use neuroscience as some kind of proof of God, there's a hell of a lot of other stuff they can't just ignore. Stimulating certain parts of the brain can make people believe in God, for example. It can also cause them to have vivid hallucinations without any divine intervention. What about the tendencies of drug takers to believe in illogical things such as religion and the supernatural? What about the God-like or spiritual feelings that can be induced by epileptic attacks? What about near death experiences as a defense mechanism of a dying brain? Or, my personal favourite which I'm yet to hear a good explanation for from a religious perspective...

I first read this in a V.S. Ramachandran book, the name escapes me but it wasn't Phantoms in the Brain. Ramachandran describes experiments with split brain patients, who for whatever reason, lack the corpus callosum connecting the two hemispheres of the brain. The hemispheres are able to act more independently and can be questioned by presenting stimuli to the opposite visual field (relative to the target hemisphere) and getting the opposite hand to answer. One patient was questioned on his religious views, to which one hemisphere declared it's belief in God, which the other indicated itself to be an atheist. Exactly how this fits in with any religious belief is beyond me - what happens when the guy dies? Half his head goes to heaven and the other half to hell?

I can honestly say I'm not surprised to see religious types picking evidence they think may prove God while ignoring bits that don't. IDers and creationists do exactly the same thing. And in exactly the same way they show their fundamental ignorance of science - both in the way it works, and by how poorly they can interpret evidence. The "evidence" they're touting doesn't prove what they say it does, it's actually as contradictory as the evidence they chose to ignore.

http://www.slate.com/id/2165026/ - Can "neurotheology" bridge the gap between religion and science? - George Johnson

Susan Blackmore Interview on The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe

2007-04-24T02:17:00.000+01:00

I never thought I'd say something like this, and I feel I might have to clarify a few of my statements in the consciousness article I wrote a few months ago, but I find myself agreeing with an ex-parapsychology/psychology researcher with regards to consciousness.

I recently bought an ipod and have discovered the joy of listening to podcasts about science at 2am because I can't sleep. After exhausting the almost comically cheesy (but still very interesting) New Scientist podcast, I went crazy in the itunes store and stocked up on a load of the free podcasts offered there. One of these being the Skeptics' Guide to the Universe cast, hosted by Steven Novella and friends. I grabbed a few random episodes, waited 15 years for them to download and have eventually got around to listening to them.

Cast #91 21/4/07 is the only one I've listened to so far - and I'm impressed. Slandering IDers, discussion about evolution and an intense discussion between a neurologist and a psychologist, what the hell else could anyone want?

The interview focuses on the gap between biochemistry and psychology with regards to consciousness, the single most fascinating question I've encountered while studying neuroscience. I strongly agree with the view that everything that makes you you, is a product of the biochemistry of the brain - rather than the product of something supernatural like a soul. In the second half of the interview Susan describes the out-of-body experience she had as a typical Oxford undergraduate, which initially set her off on her paranormal-psychological quest. It was very interesting to hear how she went from this perspective to her current views, which are now based in the natural world and common sense. I can't adequately sum up the views of two very intellectual people, so I strongly suggest listening to the cast.

One thing I did notice was that there wasn't much mention of evolution during the interview, as I've banged on about before, I think evolution is essential to keep in mind at all times when trying to understand any biological function and I believe it has implications on our understanding of consciousness. Although saying that, the views expressed in the interview were very similar to my own, and I've always held evolution as a very important force while forming my own opinions.

The mechanisms of evolution have been the driving behind every part of every living thing on this planet, including consciousness. From this perspective, consciousness (or whatever causes it) must be a evolutionary advantage and hence there must be a reason for its existence. I believe this has bearing on the subjects discussed in the interview - as I mentioned in my previous blog, the gap between biochemistry and consciousness is bridged in a sense by our ancestral species. Grabbing a random lower organism, an ant for example, we can see that the basic components that make up its nervous system are very similar to ours. It has the same neurons, there is significant homology between genes, receptors, etc. They lack a few things like myelin but essentially their nervous systems are constructed from the same building blocks as ours are, just on a much, much smaller scale. So what's my point? Bear with me, lets consider a slightly more advanced organism; a mouse. Again, their nervous system is very similar to ours, but again on a much smaller scale. The evolutionary chain that leads to humans shows a sequential increase in brain size, intelligence and... Consciousness.

You'd be hard pressed to prove an ant is conscious - they don't need to be and don't possess the hardware to support consciousness XP or whatever version it is we're running. A mouse on the other hand probably is somewhat conscious - it has more advanced neuroanatomy (it has a proper brain, for a start). It needs to deal with social dynamics and other complicated behaviours, behaviours that can't conceivably be done by an unconscious organisms (or AI). Yet this mouse, conscious and smart as he might be, ain't human. It certainly appears that our evolutionary tree, along with upgrading the neuro-hardware over time, has been updating the software too, implying that every different species has a slightly different 'level' of consciousness. Perhaps, in light of this, it would make sense to study the gap between mouse anatomy and mouse consciousness, rather than the gap between human anatomy and human consciousness, which is presumably much larger.

However, this presents the psychological approach with a problem - there are no known rodent psychologists. We can perceive our own version of the human perspective, but the perception of any other species (or individual for that matter) is very difficult to access for us. Neuroscience on the other hand generally works with the other side of the gap - the anatomy and biochemistry, often with invertebrates.

Regardless, consideration of evolution and it's 'reasons' is one of those things I think that should be kept in mind at all times when talking about this subject. I get the feeling this is done by a lot of researchers so automatically that it doesn't need to be explicitly stated in each hypothesis or conclusion. However, as I've bitched about previously, there still seem to be a lot of researches - psychologists mainly - who don't even know how evolution works, let alone how it may influence their field.

I'm just glad to be assured there are people who can approach this issue sensibly from both sides of the gap. Steven's blog is very interesting too, it's hard to find blogs on neuroscience that aren't written by an enlightened pot head, or just a common-or-garden moron for that matter.

http://www.theskepticsguide.org/ - The webby for the podcasts.
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/default.asp - Dr. Novella's blog
http://www.theness.com/home.asp - The new England Skeptical Society

Science is closed minded... Are you daft?

2006-06-13T16:35:00.000+01:00

This is something that really gets on my tits. I come across this very often; some people who don't study science seem to have this horrible misconception that modern science, including western medicine, is fundamentally closed minded. This is fundamentally stupid. Science has been to the moon, it's almost solely responsible for every medical advancement, it invented TV, the internet, cars, quantum physics, planes, lasers, etc. etc. etc. How can a field with implications on every aspect of modern life be closed minded?

These misplaced accusations seem to stem from 3 places - people that disagree very strongly about one aspect of science (creationists for example), people who feel an odd need for all supernatural phenomena to be true, and people who have the odd belief "drugs are bad" and "herbs are good" with regards to medicine.

Creationists often accuse science of being closed minded because it ignores the *cough* evidence for whatever they believe in, a young earth, for example. However, this is purely a result of scientific process - no reliable evidence exists for a young earth, it's all utter crap. Hence science is closed minded because it discounts rubbish that happens to support someones particular belief.

New agers and other with an affinity for the supernatural completely misunderstand science when they claim it to be closed minded. Science is the study of the natural world and aims to describe it in natural terms. The supernatural is not part of science, although science aims to extended into the supernatural and replace it with natural explanations. Dismissing an odd phenomena with "it's not a ghost, it probably has a reasonable scientific explanation" is not closed minded. It's sensible.

People who entertain the illusion that "alternative" medicine is better than "conventional" medicine and that science doesn't include alternative medicine because its fundamentally arrogant and closed minded are... Well.. Worrying to say the least, because they're believable. However, again, they suffering under a misconception. Modern medicine is extremely stringent, this means research takes time. It can not dedicate vast amounts of research effort into old wives tales, yet it is still able to find new treatments. If alternative medicines offer potential treatments, they are not ignored by modern medicine, they are well tested and integrated if they are viable. Inevitably, science then gets a "told you so", but bear in mind how many alternative medicines turn out to be nothing more than placebos. Imagine if every possible treatment was dedicated the same amount of research effort as possible treatments that build upon what is already known or what current science predicts. Modern medicine wouldn't be nearly as advanced as it is now if it worked that way.

Science is open minded, but not so open minded its brains fall out.

Consciousness

2006-06-10T18:00:00.000+01:00

I don't know if anyone reads this blog or not, but to be honest it doesn't really matter. It's cheaper than going to see a psychiatrist and my sporadic bitches keep me sane..ish. Speaking of psychology, it's being a pain in my arse at the moment.

I have discovered, to my extreme annoyance, that no one has ever written anything of any value on the evolution of consciousness (that I can find), a topic I'm currently writing an assessed paper on. Googlin' "evolution of conscious" is nearly as bad as searching for "evolution", except the crap you get from the first search is actually viewed as useful science. Every paper I've read has, at best, had a "very cognitive" end of psychology take on the subject, this means words like "psychons" and "panpsychism". The worst offenders have shamelessly swayed into the world of philosophy and consequently has no bearing what-so-ever-at-all on biology. I'm not trying to deny consciousness and human behaviour is part of psychology, but a completely psychology based approach is such a drain on time and will quite likely prove fruitless. Modern science doesn't understand consciousness yet, that's for damn sure, but approaching it with dodgy psychology based inferences while ignoring neuroscience entirely isn't going to work. The thing that's really annoying me is these psychology papers, despite calming to be on the evolution of consciousness don't consider evolution correctly. They get bogged down in complexities and compete with each other over who can use the most ad-hoc made up words in the same sentence. They entirely lose site of the two most important aspects of any topic regarding evolution:

1) Consciousness - or something that results in consciousness as a by product (such as intelligence and big brains) - must have an evolutionary advantage, whether it's through natural selection or some kind of sexual selection (like the peacocks tail). Large brains use a disproportionally large amount of energy, they would be a positive disadvantage if they didn't do anything. It's unbelievable how many scientists approach consciouses as something that's just there. It's here for a reason, and whatever that reason is, it's important and is an essential consideration when discussing conscious, especially when considering the bloody origins of consciousness.

2) Everything in the human mind, emotions, thoughts, sensations, perceptions, drives, needs, decisions, etc. is a consequence of the biology of the brain. Activity in the right place or a squirt of neurotransmitter here and there is what makes you you. Admittedly, neuroscience is no where near bridging the gap between anatomy and consciousness, but that doesn't mean this point can be ignored. This neuroanatomy is subject to evolutionary pressures, and previous versions of it are, literally, in the heads of lower animals.

Hooray for neuroscience, shame it's still in its infancy, if anything is going to make headway in this area it's going to be from a biological perspective. Just don't hold your breath.

Animal rights activists outnumbered by "Pro-test"ers

2006-02-26T11:53:00.000Z

Finally, a demonstration of support for animal testing. Yesterday, in response to a planned animals rights march against the construction of an new animal testing lab in Oxford, over 700 university students, faculty and members of the public marched in support of animal testing.

The "Pro-Test" marchers, a group started by a 16 year old, outnumbered the 200 or so animal rights activists. It's about time someone (or lots of someones) stood up for animal testing. It's an essential part of modern science and I doubt most of the animal rights activists realise just how important it is. Chances are, every single animal rights activist will have accepted a medical treatment that would not exist if it hadn't been tested on animals (ever had a vaccine or antibiotic?). Mice alone have probably saved more lives than the emergency services.

The construction of the new lab in Oxford has been delayed a number of times due to harassment and threats from animal rights activists, mainly from the borderline terrorist group Animal Liberation Front. It's good to be assured these people really are the minority.

Links/Refs
http://www.google.co.uk/news?hl=en&ned=uk&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm%3Fid%3D295032006

God as a placeholder any why the supernatural can never be part of science

2006-02-24T14:34:00.000Z

One the more worrying aspects of the ID and creationism debate in America is that, after failing to simply force ID into science classes [1], ID proponents in Kansas are actually trying to redefine science. They hope to remove the requirement for science to only offer natural explanations for phenomena. In other words, for the sake of technically making ID scientific, such a redefinition would result in supernatural pseudo-explanations being accepted in the place of real explanations for currently poorly understood phenomena. This would fundamentally undermine science. Hell, it would destroy science completely - but it's questionable if the IDers even realise this. Thankfully, however, such absurd legal actions usually end in failure. And even if they don't, it's only Kansas, so who the hell cares?

Well I do, actually. If science accepted supernatural explanations, it would simply stop dead in its tracks. There are quack supernatural explanations for everything science doesn't understand yet. In fact, there are still supernatural explanations for most things science can explain. This would mean, in one court ruling, we would suddenly have answers to everything, yet still know just as much as we do now. All lines of investigation would be cut off - whats the point in research if we already know "God did it" or the invisible floating orb over there is what stealing positive energy and causing stress. And screw modern medicine, we'll automatically have a cures for everything.

Any explanation that attributes anything to the supernatural or God is a cop out. It's simply a way of avoiding saying "we don't know what's going on". An explanation is not an explanation of if what it relies on stuff that can't be explained itself. Science does not work like this. Nothing is fully explained until the fundamental, natural and observable mechanisms by which it works are understood - ascribing a supernatural explanation skips this step. Appropriately this is the hard step too.

The same problem can even arise with non-Divine, non-supernatural explanations. For example, lower class living in London in the 1800's was a less than pleasant experience. Unsurprisingly, living knee deep in excrement and drinking er... "flavoured" water didn't do much for public health and disease was part of life. A belief dating back to medieval times was that disease spread by bad smells or "miasmas". The logic behind it being - cities smell the worst and more people die in cities. The jump from correlation to causal relationship was made due to the lack of any better explanation. Incidentally, it was noticed that when the streets in London were cleaned with disinfectants, the smells went away and not so many people became ill. In 1864 Louis Pasteur discovered microbes, and because of this we can now explain the exact mechanisms, right down to a chemical level, by which someone contracts a disease. Imagine however, if science had stuck with the bad smells "explanation". It's impossible to study the mechanisms by which bad smells cause disease, specifically because there aren't any. But by supernatural-science logic, explanations lacking this detail are acceptable. If it wasn't for for the scientific approach (thanks Louis), modern medicine would not exist - we'd still be avoiding smelly people so we don't get cholera off them. Although, to be honest, I still do. [2]

Now imagine this. You're a caveman and a plane flies over. You're not going to think look to physics and aerodynamics for your explanation - they don't exist yet - you're likely to look to God or other forms of magic for your explanation. And until a better explanation comes along, God is going to remain the placeholder explanation. This might be a bit of a contrived example, but just consider the number of times "God dun it" has been replaced by a natural-world, scientific explanation. Stars, plagues, bad luck, lightening, the weather, imaginary stone aged planes, etc.

In light of this, I find it amazingly short sighted of people to assume because science doesn't understand something now it never will. I don't know if God exists, I don't know if science will one day have a theory of everything, but I do know science has a lot of advancing to do yet and that accepting supernatural explanations is a quick way to prevent this. There's still plenty of supernatural stuff out there we need to turn into science.

Links/Refs
[1]There have been a number of legal disputes in Kansas, Dover and other parts of "intelligent" America. Some have ruled in favour of IDists, most haven't. The most recent and important ruling came Dec 20th 2005, from Dover, PA where judge Jones effectively destroyed ID's chances of getting into schools. He highlighted it as unconstitutional and unscientific creationism under a different guise. The full ruling can be read here http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/main_docs/
kitzmiller_342.pdf
[2]Any good history book!

Tamiflu still isn't a bird flu vaccine

2006-02-21T20:50:00.000Z

This is funny. Are you British or exposed to our reputable media? Chances are, if you are, you will have heard of Tamiflu - an apparent vaccine for the bird flu that's going to kill us all any day now.

However, despite the stories published in numerous papers that express outrage at babies being denied the vaccine, the people who have died after taking this vaccine and other out right lies, Tamiflu is not a bird flu vaccine. Even I, a skeptical (and unwilling) Daily Mail reader, was entirely unaware of this. Given the constant referral to Tamiflu as a vaccine by newspapers, news readers and magazines, it's reasonable to assume that that's what it is... Isn't it? Well, of course not. "Science" in the media is never entirely true, it's just this cock up was particularly convincing.

A quick glance at Tamiflu's factsheet (which, incidentally, isn't at all hard to find) states on the first line:
"Tamiflu (oseltamivir) is an oral antiviral treatment (not a vaccine!) for influenza, and belongs to a class of medicines called neuraminidase inhibitors (NAI)." [I did NOT add that "(not a vaccine!)" part].
Evidentally no one in the British media checked this, whoops. [1]

A mistake almost worthy of Piers Morgan if you ask me, but I strongly doubt most of the British public realises, let alone cares (especially seeing as we'll all be dead as Dodo's soon anyway... ... Sorry, couldn't resist).

Links/Refs
[1]http://www.roche.com/med_mbfstamiflu.pdf

AIDS and Idiots

2006-02-20T16:50:00.000Z

In November last year the FightAIDS@Home project became part of the IBM powered World Community Grid. The project, with the aid of voluntary contributions of members idle processing power, aims to find candidate molecules with the ability to block HIV protease. Any potentially effective compounds found during the first stage of the project (currently still in progress) will then be subject to lab tests in the hope of developing drugs effective against HIV and AIDS. [1]

Great, you might think, but not everyone does. The project not only sparked an outcry from hardcore (and small and insignificantish) religious groups but also provoked numerous conspiracy nuts to spew their ignorant crap about AIDS and (usually) the American government. Even the WCG's forums provide some painful examples.

Most of the nuts, enlightened as they are, spout similar stories, just with slightly different agendas. But it appears a universal point (that us blind sods are entirely unaware of) is that America created AIDS. Some go on to claim America's intention is to kill black people (genius considering HIV is, of course, a racially discerning ubervirus that never infects other racial groups). Others claim science can do anything so must be able to cure AIDS, therefore it's the greedy drug companies that are hiding the cure so people stay ill and buy their drugs. This argument nearly sounds plausible until actually thought about. A drug company with a with a cure for AIDS is going to sell it not hide it for the sake of selling other drugs. It would be quite an earner, to say the least. Is that not bloody obvious? Evidently, to some, its not. Another version of this argument accuses "scientists" of hiding the cure. Apparently, anyone who researches anti-HIV drugs will lose out if they find a cure for AIDS - because they'll be out of a job! Forget the Nobel prize, unending peer and public respect, employment opportunities and what not, the cure for AIDS is being hidden by someone who doesn't want to lose his job researching a disease he's already cured. Why the hell didn't I think of that? See below for a couple of the original posts, and the responses from the WCG community.[2]

As absurd and slanderous as conspiracy theories are, they're not dangerous. No one with a shred of sense or significance ever pays heed to them; they're ignorable. It's the religious people that scare me. Certain groups (*cough*Christian fundies*cough*) responded to the FightAIDS@Home project with horror. According to them and their literal interpretation of the bible, AIDS was created by God to kill gays. An obvious conclusion considering HIVs ability to determine sexuality before killing. Such a view is not only contradictory to common bloody sense, it ignores the scientifically accepted origins of HIV (which, incidentally, didn't just appear during a "un-Christian" sexual encounter). Such fundamental and extreme undermining of science based on faith isn't ignorable - take the intelligent design/creation debate for example. It would seem inconceivable for the religious right to convince the "normal" American public of such absurd religious ideas, but it's happened before and is still happening. With intelligent design it's not just insignificant and ignorable nuts they've convinced, but lawyer, judges, politicians and other intelligent people. Lets hope they (or their children who are automatically indoctrinated with their shite, for that matter) never put so much effort into derailing AIDS research. In America at least, it's possible they could make quite a nuisance of themselves if they ever expand upon their Internet based whinging.[3]

Regardless, the WCG research continues, and will no doubt continue for as long as it has to. Anyone interested in participating in any of the projects run on the WCG (currently FightAIDS@Home and Human Proteome Folding), or just wants to piss off either of the above groups, should check out their website. Participation is entirely voluntary and painless - a small application runs in the background on your computer, borrowing your processor when it's idle.[4]

Links/Refs
[1]http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/
projects_showcase/viewResearch.do
[2]I am new from Cambodia - AIDS is made by scientist (sic)-http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/
wcg/viewthread?thread=4787
Boyd Graves says that cure and vaccin exist (sic)- http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/
wcg/viewthread?thread=5404
[3]No specific reference - but here's an offensive website pedalling these odd ideals - http://home.earthlink.net/~thogmi/
fag/fag.html
[4]http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/