A new arrival!

A short post to formally announce the birth of my adorable son Alexander Owen Douglas Treadway on 5 July 2010 at 18:08 weighing an eye-watering 9lbs 9oz. After a short stay in hospital, he and mum are back home and doing very well.

I don't plan to blog much if at all about being a parent, but I did at least want to mark the occasion, if only because a number of people have asked whether we have named him after the Buffy the Vampire character (as we intend to call him Xander) or Douglas Adams.


The first is a nice coincidence, the latter entirely deliberate. My wife liked my original suggestion of 'Douglas Adams Treadway' until she realised why it sounded so eerily familiar. However, she likes 'Douglas' as a name and we have a fantastic friend with the name, so from there on in it was plain sailing. (As far as the others go, Owen is a common name in Stef's family, and we just both really liked 'Alexander').


And that's all, except to say a further thanks to Mr Adams because it turns out that an affinity to his writing is extremely useful for the new father, as the following points should highlight:

• Don't panic
• Share & enjoy the experience
• Time is an illusion (nighttime doubly so)
• Babies think digital watches are a pretty neat idea. However, they also think that everything else is a pretty neat idea - so much so that they will listen in rapt attention to my dad's golf stories for hours on end. 
• A towel IS the most massively useful thing you can have. Partly it has great practical value, more importantly, a towel has immense psychological value as it can be of use in any emergency you will face. Any man who can rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with
• Being at the birth of your child is, for the father, the closest equivalent to being plugged into the Total Perspective Vortex I can imagine. You are given just a momentary glimpse of the entire unimaginable infinity of creation, and somewhere in it a tiny little mark, a microscopic dot on a microscopic dot, which says both "You are here". You also realise that you have absolutely no concept of what pain actually feels like"
• I have observed that, as with Bistromathics, where "numbers are not absolute, but depend on the observer's movement in restaurants", so numbers surrounding the birth of a child are also relative, or non-absolute. The basic non-absolute numbers are the given time of the baby's arrival and it's expected weight. The more complex non-absolute numbers of visitors who say they are coming to see the baby and the time they actually arrive (which will bear no relation to the number of people who actually turn up and when they turn up). And the final non-absolute (and entirely imaginary) number is the total of cost of the baby, which can however be reliably estimated by multiplying by itself your initial expectation of what that cost would be.

Oh, and I just have to post the best, most lovely photo ever taken anywhere.

x

"Big Pharma is all around you" - Celebrating WHAW

[To celebrate World Homeopathy Awareness Week, here is a world first - the full transcript of a secret meeting at the Society of Homoepaths at which a new recruit, Neo, is being inducted. He is taken to meet the organisation's most prestigious supporter.]

STRANGE MAN: At last. Welcome. 

He waits for Neo to cross the room and then greets him.

STRANGE MAN: As you no doubt have guessed, I am Dr Nancy Malik.

NEO: It's an honor.

NANCY: Please. Come. Spend money.

They sit across from one another in cracked, burgundy leather chairs.

NANCY: I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?

NEO: You could say that.

NANCY: I can see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he is told because he has no regard for science and evidence.

A smile, razor-thin, curls the corner of his lips.

NANCY: Ironically, this is far from the truth. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Can you tell me, Neo, why are you here?

NEO: You're Nancy Malik, you're a legend. Most quacks would die to meet you.

NANCY: Yes. Thank you. But I think we both know there's more to it than that. Do you believe in evidence, Neo?

NEO: No.

NANCY: Why not?

NEO: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.

NANCY: I know exactly what you mean.

Again, that smile that could cut glass.

NANCY: There is another reason, though. Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you are sick.

NEO: I’m sick?

NANCY: I can help you, Neo, using water, but not as a drink. We use it like it was part of you. What you can do inside water is not normal. I know. I've seen it. What we do is quantum entanglement. Maybe.

Neo shrugs.

NEO: It's magic?

NANCY: Yes it is, Neo. Yes it is. There is no other way to describe what will happen to you.

He leans forward.

NANCY: Homeopaths are trained to reject everything that is rational and logical.

Neo shakes his head.

NANCY: As children, we do not separate the possible from the impossible which is why the younger a mind is the easier it is to free while a mind like yours can be very difficult.

NEO: Free from what?

NANCY: From Big Pharma.

Neo looks at his eyes but only sees a reflection of himself.

NANCY: Do you want to know what it is, Neo?

Neo swallows and nods his head.

NANCY: It's that feeling you have had all your life. Big Pharma is everything that’s wrong with the world. I can’t prove that it does, but, like a splinter in your mind, paying off everyone and driving you to me. But what is it?

The leather creaks as he leans back.

NANCY: Big Pharma is everywhere, it's all around us, here even in this room. You can see its work in the 10:23 campaign and Sense About Science. You feel it when you go to work, or go to church or pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.

NEO: What truth?

NANCY: That you are a slave, Neo. That you, like everyone else, was born into bondage... ...that evidence based medicine is a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind.

Outside, the wind batters a loose pane of glass.

NANCY: Unfortunately, we cannot prove how bad Big Pharma is, so you have to choose our remedies yourself.

NEO: How?

NANCY: Hold out your hands.

In Neo's right hand, Nancy drops a red pill.

NANCY: This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back.

In his left hand, a blue pill.

NANCY: You take the blue pill and you will see a gradual improvement in your condition in accordance with the well established progress of pathogens as demonstrated by evidence from randomly controlled clinical trials.

The pills in his open hands are reflected in the glasses.

NANCY: You take the red pill and absolutely nothing will happen whatsoever, although if you feel better I will be able to claim it worked.

Neo feels the smooth skin of the capsules, with the moisture growing in his palms.

NANCY: Remember that all I am offering is to make you completely ignorant of the truth. Nothing more.

Neo opens his mouth and swallows the red pill. The Cheshire smile returns.

NANCY: Follow me.

They exit. The sound of ringing cash registers can be heard in the distance.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Written with the highly estimable Martyn Norris, with more than a little tip-o'-the-hat to Crispian Jago.

If anyone knows where I can link to the video, please let me know!

TAM London 2010 - Who I'd like to see

A small bird is twittering that this year's TAM London may take place on the third weekend in October.


I didn't make it last year, and I really, really want to go so I'm waiting expectantly for more details. So much so, that I've found myself fantasising about who might speak.


This is partly because it's only just over 6 months away, partly because I've been enjoying Crispian Jago's Skeptic Top Trumps, and also partly because I went to see the monstrously good Ghost Stories at the Lyric Hammersmith.


Last year's speakers suggest four broad categories of speakers, although there was a strong weighting to the Brits:

1. JREF Reps - Phil Plait (Randi was sadly too ill to fly)
2. UK based skeptics - Richard Wiseman, Ben Goldacre, Jon Ronson, Ariane Sherine, Tim Minchin, Brian Cox, Simon Singh, Robin Ince (Richard Dawkins was also scheduled to speak but couldn't make it)
3. US based skeptics - Adam Savage, George Hrab
4. Speakers from left field - Glenn Hill

Entirely selfishly, I'd like to see the balance shift this year.


I've seen or heard all of the British skeptics speak at some point over the last 12 months, and they already get a decent and increasing amount of exposure in mainstream media. Given TAM's profile, I'd like to see some slightly less familiar names given a bigger platform than they might otherwise get. 


I'd also like the chance to see more big names from the US, since there aren't many opportunities to do so.

And, most of all, I'd love to see some people who might not yet call themselves skeptics. The only name on last year's list who wasn't a well-known, card-carrying member of the movement was Glenn Hill, son of Elsie Wright who produced the 'Cottingley Fairies' photographs. 


To my mind, that made him the most intriguing speaker.

TAM is a great opportunity to bring in those whose expertise lies slightly outside traditional skeptical fields, but who are natural bedfellows for the movement. The last 18 months have, I would argue, seen skepticism in the UK emerge blinking into the light, having an impact in wider areas than before, and I'd like to see speakers at TAM who reflect that.

In what I think was my best post to date, I wrote in January about 'The Skeptics Who Never Were' because the movement came to late for them. And so here, using the same categories as above, is my fantasy list of speakers for TAM London 2010.

1) JREF Reps

• James Randi - Every skeptics' favorite uncle, Randi has just come out at the incredible age of 81 and was too ill to make it last year. He has to be first on the list.
• DJ Grothe -  As the new President, DJ is pretty much now the leader of the free-thinking world. He has had some very interesting stuff to say recently about 'kneejerk skepticism' and the importance of the grass roots. And, when I spoke to him a while back for the Pod Delusion, he said he'd break bread with me.

2) UK based skeptics

• Andy Lewis from Quackometer. I was fortunate enough to see him at CFI's Alt Med on Trial, and he was sensationally good. Very insightful and very funny, I suspect he would completely own the event.
• Bruce Hood - Author of Supersense and baiter of ADE651 proponents, he has atypical views on homeopathy on the NHS and how & when skeptics should engage. Would challenge more preconceptions than other speakers.
• Richard Wilson - Not the aging actor who can't believe it, but the trouble-making journalist and author of Don't Get Fooled Again. It would be great to hear Wilson's take on the Climategate emails and tactics of the deniers, since he's an expert on the methods the tobacco industry used in the 60s and 70s.
• Josie Long - Co-presenter of Robin Ince's much-missed Utter Shambles, Long is a stand up comedienne full of wit, eccentricity and sense of wonder at the world. Kind of like a female, funnier-but-less-well-qualified, whimsical English version of Carl Sagan.

3) US based skeptics

• Jennifer Michael Hecht - Another one to challenge and stretch the standard skeptical outlook, she argues that there is truth to be found in the arts. A poet & historian, she wrote The Happiness Myth and Doubt: A History as well as the gorgeous Dear Fonzie blog. She is the most erudite speaker on my list, and I can't imagine we'll see her in the UK unless it's at TAM. My absolute first choice
• Michael Shermer - Presumably everyone knows who he is? Runs The Skeptic magazine among other things, if you aren't sure, and (again) someone who we don't get to see in the UK so often.
• PZ Myers - Just because he'll make me laugh harder than anyone else and, if we ask him nicely, he might come over a month early and help to irritate the Pope.
• Eugenie Scott - From her position as executive director of the National Centre for Science Education, Scott is the doyenne and heroine of the movement to preserve the teaching of evolution in the US education. The faith schools agenda suggests we may need her expertise in the UK sooner rather than later.

4) Speakers from left field

• Nancy Cartwright - Important to note that I'm talking about this lady, the LSE-based philosopher of science and economics, not the voice of Bart Simpson. Cartwright would really help widen the boundaries and scope of UK skepticism. She would go a long way to ensuring philosophy wasn't a dirty word for skeptics, and would also have important things to say about the role of critical thinking in policy making. 
• Becky Hogge - Hogge is best known as writer a on technology, editor of openDemocracy and was previously executive director of the Open Rights Group. Seeing as Web 2.0 played such a crucial role in the explosion of skepticism, who better to talk at TAM in a year when the traumatically awful Digital Economy bill has been passed? She has also worked for Little Atoms and Index On Censorship, perennial friends of skepticism.
• Andy Nyman - There are nowhere near as many magicians associated with skepticism in the UK as there are in the States, and while Derren Brown might be the obvious choice, Nyman is the man behind the curtain, as co-creator and co-writer of all of Brown's shows. He is also responsible for the incredible Ghost Stories, and I'd love to hear his thoughts on things that go bump in the night.  
• Jasper Fforde - We missed Douglas Adams by a good few years, and for some reason I don't think Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman would fit in. But Fforde is a author who understands science, and he is a worthy heir to Adams' manthle. The Thursday Next books are full of science-based humour and illogical flourishes, and The Fourth Bear features a degree in pseudoscience alongside all sorts of technological nonsense. If you haven't given Fforde a go, do so as quickly as you can.
• Armando Iannucci - Quite simply, no one has made a more persuasive argument for evidence-based policy in the last year than Iannucci and co did with In The Loop.
• Alan Rusbridger - Finally the current editor of the Guardian. While the temptation must be to ask Simon Singh to speak again, or his fellow libel sufferers like Peter Wilmshurst, I'd be intrigued to hear Rusbrider's take on libel-reform, as well as the role of science in politics, and where blogs, newspapers and other media go next.

So there you go. 

I realise it's an improbable, lenghty and entirely selfish line-up, but to hell with that. 

I know TAM will be a fascinating event whoever is speaking, and I'll be intruiged to see if any of my names overlap with the real list.

Hope to see you all there.

On Douglas Adams

Have I mentioned that there is a Douglas Adams memorial lecture this week in aid of Save the Rhino?

I did a Pod Delusion interview last week with this year's speaker, Marcus du Sautoy, to publicise it - if you are interested, here is a slightly longer version.

Given it is now nine years since his incredibly sad and early death, and that I wasn't a close personal friend, it would be odd for me to write a  keening lament of the kind Richard Dawkins wrote the day after he died.

However, now that I have a blog, it would feel odd not to write something on what would have been his 58th birthday.

I've said before that I think Adams would have found much in common with the burgeoning skeptical movement, something borne out by Bob Novella from the SGU when I spoke to him (again, this is a longer version of last week's Pod Delusion interview).

However, his legacy means far more to me than just its link to skepticism, and Adams' death was one of only two occasions where I was deeply affected by the loss of a public figure (the other being John Peel). 

His writing has been an ever present feature in my life. I devoured all of it during my geeky teenage years, revealuted it during my geeky twenties and, now, in my thirties (which are contuingly and disappointingly geeky), I return to the books like familiar old friends.

So, if you take one thing away from this post, let it be that there is far more to Adams than simply a few jokes about robots.

Most people I know have read at least the first couple of Hitchhiker books, and the reasons for Adams' popularity are obvious - the endless cascade of ideas, the warm absurdity so unique to Adams' writing, and the dual understanding of science and literature on display throughout

But few people have heard the original the radio series. I listened to until my cassettes literally broke. It still sounds unique to day - at the time it was revolutionary. It will give you an insight into what a good writer Adams was, and provides new insights into why the books are so easy to read - they were written with the spoken word in mind.

Then, there are the later Hitchhiker books, which to my mind are better novels. They retain all the good points of the early books, but Adams had run out of radio scripts to adapt, and so turned his hand to constructing a novel from scratch.

Mostly Harmless may be less popular among fans because it is so dark in tone, but its a masterclass in structure and pace.

The two Dirk Gently novels continue this trend, and Adams never bettered their central character or intricacy of plot. Try Chapter 6 of Holistic Detective Agency or Chapter 9 of The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul to see what I mean.

And finally, if you think there is a reason you won't enjoy his novels, such as you don't like science fiction or laughing out loud, there are the non-fiction books Last Chance To See and Salmon of Doubt, which was published posthumously. These reveal the passion and humanity of Adams, something reflected by everyone who knew him. He was an extraordinarily nice man and you begin to realise how much of himself he put into his novels.

The nearest I ever came to meeting Adams in person was a fleeting glance of his gargantuan frame at was a book signing during the mid-90s

My father and I turned up in glorious naivety expecting to buy tickets on the night, only to find it had sold out weeks before. We watched forlornly as Adams arrived in a car and disappeared inside, although I later received a signed copy of Mostly Harmless for a guilty father.

The awesome memorial lectures have provided some consolation over the years. I remember Robert Swan and Mark Carwardine with particular fondness, and in 2005, at the charity auction, I bought two tickets to the premiere of the long-delayed Hitchhikers film (which was disappointing but is hugely underrated - Mos Def is a wonderful Ford Prefect).

I understand you will be able to listen to the Marcus du Sautoy lecture after the event, and I will link to it as and when I can. If any of you are there, let me know, as some fellow PodDelights and I are going for a drink afterwards.

Until then it only remains to say Happy Birthday and thank you to Douglas Adams, a hoopy frood if ever there was one. You are fondly remembered, and sorely missed.

Weekend Wound-up - 27 February 2010

Briefly, some points of frustration as Saturday rolls on:

Lawyers
Here is a short summary of the last week of my life.

Monday: Attended Westminster Skeptics in the Pub special on libel reform, with 7 speeches on the need for changes to English law. Talked to this lawyer, listened to a speech by this lawyer, heard jokes from Simon Singh's lawyer, and listened to banter between all three of them.

Tuesday: Blessedly free of lawyers, but spent all day following Simon Singh in court via Twitter.

Wednesday: Two-hour meeting to discuss contract and related instructions for lawyers. Meeting with lawyer to pass on said instructions.

Thursday: Meeting with 2 different lawyers and late night phone call to a third.

Friday: Meeting with 3 lawyers (again all different) to get advice from legal counsel over the phone.

Now, don't get me wrong - I have nothing against lawyers, some of my best friends are lawyers, lawyers are people just like us, if we cut lawyers they do bleed, etc, etc. I just prefer them in smaller doses. 

And speaking of small doses...

Homeopaths
I hadn't met many homeopaths before, but this week I spoke to several of them. They were all very friendly and interested in talking , and quite happy to explain why they believe what they believe. Sadly, as with other proponents of woo, it's hard to find sufficient common ground to have a decent argument. We disagreed on pretty much everything - including how many of them there were. 250 my bottom.

Blogger

I'm quite enjoying the whole blogging experience, but it drives me literally insane that Blogger randomly puts double spacing between some paragraphs for absolutely no reason. Can anyone fix this?

Richard Dawkins
While I applaud him for his quick dig at homeopaths this week, Dawkins has also reacted to abuse directed at those who run his website. The cause was the sudden disappearance of the site's forum without apparent regard for the community that had built it, and the deletion of people's accounts without consultation. This has attracted some press coverage - here and here.

Although there isn't really anything wrong with the points Dawkins makes, it's disappointing he didn't engage with the more measured points being made. These are folks who used to administer the forum, and so added to the richness and variety of the site that bears Dawkins name without being paid for it. I think they deserve a little bit more than he offers in his article. He doesn't really acknowledge them, and that's a shame given the importance he places on debate in other areas. 

And for a someone who makes so light of the abuse he receives, shouldn't Dawkins encourage his employees to grow thicker skins? Abuse from trolls is a part of life with web 2.o (I can't wait until I'm famous enough to get some), especially for someone of Dawkins' stature. It's better to ignore them than to ban or delete them.

Anyway, that's your lot for now. Possibly some more later if I don't go to the pub.

The anti-10:23 protest

There are two main benefits of working in Westminster. 

One is the newly founded and quite brilliant Westminster Skeptics in the Pub, of which more another time.

The other is that I’m very close to the Houses of Parliament, which is a lovely place to go and eat lunch.

Occasionally, there are protests in Parliament Square to entertain you while you eat.

Brian Haw is always there, and recently there were the huge Tamil rallies, although my personal favourite was when a few hundred beekeepers popped up in full regalia.

Today, though, was the turn of the homeopaths, who had arranged to protest in advance of Monday's Select Committee report. 

I was alerted to the planned protest by Gimpy, and as an ardent 10:23 supporter, I thought I’d pop down and see what happened.*

It’s fair to say that the protest wasn’t well attended (there were far more beekeepers last November). I’m no good at estimating the size of crowds, but there were probably only around 50 people. There were certainly less than at the London 10:23 event, and definitely less than 10^23 homeopaths to the one of me.

It’s also fair to point out that the messages on banners were not about evidence. It’s obviously unfair to expect homemade signs to outline detailed criticism of RCTs, but the points made on them were familiar, tired arguments – you can see ‘My healthcare, My choice’ and ‘Homeopathy worked for me!’ in my photos.

I took a couple of photographs and then engaged a couple of protesters in discussion, hoping to speak to a press spokesman or one of the leaders for the Pod Delusion.

It quickly became clear that there was no organisation to speak of. The parliamentary authorities had agreed to allow up to 100 people into the building, but there were nowhere near that number of people.

I introduced myself as someone involved in 10:23 demonstration and who was interested in seeing what the protestors were saying.

We had quite a jolly chat about what my beef was, why I didn’t support choice in healthcare and their assertion that there was good evidence for homeopathy and other complementary treatments.

There was then a lovely moment when another woman came over and said she that as I was obviously a very articulate young man, would I like to speak on their behalf when they met some MPs? 

Her two co-protestors quickly explained I was from the ‘other side’ and we continued talking.

The exchange became a bit more detailed, although no less good-natured, when we were joined by Tim Lloyd from the College of Practical Homeopathy (as opposed to the Theoretical kind?). He was able to quote studies and more sophisticated arguments, and so our discussion quickly ranged wider.

I’ll try to summarise the discussion here. 

Bear in mind that while most points were made by Tim Lloyd, not all were. And although I did think their points were quite weak and easy to rebut, I’m also documenting the whole thing from memory, so there may be some confirmation bias involved…

They said that money was wasted on all sorts of things in the NHS, and £4m in the scale of the total budget was tiny, so why was this a big concern? Why did I want homeopathy banned?

I explained that I didn’t want homeopathy banned, but simply not funded on the NHS because there was no evidence it worked.

They made a number of points in response to this.

Apparently, 80% of people who used homeopathy paid for it privately anyway, but wasn’t discriminating against people who could not afford to pay for it? Here I reiterated the evidence point.

They also claimed there is good evidence for homeopathy. I questioned whether that was in the form of double blind trials, to which they said variously:

• Yes it is
• You can only establish whether healthcare measures work over a long period of time, once you can see the full side effects. Homeopathy has been tested over a period of time and the data is there, while modern medicine hasn’t been
• They said that all good high quality, double blinded, randomly controlled trials on Arnica show that it works on bruises. I’m not an expert on the literature, but I disputed that there were any such trials.
• The 1918 wartime trial on Spanish flu showed homeopathy worked. (I know Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst had dismissed in Alternative Medicine on Trial, but couldn’t remember why.)
• There are massive trials going on at the moment in Swaziland (not double blinded) and Cuba (double blinded) which showed homeopathy worked. I agreed that, if they trials were as described, the Cuban one would be very interesting.

They suggested that meta-analyses showing homeopathy doesn’t work are not a reasonable measure of efficacy because they exclude the trials where homeopathy has fared well, and include the trials where it has fared badly.

I suggested that those conducting the analyses would characterise things differently, as they included high and excluded low quality trials, and that this is what led to poor results for homeopathy. Their response was ‘They would say that!’

They agreed that it would be wrong to just include trials where homeopathy was successful, but that one should look at all of the trials, and that showed positive results.

We discussed the argument that homeopathy is hard to test because of the vast number of remedies and because people don’t react in the same way to remedies. This was, they explained, why the individualised consultation is important. 50% of homeopathy is apparently the consultation.

I asked whether that meant Boots remedies didn’t work, since they weren’t individualised but purchased from a shop. They said no, in general, mass produced remedies didn’t work as well as individualised ones, but that for ‘simpler’ remedies they worked just as well.

I asked whether they would support Big Pharma selling drugs that had not been shown to work via double-blind trials, or shown not to work via double blind trials.

They responded that Big Pharma drugs didn’t work but they hid the results. I said I agreed this was a problem, and that all research should be funded, but that it was irrelevant to the question of whether they would support the sale of those drugs.

They agreed that there should not be one rule for all and that they would not be happy for Big Pharma to sell drugs under those conditions.

I also asked whether all homeopaths succuss remedies the same number of times. They assured me they did, and that they knew it was the right amount because there have hundreds of years of experience to go on, although no tests they could tell me about.

And there I had to leave it because my lunch break was over, and the protestors were being called into the Commons.

I’m not sure what happened inside, but if I can find any details or anyone knows, I’ll update the post.

Overall, it wasn’t a very impressive show of force. If this is the ‘not inconsiderable influence within the homeopathic community’ Lionel Milgrom has been boasting of, Evan Harris will be fine.

Tim Lloyd said he was happy to continue the debate if I wanted. 

I have no great desire to, although I enjoyed the back and forth and he and his colleagues were very pleasant.

It’s just a shame they are so horribly, horribly wrong.

NB Thanks to those who suggested helpful questions for me to ask, which included:

-         There's not many people here today, do you think that you're stronger in more diluted numbers?

-         Isn't this a placebo protest? You're probably not going to have any actual effect, but it'll make you feel a lot better?

-         If a spoon-full of sugar helps the medicine go down, what does a sugar pill on its own help go down?

-         As like cures like, shouldn't you be advocating a ban on homeopathy?

A shorter version of this report will appear on the Pod Delusion on Friday. I may use some of this superb material there.

*At one stage I thought about doing a one-man overdose, but was undone by my inherent dislike of confrontation and my inability to sort out the forms required to stage a protest in Parliament Square.

The Tonge lashing - the Lib Dems & problems with evidence

And so farewell to Baroness Jenny Tonge, formerly Lib Dem spokesperson on health, who was sacrificed by Nick Clegg because she made comments that he considered ‘wrong, distasteful and provocative’.

I have no great desire to wade into the Israli / Palestine conflict, the topic on which Tonge has repeatedly made and continues to make comment unpalatable to Israel and her supporters, but I do think it’s interesting to try and look at what she said from the objective perspective, particularly as her comments hinges on when to call for more evidence.

She was asked by the Jewish Chronicle to comment on allegations that members of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) working on the relief effort in Haiti had been harvesting organs.

These allegations were originally posted in a video on Youtube and then picked up by the Palestine Telegraph, a newspaper of which Tonge is a patron. Both the article and the video present little or no evidence for the allegations, and contain far more detail about older allegations about organ harvesting from Palestinians.

Jenny Tongue said the IDF was ‘to be commended for their fantastic response to the Haitian earthquake’ and then continued:

“To prevent allegations such as these – which have already been posted on YouTube – going any further, the IDF and the Israeli Medical Association should establish an independent inquiry immediately to clear the names of the team in Haiti.”

While on one level the comments seem uncontroversial, there are several aspects about them that are problematic.
 

First, Tonge has subsequently described the allegations as ‘ludicrous’ and making no sense (what use would organs be in Haiti?). In this case, what could further investigation have achieved? What new information was required if she already accepts the allegations are unfounded?

It surely isn’t true that the investigation could prevent the allegations going any further. Zionist and Israeli plots are standard fare in for conspiracy theorists, and no amount of investigation is going to prevent them from spreading these allegations. This is especially true if the investigation is sponsored by the IDF, which will give the theorists an extra reason to reject them.

Third, although she suggests an independent investigation, I think Tonge places the burden of proof in the wrong place. If the allegations in question are ‘ludicrous’, the appropriate response is to call for the Palestine Telegraph to provide further evidence or apologise.

Suggesting the IDF sponsor an investigation to clear their name is quite close to asking them to prove a negative, and very close to asking the accused to prove their innocence.

However, it isn’t clear to me that she should have been sacked or be accused of anti-Semitism simply on the basis of these comments alone.

The only conclusions I would feel comfortable drawing from what has been reported are that a politician made some off-the-cuff comments to a newspaper that misjudged the appropriate role of evidence in the situation. And lord knows that happens often enough.

Ironically, all of this happened in the same week that a campaign began to remove Evan Harris as the party’s spokesperson on science.

He has attracted vitriol from homeopaths in response to his comments at the Select Committee hearing and 10:23 overdose – Gimpy covers the campaign in detail and features Lionel Milgrom’s letter to Nick Clegg.

I am less cautious about wading into the debate on homeopathy, but I have little to add here, beyond expressing my support for Evan Harris. He is a shining and rare example of a politician who understands and respects the role of science and evidence in policy making, something dear to my heart. It was this understanding that makes him such a devastating critic of alternative medicine, as he demonstrated at the Select Committee meeting.


Evidence plays a miniscule role in the letter, and the main case against Harris seems to be he hasn’t treated homeopaths nicely enough.

Perhaps Lionel Milgrom felt it unnecessary to directly quote any of the ‘growing clinical and scientific evidence’ because the BHA had already done such a bang up job at the actual Select Committee hearing?

If you aren’t sure what I'm referring to, pop over to the Lay Science blog, where Martin Robbins goes into great detail as he did in his excellent London Skeptics in the Pub earlier in the week.

Stunningly, Nick Clegg has yet to act against Harris and shows no sign of doing so. This will force homeopaths to fall back on plan B – to unseat him as MP for Oxford West and Abingdon at the next election. Although Milgrom’s chilling statement about his ‘not inconsiderable influence within the homeopathic community’ is unlikely to have Harris quaking in his boots, his re-election campaign may provide a future rallying point for 10:23 supporters.

The next stage in that particular battle will come next Wednesday with the Select Committee publish their report. While its focus will be on the government's position on NHS funding for homeopathy, I am willing to bet it will not make pleasant reading for homeopaths. We shall see.