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.