Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Impressive animation - important message:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTlrSYbCbHE



(via BoingBoing)

Burnee links for Sunday

Skeptic: eSkeptic: Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
"Puncturing the Acupuncture Myth" by Harriet Hall, M.D.

In Defense of Dignity - Features - The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper

Richard Smith: This week's boost for open access research is good news for science | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Women bishops again . . .
Church of England was 'sinful' in voting for women bishops :: Jonathan Wynne-Jones
. . . and again . . .
The Bishop of Fulham has got a nerve to accuse loyal Anglicans of sin :: Damian Thompson

Broadsheet bloggers and comments :: Shane Richmond

Andrew Brown: Kenneth Copeland thinks God is six foot tall | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Asim Siddiqui: A novel opportunity | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

The 'thinking cap' that could unlock your inner genius and boost creativity | Mail Online
This is over a week old, and it's from the Mail Online, but having just finished Ben Goldacre's excellent book Bad Science I found this article - and the comments - instructive (not necessarily in a good way).

You've read the Bad Science blog, now buy the book

For some years I've been suspicious of mainstream media. Almost everyone I know who has had even the tiniest bit of media coverage has told of some distortion, misrepresentation or downright lies (um ... I mean, things reported as facts when they're not). Reading articles about matters on which I do have some expertise, I've been struck by the preponderance of inaccuracies. So the idea that the media don't tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth isn't new to me, as it probably isn't new to anyone. And though I've been reading Ben Goldacre's blog for over a year now, and on that basis was looking forward to reading his book, I wasn't prepared for the sheer scale of misrepresentation he so clearly and entertainingly documents in Bad Science (Fourth Estate, 2008).

He has a chapter (7) entitled "Dr Gillian McKeith PhD" in which he deconstructs the scientific pronouncements of a media nutritionist who is, apparently, a "prime-time TV celebrity", with a Channel 4 show entitled You Are What You Eat. Her name wasn't familiar to me, though I recognised the title of the show even if I'd never seen it. (I don't watch 'make-over' or similar shows - I find them embarassing and voyeuristic, especially with the modern trend of treating participants like recalcitrant schoolchildren.)

Goldacre's indictments of McKeith are damning and comprehensive, and given that (as I understand it) his book is a compendium of his Guardian columns and his blog posts, I imagined that McKeith would by now have been consigned to the media scrap-heap. But just to check, I did a little internet research, which yielded so many results that I found myself skimming the latest edition of Radio Times, to discover that You Are What You Eat was currently showing daily in an early morning slot on More4. As it happened I was due to leave the country for a few days, so I set my DVR to record a week's worth of these half-hour programmes in my absence.

I watched them back-to-back on my return (though I did fast-forward parts of the fourth and fifth, as the repetitious format had by then become seriously grating). What Goldacre says in his book is true - McKeith appeared to be obsessed with faeces and colonic irrigation, and repeatedly came out with scientific-sounding stuff for which there is no proper evidence. The programmes were strictly formatted to the point of tedium, and I was frankly amazed that they were still on TV.

Bad Science covers a lot of specifics, from the absurdities of Brain Gym to the scandal of the MMR vaccine scare - and nearly all of them are initiated, compounded and perpetuated by ill-informed and inexpert media. On the way through this quagmire of dumbing-down headlines Goldacre gives us primers on statistics, probablility, evidence-based medicine and ethical journalism. Anyone who reads the badscience.net blog will be aware of Goldacre's journalistic light touch, and will therefore be clamouring for a copy of this book.

For my own part, not since reading Carl Sagan's The Demon-Haunted World have I found a book so enlightening.

Burnee links for Tuesday

The Freethinker › Put Palin in the White House – and kiss your ass goodbye!

Pharyngula: Aaargh — I have to disagree with Harry Kroto

I generally agree with PZ's assessment of Sir Harry Kroto's piece, when he says that Sir Harry's point that science and religion are incompatible should not have been sufficient to oust Michael Reiss from his post. But Reiss did more - he made some dangerous suggestions concerning creationism in the classroom, and that was why he had to go. Here's more:

Harry Kroto: Creationists such as the Rev Reiss don't have the intellectual integrity to teach science | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Pullman defiant over US protests against Northern Lights | Books | guardian.co.uk

Alpha Mummy - Times Online - WBLG: I hope my daughter isn't a virgin when she marries

A biologist reviews an evolution textbook from the ID camp

Skepchick: Critical Thinking at its Finest The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe: Mouthpiece of Satan

Atheist Revolution: Atheism 101: A Reading List

Tiktaalik: a transitional fossil

Quackery creeps into good universities too - but through Human Resources

Sense about Science accuses ES-UK of scaremongering

On this morning's Today Programme there was a brief exchange about a pamphlet that Sense about Science have circulated (available as a PDF), saying that the electro-sensitivity protesters are scare-mongering. Unfortunately this short radio piece wasn't long enough for the 'research' claimed by each side of the debate to be properly challenged.

"Pressure groups are scaremongering about the effects of mobile masts and wi-fi on health, the charity Sense about Science says. Elaine Fox, a psychologist from Essex University who helped with Sense's research, and Michael Bevington, of the charity Electro Sensitivity UK, discuss whether there is any evidence that these devices cause harm. "

Streaming audio available here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_7654000/7654876.stm

Michael Bevington of Electro Sensitivity UK was quick to claim all sorts of valid research to prove his claims, though I don't think he really meant to say that there had been "hundreds of thousands of studies". The ES-UK website contains links to about 36 research studies, though as far as I can see not all of them support the ES-UK case. The page begins thus:

"Research Studies into Electrical Sensitivity

The following is a brief summary of the research that has found positive associations between the suspected electromagnetic causes and the symptoms of those with Electrical Sensitivity, in reverse date order:"

Does this imply that there's been no research that has found no associations? Michael Bevington said this morning that "there have been studies which show 100% accuracy between emission of the radiation and people feeling it". This doesn't, of course, rule out the existence of studies which show less than 100% accuracy (whatever such a statement might actually mean).

If nothing else, the short exchange points up the general futility of 'sound-bite radio' when it comes to emotive issues needing rigorous science to back them up.

Burnee links for Monday

For a few days the tendrils of the internet will reach for me in vain, so no updates till next weekend.

Meanwhile . . .

The Freethinker › Decrease in viscosity turns Catholic brains to jelly

The BEAST: America's Best Fiend
PZ Myers answers some questions

Sue Blackmore: Can human consciousness survive without a brain? | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Pharyngula: Help an atheist out

Butterflies and Wheels Article
Islam and Human Rights

The Pagan Prattle Online: Creationism in Northern Ireland

British Humanist Association
Humanists take legal action on GCSE exclusion

No Science, Please - Books & Culture
A review of The Oxford Book of Modern Science Writing

Skeptic: eSkeptic: Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
How to resolve the war

Mmegi Online :: The American anti-intellectual threat

Predictably / Irrational

The Freethinker › Stealth Christians infiltrate Lancashire schools

The Virgin Daughters (Channel 4 TV)

Last Thursday, at exactly the same time that Five was broadcasting The Million Dollar Mind Reader, Channel 4 showed the latest in the Cutting Edge documentary series: The Virgin Daughters. To quote from the Channel 4 website:

This week Cutting Edge explores the controversial purity movement currently sweeping across the United States. One-in-six American girls now pledges to remain a virgin - and some even to save their first kiss - until their wedding day. But is this their decision, or their fathers'?

Providing a fascinating insight into America's heartland, award-winning documentary maker Jane Treays follows a group of fathers and daughters as they prepare to attend a Purity Ball in Colorado Springs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvALXGl9zYA (1/5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ws4AeWlq54A (2/5)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98ttHqot7Do (3/5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0pK7Qq8oMo (4/5)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4lQpMHeEcI (5/5)

(Thanks again to threespeed79 for uploading the YouTube video clips. BitTorrent enabled viewers go here.)

It was fascinating to watch, not just for the fairly neutral stance that the documentary makers took with the commentary, but also for the way the film accentuated the superficial wholesomeness of the community. The fathers were upstanding, quietly reverent and sincere. The daughters were beautiful, well-spoken and articulate. The religious aspect was evident but not stressed. The whole production spoke of quality, and indeed purity. Even the background music promoted an air of idyllic magnificence.

But despite the portrayal of genuine concern for the future of young lives needing to be cherished, the many scenes with the fathers and daughters together was undeniably and disturbingly creepy. So much utter perfection on display could only, I felt (entirely without evidence), hide something horrendously putrid at its core. Maybe I'm conditioned by so many sad news reports of in-family abuse, but this impression was, for me, unavoidable.

Randy Wilson, a father, is the minister at New Life Church, Colorado Springs* (where the infamous Ted Haggard was minister until his spectacular fall from grace), and he runs the Purity Ball. His wife Lisa was asked about her reasons for promoting purity. Surprisingly she did not quote biblical texts to support her view. Rather, she pointed out the risks of sex before marriage: unwanted pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. This is ironic, given that these people clearly support 'abstinence only' sex education (which means, in effect, no sex education at all).

It was telling, also, that the one son interviewed on the programme was shown wearing a tee-shirt emblazoned "Patrick Henry College", a university that was the subject of another Channel 4 documentary, God's Next Army.

(*If Randy Wilson is the minister of New Life Church, Colorado Springs, why can't I find his name listed anywhere on the church's website?)