Don’t worry… we also comment on big pharma…. have a look at the last few articles re fish oil supplements.

Must disagree re tall scandinavian blondes, met one at a cell biology and she was very intelligent. Didn’t get the opportunity to assess pertness though…

Still I bet Dr Curry got paid for his fantasy a little better than Herbert George did for his.

While it is fine to be criticial of others work based on reasoned criticism, sarcastic and arrogant know it all comments that show a lack of respect and social skills are the work of a scientific community that is unware of its own politics, social and and political history and its’ social failings, dismissing everything that can’t be measured using ‘objective’ criteria.

Since even the best ‘hard’ science has a nice little history of getting things wrong because of a lack of social awareness, I wouldn’t be too quick to jump on others’ more quirky conclusions. As for those who commented on who funded Dr Curry, is the politics of funding by the Bravo channel any different to those funded by the big pharma in the name of ‘objective’ science!? I think not.

Of course he is not right on one point. We won’t be around 100, 000 years from now because all that technology created by those wonderful hard scientists who always thought we could address social issues through ever increasing technological fixes will have caused all that global warming. Now that is badscience.

Disaster is a huge help to evolution, imagine 90% of a population suddenly being wiped out with only the fittest surviving. That would have a big impact in evolutionary terms although this is not to say it doesn’t happen the rest of the time as well.

Amoebic Vodka, post 49

Wait till they force through the tracker system on every vehicle they are talking about in the uk, they would be able to tell when you got in the car and where you went in it via what route and at what speed every inch of the way…. all in the name of preventing terrorism of course….. roll on the police state

If we’re going to predict the future on the basis of 20th Century SF and dystopian classics, I think Brave New World is much closer to the mark.

We’d go for 1984. We’re getting scarily close to it in terms of doublespeak already.

We particularly like the Lamarkisms in there. Women will get less hairy because they shave or wax bits of their body? Shinier hair because they use conditioner? Tee hee.

I’d like to think that this was a bit of a stunt on Dr Curry’s part that has backfired a bit.

scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/10/utter_nonsense.php

johnhawks.net/weblog/2006/10/18#curry_morlock_future_2006

scienceblogs.com/gnxp/2006/10/question_the_experts_sometimes.php#commentsArea

I think its another one of those Dr Faustus sup-with-the-devil things…

As apothecary says

“hey, if I could get a satellite channel to commission me to write it up and pay me lots to do so, I’d be made!”

And which of us wouldn’t say that…?

Speaking for myself, if I could write a Michael Crichton-style bestseller about gene therapy-gone-tragically- wrong and make a million quid it would be Goodbye to the day job in under 7 seconds…. …you wouldn’t see me for dust.

To develop my hypothesis first outlined here www.badscience.net/?p=313, post 13, there are only five general news stories – death, foreign death, money, sport and whimsical bits (I’m pretty sure that bit’s someone else’s work plaigiarised, but I can’t remember where I read it). Westminster stories fall into those categories – eg Iran/Iraq/N korea = foreign death and celebs = subset of “money.”

OK, its probably a load of half thought out rubbish but, hey, if I could get a satellite channel to commission me to write it up and pay me lots to do so, I’d be made!

Is there any science what so ever here?”

Well, er, no.

As highlighted here and there in the thread, what we are really seeing is the elasticity of what newspaper editors see as a “science story” and what their Science Editors will therefore cover (with their fingers crossed?) as a “science story”.

I find it VERY difficult to imagine a water-cooler piss-take like this getting this sort of media exposure in the serious newspapers and on TV/radio in Germany, France, or even the US.

Comes back to the point about the UK media (even the serious bits of it) being increasingly (and undisguisedly) in the entertainment business. The only subjects they make a major attempt to cover seriously are the Palace of Westminster pissing contest (until you’re totally sick of it) and sport. Everything else is mostly a variety of glossy-itis. If you don’t believe me, go to a newspaper “morgue” at your local library, dig out a copy of your paper of choice from the mid-70s and compare the amount of pages devoted (either directly or in the guise of Fashion / lifestyle etc) to what Celebs do / wear / eat / buy, then and now.

Soma indeed.

Is there any science what so ever here?

To put in my totally uninformed point of view and Have My Say (snigger) – If we’re going to predict the future on the basis of 20th Century SF and dystopian classics, I think Brave New World is much closer to the mark. Soma for all, a high consumption economy (with epsilon minuses to do the recycling – and be happy doing it) and people conditioned to be happy where they are in society – “the Alpha plus in his castle, the Delta at his gate, Our Ford made them high and lowly and orders their conditioning”. Doesn’t quite scan as well as Mrs CF Alexander’s original, but there we go, that’s progress