Unfortunately, human nature is one parameter that we can’t adjust.

However, I think it’s more than the age-old propensity to superstition.

If you look at popular science literature and the attitudue towards science of the popular political movements 40 or 50 years, it was much more common for technology to be seen as a progressive force. We were all going to have jetpacks and robot-servants. Marxists practically based their entire belief system upon the emancipatory capability of technology – and their ideas had huge influence on the working class through trade unions, campaigns and so on. Certainly, there were large popular concerns, particularly about the atom bomb, but that was an eminently sensible concern. If you were a scientist, people took what you said seriously and many eminent scientists had international celebrity status.

Nowadays, on the other hand, one can find the Socialist Workers Party leading the residents of a proletarian suburb of Dublin in a march against a mobile-phone mast: www.indymedia.ie/article/83473

Contrast this with the fact that promising “electrification” was a key propaganda instrument for governments of Ireland in the early part of the twentieth century and one which helped to attach the proletariat to Fianna Fail till this day – in a country that was almost infinitely more superstitious than it is now.

the reasons why people believe in nonsense are incredibly interesting, what i find particularly fascinating is how out of date and unrealistic about people are about private funding of research. i mean i’m all for publicly funded research, but all these old fart businessmen from the quack industries talk as if they never were active participants in the business rush of the eighties. 90% of research is now funded by the private sector, universities have shared contracts with industry, if you don’t know that youre underinformed, and if you didnt fight it when it was happening 15-20 years ago then youre officially part of the problem. i totally dont see these jokers campaigning for higher taxes (as you can see i’m ranting about one particular discussion).

/rant

anyway more interestingly, it was as is famous for ippr full of very clever people between the ages of 3 and 9, and there is an mp3 some time, in fact ive got quite a few of those to post. we also chatted about the weird lack of randomised controlled trials in social policy, which i find really interesting (different culture), and people had some good examples of ones which ahd happened but which were duff (who randomises by last digit of telephone number? i mean really) which i hope they really will email me about.

But what about the people who read it? If it’s quickly rebutted by either the government or Learned Society or Respected Seat of Learning, said readers might realise they’re being fed crap by the journos.

One thing that you could have talked about was ‘the nature and politics of evidence’. The ‘evidence’ that organisations like IPPR generate is sometimes exceptionally poor – more like informed opinion. Perhaps something on the ‘evidence heiracrhy would have been useful?

July 20, 2007 at 12:55 pm

“Hello Dr. Ben,

I just have registered to your blog to say hi…I am new here…

It’s always difficult to speak on politics…I hope you might have decided something.”

But really easy to take advantage of the vulnerable and gullible, isn’t it.
This is how to get traffic to your shite site so you can profit from Google too. Typical money grubbing sCAM fraudster.

At the moment, lots of academic institutions create scare stories as part of the pressure they put on policy makers for future funding. The resources for creating these scare stories must be coming from existing grants. Shift the terms of funding and you shift the way organisations behave. So why not propose that all UK Government science funding has to come with:

1. A duty to adhere to a code of ethics on how the results are disseminated (eg, in the BMJ rather than the Daily Mail – at least in the first instance)

2. A duty to actively raise public awareness of scientifc methods (eg, RCTs rather than asking a handful of people if they feel better).

If this were done, then much of the media scaremongering could only occur at the risk not only of losing future funding, but also of having to repay previous grants.

Agree it would have to not be the “gubmint”, Ben. Like teek I would like to see (e.g.) the Royal Society (which is the UK’s “national academy” of science) doing this. They have a Science in Society Committee, but I don’t know what it actually does.

Also agree many people, esp. the woo-conspiracy-boosters, would simply ignore any such outlet. BUT… it would still be better to have an authoritative, independent “voice of the scientific mainstream” SOMEWHERE to complement the efforts of the bloggers.

The only feasible alternative would be educating the broadcasters and journalists… but my overwhelming impression is that most don’t want to be better-informed, as that would impede their ability to make up the details to a pre-formed agenda.

I just have registered to your blog to say hi…I am new here…

It’s always difficult to speak on politics…I hope you might have decided something.

*I gather this is being revisted, perhaps because despite the report containing a chart showing that the “number of councils who had received complaints” (spot the cunning use of statistics to tell true lies) had not increased since implementation of alternate week collections failed to cover up the fact there are a lot of very upset people.

Of course this might be more controversial than having a pop at CAM.

Good luck.

Regarding the posts above about the cost to the NHS of homeopathy — Private Eye‘s “M.D.” (Phil Hammond I think?) reckons that on balance homeopathy etc. save the NHS money. The “we all know it’s made-up but it keeps the people with made-up illnesses away from our surgeries” angle. (That’s not verbatim but it’s close.)

Of course I don’t know if that’s backed up by any actual evidence.

Andrew.

Public understanding is all about the media, and no government policy can change that (any government policy to influence the media would backfire).

I think that you should end on the serious harm that quack science can do, otherwise there’s a danger of the policy wonks treating it as a puff speach (ho ho ho, look at the silly women believing the science on L’Oreal ads, will they never learn, ha ha ha).
For example, a couple of weeks ago Patrick Holford appeared on Trevor McDonald Tonight promoting fish oil brain food, all the while he’s promoting dodgy vitamins to people dying of AIDS (suprised you didn’t comment on that, but I guess MMR has kept you busy!).
If a real doctor/professor was caught making millions from lying to dying people, it’s be a Harold Shipman type scandal.

CAM would obviously work here. Focussing on the case for permitting Doctors to ‘lie’ to make use of the placebo effect probably wouldn’t. 20 minutes isn’t long, so keep it tight.

I’m sure you know the IPPR is extremely close to the labour party, and Gordon does love to regulate, so be careful they don’t just hear that the solution to quackery is bigger government. Hope it goes well.

Maybe a call to IPPR to take on this role would be worthwhile?

So there are no sanctions against malpractice. If someone dies through misdiagnosis or misdirection then it’s their own stupid fault.
If it’s a regular GP, then the sky falls in on them and they are in deep shit.
Homeopathists like to insist they deal in medicine. They can cure any number of life threatening ailments and diseases apparently. They would like, therefore, to think and for everyone else to believe they deal in matters of life and death. Yet they aren’t culpable if someone in their care dies or suffers severely as a result of malpractice.
It shouldn’t matter if anyone with half a brain knows it’s complete nonsense. As long as the “patient” thinks homeopathy is medicine and the homeopathists and retailers are (fraudulently) selling it as such, then surely anyone practising this scam should be held legally liable for the consequences of their advice and practice.
I suspect many homeopathists themselves believe it’s shit too, which is why they are against any legal type of regulation, or any regulation at all that would show them up to be the, albeit many of them deluded, frauds they are.
Seems to me a fairly serious issue!