The worst claim of 2012

Admit it. You always thought Jimmy Savile was a bit of a perv. You weren’t surprised when the allegations became public. You’d known all along.

Except that you didn’t know. Nobody knew, apart from Savile’s victims and a few people who worked closely with him who were too scared to talk.

Saturday’s Guardian ‘Weekend’ magazine perpetuates the myth that everybody knew, in an article by Oliver Burkeman ironically titled “Worst ideas of 2012: ignoring reality”:

Savile wasn’t a man who concealed his creepiness behind a respectable facade. Creepiness was his brand; looking back now, it’s as if he was daring the world to point out that he seemed so much like a sex offender.

This is utter bollocks. Savile was a genuinely trusted figure. That is why he was chosen to front advertising campaigns for British Rail (“This is the age of the train”) and road safety (“Clunk click every trip”). The advertising agencies that planned those campaigns knew what they were doing. In their search for the ideal front man, they would have been looking for a face that people trusted, and their audience research would have told them that Savile fitted the bill.

In the highly unlikely event that you actually knew Savile was a sex offender, you will by now have presented your evidence to the police. Otherwise, your claims that you ‘knew’ are a fantasy.

Junk science

One downside of our celebrity culture (are there any upsides?) is that celebrities’ opinions on all manner of topics are taken seriously, even when these celebrities are completely ignorant.

For example, BBC1’s Question Time regularly invites comedians onto the panel, presumably because someone in the BBC’s management thinks this will make the programme more ‘relevant’.

But celebrities need to be careful. They have a duty of care because many people are influenced by what they say. Celebrities’ opinions are widely reported, so that when they promote junk science such as unfounded health scares or quack remedies, they can cause widespread harm.

The charitable trust Sense About Science has just published Celebrities and Science 2012. This report charts the rise and fall of celebrity fads, endorsements and claims about science and evidence, and subjects a selection of these dubious claims to serious scientific review:

• In 2011, Simon Cowell was responsible for the intravenous vitamin craze. This year, Cheryl Cole and Rihanna are reported to be following the trend.
• Cowell meanwhile has moved on to inhaling pocket-sized oxygen shots and has also employed someone to ‘heal’ his house.
• January Jones has been taking dried placenta pills.
• Patsy Palmer has been rubbing coffee granules on her skin.
• Goldie Hawn supports an education programme that aims to increase children’s emotional wellbeing with lessons about the brain.
• Several athletes in the London Olympics were flaunting brightly coloured ‘Kinesio’ sports tape, which makes unfounded claims to help mend injuries.

But there has also been some progress, and the report gives due credit to celebrities who have set a good example by talking sense about food fads, vitamin supplements and alternative medicine.

One Liberal view of this issue is that, if people want to rub coffee granules on their skin, it is their business. But there is a vital distinction between making a purely personal choice to do something irrational and setting a bad example by promoting junk science or harmful behaviour.

This matters to Liberals because Liberalism can trace its roots to the Age of Enlightenment, when blind faith and superstition gave way to the power of knowledge based on empirical evidence and the scientific method, and when the human mind was liberated from a dogmatic state of ignorance that had shored up despotic rulers. Defending and promoting enlightenment values is something Liberals should continue to do.

Even Simon Cowell is not powerful enough to unravel several centuries of enlightenment, but celebrity promotion of junk science should be subject to scrutiny and ridicule, and Sense About Science is performing a public service by doing just that.