Scientific proof that James Delingpole is an ignoramus

Did you have the misfortune to hear the appalling James Delingpole on this weekend’s Radio 4 Any Questions? As usual, he paraded his ignorance and prejudice about climate change.

As an antidote, do watch and, indeed, relish the forensic demolition of Delingpole by Sir Paul Nurse during a BBC2 Horizon documentary:



(This is just a short extract but you can watch the whole documentary ‘Science Under Attack’ here).

Delingpole later complained on his blog that this interview amounted to ‘intellectual rape’. No James, it’s simply that Sir Paul Nurse is President of the Royal Society and a Nobel Prize winning scientist, whereas you aren’t.

A magic solution for climate change?

A new technological breakthrough promises to revolutionise the battle against wasting water.

Until now, people (well, Americans anyway) have been wasting billions of gallons of water by running the shower or tap to hide the noises they make on the toilet. A new iPhone app, the Akatu Fake Shower, makes the sound of a shower or tap running, so that you can drown out the noise of your flatulence without wasting water.

Amongst this app’s features, you can earn ‘badges’ for all the water you’ve saved. You can also “share your achievements” on social media, although it is a mystery why anyone ashamed of the sound of their farts has no inhibitions about sharing their “achievements”.

Yes, with this new invention, we can finally end all further scientific and technological discovery. Humanity’s work is done.

Did the earth move for you?

You thought earthquakes were caused by natural geological forces, and the recent earthquake in Iran is no exception. How wrong could you be?

It turns out that when you have sex, the earth really does move. Or at least it does according to one senior Iranian cleric:

A senior Iranian cleric says women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes.

He’s obviously not convinced by the theory of plate tectonics, then.

“Many women who do not dress modestly ... lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which increases earthquakes,” Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

If you live in an earthquake zone like Iran, it is wise to take precautions. What does this senior cleric advise? Improve building construction standards, perhaps?

“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” Sedighi asked during a prayer sermon last week. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

This superstitious nonsense does not entitle you to feel smug, not when children in Britain have died of measles because of the unfounded belief that the MMR jab causes autism, and not when there are shelves full of quack remedies on sale in Boots.

Only in America...

For anyone with $6,000 to spare: a state-of-the-art computerised toilet.

The good news: there’s a jack into which you can plug your iPod.

The bad news: like any computer-controlled device, it can crash. You may have to reboot your toilet.

Kick creationism out of our schools

Where is David Laws when you need him? That’s David Laws the education minister, as distinct from the various other hats he wears.

It turns out that the Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) curriculum is used in more than 50 UK schools. This curriculum includes a science text book that cites the existence of the Loch Ness monster as evidence against evolution.

It gets worse. ACE also asserts that God is right-wing and that Liberals are the root of all evil. It denies that transitional fossils exist, despite copious evidence to the contrary. It claims that solar fusion is a myth. It claims that evolution is a deliberate lie. And it claims that homosexuality is a learned behaviour.

Despite this, the government agency UK NARIC (which advises on overseas qualifications) has defended its decision to deem ACE’s in-house qualification, the International Certificate of Christian Education, as comparable to A-levels.

In a Liberal society, people should be free to believe in creationism if they want to. But that liberty does not extend to the teaching of demonstrable scientific falsehoods to schoolchildren.

Creationism is not ‘science’ by any definition. Science is a rational and systematic process that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. There is no place in science for dogma, religious or otherwise. And creationism is a dogma that flies in the face of the best scientific evidence we have.

To teach creationism even as one scientific hypothesis among many is therefore gross professional misconduct and should be treated as such. The government should withdraw recognition from ACE’s qualifications and it should ban creationism from science classes entirely.

So you think you believe in evidence-based policy?

Try this for size.

High-speed rail NIMBIs (Not In My Bucolic Idyll)

High-speed railways have spread throughout Europe over the past thirty years, starting with the opening of the first TGV line in France in 1981. Today, there are substantial networks of these lines throughout France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, with more lines under construction or planned.

In all cases, high-speed trains can operate both on dedicated high-speed track and at reduced speeds on conventional railway lines, enabling many destinations beyond the high-speed lines to be served.

The result has been not only faster journey times but also significant transfers of journeys away from other, less environmentally-friendly modes of transport (road and air).

So if there is a criticism to be made of yesterday’s government announcement about the route of the high-speed line, it is that these decisions should have been made at least thirty years ago. Blame Margaret Thatcher.

Instead of that criticism, we were treated to assorted Tory backbenchers from constituencies along the proposed route moaning about the effects on the environment. This new-found concern for the environment is dubious, since most of these Tory MPs are also climate change sceptics who hate wind farms and never complained about motorways being driven through their constituencies.

Other critics have depicted high-speed rail as “a train for the rich” or a service exclusively for business travellers. This will come as news to passengers in the rest of Europe, who can (and do) travel on high-speed trains at bargain fares. It will also be news to British passengers with cut-price tickets boarding Eurostar at London St Pancras.

But what the criticism reveals most is a very English whinge, from a world where the glass is always half empty and every technological advance is seen in terms of its downsides. The industrial revolution began in Britain and our country remains at the forefront of scientific discovery and technological advance – hell, we even invented railways! Yet the media coverage suggests that, rather than embrace visionary ideas or practical success, we prefer to wallow in stories of risks and failure. If the Daily Mail were to run a story claiming that high-speed trains cause cancer, that would find the G-spot of this pessimistic culture.

This sentiment can be traced to William Morris and the back-to-the-land movement, the late-nineteenth century backlash against industrialisation and urbanisation. It has led most English people to want to live in a house that looks like a country cottage, even though they actually live in a suburb. The irony is that this desire has done enormous environmental damage. The more that people want to go back to the land, the less land there is left to go back to. Detached houses and bungalows with gardens use up far more land space than the flats and town houses that most continental city dwellers inhabit. The resulting suburban sprawl also lengthens travel distances and increases people’s reliance on cars.

Most of the objections to high-speed rail are consequently part and parcel of a delusional need to maintain England as some sort of bucolic idyll, despite the fact that more than 80% of English people live in cities.

On the other hand, it could just be that southerners are soft. Up north, they see things differently. In Leeds, they are celebrating news of a planned high-speed rail station in the city centre, while in Nottingham and Sheffield they are complaining that the new stations won’t be closer to where they live. That’s more like it!

Why pseudo-science threatens Liberal values

Hardly a day goes by without a report in the media claiming that some activity or other harms your health. Being smug liberal types, we assume these scare stories are the province of the Daily Mail (the subject of well-deserved satire here, here and here).

Actually, you are just as likely to find such health scares in the Guardian or the BBC. On the Spiked website, Dr Michael Fitzpatrick tackles the pseudo-scientific links lobby that produces these stories. The ‘science’ is usually an epidemiological study whose tentative findings or dubious claims enter straight into conventional wisdom without being subject to serious scrutiny.

Fitzpatrick observes that these scares often relate to an activity that is already the subject of social disapproval, such as drinking alcohol or eating fast food. This should make us immediately suspicious that science is being abused to support fashionable prejudices.

Once an allegation of risk enters the public realm via the media, it alters behaviour, but not necessarily in a good way. Irrespective of whether a scientific claim is valid, people react by seeking compensation or quack remedies. Worse, these scare stories can kill. For example, the claim (subsequently exposed as fraudulent) that the MMR vaccine causes autism led to the deaths of several children from measles.

Quite apart from the unnecessary distress and physical harm, Liberals should be concerned about pseudo-science for two important reasons.

First, the roots of Liberalism can be traced to the eighteenth century Age of Enlightenment, when free thought and scientific discovery replaced superstition enforced by despots. Accordingly, we should reject the trendy sentimental belief that emotions and feelings trump rationality and logic, otherwise we are fostering a climate that allows superstition to resume its historical role.

Second, the depiction of the world as a place full of risks diminishes us as human beings. It says we are all helpless victims and denies our capacity to take responsibility for our actions. It even promotes victimhood as something to embrace as part of our identities. As a result, there is a thriving industry in quack remedies and quack therapists.

Yes, there are risks and dangers out there. But that is no excuse for confusing correlation with causation. Before we start to panic, any claim of causation should be subject to rigorous scientific enquiry. Stringent scientific standards should not be set aside just to satisfy a fashionable prejudice. Let’s reserve our disapproval for genuinely proven dangers.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane...?

No, it’s the International Space Station (ISS).

The ISS is one of humanity’s greatest scientific and technological achievements, and a powerful symbol of international co-operation. It is also the third brightest object in the sky (after the sun and moon). If you have seen it without knowing what it is, you probably assumed it was an aircraft (although a very high and fast-moving one; it orbits at an altitude of over 200 miles at a speed of about 17,000 mph).

The light you can see from Earth is sunlight reflected from the ISS’s solar panels. For that reason, the ISS is visible with the naked eye just after dusk or just before dawn, when the sky is dark but the ISS is still in sunlight (it also helps if there’s no cloud). An overhead passage lasts about two to five minutes.

To find out when the ISS will be overhead, there are two good sources of information. First, go to NASA’s Spot The Station site and register for free e-mail alerts. Second, n2yo’s Real Time Satellite Tracking site provides predictions for the next five days, including maps.

It is fashionable to sneer at this sort of thing, so don’t go outside looking for the ISS if keeping your badge of ‘cool’ is important to you.

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.

Why 33⅓ rpm beats 160GB

If you found some sort of digital gadget among your Christmas presents yesterday, how did you feel? Overcome by excitement, or weary at the thought of having to plough through yet another instruction manual?

In today’s Guardian, John Harris argues that a revival in the sales of vinyl albums is a metaphor for a growing anti-digital rebellion, part of broader yearning for authenticity and human scale.

The evidence can be found not only in record-buying but also the Slow Food movement and a growth in the sales of craft beers at the expense of cheap lager. Books and magazines (the printed sort) were supposed to die out, yet sales are booming and reading groups thriving. Digital TV gives every viewer (even those with the minimum choice offered by Freeview) access to hundreds of channels, yet the five formerly analogue TV channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV1, Channel 4 and Channel 5) combined still attract over 50% of audience share. Plans to shut down analogue radio may be abandoned because of people’s stubborn attachment to analogue.

People are not rejecting digital technology (or any other technological change) per se but are responding to more fundamental issues:

• superficiality, in which depth of thought and learning is replaced by a cacophony of stimuli and distractions;
• impatience that never allows time for focus or contemplation, and which expresses a childlike inability to understand the concepts of deferred pleasure or acquired tastes;
• instant redundancy, so that this year’s ‘must-have’ gadget will be hopelessly outmoded next year.

The objection therefore is not to change or progress but to shallowness and a frantic pace.

The Liberal Democrats’ most creative thinker David Boyle wrote about this trend eight years ago in his book Authenticity: Brands, Fakes, Spin and the Lust for Real Life. He points out that this is not a conservative trend, still less a Luddite rejection of all new technology. It is about feelings of alienation, a reaction against technological determinism and a belief that technology should be human scale and serve human needs.

If you agree, there is something you can do. Now that you’ve read this, switch off your computer and go and read a proper book.

Tomorrow’s World?

It is a sign of the times that there is a tendency to view scientific advance in pessimistic rather than optimistic terms.

But it’s not long ago that popular attitudes were very different. At the crest of the optimistic wave was the weekly TV programme Tomorrow’s World. This show began in 1965, in a visionary era when moon landings were being planned, and it was broadcast in prime time on BBC1 rather than shunted into a late slot on BBC2. Tomorrow’s World showcased various scientific and technological innovations and, although not all its predictions were realised, it tended to keep its feet on the ground.

Elsewhere, though, some predictions owed more to science fiction than science and seem very silly in retrospect. There were confident forecasts that, by now, we would be wearing aluminium suits, eating all our food in the form of pills, and travelling around in flying cars or with a jet pack on our backs. The interesting thing is not that such innovations are unfeasible (the technology already exists), but that there is no demand for them.

The change in popular attitudes that occurred 30 to 40 years ago was not a complete rejection of science, more a desire to have one’s organic cake and eat it. People nowadays rush to buy the latest iPhone or Kindle while maintaining a sentimental yearning for an illusory lost idyll of back-to-the-land and knit-your-own-yoghurt.

Given today’s cynical and pessimistic climate, it is refreshing to see that Popular Mechanics has just published 110 Predictions For the Next 110 Years, a list of potential scientific and technological innovations. It is probable that some of these predictions will not come true. But at least someone is thinking positively.

One predicted innovation not on Popular Mechanics’s list is the Orgasmatron but, to be fair to Woody Allen, Sleeper was set 200 years in the future, not merely 110.

Old Political Sayings No.643: You can’t polish a turd

You know what they say. You cannot polish a turd – or can you?

This proposition has finally been put to the test. The MythBusters applied rigorous scientific methods and have definitively answered this age-old question:



Please, whatever you do, don’t tell Nigel Farage.

Next week: You can’t put lipstick on a pig.