It is all for your own good…

Posted on Sat, 23 February, 2008 by ATGW

Well, while I have been away it seems like our accelerating progress to the 1984 Utopian Ideal has been a pretty prevalent topic for this blog. Unfortunately this is simply a reflection of what is current “news” as almost daily we see more and more about how a socialist government is trying to turn us into a dictator’s fantasy land. In about two generations we (the UK) have gone from a shining example of a “free nation” to a state in which a stunning amount of state monitoring seems to be normal.

We can start with DNA databases. The news this week has been clamouring about how we need a bigger national database (see Heather’s previous post) – despite the fact the government already has the largest DNA database in the world. As always, there is a never ending stream of talking heads who say how the perpetrator of Crime XYZ would have been identified in a few seconds if we had a national DNA database. These commentators range from the understandably grieving relatives (who are always the WORST people to have opinions on a topic) to, in at least one case, the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO).

There is certainly a strong argument that recording the DNA of every person in the UK (including, I assume, all visitors and immigrants) would increase the detection rate of some crimes. On national news yesterday one senior police officer even went as far as to say that crimes were taking longer to solve because police had to use “traditional” methods to determine who the offender was. This is certainly the line taken by relatives of dead people and large portions of the right wing media.

However, it has (IMHO of course) some major fundamental flaws. The most basic of these is the overhaul of the presumption of innocence. If we had a national DNA database the police could turn up at a crime scene, sample any DNA found and then arrest who ever it matched in the database. The person whose DNA has matched is then put in the position of having to prove that they are innocent of the crime and give alternative reasons for their DNA being present. Now they must do the almost impossible task of proving their innocence.

In a similar vein, we (the public at least) have no idea of the accuracy with which a DNA match is made. If you think of all the steps required to collect a national database, store it, collect crime scene DNA and then compare it, there are numerous stages where an error can creep in. If we assume the process has an error rate as low as 1 in 1,000,000 (which would be bloody impressive) then it becomes really scary. At any given time there are around 60 million residents and another 10 million transients within the UK. That DNA sample found at the crime scene could, through sheer accident alone, match any one of 69 innocent people. What is really scary is that it is unlikely anyone will ever actually know what the false positive rate is – does anyone know what the accuracy bars of a fingerprint match are? Will a jury be able to understand the statistics when the person in the dock is claiming they are innocent? Or will the CSI magic take effect and sentence innocent people?

Last (for now) but certainly not least, would you trust any government or private organisation with that much data? For a DNA database to work as a crime solving tool it needs to have details on who you are, where you live, how the police can find you (etc). This is a scary amount of information to put in one place. If you think ID fraud is rife as a result of people getting hold of your bank statements just think what can happen if all the data is housed in one place…

The most worrying thing about centralised data registries (such as national ID cards, DNA databases) is that no one wants to pay for them. The staff who maintain them are often the lowest grade in their organisation and quite often the ones with no prospects of advancement. It is trivial for Nefarious Individual X to offer poorly paid (and usually badly managed) person Y some money to either get access to the data or have an “accident” with it. When we establish the national register as the “Gold Standard” it becomes impossible for people to escape the consequences.

A tragic example of this was ironically headline news today as well. A couple lost their lives after a “gangland boss” infiltrated the “witness protection” scheme that was looking after them (quotes from the Guardian). More worryingly, this was not actually a case of gangsters infiltrating the Police Witness Protection scheme (which you would hope was one of the more secure government institutions) but the simple case of bribing BT employees to do lookups of confidential phone records:

The Stirlands [The couple killed] were ultimately betrayed by two BT staff misusing computer records at the request of the gang, without knowing or asking why they were wanted.

It really is that easy. This was nothing more than an act of revenge, so can you imagine how much bargaining power a gangster could bring if he wanted to, for example, get the national DNA register to point to an innocent person rather than him…

This blog has mentioned it many times in the past, but one of the biggest problems of total state surveillance is the significant shift in the balance of power. The government and public bodies serve the will of the people. They should be worried about the people. They should be 100% accountable to the public who grant them their rights and privileges. With the steady shift towards 1984 this is changing. The people will have to learn to worry about the government and what it is doing in “their” name.

When I was growing up I remember seeing TV programmes and news items about how Communist Russia was the great Evil and how oppressive regimes like Nazi Germany (and East Germany post WWII) were symbolised by how they oppressed the public – demanding “papers” on a regular basis, controlling who could travel and where and when, bugging everyone calls and monitoring their every movement. All my life I thought this was supposed to be teaching people what was wrong with some nations – I never realised it was a blueprint for the new millennium.

Government pioneering new art form

Posted on Sat, 16 February, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

Wow, these e-petitions really work. The e-petition against faith schools has made the government think again about giving taxpayers’ money to churches to indoctrinate children.

Wrong. That was just a dream………

However, the government’s response shows that the UK government is becoming so expert in its capacity to push out condescending piffle in response to these “consultation exercises” as to be able to do it in its sleep. Nevertheless, it took them from 15 November to 14th February to send this “tough love” Valentine’s Day response.

There were 19,106 signatures on the e-petition. That sounds like a lot to me but then, the UK government had no trouble dismissing the road-pricing and anti-ID petitions, with “over a million against road pricing and around 800,00 against ID” in the same patronising way.

There must be a template in the petitions office.

First, a simple statement that they intend to pay NO attention to the petition. In this case:

The Government remains committed to a diverse range of schools for parents to choose from, including schools with a religious character or “faith schools” as they are commonly known.

Next, a few statements designed to make it seem that anyone who signed must have no idea of the issues, so they will “explain” them. This part must involve misinterpreting the petition topic in some major detail.

In this case, they talk about religious education and their commitment to it.

Religious Education (RE) in all schools, including faith schools, is aimed at developing pupils’ knowledge, understanding and awareness of the major religions represented in the country…….

They say that all the faiths have signed up to some agreed standard for teaching RE. Well, duh, I thought the National Curriculum constrained what teachers could teach in ALL subjects, (despite its often seeming like a chokehold on innovative teaching that matches children’s interests.) Is there an argument about the content of their RE lessons? The petition doesn’t say (although it definitely could have) that different faith schools are teaching different forms of RE. It says – stop faith schools from teaching their own dogma in lessons.

This bit is a mite disturbing. There is NOTHING in the petition about not teaching RE as a subject (desirable as that may indeed be, as a goal.) There is no suggestion of not teaching children about the nature of the beliefs of followers of deity x and prophet y. The actual wording was:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Abolish all faith schools and prohibit the teaching of creationism and other religious mythology in all UK schools.

Until I read the government’s response, I didn’t understand that creationism or the tenets of particular religions COULD be taught in schools, as if they were standard school subjects.

There is nothing about creationism at all in this response. Can creationists assume that they can teach intelligent design at will, then?

They then completely misunderstand the whole argument about separate education leading to dividing the population in faith ghettoes.

Faith schools have an excellent record in providing high-quality education and serving disadvantaged communities and are some of the most ethnically and socially diverse in the country.

What? So Catholic schools have more children of Protestants than other schools? Church of England schools have more children of atheists than state schools. Muslim schools are dominated by Catholics? Even if this were true (when it is blatant nonsense) it doesn’t address the whole issue of social integration. “Serving disadvantaged communities” (code for ethnic minorities and the poor) “ethnically and socially diverse” (code for the same thing)

Final point in the new artform, finish off with a really irritating sentence.

Many parents who are not members of a particular faith value the structured environment provided by schools with a religious character.

Well duh. Those religious schools that are seen as providing a better education than standard state schools attract many non-believers who can’t or won’t to pay for the private school alternative but are prepared to fake religion to get their kids in one. It is odd that the more numerous Blessed St Invention’s School for Scumbags aren’t besieged by parents seeking the benefits of indoctrinating their kids, if it’s the desire to get their kids taught in a religious structure that inspires parents.

Disappointingly, the excitement of getting patronised by the PM in an email directed straight to your personal inbox seems to have been missed out this time. The website dismissal is all there is.

What would Jesus eat?

Posted on Mon, 11 February, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

How did I miss this? It’s a 3 years out-of-date news item on the BBC website’s health section.

Americans look to Jesus for a diet
Five loaves, two fish and a goblet of red wine could be on the menu for Americans if a new diet takes off

(Sorry, Americans, but this is the sort of thing we’re told is normal for you. Just when we’re feeling bad about the xenophobic national stereotyping, some of you go and vote Huckabee back into the running.)

Don Colbert, a Florida doctor, published a diet book that is based on the food in the Bible.

He says: “If you truly want to follow Jesus in every area of your life you cannot ignore your eating habits.”

Well, if there are any over-enthusiastic fundamentalists reading this, it seems to mean that you should stick to kosher foods and just eat bread, fish and lentils.

In anorexically small portions, if you only get a five-thousandth share of five loaves and a couple of fishes. Now that is one harsh diet.

Still, at least you can replace all your water with wine. There’s always an upside.

Archbishop gives up using brain for Lent

Posted on Thu, 7 February, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

In a over-enthusiastic observation of a usually ignored traditional Christian festival, Archbishop Rowan Williams has apparently chosen to give up using his higher brain functions for the next 40 days.

As evidence, he is splattered over the news on every terrestrial channel and on the BBC website, expressing a belief that

some Sharia law in the UK seems “unavoidable”.

Allegedly, for “community cohesion” 😀

(Splitting a country into different groups with different sets of laws for specific purposes is cohesive? I run screaming to a dictionary. I am relieved to find out that “cohesive” has indeed not magically come to mean “utterly divisive,” since I last looked.)

How impressive that a career religious man can reach the age and novelty-of-eyebrow-development of Rowan Williams, without having gained the slightest idea that “marital disputes” involve relations between men and woman. And whatever else one might think of Islam, female equality has not traditionally been considered its strong suit.

Shari’a law seems to involve stoning adulterers. Wouldn’t that come under the “marital disputes” category?

There are several countries in the world that claim to apply shari’a law. If anyone chooses to live under it, let them move to one of these countries. How difficult an argument is that to follow? If I wanted to live under the Netherlands’ legal system, I would have to move to the Netherlands. Surely the same self-evident principle applies to religiously motivated law. Ironically, many foreign-born muslims in Europe migrated specifically to enjoy the personal freedoms of the west. Are they also to be thrown on the mercy of the mullahs, in the name of community cohesion?

There are enough reports of bad things happening to non-muslims living in places – such as the North of Nigeria – where shari’a law has been newly applied. These would make anyone – male or female & muslim or infidel – feel a bit uneasy (well, all right then, terrified and aghast…) about living under those legal systems.

The “atheist gods” delusion

Posted on Mon, 4 February, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

Today’s New Statesman goes to town on the topic of God.

Sholto Byrnes makes a barely comprehensible argument that is summed up in the subhead as:

For most Europeans, a belief in God may have given way to a belief in democracy, law and human rights. But the Almighty remains the source of our secular freedoms

Huh? Even without reading further, this fails to make even the most minimal amount of sense.

I think the first sentence is what a more philosophically erudite blogger might call a category error. I’ll try for some definitions to see what these already totally distinct ideas have in common. Hmm. Democracy is system of government. Law is a set of social rules. Human rights are socially agreed standards that we all hope get applied to us by our rulers. Maybe he’s referring to the fact that we invest these different ideas with an element of idealism?

We don’t think they made us, let alone the universe. We don’t pray to them. We don’t hand over big money to people who claim they can intercede with them. We don’t believe they gave their only son to be crucified for us. We don’t feel obliged to prostrate ourselves before them several times a day. They aren’t known for healing the sick or making the lame walk. We don’t have to assemble once or more a week in a temple to Human Rights and listen to dull readings. We certainly don’t believe that they will take us up in an almighty rapture.

in fact, they are such poor gods that even the smallest of Terry Pratchett’s Small Gods would knock them out with a single raised eyebrow. There is no sense in which belief in these ideas equates to belief in a god.

I’ve laboured this screamingly obvious point because it encapsulates a whole flawed current line of argument – that the social and political ideas that still remain to us from the Enlightenment are just another form of religion. They bloody aren’t. So there :-p

How else to explain the new religions that we have created for ourselves? A religion of science, whose priests make proclamations imbued with a certainty that their empirical branch of learning cannot justify; a religion of rights which, however much we may instinctively agree with it, has no more coherent proof than that it is “self-evident”; and now, perhaps, a religion of ecology whose ministers thunder as self-righteously as any 17th-century Puritan preacher.

Rubbish, for so many reasons that it’ would be too boring to labour them any more here (although the blog reserves the right to do so, more entertainingly, I hope, in the near future. Sorry. I’m just annoyed at this right now.)

Thoughtless Blaspheming

Posted on Sun, 3 February, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

The leader of the Anglican Church, Rowan Williams supports the idea of dumping the Blasphemy laws and even talks sense about the environment. It’s been a bit embarrassing to be occasionally recommending the Archbishop’s words, on an atheist blog.

So, it should come as something of a relief to find him spouting absurdity in a lecture in which he discussed some alternatives.

“The legal provision should keep before our eyes the general risks of debasing public controversy by thoughtless and, even if unintentionally, cruel styles of speaking and acting,” he said. (from Ruth Gledhill in the Times)

OK, There is far too little thought in the world. So, criminalising thoughtlessness may be the way to go….

(I may be being intentionally cruel here.)

I’ll give the Archbishop the benefit of the doubt. I’ll translate “thoughtless” into “insensitive,” as I assume he meant, and I’ll even treat it as a serious argument for a moment.

He is calling for laws that would be far worse than the Blasphemy laws. Despite the activities of a few minority Christian pressure groups, these laws are only enforced, every few decades. They are generally regarded as ludicrous “legacy” laws, the legal system’s equivalent of the Atari.

Certainly, the established Anglican Church – which they are designed to protect – is none too keen to go to court over every taking of the lord’s name in vain. (Any of that and they’d swiftly find themselves disestablished.)

The replacement that Dr Williams is suggesting wouldn’t even have the Olde Worlde charm of the Blasphemy Laws. They would just be thought crime laws. Which could criminalise more or less anything.

Imagine someone chatting away to a stranger on a bus about their puppy’s latest funny actions. Seems harmless enough. That couldn’t be considered thoughtless by anybody?

Well, what if the other person’s dog has just died. Or they have a crippling dog phobia?

Their right not to be unintentionally hurt could hardly be the basis of law. So is the law to be confined to beliefs?

Well, what if the hypersensitive bus companion believes that keeping a pet dog is a cruel enslavement of another species?

What if the (increasingly conceptually eccentric) bus companion even believes that he/she is the incarnation of a dog-spirit and regards the dog-owner’s drone as an insult to their own ancestral heritage and most deeply held values?

Ha, chatty dog-lover. You would have no defence in any of these cases, as Dr Williams includes unintentional cruelty.

It is barely possible to think of any thought or action that wouldn’t offend somebody. The average person probably gives so much offence in the course of a day that it’s a wonder that so many noses remain unbroken.

And insensitivity can only be defined by the person who feels they have been offended. I work with some people who are so sensitive that a slightly preoccupied look can be interpreted as a sign that they are hated to the very core of their being. (And that’s before I give vent to the string of random computer-directed cuss-words that could easily get me diagnosed as having a terminal case of Tourette’s.)

There is more and more pressure to give undeserved respect to any and every crackpot set of beliefs. It’s presented as if the right to argue with people is somehow disrespectful, rather than the most genuinely respectful. way you can relate to others.

Do as you would be done by, and so on. If you like the idea that people are humouring your stupidity – because you are too fragile to face the truth or too dangerously fanatical to allow an alternative opinion – then legal protection of everyone’s delicate sensitivities is fine. If you prefer to see yourself as a thinking being, you just have to accept that other people will not always share your beliefs.

Listen, offended people. Feeling offended is just a feeling. It doesn’t give you automatic rights.

Learn to stand up for yourself and to fight back like a civilized human being. Learn to communicate, ffs. Learn to disagree. Learn to welcome challenges to your beliefs. Learn to express anger…..

More laws please, we’re British

Posted on Thu, 31 January, 2008 by ATGW

Once, Britain viewed itself as the cradle of democracy and home of freedom and civil rights. Even then it was probably a false impression, but in recent years it has really become ludicrous.

Today, on the Radio news bulletins there has been a few items about how the police are trying to get online video sharing services (i.e. YouTube) to prohibit people uploading video of themselves driving dangerously or excessively speeding. The articles finished off with an ominous threat that if it wasn’t banned, the government would be pressured into making it illegal.

I am confused.

Driving dangerously is an offence. Driving along the road holding a mobile phone in one hand to record both your speedometer and the road ahead is illegal. Breaking the speed limit is illegal. What difference will making a new law have? What advantage is there in creating a new law in our already burgeoning system?

In our current Orwellian-Britain, it is almost a daily occurrence for the tabloids to scream about how antisocial behaviour is out of control and call for “more, tougher laws” to curb it. Our intellectually lazy public laps this up and as a result our offensively fickle politicians (as well as the politically minded Chief Police Officers) pick up on this and agree we need new laws to make XYZ illegal. No one seems to notice the sheer madness of criminalising more and more behaviour, then complaining about more and more criminals…

Add to this, the weird idea that people seem to have about handing over more of our civil liberties to the police and you can see we are truly on the road to 1984. If you are in doubt about the weirdness then have a look at the BBC “Have your say” from Wednesday, 30 Jan 08. Titled “Will more stop and search powers reduce crime” it carries the following blurb:

The government is to announce an extension of stop and search powers for police to enable them to stop people without grounds for suspicion, the BBC understands. Will this help the police?

The government has been trialling routine stop and search powers for police in so-called gun and knife “hotspots” but the powers could shortly be extended to other parts of the country.

The Conservatives are also promising a major overhaul of police powers to stop and search suspects, with police being allowed to radio in the personal details of who they have stopped.

Rightfully, there is a mix of comments for and against the powers so I wont go into too many of them but this was one typical of the “tabloid-Britain” point of view:

In London it should reduce the number of youngsters carrying knives so it must be a good thing!

Wow. Working on the assumption that something may happen justifies the injustice. Amazing.

The very concept of stop and search without requiring even the farcical “reasonable suspicion” of the past is mind blowing. This legislation, is passed, would allow the police to randomly stop anyone they wanted and search them to see if they are carrying anything illegal or, worryingly, anything the officer feels may assist with a criminal act. This definition is very broad brush – a screwdriver can be considered in all manner of ways… Even more disturbingly, the new legislation seeks to remove the “paperwork” which accompanies current stop and searches. Quite rightly most police officers dislike having to spend time filling in forms explaining who they have stopped and under what grounds the stop was carried out – however, by taking away that paperwork there is no longer any protection of the innocent person who has been subjected to police harassment.

I am sure that 99.9% of police officers are fine, upstanding members of the community and have no goal but the greater good of society. However, there are a lot of police officers so that 0.01% represents a lot of “bad eggs.” When these officers decide to stop people because of their skin colour, or their dress or whatever and continue to stop a minority of people there is (currently) a system in place where the citizen has a record of the stop and evidence of excessive stops can be presented to the authorities. Removing that removes a vital safeguard for both the public and the police officer.

Are the British people so ignorant of our recent history that we wilfully refuse to acknowledge any of its lessons? I could understand it if we were talking about issues which happened 500 years ago, but in my lifetime we have seen the problems caused by internment, lack of police accountability, criminalisation of a segment of society based on nothing but their religion (etc). Over the last 30 years we should have learned that this sort of thing encourages people to turn to violence to make themselves heard or to get “restitution” for police oppression (real or otherwise). Did we learn nothing from Londonderry, Toxteth, Brixton, Belfast…

As an answer we have this bit of madness (comment on the BBC have your say page) which encapsulates the “average British person” and their point of view (if the media is anything to go by):

Stop and search is necessary, whilst crime continues.

What we have in Britain is the lunatics running the assylum.
we have already given in to many of the lunatics request for leniency. and what has improved in the last 30 years ?
Nothing thats what.

Forget all the figures about the crime rate being down.
most crimes now go unreported.
In any society, we need control.
we cannot have unelected voices demanding a change in law.

If you cant stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.

No, it doesn’t make any sense to me either. Crime will be with us (and every other culture) for as long as humanity survives. Most crimes do not go unreported (prove they do and I will be impressed). The bit about changes to the law really threw me and I gave up on this genius. Sadly, this is a tone which you can find on nearly all the national newspapers and pretty much every Television channel. Will the politicians be swayed by this?

Metaphors choking Sam Harris’s thought

Posted on Tue, 29 January, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

* Insert tedious rant* This piece by Sam Harris was brought to my attention as being a hot topic on transhumanist sites. As far as I can make out, Harris is arguing for challenging nature’s limitations through the use of all available technology, including genetic modification.

His conclusion is:

Considering humanity as a whole, there is nothing about natural selection that suggests our optimal design. We are probably not even optimized for the Paleolithic, much less for life in the 21st century. And yet, we are now acquiring the tools that will enable us to attempt our own optimization. Many people think this project is fraught with risk. But is it riskier than doing nothing? There may be current threats to civilization that we cannot even perceive, much less resolve, at our current level of intelligence. Could any rational strategy be more dangerous than following the whims of Nature? This is not to say that our growing capacity to meddle with the human genome couldn’t present some moments of Faustian over-reach. But our fears on this front must be tempered by a sober understanding of how we got here. Mother Nature is not now, nor has she ever been, looking out for us.

Well yes and no. I am all for progressing humanity through any possible means. However, like some of the commenters (such as Diacanu) , I don’t put very much faith in our capacity to avoid making our existence worse, unless we can manage to evolve whole new ways of thinking and producing and consuming and relating to each other and fitting into our environment.

I was more struck by this piece as an example of how insidious religious ways of thinking can be. Sam Harris has been led by his own use of metaphors into drawing conclusions that depend on forgettiing that metaphors are just that.

Mother Nature is a metaphor. We pretty well all know this. There are currently almost no cults that really worship a female Nature deity, unlike the many cults that seriously worship a male sky-god-of-Abraham.

So, to say that Mother Nature is not our friend is obviously also a metaphor. There is no Mother Nature. So Mother Nature is not our invisible friend. Nor is Mother Nature our invisible enemy. Metaphors are fine for helping to enhance our understanding but they can easily develop a life of their own. That way lies religion …..

We are part of the natural world. We can’t pit a notional human development against a notional nature.

Harris says “there is nothing about natural selection that suggests our optimal design. We are probably not even optimized for the Paleolithic, much less for life in the 21st century.” This is well out of synch with my limited understanding of evolution. Evolution doesn’t optimise things, like some giant Intelligent Designer surely. So why fall into the stupid theist trap of seeing humans as facing external forces?

We aren’t “optimised” for anything or any era.. The Paleolithic era and the 21st century are not objective facts. They are human constructs, created to describe our cultural world at various stages of development.

We survived as species precisely as a result of being best equipped to win in the normal processes of natural selection. This includes the human capacities for communication and thinking that have allowed us to dominate the planet. We could hardly be more “optimised” for successful species survival. Well, unless we were rats or cockroaches.
Species can easily grow too populous for their environment then run out of the necessities for life support and become extinct. We are well past the point at which the earth can easily absorb our crap.

Tiger Woods’ golf swing (as referred to by Harris) is remarkable. Envying any gifted person their capacities to the point at which one feels that lacking their gifts is a disability is the road to madness. By all means, use technology to implant fantastic golf skills in your brain, if you want to, Sam (I would have to start by implanting an interest in golf in mine) but don’t put that enhancement in place of that part of the brain where the capacity for clear thought should be.

It’s not some external Nature that sets bounds on human development. Our development is a part of Nature – it shapes and is shaped by the rest of the natural world. We can only rely on human knowledge and intelligence to find ways to continue to prosper as a species without completely fucking it up.

More TV Diet gurus

Posted on Sat, 26 January, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

Dear Great Spirit, if you refuse to make me an employee of a major banking institution with a slapdash attitude to its assets, please make me a diet guru.

Someone with a cruel sense of humour prompted me to watch The Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses on the previously-unknown-to-me UK Style.

I’m sorry, I can’t do this sort of thing the justice it deserves. It’s almost off the scale of exploitative nonsense. The programme’s subjects expose their ailments, then (at best) get to drink wheatgrass, defer to wind spirits and throw their negativity away by dropping stones in a brook.

According to the website preview:

Run by leading British nutritionist Amanda Hamilton, the Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses aims to detoxify, rejuvenate and deal with the root cause of these afflictions, rather than simply mask them with quick and easy remedies.

If there are quick and easy remedies, wtf aren’t these people taking them?

Detox. Whenever I hear the detox word in combination with diet, I grind my teeth. These will soon be stubs, if the sort of poo that passes for a lifestyle programme on UK tv is anything to go by.

I used the “poo” word because I also saw another TV diet programme on Thursday, in which the “poo doctor” Gillian McKeith plays a minor role. No she’s definitely not a doctor – see Ben Goldacre’s BadScience )- nor even a medically qualified nutritionist, but she is well known for scrabbling through people’s shit on national tv.

This show had a 20-odd stone woman and a 6-stone woman teaching each other how to eat. They swap diets for a week and supposedly learn some lessons that will lead both of them to a more normal weight. What! Swap one disordered way of eating for another? This is a good idea?

“Too-thin” girl stuffs herself with fish fingers and snacks and “too-fat” woman lives for most of the day on a slice of lettuce. The thin girl suffers from the impossibility of taking in gargantuan amounts of food and the fat woman is constantly starving. At the end of the week, they’ve lost or gained weight… Well, duh.

Surely this unedifying story can’t teach anything about eating – unless the lesson is “you can lose weight if you stop eating and gain weight if you eat more”, in which case, how stupid are you, if you don’t already suspect that?

These programmes make spectacles out of the subjects, who are either completely naive or so desperate for their 5 minutes that they will happily bare their bodies and reveal their most embarassing problems to the whole nation. It’s not even as if they get rational solutions in return. They just become adverts for the peddlers of new age woo.

Which brings me to my This-Week’s-Favourite-Silly-Diet. I’ve heard of this froma few people recently. I even know of someone who spent £130 on a blood group diet profile. It’s based on your blood group. A review in Weight loss resources website describes the diet and its scientific basis quite succintly:

Follow a diet that’s designed specifically for your blood group and you’ll lose weight, feel healthier and lower your risk of many diseases. At least, that’s what Dr Peter D’Adamo, naturopath and creator of the Blood Type Diet claims in his book Eat Right For Your Blood Type. No wonder then, that it’s been a hit with Hollywood stars like Liz Hurley and Courtney Cox-Arquette, as well as closer-to-home celebrities, like Martine McCutcheon……
But while Martine might be a fan of the Blood Type Diet, most medical and nutrition experts aren’t…….
Medical experts universally agree that the theory is nonsense, and say there is absolutely no link between our blood group and the diet we eat.

Well celebs are so well known for their grasp of scientific nutrition, aren’t they? Speaking, personally, I wouldn’t dream of taking health advice from anyone who didn’t have at least a minor part in a UK soap. Or was at leastgoing out with a Premiere League footballer.

In a medical emergency, when no soap stars are available, I would accept the assistance of a tv “nutritionist.” But they would have to have their own line of high-cost novelty foods, as a bare minimum, and I would naturally prefer a televised record of dissecting human secretions.

Google this

Posted on Sat, 19 January, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

A University professor has made a successful bid for media coverage of a standard lecture by insulting Google. Google is “white bread for the mind”, according to Tara Brabazon, Professor of Media Studies at the University of Brighton, arguing that teachers should equip students with skills to process Internet information.

(She teaches Media Studies. Isn’t that supposed to be HER job?)

She believes that easy access to information has dulled students’ sense of curiosity and is stifling debate. She claims that many undergraduates arrive at university unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet. ……
We can no longer assume that students arrive at university, knowing what to read and knowing what standards are required of the material that they do read.”

“knowing what to read?” Well what should you read? What your teachers have told you?

Whole chunks of all education operate through teachers implicitly saying “Learn these facts. Because I say so.” Few teachers reward a challenging response from their students. “Challenging” has even become a euphemism for “irritating, dangerous, pain in the arse” in teacher- and social worker-speak.

The Internet opens up access to new potential information sources. Lots of teachers don’t like this precisely because their models of how to evaluate information are derived from accepting what they read in textbooks.

It’s not Google that panics University teachers. Anyone who can get any relevant information out of Google nowadays is probably already the best in their classes. It’s really Wikipedia. that annoys Universities Oh yes, here it is, in the Prof’s speech.

“Students live in an age of information, but what they lack is correct information. They turn to Wikipedia unquestioningly for information. Why wouldn’t they – it’s there,” she said.

Yes, indeed why wouldn’t they? It’s more factually correct than standard encyclopedias. It’s totally accessible. That’s what disturbs some teachers. (Including, I assume the Prof, unless she really is serious about teaching critical thinking….. In which case, Go Prof! Go Prof! etc)

Many are training their students for an imaginary academic career, as it would have been thirty years ago. They feel that students are workshy unless they put in the physical effort to search in libraries, pay large sums for course books and compete with other students for access to obscure library journals. Are these activities assumed to be “educational” by their very nature, just because the lecturers had to do them when they were students? Now, we have instant access to material from all over the world. Finding it quickly, judging its value and how it relates to other bits of information are the skills we need now.

Shouldn’t teachers reward students more for showing “thinking and questioning” skills than for proving they’ve read the text books and memorised a set of “facts”?

Accepted and memorised knowledge is crucial in some topics at some levels. (You can’t come up with alternate versions of the laws of thermodynamics or invent your own French word for ‘pen’) It is completely misguided in other subjects.

Inability to evaluate information isn’t just a problem for University students or for Internet sources. We are all pretty bad at it.

School students need to be specifically encouraged to dispute the sources and content of information, including the books they have been told to read. Training people to accept authority without questioning it encourages people to accept the words of ministers, priests, imams, kool-aid distributors, politicians, press, television, Fox news, gossip magazines, Answers in Genesis, Holy Books x,y & z, psychic detectives, fake nutritionists, fake childcare experts, wifi-cure salespeople and a bazillion other sources of bullcrap.

Morals without God?

Posted on Sat, 19 January, 2008 by ATGW

Christians can’t help themselves. They really can’t. In a world where science is progressing day in and day out, they are stuck with the other bronze age religions, languishing in a pit that their invisible friend will never left them out of. It is easy to see why, then, that Christians are happy to tolerate all other forms of religion (no matter how at odds with their own one-true-god they may be) but save the real damnation for Atheists.

Writing in the Times yesterday, the Rev Dr Peter Mullen (“Chaplain to the Stock Exchange” ffs) opened up with an attack on atheism that is so old and worn it is shocking anyone still tries it. It is shocking to people who are capable of learning, so it is actually less shocking that the theists demonstrate the complete inability to develop their thoughts…

Reading the article, I honestly think Dr Mullen lives in some bizarro world where he is scared the evil Atheists will climb into his bedroom and torture him for being a man of God (*). He begins his scare piece with drivel:

Far worse than the threat from international terrorism is the aggressive process of secularisation that has gripped our country, and most of Europe, and which is becoming ever more frenzied.

Erm, no. Appeal to fear noted and from there it just becomes nonsense and lies. Remember, lies make baby Jesus cry… This is actually the most sense you get from the madman so I can only assume the Times gave him space to rouse the rabble into responding. Well done The Times.

For example, I guess not many people are aware that it is against the law for state schools to teach the Christian faith as true. Teachers are allowed only to teach about religions. This is atheism by decree, for the only perspective from which one can teach about all religions is the secular perspective.

Wow. It really does make your eyes water as you try to follow this logic. But, Dr Mullen has made his point. I am offended that State Schools can not teach the truth of Odin, Thor, the Bifrost Bridge and Ragnarok. How dare they not teach the traditional religion of this nation…

“Atheism by decree” – what nonsense. I am amazed that clerics and theologians feel their belief is so fragile that unless children are completely, and continually, brainwashed they will stray to the Evil Atheism. Just goes to show that deep down they are all aware their crap is just crap and given time to think even children will realise this.

From this bad start, Dr Mullen goes on to talk about homosexuality and abortion with equal measures of idiocy and nonsense. There is nothing new, just the shameful regurgitation of old nonsense, vitriol, hatred and scare-mongering. The latter is something which appears to be a theme in Dr Mullen’s whole article. Basically he is trying to frighten people into the church. What a kind and nice deity these Christians worship.

Last point, as well as being the Stock Exchange’s chaplain, Dr Mullen is also the Rector of the Parish Church of St Michaels, Cornhill. If you thought his writing seems to be odd for a UK Anglican and felt more American Baptist, a clue may be in the Church’s webpage: (emphasis mine)

We are traditional Church of England – real Anglicans. We use the Authorised (King James) version of the Bible (1611) and the Book of Common Prayer (1662).

Hmm. Makes you wonder…

—

(*) Interesting: given that Jesus sacrificed himself for others, isn’t it strange how many Christians are happy to sacrifice others for themselves…

Emailing a Myth

Posted on Sat, 19 January, 2008 by ATGW

Quite regularly, well-meaning friends of mine will “pass on” an email that claims to be trying to get people “British again” or some similar bit of nonsense. Normally these are along the lines of a heroic soldier, suffering for God and country and I am sure most people have had exposure to them in some shape or form. This is doubly ironic because, 9.9999 times out of 10, these emails are actually written by and for Americans (clue is often in the spelling or claims the country was founded on Christian principles) and they are invariably tipped towards a religious argument. These supposed friends of mine are more than slightly aware of my position on both the Americanisation of the UK and religious beliefs. Still they send the emails…

Anyway, today I got one which bucked the trend slightly. It weirdly manages to hide the merest kernels of truth in a whole package of myths, but then I suppose that is the goal. I assume that who ever went to the trouble to make up these bits of nonsense are trying to stir jingoistic pride in something which never existed.

The most recent of these is weird because it isn’t about the UK or the US as such. This time Australia is the source of cultural wisdom. Titled “Britain Needs A Leader Like This!,” the email goes on to explain why “Prime Minister John Howard – Australia” is a great national leader. As you can imagine, it is crying out for a point by point dissection…

Muslims who want to live under Islamic Sharia law were told on Wednesday to get out of Australia , as the government targeted radicals in a bid to head off potential terror attacks.

Separately, Howard angered some Australian Muslims on Wednesday by saying he supported spy agencies monitoring the nation’s mosques. Quote: ‘IMMIGRANTS, NOT AUSTRALIANS, MUST ADAPT. Take It Or Leave It. I am tired of this nation worrying about whether we are offending some individual or their culture.. Since the terrorist attacks on Bali , we have experienced a surge in patriotism by the majority of Australians.’

Ok, while not a real quote it hints at a line taken by John Howard. Oddly this pretty much dates the message to February 2006, so we get the first hint that this is just nonsense that has been running round the internet like a ghost in the machine.

‘This culture has been developed over two centuries of struggles, trials and victories by millions of men and women who have sought freedom

Wowser. This is good. Again, I can find no evidence it was actually stated by John Howard, so I now suspect this is the opening line from the emails actual author.

It is nice how this glosses over how the Australians “sought” freedom – I am sure the aboriginal tribes will have a different concept of “victories” and certainly a different idea of what freedom means.

‘We speak mainly ENGLISH, not Spanish, Lebanese, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, or any other language. Therefore, if you wish to become part of our society . Learn the language!’

Again, this seems to be more an American worry than an Australian one. I never realised Spanish and Lebanese were significant languages down under. Even if it is genuine Australian it has two big flaws that are often overlooked by bigots.

First off, “mainly” is an important qualifier. Yes, English may be the language spoken more than any one other language but how does that reflect on the sum totals of other languages? Why, in such a vitriolic hate filled speech would you put a weasel word like “mainly” in? Secondly, but more importantly, what to the actual natives of the island of Australia think about this? What about their language and culture? Oh yeah, they don’t count because this Australia is one nation under God…

‘Most Australians believe in God. This is not some Christian, right wing, political push, but a fact, because Christian men and women, on Christian principles, founded this nation, and this is clearly documented. It is certainly appropriate to display it on the walls of our schools. If God offends you, then I suggest you consider another part of the world as your new home, because God is part of our culture.’

Even more crap with a side order of bad history. Australia was not founded on Christian principles. The founding of Australia is clearly documented. The real history of Australia admits no “founders” to speak of and is a fascinating bit of reading. It really is. Spoiling it with this revisionist nonsense is a shame and a lie. And we all know that not only is lying for Jesus a sin, but lies make baby Jesus cry. So Hermes only knows why the obvious Christian who wrote this nonsense felt the need to lie so much.

‘We will accept your beliefs, and will not question why. All we ask is that you accept ours, and live in harmony and peaceful enjoyment with us.’

Hmm. “We will accept your beliefs” as long as they are the same as ours is what the email is basically saying.

‘This is OUR COUNTRY, OUR LAND, and OUR LIFESTYLE, and we will allow you every opportunity to enjoy all this. But once you are done complaining, whining, and griping about Our Flag, Our Pledge, Our Christian beliefs, or Our Way of Life, I highly encourage you take advantage of one other great Australian freedom,
“THE RIGHT TO LEAVE”.’

Well, this is looking very un-Australian. “Our Flag” and “Our Pledge” scream out American to me, but I might be wrong. Now, if only we could get the aboriginal natives to apply this with precedence as being the real inhabitants of the country. If we assume for one second that this really is a true Australian view point, it becomes interesting how nations which came to be by systematically exterminating the local inhabitants are the most vocal when it comes to claiming rightful ownership of their land. Is it because they are scared others will do unto them as they did to others?

‘If you aren’t happy here then LEAVE. We didn’t force you to come here. You asked to be here. So accept the country YOU accepted.’

More irony about prison colonies…

Maybe if we circulate this amongst ourselves, British citizens will find the backbone to start speaking and voicing the same truths.

Here we go. Does a collection of badly written lies and myths give people backbone? When the original author speaks of “British Citizens” does s/he just mean the white ones? What about the vast diversity of cultures who have CITIZENSHIP in the UK? Don’t they count any more?

If you agree please SEND THIS ON

I don’t so I didn’t send it on. If who ever emailed this to me is reading this – “you are an idiot – learn to spot nonsense.” If you are reading this and you have forwarded this message (or any of the similar bits of crap) on, then you are also an idiot – please stop.

P.S I think this also goes for us when going to other countries as well!

I wonder if this PS was part of the original.

Another rambling rant

Posted on Tue, 15 January, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

The Internet is obviously trying to become art rather than a sentient being (pace Kurzweil). It has taken to subverting preconceived notions of what it is. Mainly, so far it is just managing to refuse to be what you expect it to (like Firestats disintegration on this blog, the ongoing refusal of the Atheist Blogroll to notice more than 1 in 5 posts, Technorati’s deciding that links from the blogroll don’t provide authority – all topics already done to death here.)

But today, I noticed WordPress has started redefining what it puts in its list of “recent blog posts that link here” and listing posts that don’t link here. But are worth linking to. (And should have been read before, my bad.). Go figure….

Archeoastronomy has a really good post on Post-modernist Scepticism, sparked by another post – Happy Jihad on postmodernist “thought.” HJHop believes the humanities can be rescued from postmodernist bull. I would hope this is possible.

Has anyone ever tried to read Baudrillard ffs? Your head spins as you try to reconcile the fact that words from the dictionary are joined together using familiar syntax with the equally obvious fact that you can’t extract any meaning from the sentences.

The opposite side of the cultural studies coin is Umberto Eco, who has written brilliant deconstructions of things like wrestling as well as a novel that managed to be accessible at the same time as deeply thought-provoking on a dozen levels. (Name of The Rose.)

I think I am trying to say that I don’t know what post-modernism is in the humanities. As Alun pointed out, it’s a concept that only works in the visual arts, where modernism is a recognisable style. And even in the visual arts, it’s not exactly easy to identify, as the sort of pastiche we associate with post-modernism can just as validly be seen as a recent variant of modernism.

And it really does fall to bits in the humanities, if, as Alun suggests, it’s largely a matter of dumping the Enlightenment project and seeing pretty well nigh everything as culturally valid.

I suppose we can blame the cheese-eating surrender-monkeys for a lot of the postmodernist crap. (Sorry to any pragmatic French people. Just joking) Claude Levi-Strauss produced some beautiful social anthropology (with a few glaring misunderstandings) but his attempts at deconstruction turned out to be too seductive a model for a lot of French writers.

English speakers tend to expect not to understand French thought but to admire its intellectualism, to the point of assuming that it must be superior to our own earthbound efforts (Think Sartre compared to Bertrand Russell, as mid-20th century philosophers.) When you see the dog’s breakfast that some English-speaking writers can make when they stray into the realm of cultural interpretation, you can indeed see why.

In case you are wondering what the point of this post is (as am I) I think it’s to suggest that you read the Archaeoastronomy and HJHop posts. Plus, I am putting forward Umberto Eco as (sometimes) a model of what a sceptical and non-shallow humanities sensibility might look like. (With a nod to Levi-Strauss and a hat-tip to some British cultural studies writers – Stuart Hall, Mary Douglas, for instance) And the Wire, of course. Always the Wire.

Oh, the humanity.

We are suckers

Posted on Mon, 14 January, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

People enjoy wine more if they believe it costs more, according to a California Institute of Technology experiment that was widely reported today. The BBC put this politely as having shown that people enjoyed the supposedly more expensive wine more.

This wasn’t just due to people pretending to have a more sophisticated palate, either, as it was observed on brain scans that “pleasure centres” in the brain were more activated.

If the pop science reports are right, this was a very elegant experiment, so simple and easy to repeat, but suggesting so many wider avenues for investigation beyond the taste of wines..

It’s an illuminating reminder that so many of our pleasures are experienced only because of the value that others put on things. There is no simple nature-culture divide. We perceive what other people have allowed us to perceive. We value things that we are led to see as valuable – obviously making us suckers for advertising, as well as eager consumers of a whole range of cultural fables and moral values. Social values are somehow integrated into our biology.

Brands for the eater of souls

Posted on Sun, 13 January, 2008 by Polly Unsaturate

Libby Purvis pointed out in the Times religion blog that baptising kids to get into a specific school isn’t the irrelevant ritual that many parents imagine it to be.

OK, obviously it is an irrelevant ritual. But it’s a big deal to the Catholic Church. The Vatican page that Libby Purvis linked to is a mite chilling. It makes a lot of contradictory claims. The unbaptised have to go straight to hell without collecting their free pass. Except, if they are really small, Jesus will probably feel sorry for them….

Otherwise, the unbaptised can basically only go straight to heaven if they die doing some noble Christian work. This is called the “Baptism of Blood.” It sounds so much like a Goth band that I want to learn to play the guitar right now, just so that I can put the name on a street poster, in dripping red letters on black…..

I am getting a strong whiff of the abbattoir in “god’s purpose” for humanity, the thing that religious folk keep banging on about. Fresh meat seems to be the answer. You can’t have baptism removed. It’s like a cattle-brand n your soul.

Some soul eater needs to know if you count in heaven as the spiritual equivalent of “halal” or “kosher”. What with the Baptism of Blood image, as well. And believers being the Churches “flock.” Didn’t Jesus claim to be a Fisher of men? These are pretty blatant admissions of an agricultural purpose for humanity, methinks.

The National Secular Society produces a de-baptism certificate that you can download. It appears that you can get declared not a Catholic but you can’t undo the historical fact of having been baptised. The Church of England (Episcopalian?) is also unwilling to strike names from its register of baptisms, on the evidence of a letter from Chris Taylor.

I emailed the diocese where I was dunked many years ago asking if I could be struck from the record as I have always thought it to be a load of old rubbish and said that if my parents had given me the choice of going through some sort of black magic voodoo ceremony performed by a probable child abuser in a dress I would, even at the age of 6 months, have said thanks but no thanks. I received a reply telling me that there was nothing that I could do about it.

Well, if your destiny is being earmarked for some spiritual being’s special dinner on 6th November 2058, once you are on the menu, you’ve had it…

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Why Dont You Blog?

Challenging the Zeitgeist

Category Archives: Philosophy

It is all for your own good…

Government pioneering new art form

What would Jesus eat?

Archbishop gives up using brain for Lent

The “atheist gods” delusion

Thoughtless Blaspheming

More laws please, we’re British

Metaphors choking Sam Harris’s thought

More TV Diet gurus

Google this

Morals without God?

Emailing a Myth

Another rambling rant

We are suckers

Brands for the eater of souls

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