Climate change and politics

An open letter to Senator Fielding, the man who supports climate sceptics and willingly gives them an open platform, from Will Steffan, the leading ANU climate scientist and one of the Australian delegates at the Copenhagen talks.

Well worth reading for both tone and information.

http://www.crikey.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/ltr-senator-fielding-22-july-09.pdf

This is so sad.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/05/2590294.htm

For those who don't know about homeopathy, it's a belief that water retains memory. So you can place a medical substance in water, dilute it millions of times until it's basically just water again and prescribe it as 'alternative medicine'. Practitioners depend on anecdotal (rather than experimental) evidence and the few attempts to gain scientific credibility through proper peer reviewed, experimental testing has failed miserably as no evidence has EVER been found that it actually works.

The process by which homeopathic 'medicine' (and I am loathe to use that term) is created is called potentization, which involves diluting and shaking the container - there are special implements they use to do this. They have a 'scale' for dilution. All this adds to the percieved credibility of homeopathy (although to me it smacks of showmanship rather than science).

And despite all this, homeopaths continue to argue that they have scientific validity (often falling back to arguing the 'placebo' effect, which kind of suggests that they are knowingly selling things that don't do what they say they will) and are supported by health funds like NIB.

And it hurts people. Read this story and remember it. Please, please, please don't put your faith in this rubbish. I hate seeing what it does to people.

Poor Simon

Am reading about the libel case in the UK against the British Chiropractic Association... and while on the one hand, it's a pretty awful story, on the other it's made me realise the wealth of information and expertise that people are willing to put on blogs and lend to others, which is kind of cool. It's a whole other universe out there people! Web worlds colliding.

'False' Science Hurts People

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/23/2550810.htm

Wow.

I've always considered myself a fairly open minded and liberal person. I don't mind what people do generally, as long as they aren't hurting others... like in this story. This is a pretty damn clear case of someone selling false hope to incredibly vulnerable people, something that is pretty close to unforgiveable in my books.

There are lots of opportunities and ways that people sell hope - most natural remedies rely heavily on the placebo effect and it can be an incredibly powerful tool for motivation and healing - but sometimes this hope can come at a very steep cost. In our society, that cost is often financial (homeopaths, who believe that water retains memories of what was in it despite a number of scientific papers to the contrary, and can therefore sell 'medicalised water' to those with too much money are an excellent example) but in this case, and whenever vulnerable people are looking for help or answers, that cost could be health, family or lifestyle.

Take the case of HIV medication - Ben Goldman has done some great research on the impact that vitamen salesman Matthais Rath has had on addressing the massive health problem that HIV poses in South Africa - check out http://www.badscience.net/2009/04/matthias-rath-steal-this-chapter/

I could say more. I think I need to think about it all a bit more and provide a more cohesive arguement agains bloody naturopaths and homeopaths - except to say that if it worked as well as they say it does, we'd all be using it because it wouldn't be called 'alternative medicine.' It would be called 'medicine'.