Enemies of Reason Part 2

or as it could have been subtitled "Shooting fish in a barrel". Joy's to be had in watching someone explaining DNA to an evolutionary biologist oh and 'fixing his DNA by closing their eyes taking a deep breath and waving there hands languidly towards them. Wow scrap the millions of pounds in research all it takes is an effort of will.

Listening to a qualified GP explaining that perhaps chakras are black holes contained within our bodies. So how did they get there, do animals possess them too, why don't they expand and eat us? Meh.

And finally finding out that the NHS is funding a homoeopathy unit, which has got to be the biggest crock in ever. The theory itself is based on like cures like, that's not too bad if you consider inoculations take the form of infecting you with a weak or mild strain of the thing you're trying to prevent; except it's not quite that - they're talking symptoms over cause.

If a substance causes diarrhoea then taking a weak dose can cure it. Right so arsenic in large doses is fatal so in small doses it's an immortality drug? I don't think so. On the other hand it might be true for some substances and that's where proper tests come into play - nope we won't be having any of those thank you very much.

It gets better though, as you require a weak dose of the substance it's best to dilute it except this is where things get more odd. Homoeopathy states that the more a substance is diluted the more effective it is, in fact they dilute it so much that often no trace of the original substance is contained within the solution. so this cures you how? Oh that's obvious water (the dilution agent) has a memory, it remembers that it once had the active substance in it and that affects its structure.

So why bother paying for a solution to be made up when you could simply drink some water out of a tap, chances are that at some point it's come into contact with every possible substance on the homoeopaths list of cures and thus will retain that memory of contact. Is it somehow more effective if you create the water from its constituent parts add substance and dilute?

A joke I came across somewhere had a scientist looking at a homoeopathic remedy for headaches 'For normal headaches take one teaspoon, for severe headaches take two' he pointed out that according to the theory shouldn't he be taking less if it's more severe.

Anyway the NHS is funding this nonsense based on zero scientific evidence, oh no wait the doctor in charge said they had carried out tests; then said they hadn't. "But you just said you had test results?" "Well we did some tests and they did show some effectiveness in patients" "and the control group?" "We didn't have one". Okay so not a test then, good to see our money being spent in such a careful manner.

As I said at the beginning fish in a barrel.

The ony problem I have is Dawkins' conviction that science is the best way of doing things; I can't argue pure and proper science works; except it's carried out by people and people make mistakes or have their own biases.

Peer-review is supposed to act as a damper, but even then you have a problem in herd or majority behaviour. After all in order to act as a peer reviewer you have to know the subject, and if you're reviewing a paper it might be considered only human that you subject a paper that contradicts your own learnings to a higher degree of scrutiny then one that confirms everything you know.

The same goes for the initial research of an area, which could become subject to what I call the "EU referendum law" you keep doing it over and over again in various ways until you get the result you want. Get a group of scientists that don't give you the results you fire them or cut their budget; then fund a new group. You ever want to be hired or to continue to receive funding again you soon learn to produce the required results and as I hope I've shown in previous entries with statistics that can be really easy to do.

Dawkins himself mentions the autism and MMR jab scare, which when looked at closely turned out to be incorrect; but most of us don't have the scientific background to do that - we have to take it on 'faith' that all the procedures and tests have been done before the information is made public.

As a result it correct and proper to negatively criticise these beliefs and teachings, but a degree of scepticism has to be reserved for scientific research too.