Good News!

Good news!  The Lancet has retracted Dr Andrew Wakefield’s paper linking the MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine with autism and bowel disorders.  This is not before time; the damage done by this particular paper in a journal as respected as The Lancet has been enourmous.  The journal has admitted that it should never have published the flawed research in the first place, which implies that in this case there was a failure of the peer-review process and that steps should be taken to avoid a repetition of that failure.

The retraction of the paper was not a spontaneous decision to do the right thing on the part of The Lancet, however.  It came in response to an editorial in the rival British Medical Journal that was to have been published today calling for its retraction.  One hopes that The Lancet will be more careful in future.

The vaccine-autism debate has raised a lot of issues that now need to be ingested, digested, mulled over and taken into the public conciousness.  As with all scientific subjects that become politicised, this one has raised questions about the quality of scientific journalism, the lack of science education and the inability of the public to understand, even in the most superficial way, the scientific process.

Firstly, there is a profound misunderstanding of the very nature of science.  The man in the street seems to be under the misapprehension that science consists of “proving”  things.  We only need one exception to disprove a rule, but in order to prove a rule we must prove it for every case, which is usually impossible to do.  So when a paper appears in a medical journal statistically linking autism with vaccines, newspapers immediately run headlines like “VACCINES CAUSE AUTISM, STUDY SHOWS”, even if the original paper made no such claim.  The fact is that science very rarely proves anything—that is the sphere of mathematics.  Science can only pile up evidence in the form of data that may or may not support a particular hypothesis.  In this case almost all the non-fabricated evidence did not support the hypothesis that vaccines cause autism.

So why the statistical link?  Well, there are other explanations than that vaccines cause autism.  The age at which the diagnosis of autism can be made is about the same age as the MMR vaccine is administered.  A parent who has his child vaccinated and then the child is diagnosed as autistic a few weeks or months later may be forgiven for thinking that the latter may be caused by the former.  But, as we all should know, correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Why has the incidence of autism been increasing as vaccination has become more widespread?  Again, there are other factors that may be at work.  The diagnostic criteria for autism have changed: a child who may, a few decades ago, have been regarded as merely shy may today be diagnosed as autistic.  The anti-vaccination factions originally blamed Thimeresol (which was used a preservative in the vaccine) for causing autism.  Thimeresol was duly removed wihout having any affect on the incidence of autism, strong evidence that it was not a cause of autism.

There is strong psychological need for people to aportion blame for any misfortune that may befall them, so parents grasped at the vaccine explanation as a drowning sailor would clutch upon a passing liferaft.  I sympathise with such parents, but their actions have consequences among the wider community.  Once a sufficient proportion of the population are vaccinated against a particular disease, the pathogen can no longer be propagated and the population as a whole develops “herd immunity”, even those who for other reasons (allergies, for example) cannot be vaccinated.  When parents decide not to vaccinate their children they put herd immunity in jeopardy, which places all unvaccinated children at risk, not just their own.

Will The Lancet’s decision have any effect on the anti-vaccination lobby?  Probably not for the die-hards—their minds are incapable of change.  It will have an effect on the medical fraternity, though, and those doctors who are advising their patients not to vaccinate their children may undergo a change of heart.  We can only hope that the anti-vaccination lobby becomes a part of the lunatic fringe like the moon-landing-hoax crowd: not taken seriously by anyone with any vestige of sanity.

Grumpy Old Man by Mark Widdicombe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

The Faking of Pelham 1-2-3

WARNING! If you intend seeing the Hollywood nonsense entitled “The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3” do not read further—this post contains spoilers and was produced in a household containing nuts.

I’m willing to suspend my disbelief in order to be entertained, but the Hollywood producers, scriptwriters and directors have to make it at least possible, if not easy, to do. The so-called plot of this ridiculous movie fails utterly to do that. I can only assume that they think no one will notice the implausibility of their offering.

Stated baldly, it actually isn’t that bad: gang of crooks hijack subway train, take hostages, demand ransom, have bold getaway plan. It’s quite hard to mess that up, but the writer (Brian Helgeland) and the director (Tony Scott) have succeeded brilliantly in doing just that.

The crooks demand 10 million dollars for the safe release of the hostages. Now 10 million dollars is not an inconsiderable sum of money, but it obviously just didn’t sound like enough to the movie makers, so they concocted a far-fetched sub-plot in which the hijacking of the train was, by some unexplained mechanism, supposed to make the stock market collapse and the gold price go through the roof. The crooks would make a further fortune by exercising put options on the former and presumably selling the latter. One of the problems I have with this is that the movie was made long after the 11/9 (yes, I do insist on putting the day first) terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre which despite its horrifying ferocity did not do to the markets what the perpetrators of this awful movie would have us believe a mere train hijacking would do.

The chief crook is played by John Travolta. Apart from his membership of an absurd cult, he is in contention, along with cricketer Graeme Smith, for the most punchable face on screen. If I were to meet either of these people in the flesh I would probably end up either in prison or hospital because I would not be able to resist putting my fist through their fatuous features. However, my propensity for unprovoked violence is not apropos; the almost bovine stupidity with which Muffin Face (Travolta, I can’t remember his screen name) goes about screwing up his crime is.

Had he worn a striped jersey, Zorro mask and demanded the ransom money be delivered in a sack clearly labeled “SWAG” he would not have been caught any quicker. This pea-brain allowed all the hostages to see his nauseating face, he left his fingerprints all over the train, he yacked non-stop over the radio to the hero of the piece like a housewife with her tits balanced on her neighbour’s garden fence–in short he is possibly the most incompetent crook in cinematic history, but his getaway plan could have redeemed him had he carried it out properly.

The gang were to reach the basement of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel through a disused subway tunnel. This they did, but they hadn’t properly thought out what they should do after they had successfully arrived at the hotel, so they walked out the front door with, unbelievably, the money still in the cases the cops had provided. How dumb is that? What would you have done?

I would have booked two rooms in advance at the hotel, one in my own name and one not. I would have hired an oke to check in in my name with a couple of empty suitcases. He would leave the empty suitcases in the decoy room, then proceed to the other where he would order a room service meal while the hijacking was in progress, giving me a solid alibi. On arrival at the hotel, I would go up to the first room and transfer the money to the empty suitcases, then go to the second room with the money in the suitcases, leaving the original bags in the first room. The oke would then leave, and I would wait until the heat was off, then depart for the airport and a comfortable life somewhere warm. The end of the movie would go something like this:

INT. DAY
A PLUSH HALLWAY IN THE WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL.

COP 1

Freeze!

OKE (FROZEN)

Don’t shoot! I haven’t done anything!

COP 1

What kinda weird talk is that?

COP 2

I think he’s trying to say he aint done
nuffink.

COP 1

That so, bud? Where you coming from?

OKE

I’ve been having a business breakfast
with a client. Room 1124.

COP 2 (PUTTING HIS GUN AWAY)

Yeah, OK. We just spoke to that dude.
Sorry to have inconvenienced you. Have
a nice day.

OKE

That’s most kind of you, officer,
but I’ve already made other plans.

FADE OUT

FADE IN:

EXT. DAY

THE TAXI RANK OUTSIDE THE WALDORF-ASTORIA HOTEL. MUFFIN FACE (TRAVOLTA) SUPERVISES THE STOWAGE OF HIS GUCCI BAGGAGE IN A YELLOW CAB’S BOOT (OK, TRUNK FOR FUCK’S SAKE). HE CLIMBS INTO THE REAR SEAT AND THE DOOR IS CLOSED BY THE HOTEL’S LIVERIED DOORMAN. ROLL CLOSING CREDITS AS THE CAB DRIVES OFF WITH MUFFIN FACE SMIRKING TRIUMPHANTLY THROUGH THE BACK WINDOW.

Grumpy Old Man by Mark Widdicombe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

Drug Laws

Scallywag (who lights my darkness) enjoys the occasional herbal cigarette which she smokes in the evening.  Then, with slavering jaws and flashing teeth, she mows a great swathe through our household economy, necessitating an emergency midweek visit to the supermarket to replenish stocks of bread, eggs and dog pellets.  But, apart from giving her an appetite that would be the envy of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal, her habit does no harm whatsoever to anyone except perhaps herself.

Yet if it reached the ears of the authorities that she she was partaking of this harmless substance she could be siezed by the rozzers and hurled, with the lowest thieves, perverts and murderers into the darkest dungeons Pollsmoor has to offer.  As sceptics we (rightly) rail against the absurdities of religion, quackery and pseudoscience wherever we encounter them; should we not also shine the light of reason onto the absurdities that make their home in the statute books of our country?

I challenge anyone to give me a rational reason why the mere possession of cannabis should be a criminal act, but alcohol and tobacco, which are arguably more harmful substances,  are legally available everywhere.

But the point is not the harmfulness of the substance—there is a more important principle to consider.  Governments are constituted to protect the individual’s rights from being infringed by others; that is the social contract.  It is a principal that no law should be passed that protects an individual against himself, because that is the foundation of the “nanny state” under which individual freedom is impossible.  If an individual wishes to smoke whacky weed, snort cocaine or shoot his veins full of heroin he should be permitted to do so, provided he does no harm to others by so doing.  Having dealt with the principle let’s move on to practicalities.

“But Mark,” you say, “what about the medical bills we the taxpayers have to foot when these junkies destroy their health?”  If the drugs were legal they could be taxed as are alcohol and tobacco now, and the taxes thus collected would be more than sufficient to offset any additional public health expenditure.

The illegal drug market is demand driven, and prices bear almost no relation to the amount it costs to produce and distribute them.  There is a huge risk premium built in because the distributers (criminals) risk imprisonment if they are caught.  Legalizing drugs would take the market out of the hands of gangsters and place it in the hands of entrepeneurs where it can be easily regulated.  Drug users would be able to rely on consistent quality and acurate doses at a far lower price than they are currently paying.

Which brings us to the question of crime.  The entire industry is controlled by organised criminal networks and the users themselves are often forced to indulge in crime in order to pay the exorbitant prices demanded by the gangs.  Were the products to be legalized, one of the props supporting organised crime would be be neatly amputated, and an all-round reduction in crime could be expected.  Government (disorganised crime) would receive a revenue boost that would be of benefit to ordinary taxpayers whether or not they are drug users.  Over 1,5 million people are arrested in the USA every year for drug offenses, most of which are trivial.  Imagine the reduction in crime that would be possible if the resources wasted on drug enforcement were to be diverted to combatting real crime.

Grumpy Old Man by Mark Widdicombe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

Private Bitch

Privacy no longer exists. With cheap data storage and lightning fast computer processing private companies and government agencies are able to assemble dossiers on you whose details, were you aware of them, would make your eyebrows curl. Every time you shop using a credit or store card the details of your purchase are recorded against your name for use in targeted advertising, or anything else the diabolical retailer mind can think of. If you visit iffy websites don’t do it while you’re logged into any of your Google accounts (Gmail, Google apps, Google Wave &c) or the web addresses will be recorded against your name by Google. Yes, they have a “privacy policy” which says they won’t divulge the details to anyone else unless they are asked for them by the rozzers or anyone else, really.

This may sound paranoid, but you cannot assume anything is private. When you are talking to someone on the telephone you have to assume your conversation is being monitored (ask Prince Charles if you don’t believe me). Your emails are subject to audit by your ISP and any government agency that asks for them. Every time you leave your home you are likely to be watched on security cameras and your voice is recorded every time you ring a call centre.

What really astounds me, though, is that people don’t care. They hand over all their details without turning a hair. I recently wanted to move my cell phone contract from one service provider to another. I couldn’t believe my ears when they asked for three months’ bank statements. Er, excuse me, bank statements are confidential information. Even (especially) my wife doesn’t have access to them, why should I give them to a bunch of strangers?

I am part owner of a small business and on occasion I trot around the neighbourhood putting advertising flyers in mailboxes. (Yes, I am one of those annoying people. If you don’t wish to know of the enormous benefits that could be yours for a very reasonable price were you to become one of my happy customers, all you need do is put a notice on your mailbox reading “No Junk Mail” and that will be respected, even though I don’t regard my flyers as junk.) What amazes me is that so few people secure their mailbox in any way. I see boxes stuffed with bills, credit card statements, tax assessments and so on all conveniently available for the taking by anyone who wants to steal your identity. People just don’t seem to realize that information is a valuable commodity.

And what about all those forms we have to fill in all the time if we want to get anything done? All want impertinent information. Why should I supply my date of birth in order to purchase a CD online? My policy is to leave out information that is not required, and to lie about anything that is required but not essential to the transaction. I have a second email address for “junk” transactions; my “real” email address is given only to family and friends. I use false names wherever possible (Margaret Thatcher is one of my favourites), fake phone numbers and addresses and if they come up with “This field is required” in something that really isn’t any of their business, I fill in “None of your fucking business”.

I’m seriously considering getting myself a second identity (I may steal it from you), building up a collection of false beards and moving to my own private island staffed with robots (the one Scaramanga had in the James Bond movie would be ideal) and opting out of the plexiglass world.

Grumpy Old Man by Mark Widdicombe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.

Quotes

It used to be common for people to keep “commonplace books”, or collections of quotes garnered from books they had read. I’ve been doing this on and off for a while, and have collected some great quotes. Some are funny, some serious, but all are pithy and worth reading. Here is a selection of the best.

She’s like a woman, hard to manoeuvre, beautiful to behold, proud to be of service, but impossible to dominate.
Taki

Toward the end of minute five I searched my spiritual inbox for new messages and found only a feeling of faint surprise that looking at a picture can make one seasick.
Mary Wakefield

‘pestilent with English — a parcel of staring boobies, who go about gaping and wishing to be both cheap and magnificent. A man is a fool now who travels in France or Italy, till this tribe of wretches is swept home again.’
Byron

The condition of the free man is that he does not live for the benefit of others
Aristotle

I’m looking forward to a forthcoming Outreach Alignment Conference, where I intend to fully leverage all my synergies in a generally empowering way, retaining focus all the while as I interface (never talk) with colleagues in this strategic capacity-building programme.
Justin Marozzi

Last Christmas you were kind enough to carry an article in which I opined that reports of a massive Aids pandemic in Africa appeared to be exaggerated. I have since been accused of incest, homosexual tendencies, sexual perversion, incompetence, murder, ‘carbuncular’ practices, a secret alliance with President Thabo Mbeki, drinking too much, taking drugs and smelling bad.
Riaan Malan

We desire many things which it is not in our power to achieve: that we should be universally popular and admired, that our work should be the wonder of the age, and that the universe should be so ordered as to bring ultimate happiness to all, though not to our enemies until they have repented and been purified by suffering.
Bertrand Russell (Analysis of Mind)

There is nothing evil or degrading in believing oneself a teapot, but it argues a certain inaccuracy of the thought processes.
P. G. Wodehouse (The Coming of Bill)

The only point of interest is the men’s 100-metre final, a race between eight drug addicts to decide who has the best apothecary.
Lloyd Evans

I know a bit about dogs. It’s a single boast that lends relief to an otherwise unremitting inferiority complex.
Jeremy Clark

O men of infinite resource and sagacity, verily is it a cold day when you get left behind. Forge ahead.
P. G. Wodehouse (The Gold Bat)

A retired Scottish schoolmaster sends me his learned contribution to the debate in this column about the use of ‘may’ and ‘might’. Using the example cited by Philip Pullman of the difference between ‘Napoleon may have had homosexual tendencies’ and ‘Wellington might have avoided the Battle of Waterloo’, he writes that the difference ‘is, in effect what we Classicists call the principal clause (apodosis) of an unfulfilled past conditional sentence, with the omission/ suppression of the If clause (called the protasis)’. I think this should be the last word on the subject.
Charles Moore

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities — but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome.
Winston Churchill The River War, p. 248-50, (1899)

What is the true and original root of Dutch aversion to British rule? It is the abiding fear and hatred of the movement that seeks to place the native on a level with the white man … the Kaffir is to be declared the brother of the European, to be constituted his legal equal, to be armed with political rights.
Winston Churchill London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900)

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.
Thomas Edison

…nature requires that we should be able, not only to work well, but use leisure well; for, as I must repeat once again, the first principle of all action is leisure, but leisure is better than work and is its end.
Aristotle. Politics. Book VIII, 3

Give a man fire, and he’ll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.
Unknown

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he next comes to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination.
Thomas De Quincey (1785 – 1859)

In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.
Yogi Berra

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
Thomas Jefferson

There’s no sense in being precise when you don’t even know what you’re talking about.
John von Neumann

Jesus saves. Buddha makes incremental backups.
Anonymous

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
H L Mencken

Atheist’s wager: Instead, my wager is that if there is a god, and it is a just god, then living a just and moral life will be acknowledged regardless of ones beliefs. If there exists an unjust or immoral god, then I could never satisfy both my conscience and such a god. My wager is that if the christians are right about god being just and all-knowing and all-loving, I will be rewarded if I act in morally sound, justified ways.
I don’t have any evidence that there is a god. To me, the idea of a god, or even of an afterlife pales in importance to what we experience everyday. Life. Life is the only thing that I “know” I have and when that is gone, I doubt I’ll be around to care, however, others will. I must live my life as I please, and since I believe I will only ever get one chance at it, I want to live it in the best manner that I can and help others do the same.
Anonymous

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson

Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it – even if I have said it – unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.
Buddha

A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.
Albert Einstein

I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious theories of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God.
Thomas Edison

It sounds odd to hear scholars and statesmen say the world is flat; but it is a fact that three Boers favored by the opinion of President Kruger prepared a work to support that contention. While I was at Durban they came from Pretoria to obtain data from me, and they seemed annoyed when I told them that they could not prove it by my experience. With the advice to call up some ghost of the dark ages for research, I went ashore, and left these three wise men poring over the Spray’s track on a chart of the world, which, however, proved nothing to them, for it was on Mercator’s projection, and behold, it was “flat.” The next morning I met one of the party in a clergyman’s garb, carrying a large Bible, not different from the one I had read. He tackled me, saying, “If you respect the Word of God, you must admit that the world is flat.” “If the Word of God stands on a flat world–” I began. “What!” cried he, losing himself in a passion, and making as if he would run me through with an assagai. “What!” he shouted in astonishment and rage, while I jumped aside to dodge the imaginary weapon. Had this good but misguided fanatic been armed with a real weapon, the crew of the Spray would have died a martyr there and then. The next day, seeing him across the street, I bowed and made curves with my hands. He responded with a level, swimming movement of his hands, meaning “the world is flat.” A pamphlet by these Transvaal geographers, made up of arguments from sources high and low to prove their theory, was mailed to me before I sailed from Africa on my last stretch around the globe.
Joshua Slocum

Do y’all have different books of the Bible than I do? Are y’all Gideons? Who are the ******’ Gideons? Ever met one? NO! Ever seen one? NO! But they’re all over the ******’ world puttin’ Bibles in hotel rooms. Every hotel room- “This Bible was placed here by a Gideon” When?! I been here all day. I ain’t seen ****! I saw the housekeeper come and go. I saw the minibar guy come and go. I never laid eyes on a ******’ Gideon. What are they- ninjas? Where are they? Where’re they from? Gidea? What the **** are these people?

I’m gonna capture a Gideon. I’m gonna make that my hobby. I’m gonna call the front desk one day. “Yeah. I don’t seem to have a Bible in my room.”
Bill Hicks

You don’t get rich writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, you start a religion.
L. Ron Hubbard, 1948

All the world is queer save thee and me, and even thou art a little queer.
Robert Owen

“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That’s my advice: never marry till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing–or all that is good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles. Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t look at me with such surprise. If you marry expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an idiot!… But what’s the good?…”
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

…old rope labeled as Multi-Threaded Redundantly-Bonded Fully-Flexible Linear Load Bearing Facilitator.
Natehoy, Slashdot comment #30285772

there are only two sources of human vice–idleness and superstition, and only two virtues–activity and intelligence.
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace

Sir, I wish to protest in the strongest possible terms. Having read your warning about the prurient nature of Nordic current affairs publications, I at once proceeded to their World Wide Web site. I am disappointed – nay, dismayed – to note that I in fact had to look quite hard before I could find any “tits and ass”, and in fact, the tits I did find were covered with an (opaque) brassiere. I demand that you retract your position at once. I further demand some hyperlinks meeting the promising description previously offered.
Yours, Henry Arthur George James Smitherington-Smitherington-Smitherington-Smitherington-Smitherington-Smitherington-Smitherington-Smitherington-Smythe (Mrs).
u38cg, Slashdot comment #30380202

Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO

When played with skill and grace, the game of soccer is like poetry in motion. Which explains all the bored-stiff people just pretending to follow along.
The Onion Horoscope

Grumpy Old Man by Mark Widdicombe is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 License.