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Ben Goldacre receives legal warning
Neil D, February 6th 2009, 9:54 pm
 http://www.hurryupharry.org/2009/02/06/bengoldacre/

Here is a link to a full transcript of the show:

 http://www.layscience.net/node/485

Note that some sections have inline comments.

Here's a related article from the Times arguing that a rise in measles is due to a lowered takeup of the MMR vaccine. It's maybe confusing correlation with causation, but interesting reading none the less.

[To be honest I think this phone-in is a bit of a storm in a teacup really, you hear similar things all the time, and these kind of shows thrive on controversy. They like to wind up the callers just to encourage more people to reply.]

 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5683687.ece

From The Sunday Times
February 8, 2009
How the MMR scare led to the return of measles

There were 1,348 cases of measles in the UK last year, according to the Health Protection Agency, up 36% from 2007. In 1998, the year that Andrew Wakefield published his research in The Lancet, there were 56 cases.

...

I don't like Ben or the Guardian. I think the aim of promoting good science journalism is laudable but it is dubious at best to claim to know what is 'Bad Science' – surely nobody on IM would accept a Guardian column labelled 'Bad Politics' or 'Bad Activism'.

Journalistic point-of-view exists in consensual science and by definition Ben represents the establishment, the common, the orthodox. The important thing with scientific knowledge is that it progresses, it changes. The theory of evolution was 'Bad Science' at one point.

For instance, Ben fully supports the Royal Society position on the health effects of low level radiation, which in my opinion is a complete fraud designed to protect powerful business and military interests. It seems inconsistent for Indymedia to promote articles about DU deaths and Mr Goldacres legal problems. Many significant scientific issues are published on Indymedia that Ben hasn't covered, such as depleted uranium and other munitions issues. If he is somone we should support, why does he never tackle the issues that are mentioned here? He doesn't have the courage to write about animal research one way or the other but he does recommend an article which makes his sympathies clear.

“By calling animal research “torture” and “vivisection” the protesters preclude themselves from participating in any rational discussion on ways to improve animal research to ensure even further that it is humane. “

By linking to only one side of the argument, the establishment side, I feel he limiting the argument to the detriment of society while also damaging progressive scientific research.

Except that's how science works: you do a study and it either produces evidence in support of a hypothesis or it doesn't. Moaning about "establishment science" is beside the point. You produce evidence for your claims and they get accepted by the "establishment". All the data is made available and you can look at it and examine it to your satisfaction. That's how it should work, the process hasn't been improved on - what we're left with is fighting the distortions and manipulations of this process by them with a particular economic interest.

Bad Science is very clearly, stuff claiming to be science but failing to be intellectually honest, or presenting claims that could be falsifiable if the experiment is replicated. BG also does a fantastic job of calling out pharma companies for withholding evidence, or shady marketing practices.

Vitamin companies and big pharma - they both exist to sell you pills.

-BG also does a fantastic job of calling out pharma companies for withholding evidence, or shady marketing practices.

To the benefit of the government and to society. He is a fuckable guy certainly. I also admire that he is a junior doctor when he was bright enough to choose any number of better paid careers, but he has profited greatly from legal actions himself in the past, this is not the devastated victim typical of Indymedia reports. He is after all mainstream press.

-Moaning about "establishment science" is beside the point.

No, it's not. It's extremely relevant to every campaign because techology is ubitious and progressing so quickly and under the control of the establishment that we know not only have a military-industrial complex, we have a security-industrial complex. Overseas, homeland. As science accelerates it is importnat to point it in the right direction and away from say, mass- extinction, nuclear oblivion, climate change.
Case in point, would Ben have recognised Global Warming as Bad Science or Good Science in 1975?
There is an increasing lag in the importance of good science being accepted and being acknowledged and that is because of the technological revolution we have just went through.

I remember you personally supported Cern against fears it could destroy the world by forming a strangelet. An almost zero risk you were prepared to endorse because it could lead to great discoveries.
When the risk is that great, something that affects all known life, it is more than a matter of opinion or even consensus, and one opinion cannot be usefully labelled as 'Bad Science'.

Science in the form of technology has progressed seemingly beyond control, beyond any comprehendable limits and that looks set to continue. Our philosophies haven't made that much progress over the past millenia. I would appreciate Bens writing if he investigated the philosophy behind the science as deeply as the science.

-All the data is made available and you can look at it and examine it to your satisfaction. You produce evidence for your claims and they get accepted by the "establishment".

Currently and historically the establishment has been slow to accept new theory even when the evidence is produced. Nowadays most scientists are corporate employees and so they say what they are paid to say. The state too provides huge subsidies for specific science, mostly military. With the increase in militarism, a lot of pure scientific research is being focussed on producing weaponary. I don't respect Oppenheimer and I don't respect the Royal Society.

While I don't like Ben I do like other almost mainstream science writers like Fred Pearce at New Scientist. I'm not a scientist but I sometimes have to research science stories. As an amateur I once thought of setting up website pastiche of the sort of stories Ben Covers to show how science is misunderstood by idiots like me, a sort of Alan Partridge report on current science stories.

If the guy just blogged as himself then I would probably read it and appreciate it but it is just his informed opinion, he has been wrong on important activist issues before, he displays an underlying bias for animal testing and for weaponary, and he only stands to profit from this.

The Guardian Editorial staff have personally and collectively acted decently outwith the newspaper - they have donated to worthy causes for example. I still read the online versions take on breaking stories. I still don't rate the paper now, and I would criticise most UK newspapers and news media similarly. I feel I have to read abroad online to get a better view of even natural science.

[I posted this yesterday but for some reason it never appeared.]

The point of posting this story (it wasn't me who posted it, by the way) is because of the attempted censorship by the radio station LBC who want to stop a critic from putting a (large) excerpt from a show on their blog.

The rights or wrongs of the MMR vaccine are a side issue in this context.

Personally, I despise Big Pharma as much as anyone else, but I also think there are a lot of pseudo-scientific cranks that have wacky theories. So I have a leg in both camps. As to whether the MMR vaccine or indeed vaccines in general are good or bad, I don't feel qualified enough to decide.

Certainly the basic idea of vaccines sounds plausible: give people a mild of neutered form of a disease so their body is stimulated into producing antibodies against the real disease.

But my natural suspicion of those with wealth and power, and the past history of pharmaceuticals lying, abusing animals, and misleading the public, means I'm always wondering if it is really a scam.

Anyway, whether the MMR vaccine or good or not, I still think people should be able to put a copy of a radio show on their website if they want to criticise it for being to anti-MMR.