Effectively a firm rebuttal of the idea that just because of a few poorly-worded emails from the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia the entire climate science paradigm (or even the broader scientific establishment) has collapsed, the author highlights the vital work of scientists and the robustness of the system within which they work.

In the Hollywood version of how science influences policy, the brilliant scientist has a eureka moment in the lab and calls the president, who promptly dispatches a square-jawed hero to save the day. In the real world, both science and politics are enormously more complicated.

It is in this real-world context that we must place the imbroglio surrounding the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s research. Breathless media claims that the scientific consensus supporting the reality of climate change and its causes has collapsed are simply untrue.

At its heart, the debate centres on the role and process of science in creating a platform for human progress. If anything has been “revealed,” it is the challenge of communicating complex science to a media world that requires scientists to reduce their research to a sound bite.

I highly recommend reading the full article.

Chuck D

Some of you may know that this year is the anniversary both of 200 years since Charles Darwin’s birth and 150 years since the publication of his seminal work, On the Origin of the Species.  That book was in fact published 150 years ago TODAY, 24^thNovember 1859.  I’m afraid that this has turned into more of an essay than a blog post and for that I apologise.  I hope you think it’s worth it!  Given the occasion I think an essay on Darwin is forgivable…  First, I want to make a few specific comments about a newspaper article on the abuse of evolutionary theory.  I will then provide a brief summary of an article that answers many of the points raised in terms of science in general.  I’ll move onto a specific discussion on evolution before providing the other side of the evolution-ethics debate (too-rarely promoted) in the final section.

The Trouble with “Darwinism”?

An article on the Times website recently highlighted the links between high school shootings and the theory of evolution.  A point by point rebuttal of the article is not really necessary.  The piece is well-written and (on the whole) accurately reported.  However, it is also solely directed towards getting a controversial, narrow point of view across and is, therefore, extremely biased.  While an article on the good and evil associated with the theory of evolution would provide a fascinating read, the tramping out of menacing photographs of youths pointing guns at cameras, students in tears in the aftermath of a shooting and a shrine set up to the dead alongside quotes from those same gun-toting students, ignorant American celebrities and those who have a vested interest in discrediting evolutionary theory only serves to obscure and sensationalise the debate.  The author is simply piggy-backing on the emotional outcry that followed those earlier stories.    The dubious links between scientific theories and hypotheses and their application to the real world were the story of the twentieth century and continues to dog us to this day.

The Times article mainly catalogues the accusations against evolutionary theory and gives the stage to the psychopathic killers of high school children, as well as the rightwing nut job Ann Coulter and Intelligent Design proponent David Klinghoffer.  Throughout, the article feels as though it is about to give a balanced, journalistic account of an issue.  However, the article stops without giving the other side of the argument.  Where is the talk of how evolutionary theory can improve our lives, inform our morals and contribute to the kind of well-rounded naturalistic worldview that Coulter and others find so abhorrent?  This is also “…as much part of the Darwin story as the theory of evolutions [sic]”.  Where is the philosophy of science detailing the difference between ideas and actions based on those ideas?  Where are the quotes from historians of science debunking the drivel that is the supposed link between Darwin and the Holocaust?  Where is the condemnation not just of the actions of those who misapplied evolutionary theory but also of the reasoning that brought them to that point?  I suppose it is too much to hope that this is the first of a two-part piece… The author has pointed out a problem but has not given us the solution, despite the fact that the reporting of that solution is substantially more important than the problem itself.

The Trouble with Science?

Now I turn to that solution –  a better understanding of science and what it can and cannot do.  David Sloan Wilson, in a short piece in a fairly obscure bioengineering book, outlines three reasons why factual knowledge of the sort that coalesced in Darwin’s work and has been built on over the past 150 years can have undesirable consequences.  I shall elaborate on some of his points as that article is not widely available (without subscription).

Unforeseen consequences – There are a number of examples of scientific ideas that have been implemented only to later have far greater negative effects than the gains that were supposed to have been achieved.  Plastics are one of the most important substances that we have ever developed, creating a lightweight, cheap and flexible material that can be used in a seemingly limitless number of applications.  However, recent research has shown that the chemicals that plastics release as they decay in the environment can have worrying effects similar to human hormones.  Furthermore, the very nature of the substance means that the time that it takes to decay is vast.

Negative results also occurred when new mothers were taught the psychological theories of BF Skinner, who believed whole-heartedly in the centrality of reward and punishment in the determination of future behaviour. Among these theories was that a crying child should not be comforted in any way as this would reinforce the crying behaviour and thus make the child more likely to cry in the future.  If you wanted a placid, well-behaved infant you should not attempt to cuddle them when they are distressed.  It was only later that psychological theories developed further and the true damage that this lack of affection and close, personal contact had on children was revealed.

The solution to the problem of unforeseen consequences, as Wilson points out, is not to never apply any kind of scientific progress, for clearly the potential benefits of scientific theories are considerable and the alternative, a technological regression, is almost impossible to contemplate given our current reliance on the products of science.  Rather, we should seek to be as honest as possible about the limitations of our understanding of the subjects that we are researching, with suitable caveats on the implementation of that research.  Also, a greater extent of research is needed to ensure that what we theorise accurately represents reality.  As Wilson says: “The solution to partial knowledge is more complete knowledge”.

Unethical use – That gunpowder was invented by the Chinese and used as nothing more than in fireworks for a source of entertainment seems bizarre to us now that millions of deaths have resulted from conflicts involving projectile weapons powered by just that chemical.  Exact parallels can be seen in the development of atomic theory and the subsequent use of the atomic bomb in Japan during the Second World War.  The ideas themselves are inherently amoral (note that this is distinct fromimmoral) but the uses to which they are put in the real world clearly require certain moral decisions to be made.

Another example of the amorality of science can be seen clearly in microbiology.  Microbiological techniques have allowed us to better understand the organisms that truly form the foundation for the world in which we live: microbes.  These cause our diseases, make our waste decay, produce oxygen for us to breathe and prop up many of the most important food chains.  An understanding of this area has enabled us to harness microbes and exploit them in vital areas of human life such as waste disposal and water filtration, as well as informing our approach to tackling disease.  However, microbial agents have also been used as weapons of the cruelest sort.

There is no solution to the immoral use of science apart from to ensure that the morals of the wider world (i.e. the societies that seek to implement scientific discoveries) are as “moral” (egalitarian, humanitarian, etc) as possible.

Erosion of moral values – Wilson briefly ponders a situation in which the “facts” that we can discover using the scientific method begin to replace the “beliefs” on which our moral systems are based.  Clearly this has great relevance to evolutionary theory within which man is thought to have evolved a moral system that is not absolute.  I don’t really have a lot to say about this.  Our beliefs about the world are the result of evolution, both cultural and biological.  That some of these are considered scared is unnatural and leads to all manner of prejudice and bigotry.  The erosion of some of what are considered to be “morals” (homosexuality is wrong, a woman’s place is in the home, contraception goes against God’s wishes) can only be a good thing so long as people are capable of constructing their own relativist moral systems.  More on this later…

The Trouble with Evolution?

First of all, the issue of the misapplication of scientific concepts is not simply a problem associated with evolution, as outlined above.  The focus on evolutionary theory has come about because of the lack of understanding on the part of the public and the assertion that evolutionary theory equates to moral nihilism via atheism.

Public understanding

It has been said that “…nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution”.  While biologists realise this, the theory of evolution does not hold such prominence outside of the scientific world, unlike theories from chemistry and physics.  People can see the bridges that are built on physical premises and appreciate the chemical nature of cookery but the recognition that the essence of what it means to be human lies in biology is often overlooked.  It is this kind of issue that makes it necessary to have a position like the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science, a position that was latterly occupied by Richard Dawkins.  The emotional baggage associated with evolution makes it difficult to convince the public of the theory’s weight.  They seem to readily accept that they are, at their most basic level, fluid-filled sacks of protein built around calcium scaffolding, but try to tell them that they are closely related to a slightly hairier fluid-filled sack of almost identical protein in a zoo and they suddenly turn incredulous.  However, a proper appreciation of mankind’s place in the universe provides a much clearer perspective on the troubles that our species faces in its struggle to survive.

Evolution and atheism

A superficial understanding of evolutionary theory may yield a worldview which resembles nihilism, but Darwin is not supposed to be read in isolation.  The bottom-line to this piece is that science is amoral, not immoral.  If a person is naive, short-sighted and simple enough to say that because lions kill the weakest zebra on the plains of the Serengeti necessarily means that certain ethnic groups should be exterminated then it is not the fault of evolution.  The Religious Right in the United States (along with its sister groups in the Islamic world) have made much of the link between Darwin and the Holocaust, for example.  Any number of such claims have been refuted here (including specific claims that Darwin himself was a racist, evolution is immoral and evolutionary theory informed totalitarian regimes – particularly Stalin and Hitler).  However, the amoral theory of evolution was merely a series of ideas.  The over-arching moral systems of the time were determined by the various religious establishments who are the ones truly to blame for allowing the immoral and incorrect conclusions of these ideas to be promulgated within the ethical frameworks that they defined and policed.  The development of a well-rounded worldview unfortunately requires a great deal of thought to place the knowledge that Darwin and his successors have provided in a context within which it can be properly applied to the maximal benefit of the human race.

The “Evolution Solution”

I suppose the message that I am trying to convey is that THERE ARE NO MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF EVOLUTIONARY THEORY!!  Nobody looks at atomic theory and then only hangs around in groups that correspond to the stable numbers of electrons orbiting atomic nucleii for fear of causing imbalance and high school children do not go around shooting members of groups until their numbers equate to stable electron configurations.  There aren’t any secretive groups running around actively increasing entropy (that’s just helping nature along, after all, isn’t it?).  There aren’t internet cults of thermodynamicists pushing over sandcastles and breaking all their dishes to ensure that everything is as “natural” as possible.  People see a worldview in evolutionary theory that just isn’t there.

This is not to say that a naturalistic worldview, of which evolutionary theory is a part, cannot inform the way we live our lives in a positive way as well.  As far as ethics are concerned, the principle benefit of a naturalistic stance is a recognition of where we are in the scheme of the universe.  Religious views place man at the centre with dominion over “Creation” and an interceding God who helps us out when we get stuck.  Furthermore, the end times will be upon us shortly, in any case, so we don’t need to worry about this planet too much…  Things will be much better in the afterlife!  Clearly this is not a worldview which lends itself to the formation of forward-thinking principles.  The fact that some nations base large portions of their foreign and domestic policy on this short-term, largely apathetic view of the future is downright frightening!

Evolution and naturalistic philosophy, on the other hand, tells us that we are but one of a series of types of reproducing bags of protein that live on a smear of water and oxygen on a mostly-molten piece of iron in the outer spiral arm of a galaxy that is one of millions and billions in the universe (to paraphrase Monty Python slightly).  We are no more in dominion of our world than a termite burrowed into the hull of a ship far away at sea.  We cannot steer the ship or influence it in any other way but eventually, if we try really hard, we can sink it.  The realisation of this fact brings other parts of the human condition into perspective.  We are far from invulnerable – we are threatened constantly by famine, disease, climate change – but we see fit to argue about the minutiae of abstract concepts such as economics and political boundaries rather than address the issues that really matter.  Just as we ourselves have caused (and will continue to cause) the extinction of those animals, so shall we some day cease to exist.  It is for us to lengthen our tenure on this planet as much as possible.  The ethical implications of this are that international harmony is required for the species to pull together.  Nature conservation (including the environment and not just the animals and plants) is of primary importance.  Finally, if we can understand why “morality” evolved then we can understand why it must be adhered to.  Codified morality, when viewed in the cultural and biological context within which it developed, becomes more than simply a series of edicts issued by an omnipotent deity.  We can see the framework within which each moral stance is relevant, why it should be adhered to and when it should not (I read recently about a case in which a well-respected Christian website advocated hypothetically turning over Jewish refugees to Nazi death camps because to hide them would be lying (which is wrong).

In conclusion then, (i) science itself is always amoral, not immoral, (ii) when interpreted within a well-rounded worldview, scientific discoveries can inform (and, indeed, improve) how we live our lives, and (iii) evolution is cool!  Happy birthday Chuck and the OoS!!

People go about their daily lives making decisions on the basis of beliefs about the way the world works. Their epistemological framework is a complex architecture of foundations and interconnecting supports on which rest concepts held to be “true”. While some beliefs may have little consequence for the person holding that belief, others have the potential to seriously impact the lives of both the believer and, through the actions that those beliefs precipitate, the rest of mankind. When we come to examine issues of such magnitude, we see a difference between the beliefs held by the general public and those which are held by the majority of experts in the respective fields. To understand why this is the case, it is informative to consider two claims that have been made in recent years and the variation in the reception that each has received from the public. 

Claim 1: “The measles-mumps-rubella vaccine causes autism”

The origin of this claim has been buried under the weight of subsequent newspaper stories which have clouded the issue. In 1998, an article entitled “Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children” was published in The Lancet. This snappily-titled paper, without providing anything beyond circumstantial evidence, suggested that research should be carried out to investigate a causal link between the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Parents of the 12 children involved in the study blamed the vaccine for the development of the pathology on the basis that the onset of symptoms occurred soon after vaccination. Dr Andrew Wakefield, the lead author of the paper, urged caution in the use of the MMR vaccine and recommended that single vaccines for each of the three diseases be used until further research had been carried out, a recommendation not supported by his own paper.

It came to light later that Dr Wakefield had received considerable funding from lawyers seeking evidence against vaccine manufacturers and that he had attempted to take out a patent on a vaccine that would be a rival to MMR. These conflicts of interest were not declared at the time of publication of the paper though they would have formed part of the basis for an editorial decision on its suitability for publication. After the media coverage, the percentage of children being vaccinated at the appropriate time dropped year-on-year from 92% in 1995 to 80% in 2003 before gradually climbing back to 85% in 2007. MMR uptake has never reached the 95% threshold suggested by the World Health Organisation to provide herd immunity for the population. Measles infections increased to the point at which in 2008, for the first time in 14 years, measles was declared endemic in Britain (i.e. the disease is self-sustaining). More than two-thirds of all mumps infections recorded between 1996 and 2008 (43,378 out of 64,168) occurred during 2005.

Claim 2: “Anthropogenic factors cause global warming”

That the climate is warming is now beyond doubt. The causes of this current phase of environmental change are extremely complex, though strong evidence exists for a link between atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations and the rise in temperature. Subsequent work has implicated a range of other factors including aerosols, methane, albedo effects and fluctuations in solar radiation as contributing to the observed pattern. Climate projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) suggest that temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4°C by the year 2100 depending on sociopolitical factors.

It is difficult to overstate the strength of the consensus on climate change science. A staggering list of bodies of professional scientists have issued explicit statements confirming their support for the views that (i) unequivocal warming of the climate is occurring, and (ii) the majority of this warming is anthropogenic in nature. The number of scientific papers confirming these findings provides an intimidating prospect for would-be students in the area. However, despite this there is still a substantial portion of the general public holding the belief that the current phase of warming is due solely to “natural causes”.

Public reception

Here we have two claims: the first published by a scientist possessing a strong agenda and with almost no evidence that was followed by a sound debunking from the scientific community (notably in the same issue of The Lancet as Wakefield et al.’s original paper), and the second with mountains of evidence and a minuscule number of qualified dissenters. It is possible to quantify the difference in beliefs held by the public relative to the scientific establishment in each case. The wording of the IPCC shows at least 90% certainty in their statement that environmental warming is anthropogenic in origin. This is in contrast to a 2008 Gallup poll which found that only 58% of the public believed that “human activities” caused “increases in the Earth’s temperature over the last century”. In the case of MMR, a poll carried out by the Florida Institute of Technology found that 24% of respondents believed that “because vaccines may cause autism it was safer not to have children vaccinated at all”, with a further 19% “not sure”7. This is compared to a scientific community that can be assumed to be unanimous in its non-belief in a link between vaccination and autism, given the complete absence of data supporting that link8.

The role of scepticism

Scepticism should be a tool through which we view the world but it is important to be pragmatic in our use of this tool. The most extreme form of scepticism simply plants the practitioner in an epistemological quagmire where all interpretations of observable data must be made individually by that person. Clearly this is not a practical application of the principle. Instead it is obvious that we must occasionally take the interpretations and opinions of others as a basis for our own epistemological framework. While this seems reasonable it also means that the truth of our own beliefs hinges on the choice of whom to trust. Two recent sociological changes have occurred which have made this decision more complex.

The first is that the popular media moderates what the public hears, collectively acting as a filter by which only the most sensational opinions are broadcast. The shift in purpose that has gone on in the media from informing its audience to entertaining its audience brought with it the drive to find those fringe elders who will retain the semblance of authority but generate maximum audience figures. Dr Andrew Wakefield and Dr David Bellamy (a notable climate change sceptic who once described global warming as “poppycock”) are “men-in-white-coats” wheeled out to drive up audiences regardless of the resulting decline in the level of scientific understanding of that audience.

The second sociological change is the “celebrity culture” in which we now live. This has made it possible for ignorant members of the public to hold forth on important issues and garner great followings in the process. Jenny McCarthy, a C-list actress, is the figurehead of the anti-vaccine movement; Oprah Winfrey, the world’s wealthiest woman, has advocated a range of questionable health treatments; the late author Michael Crichton was a renowned climate change sceptic. Such characters are given airtime and column inches in abundance to espouse their views, regardless of how accurate those views are.

Intellectual laziness is also an important issue. While I have already stated that listening to a certain amount of expert opinion is a necessary epistemological concession, the most pressing issues (particularly those with potentially life-threatening consequences) require that the general public delve deeper themselves. Data that can be used to investigate either of the issues outlined in this essay are readily available to any interested parties. The Mauna Loa Observatory’s carbon dioxide monitoring data can be downloaded, as can the UK Meteorological Office’s climate data. The Health Protection Agency has data on cases of measles, mumps and rubella, as well as vaccine coverage, to emphasise the importance of vaccination compliance. Anybody investigating the MMR issue could even read the following sentence in the Wakefield et al. paper from The Lancet:

“We did not prove an association between measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine and the syndrome described”

Conclusion

The gulf between public opinion and scientific consensus is due to the general public not knowing whom to trust and when. The decision of when to resort to expert opinion and then which sources to use in gathering information is a complex matter and there is an element of trust that needs to be exercised. Greater efforts need to be made to ensure that those involved in the media reporting of these kinds of issues are held to account for the abuse of the confidence that the public places in them. In addition to being misleading, such reporting can also endanger lives. Science is a fascinating topic in the hands of a skilled journalist and does not need the kind of selective, sensationalist reporting that is so prevalent today.

Usually when the Daily Mail says something stupid I read about via friends. It can be anything from a mangling of a political issue to bigotry, hypocrisy or racism. In this case they have attacked scientists as a group. And they can fuck right off.

The row between the Government and its scientific advisers blazes on like an out-of-control forest fire. It began with that difficult customer Professor David Nutt, who was chairman of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He told the Home Office that alcohol and tobacco were more dangerous than the banned substance cannabis, and horse-riding was more of a risk to your health than ecstasy.

…and backed what he said up with facts…

But he was not content simply to give advice, of course. What he appeared to want to do was to dictate to the Government, and when it refused to acknowledge his infallibility, Professor Nutt started to break ranks and to denounce the country’s law on drugs.

Right, here we get into the anti-intellectualism. A high-ranking scientific advisor who understands the issue better than other people (that’s why he’s advising!!!) sees his advice completely ignored. It is not his job to go to the press and seek that the government actually pay attention to evidence when formulating policy, though. He is only paid to “advise”. However, so strong was his feeling on this issue that he sought to make his views known in an attempt to change things for the better.

Now he has been sacked, the scientific establishment is in an uproar of self-pity and self-importance. How dare mere politicians question their judgments? They are scientists, aren’t they? And what scientists say must be taken as true.

Scientific advisors should be listened to and their advice should form the basis of policy. That’s why they are there! If scientific advisors are just for show or just to be heard when they agree with what the government want to do, what is the point of having them?

The trouble with a ‘scientific’ argument, of course, is that it is not made in the real world, but in a laboratory by an unimaginative academic relying solely on empirical facts.

That’s right, the Daily Mail is criticising scientists for using “facts” too much. I agree – we should all be like the Mail and use puffed-up, bile-fuelled hyperbole and wild speculation instead!

It is one thing to argue Professor Nutt’s case in a university common room or over a Hampstead dining table, but another to translate his arguments to murkier parts of our society.

And here we are again – scientists apparently just sit in ivory towers and cannot possibly conceive of anything beyond those shining walls. Bollocks. Social sciences research can be frontline stuff. Having spoken to academics who conduct research on drugs, the sex trade, gender issues, etc., they collect data from “the field”, i.e. out in the big wide world where these problems are actually affecting lives.

Try saying that ecstasy is safe in the sink estates of our big cities, where police, social workers and teachers work to improve the lives of young people at the bottom of the heap. Try saying it to those who see, every single day, the devastation wrought not only on the youngsters themselves, but on whole communities by the casual abuse of drugs.

This is a strawman argument – Prof Nutt never said ecstasy was safe, but that it was as safe as horse riding. Equally hurling yourself off a ten storey building is as safe as throwing yourself in front of a bus. Stupid appeal to the public’s emotional response.

If you add together all the winos and self-destructive alcoholics, then throw in the smokers who’ve died of respiratory or cardiac disease, the total will far outstrip the number of young people who die after taking an ecstasy pill – and you could conclude from this that smoking and drinking are more dangerous than ecstasy.

More of the same strawman argument… He said that cannabis, not ecstasy, was safer than alcohol or tobacco. I think if you do the stats on the actual comparison that he made that you will find that Prof Nutt is ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!

That does not mean it is safe to take ecstasy nor that it is desirable to tolerate a druggy culture among the impressionable young.

He’s not advocating that. The journalist has put words in his mouth to misrepresent his position.

This whole debate between David Nutt and the Government is about much more than the simple academic question over the relative dangers of cigarettes, drink and other drugs. What is on trial is the reputation of science.

I agree that the wider issue of government advice from leading scientific advisors is something that needs to be discussed. The Bush administration was renowned for censoring scientific research (particularly on climate change) because it did not fit with their policies. Why is this any different?

Of course, it would be folly to deny that we all owe a vast debt to scientific discoveries, made by patient, intellectually rigorous men and women over the past few centuries. Just think what we owe to developments in medicine, let alone all those technologies we now depend upon, from cars to computers. Nor would I ever wish to suppress scientific inquiry or to undervalue the good which scientists have done for our world.

What’s the point in doing scientific research if you don’t implement it in policy? I am sure that the Mail has at some stage criticised “blue skies” research for having no apparent application to the real world (a charge which is utterly false) so why criticise it also when it does?

But there is an increasing presumption among many intelligent and good-hearted people that science is an absolute truth, that its methods of arriving at the truth are infallible and that scientists must be listened to at all times.

What other methods should we use to derive our legislative framework? Perhaps “the voice of middle England” should allow their collective emotional impulses to guide policy development? Maybe all scientists should kowtow to the irrational, ignorant and ill-informed masses, lest they should actually do some good!?

A Home Secretary who sacks a plucky little scientist for daring to speak his mind – correction, daring to speak ‘the truth’ – is surely worthy of our contempt? That is how the scientific establishment has portrayed the story as they line up to denounce Alan Johnson.

Hang on, now – I’ve heard about Prof Nutt and two of his colleagues making a point about the role of scientific advisors, not “the scientific establishment”. And good for them if they want to make a point. I’m sure that they would not do so without due cause.

Before we get carried away by their bluster, we should recognise the arrogance for what it is. What the scientists are saying basically is that they will brook no contradiction.

No, what scientists are saying is: “We have conducted vast amounts of research into this particular issue and we have come to certain conclusions about what course of action should be taken. We are in the best position from which to make suggestions as to where government policy should go and therefore it is logical that we should be listened to. Furthermore, this is an issue which daily risks and claims the lives of thousands of people around the country and therefore deserves the best possible facts (which the Daily Mail hates so much) so as to make the most prudent decisions”

And this is where the journalist starts to go gradually insane…

Yet if we examine the history of scientific experts – and, in particular, scientists advising governments – they do not have a very happy record. Do you remember the foot-and-mouth outbreak of 2001? All reasonable farmers and vets believed that the epidemic could be contained by vaccine, or simply by isolating animals. But the Chief Scientific Adviser to the Government, David King, insisted upon a massive cull.

You see, I thought that it could be cured by humming gently in the animal’s ear. We could have saved so many of the poor animals!! Why oh why didn’t they listen to me?? The fact is that scientific advisors weren’t called in until 35 days into the crisis, by which time it was damage control that was needed, not an aversion of the crisis. The disease had past its peak by the time vaccination was even agreed to be the correct course of action (for more details see here, particularly the summary).

Millions of sheep and cows were destroyed, and every hill and valley, which once echoed to bleating or lowing was silenced and despoiled. Did we ever hear a word of apology when events proved this government scientific adviser wrong?

More bloody emotional outrage… The scientific advisors weren’t proven wrong. Where’s foot and mouth now, eh? If you can invent a time machine and demonstrate that an alternative course of action would have worked out better then I’ll take this point seriously.

We hear a lot about the bovine brain disease BSE which was passed onto humans, and the possible cures which science might effect. But how often do we hear that BSE was almost certainly passed on to other cattle because scientists had encouraged farmers to force their animals to eat concentrated foods which contained beef products?

Lack of knowledge of an emerging disease is not grounds to accuse the scientific advisors of causing the BSE outbreak!

Going back in time, some people think that Hitler invented the revolting experiments performed by Dr Mengele on human beings and animals. But the Nazis did not invent these things. The only difference between Hitler and previous governments was that he believed, with babyish credulity, in science as the only truth. He allowed scientists freedoms which a civilised government would have checked.

Godwin’s law kicks in and we get a nice little reductio ad Hitlerum… I mean, it’s almost like the journalist is suggesting that British scientists are currently conducting experiments comparable to those which were allowed in Nazi Germany or in Soviet Russia!

I am not suggesting that any British scientists are currently conducting experiments comparable to those which were allowed in Nazi Germany or in Soviet Russia.

Oh, ok, I stand corrected…

But I see the same habit of mind at work in Professor Nutt and his colleagues as made those mad scientists of the 20th century think they were above the moral law which governs the rest of us mortals.

Are yes, we aren’t actually conducting the experiments… But we’d like to! Bwahahaha…

The worship of science is the great superstition of our age. The scientific adviser speaks and we are all supposed to believe him, whether he is promoting crops genetically modified to withstand huge doses of poisonous weedkillers and pesticides, or tampering with the origin of human life itself in so-called stem cell research.

Hmmm… Two emotive issues brought up here… Who are we to trust when it comes to deciding how safe emerging technologies are? Should we listen to the scientists who have spent years researching the topic, have published research in peer-reviewed scientific journals, have written briefing documents for government ministers and have survived in an immensely competitive profession to rise to the top of their field? No! Let’s not use THE FACTS!

Those who dare question scientists are demonised for their irrationality.

No, government ministers who are in charge of safe-guarding the lives of the people of this country are chastised for ignoring the facts of the issues at hand as presented by scientists who are experts in their respective fields.

Global warming may or may not be a certainty…

Woo! We get a feel for where the journalist is coming from by this stage…

…but anyone who queries it has his sanity questioned.

Not true! We welcome you questioning these things! That is what science is all about! If an interested member of the public wishes to find out about climate change, there are a thousand peer-reviewed scientific articles out there just waiting to inform that person. But don’t start arguing from an emotional stand point or because of something some bloke down the pub said. Use the facts!!

Cast doubt on these gods of certainty and you are accused of wanting to suppress free expression – which is the argument now being used by Nutt and pals against the Home Secretary.

This isn’t about freedom of expression you stupid tit! Anybody can say whatever they want! But when you employ an extremely well-educated, well-informed and well-qualified person for the express purpose of listening to what he or she has to say but then brazenly ignore it that is JUST FRICKING STUPID!!!

In fact, it is the arrogant scientific establishment which questions free expression. Think of the hoo-ha which occurred when one hospital doctor dared to question the wisdom of using the MMR vaccine.

I had to walk away from my keyboard when I read that… Anybody who knows anything about the so-called “MMR controversy” knows that the only controversial thing about it is that the disgraced scientists at the heart of it have not been punished sufficiently. The scientific establishment fell-upon that “one hospital doctor” because he gave a press conference making statements that were not backed-up be research. He was attempting to discredit the MMR vaccine because he had financial interests in doing so. It is probably possible to attribute the death toll of children to that greed. That is what science is about and one of its strengths. When we see bad science we try to eliminate it. It was the media (including the Daily Mail) who took that “one hospital doctor”, did not question the veracity of his claims and created a media furore over the issue. They are also partly to blame for the resulting drop in vaccine uptake. Indeed the Daily Mail (and, in particularly, the odious Melanie Phillips) have been defiant in their claim that the MMR vaccine is still a threat, completely contradicting a unanimous scientific verdict.

The point here is not whether he was right or wrong…

Oh well that’s ok. The facts don’t matter…

- it was the way in which the scientific establishment closed ranks in order to assassinate him. There was a blanket denunciation of his heresy…

For “heresy”, read “greed”, “bad science” or “publicity seeking” – you choose.

…just as there is if anyone dares to point out some of the mistakes made by that very fallible genius Charles Darwin.

For fucks sake this is ridiculous, now the journalist has questioned global warming and evolution, defended the disgraced scientist at the heart of the MMR debacle and stated clearly that scientists have no morals.

Science rules

Hell yeah!

- and it does so with just as much energy as the old Spanish Inquisition that refused to allow any creed other than Catholicism

We still haven’t heard anything about the alternatives to science that the journalist has in mind…?

…and with the Inquisition’s need to distort arguments…

Pray tell, where has science distorted arguments…?

…and control the brains of men and women who might otherwise think for themselves.

I thought we hadn’t told people about the mind control drugs in the water, yet…?

In complex areas – medicine, agriculture, astronomy – the politicians who make our laws inevitably have to consult ‘experts’.

Thank goodness Wilson finally admits this. And why are these the only “complex” areas? Does it follow from this that constitutional law, educational theory and economics can be done by anyone?

But this is not to guarantee that such experts are always right. As Margaret Thatcher once said: ‘Advisers advise…

…what is the best course of action…

and ministers decide…

…whether it would win any votes. (For an interesting interview with David Nutt and Sir David King on their experiences of advising government see here).

To be governed by politicians is a necessary evil.

I agree that it is evil. To be governed by a group of individuals whose sole purpose is to seek re-election is at best ridiculous and at worst outright frightening!

To be governed by arrogant scientists would truly be hell on earth.

Why are we so arrogant? I never really understood that… And he never really justifies why it would be so bad to be ruled by scientists… I think it would be fun!

Listen to the way these scientists are describing one another as they huff and puff at the Home Secretary’s treatment of Professor Nutt. ‘It will be hard to find a replacement of comparable expertise and stature,’ says one pompous ass in the letters column of a newspaper. Stature? Nutt? Like so many scientific experts, his arrogance is matched by his naivety. Like them, he cannot bear to be contradicted.

Hang on now… The ad hominems have gone on long enough. Stature and expertise within a field are fairly objective. This is not “pompous” of the writer. David J Nutt MRCP MRCPsych FRCPsych FMedSci, is professor of neuropsychopharmacology (that’s “the effects of drugs on the brain” to the rest of us) and heads the Psychopharmacology Unit in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Bristol and the Neuropsychopharmacology Department at Imperial College (ranked as the 5th best university in the world). This suggests that there aren’t many people of his “expertise and stature” around…

And to every one who thinks otherwise, I would ask them to carry out a simple experiment. Put a drug, bought casually on the street corner, and a glass of red wine on the table when your teenager comes home from school. Which of them, in all honesty, would you prefer him to try?

Nice, end with a stupid piece of rhetoric. It’s good to see that Wilson has really attacked the science of the points rather than attacking the individuals involved… Given that he hasn’t stated any facts in this article, I’m not sure that it really qualifies as journalism…

When dealing with woo the most profitable tactic is usually simply to expose their quackery by taking apart their arguments. Very few woo-ers have anything more than thin reasoning behind their beliefs; often just enough pseudoscientific babble to provide a veneer of respectability for what is clearly nonsense. However, Creationism is one area in which a substantial publishing industry has grown up around the defence of the topic such that the average Creationist can bury you in books in response to questions. Also, a relatively large number of people are interested in finding a way to harmonise theories of biological origins with theological concepts (principally the creation myths of the Abrahamic religions). Thus we have two potential strategies that have emerged from the fray: confrontationalism and accommodationism. It will soon become clear to which camp I belong…

Accommodationism

This school of thought has a long and distinguished history in the sciences. The earliest scientific researchers, including Newton and Gallileo, were not known as scientists but “natural philosophers” and they worked not to better understand the world but to better understand the glory of the divine creation. Even as the state of our knowledge has explained more and more phenomena without the need to refer to a deity, pushing Him/Her into the farthest reaches of cosmology/metaphysics, some scientists and philosophers maintain their desire to see this trend cease.

Arguments for accommodationism tend to fall into three categories:

NOMA – The first, most notable because it has a famous proponent in Stephen Jay Gould, is that science in general is incapable of making any kind of statement concerning a God. Gould, in his book Rocks of Ages, coined the phrase “non-overlapping magesteria” (since abbreviated to NOMA) for the concept of science and religion being two discrete fields with no interaction. The NOMA principle is defined thus:

“The magisterium of science covers the empirical realm: what the Universe is made of (fact) and why does it work in this way (theory). The magisterium of religion extends over questions of ultimate meaning and moral value. These two magisteria do not overlap…”

Some have taken Gould’s concept of NOMA and applied it to Creationism, as a theological concept, asserting that science cannot comment on the religious nature of the belief. Clearly this is nonsense, since all of Creationism is geared around explaining scientific phenomena.

Epistemology – The second argument for accommodationism is that science cannot know everything and that this incomplete knowledge leaves room for God to survive. While inherently true in epistemological terms, this argument is a fairly extreme rearguard action. Once more we find God hiding in cosmological theories or vaguely postulated to be holding the universe together in some invisible way. Again, however, this argument does not hold a lot of water as the theory of Creationism lies within the relatively well-understood field of biology.

Diplomacy – The final argument for accommodationism should not really be an argument at all and is one of the primary reasons for extensive criticism of the position. Accommodationists see themselves as diplomats, attempting to build bridges between the atheist scientists and the theists. Every time a scientific theory attempts to chip away at the concept of a God, claim the accommodationists, we alienate the vast majority of people who believe in that God. We don’t want to go upsetting people do we? And what happens when we want to ensure that theists are on our side when we apply for greater science funding or the exclusion of explicit discussion of theological concepts in science classes? If we all place nice and don’t make a fuss then everything will be alright…

This is a lovely ideal. However, it involves what too many scientists perceive as intellectual dishonesty. That we should be prevented from sharing our ideas, knowledge and data with a populace that doesn’t want to hear it for fear that they should throw their toys out of the pram is not a good reason to accommodate them. Even worse the insinuation is that scientists and science education are at the mercy, via the democratic system, of a theologically-minded public that would rather see less science (which is providing cures for disease and heating for their homes) than be provided with evidence against their religious beliefs. No scientist should be gagged in this way.

Confrontationlism

As well as the library of books is the vast number of pithy little questions or statements that creationists are taught to ask those who question them in order to throw their opponents off balance. While some are ridiculous:

• If we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
• My grandpa wasn’t a monkey was yours?
• Were you there?
• Evolution is the theoretical basis for Communism

Indeed, some Creationist arguments are so ridiculous that Creationists have actually had to begin policing their own numbers and have released a list of arguments that should not be used. Clearly these arguments should be answered bluntly and with little regard for NOMA. But why stop there…? More sophisticated arguments also abound and these may appear to be reasonable at first glance:

• Mitchondrial Eve lived 6,000 years ago, thereby proving a Young Earth
• The bacterial flagellum could not have evolved gradually
• Snails that were caught a few days prior to examination were found to be thousands of years old using carbon dating

A favourite strategy of the Creationist Duane Gish is to cite a long list of these sorts of semi-technical statements in debates. They are all very easy to state but extremely complex to rebut, leaving his opponent labouring through science while he appears to win using nothing but rhetoric. The technique has been named the “Gish Gallop” in his honour. However, such arguments have no more basis in science than those ridiculous statements and questions listed earlier.

There are also three main arguments for the confrontationist view:

Honesty – If we are to hold back our theories, data and ideas from the general public then what is the point in our being scientists? The idea of not telling people something because it might upset them is simply patronising. If a major religion rejected the germ theory of disease (which most of them have every right to, since it is not mentioned in any holy books) then it would not be a reasonable course of action to withhold antibiotics from the adherents of that religion. Why is evolution any different?

Epistemology – It is generally held in the evolution/Creationism debate that the science is in favour of evolution. This is the view of the scientific community (as evidence by the tongue-in-cheek Project Steve, ironically named after accommodationist Stephen Jay Gould) based on the available evidence. To say that that there are multiple, varying interpretations of the same data that are all equally valid (as some would argue) is to descend into relativism. The job of science is to select the model which best fits the data and in this case it is evolution by a country mile. The current favourite piece of rhetoric from Answers in Genesis (a leading young earth creationism group based in the USA) runs like this:

“Creationists and evolutionists, Christians and non-Christians all have the same evidence—the same facts… The difference is in the way we all interpret the facts. And why do we interpret facts differently? Because we start with different presuppositions” - Ken Ham

Suddenly we are deep into relativism and philosophy of science. But hold on… Surely the only people who have actually stated their presuppositions are the Creationists?

“By definition, no apparent, perceived or claimed evidence in any field, including history and chronology, can be valid if it contradicts the Scriptural record” – Source: Answers in Genesis Statement of Faith

Those scientists who originally formulated the theory of evolution were actually theists (including Darwin himself, who at one stage began training to become an Anglican parson) and therefore had exactly the same preconceptions as those who now deny evolution.

Education – The media furore concerning the teaching of evolution, creationism and intelligent design in classrooms highlights the need for the scientific community (i.e. the ones who are best placed to comment on the current state of knowledge) to become more deeply involved in communicating to the public. Entirely aside from the fact that we should aim to give children the best education we can, presenting the current state of our knowledge. Teaching anything else is irresponsible. Where once the “men-in-white-coats” were esteemed for their erudition and listened to for their opinions, now they are regarded as being figures of suspicion. Their views are listened to when they say things the public wants to hear or doesn’t care about, but no more than the average celebrity.

Conclusion

In a lot of cases, woo should be counteracted with logic, science and common sense. However, some would hold that Creationism is different because of its religious connotations and, therefore, should be afforded a modicum of respect. Bollocks. Where Creationism strays into testable hypotheses and starts attempting to provide more than simply “Goddidit”, where religious ideas attempt to clothe themselves in the garb of science, they leave themselves open to the brutality that is scientific criticism. Confrontation is the route to minimising the damage caused by woo and Creationism should be treated no differently.

While there are many forms of woo that involve a warping of science, that which is closest to my heart is Creationism. While homeopathic practitioners, psychics, claim scientific support (or at least use scientific terms) when arguing their respective cases, no other variety of woo has produced so much spilled ink (as well as money for the authors) as that promulgated by “creation scientists”. I will briefly outline the two most prevalent forms of creation woo with some brief critiques and a quick guide to the leading figures in each of the movements. I’ll finish with a discussion of how we should be dealing with this particular form of woo.

Biblical Literalism

The first form of woo is that promoted by the biblical literalists. These people follow the literal Word of God (their particular version, of course) which, according to Archbishop Ussher puts the creation of the universe and everything in it to teatime on 23rd October 4004BC. Anybody who has ever been anywhere near a book will see that this instantly puts the biblical literalists at odds with the entirety of the scientific world (as well as the historical and archaeological worlds, but we won’t go into the fact that the Sumerians were busily brewing beer before this time…). The major issues that the biblical literalists have to deal with (in scientific terms, although of course there are many more archaeological and historical problems with believing the bible verbatim) are (i) the apparent age of the earth (literalists have no choice but to be “Young Earth Creationists”), and (ii) the absence of evidence for a global flood. The major developments in attempting to reconcile these issues were made by Henry Morris in his 1974 book Scientific Creationism and things haven’t really moved on much since then.

Much of the Young Earth Creationist movement is based on the abuse of philosophy of science and it is important that this vastly under-taught subject be appreciated by the masses if they are to discern woo from non-woo. Ken Ham is a leading YEC and often the arguments that his group make focus on the fact that we all have the same evidence but everybody interprets it differently. Each interpretation is therefore as valid as the next and so YECs are perfectly justified in believing what they believe. Unfortunately this is nonsense. Science works through a system of peer review during which ideas are subjected to intense scrutiny. Some work is approved for publication in scientific journals but only after highly qualified scientists have been through the study with a fine tooth comb to ensure that it is rigorous, novel and worthy. While some YECs publish in peer-reviewed journals it is almost never anything to do with young earth creationism (this is why they have their own journals – primarily Journal of Creation and Creation Research Science Quarterly).

The arguments made by creationists are myriad and vary in their quality from wrong to awful. A lot of time and effort is expended by creationists attempting to figure out just how many organisms must have been on Noah’s ark (16,000, apparently… ) and where the rest must have gone. Which astronomical phenomenon was the Star of Bethlehem? What did velociraptors eat before the expulsion from Eden (they couldn’t eat meat)? How much water must have been present at the global flood to gouge out the Grand Canyon? Which hominid fossils were people and which were gorillas/chimpanzees/orang-utans (after all, there cannot be other hominid species!)? How did dinosaurs and humans live together?

Some notable arguments include the following:

• The Grand Canyon is evidence for a global flood – which has been rebutted
• Radiometric dating methods give inaccurate results – which has been rebutted (with a host of related rebuttals in the same area)
• Polystrate fossils indicate rapid deposition of sediment – which has been rebutted
• Fossilisation requires rapid burial (like in the Flood) – which has been rebutted

It isn’t really worth listing all of the arguments here. They encompass a huge range of fields from astronomy to quantum physics via genetics, archaeology and philosophy. All this bizarre research that is put into attempting to lend a little credibility to some things that a millennia-old books got wrong leaves them with little time to actually form any positive arguments. However, where there are arguments there is an extensive list of rebuttals at the Talk Origins archive. Failing that, posting something to the Pandasthumb website will probably get a response.

Intelligent Design Creationism

This second form of creationism is slightly more subtle and far more sinister than the happy-go-lucky kookiness of the Biblical Literalists. While the concept of intelligent design is commonly associated with William Paley and his “watchmaker analogy”, the modern movement takes a number of steps beyond this rather simple argument from incredulity. Contemporary ID was born in 1991 with the publication of Phillip Johnson’s book Darwin on Trial. This book was not designed to necessarily win the minds of scientists with its sparkling, new interpretation of the biological world. Rather, Johnson expressed a wish to gradually turn overturn not only evolutionary theory but also the entirety of “materialist science”. The goal of the ID movement is that theistic science should “permeate our religious, cultural, moral and political life”.

In political terms ID was skilfully crafted. By calling itself ID rather than creationism and avoiding any mention of who/what the intelligent designer might be, the movement avoided the First Amendment of the US constitution with ensures a separation of Church and State. Furthermore there are few specifics mentioned within the movement besides the fact that an intelligent designer at some stage stepped in to create life. This leaves ID as a “big tent” within which many disparate arms of the various religious groups (both Christian and non-Christian) can come together to collaborate.

The scientific ideas that the ID movement has produced are as follows:

Irreducible complexity – This theory posits that there are come biological structures or processes that simply could not have occurred by natural selection. The argument is most succinctly put in Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box where he outlines the concept using the analogy of a mousetrap. The mousetrap, Behe says, is an example of a piece of equipment that will not perform any function unless complete. He goes on to suggest that biological structures have the same property. Unfortunately he has based most of his argument on a simple argument from incredulity, effectively stating “I cannot conceive of how this evolved and therefore it must have been designed”. However, as the subtitle of his book (“The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution”) suggests, he has some fairly obscure examples of biological mechanisms.

Fortunately most of them have been thoroughly analysed now and responses have been posted to each of his examples of irreducibly complex structures. While Behe naturally requests step-by-step processes by which each phenomenon came about naturally, this simply isn’t possible. However, we can have a pretty good go at knocking over the major issues:

• Bacterial flagellum and eukaryotic cilium (with more here)
• Blood clotting (with more here)
• Immune system (with more here)
• Intracellular gated and vesicular transport (a complete critique of the book along with one of the best on this topic)

I have tried to provide both peer-reviewed science and publicly accessible pages there so that everybody can read about it. Someone even went so far as to show that the mousetrap upon which Behe’s analogy is based can be reduced to a single component while still retaining function.

The strength of Behe’s approach is that he can continue pointing at things and shouting “irreducibly complex” ad nauseam (and he probably will) and, while it takes him a matter of seconds to utter those words, it takes vast amounts of research funding, time and effort to satisfactorily disprove his assertion. This kind of technique is common in ID. The argument is essentially philosophical in nature, is easy to state, requires little effort (and no scientific research) to assert and yet entails a lot of effort on the part of scientists to debunk.

Complex specified information – Michael Behe is a biochemist and, while biochemistry is a relatively complex topic, it is nothing compared to information theory. This is one of the reasons for the success of the next two areas of ID. William Dembski is an information theorist and philosopher who has been a part of the ID movement from its inception. His employment of information theory has left most of the more technical aspects of his arguments completely inaccessible to the majority of his audience (both creationists and evolutionists) and that has rendered him relatively immune from criticism. This is not helped by poor definition of the terms that he uses (sometimes changing definitions mid-argument) and unnecessary mathematical notation. I say “relatively immune” because fortunately some of the few people who understand what he is talking about have taken the time to rebut him.

Complex specified information is information (defined as loosely as you like but the genetic code is an example) that is complex (i.e. contains a large number of non-regularly order components) and specified (nobody is really clear on what Dembski meant by this). In practise, Dembski provided an “explanatory filter” which he claimed could detect design. It goes something like this:

1. If an event E has high probability, accept regularity as an explanation; otherwise move to the next step.
2. If the chance hypothesis assigns E a high probability or E is not specified, then accept chance; otherwise move down the list.
3. Having eliminated regularity and chance, accept design.

Dembski uses the case of Nicholas Caputo to illustrate his concept of design. Nicholas Caputo was an election official in the USA given the task of allocating the Democrat and Republican names on the ballot sheet. It was well-known that the party at the top of the ballot sheet was more likely to get elected and so there was pressure to allocate places fairly. Despite this, Caputo placed the Democrats (his party) at the top of the sheet in 40 out of 41 elections. Dembski would propose the following “information”:

DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDRDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Where D=Democrat and R=Republican. The idea behind his explanatory filter is nothing “regular” about the pattern and, if selected due to “chance” then each party should be at the top of the ballot approximately 50% of the time. The only conclusion is “design” (Caputo was cheating). Particularly scathing reviews of both the concept of complex specified information and Dembski’s explanatory filter (which, for some reason, he has never actually used to prove that anything is designed…).  A brief synopsis of the problems and links to the critiques can be found on Talk Origins.

No Free Lunch – While complex specified information may have seemed relatively straightforward in principle, this is where we get a little bit more complicated… Computational problems can be solved by setting algorithms to search for possible solutions. This is often described as sending the algorithm out over a hypothetical “landscape” (more correctly termed “phase space” and usually multidimensional rather than three-dimensional) of hills and valleys where the altitude is the “fitness” value (more correctly termed “objective function”) of that particular solution. However, the No Free Lunch (NFL) theorems state that, when averaged across all possible landscapes, the search performed of any two algorithms will be the same. Since a random search is a potential algorithm, no algorithm performs better than random at finding fitness optima.

There are some key reasons why the NFL theorems do not apply to biological evolution:

• Fitness landscapes are constantly changing during the search
• Not all fitness landscapes are possible as universal constants constrain their characteristics.

I probably have some of this wrong and, if I have, please tell me! For a far more thorough review, see Talk Origins and all the links from there.

Conclusion

Creationism and its poorly-disguised (and slightly sinister) cousin Intelligent Design are chock-full of poor science and abuses of philosophy. The sheer number (though not the intellectual merit) of creationist arguments may leave you gasping, but never fear as hope is at hand! The Talk Origins website began cataloguing the various creationist arguments many years ago and, while the website is now no longer maintained it still contains the fruits of those labours. Not only is there a comprehensive “Index to Creationist Claims” (www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html) but there are also countless other articles which go into far greater depth on topics related to the evolution/creationism debate. The Index has also recently been published as a book which makes it ideal to carry along to debates and meetings. I’ve got a copy and it’s an absolute gem!

Humanist Dave with beard and taped photo

Last month, MSS member Chris jetted off to a bright future and a new life in Canada. I think. I mean the brighter future bit, not the Canada bit – I know he’s in Canada. Or at least he said he is, I’ve no real hard evidence. Hmm. Anyway, in his first overseas missive, Chris introduces us to the Canada Humanist scene and their own Atheist Bus Campaign…

Greetings from Canada! Coincidentally, just as Ariane Sherine prepared to make her way to my old stomping-ground in Liverpool I attended my first meeting of the Humanist Association of Ottawa (HAO) at which the topic was the Atheist Bus Campaign. I thought it worth mentioning not only because of the fact that it was relevant to a Merseyside meeting, but also because it raises some issues that haven’t been so important in the UK.

David of the HAO gave a talk on Humanism as a whole and also, more specifically, the way that Humanism has been represented in Ottawa. While I disagreed with some of what was said (“Humanists are all atheists”, “Humanists only believe in what can be proven”, “Humanism is not a religion”) this was largely a matter a semantics. The most interesting side of the talk was what the group had been doing to spread awareness of Humanism and represent the non-religious in the city. So far they have been accepted onto interfaith panels in the city which contribute to the development of council policy. However, they have not been successful in getting involved with religious newspaper columns and the wider media. The group have also had a presence at gay pride parades and festivals, running stalls and distributing leaflets. However, an initial application to run the Atheist Bus advertisement (the same as has been running all over the world) was initially turned down by the city’s transport authority, OC Transpo.

It was this latter campaign that spurred the group into action. They saw three potential avenues to fight the decision: (i) through the law, (ii) by submitting a complaint on the basis of restriction of freedom of speech, or (iii) politically. The legal and human rights approaches were both deemed to be too expensive and too lengthy for a small organisation like the HAO and so they opted for politics and publicity as their weapon of choice. Turning up to the next OC Transpo meeting in specially-made t shirts and with duct tape covering their mouths (and with the media forewarned), four bold members of HAO made their presence felt (calmly and politely). Two HAO members gave presentations as to why they felt the advert should be run. In response, a member of the audience gave a presentation outlining why she felt that the advert should not be run (focusing on Hitler and Stalin being atheists and, therefore, if we run the advert we will inevitably have another holocaust…).

OC Transpo stated that it was their policy that “if in the opinion of the management an advertisement may offend some readers, we will not use the advertisement”. Clearly there is enough wiggle-room in this policy to (appropriately) fit a bus. Two letters of pre-emptive complaint had been received and this was enough evidence for them to decline the advert. This was in spite of 90% of the media coverage and the majority of local church groups actually being in support of the advert.

Dave with atheist bus ad

The next step was to take the matter to the City Council. Here 20 HAO members made an appearance in the public gallery, proudly sporting their Atheist Bus t shirts and attracting even more media attention. Bizarrely a counter-protest was organised outside which involved teachers and pupils from a local church-run primary school. Clearly it was more important that the children learn how to be “good Christians” than learn anything useful in the classroom. Having said that, David made the point that everybody (including both protests and the city council) conducted themselves in a civil manner. During the meeting the council voted 18:5 to overturn OC Transpo’s ban on the advert – a strong decision in favour of the HAO.

However, there are a few little details that made for interesting hearing… The first is that one council member decided to vote against overturning the ban on the basis that she was exercising her freedom of speech. The lady did not seem to see the irony behind using her free speech to ensure that others did not have the opportunity to exercise theirs… Secondly, these people were politicians and a number of individuals were careful to state that, although they were in favour of running the advert, it was not because they agreed with its message or even that they thought that free speech was that important, but simply because they saw a lengthy lawsuit coming and wanted to save taxpayers’ money. Very principled! Finally, and possibly the most outrageous, was the action of the mayor of the city who voted against overturning the ban. Only the previous day he had been present at a meeting of the Ottawa interfaith group where representatives from all the major faiths had agreed that they had no problem with the advert.

In the end, though, the OC Transpo decision was overturned and the advert ran on 30 buses for 4 weeks at a cost of CAD$7,000. However, David was pleased to point out some “bank-of-the-envelope” calculations that he had been doing which had estimated the value of the media coverage over the affair as being worth somewhere in the region of CAD$400,000-500,000. Subsequently the Canadian Supreme Court has ruled that (to paraphrase) “Canadians do not have the right to not be offended”. Also in terms of free-speech, the Supreme Court announced that a criterion that should be used in deciding whether to permit controversial material such as the Atheist Bus campaign should be whether the benefits of releasing it outweigh the costs of not doing so. Clearly the correct decision has been reached in Ottawa, although along the way the inherent reluctance of those in power to permit the basic human right of freedom of speech has been laid bare. Whether this stems from individuals acting on the basis of their own conscience and particular beliefs rather than out of a desire to serve their electorate’s needs or whether politicians are simply afraid of losing votes by alienating the religious element of the electorate is unclear. Whatever the answer, the Ottawa Atheist Bus campaign stands as a good case study of how Humanism and Atheism have been successfully promoted despite initial opposition.