Another one bites the metaphorical dust

And this time, it’s a police officer.

A Christian policeman who objected to being ‘bombarded’ at work by emails and posters promoting gay rights and events has been sacked for misconduct.

PC Graham Cogman, 50, responded to the ‘politically correct’ campaign by sending emails to colleagues which quoted religious texts and suggested homosexual sex was sinful.

Of course, being a good upstanding Christian citizen, he feels he has been discriminated against.

He confirmed he was considering an appeal against the dismissal and was continuing with plans to have his case heard by an employment tribunal on the grounds that he had been harassed over his Christian beliefs.

Apparently the police force don’t offer remedial courses in basic English.  He was not sacked because of what he believed – he was sacked because of what he did.  He is a police officer, and his duty is to uphold the law, not his personal beliefs.  If he cannot separate his personal beliefs from his actions, then he has no business being a police officer.

Good riddance to bad rubbish. One less bigot in the police can’t be a bad thing.

Spot the BNP supporters.

Everyone and their mother now knows that the list of BNP supporters has been unleashed upon the internets.  It’s amusing reading, but not as amusing as what appears to be people who are clearly – and absolutely not – BNP supporters descending upon the IT forums:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/19/bnp_members_trouble/comments/

 

Schadenfreuder.

nOOb!

The Reverend Evan Cockshaw: nOOb!

Here’s something strange…

I learned something today that I hadn’t realised before.  Now that I know it, it is both blindingly obvious, and remarkably funny.

Whenever I browse through the Reference section on the “App Store” section of Apple’s iTunes, I’m often curious as to how there can be so many different bible applications, and I was astonished at how much some people are charging for them.  Out of pure idle curiosity, I clicked on one that happened to be free, and read this rather amusing comment in the application’s description:

NIV, ESV, NKJV, etc. are copyrighted texts.  I cannot afford to pay the royalties.

The bible is copyrighted, and subject to royalty payments!  God, apparently, doesn’t believe in Open Source…

Sick F*ck

I’m seeing a little too much of this in the American election for my comfort:

And that twisted individual is not alone. Calls of “terrorist”, “traitor” and “kill him” have become far to common in the American election; all of it – naturally – directed against Obama. Congratulations McCain, by falsely accusing Obama of being a friend to terrorists, you’ve given comfort to the most obnoxious and un-hinged segments of the American public. Your mum must be real proud.

He said…What?

Reading through today’s headline over at the National Secular Society, there’s a few headlines all dealing with one question: Creationism.  The Times, in particular, issues the headline, “Leading scientist urges teaching of creationism in schools“.  Later, over at the BBC, was the headline, “Call for creationism in science“.  A Times editorial on “Unintelligent design“, an Independent article stating, “One in 10 pupils believes in creationism“. A bizarre analysis, again from the Times stating, “You need to understand your opponents’ argument“.  What’s with the sudden interest in creationsim?

Well, it all leads to one thing: a scientist – the Prof./Rev. Michael Reiss – is saying that creationism should be taught in schools.  And not just any scientist: Scientist, ordained minister, and member of the Royal Society.  We are in very muddy territory indeed if a member of the Royal Society – and a biologist at that – is endorsing creationism.  The Times actually went further, proclaiming that:

Creationism should be taught in science classes as a legitimate point of view, according to the Royal Society, putting the august science body on a collision course with the Government.

If this is true, then we really are in deep do-do.  The position of the Royal Society, when it was last embroiled in this farce of a “controversy”, was categorically that creationism is not science.  Have they suddenly performed an about face?

Well. No.

What the Prof./Rev. actually wrote can be found here, and this appears to be the crux of his argument:

For example, the excellent book Science, Evolution, and Creationism published by the US National Academy of Sciences and Institute of Medicine, asserts: “The ideas offered by intelligent design creationists are not the products of scientific reasoning. Discussing these ideas in science classes would not be appropriate given their lack of scientific support.”

I agree with the first sentence but disagree with the second. Just because something lacks scientific support doesn’t seem to me a sufficient reason to omit it from a science lesson. When I was taught physics at school, and taught it extremely well in my view, what I remember finding so exciting was that we could discuss almost anything providing we were prepared to defend our thinking in a way that admitted objective evidence and logical argument.

Now, if I’m reading this correctly, he’s not saying, “side must be set aside to discuss creationism in the science classroom”, he’s instead saying, “if a child asks, or mentions, creationism, the correct response is not to say, ‘we can’t discuss that at all’, but to say, ‘okay, defend that statement’”.  And I think he’s right.  Especially as he goes on to clarify:

So when teaching evolution, there is much to be said for allowing students to raise any doubts they have (hardly a revolutionary idea in science teaching) and doing one’s best to have a genuine discussion. The word ‘genuine’ doesn’t mean that creationsim or intelligent design observe equal time.

He’s not saying, in any way, shape or form, that either intelligent design or creationism are valid scientfic viewpoints, or represent any form of challenge to evolution. Rather he’s saying, “let’s show how science works“.  Simply hand-waving and dismissing the idea does not teach children anything: instead, he’s saying, show them how there pre-conceptions differ from the way science works. And he’s right: this is hardly novel. Take physics as an example.

Almost all of modern physics is counter-intuitive, yet it is by far the best description of the world we see.  We are taught in schools that two objects of different weights – a feather and a lead weight, say – when dropped in a vacum will drop at the same rate.  This runs counter to our every-day observation that the lead weight will fall faster.  Similarly, we are taught that an object at motion will remain in motion unless a force is appled against it.  But if you roll a ball along a straight plane, it will eventually stop – the physical truth runs counter to normal experience.  It has to be explained that the discrepency is air-resistence.  In many respects, it could be argued that if a person has not experienced the “huh?” moment when newtonian physics is explained to them then they probably haven’t understood the implications, and probably never felt the, “Oh!” feeling of exaltation when they finally do get it.  I regularly meet people who, even in adult-hood, still don’t understand that an object in orbit, whilst aparently weightless, is not mass-less, and make eroneous assumptions based on this.

Evolution is the same.  Evolution – just like modern physics, and all good science – is overwhelmingly supported by evidence, and is overwhemingly backed by predictive power, but is overwhelmingly counter-intuitive.  Humans and apes share a common ancestor.  And, in fact, we’ve got common ancestors with every mammal.  Huh?  On the face of it, it makes no sense. Yet it is absolutely true.  The kids coming into the classrooms to be fed these apparently nonsensical viewpoints may well believe that humanity was created, because they have no other frame of reference.  They haven’t learnt what science is.  Surely nothing could be better for the teaching of evolution – and the teaching of science in general – than to point out why creationism isn’t scientific, and why intelligent design isn’t scientific.  All this guy is saying is, “teach kids critical thinking”. Otherwise, all you’re doing is teaching them a bunch of facts they don’t understand, and can never connect to their own lives.

And he’s appropriately cautious too:

Having said that, I don’t believe that such teaching is easy. Some students get very heated; others remain silent even if they disagree profoundly with what is said.

I’m deeply dissapointed that an honest assesment of how to explain evolution in the classroom is distorted and grossly misrepresented by the media in an attempt to garner a few newspaper sales.  I can imagine the glee with which creationists, on both sides of the pond, will look at these headlines and shout, “See!  Even the Royal Society agree with us”, when they, most profoundly, do not.

LHC goes (almost) live!

Cool!

And, not unsurprisingly, the world stubbornly failed to come to an end.  Not that – even if the scientifically illiterate doomsayers were right – the world could have come to an end today: they’re only firing protons one way around the ring, which means no actual collisions yet.  But it’s still cool – it means it looks like it’s going to work.

This is a fantastic day for particle physicists, and I can’t wait to see what new information will be coming out of this thing in the years ahead. Cosmic Variance has an excellent list of what may or may not be found by the LHC. My personal favorite on that list is, “Something that Has Never Been Predicted”.  Sure, if they find Higgs – which is what everyone seems to be talking about – then it confirms one field of physicts, but how much more exciting if they don’t!

One unfortunate effect of this, of course, is the nut-jobs.  Not just the doomsayers, but the naysayers. Such as the one highlighted on the BBC’s own report, from their “Have Your Say” section:

I think it is disgraceful that huge sums of cash have been spent on this project

Pfft. Twaddle.  Far from being “disgraceful”, this is finally a step in the right direction: science, especially in the UK, is woefully under-funded.  Nowhere near enough money is spent on science – you just have to look at the fate that nearly befell Jodrell Bank to see that!  And what does that science spending bring? Technology!

Too many times, a science project is criticized, because it’s money that could have been spent on feeding the poor, without understanding that it is precisely science that provides benefits to the poorest regions of the world.  How do you record about famine in a remote part of the world? Satellite technology, digital video technology, broadcasting technology. All Science.  How do you co-ordinate a world-wide response to a natural disaster? Aviation technology, GPS technology, communications technology – including the WWW developed at CERN. All Science.  How do you type a message to a BBC website complaining about money spent on a science project being “disgraceful”? By using a computer: a device that functions as well and as cheaply as it does thanks to the discovery and improvement of semi-conductor technology, which required an understanding of Quantum Mechanics: SCIENCE.  Does this woman think her computer technology just dropped out of the sky?

Science is cool: it comes up with really weird results (seriously: just think about what’s physically going on in that Intel Core 2 processor – that’s weird!), but it changes our understanding of the universe, and enables us to control our environment in ways we wouldn’t have foreseen before experimentation. Yes, it costs money, but it’s worth every damned penny, and people who don’t see that should just pack up their damned computer, and stop spouting nonsense on the networks science created.

UK man did NOT invent the iPod.

From Slashdot, I came across this article, stating:

Apple has admitted that a British man played a part in developing the iconic and extremely profitable iPod, although he has so far received no money for his invention.

Let’s be quite clear: this is an absurd claim.  Why? Well, from the same article:

In 1979 Kane Kramer from Hertfordshire filed a patent for a digital music player that stored just three and a half minutes of music to a solid state chip – limiting media options to just one short song.

And what is the iPod?  Well, until recently, the iPod was a hard-drive based product.  And it could contain a little more than three and half minutes of music.  And this guys patent expired. 20 years ago. Furthermore, the iPod was successful, not because it was some unique new technology, but because it had a working – useful – interface.

Nonetheless, a company was set up by Kramer to bring the IXI to a commercial release, but it slipped into the public domain in 1988 when the firm failed to raise the £60,000 needed to renew international patents.

Okay, so the patent failed to be renewed (not unsurprisingly; who’s going to pay good money to carry around one song in an age when portable cassette players were inexpensive), but the article carries on to state:

Because of this patent lapse, Kramer has received no money from the sale of any of the 163 million iPods Apple has so far sold.

And neither did he receive money from any other MP3 player manufacturer.  Shouldn’t that minor fact have clued this clueless journalist into something: Apple are not the only company manufacturing digital audio products – either hard-drive or solid-state based.  But the fact that this claim is patently (ahem) absurd, nothing stopped it from making it into Wikipedia (correct as of 09/09/08):

In order to defeat a lawsuit from patent holding company Burst.com, Apple finally admitted in September 2008 that the true inventor of the device was not in fact employed by the company; it was Kane Kramer who patented the idea of a “plastic music box” in 1979, which he called the IX.

The reference for the above quote, incidentally, is CNet, which makes this extraordinary claim:

The iPod was, apparently, invented not by some genius at Apple (not even a British one) but by a British furniture salesman who left high school at 15 and still has not been paid a dime for his brilliance.

And who does CNet reference in order to justify this claim?  The Daily Mail. Chosing the “big bad American company screws over hard working Brit” angle:

A staggering 163million iPods have been sold since the device was launched by Apple in 2001.

…

But Mr Kramer, in contrast, last year had to close his struggling furniture design business and move with his wife Lorraine and children, Jodi, nine, Luis, 14, and Lauren, 16, into rented accommodation.

And the proof they provide that Apple should pay this guy for expired patents that don’t bear any resemblence to the iPod?  Well, have a look at the sketch yourself.  This really is Flat Earth News: aka. Making stuff up.

Kramer did not invent the iPod.  Kramer is not entitled to a penny of the sales of the iPod, the Zune, the Walkman MP3, or any other digital audio device.  And the news people – once again – are making stuff up.

Great Scott!

Noooo!  They’re remaking The Rocky Horror Show!

I love The Rocky Horror Show!  Given the state of remakes from Hollywood recently, I can’t see this as a good thing.  Although I’ll probably end up watching it anyway  I wonder who they’ll have playing Janet! Dr. Scott! Brad! Rocky!

One story, seven reports

I’ve recently started reading the book, “Flat Earth News” by Nick Davies, about why most news seems to be such rubbish.  In the book, Nick Davies discusses a number of problems with the modern “news industry” (or “churnalism” as he calls it) such as increasing output whilst cutting back on reporters, over-dependence on press wire agencies, re-writting other people’s stories in a game of one-up-manship-meets-chinese-whispers, and so forth. So it was with these issues in mind that I came across this story by an un-named source in the BBC:

A woman has been awarded more than £800,000 after she suffered permanent brain damage while on a detox diet.

The story goes on to explain that Dawn Page was told to drink large amounts of water – later clarified as four pints – and eventually had “an epileptic seizure which damaged her memory, speech and concentration”.  What started my brain buzzing however was the closing statement in the article. After having gone in to some detail as to how drinking too much water is not good for you, the article finishes with:

But others believe detoxing can beneficial [sic] if done property. Ellie Kopiel, 55, detoxes about once a year by limiting her food intake, eating lots of fruit and vegetables and drinking about two litres of water a day.

Closing this article in this way immedeatly reminded me of Nick Davies’ “Rules of Production”, especially Rule 5: Always give both sides of the story.

Rule 5 essentially says that the press, when venturing out of their safe zones, will always pick someone to show the “other side of the story” – even when it can objectively be shown that there is no other legitimate side – just to cover their arse. (I am, of course, crudely paraphrasing Nick Davies).  Having read this article alongside the BBC’s article “The dangers of too much detox“, by Martin Hutchinson – which contains no such cop-out – and bearing in mind the lessons in Nick Davie’s book, I placed a small wager with myself that the story had been re-written from a Press wire agency.  So I had to wonder: how many different ways can one seemingly innocuous news story be reported.

I picked six other sites, all of which also sell newspapers, to see what could be gleened from them. I chose:

• The Guardian
• The Telegraph
• The Evening Standard
• The Mirror
• Metro
• and the Northern Echo

Of these, two sources (the BBC and Metro) did not name a source for the article; three named a reporter as the apparent source (Guardian, Telegraph and Evening Standard), whereas only one identified that the story came from a press wire agency: the Northern Echo name the Press Association as being the source.  This is not in itself unusual, but those are the statistics.

All of the seven sources agree on the basic facts: Dawn Page is 52, she has received over £800,000, shortly after starting the detox diet she started vomitting, she suffered had an epileptic fit, and now suffers from some form of brain damage.

Importantly, however, the sources do not agree as to what happened when Mrs Page reported her vomitting to her nutritionist, Ms Nash.  They all report that Mrs Page was told by Ms Nash that vomitting was a perfectly normal part of the process.  The Telegraph gives more details stating:

After a few days she started vomiting but was allegedly assured by Mrs Nash that it was “all part of the detoxification process”. Mrs Page, who weighed 12 stone (76kg), was even urged to increase her water intake to six pints a day and cut her salt intake further.(emphasis mine).

Similarly, the Evening Standard states:

Mrs Nash even urged Mrs Page – who weighed 12 stone – to increase the amount of water she drank to six pints per day and eat fewer salty foods.

And the Mirror:

Mrs Nash suggested Dawn, from Faringdon, near Oxford, increase the amount of water she drank to six pints a day and eat fewer salty foods.

And the Metro:

Mrs Page fell ill days after starting the diet in 2001 but Ms Nash – who denied all liability in the High Court settlement – told her to drink even more water and the dieter suffered a severe epileptic fit.

Four sources out of seven reported that, when complaining of vomitting, Mrs Nash urged Mrs Page to increase her water intake from four-pints of water (over and above her normal liquid intake) to six, and of those three state Mrs Page was advised to reduce salt intake further still. The remaining four don’t report either of these facts.  In fact two – the BBC, and the Northern Echo, implicitly contradict this finding.  The statement by the lawyer acting for the nutritionist is reported on the BBC as saying:

“On behalf of our client we wish to make it clear that all allegations of substandard practice made on behalf of Mrs Page in the litigation have always been and continue to remain firmly denied.

“Equally, the information contained in the medical records suggesting that Mrs Page appeared to have drunk five litres of water on the day that she was admitted to hospital, and therefore disregarded advice given by our client, were also denied by Mrs Page.

“In our view as a recognition of this, the settlement amount agreed to be paid was less than half the total amount claimed and the compromise which was offered and accepted was on the basis of no admission of liability.”

The Northern Echo concurs.  If the settlement sum was reduced by half, based on the disputed fact that Mrs Page had allegedly drunk five pints of water on the day she was admitted to hospital, how could it be that Mrs Nash had advised Mrs Page to drink six?  I cannot honestly believe that a settlement of this type would have been reached because Mrs Page had drunk less than she was advised, only that she’d drunk more.

Neither the Telegraph, the Evening Standard, or the Mirror reporting of the statement made by Mrs Nash’s lawyer covers the disputed five pints of water.  Only that she was allegedly told to drink six pints a day.  Either some important detail has been missed, or that’s simply been made up.

Now this is not – by any stretch of the imagination – to defend the self-styled nutritionist. Based upon what I’ve read on the problems caused by drinking too much water, I think she offered some extraordinarialy dangerous advise, irrespective as to whether she advised her client to drink four or six pints.  What’s interesting here is that this is – on the surface – a relatively uncomplicated story, and yet the facts can still get screwed around. The BBC story – by covering their own arses with the “balanced” approach – leave you feeling that detox diets may be okay, even though the article points out what a load of rubbish the nutritionist was spouting.  The Telegraph, the Evening Standard, the Mirror and the Metro are apparently making stuff up, whilst failing to provide the nutritionists statement that would cast doubt on their additional statements.

I don’t really know what further conclusion to reach from this.  I don’t know what really happened in this case, but I am fairly convinced that the national press don’t either, and that bothers me.