Bellcurveball

In the wake of the Simon Singh vs. BCA debate (read more details on that on the fabulous @JackofKent’s blog ) others have linked to a transcript of the House of Common’s debate on Complementary and Alternative medicine from 14 October (full transcript here). While the debate itself did not give rise to any spectacular developments or announcement, I was nevertheless deeply disturbed by what I read, most notably by the comments of one David Tredinnick.

I have quoted some of the most disturbing statements below. I’m shocked and dismayed to find that someone that horribly uneducated in the application of critical thinking and scientific methods can make it to a position this important. But read for yourself. You have been warned.

Before turning to research, I want to focus on ethnic treatments, which are used by many people in this country. I am thinking of Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine. I want to look at how they are part of those cultures and at how those cultures look at the sky as part of their medical disciplines. Chinese medicine is closely aligned to feng shui, which is popular in this country and has a sub-discipline called “right directions”, and it relies on Chinese astronomy and astrology. I was on the last parliamentary delegation to Hong Kong before we gave it back to the Chinese, where I met Chris Patton‘s Chinese astronomer and astrologer—it was important to the Chinese that he should have one. Ayurvedic medicine also has a long tradition of looking at astronomical and astrological factors, and Lahiri is the official astrological system of the Indian Government.

And we ask ourselves: So what ? Having a long tradition doesn’t mean it’s right or good. I thought we had that covered already. Note the wording “astronomical and astrological factors” which I take to be a way of getting round the problem of Mr Tredinnick not being able to tell the difference.

I am arguing for more research. I have been criticised for raising the subject, but the criticism is generally based on a misunderstanding. It is based on the idea that I am talking about the stuff that we see in the newspapers about star sign astrology, but I am not. I am talking about a long-standing discipline—an art and a science—that has been with us since ancient Egyptian, Roman, Babylonian and Assyrian times. It is part of the Chinese, Muslim and Hindu cultures. Criticism is deeply offensive to those cultures, and I have a Muslim college in my constituency.

The same argument. It’s been used for a long time, hence we should keep using it. It’s part of other people’s culture and haven forbid, we shall not try to offend other cultures by questioninig their superst… their beliefs. At all.

The opposition is based on what I call the SIP formula—superstition, ignorance and prejudice. It tends to be based on superstition, with scientists reacting emotionally, which is always a great irony. They are also ignorant, because they never study the subject and just say that it is all to do with what appears in the newspapers, which it is not, and they are deeply prejudiced, and racially prejudiced too, which is troubling.

I think Mr Tredinnick will find that “studying the subject” is in fact exactly what scientists do. I for once am only concerned with what appears in the newspaper to the extent that the newspaper don’t often publish the scientific findings accurately. He will also find that most if not all elements of the scientific process aim to eliminate the emotional component. Then again, he just stated that “criticism is deeply offensive”, and surely that would be an emotional reaction?

Over the past few years I have looked at the issue in detail, as well as at the impact of astronomy and astrology on western herbalism, as taught by Culpeper, whose book “Culpeper’s Complete Herbal” has been in print longer than any other book in this country besides the Bible. There are now people who teach, such as Jane Ridder-Patrick, who published “A Handbook of Medical Astrology”. They look at aspects of the subject and how it affects people’s health. Whatever one believes personally, the issue is one that we should look into and consider. We must get away from this awful, mediaeval superstition.

I very nearly couldn’t comment on that, because I was so dumbfounded. The audacity to demand that we look into things regardless of what we believe, to get away from medieval superstition – well, guess what, that’s what scientists do. And whenever they looked closely and carefully they things like astrology and homeopathy lacking and ineffective.

(…) I am grateful to the Minister for her helpful response. A number of disciplines were mentioned and I could have referred to radionics, for example, for which a double-blind trial is almost impossible, yet it is very popular because people believe that it gives them the ability to get remote healing. We need to think out of the box here. As with healers who can do remote healing, it is no good people saying that just because we cannot prove something, it does not work. The anecdotal evidence that it does is enormous.

Radionics, in case you didn’t know, is “the use of blood, hair, a signature, or other substances unique to the person as a focus to supposedly heal a patient from afar” (Wikipedia). You’ve read that correctly, we are talking about remote healing, a process that, according to most peoples’ common sense , cannot and should not work. Wikipedia has put it succinctly: “Radionics devices contradict principles of biology and physics, and no scientifically plausible mechanism of function is posited. In this sense, they can be described as magical in operation. No plausible biophysical basis for the “putative energy fields” has been proposed, and neither the fields themselves nor their purported therapeutic effects have been convincingly demonstrated.”

Tredinnick has it wrong by saying “just because we cannot prove something, it does not work” – if it can’t be proven to work, if it violates the known principles of physics, and if it doesn’t stand any scientific tests, then we are more than justified in concluding it doesn’t work. If it can’t be tested, it’s not a scientific theory. Anectodal evidence is worth zilch, nada, zero, nothing. Bullshit is bullshit by any other name.