The Scientific American, April 2005, about giving up on being persuaded by “mere evidence”.

In retrospect, this magazine’s coverage of so-called evolution has been hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism? Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.

A hilarious article worth reading.

(– via brainchallenged spacegirl)

“Although the law and the discussion has been on the statute book for over 25 years, it is indicative of a culture that has taken hold of the programs of successive governments, that with a reasonable and well intentioned ambition to contain obnoxious elements in society has created a society of an extraordinarily authoritarian and controlling nature. That is what you might call the ‘new intolerance’: A new and intense desire to gag uncomfortable voices of descent.

I am not intolerant, say many people. Say many softly spoken, highly educated, liberal minded poeple.
I’m only intolerant of intolerance. [...] But thinking about this for more than 5 seconds make you realize that all it is advocating is replacing one kind of intolerance with another. Underlying prejudices and justices or resentments are not addressed by arresting people, they are addressed with by the issues being aired, argued and dealt with, preferably outside of the legal process.

For me, the best way to increase society’s resistance to insulting or offensive speech is to allow a lot more of it.”

Spiegel Internationall managed to get an interview with Prof Joseph Stiglitz about inequality in the US, in which he presents some terrifying numbers:

“In 2008, President George W. Bush claimed that we did not have enough money for health insurance for poor American children, costing a few billion dollars a year. But all of a sudden we had $150 billion to bail out AIG, the insurance company. That shows that something is wrong with our political system. It is more akin to “one dollar, one vote” than to “one person, one vote.”

“Many of those in the financial sector got rich by economic manipulation, by deceptive and anti-competitive practices, by predatory lending. They took advantage of the poor and uninformed, as they made enormous amounts of money by preying upon these groups with predatory lending. They sold them costly mortgages and were hiding details of the fees in fine print.”

“In 2011, the six heirs to the Walmart empire commanded wealth of almost $70 billion, which is equivalent to the wealth of the entire bottom 30 percent of US society.”

“More than a quarter of all homeowners owe more money than the value of their houses. We need a growth strategy to stimulate the economy. We haven’t invested enough for 30 years — in infrastructure, technology, education.”

“One corporation alone, AIG, got more than $150 billion — more than was spent on welfare for needy families from 1990 to 2006.”

“Europe’s crisis is not caused by excessive long-term debts and deficits. It is caused by cutbacks in government expenditures. The recession caused the deficits, not the other way around. Before the crisis Spain and Ireland ran budget surpluses. They cannot be accused of fiscal profligacy. More fiscal discipline will only worsen the downturn. No economy ever recovered from a downturn through austerity.”

Joseph Stiglitz is …

… “recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the John Bates Clark Medal (1979). He is also the former senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank. He is known for his critical view of the management of globalization, free-market economists (whom he calls “free market fundamentalists”) and some international institutions like the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”

His latest book “The Price of Inequality” (2012) hit the New York Times best seller list.

The Guardian published an edited extract from “Bad Pharma”, by Ben Goldacre, published next week.

I don’t know what to say. These are facts, and I read a lot of the papers he talks about. We really need to do something about this. It’s one of the greatest and most dangerous crimes of our times.

Just one example:

“When GlaxoSmithKline applied for a marketing authorisation in children for paroxetine, an extraordinary situation came to light, triggering the longest investigation in the history of UK drugs regulation. Between 1994 and 2002, GSK conducted nine trials of paroxetine in children. The first two failed to show any benefit, but the company made no attempt to inform anyone of this by changing the “drug label” that is sent to all doctors and patients. In fact, after these trials were completed, an internal company management document stated: “It would be commercially unacceptable to include a statement that efficacy had not been demonstrated, as this would undermine the profile of paroxetine.” In the year after this secret internal memo, 32,000 prescriptions were issued to children for paroxetine in the UK alone: so, while the company knew the drug didn’t work in children, it was in no hurry to tell doctors that, despite knowing that large numbers of children were taking it. More trials were conducted over the coming years – nine in total – and none showed that the drug was effective at treating depression in children.

It gets much worse than that. These children weren’t simply receiving a drug that the company knew to be ineffective for them; they were also being exposed to side-effects. This should be self-evident, since any effective treatment will have some side-effects, and doctors factor this in, alongside the benefits (which in this case were nonexistent). But nobody knew how bad these side-effects were, because the company didn’t tell doctors, or patients, or even the regulator about the worrying safety data from its trials. This was because of a loophole: you have to tell the regulator only about side-effects reported in studies looking at the specific uses for which the drug has a marketing authorisation. Because the use of paroxetine in children was “off-label”, GSK had no legal obligation to tell anyone about what it had found.”

Please read the full article, and consider looking into the book.

– Source: guardian.co.uk

Agnotology: the art of spreading doubt

“An attitude of radical scepticism is essential for most serious research.
Yet there is also a point at which such scepticism becomes pathological and irresponsible. Whole industries have an interest in casting doubt on the overwhelming evidence that smoking damages health, that nuclear energy imposes substantial risks, that climate change is taking place and that the pre-credit crunch banking system was a house of cards. Academics who cultivate the art of spreading doubt – what one scholar calls “agnotology” – are often de facto protecting corporate profits and discouraging governments and individuals from taking action. They also give authority to views that would be taken with a large pinch of salt if put forward by journalists, lawyers or public relations firms.”
– Matthew Reisz

(via the sun’s way)

• The Dailymail has a piece on a photograph that was taken 2 days after the alleged Assange rape, and some information about the way Assange and his potential victim spent their time.
  

  “It seems an unremarkable image: a group of friends smiling broadly. But this is the photograph Julian Assange hopes will clear his name. The face of the woman on the left has been obscured for legal reasons. For although she is seen beaming, she would later tell police that 48 hours before the picture was taken, the WikiLeaks founder pinned her down in her flat and sexually assaulted her.”

  Worth reading.

• We know now that the energy industry in Germany is doing very well, despite the fact that we decided to stop doing Nuclear Energy by 2020. In fact, they’re doing so well that they not only lost money, as they claimed they would, but they also made a lot of money. So much, in fact, that it seems questionable not to lower prices for customers. They pretend to be oblivious of all of this, and demand reparations from Germany. Over $20 billion. At this point it’s worth noting that, due to some really weird history of Nuclear Power in Germany, companies do not have to participate financially in disposing of Nuclear Waste. They run the the plants. They make the money. They charge taxpayers for electricity. And taxpayers also pay for the (insanely expensive) longterm management of Nuclear Waste. (Source)
• The city of Berlin asked communication providers (i.e. internet and phone companies) for 6.6 million datasets between 2008 and 2011. In 116 cases, this led to leads that were of at least some importance in trying to solve crimes. On average, it means that the police looked into 57.000 datasets of innocent citizens, to get leads on one crime. You know my opinion about proportionality. I do not consider this to be proportional. (Source)
• The Huffingtonpost is holding a so-called Shadow Convention:
  

  “To battle the two parties’ neglect of these issues, HuffPost Live and The Huffington Post are hosting Shadow Conventions 2012 — devoting a day during each of the national conventions to focusing on one of the three issues. Today and next Tuesday, a wide array of HuffPost sections — from Politics to Green to Entertainment to Science — are featuring stories and blog posts highlighting the effects the war on drugs is having on so many aspects of our lives.”

I’m a bit in a hurry, so I’ll just link to this:

“In more than six years of spying on Muslim neighborhoods, eavesdropping on conversations and cataloguing mosques, the New York Police Department’s secret Demographics Unit never generated a lead or triggered a terrorism investigation, the department acknowledged in court testimony unsealed late Monday. […] Police infiltrated Muslim student groups, put informants in mosques, monitored sermons and catalogued every Muslim in New York who adopted new, Americanized surnames. […] Dozens of members of Congress have asked the Justice Department to investigate the NYPD. Attorney General Eric Holder has said he was disturbed by the reports. But John Brennan, President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, has said he is confident the NYPD’s activities are lawful and have kept the city safe.”

Yes, Mr Brennan. The safest city is the city in which all citizens are locked up in their basements, alone, guarded by military personell. Sleeping. There is so much less probability of running into danger if you’re unconscious, after all.

I am sure this would be a lovely world to live in.

–– Source: Associated Press

(More about this: see “Surveillance” on this blog).

One might claim that oftentimes, hilariousness and truth are to be found on different ends of the same spectrum. It might therefor not be the easiest task to write something that is both hilarious and true.

Fortunately, in the last decade or so there was a drastic change in the way American politics work, hence enabling people like David Javerbaum at the New York Times to publish articles like “A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney“.

“Probability. Mitt Romney’s political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.”
…
“Entanglement. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a proton, neutron or Mormon: the act of observing cannot be separated from the outcome of the observation. By asking Mitt Romney how he feels about an issue, you unavoidably affect how he feels about it. More precisely, Mitt Romney will feel every possible way about an issue until the moment he is asked about it, at which point the many feelings decohere into the single answer most likely to please the asker.”

So Good.

Just a few days ago I wrote about the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. They agreed to pay $520 million to settle a federal civil lawsuit in which the company was accused of illegally promoting its antipsychotic drug quetiapine, marketed under the brand name Seroquel, for unapproved indications.

Yesterday, GlaxoSmithKline pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges. They agreed to pay $3 billion to settle what government officials on Monday described as “the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history”.

What had happened?

“GSK targeted the antidepressant Paxil to patients under age 18 when it was approved for adults only, and it pushed the drug Wellbutrin for uses it was not approved for, including weight loss and treatment of sexual dysfunction, according to an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department.
The company went to extreme lengths to promote the drugs, such as distributing a misleading medical journal article and providing doctors with meals and spa treatments that amounted to illegal kickbacks, prosecutors said.
In a third instance, GSK failed to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration safety data about its diabetes drug Avandia, in violation of U.S. law, prosecutors said.
The misconduct continued for years beginning in the late 1990s and continued, in the case of Avandia’s safety data, through 2007.”
–– Source: finance.yahoo.com

People at GlaxoSmithKline made these decisions. They knew what they were doing. They decided to actively poison tens of thousands of people with drugs that were not approved for their condition – including children. And we’re we are not talking about vitamin-C pills, we’re talking about drugs that seriously affect the neurotransmitter systems in your brain, causing severe side effects in some patients.

I don’t understand how it is possible that no one goes to jail for that. Who cares if the company has to pay billions in compensation? As long as there are no consequences for the people who made the decisions, nothing will ever change.