Realisation dawns on an idiot

The absurd Hazel Blears regrets her resignation. Of course she does! She was in the Cabinet, thanks to the lunatic Blair. Her resignation is the best thing that could have happened to Brown. The only mystery is why he didn’t get shot of her sooner.

BBC News does science right (Shock! Horror!)

I’ve often been critical of BBC News coverage (postings passim ad nauseam), so it’s only fair to report when they do something right. It’s even more surprising when it’s science. Kudos to Victoria Gill, Science Reporter.

BBC News continues downhill (6)

When I had occasion to chastise Stephen Fry about the silly modern habit of using “more than” to mean “as many as” (or, less charitably, using “three” to mean “two”), I was sure he wouldn’t be so stupid as to do the same thing with percentages. I had no such confidence in the new, dumber, BBC. Today they published this piece of innumerate drivel.

Checking out the actual numbers at Amazon, I see that the Kindle DX has a 9.7″ screen, compared with 6″ on earlier models. That’s a ratio of about 1.6 in linear dimensions or about 2.6 (let’s round it down to 2.5) in area. That makes it about 150% bigger, not 250%!

What is Gordon Brown’s guilty secret?

Obviously Tony Blair was an unprincipled spin-doctor. He decided that the only way he could win an election was by turning Labour into a clone of the Conservatives. The plan worked and the key Daily Mail demographic fell for the same “something for nothing” drivel the Tories had been feeding them for decades. When Gordon Brown came along, he appeared less smarmy, and therefore more honest. But what’s happened since? He brought Mandelson back from the dead, with a seat in the Lords to boot, and now sits idly by while his Home Secretary makes Blunkett look competent by comparison. It seems Jacqui and Mandy have something on him, to make him do their bidding.

BBC News continues downhill (5)

The BBC News Web site currently has a story headlined “Texting death crash peer jailed“. A careful reading of the article reveals that Lord Ahmed was jailed for dangerous driving. Not, as the BBC would like us to believe, for causing death by dangerous driving, because there is no evidence that he was driving dangerously at the time of the fatal accident. Rather, he was considered (indeed pleaded guilty to) driving dangerously some minutes before the accident. I think that makes the “Texting death” part of the headline a blatant lie.

Andrew Wakefield made it all up?

The Sunday Times has an unfortunate obsession with exclusive stories. It’s unfortunate because the desire to get the story published often takes priority over checking the facts.  The most notorious example was the Hitler’s diaries hoax of 1983. I’m sure they’ve fallen for the odd previously undiscovered Shakespeare work as well but, in characteristic Sunday Times fashion, I can’t be bothered checking.

These hoaxes cause the Sunday Times and its publishers much embarrassment, and the rest of us much schadenfreude. Unfortunately, the paper’s performance on health stories is less amusing. Its sympathetic treatment of Peter Duesberg’s eccentric views on the causal relationship between HIV and AIDS may be due to incompetence, but was prolonged over an estended period and may have had fatal consequences. Its editorial staff can sleep soundly in their beds in the knowledge that the deaths in the UK as a consequence of their publishing this rubbish have been far fewer than South Africa’s 330,000 from 2000 to 2005.

Against this background, it would be dangerous to assume that a medical story in the Sunday Times would be painstakingly researched and verified. So it is with some misgivings that I recommend reading today’s piece by Brian Deer. If this proves accurate, it will blow away the last vestige of evidence behind the whole preposterous MMR-autism nonsense. Not that the cranks are overly concerned about evidence. Brian Deer has done good work on this issue before; it’s just unfortunate that he chooses to publish in the Sunday Times.

Charity begins at home

[Resisting the temptation to end the title "...homo". What a pity many readers would have misconstrued it.]

There’s a bit of a kerfuffle about animal charities in Scotland today. The Scottish SPCA accuses the RSPCA of  allowing Scots donors to believe that the RSPCA spends money in Scotland, when in fact it doesn’t. I’m sure the same confusion exists between the NSPCC and Children 1st (The bloody stupid name doesn’t help.)

But I think there’s a much more shameful comparison to be made here. In 2007, the RSPCA made £114.1 million to the Scottish SPCA’s £11.984 million. In the year to March 2008, the NSPCC made £119.435 million  to Children 1st’s £9.270 million. The real disgrace is that the figures for the children’s charities are much the same as the animal charities’. Aren’t suffering children worth more than suffering of other species?

Gary Larson once did a Far Side cartoon titled “Bobbing for Poodles”. In one of his books, he talked of the number of complaints it had attracted, and expressed his relief that he hadn’t gone with his original title of “Bobbing for Babies”. I have no doubt whatsoever as to which title would have attracted more complaints in the UK, and it saddens me.

Delusions of adequacy

At my place of work we’ve all recently been asked to update our CVs (That’s curricula vitarum or, for those of you across the pond, résumés.) I don’t know whether to be amused or horrified at those people who consider themselves “highly competent” in MS Word, yet think multiple blank paragraphs are a sensible way to force a page break, when what they should be using is one of “keep with next”, “keep lines together” or “widow/orphan control”. Even barely competent users could insert a proper page break.

On the buses

A few months ago, my place of work changed – the company headquarters moved to newly-refurbished premises in Glasgow city centre. This change has a number of consequences, some good, some bad. My commute, instead of a 25-minute drive door-to-door, is now a 35-minute bus ride plus a 5-minute walk (Assuming the bus turns up, etc.)

One good change is that I can read on the bus. That’s quite a dramatic change because, for some years, the only time I’ve found for purely recreational reading has been in bed, and then I’ve only ever wanted to read books that would help me sleep. Now I can read stimulating, intellectually challenging, books. I’ve actually read a computer language text-book (apart from the reference section) – the PIckaxe (Wikipedia). It’s a longer read than the legendary K&R (W), but far more readable than Stroustrup (W). I also have a copy of the Camel (W), but I’m not tempted to read that, other than for reference.

My most recent read has been Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. It’s an impressive book, if a little hard work. It’s longer than it might need be for some readers, but much of that length is a result of the sheer weight of evidence that Darwin presents, enough to convince all but the most determinedly pig-ignorant. And it worked.  Flat-earth creationism is now rare outside of the USA.

The strongest argument of the pig-ignorant seems to be that “it’s just a theory”, but that just shows their ignorance of the scientific usage of the word “theory”. In science, the word “hypothesis” is roughly equivalent to the everyday word “theory”. In science, for a hypothesis to become a theory, it must withstand prolonged attempts by hostile scientists to disprove it. It is a measure of scientists’ modesty (acquired from experience – a concept that the flat-earthers bizarrely refuse to understand) that they recognise that their current best understanding of the way the world works may benefit from future refinement. Since flat-earthers are so determinedly ineducable, it’s pointless trying to explain. A better approach is simply to use different words.

The thing that struck me most about Origin of Species was how obvious it is, in hindsight. Of course Darwin was ignorant of Mendel’s near-contemporary work. And it’s hard to imagine that both of them worked at a time when the role of chromosomes was not understood.

The writing style of Origin of Species challenges the reader. I believe there was a tendency in those days towards long sentences, but Darwin often lost track of the number of subjects by the time he came to the verb, which makes those long sentences even harder to untangle. There’s one behemoth of, if I’ve counted correctly, 218 words (on pp 275-276 of the Oxford World’s Classics 1996 Edition). It’s hard to read, but you don’t have to. If you don’t need to have the evidence beaten into you with a stick, the last chapter, Recapitulation and conclusion, sums it up. Just read that.

It’s a funny New World

From a UK perspective, Americans are a funny lot. They certainly appear more patriotic than we do, which can be a bad thing, but strengthens their economy and who can blame them for that? I was, until a few moments ago, under the impression that they were more interested in politics than we are, until I checked out Wikipedia on voter turnout – 54% to our 76%!

I thought the Democrats had made a tactical error in choosing Obama. From my own very limited empirical evidence, I fear racism is rife in the US. I don’t speak to many Americans in the average month, but I am disgusted at how many of them feel it necessary to volunteer their appalling views to relative strangers. And I suspect most of the racists are Republicans. So I felt that Obama could win the primaries battle, but lose the election war; that his candidacy would bring out the racists among the Republicans, who simply wouldn’t bother to vote against Clinton. Is tactical racism excusable? The pragmatist in me felt that choosing a candidate to take account of the opposition’s prejudices is unpleasant, but a necessary evil. I was wrong, and it wasn’t necessary.

American election candidates often fight dirty, but even by US standards, Elizabeth Dole is pond-scum. Perhaps the saddest aspect of that incident is the possibility that it might have worked; the idea that Godless Americans are a bad thing. Would you rather have elected representatives who made decisions on the basis of evidence, or ones who believed that the voices in their heads came from the creator of the universe, who takes an active interest in events on this insignificant little planet? The tragedy of US democracy is that the majority of Americans are irrational. The wonder of US democracy is that the framers of the Constitution took great care to limit the power of religious fantasy.

Update: Forgot to mention – it’s a shock to learn that you’re older than POTUS!