The Enemies of Reason, Channel 4, Monday 8pm

[lozzyloz]

I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the end your right to say it ........................Voltaire

[mockney piers]

Spot on lozzyloz. Monica, we'll just have to agree to disagree, sorry to hear we're no longer pals though.

Ooh go on, let's put it all behind us..hug?

[SeanMacGabhann]

until episode 2 is shown anyway ;-)

[citizenED]

I didn't catch last weeks episode - can anyone give a short precis?

[MadWorld74]

now citezen Ed you KNOW you're not going to get a fair reviewing on this forum don't you!! Have a google at the Independant, as they reviewed it. Sorry I don't have link. At the start of this posting Mark did include a link to the show I remember.

[Mark]

here you go Citizen Ed, not a short pr?cis but you can read about it here: The Guardian, Saturday August 11, 2007:

or

He talked to the Observer astrologer who wouldn't take a test to see if his predictions were correct as he said might get proven wrong

There was a brief explanation of cold reading and how clairvoyants do not actually speak to spirits

He went to one of the hundreds of spiritualist churches in England and watched clairvoyants pretend to speak to spirits

He talked about the fact that people are open to the media's devaluing of proper evidence such as the MMR vaccine which can be harmful

and some other things. It'll be good to hear other people's thoughts on what he says after tonight's programme as the discussion on here is seemingly one sided but it does make for lots of hugs.

[edited once]

[SeanMacGabhann]

Now the Brooker piece is hardly going to endear him to MW74 and Monica I know but can I just mention that I love his work anyway and have done for years (ie I'm not just saying that to annoy people)

I've met him in town and he is considerably more humble than his writing would suggest - which sounds familiar

We do have to watch the 2nd episode tonight don't we? Even if you think it will be a one-sided diatribe (even tho a 2nd side is always asked for) we will be speaking some more about it and if you haven't seen it.....

[mockney piers]

Charlie Brooker will always always always be a hero to me, if only for...

http://www.tvgohome.com/

[*Bob*]

I did like TVGH. But surely the best bit of it was the one-off 'Holiday Special'

http://www.tvgohome.com/0106-2001.html

[mockney piers]

That's fantastic.

Anyway, back on topic. Is Dawkins going to debunk that nonsense about global warming. Those irrational scaremongers have been at it for too long.

Even the most cursory examination must reveal that this year's rubbish summer must be down to the increased piracy in the south china seas. Come on professor, sock it to those enemies of reason tonight!!

[SeanMacGabhann]

What? Did no-one watch it??

[monica]

mmm Certain people have way too much time on their hands.Mockney my dear,we were never pals and i doubt we will cross each others paths,so no love lost.>:D

[bald marauder]

We did Seam, and I have to say, he chose his battles - and his editors - carefully.

There is plenty of scepticism about big Pharma-funded 'double blinds', and a lack of rigour/integrity in some of the peer reviews - yet conveniently these were never discussed. It presented modern science as the bastion of all knowledge and integrity, which while no-one is going to say it hasn't achieved a tremendous amount on our behalf, is a very one dimensional perspective. It would have made a much more compelling - and illuminating - programme if it had looked for real answers and hadn;t set out with a totally pre-determined agenda. Still, that's modern telly for you I guess...

[Tazzi]

Monica i have been following this thread from Portugal,i admire your response,madworld too you have stuck too your guns.I work in Media and believe me if there was 1 industry who could be accused of back handers and paying Doctors and Consultants,rewards for endorsing their products it is the pharmaceutical industry.Fortunately I work in Travel not science.

[Mark]

uh, which response of Monica's do you admire Tazzi? And do you work in Media and/or Travel?

(full stop space comma space)

[Jeremy]

I saw it. Yes he may have picked his subjects carefully, but you can't deny that the interviewees did a pathetically bad job of answering his criticisms!

The thing is... we've already agreed that the people who believe in these treatments aren't usually the kind of people who require scientific evidence/explanations, so I can't really see him changing anyone's minds. The main purpose this programme (and his books) serve is so us non-believers can give ourselves a nice pat on the back.

[Mark]

Please can we just agree that science is not just the Pharmaceutical industry, yes they are involved but please don't forget the science departments at universities, the British Medical Association, the Science Museum in London (well worth taking the kids to I have to add) etc etc.

One of the aims of the programme, and I know it sounds obvious, is to make people aware of how you shouldn't take for granted things that you read in the media (including the internet and that includes this forum). People can easily debunk hundreds of years of evidence based science with phrases such as "back hander...in the pharmaceutical industry", "homeopathy [sic] isn't giving placeboes [sic]" and "Western pharmacuetical[sic] munching, peer reviewed world". Question science, that's what science is all about, but please be prepared to back up what you say. You have to agree that in some situations saying "believe it will heal" will not work whereas "administer some adrenalin and re-start the heart" will and we know this because of science.

Rather like the judicial system, the peer review system is not 100% perfect, however medical journals that show them are rated by a global scale for their integrity. The Lancet and the BMJ score highly whereas the Daily Mail and Richard & Judy do not. Unfortunately people are in the habit of taking for granted what they read and see in the latter and the programme was saying that we should be careful that they don't undo the hard work that science (which is not just the Pharmaceutical companies) have done. From these reviews we can make judgements knowing that some of the top people in those areas have tested those papers submitted, and then of course a published paper itself is out to be questioned by the world.

I for one would love to believe that reiki worked, think how fu*king amazing it would be if you really could heal someone from a distance. Wow, I love that thought but unfortunately at the moment it doesn't work, it really doesn't. Maybe it will one day but at the moment it doesn't work and that's a fact.

I will end this with a quote from Derren Brown's book where his friend Mike (not his real name) was going through a heavily depressed period and his girlfriend convinced him to dispense of his scepticism and let a friend of the couple try some reiki healing on him. This is how he related his experience:

"He said he had never felt so abused and exploited in his life. There he was, he said, at his lowest point, being subjected to what he felt was the worst sort of insidiously self-indulgent, ego-driven rubbish. He felt used in the worst way, all to boost what he saw at that moment as the practitioner's co-dependent, dysfunctional sense of self that needed the title 'healer' to feel worthwhile. He likened it, memorably, to the idea of lying in bed as a kid and having an uncle come in and masturbate on him."

hug anyone?

[mockney piers]

I actually thought he was really enjoying himself in this one.

He seemed to quite like and admire the practitioners' time and care they put into their work (well, maybe not the loon at the start giving him extra DNA helices with a bewitching twitch of her shoulder), especially the homoeopathic doctor, and for the most part he also seemed to quite enjoy the experiences.

They were just nonsense that's all.

Nothing some caring hands, some kind words a nice bath and a good massage can't deliver.

So many go on about our reliance on the pills of western medicine, but seem prepared to swallow anything else, be it homoepathic or simply metaphorical snake oil, without so much as a raised eyebrow.

Why swallow anything at all? My aching muscles after the cricket? Hot bath.

Headache? Glass of water.

Glandular fever? Bed rest...lots and lots of bed rest.

Should I get anything more serious (touch wood, there but for the grace of fsm), given a choice between Cromwell's piss, or a glowing crystal pointed at my chakra, or antibiotics, or chemo or whatever may be appropriate, I know which I'll be choosing (though i might go for one of them there indian head massages too).

[MadWorld74]

I did watch the show last night. After looking back at what I saw, the thing that kept on hitting me in the face was, fear.

WESTERN MEDICINE AND SCIENCE SEEMS TO HAVE A HUGE FEAR TOWARDS ALL THAT IS ALTERNATIVE. WHY?

Alternative therapists have not and are not saying their way is best; hence the name alternative not, only. Why then if alternative uses and studies of 'medicine' can work alongside those of the western science, can it not be done in relative harmony the other way round?

Dawkins was like some wounded child who had his ideas poked fun at. He was constantly being passively aggressive in defending the greatness of his western scientific beliefs. Not one of the alternative therapist?s poked fun at his 'beliefs' they merely asked him to try and be open to other ways.

Bullish and one sided documentary making on Dawkins part. Not to mention sarcastic. Why do homeopaths remain popular?..'Because they are nice people'...and the quip about piped 'whale music'....very good Dawkins, funny.

When he had a session of Kinesiology, he tried from the get go to make it answer to a scientific explanation. Just lay there for f*cks sake and stop trying to be the font of knowledge.

Why can't the alternatives just be accepted by Dawkins as they were by Dr Fisher? Why does it always have to be labeled 'irrational superstition'? That brings me back to the word 'fear'.

Whether you agreed with his tagging of alternative and complementary therapies as 'mumbo jumbo, based on ignorance, like bleeding with leeches,' and whether you believe people like me are 'deceivers and self deceiving', is up to you.

I just wished that Dawkins wasn't so old school and closed minded (although he professes to be the opposite), and I wished the whole show wasn't so damned one-sided.

Disappointing.

[SeanMacGabhann]

But how, exactly, could any of the therapists poke fun at his beliefs?

"You know that polio, yeah?"

"Yes"

"Well you think you are so clever having fixed it don't you?"

"er.."

"and the measles, tubercilosis and the rest "

"yes?"

"they were never that bad a disease anyway"

*sigh*

"and you haven't found a cure for cancer yet have you????!"

* bangs head against brick wall *

Because Dr Fisher all but admitted he doesn't believe in the remedies but is all too aware that his patients do. And the reason that many of us won't just "lay there" is because we have a real fear of uninformed group-thought.

[Mark]

It think it's great to have your review on here MadWorld74, I'm glad that you watched it and I'm not being sarcastic here. Last week you dismissed it without watching it and this time you've seen it and I'm glad and it's appreciated.

It's strangely endearing that we disagree that as to which "side" is not being open minded here, faith healers who will not have tests done to prove they're right or the scientists* who want to find out more and potentially discover new and helpful medicine.

*scientists these days are both Eastern and Western.

[bald marauder]

Er, wasn't it actually the scientific community that believed 'bleeding' and the use of leeches were cutting edge conventional medicine at one point in time? And haven't doctors/scientists in recent times discovered that applying maggots to wounds acutally heps them to heal better as they eat only the rotting flesh?

Surely the point is that none of this is as black and white as we would like it to be (how frustrating that is for the rational-minded!) and our knowledge and practices are constantly being refined and improved. Conventional medicine has a huge and central part to play, and I don't think many people, even advocates of complimentary medicine, would deny that the NHS is the first point of call when something serious goes wrong. However, other approaches (and I'm not necessarily a huge fan of many of them, but I do like a good massage, and acupuncture has worked well for me - as has physical exercise) can have a role to play for those who believe in them. Yes, it could well be that it is the belief itself that has the most powerful effect, but if it works, why knock it? Creating the conditions for the body to heal itself is something that we should surely be taking seriously? Bottom line is no-one has ALL the answers, we are still discovering how life and the human body and mind works - that's why science is still funded and thriving - if we knew everything already then all scientists would be redundant...

[mockney piers]

I think the two most important points he made were about our perceptions of risk, how hugely overinflated they are, and that's mostly thanks to a sensationalist press (not to mention gov't who uses fear for its own ends), but also down to how much safer the world is.

And how these have contributed to a collective madness of non-specific anxiety that seems to be overwhelming our modern society.

If quack cures help people to address this then that's fine if it helps, but it becomes something of a dependency (and not a cheap one at that). Western medicine doesn't have anything to offer here, but the ridiculous number of people down the doctors' surgery demanding a pill for this or that is just another symptom.

This is a debate about the fabric of society and how we interact, and how we cope with anxiety, and how we interpret risk. It's not about science versus alternative therapy. I know I too suffer from this, i have real problems with flying; everytime another plane misses the runway or explodes it makes things worse, even though i know that there are millions of passenger miles being flown every hour of every day and the risks to myself are tiny (though obviously catastrophic if it all goes wrong).

I think the point he was trying to make was that it's all very well going to weird therapy to cope, but once it starts undermining peoples trust and or even belief in western medicine this can have damaging consequences, such as the first measles death in years.

[MadWorld74]

SeanMac,

We are all able to make up our own minds. We don't need someone to say "Yes, go on try it", we can do that for ourselves. Well, some can. Others have to wait to get the green light.

[MadWorld74]

Citezen Ed and Monica, can I get you both to wade into this, please. We need a balance and the scale is already tipping...