Libertas et natale solum.

Copy from one, it's plagiarism; copy from two, it's research.



-The Rev. Schmitt.

I'm Pretty Certain I Owe Thanks To Someone For The Sullivan Article.

A quick gander at the Internet before I do some more detailed entries:

THE BBC prints, hot on the heels of the most ironic article ever, an article entitled Can Acupuncture beat Addiction? The BBC's conclusion: yes. Mystery solved!

It is 'nothing new', 'based on ancient Chinese medicine dating back thousands of years', helps with something very sciencey called 'detoxification' and two nonscientists say things. With this kind of evidence no counterargument needs to be presented, which is fortunate because the Beeb doesn't try.

It would have been irresponsible, surely, to point out that most double blinded clinical studies have failed to show a significant effect greater than placebo – if any - or that its theoretical framework is very silly, as it would bias the choices of rational people against such a treatment; further it would demand a rigorous set of standards for acupuncture that no other alternative medicine lives up to.

ANDREW SULLIVAN quotes...well, probably himself:

What the Islamic world has succeeded in doing is forcing me to decide whether I'm going to side with a US policy which I think is often dirty but is nevertheless open to public scrutiny or an almost medieval, bloodthirsty and closed religious dogma whose intention - and partial achievement - is to undermine my way of life.

Jesus aside, I find little as spiritually fulfilling as a blatantly false dichotomy; the exception perhaps being clearly ludicrously false claims.

Of course Mr Diet et Mon Droit's policy – the one which isn't mediaeval - isn't 'open to public scrutiny' at all. The State Department only recently 'briefly' looked at the States' human rights abuses after intense criticism. The Pentagon has only recently released the names of 300 of its over 500 detainees at Guantanamo Bay after the Associated Press went swinging in with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit; a helpful reminder that the public don't know anything about hundreds of people the US has detained (though we know that some are citizens of allied countries, that many have been released after it was decided they weren't the 'worst of the worst' after all, and a few children who have reached adulthood in detention,) the reasons it has detained them, the state of the facilities in which it detains them, what crimes (if any) they have commited, their legal rights (just kidding! They're allowed one sorta right!) Then there's the secret CIA prisons and extraordinary rendition, which result in the unknown treatment and secret detention of an unknown number of prisoners. By no means last nor least, domestic wiretapping wasn't exactly public knowledge until it was leaked (a bit of transparency the Justice Department is trying, bless its heart, to rectify.)

The British media and Government are, yet again, behaving in the same appeasing way towards Muslim fundamentalism in our own country

Indeed; the gaoling of extremist cleric Abu Hamza is intended to throw us off the sheer and unmitigated tolerance for Muslim extremism this country embraces. As is the widespread condemnation of the London protests and calls for arrests, or the thousands strong demonstration in London which dwarfed the earlier, nasty one with the jolly placards, which condemned both the cartoons and the reactions of extremists.

THE HUFFINGTON POST is a bit rubbish, really.

WILLIAM DEMBSKI learns of selective breeding, and is amazed.

Ah, but I am being unkind; there is a legitimate controversy here! To present both sides: his commenters seem unable to decide whether he is making an unfunny nonjoke about the already-satirical use of the terms 'intelligent design' in an experiment which just happens to demonstrate the usefulness and predictive power of evolutionary theory, or whether he genuinely did not realise that scientists may have heard about artificial selection, esteemed scientist that he is.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

A Crash Course In Irony

Posted without comment.

Oh, alright: my biggest regret with this article is that I will not get to see Ben Goldacre's face when he reads it.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

And Now: A Touch of Class

In the interests of promoting a clean, high-brow primness to proceedings: a photodiary of peoples' first introduction to the phenomenon known as Goatse. Only mildly amusing, until you recognise one of the photographed:





-The Rev. Schmitt.

Say Cheese!

I was going to write about the Muhammed cartoons a few days ago. (Actual images here, explanations here.) Some of them genuinely are ridiculous, insulting, and seriously don't seem to have a purpose other than infuriating Muslims. A couple are immensely childish. As much as I can't stand religion I can respect and love the people who have it - I disgaree with everybody on some level. But hey, freedom of speech: rock on. Beliefs shouldn't be exempt from criticism or mockery just because they are religious, even if that criticism or mockery is moronic.
Some of the cartoons are poignant, prescient and witty, eg.,


I was going to write about how I thought the organised boycotts were over the top, but ultimately understandable. A bit bloody much to sanction an entire country over cartoons printed in a single newspaper which were apologised for on the 31st last month, but wars have been fought over weaker slights and it struck me as remarkably reserved for religious theocracies to respond with sanctions. A step forward, almost. Hell, religious zealots make stuff up to be angry about all the time, and boycotts often follow. So: dumb and provocative cartoons, boycotts, it's mostly good. Everyone involved with the cartoons and the boycotts were quite blatantly thick and/or nuts, but there was a modicum of restraint in presenting conflicting viewpoints - it hadn't turned violent, at least. Super.
I felt most of the people supporting the 'Buy Danish' campaign were simply and obviously reveling in the anti-Islam of it all; far too cowardly to admit it and trying to hide behind the free speech sentiments of an action which broke no law forbidding free speech. Hell, I can do that.
All religious people, including Muslims, are operating under faiths for which they have no evidence, and which often contradict many things we know about the world. Those who die and murder in the name of such beliefs do so for no objectively sensible reason and are amongst the most despicable and pathetic people on Earth. Theocracies - particularly and specifically the contemporary Islamic theocracies in the Middle East - breed and support terrorists, are horrific places to live, are mired in poverty; disgustingly oppressive and misogynistic, are prone to savagery, lynch mobs and murder, and are predicated on some of the most idiotic laws ever known to mankind.
Buy Danish, and I would like an X Box please.
Finish by insulting religion in general, condemn the handful of death threats I'd heard about, with some measure of respect analyse the MCB's 'guys, we're as idiotic about what religious freedom actually means as you guys, but don't lose your cool' tone, and the masturbation of a blog entry would have been born.
That was before the mass demonstrations about the cartoons – cartoons, for pity's sake - turned violent, many more threats were issued, and the Danish and Norwegian embassies in Libya and Denmark's consulate in Lebanon were burned down. Joy!





These images are from a demonstration in jolly old London. 'Massacre those who insult Islam', 'Slay those who insult Islam,' the catchy 'Behead the one who insults the prophet' and other witty ripostes made the show. They're almost doubtlessly a small minority in the British Muslim community – those same placards are the only ones I've seen in every news report and in pictures. The Metropolitan police have stated that they will be arresting those in the crowds they recognise as calling for murder or issuing threats after the demonstrations, which strikes me as appropriate.
Even acknowledging that the protestors are a small minority, the response from Muslim organisations well known for their moderation and peacefulness in condemning the nature of some of the protests which extend to clearly wrong behaviour has been somewhat tepid. The condemnations often come almost as an aside to raving about how nasty those horrible cartoons are. But Hell, they're there. Good. It's not the job of the Muslim Council of Britain to clean up after the mess people claiming to speak for British Muslims make - but they do it regularly and explicitly. They're needed sometimes, especially since the BBC seems to be the only news media which will listen to them and report on what they say. Prior to the MCB the Muslim community was completely fractured - Mosques tended to speak for themselves, not that many were listening. So - yay.

The most amazing thing about this to me is that it isn't the cartoon which could arguably be painting all Muslims as terrorists which ticked off so many people. It's that a guy hopefully portrayed historically innaccurately by the Qu'ran is made into an image or presented in an 'offensive' way:
The Muslim Council of Britain is deeply concerned by the continuing refusal of several European newspapers to understand and acknowledge the immense hurt they have caused to Muslims the world over by printing gratuitously offensive caricatures of the blessed Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Yeah. Because you've shown nothing but tolerance for beleagured minorities? You've always acted in a conciliatory manner when criticising ideas and actions you disagree with? Oh blessed tu quoque, your kiss is rapture! Let me go! Let me go!

In a palace of stupidity the guys torching buildings aren't good.
al-Jazeera has some of the best coverage.
This entry's been rather short of content and opinion (not to mention critically lacking entertainment value.) I don't know nothin' about politics, man; have no idea where any of this is going. All I can bring you, dear reader, is the maturity, laziness and soft spokenness this blog is known for by all three of its readers. I present Happy Muhammed.

Also.

Update: Wherein I go looking for better opinions than mine.

Orac, profoundly reasonable, polite, and tackles the issues in turn.
The Two Percent Co quite rightly loses their temper at the violence and other ridiculous reactions. Their Muhammed drawing is superior in every way.
Parrot Line is a splash of cold water.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

Whoops!

Er, wow. My apologies about the long absence to my readers (both eternally precious and dear to my heart) - I had no idea it had been over two full weeks since my last post. University and my disgusting simulacrum of a social life had decided to impugn on my time wasting...time, with a test, large periods spent sitting around having nothing to do, and another test. Uni currently seems to be trying to drag me into reading an awful lot of books, a horrible waste of time preventing me from the true nitty gritty of an English course: making gentle love to Marx and Freud. I am also currently at home, on dial up, suddenly realising I have to be on a train scheduled to arrive in six hours, and therefore have plenty of time to get a full eight hours of sleep. Bumblepop and sodomy.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

DaveScot is Not a Laughing Matter

I pride myself on my intellectual honesty. Even when it would result in ridicule, embarrassment or humiliation I have aspired to confront and admit my mistakes.

I have done a great disservice to a scientist, a singular man in the evolution-Intelligent Design debate, whose unique and fresh look at the discussion deserves far more limelight from both sides.

I am talking about DaveScot. He is a man I cynically laughed at, denigrated and abused when I found he would be blogging at Uncommon Descent, the antievolution blog of Discovery Institute fellow William Dembski. As usual when reality counters my pessimism I am proud to announce that I was wrong and that I am truly sorry. I should have known better. The signs were there.

He is after all a free thinker: a man of science, reason and uncompromising skepticism. He is - or was - an engineer, working in a field where creative solutions to problems would always be strictly along the lines of parsimony; simplistic, elegant and functional. Clearly a man with credentials perfect for analysing biology. He displays an abhorrence of orthodoxy and dogma, proving himself a strict adherent to the empiricism and experimentation fundamental to science. Conciliatory, and without an emotional investment in ID, he is able to rise about the bickering childishness of the evolution-ID debate and offer a fresh appraisal of how it is conducted. He for instance cuts away the chaff and argues succinctly against the ad hominem fallacy which so permeates the thinking of evolutionists, overshadowing the research the Discovery Institute is no doubt conducting and publishing in respected peer reviewed journals somewhere. And such a warning is necessary - I personally was tempted to debase myself with a tu quoque, sinking so low as to point out the incredible hypocrisy of DaveScot in baselessly insulting a man who has contributed more to human knowledge than the entire fellowship of the Discovery Institute combined, and then whinging about character attacks. As you can tell from the link, other evolutionists have not been so careful.

As an agnostic DaveScot rejects the theism so common to his brothers-in-arms - he is living proof that supporters of Intelligent Design are not necessarily motivated by religion. He states his agnosticism thus: 'The game was rigged for life to win. Anyone who argues with that is either uninformed or in denial.' As an agnostic myself I can only admire the conviction he holds - so lacking in other agnostics - that the universe was crafted by some sort of intelligent entity with Godlike abilities. DaveScot is clearly not the man whose clear religiosity and lack of science training caused me to place Uncommon Descent in the 'religion' section of my blogroll.

Thankfully, all that may change - in the interests of curbing the open discussion that Uncommon Descent has long been famed for, DaveScot recently created a policy that would ban William Dembski from his own blog - by threatening to ban anyone who rejects common descent. Sad to say, DaveScot seems to have missed the posts of Paul Nelson - Discovery Institute fellow and young Earth creationist - otherwise he would presumably have already been banned, much like Dembski will be banned when DaveScot finds the time between conducting research programmes into Intelligent Design and publishing his findings.

My apologies, I am getting off track. My point is this: I am truly sorry for suggesting that it would be hilarious if DaveScot was made a blogger at Uncommon Descent. There is absolutely nothing funny going on over there, and DaveScot is a profoundly sciencey addition to the entire enterprise.

Update: the last link in this post no longer works, as it appears William Dembski deleted DaveScot's rant. Oh, DaveScot, had you only been faster with the ol' banning stick. Now religion will forever be a part of Uncommon Descent. This is a sad day for opponents to the Darwinian hegemony.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

Politics Is Fun!

This is the guy known as 'the robot'? What the Hell is wrong with you people!

I watched the Kerry-Bush presidential debates and thought both of them were tepid, ill informed and almost identical in policies (when either were coherent enough to have a stated policy.) I've never seen Al Gore speak and assumed his speech style was similar to the eyes down droning of Kerry (don't get me wrong, stylistically he slaughtered Bush in the debates - but look at the competition here.) Al Gore is accurate, clear, passionate - furious even, his eyes on the audience and his demands specific.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

There Is Nothing Happening In The World Today.

Shorter Matt (because God knows it's needed): my post was factually flawed because I was responding to a non sequitur. I was arguing that peoples' opinions about race had changed, so pointing out that this wasn't the case - anti-miscegenation laws were changed against public opinion by the judiciary - twisted my argument. 'Natural' has any meaning I'd like it to have because it can be be an antonym to 'supernatural' and 'artificial. They're gay and marriage is between a man and a woman. God is disgusted by the same people that disgust me.

Also of life changing importance:

A paucity of archaeological evidence suggests that cannibalism may not have been very prevalent amongst the Donner Party, or that it was done in such a way that it didn't leave much evidence. In my opinion this is a far less interesting reality and I suggest you ignore it.

Reports of al-Zawahiri's death in Pakistan were greatly exaggerated; the threat in New York was based on faulty intelligence, the WoMD were not there, and all but one of the miners had in fact died. The air strike - unauthorised by the Pakistan government - was intended to kill the al-Qaeda number two (one of apparently dozens,) but instead killed 17-25 civilians. Pakistan's tumultuous political climate temporarily stabilised as thousands came together to express their hatred of America, their disgusting liberalism trying to paint America as a treacherous ally. Yet such unheard of unity represents another partial foreign policy victory for the CIA, thankfully stripped of oversight so that they may more efficiently foil their own attempts at assassination while harming American interests abroad.

Michelle Malkin is morally opposed to education.

Taung child - a young Australopithecus africanus - may have been killed by an eagle or other large bird of prey. This, I submit, is hilarious.

Uncommon Descent - blog of Dr William Dembski, non scientist and one of Intelligent Design's brightest lights - has become something glorious, rising from the ashes of depressing ignorance, complaining and antiscience to amusing self parody. We hope, nay, pray that DaveScot's racist diatribes will no longer be confined, in the Little Green Footballs fashion, to the blog's comments section.

Dinosaur blogging coming soon!

-The Rev. Schmitt.

Day-Glo Pigs!

Bow before our porcine masters!

-The Rev. Schmitt.

Gays and Blacks Together Again

We find, in our public service, a blog post. It is not a very good post, oh no. It lacks all justification and reference, it rambles, it makes things up. It is in short a creature of darkness. But it is comprehensive enough that I can use it to discuss things.

I’ll begin with a simple statement: gay marriage is not the same as the civil rights movement.

English is a frigid mistress, her calloused fingers pushing our groping hands forever from comprehensibility! An auspicious start. Onward!

To those of you who would boggle at my ignorance

Never, sir! Allow me to assert most passionately that I accord respect and dignity (as persons as persons,) to all my fellow travellers.

To say that the civil rights movement fundamentally altered our concept of marriage is probably only half true. It eliminated systematic prejudices against blacks. It beat home the realization that blacks and whites were (gasp) equal in all ways

Ah, the conclusion comes before the argument, forcing me to spoil a surprise 40 years in the making. No, anti-miscegenation laws were reversed because marriage was regarded as a fundamental human right that should not be denied anyone on as baseless and necessarily discriminatory a premise as ethnicity, an argument with no relevence to anything occuring today:

...the Court has merely asked whether there is any rational foundation for the discriminations, and has deferred to the wisdom of the state legislatures. In the case at bar, however, we deal with statutes containing racial classifications, and the fact of equal application does not immunize the statute from the very heavy burden of justification which the Fourteenth Amendment has traditionally required of state statutes drawn according to race.

[...]

Marriage is one of the "basic civil rights of man," fundamental to our very existence and survival. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

-Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren (1967)

Pesky facts! And as dear Matt asserts, has the civil rights movement 'beat home the realization that blacks and whites were (gasp) equal in all ways'? To borrow a phrase from a conservative humour site, Sadly, No!

Alabama voters on Tuesday repealed the state's century-old ban against interracial marriage, an unenforceable but embarrassing throwback to the state's segregationist past.

The vote was running 59 percent to 41 percent, with 58 percent of the voted counted.

[...]

Alabama became the last state with such language in its organic law in 1998 when South Carolina voters approved a measure to remove similar wording from their state's constitution. In South Carolina, about 62 percent of voters favored lifting the ban.
-Sweet, sweet victory.

But I’m not sure that peoples’ basic perceptions of marriage were changed.

I'm absolutely positive that they didn't.

Only, instead, our perceptions of equality. I do not think there was a mental addendum to marriage in our minds that said “only people who are the same may marry.”

Indeed; could any such belief even genuinely exist? What sort of sordid, disgusting, primitivist philosophy could even serve to justify such a ridiculous and vacuous idea?

An Act To Preserve Racial Integrity
-Racial Integrity Act of 1924

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.

-Virginia's Fifteenth Judicial Circuit Trial judge Leon Bazile (1959)

I think there was an addendum in our minds that said, “since races are not equal, we should marry only inside our own.”

It may have occurred to one or two people.

Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. It is abhorrent and repugnant. It is subversive to social peace. It is destructive of moral supremacy, and ultimately this slavery to black beasts will bring this nation to a fatal conflict.

-Georgia's Democratic Rep. Seaborn Roddenberry (1911)

This is a hard argument to prove,

So why bother trying, right?

marriage, to me, is an institution which is both simplistic and purposeful. Its purpose is as a structural unit of society, a building block for the family, and for some a special tenant of their religion.

That can't be its full purpose, surely? Marriage can also be used as a political tool: for instance you can use it to deny rights and financial benefits to people whom your prejudices regard as subhuman.

Therefore, I think it is actually much harder to argue that people specifically defined marriage as “between the same race,” and that it was more likely they defined other races as “fundamentally different/separated/inferior,”

This absolutely floored me. He had spent the entire first half of the post arguing that anti-miscegenation laws were expressions of the belief that other races were inferior, and had nothing to do with asserting that marriage should only occur between people of the same race.

I do not think there was a mental addendum to marriage in our minds that said “only people who are the same may marry. [...] I think there was an addendum in our minds that said, “since races are not equal, we should marry only inside our own.

And now we learn that 'it was more likely they defined other races as “fundamentally different/separated/inferior”. So rather than anyone trying to keep the right of marriage purely for people who were the same, it was intended to keep everyone who was different out.

and in a conservative age, would have avoided and abhorred bi-racial marriages even more than I would avoid marrying, say, a biker chick named Wanda with a bull-ring in her nose.

English! My love! NO!

What I’m saying and what most conservatives would tell you is that marriage in its essence and as it should be never changed through the civil rights movement.

No, instead activist liberal judges argued that the government couldn't keep people with different ethnicities from marrying because marriage is a fundamental human right.

Black is white, white is black, we’re all the same underneath. However, this is not a change which can occur for the debate on gay marriages.

Agreed, women are inferior.

But marriage is and has always been defined* by man and wife.

Science and history disagree. Alas, mighty Belgium, Spain, Canada and the Netherlands have fallen for such despicable reality, and many countries have crafted civil partnerships with many or all of the rights of marriage. The end of marriage as we knew it ensued, and men all over the lands have fallen out of love with their wives. Even precious Britain – bulwark of tradition and throbbing Imperial pride, has allowed civil partnerships with most of the rights of marriage. Already I can feel the icy grip of homosexuality clawing at my masculinity, drowning out my affection for all things poontang.

So anyway, man and wife. Yeah. That’s, you know, one of those kind’ve important things about marriage.

Well argued!

Let me give you another one: between people.

Indeed, there is no difference between dolphins marrying people and homosexuals marrying. I hope to God that whatever it is keeping Senator Santorum from buying a dog keeps this man from ever owning a dolphin.

That’s the problem with this “natural/unnatural” debate

No, the problem with the 'natural/unnatural' debate is that everything we can observe and empirically test in the universe is natural, including polyester and air conditioning. The unnatural is beyond science and evidence; there is no way of showing that there is any evidence supporting its reality at all. Now, any guesses as to why predicating law on the latter might cause a few problems?

Out of sheer self control I will ignore his incompetent rendition of evolution as 'random chance' and the sycophantry he heaps upon John Paul II.

But obviously the sexual commandments of the Bible were not “lifted” in the same way, but strengthened in –their- fulfillment.

Indeed, and I for one am sick of the secular war on polygamy.

Behavior is (duh) complex.

The closest thing to a true and noncontradictory statement in the entire piece.

And now, a closing comment.

If marriage is regarded as an important institution and one we feel necessary to society as a whole then we should ask ourselves why this is so.

Many would point to the family unit and the way in which marriage forms a somewhat stable platform to raise children by placing social and financial entanglements on a couple, thereby enforcing something of a commitment and using that commitment as a context for childrens' upbringing. I think that this is important and I think it is largely true.

If this were the only factor, however, the only justification for sterile couples to marry would be in the event that they wished to adopt - and yet such an idea blatantly isn't enforced, I sincerely doubt anyone would want it enforced, and it would legitimise same-sex marriages anyway. Clearly the further fundamental belief in the importance of marriage is in allowing a loving couple to support each other, to support their interdependency, particularly important as single people are particularly vulnerable to the whims of the market and the economy.

Again, I think this is important for social stability. Again, I fail to see how this would take homosexuals out of the picture, or even any other couple, regardless of whether there's any sexual element to the relationship. I sincerely doubt anyone would want sex to be forced upon married couples; I also see no reason for this to be so. Security and stability seem the only consistent reasons for marriage and are the only reasons I can see why the state should be involved at all in the first place - without a secular justification it deserves no special perks from the state.

The fact that homosexuals are fighting for the right of marriage indicates a desire for them to strengthen such stability by opting to take on the burdens of marriage aswell as the benefits for their relationship, standing in contrast to straight people who are ruining marriage with cheating, rising numbers of single parent families and ridiculously spiralling divorce rates, themselves perverting what marriage should stand for and of the family unit.

The idea that couples should be excluded because they share a gender, and that this is a massive focus of people claiming to protect marriage, seems a further degredation to the notion of the strong unions that marriage should provide and which it should represent; the secular arguments provided by traditionalists seem to make a mockery of marriage, turning it into some semantic issue deliberately intended to segregate rather than protect the importance of the institution or why it should be implemented. Secular reasons for why same gender couples should be excluded are never explained beyond 'they're gay and marriage is between a man and a woman'. Such an explanation is unsatisfactory and merely repeats the question, why should marriage only be between a man and a woman?

I also like The Two Percent Company's The Score take on marriage-as-a-contract, a somewhat different approach from mine and exceedingly reasonable and rational.

Update!
A response! Will our intrepid hero wade into battle against the NRO and Weekly Standard, fortresses of fact telling? Will he suddenly realise that demolishing someone repeatedly with a blog feels like duelling with a chest of drawers? Stay tuned to find out!

-The Rev. Schmitt.

I Swear To God I'll Never Do This Again, aka Best Post Ever.

I have hoped to keep this blog as a topical and professional filter into the things which interest me most. As one year segues into the next and coursework deadlines actualise into terrible and very real opponents to my continued happiness (or at least a happiness-flavoured substitute,) my priorities similarly become clear and obvious. So, sad to say, in the interests of self preservation, and not wishing to maintain this blog unless it represents the most high quality analysis of current events, I will now discuss The Matrix: Reloaded.

Or rather, I want to ask something about a specific scene from it. I first watched this movie in a cinema with a pair of friends, my closest at that point in time; both enjoyed it immensely. I submit, dear readers, that these friends are idiots. The fight scenes were drawn out, unconvincing and boring; the special effects somehow regressed from the first movie into surreal waxen figures, and the drawn out conversations caused philosophy majors the world over to develop nervous tics. Except English students and postmodernists of course; they loved it, they would do. Last but not least, Keanu Reeves is a God damn useless actor and I hate him.


Left: Carrie-Anne Moss is an attractive young lady indeed.
Right: Keanu Reeves portraying an emotion. Happiness, perhaps? Anger? Who cares!
Two scenes in particular stuck out for me as horrific stains upon the English language and all reason: the Merovingian, and Neo's meeting with the Architect. It is the latter which concerns me today, mainly because even in the cinema it was entirely obvious that the man was quite clearly being told to eloquently - and let me be clear, the light and precise way he caresses his utterances into existence is a thing of genuine beauty - state absolutely meaningless dribble. A sample of the nonsense (and from Neo, inanity,) from this blight on cinematic integrity - hallowed that it is:

Concordantly, while your first question may be the most pertinent, you may or may not realize it is also the most irrelevant.

[...]

There are only two possible explanations: either no one told me, or no one knows.

[...]

You are the eventuality of an anomaly, which despite my sincerest efforts I have been unable to eliminate ... I prefer counting from the emergence of one integral anomaly to the emergence of the next...the anomaly's systemic, creating fluctuations in even the most simplistic equations...thus creating the otherwise contradictory systemic anomaly...Your five predecessors were by design based on a similar predication...

And so on. That the movie was terrible is old news, though. I saw something which - I didn't expect it, and it may well have been nothing, I need keen minds to clarify this mystery for me, preferably keen minds with a DVD of a certain rubbish movie. While diligently working on the two assignments due by the end of this week channel surfing I just happened to catch the Architect scene. And it gets to this line:

The inevitability of its doom is as apparent to me now as a consequence of the imperfection inherent in every human being, thus I redesigned it based on your history to more accurately reflect the varying grotesqueries of your nature.

Images flash across the television screens - Hitler, marching troops, an explosion? Self immolating Buddhist monks, starving Africans, Donald Rumsfeld -

It was just for a moment - and checking online someone saw a rather different figure flash up, and yet another states that daddy also appears (I may well have confused HW for Mr Rumsfeld.)

How well known is this? Is it genuine? Was I just really out of the loop? Are the Wachowzki brothers terrorists? Why do I care, actually? There've been more obvious and nasty attacks on contemporary presidents. Bloody blog.

Actually that's a good note to end on. To the grindstone!

-The Rev. Schmitt.

The Man Has Clearly Never Read A Good Book.

On Sadly, No! Brad R. has posted a categorical mockery of David Kupelian's compassionate attempt to save our souls from the propaganda implicit in fiction the novel video games movies, able to overwhelm and beguile the unwary human mind as no other media before it. Being long accustomed to the enlightened musings of America's finest on politics, I have to say that I'd rather they stick to what they're best at: hating people, and discussing extramarital fellatio - the latter seemingly being the primary policy concern of conservatives worldwide. It's fine when the usual suspects spread aminosity and bigotry amongst their countrymen - God knows people are too happy these days. But culture -- the analysis of which requires more factual knowledge than, say, biology -- isn't really their strongpoint.

Kupelian asks repeatedly what our reaction would be if an incestual relationship, one between an adult and minor, or one between drug dealer and addict were crafted with the players 'humanised'. Alas, until Hollywood's drive to normalise perverted sexual acts first overcomes the hurdle of humanising homosexuality, we may never know what the result of such movies would be. I fear such idle musing is fruitless and laughable, hurting the credibility of his wider argument.

'...when you leave the theater, unless you're really objective to what you've experienced, you've been changed - even if just a little bit,' states Kupelian in a powerfully moving moment. A wretched, small part of myself must agree, and his openness with his readership forces me to be similarly frank. While watching American Beauty I ached - ached! - to be a man comfortably in his middle age, agonising over his lust for a teenage girl. Who can forget Hitler: the Rise of Evil? The passion, the fear, the intensity of Robert Carlyle's performance swept me up in its despicably liberal detailing of Hitler's humanity - I could already hear those thousands of jack boots marching all for me, the sound of Communists being bludgeoned in the streets for the benefit of my personal ideology. Watching What Lies Beneath forced me to see, to hear, to feel the love and compassion of a man who is also a murderer - and I desired, oh how I desired so very strongly to turn off the television, because it's a terrible movie.

And that's what makes Kupelian's overarching point so beautiful, for all of Brad's nitpicking. Seeing that the most vile people who will touch our lives and leave their mark upon history are not fictional monsters crafted to scare us away with a clear moral message, but human - with terrifyingly familiar motives, loves, passions, beliefs, fears and vulnerabilities - makes it that much harder to stick to our principles. Ethics are fragile, darling little things, requiring constant nourishment and support. Nothing threatens to shatter their frail yet clear-cut frames more than the dark shadow of understanding, which could blacken and overwhelm our ways of thinking every time we watch movies, unless they in any way involve Mel Gibson because he turns everything he touches to mindless, entertaining dross. As Kupelian argues so vociferously, the darkest knowledge is that which constitutes reality and disagrees with our existing conceptions. Learning could even convince us that our belief in a certain action, concept, way of life or person being evil might not be correct, a heart chilling admission second only in its horror to admitting that we are wrong.

Doubt and the world around us are the worst enemies of the landscape of our minds; the reason derived from such knowledge is the foe of our God given nature.

Oh and our God given nature should not be regarded as sinful in this instance because hating homosexuals is a prejudice society will not ostracise me for having. Otherwise we're inherently wicked, constant struggle with inner evil, etc. etc. Goodnight.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

Blasphemous!

This'll be brief because damn it chaps I'm posting on Christmas day! Also I am sleepy.

Merry Christmas, and happy holidays to those of you wacky enough for such things. Although I haven't had the time to do as much blogging as I would have liked (university and an almost pathological laziness are considerably inconsiderate about the things which truly matter,) this has been a fun couple of months. Here is a baby aye-aye.



I have met a bizarre and polyamorous collective, and apparently bothered a jolly amusing guy enough for them to post actual comments, the very lifeblood of what we do here at this veritable institution of serious business. These are both good things. I also consider getting to page two a major success, one which in my estimation goes unparalleled in the entire history of blogging.

Oh God so sleepy.

I have made a lot of posts about evolution and through sheer force of will (the aforementioned laziness) resisted the urge to turn the blog into a parody of itself and everything I hold dear. The latter is perhaps my greatest accomplishment. The former is something I'll probably continue to do, but I'm going to have to force myself to find anything else going on in the world interesting before I typecast myself, and thereby lose dignity as persons as persons. On that note:



So in summary: 25th of December, fun, consentual love between many adults, and a stolen joke.

Have a good one all.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

Take A Bow, Dr Behe - This Victory Is All Yours!

I am currently at home, and so will probably end up blogging lightly (if a lower posting rate is even possible.) But! Something amusing this way comes!

Kiztmiller et al, v Dover Area School District et al is the first legal challenge to the teaching of Intelligent Design in schools. Specifically, the Dover Board of Education decided in 2004 that this statement would have to be read out whenever evolution was taught:

The Pennsylvania Academic Standards require students to learn about Darwin’s theory of evolution and eventually to take a standardized test of which evolution is a part.

Because Darwin's Theory is a theory, it is still being tested as new evidence is discovered. The Theory is not a fact. Gaps in the Theory exist for which there is no evidence. A theory is defined as a well-tested explanation that unifies a broad range of observations.

Intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Darwin's view. The reference book, Of Pandas and People is available for students to see if they would like to explore this view in an effort to gain an understanding of what intelligent design actually involves.

As is true with any theory, students are encouraged to keep an open mind. The school leaves the discussion of the origins of life to individual students and their families. As a standards-driven district, class instruction focuses upon preparing students to achieve proficiency on standards-based assessments

Several Board members resigned in protest, and all bar one of Dover's science teachers refused to read out the statement, forcing administrators to do it. Several parents sued the District in response.

During the trial numerous very funny things happened, some of which I'll have to cut for brevity. For instance Discovery Institute leading light Michael Behe - probably the most qualified Intelligent Design proponent - attempted to redefine the scientific jargon term 'theory' in such a fashion that it was indistinguishable from the term 'hypothesis'. Upon questioning he admitted that astrology would, under his rubrick, be considered a scientific theory - ironic since astrology actually makes testable predictions, making it more scientific than Intelligent Design. But that's okay. More than one of the defendents was caught with sudden amnesia, or lying. As the trial was ongoing the creationists on the Dover board were all voted out of office and replaced entirely by science-minded Republicans running as Democrats.

The results are in. The teaching of Intelligent Design in state schools was ruled unconstitutional. For all following quotes: the bold is mine, the hilarious snark and spirited defense of the first amendment all U.S. District Judge John E. Jones II.

The concept of intelligent design (hereinafter “ID”), in its current form, came into existence after the Edwards case was decided in 1987. For the reasons that follow, we conclude that the religious nature of ID would be readily apparent to an objective observer, adult or child….

The overwhelming evidence at trial established that ID is a religious view, a mere re-labeling of creationism, and not a scientific theory.

Which is pretty much the decision scientists were hoping for. Intelligent Design is simply creationism with a few arguments dropped to make it seem more scientific and less religious than other forms of creationism - a ploy which is repeatedly belied by the statements of many proponents of Intelligent Design, and their infamous Wedge Document, an internal memo of the Discovery Institute's Centre For The Renewal of Science and Culture. During the trial it was revealed all the more blatantly and profoundly that Intelligent Design really was just a word substitute for creationism.

To be sure, Darwin's theory of evolution is imperfect. However, the fact that a scientific theory cannot yet render an explanation on every point should not be used as a pretext to thrust an untestable alternative hypothesis grounded in religion into the science classroom or to misrepresent well-established scientific propositions.

The citizens of the Dover area were poorly served by the members of the Board who voted for the ID Policy. It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the ID Policy.

With that said, we do not question that many of the leading advocates of ID have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that ID should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.

That last paragraph explains that Intelligent Design isn't being barred from any research programmes - God knows scientists would love Intelligent Design proponents to actually practise science - and it isn't being censored. Intelligent Design isn't science and favouring it in any way represents the teaching of religious ideas for religious reasons, so doesn't belong in state run classrooms.

After a searching review of the record and applicable caselaw, we find that while ID arguments may be true, a proposition on which the Court takes no position, ID is not science. We find that ID fails on three different levels, any one of which is sufficient to preclude a determination that ID is science. They are: (1) ID violates the centuries-old ground rules of science by invoking and permitting supernatural causation; (2) the argument of irreducible complexity, central to ID, employs the same flawed and illogical contrived dualism that doomed creation science in the 1980’s; and (3) ID’s negative attacks on evolution have been refuted by the scientific community. As we will discuss in more detail below, it is additionally important to note that ID has failed to gain acceptance in the scientific community, it has not generated peer-reviewed publications, nor has it been the subject of testing and research.

There's even an appropriately scathing prolepsis against the charge of 'judicial activism', an accusation which annoys me at the best of times for it essentially lambasting the courts for doing their job.

Those who disagree with our holding will likely mark it as the product of an activist judge. If so, they will have erred as this is manifestly not an activist Court. Rather, this case came to us as the result of the activism of an ill-informed faction on a school board, aided by a national public interest law firm eager to find a constitutional test case on ID, who in combination drove the Board to adopt an imprudent and ultimately unconstitutional policy. The breathtaking inanity of the Board’s decision is evident when considered against the factual backdrop which has now been fully revealed through this trial. The students, parents, and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources.

All around, a cracking result.

And, lest I forget - while we must thank Dr Behe for his spirited defense of Intelligent Design, which added more nails to Dover's coffin - but the ACLU, NCSE, the plaintiffs; parents standing up for the rights of their children, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, and other defenders of science put in a horrendous amount of work for a damned good result. Cheers!

-The Rev. Schmitt.

Nontheistic Christians: an Exercise in Hilarity

Another cross post from an earlier, diary thing, once again with minor edits.

These statistics have been around for a while now, but are still rather relevent. I knew about the UK government census results regarding Britain's religious beliefs - 72% Christian, 14-23%+ atheist or agnostic, and the largest minority religion is Islam, at approximately 3%.

Based on the YouGov poll results 35% of Britons don't believe in God, while 44% do. I've heard before the idea that most self identified Christians in Britain are largely just describing their vague idea of ethics and morality; that they don't even necessarily believe in God or Christ. The Telegraph - that epitome of reliable reporting - mournfully makes the same point here about the discrepency between the census (which simply asked people what their religion was,) and YouGov results, which asked about specific beliefs. The explanation sounds vaguely reasonable, too, given how few people regularly attend Church (approximately 7%.)

Some of those questions in the YouGov poll and the responses are bizarre. Do people believe in a Supreme Being other than God? One is forced to speculate how long a certain Church has been covertly infiltrating British society. And the number of atheists/agnostics who still want the Queen to be Protector of the Faith and head of the Anglican Church is extremely bizarre. Again, there seems to be a genuine sense amongst people that Christianity is simply what it means to be good, rather than a specific religion with its own dogmas and appeals to magic.

We lack America's constitutional prohibition against religious entanglement in government, though one of our traditions is, loosely, religious freedom and equality. So, regarding the YouGov's multiple choice questions about faith schools, the lack of option about getting rid of state funded faith-based schools because they're ruddy crazy at the best of times strikes me as a severe ommission.

My heartfelt lament about government established and funded religions aside - and understanding full well that the ways that people view themselves do not necessarily reflect how they behave - I do like this conclusion, regardless of how poor the evidence supporting it is:

'Taken as a whole, YouGov's findings suggest that "live and let live" is the dominant British approach to religious belief as to so many things. The relative absence of religious passion in Britain probably helps to foster this country's atmosphere of easy-going religious toleration.'

Well, mostly. There are instances in which I think that religion is given a pass not granted to other webs of beliefs and philosophies, a pass it shouldn't have. For instance the United States of America has a rather nasty habit of exempting Christian Scientists, Jehovah's Witnesses and others from child negligence laws (both groups refuse certain medical treatments for their children - blood transfusions in the case of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and everything in the case of the Christian Scientists. Many States in America specifically allow people from significantly large religions - but no others - to deny such treatment to children.)

Faith healing and prayers don't work medical miracles; they don't save lives or salve maladies, it's that simple. Even when belief simply isn't true I think it should be protected; people should always be allowed the option to hope, to believe, even to pray for others to get better. All of these things can help in the same way, and for the same reasons: knowing that people care and want to help can make a difference (albeit often senstationalised and grossly over-stated,) in peoples' recovery.

However, antivaccine nuts should not be allowed to put their own children and others at risk for the causes of pseudoscience, ignorance and dishonesty; children should not be allowed to die for lies or untested, even incorrect beliefs. Most people, religious people certainly included, would agree, too. Is there any reason this shouldn't apply to religious beliefs, too? There are standards of knowledge and understanding, and the best one; that is to say the one with the most successes, the one most adept at fixing its own mistakes, capable of overthrowing its own long-held ideas in the face of evidence, which can be carried out and replicated by all people, is science. Further, if we decide as a society that there should be limits to the way legal guardians treat their children - that they shouldn't beat or sexually abuse them, for example, and that they have a responsibility to make informed decisions on their charges' behalf - why should religion over any other individual belief be granted special dispensation in these same areas?

But yes, Britain has a Hell of a lot of self-identified Christians who don't believe in God, and atheists who want Christianity to be bound up in government (and one certainly hopes a lack of Straussian ethics involved with that last point.) Human beings are bizarre.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

The State of the Science Standards Address

The Panda's Thumb reports the science standard rankings (and in order of score) as determined by the Fordham Foundation. (Iowa is missing because it does not have statewide science standards.)

Bear in mind these don't necessarily reflect the quality of science education in the separate states - they just represent the quality of the published science standards. Kansas' recent antievolution (and eventually antiscience) changes make it something of an anomaly - the .pdf file's analysis discusses the early tinkerings with the science standards, rather than the original draft (generally regarded as extremely good,) which was overturned by creationists, or the final slaughter against intelligence wrought by those very same creationists. Gotta love metaphysical science!

Congratulations California! May you destroy us all with your ridiculously well developed, accurate, and appropriate standards.

-The Rev. Schmitt.

The Urvogel, The Transitional Fossils and The Wardrobe

Archaeopteryx is an extinct bird. The first bird, in fact. All Archaeopteryx fossils have been discovered in limestone deposits in Solnhofen, Germany. They date from the late Jurassic era of the Mesozoic, during the zenith of the age of dinosaurs. Many of the previously discovered and described fossils of the first bird have been beautifully preserved, displaying incredibly detailed imprints of feathers, though often the skeletal structure has been distorted during fossilisation which has made skull and foot analysis difficult (and as a result of a new find that link I just provided is a touch outdated - though I'll get to that in a bit.)

The Origin of Species had only been published for two years before the first discovery of Archaeopteryx lithographica, (the fossil in question still resides in London's Natural History Museum, and I have seen it, so nyah,) and it was a powerful strike in favour of the Darwinian model of evolution. This post will concern sexually reproducing organisms; asexual critters are a bit more complicated.

Evolution describes branching lineages radiating outwards from species of organisms, which will themselves branch outwards ad infinitum unless a particular lineage goes extinct (which happens extremely frequently.) Isolated populations within a species will evolve into different organisms. The species to which these populations belong may continue to exist; it is only each isolated population which will evolve in a given way, separated from and unable to breed with the rest of their species, and the ancestral species common to these branches may or may not itself go extinct.

Transitional species are those which link what are generally regarded as two different kinds of organisms. Our understanding of gradualism in evolution makes the notion of 'kind' problematic: evolutionary adaptations and features are accumulated by isolated populations over large periods of time (though in geologic terms this may be an extremely short period of time relative to the age of the Earth) and changes from generation to generation are extremely small. Therefore the difference from one species to its descendent - and its close relative lineages - can also be extremely minor, and the methodology by which we group animals into 'species' is often case dependent on what a particular scientist or group of scientists is looking at.

So calling Archaeopteryx the 'first bird' was a bit of a cheeky assertion, because the evolution from non avian dinosaur to modern bird took many transitional species and lineages (the vast majority of which have gone extinct,) and the difference between bird and non avian dinosaur is a very blurry distinction indeed. Archaeopteryx probably never gave rise to any contemporary lineage of bird, and many of the strongest demarcations between bird and reptile have found their way into both sides of the fence. Due to the powerful morphological (that is, structural and functional) similarities between birds and dinosaurs modern phylogenic analyses (that is, analyses which describe evolutionary history and relationships,) group birds as a clade within the dinosauria; birds are dinosaurs.

Now I mentioned that Archaeopteryx probably isn't the ancestor to any contemporary lineage of bird. What makes Archaeopteryx transitional is the blend of features normally associated with two broad classes of animals, rather than its necessarily being a stepping stone from extinct reptile to modern bird. It is closely related to the late Jurassic animals which would give rise to modern birds, and probably descended from the same common ancestor (or they are descended from closely related lineages at least.) Ultimately, we may never discover the true ancestor to common birds which was hopping, gliding or flying about at the same time as Archaeopteryx - and even if we did, we will not know that it is the common ancestor for certain. But our knowledge of evolution means that this ultimately doesn't matter. Archaeopterx as a transitional serves as powerful proof of the relatedness of birds and reptiles, though we now know of a couple of other birds which also strongly support this relationship.

In summary Archaeopteryx shares many features previously thought reserved solely for birds and reptiles respectively, and is therefore a jolly good demonstration that animals are in a continuous state of change. A few of these are, broadly:

Bird features:

• Feathers
• Wishbone
• Clavicle
• Bones with air sacs
  

(nb. All of these features have been found in some Theropod dinosaurs subsequent to Archaeopteryx's discovery. Ergo these could all feasibly settle neatly in 'transitional features'.)

Reptilian and generally non-avian features:

• Lack of beak
• Teeth
• Dinosaurian brain shape
• Vertebrae meets rear of skull (All contemporary birds, like humans, have vertebrae which enter the bottom of the skull.)
• Bony tail
• Flexible wrist joint

Transitional features:

• Pubic bone shape and structure
• Two free fingers, one fused (adult bird digits are fused.)

Now I did say that these features are on both sides of the fence. As well as Archaeopteryx, Sinornis, Confuciusornis and other early birds with reptilian features, we have a plethora of feathered and bird-like dinosaurs that have been discovered in recent years in the Liaoning Province of China. The skeletal similarities between Theropods (particularly dromaeosaurs) and birds is so striking that a relation was suggested even before the discovery of Archaeopteryx, and many subsequent discoveries have served to shore up this connection to a severe degree.

With the latest description of a tenth Archaeopteryx fossil this link is even stronger, outdating a couple of the points in the Talk Origins bird-reptile comparison I linked at the top of this post. Remember the skeletal distortions in other fossils I mentioned earlier? A large part of the confusion and ambiguity these caused has been cleared up with the description of this fossil, which showed the top of the skull and wonderfully preserved the specimen's feet. The feet indicate that rather than the grasping, opposable first digit of modern birds, Archaeopteryx had a reduced toe facing the same direction as the rest of its feet, as per Theropods. Rather than the perching second digit of birds, it had an extendable toe, like the big claw on Velociraptor. Combined these suggest that Archaeopteryx was less arboreal than previously thought, that it spent most of its time on the ground and would have been rather awkward on branches. The skull and brain are even closer to those of dromaeosaurs than previously thought - narrow and tapering, though still blunter than dromaeosaurs.

The connection between birds and dinosaurs is made stronger with each new discovery, and is almost universally accepted amongst palaeontologists. And old friends to evolution are still turning up strong new evidence in its favour.

More on the new fossil:

New Scientist (May eventually require subscription.)
Live Science

*edit*

Dr Myers of Pharyngula also did stuff. Good stuff. Foot and skull details are graphically shown and explained.


-The Rev. Schmitt.

Homeopathy

Most of this post was originally entered elsewhere pretty much word-for-word (there have been some minor edits and additions,) on November the 21st. Bad Science and Skeptico subsequently blogged about this very same BBC article, coincidentally. Their posts are meatier; more substance than spice. Go.

On that note, a certain Orac is a legitimate authority on the weight of testimonials, as he knows things. He speaks with far greater clarity and breadth about the phenomenon of the alternative medicine testimonial than I do.

Without further adieu, a post:

News articles in general are pretty God damn awful at supplying us humble folks with good science. The BBC, bless her, is no exception.

This is an irresponsible article.

Homeopathy is the general principle that 'like heals like'. What this means is that essentially homeopaths believe that ingredients which cause the same symptoms as the disease they're trying to cure will work to heal a patient of the disease in question. This in of itself is generally pretty silly and not actually based on any empirical research, but on the metaphysical ramblings of a chap named Hahnemann, who was big into medicines which didn't refer in any way to science.

The law of infitessimals is another cornerstone of homeopathy, and the most hilarious. Essentially, homeopaths believe that diluting a curative substance (which wouldn't work) to as high a degree as possible, makes it more potent. This contradicts all known modern medicine and, again, is not supported by any clinical study. The most powerful concotions are supposed to be diluted to such a massive extent that they contain less than one molecule of the original substance - which would a.) be impossibly expensive to produce in mass quantities, suggesting they don't bother even doing this, and b.) mean they are essentially selling incredibly expensive water.

Homeopaths and their lay person supporters (who tend to genuinely not know how bizarre the metaphysical underpinnings of homeopathy are - for example I've known several people who use 'homeopathy' as a synonym for so-called folk remedies,) tend to complain about being misrepresented, so you can find more information from the horses' mouths here, here and here. About the only claim made which is at all supported by science is that 'homeopathy is safe' or 'easy' - because homeopathic remedies don't actually do anything. If they are taken to the exclusion of conventional medicine, however, they will be a financial drain to little or no purpose.

The article mentions the Lancet clinical study - which is but one of the many clinical studies which powerfully suggest that homeopathy - surprise surprise - is bunk; homeopathy is not, contrary to their claims, supported by clinical study. The 'test' which 'gives [a] boost' to homeopathy is of a ridiculously weak testimonal form which doesn't contradict the placebo explanation anyway. It doesn't even rise to the level of the medical anecdote (which does have legitimate, though limited, uses.) Medical anecdotal reports include careful documentation of the testing in question (both precursory testing and the course of treatment,) symptoms, diagnoses and how they were determined, and patient opinion. They are used primarily to suggest further areas for research, not as evidence that a treatment works. And bear in mind that not even this was done - patients were just asked if there was any improvement. One question.

If the BBC's editorial team has any medical advisors with any training whatsoever they should know full well that this story was an utter non issue. The homeopath is given equal time to Professor Egger, even though the Professor is speaking from the position of mainstream science and the vast majority of legitimate medical practitioners.

Homeopaths don't even know what science is. There is no theoretical framework for homeopathy, no evidence it is the least bit successful, it would clearly not pass any cost/benefit analysis. It is quackery.

-The Rev. Schmitt.