Are you atheist enough?

One section of Frans De Waal’s latest book The Bonobo and the Atheist has unleashed criticism from certain prominent atheists, including PZ Myers and AC Grayling.

De Waal is a world expert on primate behaviour, CH Chandler Professor of Psychology and Director of the Living Links Centre at Yerkes Primate Research Centre at Emory University.

He is accused of being an apologist for religion and of not taking its malign effects seriously enough. What is worrying is that it appears there may now be only one correct form of atheism.

I interviewed De Waal about the book for the Pod Delusion podcast. The UK publisher has embargoed the interview and a detailed review of the book until late April when it’s released in the UK although it’s already out in the US and parts of Europe. So I can’t go into too much detail, although the section that has caused so much offence is available online.

In Prospect magazine, AC Grayling writes:

‘But he does not like the "new atheists," and takes the view that religion, though false, has a role, and should be left alone.’

This is not what De Waal believes. For example, he has written:

‘While I do consider religious institutions and their representatives — popes, bishops, mega-preachers, ayatollahs, and rabbis — fair game for criticism, what good could come from insulting individuals who find value in religion?’

In The Bonobo and the Atheist he writes ‘I am all for a reduced role for religion with less emphasis on the almighty God and more on human potentials.’ He also recognizes the major problems any atheist American politician would have in getting elected and that ‘this explains why atheists have become so vocal in demanding their place at the table’.

This may not be a strong enough form of atheism or strident commitment to secularism to please everyone. He points out that there are cultural differences, that his Dutch upbringing gives him a different perspective on religion as the Dutch are generally much more indifferent to it than the British and Americans where the most vocal atheists come from.

It’s true that De Waal doesn’t like what he calls militant atheists or personal attacks on individuals who find comfort in their faith. He doesn’t think that all religious people are somehow defective, or ignorant or inferior thinkers. As a scientist, he is more interested in ‘what good it does for us. Are we born to believe and, if so, why?’ and ‘For me, understanding the need for religion is a far superior goal to bashing it’.

Faith is the proximate, not the ultimate, cause of behaviour. It’s a symptom, not a disease. Remove faith and the behaviours would remain with some other justification. It’s this ultimate cause that interests De Waal and which he is better placed than most to investigate.

In his article, Grayling (rightly) lists some of the many ‘divisions, conflicts, falsehoods, coercions, disruptions, miseries and harm done by religion’. He continues: ‘He might respond with the usual points: on one side the charity, art and solace inspired by religion, and on the other side Hitler and Stalin as examples of the crimes of atheism.’

The problem is that De Waal doesn’t. It’s a very weak argument to attack what someone might have said – but didn’t. There’s no point saying that Hitler was not an atheist when someone isn’t arguing that he is.

Grayling writes: ‘Why, he asks, are the "new atheists" evangelical about their cause? "Why would atheists turn messianic?" He cannot see why Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, the late Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and others attack religion and believers, and why they robustly and even aggressively argue the case for atheism’.

He continues: ‘In any case he has the nature of the debate wrong. Atheists (…) are mostly not interested in pursuing the metaphysical debate about whether the universe contains or has outside it supernatural entities or agencies of some kind - gods and goddesses, fairies and so forth. (…) Their militancy - for such indeed it sometimes is, (…) is about secularism, not metaphysics.‘

He’s being disingenuous here and this second paragraph contradicts the first. ‘why they robustly and even aggressively argue the case for atheism’ which inevitably involves engaging with the supernatural elements of faith.

Atheism is not the same as secularism although Grayling seems to be using them interchangeably here (and he really should know better). All the arguments he makes for constraining religion are secular arguments, very different from attacking believers or aggressively arguing the case for atheism. Secularism defends the rights of believers to believe without persecution; trying to convert them to atheism or attacking them for their beliefs is, in some respects, anti-secular.

He is being disingenuous because, along with Dawkins, Hitchens et al there are groups and individuals in the UK and US who promote atheism for its own sake – for example, Atheism UK – that Grayling is surely aware of. There are plenty of atheists who do point and laugh at religious beliefs, analyse at length scriptural inconsistencies and attack believers as inferior (for example, even the name of the Brights suggests superiority). There are frequent debates advertised on the existence of god(s) in which non-believers take part. Scientists take on creationists, for example. Grayling is mischaracterizing both atheists and De Waal.

Finally, Grayling writes: 'But one would not want the evolutionary history of all aspects of our psychology to entail that, merely in virtue of that fact, they should all be left as they are. A large part of moral reflection is devoted to overcoming or tempering the evolved capacities for aggression, greed, concupiscence and partiality that disrupt rather than enhance community living'.

De Waal is not saying that anti-social tendencies should be left alone. He is more interested in finding out where they come from. The book is against dualism, against the idea that morals and all pro-social behaviour need to be imposed from above or outside on our anti-social natures. He believes – and proves with considerable evidence - that pro-social behaviour (including altruism, empathy and morality) are evolved and are just as strong in us as less attractive characteristics. We have evolved certain instinctive behaviours that make social living possible and part of that is how we deal with anti-social actions.

De Waal’s position is that while philosophy (and religion) may investigate, codify and universalize morals, they do not invent them. He challenges in detail Dawkins’ argument that we need to ‘throw out Darwinism’ in our social and political life. Perhaps this is why he is attracting so much flak. (I’ll be writing considerably more about this aspect when the embargo on the book is lifted.)

There are elements of the book I would take issue with – for example, De Waal’s speculation that atheism is the result of trauma. This may be the case for some people but others reach atheism through a mental process that leads them to reject belief. Some people never have a belief system in the first place. De Waal’s memories of the religion he grew up with contain no apparent trauma to explain his atheism and support this theory.

De Waal’s laid-back atheism may not be the ‘right’ kind: is there now only one atheism that is acceptable in public figures? He writes that the enemy of thought and science is dogmatism, whether political, religious or otherwise, because it shuts down discussion and sets up prophets who cannot be questioned. Does every scientist need to sing from the same hymn sheet as the arbiters of atheism (all white, middle class, old men)? Do they all need to be Dawkinses to be acceptable?

More to the point, do we all need to hate religion, despise or patronize all believers and ‘aggressively’ promote atheism to be part of the club? Are you atheist enough?

31 March update: De Waal has now responded to his critics here.

I promise that I will do my best...

The Guides and Brownies are now consulting on whether to change their Promise. The usual objections will be raised in certain quarters by people who are too quick to think that their faith is being persecuted, that our great traditions are under attack, that everyone should adore the Queen (gawd bless her) or by people who just don't like change. These are the facts.

I was an Imp in the Brownies and a Scarlet Pimpernel in the Guides. I still have all the badges. Growing up in a village, they were an important part of learning social skills and a good way to escape my parents' control for a few hours a week. It's because I enjoyed them that I'd like every girl or young woman to be able to join fully, not because I want to tear down the very fabric of society.

What do Guides and Brownies do?

According to the web site, the ethos of Guiding is that

All girls are welcome
We put girls in the lead
We encourage girls to speak out
We let girls have their own space.

A change in the promise would mean that all girls are equally welcome, which is not the case at the moment.

Guiding is not just about doing good deeds locally. They've joined with five UK charities to help members learn about issues that seriously affect the lives of girls and women around the world, and to 'empower them to advocate, volunteer and raise awareness to make the world a better place for girls'. Basically, at its best it's Girl Power in uniform.

The Guide Law is a pretty good set of values for anyone:
A Guide is honest, reliable and can be trusted.
A Guide is helpful and uses her time and abilities wisely.
A Guide faces challenges and learns from her experiences.
A Guide is a good friend and a sister to all Guides.
A Guide is polite and considerate.
A Guide respects all living things and takes care of the world around her.

Why change the promise?

At the moment, the Promise is:
I promise that I will do my best:
to love my God,
to serve the Queen and my country,
to help other people
and to keep the (Brownie) Guide law.

They say they are consulting because 'Over the past few years we have heard from more and more girls and Leaders who struggle with the wording of the Promise, particularly in interpreting what it really means to girls today'.

Guiding is not about camping, church parade and learning how to fold bandages. It's not a training ground for some 1950s type memory of the Women's Institute.

Why attack a great tradition?

A change to the Promise would not undermine the values of Guiding or deny its history. As they point out themselves, since they were founded in 1909 (Brownies in 1914), the Promise has already changed 11 times 'to reflect changes in society and to make it more meaningful to girls and women'.

People who oppose change and cite tradition as a defence often mean they want things to stay as they were when they were young, not as they have been for all time. It's a form of parochial nostalgia.

The Guides are a Christian organisation in a Christian society

No they're not. The web site states: 'Girlguiding UK has always been open to girls of all faiths and none – we have never been a Christian organisation'. You don't currently have to make the Promise but this means that there is effectively a two-tier membership. Some Guides are more equal than others.

The proposal is to change or remove the line in the Promise about loving God. At the moment, if you're a non-believer, then either you can't be a full member or you have to lie when you make the Promise, which is hardly in the spirit of the Guide Law. Girl Guides Australia removed the reference to God from their Promise in 2012.

I did make the Promise and, at the time, I meant it. I had a very religious upbringing that I hadn't turned away from at that point. But as society changes, an increasing number of girls and young women have decided they don't have a faith and shouldn't be excluded or downgraded.

This isn't about excluding or marginalising religion, it's an equalities issue, about making Guiding open to everyone, equally. A change would also open up the organisation to adults who want to volunteer, the Brown Owls and all the others.

Changing the Promise would also change people's perception of Guiding. Saying they welcome everyone but having a religious component to the Promise sends a mixed message.

God save the Queen, you evil commie Republicans

There's also a proposal to change the part about the Queen - not because Guides have gone all republican but because serving Queen and country is a rather nebulous, archaic and even militaristic concept that has little or no meaning to many people today.

Why does this matter?

This may seem like a minor issue, but it's an area of inequality that could be easily fixed, to the benefit of women. And, in a society where there are so many pockets (or gaping holes) where women's lives need improving, it's a change that could affect a lot of people. Not all changes need to be huge.

Girlguiding UK has around half a million members including about 100,000 trained volunteer adult Leaders and supporters.

There has been a lot more in the media about changes to the Scout Promise and campaigners have paid them more attention, sometimes getting pretty heated. The Guides have largely been ignored until now. They seem much more open to change than the Scouts, who have long refused even to consider dropping the God part of the Promise, although they too are now consulting.

What can I do?

Anyone can respond to the consultation. Adult non-members can fill out the questionnaire (and leave comments) here. It takes about ten minutes.

UPDATE 22 JUNE 2013:
The Guides have now decided to change their Promise. The new version will be:
I promise that I will do my best: to be true to myself and develop my beliefs, to serve the Queen and my community, to help other people and to keep the Guide law.

And of course there has been the predictable howl of protest from certain religious groups, equally predictably quoted in the Mail, Express and Telegraph.

There is also the predictable protest that Guides and Brownies will now promise to serve their community rather than their country, although the Queen has kept her place. Words like lefty and liberal salt these articles.

Chief Guide Gill Slocombe has responded:
“All the essence of what we do is still in the Promise. It has just been reworded to make it more easily understood by the girls of today.

“We were getting feedback that people were struggling with the Promise, they were uncomfortable with it. I have used the word 'off-putting’. I think people were gritting their teeth and saying it.

“This was never a faith organisation. It was always a spiritual organisation. I don’t see how Guiding could have grown to 145 countries with 10 million girls worldwide if everybody had been expected to go along to their local Anglican church and sign up.

“Nothing is changing except the Promise. We have been wilfully misunderstood. Let’s hope we can set the record straight.”

Wilful misunderstanding is something that people keen to get on their high horse about the destruction of everything they hold dear are very good at.

Being true to yourself is a bit nebulous and needs to be clearly framed within the context of the Guiding ethos as a whole to give it any meaning but it's not the wooly fudge that some critics are making out.

The Scouts are said to be planning a change to their Promise later this year. It shouldn't matter that the girls got there first, but it does to me. Come on boys, keep up.

Well done, Guides and Brownies, you have done your best. My ten year old Brownie self gives you the three-finger salute.

A Bigot is for life, not just for Christmas

This Christmas, instead of the traditional platitudes about peace on earth and loving each other, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster used his festive address to attack same sex marriage - again. And a High Court judge joined in.

One thing these two have in common is an interesting use of statistics. I've already written about how equalities are not a numbers game. Either a group of people is equal to others or they are not, regardless of how many of them there are. This is perhaps the most important point to be made when numbers are being brandished as the killer blow in an argument - although it is important to point out where statistics are being abused.

High Court judge Sir Paul Coleridge thinks the government shouldn't be wasting its time: "So much energy and time has been put into this debate for 0.1% of the population, when we have a crisis of family breakdown".

Statistics on the percentage of the population identifying as lesbian, gay or bisexual vary but nowhere is a figure this low cited. Not everyone feels comfortable reporting their sexuality, but as a rough indicator of how wrong the judge is, in 2006, the first full year of civil partnerships, there were 231,454 marriages and 16,100 civil partnership between LGB people. That works out as 6.96% as a comparative proportion.

Archbishop Vince Nichols claims that during a "period of listening" held by the government, those who responded were "7-1 against same-sex marriage".

However, the government consultation run earlier this year found that 53% were in favour. This took account of the petitions received as well as 228,000 direct consultation responses, including the huge petition opposing any change from the Coalition for Marriage.

Within the consultation itself, 63% said religious marriage ceremonies should be available to everyone.

I've written before about the consultation and the religious opposition, despite the fact that the government has made it clear that no churches or other places of worship will have to perform gay marriages.

Vince Nichols also tries another tack, claiming that a change in law would not be democratic. He claims that "There was no announcement in any party manifesto, no Green Paper, no statement in the Queen's Speech. And yet here we are on the verge of primary legislation. From a democratic point-of-view, it's a shambles. George Orwell would be proud of that manoeuvre, I think the process is shambolic."

He is basically accusing the government of sneaking legislation through against the wishes of the electorate.

However, on May 3 2010, three days before the general election, the (shadow) equalities minister Theresa May launched the Tory's contract for equalities which included the plan to introduce same sex marriage. The section on civil partnerships states “We will also consider the case for changing the law to allow civil partnerships to be called and classified as marriage.”

If people wanted to vote differently based on this sole issue, they had time to make that decision. Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone has tackled the nonsense of this claim in her blog.

Democratically-elected MPs will be allowed a free vote and the Bill is expected to be introduced in the New Year. As this letter to the Telegraph shows, the MPs and Lords against gay marriage are very much in the minority.

It's not clear what the Archbishop thinks would constitute a democratic process. Legislation by petition? His version of democracy is more akin to a theocracy where a tiny minority made of religious leaders and fundamentalist believers rules the rest of the population. If the government were being truly Orwellian, the law would have been changed without any consultation or vote and history would have been rewritten to remove any trace of the previous status quo. When Nichols says Orwellian, what he means is 'legislation I don't like'. That's the trouble with democracy, you don't always get your own way. On the up side, you do get the freedom of speech to express your Yuletide bigotry.

The Pope used a Christmas address to say that gay marriage will 'destroy the very essence of the human creature'. He doesn't need to use dodgy statistics because he has a direct line to God and is never wrong.



31 December update: Vince Nichols is at it again. He has latched on to this like a ferret and will not let go until his teeth meet.

The mind of a killer

It's traditional to tell horror stories at Christmas. This year, the media have got a real live one.

The media are falling over themselves trying to 'understand' why 20 children were killed at Newtown. Hacks, amateurs and psychologists who should know better are speculating about the motives and mental state of the killer.

We need a reason and we need to know that Adam Lanza was a monster, not 'normal'. Not like us or anyone we know so we can keep the horror at arms' length. All of this speculation is like the stories small children tell themselves when they're scared of the dark. They're comforting.

The monstering of this child-killer who was little more than a child himself is the same as the monstering of child abusers. We need to know they have the mark of Cain on them but now that 'evil' alone is not a reason that many of us accept (or that sells papers), we have to resort to psychology, or what passes for it. (I wrote about the problem with blaming evil here).

The best the media have come up with so far is the fact that he was shy and didn't have a Facebook page. Unless Adam Lanza left a detailed written explanation for his actions, we may never know why he did it, which is something that discomfits the media and a lot of us.

The worst the media have come up with includes details of how he shot his mother in the face, that the school principal should have had a high-power rifle in her office, self-proclaimed 'heart-wrenching' photos, blaming Lanza's 'paranoid gun-crazed mother', confusing his alleged Asperger's with mental illness. And on. And on.

President Obama has said that the dead children were 'called to God', another comforting fiction. America's current principal God was bound to be dragged into it at some point and Obama's narrative is one way of forestalling 'why did God let this happen?', of making sure everyone knows his god is one of the good guys in this story. Except, what kind of bastard god kills children for reasons we mere humans are not privy to as he moves in mysterious ways? Obama didn't mention whether this god of his had also called the six adults who were killed.

The focus on why Lanza did it is also a convenient distraction from how he did it. With guns. Legal guns. For us in the UK, gun laws are not a key issue, so the media focus on the deaths. The fact that one of the dead children was British gives them an excuse they don't need to wallow in their foetid mire.

The list of American school shootings is a very long one. And every killer did it for a different reason or complex set of reasons and circumstances. Even if Lanza's motivation is understood, it won't stop the next one. Does it matter why he did it? Should someone have spotted the signs? There's going to be a lot of 20/20 hindsight, a mixture of accusations against society and individuals or the shrugging off of accusations (by the NRA, for example).

There's also a kind of 'it wouldn't happen here' self-reassurance being promoted by certain parts of the media so we can tuck our children into bed feeling superior to the gun-toting frontier mentality of the colonials.

It's a very human response to feel for the bereaved and to need to know, to understand, but this need can infantilize us, make us content with bedtime stories to ward off the monsters, real or imagined. Meanwhile, the media have given themselves a big fat Christmas present.

The Evil That Men Do

The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.

At a Scarborough Borough Council meeting, councillor Colin Haddington called for Jimmy Savile's body to be exhumed and removed from the cemetery. Savile’s nephew Guy Marsden said he supports the families of other people buried at Woodlands Cemetery who want the body moved away and would also support plans to dig up and cremate Savile. The gravestone has already been removed but exhumation may not be simple as it's reported the coffin is encased in concrete.

There's a lot more going on than simply removing the body of a man that many people admired and now revile.

There’s a long tradition of removing or mutilating corpses of people who have committed an offence during their lives. It's a symbolic act – sometimes politically symbolic, sometimes morally or culturally.

It’s as if removing Savile will distance him from society, cast him out. He can't be brought to trial, but he is effectively being tried posthumously, his remains have been judged unfit to lie with others. Savile was a practicing Catholic and his removal would be a kind of excommunication from the community of the dead, like the burial of certain categories of people in unconsecrated ground. In this context, burning his body is a symbolic way of wiping him out.

In 897 at the Cadaver Synod, Pope Stephen VI had the corpse of Pope Formosus disinterred and put on trial. He was found guilty and thrown into the Tiber.

When Harold I Harefoot, king of the Anglo-Saxons, died in 1040, his half-brother Harthacanute succeeded him and had his body disentombed, decapitated and thrown into an animal pen or a river, according to different sources.

John Wycliffe was burned as a heretic 45 years after he died in 1384.

Oliver Cromwell was exhumed, hanged for a day at Tyburn, beheaded and the head put at the end of Westminster Hall.

In 1917 Rasputin was exhumed by a mob and set fire to.

Other practices included digging up and mutilating the bodies of people suspected of being vampires to prevent them rising and the use of murderers’ bodies for dissection, denying them a burial.

There are three main reasons for doing this – to punish the dead, to warn the living and to appease the living.

Some Christians believed that that the body had to be buried whole facing east so it could rise facing God on Judgement Day. Burial in unconsecrated ground, dismemberment or other destruction therefore prevented resurrection and condemned the person to Hell.

Posthumous punishment could also be a sort of restitution to the living – anyone who had suffered at the hands of the dead person, a kind of revenge of the powerless. It's also a very good way to make a political point. Desecration of the dead was taken very seriously, so making an example of a corpse could also serve as a warning to the living, to make them fear for their souls, their family reputation or their own honour.

Even though (most of us) no longer believe it's necessary to be buried whole to be resurrected or that a dead person (or at least their soul) can be posthumously punished, even for the non-religious, the thought of their body not being treated in the way they want after their death can be a hard thought to deal with.

In some cases, there is also a sense that the ground may in some way be contaminated by the presence of the body of someone who has done something terrible, as if some essence of them or their crimes remains. It's a human trait that the evolved instinct to avoid or destroy physical sources of contamination becomes symbolic, applied to behaviour or beliefs.

This seems to be the case with Savile, as some families are upset to have their dead relatives buried near him. There is also an implication that the memories of the living will be tainted by the knowledge of who is lying near their dead, that Savile is in some way haunting them. Digging the body up is a kind of exorcising the ghost or staking the vampire.

It will be interesting to see if the contamination stays with the grave and others are reluctant to use it if he is removed.

Separating a rapist or paedophile from society in this way also serves to reassure the living that they and their dead loved ones are good people, untainted, deserving to rest in peace. Savile is not like us. Except that child abusers and rapists are not a separate category of humanity, however much we might like to think they are and try to mark them as Other.

There may also be some kind of expiation of guilt for anyone who should have seen or done something, either in the alleged Savile cases or with other abusers. And society as a whole has failed the victims so society as a whole must be seen to condemn his acts, public opinion now replacing religious censure.

In some cases, this becomes self-righteous outrage, more about being seen to behave in a particular way than achieving anything tangible (like changing laws to protect the vulnerable). This can trigger a kind of mob mentality; although we no longer have physical witch hunts and pitchforks, there is Twitter.

Sometimes there is good evidence, sometimes only rumour and myth. The living can sue for libel, the dead can't - which is why sometimes the truth only comes out after someone is dead and the only recourse is to punish the corpse or the reputation. But sometimes posthumous punishment backfires as the reputation of the punishers is itself destroyed by history.

Savile chose as his own epitaph 'It was good while it lasted'. If the investigations prove the allegations to be true, what will last is the haunting of the living, both the victims and the rest of us in varying degrees. Ritual cleansing by fire or removal or other means may sound primitive or irrational, but sometimes it helps draw a mental line under a life.

11 January update: The police report on the Savile investigation has now been released.

What doctors don't tell you

Warning: May cause apoplexy.

Since 1989 husband and wife team Lynne McTaggart and Bryan Hubbard have been running a website called What Doctors Don't Tell You. Now they are publishing a magazine with the same title.

It wasn't easy finding a copy, which is a mercy. One newsagent in Camden told me he received an unsolicited batch yesterday and sent them straight back because he didn't like the look of them.

Who are McTaggart and Hubbard? She has form as an anti-vaccination campaigner. In one of her books, The Intention Experiment, she says that the universe is connected by a vast quantum energy field and can be influenced by thought. He recommends vitamin C as a treatment for cancer and they complain about the Cancer Act which prevents them promoting their 'cures'. So I think we know what we're dealing with.

There is a bit of common sense here - get some exercise, don't eat junk - but my main issue with WDDTY is that the average reader has no way to tell crap from Christmas and, for some of the articles, nor do I without reading every single research paper they mention to check all the trials and tests were randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, peer-reviewed and had sound methodology and good sample sizes. But I do know when I'm being obviously manipulated. I may not be a rodentologist but I can smell a rat a mile off.

The main message of WDDTY is BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID.

Doctors misdiagnose, make mistakes in prescriptions, constantly break the law by treating patients like 'lumps of meat' and not discussing treatment options properly. If your doctor doesn't kill you, your dentist will by X-raying your teeth. Whipping up fear that a visit to the doctor might kill you is McTaggart and Hubbard's strong suit. Even worse, it might kill your children. This is the trump card as the main audience for magazines like this is women. Around 80% of the pictures of people in WTTDY are of women (I'm not sure about the dogs and the piglet).

There's more. The antidepressants your doctor prescribes you will probably kill you. So will painkillers. Two thirds of people on prescription drugs end up in a worse state because of them. Cancer screening doesn't save lives. Sunblock causes diabetes. Prescription drugs 'are playing a big part in the mental and physical decline of the elderly, and may even be a contributor to premature death'. Note the 'probably' and the 'may even': there's a lot of that in WDDTY.

It's one scare story after another. But there is some good news. Forget about medicine, don't go to the doctor, take supplements. Pretty much every article has a suggestion of a 'proven' alternative to medicine which is either dietary supplements or 'alternative' medicine. Oh, and homeopathy works! This has been proven by a Swiss study that relies on 'real-life' cases rather than academic studies, they say.

There is a long list of superfoods too. Because they're natural. And natural is good. Unlike doctors and prescription medicines, which are unnatural and very very bad.

WDDTY is big on food allergies too. There are lots of stories about various conditions caused by them. Perhaps this is because the magazine is 'supported by some of the world's leading pioneers in nutritional, environmental and alternative medicine'.

Whatever is wrong with you, or whatever you fear you might get in the future, supplements will see you right. It's a bit like psychics who make a prediction then, if you say it hasn't happened, they tell you it soon will.

In the same way that cigarettes are nicotine delivery systems, WDDTY is a supplement advert delivery system.

There is a huge range of unscientific and anti-science propaganda here, all the usual cobblers that a proper scientist could spend weeks demolishing. There are also a couple of articles that are more worrying.

The first is the case study of Nerissa Oden. She says 'I healed myself of severe dysplasia (abnormal cell growth) and HPV (human papillomavirus) in just six months'. How did she do this? 'A friend who is a chiropractor and nutritionist suggested I get tested for hidden food allergies'. Nerissa also went to a naturopath 'who recommended a list of vitamins and supplements that I should start taking'. Nerissa turned down a biopsy and a D&C (dilatation and curettage). After six months on the special diet, she got a good result on a Pap test but then fell off the diet wagon and got a bad result, so she went back on the diet for another six months and upped the supplements.

Bingo. A Pap test came back normal and a gynaecologist declared her cured.

At the end of the article is a handy list of 'helpful supplements'. There's a surprise. It's like a kind of cult. A cult of idiocy.

Why is this worrying? It may cause women to self-diagnose, self-treat or turn down life-saving medical procedures. It will certainly cost them a lot because supplement manufacturers are not charities. It will put readers in the hands of unqualified, unregulated shysters. It may make them take an equally irrational and dangerous approach to other health issues and other areas of life. And if not them, then their children (see, I can play the kiddie card, too).

The second article, the longest one in the magazine, is about HPV vaccines. They are evil. Lynne and Brian don't seem to have read Nerissa's story where she lists all the cancers that HPV can cause and says how serious it is. Nor do they seem to know that the NHS and Cancer Research UK says that it's the second most common cancer in women under 35. In the editorial, they say it's not a serious issue and the article says it's 'uncommon'. But, given how inaccurate and unscientific the rest of the magazine is, why would this article be any different?

The article, by McTaggart, says that cervical cancer is a third world problem, a 'disease of poverty and unhealthy living'. She talks about the huge number of side-effects but lists only the serious, scary ones. The article bombards the reader with statistics and 'facts' and ends by claiming that the vaccination will 'at best' save 40 lives in the UK while harming huge numbers.

She accuses drug companies of using extreme scare tactics to promote the vaccines and make money - which is a bit rich when the magazine is shot through with scare stories to promote supplements and alt med. Incidentally, the supplement market was reported as worth 27 billion dollars in the US in 2009, and growing.

I don't know if the vaccine is safe or not. I don't know if it's as effective as it claims. I don't know how many lives it will save. But I'm much more inclined to listen to the opinions of scientists than quacks peddling what I do know are unproven and potentially dangerous treatments. There's some common sense about the vaccine 'controversy' here.

If this post has given you apoplexy, take a vitamin supplement and you'll be fine. I'm a doctor* and I'm most certainly not telling you to buy this magazine.




*Not a medical doctor. I may start a magazine on all the things that humanities PhD doctors aren't telling you.

Bullies and predators

You may have heard by now that there is a man who comes to Skeptics in the Pub in London who is making women the subject of unwanted sexual attention. That's putting it politely. He's hitting on women, being inappropriately physical/sexual and generally behaving like a dick.


Michael Story has written about this here. Because of the stupid libel laws in this country, the Offender cannot be named publicly, which makes him harder to deal with.


I'm one of the hosts of London SitP, along with Carmen and Sid. When I started going to SitP, very few women came. Sometimes I was the only woman there at the King's Head in Borough. Over the years, we've worked hard to encourage women to come and now a lot do. We want them to feel safe and comfortable. This isn't a major problem, we don't want to blow it out of proportion, but we do want to act responsibly and nip it in the bud.

This shouldn't need saying but apparently it does - this is not acceptable behaviour. There are no excuses. You are not 'just being friendly'. If you were, you'd be doing it to men too. You are not lord of the manor and women are not your personal fiefdom. Your position in the Skeptic community does not give you immunity. Even though the law may protect you, there are other ways we can deal with you - and we will.

I went on the Slutwalk march on Saturday and listened to stories at the rally of women being raped and sexually harassed because men thought they had the right. Although these stories were at the more extreme end of male behaviour, SitP will not tolerate any kind of behaviour that makes women feel uncomfortable because it's all part of the same loathsome mindset.

This kind of sexual predator behaviour is a kind of bullying and, like all bullies, the Offender is relying on silence. I've been bullied in the past; I know how it makes you feel and I know how hard it can be to do anything about it so I know it's a lot to ask you to speak up. But we will sort this out.

Bullies and predators pick their victims carefully. It is not your fault he does this to you. You have not 'led him on', you do not 'deserve' this. He is the one in the wrong. You're not 'making trouble' or 'causing a fuss' by telling us. And anything you do say will be treated in confidence, so you don't need to fear any personal consequences - which is another way bullies maintain their power.

The vast majority of men at SitP would never dream of doing anything like this but the Offender affects them too, making them question their own behaviour and making them wonder what to do if they witness him in action. But guys - man up and speak up.

I've seen comments from some men who are understandably angry and think the answer is for a bunch of guys to tackle the Offender. It isn't. However good your intentions, don't go caveman as this makes women into feeble little victims who can't look after themselves.

We'll deal with this in an adult way and we'll deal with it together. It will get sorted, we promise.

Carmen, Sid and I really strongly encourage you to tell us if you see or suffer from the Offender. We will back you up and anything you tell us will be treated in absolute confidence. You can leave comments here (which in no way implies that you've been directly affected unless you make that explicit), you can email us, DM us on Twitter or tell us face to face. That's @tessakendall, @carmenego or @sidrodrigues.

But DO NOT name him publicly.

If it turns out there is more than one Offender, we'll deal with that too. If you're not in London and you're having a problem, we can still help but we want to put our own house in order.

The Offender is not some mega-nerd who doesn't know what he's doing but if you're a guy who has problems reading signals and body language, a good rule of thumb is - if in doubt, don't do it.

This is Hayley Stevens' commentary on the situation.

Our next meeting at the Monarch is on October 15 and we hope to see lots of you there. We'll also be at Conway Hall on Sunday for more skeptic fun. I may update this to keep up with any developments so check back later.