LSE and UCL – mistaken, misguided and mismanaged

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Jan 252012
 

I’ve been watching with increasing bewilderment and concern over the reaction of two London universities (London School of Economics and University College London) to the “Jesus and Mo” pictures. Coyne of “Why Evolution Is True” has a couple of posts on this today:

Pharyngula also has a piece on the LSE:

To this eclectic mix I would add the brilliant piece by Eric MacDonald:

It’s clear that the LSE and UCL have made a mistake. Religion is NOT protected from criticism and does NOT deserve any special privileges. Those who call themselves “devout” need not fear criticism as they’ve already closed their minds and can continue to live in the happiness of their delusions. Certainly the “devout” have no legitimate mechanism to feel “hurt” or “offended”, and any claims for such feelings are mock by definition.

Equating criticism of religion to racism as these universities are doing is mistaken and beyond rationality. In the short time that I’ve looked at bogus degrees at British universities it has become evident that universities are more interested in generating revenue than in instilling knowledge. By capitulating to the religious, by appeasement to the irrational, these two universities have shown that they will do anything to acquire as much money as possible by stamping on rationality, by censuring and silencing the minority.

LSE, UCL, shame on you.

Article by Kulvinder Singh Matharu – 2012

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Prince Charles, a right charlie

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Jun 162010
 

There are many things wrong with Prince Charles. As a person, these are:

  • his tendency to espouse nonsense such as homeopathy and other pseudoscience, and to gain financially from such promotion.
  • his tendency for political interference, to meddle.

Of the above, his attachment to pseudosciences and other bunk demonstrate deficiencies in his critical thinking skills. It is for these reasons that I have previously called him a blithering idiot. I recognise that Prince Charles is what he is because of the circumstances forced upon him when he was growing up, that he is as much a victim as anything else. But he is what he is. And he takes great delight in that, and great delight in the huge sums of money that Duchy Originals makes for him in selling bunk. And for that he has earned no respect, no sympathy. I think David Mitchell’s article “Prince Charles isn’t a bad guy, but does that mean we have to listen to him?” is too respectful. Prince Charles’s position puts him in a highly influential piston, a position that he has not earned and which he as abused. He is a bad man.

There is another problem with Prince Charles; not so much of him as a person but of him being a member of the British Monarchy. Monarchies deserve no place in modern democracies. But many people do feel some romantic attachment to the Monarchy and I expect that it may take a very long time before there is constitutional change to finally remove this anachronism from British politics.

Some people argue that this would adversely impact the number of tourists visiting the UK. Perhaps. But I doubt that it will be a big impact. Tourists do not come to the UK expecting to see the Queen. Rather, I expect that one of their key reasons to visit the UK is to see palaces and the pomp and pomposity that surrounds that. Let’s be clear, all that can still be kept. But the head of state then becomes someone appointed to that role in a republic, perhaps rather like the way India or Germany appoints/elects a distinguished person to President; a person who has no real political role, but someone that people can look up to, someone who has earned the right to be respected.

Article by Kulvinder Singh Matharu – 2010

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Beware the spinal trap

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Jul 292009
 

spine reprinted from Sense About Science

free debate

Simon Singh is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.

Beware the spinal trap

Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.

You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that ’99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae’. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

Continue reading »

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