Today's isn't up yet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/thought
However, this morning (the 1st of November) the Reverend Dee Luded (I think his name was Joe something) came up with an interesting theory about population. From what I heard he seemed to suggest that population growth was ok, because there was enough food to go round, we just need to learn to distribute it better. Which is nice to know, because all the evidence I have seen points to the absolute opposite. But hey! This man is on Radio 4, in an unoppossed, un-debated slot, so it must be true..he must be the world highest authority on such things as normally even Evolutionary scientists have their work questioned and debated in the name of "balance". So,yes definately true that one!
He then went on to say that as Jesus was "Born" along with some other good people, we need to keep having babies as we never know which baby will be the one that solves all our problems (he stopped short of saying Saviour). I didn't realise that was what we were waiting for. I had in my mind that actually we need to manage population, but it's obvious when you think about it, clearly we need to keep having babies in case the next one is the second comming, or invents a way of us colonising Mars, or the never ending pint of beer, or a way to stop X Factor and Strictly from ruining Saturday evenings.. If only I had seen it so clearly.
To be honest, I need to listen to it again, to make sure I really heard that, it's still a bit much to take in, but in short, we can all keep having babies, it's not a problem any more and we just need to ferry food about a bit better.
Brilliant! Listen to the Rev, he knows best. What with all his relavent qualifications and clearly well researched work on thte matter.
Tuesday 1 November 2011
Tuesday 21 June 2011
Balance - or unqualified made up shit?
I have heard religious leaders on the radio being asked about the science of abortion. Radio DJ's giving advice on the MMR vaccine. I have heard white van men being wheeled on to discuss road safety.
Now, all of the above topics deserve serious debate, by qualified people. When a scientist stands up and says; "we have looked at the meta data and found that homoeopathy is no more effective than Placebo", the BBC do NOT need to then "balance" that fact with nonsense from a vested interest. The balance is built into the Science. That's what good science is. They only need balance if they are reporting bad science.
If they are trying to uncover Bad Science then that is a different matter. The big problem is that the very large majority of journalists don't understand science at all and are therefore not able to distinguish good science from bad. Good science has balance, it requires no "other side of the story". Good science takes all sides of all stories and measures each of them, sets it self up to fail and only when it has proved it has been peer reviewed - where independent people check that all sides of the argument have been measured and taken into account does it become "good science".
Yet bad science is easy to spot, firstly though you have to actually read the study you are reporting on. The Daily Mail reports on some new
cause of cancer pretty much every week, they also report on some new potential cure for cancer on a similar basis. I don;t believe they do this to inform readers of the perils of drinking too much coffee, or to persuade us to all eat less bacon, they do it becuase it sells papers. We are all scared of Cancer and we all want to avoid it, selling stories about how people might achieve this is good business, but it rarely makes for good Science.
All of this serves to undermine good science. It gives people a perverted view of science and leads them to mistrust it. When one reads in a Tabloid that Scientists have come up with a formula to prove that Tuesdays are the worst day of the week, what they don't report is that the "study" was paid for by a PR company trying to promote some Tuesday night event. They never report that there is no actual science in the study, that a real scientist didn't do the work, that it's just a bit of fun. No they report it as Science even though it's rarely anything of the sort. They certainly never point out that all the journalist has done is to copy and paste a press release from a PR company.
This can have a pretty devastating effect. When a group of real scientists say something like "we have found good evidence that man made CO2 emissions contribute to climate change" , the public judge that statement against the quality of all the other bad science and good science reported badly that they have been exposed to. They have no fair frame of reference to judge it by.
If you want to know why people stopped giving their kids the MMR jab, you actually can't blame Andrew Wakefeild and his appallingly bad "science", you can blame the press that reported his made up findings as fact. Even though the smallest amount of journalistic integrity would have shown them all that the science was bogus.
If you wonder why people write off man made climate change as a conspiracy, don't blame the East Anglian scientist for changing the wording of an email to try and clarify a mathematical anomaly, blame the reporters that claim that this minor details undermines everything else said in those emails.
The popular press, the BBC, ITV the media as a whole gives science a bad name, sometimes in a cynical attempt to sell copy, often through downright laziness. Don;t believe them. Find out for yourself, the truth is out there and it's not available on conspiracy forums or anti vac forums, it's available on science forums. Science is the balance. Good science. Well reported is the answer. Sadly it's rarely as exciting as the facts.
EDIT - BBC Trust agree with me!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14218989
Although the headline details the praise they received! Balanced?
Now, all of the above topics deserve serious debate, by qualified people. When a scientist stands up and says; "we have looked at the meta data and found that homoeopathy is no more effective than Placebo", the BBC do NOT need to then "balance" that fact with nonsense from a vested interest. The balance is built into the Science. That's what good science is. They only need balance if they are reporting bad science.
If they are trying to uncover Bad Science then that is a different matter. The big problem is that the very large majority of journalists don't understand science at all and are therefore not able to distinguish good science from bad. Good science has balance, it requires no "other side of the story". Good science takes all sides of all stories and measures each of them, sets it self up to fail and only when it has proved it has been peer reviewed - where independent people check that all sides of the argument have been measured and taken into account does it become "good science".
Yet bad science is easy to spot, firstly though you have to actually read the study you are reporting on. The Daily Mail reports on some new
cause of cancer pretty much every week, they also report on some new potential cure for cancer on a similar basis. I don;t believe they do this to inform readers of the perils of drinking too much coffee, or to persuade us to all eat less bacon, they do it becuase it sells papers. We are all scared of Cancer and we all want to avoid it, selling stories about how people might achieve this is good business, but it rarely makes for good Science.
All of this serves to undermine good science. It gives people a perverted view of science and leads them to mistrust it. When one reads in a Tabloid that Scientists have come up with a formula to prove that Tuesdays are the worst day of the week, what they don't report is that the "study" was paid for by a PR company trying to promote some Tuesday night event. They never report that there is no actual science in the study, that a real scientist didn't do the work, that it's just a bit of fun. No they report it as Science even though it's rarely anything of the sort. They certainly never point out that all the journalist has done is to copy and paste a press release from a PR company.
This can have a pretty devastating effect. When a group of real scientists say something like "we have found good evidence that man made CO2 emissions contribute to climate change" , the public judge that statement against the quality of all the other bad science and good science reported badly that they have been exposed to. They have no fair frame of reference to judge it by.
If you want to know why people stopped giving their kids the MMR jab, you actually can't blame Andrew Wakefeild and his appallingly bad "science", you can blame the press that reported his made up findings as fact. Even though the smallest amount of journalistic integrity would have shown them all that the science was bogus.
If you wonder why people write off man made climate change as a conspiracy, don't blame the East Anglian scientist for changing the wording of an email to try and clarify a mathematical anomaly, blame the reporters that claim that this minor details undermines everything else said in those emails.
The popular press, the BBC, ITV the media as a whole gives science a bad name, sometimes in a cynical attempt to sell copy, often through downright laziness. Don;t believe them. Find out for yourself, the truth is out there and it's not available on conspiracy forums or anti vac forums, it's available on science forums. Science is the balance. Good science. Well reported is the answer. Sadly it's rarely as exciting as the facts.
EDIT - BBC Trust agree with me!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-14218989
Although the headline details the praise they received! Balanced?
Wednesday 16 February 2011
Watching telly doesn’t get more hyperbolic than this!
I just tried to watch Masterchef. Why do we need all the American false jeopardy music and trumped up fake tension? They are cooking a bit of dinner not defusing a bomb in a primary school FFS! As for India Fisher's stroke victim voice over, how does that fit in? Surely they should have a man on fire running around on broken glass to do it now. At least it would fit with the DRAMA. Fuck me it’s DRAMATIC isn’t it…. Isn’t it?. The drama isn’t even consistent, one minute the tenderness of the pan fried Cod could save mankind from impending doom, then they lapse into Keane because it turns out the fat ugly woman can cook too.. ahhh.. anyway, BACK TO THE DRAMA! Fuck me, if this cake goes wrong we are all going to be burned to death with acid!
Thank fuck Arsenal v Barcelona was a decent watch this evening, well done you Gurners, or whatever it is you call yourselves, Arse Having’s winning goal was enjoyable at least. I even got a little excited and let out an involuntary “yay!”. And all without the aid of a team of Kodo drummers and a brass section.
Dear BBC, some things are exciting, like a close football or Rugby match, other things are entertaining for other reasons. Masterchef used to be in the latter camp. People that like food and cooking enjoyed it as it was. Now we hate it becuase YOU thought we were so thick we needed it jazzing up! Tossers!
Thank fuck Arsenal v Barcelona was a decent watch this evening, well done you Gurners, or whatever it is you call yourselves, Arse Having’s winning goal was enjoyable at least. I even got a little excited and let out an involuntary “yay!”. And all without the aid of a team of Kodo drummers and a brass section.
Dear BBC, some things are exciting, like a close football or Rugby match, other things are entertaining for other reasons. Masterchef used to be in the latter camp. People that like food and cooking enjoyed it as it was. Now we hate it becuase YOU thought we were so thick we needed it jazzing up! Tossers!
Wednesday 19 January 2011
Why aren't kids revolting? (A music rant)
As much as the piss ant tabloid press like to brainwash their thicko readership into thinking that all kids are knife wielding, gobbing, granny mugging morons, the truth seems to me to be quite the opposite. In fact there seems to be very little in the way of rebellion these days. Most of the young people I meet are like 40 year olds in trendier clothes.
And I blame Simon Cowell. I do, really. When I was a lad (yes I am old) we had to make our own music, the music we made was made with computers and turn tables in our bedrooms. Most of it was repetitive and shit, but we didn't care because we were off our faces on purple ohms and love doves.
The generation before us made their own music in the garage with a band, some safety pins, someone shouting and a bag of glue. Their music was shit too, but they didn't care as they were off their faces on glue.
But from all this shit music emerged real talent. Would we have had the Sex pistols without all the shit garage bands? No. Would we have had Orbital without hundreds of kids pissing about in their bedrooms? I doubt it. (You could argue that we would have avoided Moby too. I would struggle to counter your argument).
We were all trying to revolt, trying to find our own identity and succeeding. Each generation, from the 60’s has had its defining music and styles, it’s drugs and music and something for revolting kids to cling to as they exploded (literally) into maturity. There needed to be an excuse to go out and get fucked, fucked on drink, fucked on drugs, fucked on music and fucked doggy style with your hair on fire. My generation had that. We had the summer of love, Ibiza and pills. The ones before us had the New Romantics, then the New Wave and Ska/mod revival, Skin heads, Punks, Mods and Rockers, Teddy boys .. it goes back to the beginning of Rock and Roll and for the very large majority of us, it was a good thing.
But now what have they got? It feels to me as though the kids are being told what to listen to by the record companies. Rather than the other way round. We used to define the music, now the record companies do. Programs like X Factor define the music and define what will be number 1. No wonder kids don’t buy music anymore, they have no input into it. They download it (steal it) and throw it away. It’s all too transient, there is no pride of ownership in a record or CD. And why would there be, even if you go and buy a CD made by musicians, it is for the most part derivative, lame nonsense. Keane. Keane. FUCKING KEANE (I fucking hate Keane) for example. Rock and Roll? Yeah right, them and Starsailor, Kings of Leon, White Lies, Rhianna, Mumford and Sons, Foo Fighters.. Some of these bands I like. But I am nearly 40. I should hate this shit, it should offend me, it should be so edgy that no self-respecting teen would be seen dead listening to one of their Dad’s albums. Then you have the N-Subz / Tinchy Striderites, these are people that think being thick is a virtue. They are not pushing any boundaries, revolution has to have a purpose, no matter how misguided. Even punk had a purpose. Most new music these days is about as edgy as a Blue peter presenter stroking a kitten.
The Libertines had a go, Some rap artists etc. but it's all old. And the record companies wouldn’t promote them in any case. They drop similarly rebellious acts as they didn’t fit the clean image required by the fucking piss ant press (who now rule the world by defining what all thick people think). The record companies are full of Simon Cowells pandering to the lowest common denominator. And in doing so they are ripping the heart out of what made music great; The fact that a generation could be defined by it’s music! That’s what made great music. And now music is bland, we have bland youth culture, bland is bad. Life is too short for bland.
Music has been commercialised so much that it has disappeared up its own fundament. Perhaps there are underground movements out there. Maybe i am too out of touch, there are Emo’s and Goths still around, but they are just miserable little turds, I want to be shocked. As I approach 40, I want to be able to tut and say “Tcoh the kids of today”. But I can’t. Most of them bear more resemblance to a Christian outreach meeting than to the gobbing knife wielding little shits the papers tell us about.
It’s time for a musical revolution, something for the next generation to fuck to. Fuck Simon Cowell and his puke making manfactopop. And fuck Rihanna and her fucking Umbrella. No Mat Cardle. NO! I want music to scare me. If the sterilisation of music continues my kids will have to grow up without sleeping in a gutter, never waking up in bed with a stranger, they will not experience Sunday lunch with mum and dad while still off their faces, they will have no stories to tell, no memorable nights to forget. They will be bland. I may as well start taking them to church if this is what music has become, they can learn to play the organ and sit and pray. Fuck that, as the late great Bill Hicks said, "I want music to ROCK, and I want my kids to ROCK". Life is short and is there to be lived, sod staying in. Sod saving up, Sod “being careful”, fuck off, buy a motorbike, get a life. You are only here once for fucks sake. All these whiney little maggots prancing around in 1 direction, JLSing themselves to a BORING choreographed DULL SHIT GRAVE. Christ some of these kids need to start taking liberties with their bodies otherwise they’ll live to be 120, sitting in a nursing home stinking of piss and TCP, with no vague memories to keep them happy. You regret what you didn’t do. I know that as I regret very little. Apart from being fucked doggy style with my hair on fire. That hurt.
And I blame Simon Cowell. I do, really. When I was a lad (yes I am old) we had to make our own music, the music we made was made with computers and turn tables in our bedrooms. Most of it was repetitive and shit, but we didn't care because we were off our faces on purple ohms and love doves.
The generation before us made their own music in the garage with a band, some safety pins, someone shouting and a bag of glue. Their music was shit too, but they didn't care as they were off their faces on glue.
But from all this shit music emerged real talent. Would we have had the Sex pistols without all the shit garage bands? No. Would we have had Orbital without hundreds of kids pissing about in their bedrooms? I doubt it. (You could argue that we would have avoided Moby too. I would struggle to counter your argument).
We were all trying to revolt, trying to find our own identity and succeeding. Each generation, from the 60’s has had its defining music and styles, it’s drugs and music and something for revolting kids to cling to as they exploded (literally) into maturity. There needed to be an excuse to go out and get fucked, fucked on drink, fucked on drugs, fucked on music and fucked doggy style with your hair on fire. My generation had that. We had the summer of love, Ibiza and pills. The ones before us had the New Romantics, then the New Wave and Ska/mod revival, Skin heads, Punks, Mods and Rockers, Teddy boys .. it goes back to the beginning of Rock and Roll and for the very large majority of us, it was a good thing.
But now what have they got? It feels to me as though the kids are being told what to listen to by the record companies. Rather than the other way round. We used to define the music, now the record companies do. Programs like X Factor define the music and define what will be number 1. No wonder kids don’t buy music anymore, they have no input into it. They download it (steal it) and throw it away. It’s all too transient, there is no pride of ownership in a record or CD. And why would there be, even if you go and buy a CD made by musicians, it is for the most part derivative, lame nonsense. Keane. Keane. FUCKING KEANE (I fucking hate Keane) for example. Rock and Roll? Yeah right, them and Starsailor, Kings of Leon, White Lies, Rhianna, Mumford and Sons, Foo Fighters.. Some of these bands I like. But I am nearly 40. I should hate this shit, it should offend me, it should be so edgy that no self-respecting teen would be seen dead listening to one of their Dad’s albums. Then you have the N-Subz / Tinchy Striderites, these are people that think being thick is a virtue. They are not pushing any boundaries, revolution has to have a purpose, no matter how misguided. Even punk had a purpose. Most new music these days is about as edgy as a Blue peter presenter stroking a kitten.
The Libertines had a go, Some rap artists etc. but it's all old. And the record companies wouldn’t promote them in any case. They drop similarly rebellious acts as they didn’t fit the clean image required by the fucking piss ant press (who now rule the world by defining what all thick people think). The record companies are full of Simon Cowells pandering to the lowest common denominator. And in doing so they are ripping the heart out of what made music great; The fact that a generation could be defined by it’s music! That’s what made great music. And now music is bland, we have bland youth culture, bland is bad. Life is too short for bland.
Music has been commercialised so much that it has disappeared up its own fundament. Perhaps there are underground movements out there. Maybe i am too out of touch, there are Emo’s and Goths still around, but they are just miserable little turds, I want to be shocked. As I approach 40, I want to be able to tut and say “Tcoh the kids of today”. But I can’t. Most of them bear more resemblance to a Christian outreach meeting than to the gobbing knife wielding little shits the papers tell us about.
It’s time for a musical revolution, something for the next generation to fuck to. Fuck Simon Cowell and his puke making manfactopop. And fuck Rihanna and her fucking Umbrella. No Mat Cardle. NO! I want music to scare me. If the sterilisation of music continues my kids will have to grow up without sleeping in a gutter, never waking up in bed with a stranger, they will not experience Sunday lunch with mum and dad while still off their faces, they will have no stories to tell, no memorable nights to forget. They will be bland. I may as well start taking them to church if this is what music has become, they can learn to play the organ and sit and pray. Fuck that, as the late great Bill Hicks said, "I want music to ROCK, and I want my kids to ROCK". Life is short and is there to be lived, sod staying in. Sod saving up, Sod “being careful”, fuck off, buy a motorbike, get a life. You are only here once for fucks sake. All these whiney little maggots prancing around in 1 direction, JLSing themselves to a BORING choreographed DULL SHIT GRAVE. Christ some of these kids need to start taking liberties with their bodies otherwise they’ll live to be 120, sitting in a nursing home stinking of piss and TCP, with no vague memories to keep them happy. You regret what you didn’t do. I know that as I regret very little. Apart from being fucked doggy style with my hair on fire. That hurt.
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