What "What Doctors Don't Tell You" Don't Tell You

As anyone who follows me, especially on Twitter, will be aware, there's been a bit of a fuss recently regarding the magazine "What Doctors Don't Tell You"  (WDDTY).

I've got enormous concerns about this magazine.  It's not simply an "alt-med" (alternative medicine) magazine devoted to home-grown treatments and alternatives to drugs.  It's actively telling people that homeopathy and various supplements are realistic treatment alternatives for conditions such as HIV and cancer, and that vaccines are dangerous and should be avoided.  Frankly I look forward to the days (around a decade from now) when children who have suffered life-changing measles infections bring their first legal challenges against the parents who decided they shouldn't be vaccinated.

However, there's always two sides to a story.  There is indeed a place on the magazine racks for an alternative health magazine.  I've been accused of both "moaning" and "bullying" for my anti-WDDTY attitude.  To counter this I've laid down a little challenge on Twitter: write an article that WDDTY should be about.  Not scaremongering, real criticism of the "medical establishment", just to prove that WDDTY could, if they wished, produce a responsible and useful magazine.

What Doctors Don't Tell You
One of the greatest challenges facing the medical establishment is the gradual failing of antibiotic treatments.  These were, when first discovered, one of the greatest human discoveries of all time.  Simple infections killed many people, from a simple boil to meningitis.  Any bacterial infection that the body couldn't handle had a high chance of killing you.  The discovery of antibiotics, penicillin and the like, was to change all of this in a manner which was frankly miraculous to anybody living at the time.  The equivalent today would be a cure for cancer, HIV, malaria, 'flu and car crashes all in one.

Penicillin was so useful, and so difficult to produce, that the urine of patients given the new wonder-drug was even filtered so the excess penicillin they excreted could be recovered and given to another patient.  It was, I repeat, miraculous.  I don't use that word lightly, what with not believing in god and miracles and all.

But we're facing a big problem.  It's not working any more.

Penicillin, the original drug, is of very limited use these days.  It has very little impact on most of the bacterial infections it used to cure.  There are very similar variants that have been developed - Amoxicillin, Dicloxacillin and lots of other things ending in "cillin", but they're still all just a symptom.

The problem is something else that appears to be contentious in the world of science: evolution.

The problem is, if you use a drug that kills 99% of germs then you're left with the 1% of germs the drug won't kill.  And then that 1% keeps breeding until there's as many as you started with.

This is the reasoning for all of the stern warnings on the antibiotic packets about finishing the course.  Yes, you feel better half way in, that's because half of the bacteria are gone and your body has a chance to catch up on the whole "immune system" thing.  If you stop taking the drugs, however, all you're doing is letting the drug-resistant versions (which have survived so far) take over.  It's like the 1940s USA dropping a nuclear bomb along with millions of leaflets on how to stop nuclear bombs exploding.  Sure, most of the leaflets will burn up, but one will survive, making all of your research null and void.

So if there's any criticism of the medical "establishment" to be made, it's that they've squandered an incredibly valuable resource.

Why did they do this?  It's partly simple human nature: we feel better, so we stop taking the drugs.  There's also strong anecdotal evidence to suggest that antibiotics have been over-prescribed, simply dished out to patients who have a bit of a cold and go to their doctor demanding the "miracle cure".  The fact that they have precisely zero effect on viral infections like the common cold seems to be lost amongst the sheer need to get rid of a demanding but would-get-better-anyway patient.

Antibiotics have been used as placebos over the years, because of budgetary pressures on GPs.  That's something which doctors won't tell you, because they don't have the time and money to discuss it.  They have to save the money for patients with advanced cancer who insist their "vitamin C tablets will deal with it, and by the way, can I have some more morphine?"

The Rocket Engineer's Song

 With apologies to The Corries and "The Bricklayer Song"
(Their far funnier version is at the bottom)

Dear Sir, I write this note to you
to tell you of my plight,
for at the time of writing it,
I'm not a pretty sight.
My body is all black and blue,
my skin a yellow/grey,
and I write this note to say
why I am not at work today.

While working on the stage two link
my safety rope was sheared,
and letting go at such a height
was not a good idea.
The Team 6 Chief, he wasn't pleased
(he is an awkward sod)
he said he'd have to cancel launching,
"due to FOD".

But in his haste to cancel launch,
he got the wrong codeword,
or as he claimed in court last week,
CAPCOM just misheard.
Either way, result the same,
it left me out of luck,
the countdown clock hit zero,
I knew then, I was fucked.


The engines fired, the bolts went bang,
umbilicals fell like lead,
and clinging to a Saturn V
I started up instead.
I rose up with the rocket,
assuming I was dead,
and ten feet up I hit the bloody gantry with my head.

The force of this collision,
half way up the rocket stack,
caused multiple abrasions,
and a minor heart attack.
I clung on tightly to the ship,
my body wracked with pain,
then "oh here comes the crew ramp"...
...bloody gantry one again.

I had no choice at this point,
(let alone much hope)
I put my faith in Newton
and let go the safety rope.
My body it just tumbled,
as helpless as the rain,
by some dumb luck I met the bloody gantry once again.

Crumpled on the crew ramp,
I thought I'd passed the worst,
but rocket exhaust rained down on me,
I really must be cursed.
The surgeon thinks I should be dead,
and I can only say:
I hope you'll understand why I am not at work today.





(The real version)

LSE "Jesus & Mo" Row

As always at this time of year, student unions up and down the country are trying to convince both students and their parents that "they're doing something about something", and this year the London School of Economics (LSE) is at the centre of it.

Students from the Atheist Secularist And Humanist Society (run under the auspices of the LSE's Student Union), as usual, held a stand at the Fresher's Fair.  Two members wore T-shirts displaying a cartoon from Jesus & Mo, a popular webcomic.  Complaints were made, and the Atheist Society were asked to cover the shirts.

And now there's a massive row about it.

So lets get a few things out of the way:

Islam prohibits images of The Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him / may The Force be with him).  The intention of this rule is to prevent idolatry - for example, what if there's a picture of Mohammed where he has big ears and another where he has small ears, which is true?  It's the kind of thing that leads to schisms, and the world has quite enough of those already.  Note that this prohibition applies to Muslims, not worldwide.

Jesus and Mo isn't some crass piece of offensive nonsense.  It's a legitimate and fairly gentle piece of religious satire.  They address the question of representing the Prophet, claiming they use a body double, which is fair enough.  There's not even a question of copyright here, the cartoons are licensed under a Creative Commons licence.

A student union is, usually, a private club in the eyes of the law.  They have the right to ban within certain rules - students can't be excluded on grounds of race, religion or sexuality for example, but this doesn't amount to entirely free speech on these grounds.  Neither the LBGT Society or the Heterosexual Society (if there is one) are likely to be able to show their own particular brand of porn for example, even if it's an 18+ venue and the porn is perfectly legal.



So...the students had a right to wear the T-Shirts, the Student's Union had the right to insist on them covering it up as a condition of entry, end of story.  In the absence of any legal challenge to the matter, that's the end of the argument - there is no censorship issue, as they're only preventing something being said on Union property.  Just because the Guardian won't print this post it doesn't mean they're censoring me.  The students are free to wear the T-shirts anywhere else they want.

But, of course, these arguments tend to have a life of their own,  and everyone wants to weigh in.  I've already had two vigorous discussions with people on Twitter who disagree with me almost entirely, despite us all holding the same atheistic views otherwise.  So here's my view on a few aspects:

Question 1: Were the students right to wear the T-shirts?
I have to acknowledge that Jesus And Mo themselves say it isn't Mohammed, but I've not heard this defence presented in any way.  As an independent observer it looks very much like they're simply trying to cause offence, and in a very targeted way aimed at one particular religion.
  It's possible that they weren't even aware of the potential for offence and the reasoning behind it, but frankly if they weren't aware of the "no pics" rule in Islam then they probably need to study the subject they're rejecting a little more. 
 If they wanted to challenge the "no pictures" rule then they can do it without displaying a picture.  A shirt reading "There are no gods, and Mohammed is not a prophet" does much the same job without being so directly offensive, but even then it's singling out a particular religion - does that mean that Christianity is less liable to criticism from Atheism?  Would singling out Hindus instead be a better idea, because they have more gods and are therefore a more "legitimate atheist target"?
  The job of atheism is to challenge the initial precept that there is a god, religions themselves voluntarily lump themselves together by founding their beliefs on there being a god or gods.  Atheism doesn't need to attack Islam, Sikhism or any other religion to do its job, the argument is that "there is no god" and if it's made well enough then all religions will be equally hoisted by their own logical petards.

Question 2: Were the Students Union right to ban the T-shirts?
As with question 1, they're certainly within their rights.  Was it a sensible idea however?  Well, that depends on why they did it.  If they were expecting to get into the papers and throw their name around a little then yes, mission accomplished.  If they were trying to "protect their students" however, then it's a very different matter.
  This is a university.  The very point of which is to take some rather nerdy people and prepare them for life.  The may be "little darlings" in the eyes of some, but they have to learn to live in the real world with people who disagree with them and learn to stand their ground.  This applies just as much to your Pakistani girl from a cloistered religious upbringing as your public schoolboy who's living in a hall named after Pater.
  Student Unions do have a duty of care to their members, but part of that is allowing them to fight their own battles.



Wearing the T-shirts was a mistake.  The Atheist contingent were either very naive, or they set out to shock, quite possible hoping for publicity as a result.  But they're simply telling their "target audience" to fuck off.  If atheism is all about telling religious people to fuck off, then fair enough, it does the job, but that not any part of atheism I want to be part of.

Banning the T-shirts was also a mistake.  It was nothing illegal.  It wasn't inciting racial hatred, it wasn't threatening anybody.  It was just a particularly crass and badly thought out piece of "shock-jock" atheism.  The Union should have just told Whoever Complained to use the standard student arguments of pickets, protests and the like, let the student body decide before handing the matter over to a very few elected officials in the Union.  A vigorus public argument, no kicking or spitting, is a good thing, especially when you're meant to be learning about life.

In fact, banning the T-shirts has turned this from an argument between the Atheist Society and the Whoever Complained Society of LSE, into a big argument with people claiming the free speech of the UK is at stake, when it should be about young people with forming belief systems meeting other people, understanding their point of view, and taking it apart where necessary.

A simple ban seems to remove a huge learning opportunity for everyone involved. 

It's a student spat, and they should be arguing their respective ground in the University Court, as is tradition and juristiction, not throwing soundbites to social media and the press.



As any fule student kno:

Wheaton's Law: "Don't be a dick."

What Theoretical Physicists Don't Tell You

    "If you see the chemistry department running away from something then you should try to keep up.  If you see the theoretical physics department running away from something, there's probably not much point."
~Anon

 Clearly, physicists are evil. Their closely guarded knowledge is kept away from the general public and shrouded in secrecy, lest we mere mortals realise how little they actually know, or find out what they're up to.  So, for the first time, I expose their web of hidden knowledge.

They Use A Secret Language

Physics is full of properties with cosy, familiar sounding names. Particles have properties like colour, flavour and spin, even "energy", despite nobody observing so much as an aura around a particle.  None of these things are related to what these words actually mean in everyday life. They can't have a colour, because we can't even see them (and they're far smaller than the visible wavelength of light anyway). They don't have a flavour, because you don't see quark flavoured ice-cream.  OK, there is a cheese called quark, but that's just pedantry.  There's nothing grave about gravity, relativity has nothing to do with your family tree and the word "quantum" can be applied to anything you want to sound impressive.  It's all one big cover up for something or other.

"Maths, Or It Didn't Happen"

To make their tinkering with language even more obscure, and in an attempt to exclude the social science department and those pesky "ethics committees", physicists shroud their most simple theories in complicated mathematics, meaning anyone who wants to understand it has to do the equivalent of a university maths degree!  That's a whole degree in an entirely different subject!  Do vets have to do a law degree? Do geologists need to learn marketing? Again, it's an ugly big conspiracy designed to confuse.

Take, for example, the equation that helped kick-start quantum theory:

E = hf

E is energy, and f is frequency.  When Max Planck was investigating the relationship between them he found they weren't equal, so he just made up a number, called it h, and stuck it in there to fudge the equation.  And for that he gets a so called "constant" named after him.

They're Usually Wrong

Most physics is wrong! It's a dirty little secret they don't let on to.  Take, for example, the first physicist, Sir Isaac Newton. His "triumphant" theory of gravity is wrong!  Entirely wrong! It turns out it only works when you're not moving.  Physicists will bleat on about it being the limit of relativity as the field and velocities tend to zero, but what they mean is it only works perfectly in situations where there's no gravity and nothing moves, which is pretty useless for a theory of gravity.

Basically, all physics prior to relativity and quantum theory, which is everything prior to about 1920, is wrong (they'll claim it's an "accurate estimate" or "limit condition", but it's still wrong).  That's 1,920 wasted years!

Physicists also react joyfully when a long established theory is shown to be wrong, and happily replace it with yet another fudged equation and made-up words.  Admitting you're wrong is no way to gain credibility, even if the evidence says you are wrong.  Imagine if politics worked like this - it would be chaos.

They Invented Nuclear Bombs

Yes, possibly the most damning evidence of all.  Physicists from all over the world bear direct responsibility for whatever politicians do with nuclear weapons.  The politicians, clearly, are blameless - they don't know enough of the complicated maths stuff to understand exactly what a nuclear bomb will do.

Many of the greatest names in physics, Oppenheimer, Feynman and many others, conspired during the Second World War to create a weapon that could destroy the world.  The fact that the German military were trying to make one of their own is no excuse, everybody knows two wrongs don't make a right, and the autobiographies and interviews with all of the participants shows they all knew what they were building and all understood just how horrific the weapon would be.  Oppenheimer himself quoted the Bhagavad Gita after seeing the first test - "Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds."  If that's not gloating I don't know what is.  I'm pretty sure he added "Mwahahaha!" after he said it.

Ignoring the weapons aspect, this research was also instrumental in developing nuclear power (evil), furthering theoretical physics (evil) and radiotherapy treatments for cancer (evil).

They shouldn't have done it, that's blatantly clear. After all, there's a reasonable chance that we'd have beaten the Nazis before they developed their own.

Further Reading:

[1] xkcd 669, "Physics professors don't like working in frictionless vacuums after all, they're such liars."

[2] Abstruse Goose 406, "Bastard theoretical physicists, how do you sleep at night?"