Dodgy Chiropractic Advertising and the ASA

A common criticism I come across (from my girlfriend especially) about skeptics is that the majority of us do not play an active roll, that we simply absorb skeptical material as entertainment and talk about it rather than getting up and doing something about it (I think I agree with this overall). Of course, Simon Perry is the obvious example we should all think about when considering what each of us can easily do to make a difference.

When I came across some dodgy advertising for a local chiropractic clinic in Sheffield I saw this as an excellent opportunity to become more active.

The poster I saw was shown in a public place and therefore comes under the remit of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

Usual stuff really, apart from the paragraph 'Chiropractic has been shown to help with a vast array of musculoskeletal promlems, in almost every part of the body, not just the spine and neck'. This claim jumped out at me.

I reported this to the ASA (unfortunately I didnt keep a copy of the complaint, I'll try and get a copy to add on here).

The general gist of my argument referred to the General Chiropractic Council who are the body established by parliament to regulate the profession. Fairly recently they published the 'Effectiveness of manual therapies: the UK evidence report' which 'intends to be a comprehensive summary of the scientific evidence regarding the effectiveness of manual treatment for the management of a variety of musculoskeletal and non-musculoskeletal conditions'.

The GCC wrote [PDF] to the UK's chiropractors in March 2010 advising them to refer to this report when advertising their services.

In summary, the report concludes that there is only one treatment with a high level of positive evidence (chronic low back pain), the remainder are moderate or inconclusive. In the 'extremity - musculoskeletal' conditions reviewed, 12 had inconclusive evidence and 8 had moderate evidence (with a mix of favourable and un-favourable). The conclusions on non-musculoskeletal conditions were even worse. This seemed to be in direct contradiction to the advertising and didn't follow the advice given to the chiropractor by their regulatory body.

The ASA seemed to agree and I received the following response;

A job well done I think!

If you fancy submitting your own complaint then check if it falls within their remit and fill in the online form, it only took me 20 minutes.

Quote of the Week

Nature composes some of her loveliest poems for the microscope and the telescope.
- Theodore Roszak, Where the Wasteland Ends, 1972

Why Do Atheists Care What Other People Believe?

The title of this post is a quote from an article by Kelly McParland on nationalpost.com.

He refers to the atheist bus campaign in Canada and wonders

Why do atheists care what other people believe?

Well, Kelly, atheists care what other people believe when it affects us. And when it affects other people too.

We care what other people believe when creationists attempt to impose their religious beliefs into science education.

We care what other people believe when religious organisations are given special treatment (tax breaks, exemptions from non-discrimination laws for example) for no other reason that they are religious.

We care what other people believe when supposed faith healers dupe innocent believers out of their money and steer them away from appropriate medical treatment, often treatment which could make their life much more comfortable and even save it.

We care what other people believe when the religious attempt to ban things of which they do not approve or that they consider an insult to their beliefs.

We care what other people believe when innocent children are harmed or even die because of their parent's beliefs.

We care what other people believe when the requirement of empirical evidence is substituted by belief.

And we care about all this without fearing an all-powerful Big Brother bully figure who will punish us if we don't act like good little creations and reward us if we do nice stuff.

That is why we care what other people believe.

How to make your own homeopathic vodka!

Quote of the Week

I maintain there is much more wonder in science than in pseudoscience. And in addition, to whatever measure this term has any meaning, science has the additional virtue, and it is not an inconsiderable one, of being true.

- Carl Sagan

Shameless Post Promotion

Tinnitus Retraining Therapy and Current Practice

Hi all. This is a little niche but as it has a skeptical bent I hope it may interest some of you.

As this website is a resource for all SYSS participants if you have a blog or essay you feel would be of interest please get in touch and we'll throw it up here.

Kind Regards,

Tim

How Do I Know If I Might Be Psychic?

Before I complete my write up about Manchester Mind Body Spirit festival I will share some information the The Institute of Psychic Development gave to me at the fair yesterday (I'm sure they won't mind too much).

Their leaflet is entitled, "How Do I Know If I Might Be Psychic?" and lists a number of signs potential psychics should be on the look out for.

These include;

'Common co-incidences occurring in your life'

Yes, plenty of co-incidences in my life.

'Seeing things out of the corner of your eye'

Yes, I have fairly good vision, the corners of my eyes work fairly well.

'Feeling a 'breeze'...'

Ok, this is getting a bit spooky now.

'Strong fascination for psychic or spiritual knowledge'

Wow, I think this would apply to a lot of skeptics, perhaps we are all psychic?

Now I've confirmed I might be psychic, what do the Institute of Psychic Development recommend I do now?

'Home Study, Online & Attended Psychic Development Courses.'

Ah, I see, some cash required... not really too much of a surprise! I don't think it is a coincidence that this list applies to all 6.8 billion people alive today, I struggle to comprehend how anyone wouldn't see right through this list of 'psychic traits' and tell that this group are simply attempting to sell their courses to as many people as possible.

I wonder if Randi would accept items on this list as evidence for claiming the million dollar prize... I think not.

Quote of the Week

There are two possible outcomes: if the result confirms the hypothesis, then you've made a measurement. If the result is contrary to the hypothesis, then you've made a discovery.

- Enrico Fermi (1901-1954)

Tumbleweed

Well, it's been a bit quite here for a while hasn't it?

I'm ashamed to say we (Tim & myself) have been neglecting SYSS a bit due to other commitments. Tim's have been a bit more important than mine (his being a new baby).

Hopefully we'll be able to post more soon (I admit I'm a poor blogger) and get some real activism going in the region. God willing. Hopefully.

The Atheist Pocket Debater

If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad you may have noticed that there a lot of apps in the app store dealing with religion of various sorts, but very little related to atheism. Fortunately the balance has been restored a little with the release of the Atheist Pocket Debater from developer Jason Hagen for the very reasonable price of £1.79.

This app collects together a range of articles grouped into three sections dealing with Humanism, Skepticism and Atheism covering topics from the Humanist manifesto, to Pascal's wager to a handy checklist of questions to ask for debunking bogus claims. The app is easy to navigate with a useful search function and the option of changing the font size to suit your eyesight.

Some of the articles and arguments may be familiar to seasoned skeptics, but it is handy to have them available to you when you need to refer to them, and the developer has promised regular updates.

Worth checking out!

Would You Know if Someone Was Drowning?

As skeptics we often look at other people's beliefs and views and comment on those. How often do we look at our own in a critical way? And how often do we test our knowledge to see if what we believe to be true still is?

For instance, can you tell me what a person drowning looks like? And would you hear a person drowning if they were close to you?

If like me, your answer was, "Yes, of course - they'd be splashing about, probably shouting for help and stuff." then you'd be wrong. At least wrong most of the time.

I came across this interesting article last week entitled Drowning Doesn't Look Like Drowning and it was, for me, an eye opener.

You see, when people drown they don't usually shout or scream - the body prioritises breathing over talking. And a drowning person's instinct is to use their arms to press down onto the water's surface to lift their head out of the water to breathe, so they can't wave either. Which means there's usually not much splashing and no shouting for help.

This quote from the article may be particularly worrying for parents (figures are for the USA);

It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult. In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).

So why are we so uneducated in what drowning looks like? Is it because we all think we know what drowning looks like?

Television and films are full of people drowning, waving their arms, shouting for help and such. Maybe that is the problem. Apart from a few lifeguards and so forth, we've all been educated in what drowning looks like from tv and film. Splashing and shouting is dramatic. It works for tv. It works for film.

Its just not realistic.


Of course, if someone is shouting and making a lot of noise they may still need help. We just need to be aware when we are near water (and when our children are near or in water) that no noise may be as much an indicator of a problem than a cry for help.


We just need to remember that a our information and knowledge these days comes to us via a large number of sources, from books to tv to the internet. Not all these sources will be factual and spotting the "embellished" stuff is not always easy or even obvious. We assume a lot every day, but every now and then it doesn't hurt to question the mundane things which seem so obvious that they must be true.


Until last week I would have been confident that I could have spotted a person drowning nearby. Now I am not so sure, but now I at least know I have a better chance of spotting someone drowning as I know the correct things to look for.


I hope that now you also do too.

Skeptic Links

• What You’re Doing Is Important Why being a skeptic matters
• Vatican makes attempted ordination of women a grave crime Here's an idea. If a priest ordains a woman, then just move them quietly to another parish and let them do it again, and before you know it the church will be full of women priests.
• Fortune telling in Warren to get harder Psychics in Warren, Michigan now have to be licenced and police checked before they can ply their trade. Now, all that is needed is for them to prove their abilities before getting the licence as well.
• The Blue Brain Blues - Materialist ethics and simulated minds The ethical implications of creating artificial intelligence
• What are the chances Paul the octopus is right? A statistical analysis of the psychic octopus.
• Could "blue holes" offer clues about the biology of extraterrestrials? A uniquely strange environment could show how life could arise on other planets
  

Big Brother Dave : Mad, Sad or Bad?

If you have been following the current series of Big Brother then you will have seen housemate David Vaughn. In the opening show he entered the house dressed as monk, claiming to be 'drunk in the lord' as he laughed with something of a maniacal air. Outside of the goldfish bowl of reality television he is a christian minister from Pontypool who has achieved a certain notoriety by organising rave parties for believers, notably the 'Sloshfest' event of which he has said "We want to see fun coming back into the Church.”

Harmless enough, you might think. He's not all that different from the average nutter with a sandwich board that you might see in the High Street on a Saturday afternoon. However, I think that there are three possibilities to consider for his reasons for appearing on 'Big Brother'.

Firstly, is he mad? You don't have to go far on the internet to find videos of him acting in a very strange way - speaking in tongues, acting as if he were drunk on something stronger than the holy spirit. He has even expounded such far out ideas as UFOs being linked with fallen angels. However, the vetting process for Big Brother contestants is a stringent one. It involves numerous interviews with producers and psychiatrists to evaluate how the contestant will cope with the pressures of twenty four surveillance. Channel 4 and Endemol will be keen to avoid the potential bad publicity of somebody who is mentally unstable being harmed by appearing on the show.

The second possibility is that he is sad. Perhaps he does genuinely believe what he preaches and that by appearing on the show he will make his own modest contribution to spreading the gospel. Maybe he is happy to be ridiculed if he can metaphorically turn the other cheek and demonstrate the love of Jesus to his fellow housemates. In practice though, he has been shown as being rather mean spirited, arguing dogmatically with the others in the house and making his fair share of snide, bitchy and bullying remarks. When he was nominated for eviction he competed fiercely in a challenge and saved his place in the house by passing his nomination on to somebody else, showing himself to be as ruthless a game player as anybody else.

The final possibility is that he is bad. His own website describes his role on the show as a 'Glory Carrier' and his aim seems to be to generate as much media attention for his organisation as he can manage. He has made claims of curing diseases such as cancer, and even said that he could try to make fellow housemate Steve's amputated legs regrow. He has even gone so far as to pretend to be disabled and be pushed around in a wheelchair offering 'blessings from a real monk'. I think his role on the show can best be described as a cynical publicity stunt and at worst as an attempt to attract vulnerable people suffering from diseases into his church with a promise of healing that is not backed up with any evidence.

However, there is a reason for skeptics to keep an eye on the show. New contestant Andrew, a 19 year old student and self confessed maths geek has been seen standing up to Dave on a number of occasions, knocking back his arguments and assertions with the powers of rational debate and honest inquiry.

Who goes ... you decide!

If you can't tweet nothin' nice ...

... then don't tweet nothin' at all.

It seems that not-a-doctor Gillian McKeith has gone a bit mad on Twitter and then tried to delete it all. Fortunately all of her posts have been archived for posterity here ...

Skeptic Haikusday

Secrets of dowsing
No magic required, it's just
Simple gravity

The Friday puzzle
Posed by a Sheffield Skeptic
Baffles and delights

Hypnosis explained
Without recourse to myths of
The unconscious mind

Then how can you be moral?

A common question posed to atheists, agnostics, humanists and others of a secular persuasion is that if you reject the supernatural, how can you be moral. A recent newsletter from the Brights group challenged readers to answer the question in two hundred words or less. Here is my response - anybody else want to have a go?

Morality for me is not a series of rules inscribed on tablets of stone. Rather it can be summarised by the golden rule of 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you', a simple philosophy that predates all of the major world religions by thousands of years.

It is easy to see the evolutionary benefit of such a rule. Humans are social animals who thrive when living in families and tribes. It allows for babies with larger brains to be cared for when they are vulnerable, and skills and resources to be shared as required. Knowledge can be preserved and passed down through the generations. In such a group everyone will benefit from altruistic behaviour, and conversely everyone will suffer from such selfish actions as theft and murder.

I would argue that moral behaviour is therefore motivated by the common good, rather than the promise of heaven or fear of eternal punishment that is the basis of religious morality. Our human instinct, honed by evolution, is the lodestone for our moral compass. We have inbuilt reason to weigh our actions according to the golden rule and choose our behaviour accordingly.

That is how I can be moral.

Chris French at Sheff SitP

The Psychology of Anomalous Experiences

Monday June 14th 2010 | 7.30pm | at the Lescar, Sharrow Vale Road, S11 8ZF

The fantastic Chris French will be speaking for us at Sheff SitP on Monday the 14th June and we hope to see you all there!

Ever since records began, in every known society, a substantial proportion of the population has reported unusual experiences many of which we would today label as "paranormal". Opinion polls show that the majority of the general public accepts that paranormal phenomena do occur. Such widespread experience of and belief in the paranormal can only mean one of two things. Either the paranormal is real, in which case this should be accepted by the wider scientific community which currently rejects such claims. Or else belief in and experience of ostensibly paranormal phenomena can be fully explained in terms of psychological factors.


This presentation will provide an introduction to the sub-discipline of anomalistic psychology, which may be defined as the study of extraordinary phenomena of behaviour and experience, in an attempt to provide non-paranormal explanations in terms of known psychological and physical factors. This approach will be illustrated with examples relating to a range of ostensibly paranormal phenomena.


Chris French is a Professor of Psychology and Head of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit in the Psychology Department at Goldsmiths. He has published over 100 articles and chapters covering a wide range of topics within psychology. His main current area of research is the psychology of paranormal beliefs and anomalous experiences. He frequently appears on radio and television casting a sceptical eye over paranormal claims. He is the editor of The Skeptic.

Sowing Seeds

When a died in the wool skeptic is confronted with an obvious piece of woo there is always the temptation to stomp in with all guns blazing and reduce the offender to quivering shreds of illogicality. In the words of the XKCD cartoon, someone is wrong on the internet, and it is very tempting to spend your time and energy putting them right. I am guilty as charged in this respect, as anyone who has ever experienced one of my rants over on my blog will know.

The question is, does it actually do any good?

I had an experience not so long ago, where I got into an argument about the nature of magical thinking particularly as it related to homeopathy. I posted one jibe too many and I ended up being defriended by somebody that I had known for a while. I was actually quite keen to know his views on the matter but obviously it was a very touchy subject for him.

There is also the issue of confirmation bias.

When somebody is confronted with an opposing view to their own they will often ignore all arguments to the contrary and just look for evidence that supports their preconceptions. It is all too easy for anybody to publish something on the internet without any evidence to back it up, and somebody searching for something to confirm what they want to hear will pay more attention to it than a contradictory source.

My view is that our job as skeptics is not to act as evangelical guardians of the truth (whatever that might be) but to encourage others to ask questions, look for evidence and develop a skeptical worldview of their own.

I recently got talking to a pair of young Jehovah's Witnesses that came to the door one Saturday morning. As part of the conversation one of them said that an increase in devastating earthquakes in recent years was a sure sign that the end times were approaching. Rather than going for a slam dunk, I suggested that he looked at the US Geological survey for earthquake data from the year 1900 to the present and plot it on a graph for himself to see what the truth of the matter is.

I hope that in this case a bit of patient encouragement will have sowed a seed of skepticism that will be more productive in the long run than a blazing argument (however satisfying that might be at the time!).



(Chart data from Miguel Vera)

Tools for a Skeptical Life

What are we doing differently when being a skeptic than at other times in our lives? Are we inherently closed minded to new ideas or are we skeptics simply more cautious than other people?

What I wish to argue with this piece is that rather than acting as a belief system or philosophy skepticism is simply a process. As such the skills involved in the process can be learned and acquired by anybody who is minded to learn them. Whether we choose to apply those skills to all or only some areas of our life is a decision we have to make on a case by case basis.

Religion is a case in point. It may be argued that faith by its nature is a sub rational voluntary surrender to the unknowable. A scientist who is exactingly rational in their professional life may be be supported and sustained by their faith personally and may feel that using the tools of critical thinking in this area is entirely missing the point of the endeavor. Falling in love or selecting which football team to support may also be acts resistant to close analysis.

Rather than closing our minds to new ideas the gaining of critical thinking skills can be a wonderful journey towards new, interesting and original perspectives on our lives. Although we are all capable of making an assessment of information placed before us I would suggest that the quality of our assessment can be enhanced through the acquisition of new tools of analysis. The result of this may be that we are taken in less often by dubious claims, and less inclined to collude in fooling ourselves which as you will see we do all too often.

There are three main skill sets we need to examine

• Logical Fallacy
• Cognitive Bias
• The Scientific Method

Rather than attempting my own inexpert summaries of these I intend to point the reader to some excellent resources that have helped, and are still helping me to become a better critical thinker.

Logical Fallacy

This wonderful father and son team walk us through a myriad of different fallacies both in their podcast and free Skeptics Field Guide pdf
 
http://www.skepticsfieldguide.net/


Cognitive Bias

This is an excellent visual and written guide to pretty much the full range of cognitive biases our human nature makes us vulnerable to

http://www.scribd.com/documents/30548590/Cognitive-Biases-A-Visual-Study-Guide-by-the-Royal-Society-of-Account-Planning

A great hummable cognitive bias song that I use at the end of my talk on CAM Treatments for Tinnitus with the artists kind permission

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RsbmjNLQkc&feature=player_embedded

The Scientific Method

Very clear description with good examples. Lots of Skeptical FAQ's to enjoy too! Looks very web 0.1 though...

http://skepticx.myweb.uga.edu/skepticism.html

The Skeptics Dictionary is an invaluable tool for any aspiring rationalist as this entry on the scientific method clearly demonstrates.

http://www.skepdic.com/science.html


Hopefully if you have followed some of these links you will see that the skeptical process is closer to an opening rather than a closing of our minds. This is not to the exclusion of excitement and wonder in our existence, quite the reverse. Our universe is sufficiently complex to allow us to be continually amazed whether we choose to engage our critical thinking skills or not. As an example of how even the most rational among us can be selective in our engagement with critical thinking I offer you the illustrious Crispian Jago Esquire...

http://crispian-jago.blogspot.com/2010/05/science-reason-critical-thinking-and.html

Go veggie, you know it makes sense...

Skeptics in The Pub

Just a quick post to let you all know that Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub on Monday May 10th will now be held at the University Arms, 197 Brook Hill. This is a change in venue from the one previously advertised.

We've got a great speaker, the fantastic Simon Perry who has been a great force in skeptical activism, and will be entertaining us with stories of his adventures.

He was also a great help when we were setting up Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub and continues to help SitPs get started.

We hope to see you there.

Not So Happy Meal

The Metro has this brief news story about a young mother who found an unsmoked cigarette in the box of a happy meal she bought for her one year old son.

According to the woman, Nicky Holloway, the girl who served her "just laughed" and she said she felt she wasn't being taken seriously. She was offered a refund or a new meal but declined.

A spokesman for McDonald's (we're not told who but presumably someone from the PR department) apologised and offered a gift and some free meals for the family. Miss Holloway declined this offer also.

Trading Standards offered to investigate but she declined this offer also.

A question I have, bearing in mind Miss Holloway's refusal to accept the offers above, is what exactly does she want?

The Metro writes

But the deal was rejected by Ms Holloway, who also turned down an offer by trading standards officers to investigate the incident. She wants ‘more to be done about it’ and plans to sue McDonald’s.

Ah. Is it perhaps that she wants a big lump of money? Maybe not, but why else is she suing? What does 'more to be done about it' mean? Firing the person responsible? Banning anyone who smokes from ever working at McDonald's? I don't know but a bigger question to me is, is her outrage appropriate?

Of course the workers at McDonald's should not have had cigarettes on them whilst working and handling food and of course the (according to Miss Holloway) attitude of the girl was unacceptable and of course she should have complained.

But that is about as far as it should have gone.

She was offered a refund or a new meal - that should have been enough, but I can understand that she refused this first offer. She should have accepted the second offer or let Trading Standards investigate. Or both.

Let's face it, the staff at any particular McDonald's probably have an average age of 16 so the attitude of the staff can be expected to be that of a teenager. Not acceptable, but not unexpected either.

And as for the cigarette, well, again it is unacceptable for it to be in the Happy Meal box but hardly warrants court action. I'm no lawyer but I was under the impression that some kind of loss or damage has to be suffered to successfully sue someone. Miss Holloway has suffered no such loss. McDonald's offers were reasonable given the scope of the incident.

She saw the cigarette before any harm was done. She was watching what her son was eating. In fact, she should be watching what her one year old son is eating. He's one. The cigarette was not in the food it was in the box. So what's the deal with the suing?

The questions I would like to put to you is, Do we expect too much when we suffer an injustice? And do we offer too little ourselves when we perform an injustice on other people?

Big TED

This has been linked to from a number of places, but for those of you who may not have seen it yet here's James Randi's TED talk from 2007.

Some TED talk subjects are cutting edge, some possibly flights of fancy, but all are interesting. They cover a huge range of topics so if you haven't yet seen any TED talks then do so. Some notable talks include Michael Specter, Michael Shermer, Jamie Oliver, Bill Gates, Jane McGonigal, personal favourites John Lloyd, Benjamin Zander and the bizarrely funny Charles Fleischer.

We are now live, people

So here it is. We're now "live" with the South Yorkshire Skeptical Society site.

We also run Sheffield Skeptics in the Pub (SSitP). You can see our list of speakers here or visit the Skeptics in the Pub site where you can sign up to our events email. While you're at it you can also join our Facebook group for SSitP and also follow us on Twitter.

We hope you'll check in here now and then as we blog on various subjects. And if you see anything of interest, particularly in the South Yorkshire area, please let us know. You can contact us here.