Charlie Hebdo

Last week, gunmen burst into the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and gunned down a number of the cartoonists working there. The gunmen claimed they were doing it to avenge the publications of offensive cartoons depicting Mohammed in 2006 - they were previously attacked in 2011 for these. They published more cartoons ridiculing Mohammed and Islam in 2011 and 2012.

While we are, sadly, all too familiar with terrorist attacks of various sorts, these were more effective than many have been of late - twelve people dead. The response to this across Europe and the world has been substantial (over 2 million turned out in Paris). As I have mentioned elsewhere, this seems to be because it serves as a focus for the pain of all the suffering, all of the intolerance, all of the bigoted hatred we experience. That is not to dismiss the response to this event, because it is seen to strike against the critical media, which is one of the bastions against an oppressive and dictatorial leadership. And quite rightly too.

This is, to my mind, the core of this attack. It is an attack on the media who provide a challenge to the accepted position, to the dictatorial powers, to those who would oppress us. I may not agree with them all, I may find myself offended by some of their reporting, but I would support their right to exist and to their freedom forever, because they are the last bastions against a dictatorial rule by those in power. In truth, we are not that far from this anyway, which is why these types of media are so important today.

In the world today, we do have a number of rules who rule oppressively, who abuse their people and their power. We know many of their names, because our leaders (who hide behind the curtain of "democracy") tell us about them. But I suspect that the biggest oppressors of people - directly and indirectly - are some of the major religions. While it is easy to point to Islam, Christianity is as bad. Of course, it is not the majority of leaders or followers of these religions who are oppressive, who are dangerous. Islam, properly taught and followed, is a religion of peace. I have known all sorts of Muslims in my time, they represent the normal breadth of people, although - in my experience - they have tended to be kinder, gentler and less insanely vile as some who don't profess any faith.

The same, of course, applies to Christians - most of them are nice enough people, they tend to represent the normal variation of people. The problem comes, I think, when people take these religious ideas to the extreme, and use them to justify hatred aggression and violence. Sometimes this comes out in actions like the Charlie Hebdo attack (which was perpetrated by violent terrorists, not Muslims, whatever their claimed justification), but it also comes in some of the appalling actions that occur in countries, where people are abused, attacked and killed because they break the norms of a religious belief set.

Islam is not a violent faith, any more than Christianity is. What is violent is rampant capitalism, nationalism, and religious0inspired dictatorship. It is the likes of Charlie Hebdo that temper the worst of these, which is why we should protect them with our lives.

Bad Pharma

I am reading this book by Ben Goldacre, and it is a fascinating insight into commercially sponsored academic research. While his comments are insightful, very few people or organisations are actually breaking the law.

The pharmaceutical companies are doing exactly what they should do - making a profit. They are running businesses, and as a business, they have to make money.

The regulatory bodies, are, largely, taking the data they are given and making decisions about whether a particular drug has a benefit. They might not always push as hard as they could, or demand enough information. But they have a job to do, and they do that as simply as they can.

The NHS takes the information on the drugs that are approved, and uses the supplied information to make prescribing decisions. Of course, Goldacre argues that the end-point providers are not getting all of the information they need, so their decisions are not always good, but they are doing the best they can with the information they have.

The problem, Goldacre points out, is that the entire regulatory structure and system is not working for the primary benefit of end consumer - the patient. The problem is that the patient is not really represented in the process. There is nobody definitively asking the questions about what is best for the patients, because it is nobody's job to do so. The doctors who prescribe have some of this responsibility, but they do not have the information (or the time) to identify all of the possibilities, and decide on one appropriate solution.

However, the other side of this is that the government seem to desperately want to reduce the cost of the NHS, who are the major purchaser of medicines in the UK. The medicines bill is a significant part of this cost, and a portion of it is unnecessary.

Following from Goldacres ideas, if the government were to do rigorous assessments of all of the available medicines to identify the ones that provide actual benefit, and only permit those to be prescribed, then the cost overall would be reduced. If this was followed by a refusal to license anything else that does not show a clear benefit over an existing treatment. Of course there are two core problems with this:

1. The pharmaceutical companies - who are significant donors to the political process - would lose out very substantially. Lets be clear, if the medications bill is reduced significantly, then this is money coming from the pharmaceutical companies, of the order of billions (the NHS drugs bill is around £8Bn). Appearances are that this is not the sort of cuts that the government wants to make.

2. Some people would lose the medications that they are convinced are working well for them. Now I know this personally - I take a medication that is not the cheapest or simplest version, but when I moved to a simpler version, which should have been identical, it didn't work. This is a big challenge, because I will fight a long time to keep my meds, as will many others! But in many cases, as Goldacre makes clear, there is no proven benefit of one medication over another. So, while it may prove a difficult transition, it should be possible. I do think in some areas, like mental illness, there is a place for multiple forms of medication, because the response and reaction to them can vary significantly. However, there is probably a case for aa reduction even here.

So that is my challenge to David Cameron - if you are serious about reducing the cost of the NHS, then do something about the drugs bill by stopping some of the abuse of the system that people like Goldacre highlight.

Mr Magoriums Wonder Emporium

I am watching this film as I start typing this post, which is fun and light-hearted, and Christmassy, but there was one comment or quote that stuck out for me.

Molly Mahoney is talking to a new accountant, and tells him "you are a 'just' person. This is 'just' a store, that is 'just' a tree, or 'just' a bench." (the quote is not exact, but that is the essence). It struck me as an interesting description of someone.

I think a lot of people are 'just' people - all they see is the physical world, the practical aspects. They miss the wonder, the beauty, the divine in the reality.

Let me take an example from church life - communion. There are a number of different interpretations of the communion elements, from being the actual body and blood of Jesus to being simply bread and wine used to represent these. I am on the latter side quite strongly. In truth, I tend towards saying that they are 'just' ordinary bread and wine.

And yet, when taken in context, they are a representation of something else. They may be, to all common chemical analysis, the same bread and wine you might eat the rest of the week, but they are there are something to represent a greater reality, a greater truth.

I don't go all mystical about it - the idea that they actually transform into something else is, for me, ridiculous. I could take them and find that their composition shows them clearly to be bread and wine. But, as I take them, THIS piece of bread is, for me, Jesus body; THIS sip of wine is, for me, his blood. They are symbols of something else, something more. They are not 'just' bread and wine - they are bread and wine and meaning.

It is the same idea when people say the church is 'just' a building, or even 'just' a group of people. Or an internet site is 'just' a discussion board. Yes, they are those things, but they can represent something more, something with significance. In the end, there is no reason I should meet with God more in one place than another, but I do. There are places where that touching the spiritual, engaging with something more, happens more easily. There are discussions that take place online that are important, significant.

This presents two problems: Firstly, 'just' people miss out on the wonder that there is. They so often see places in simple terms - windy, cold, ripe for development. They miss seeing the beauty, the spirituality, the other about things, people, places. I feel sorry for them actually, because it must be like seeing everything in black and white, and missing all of the colour.

Secondly, 'just' people tend to destroy the important places and things. If it is 'just' a tree, it doesn't really matter if it has to go. If it is a special tree for some people, then maybe it does, maybe it has more significance than other trees. Maybe it is important to save it. Maybe it cannot so easily be replaced.

No, I don't believe in magic as in this film. But I do believe that there is more than 'just' what we can see. And I believe that the more may be the most important parts.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum

Back in the day, when I first joined the Green party, we had a credibility problem. The problem was that the party was thought to be filled with ex-hippies with odd fringe ideas. In truth, we probably did attract people with peculiar views, because the idea of a political party focused around the environment was pretty extreme.

These days, it seems that some of the same odd fringe ideas are getting traction in government. Let me give some examples:

Homeopathy. All sorts of alternative therapy ideas were very trendy, some of which have been found to have a solid basis, or at least provide some viable relief. One of these is homeopathy. Despite a commons report indicating that there is no evidence found for homeopathy to work, David Tredinnick seems to be supporting it and questioning the science that disproves it.

Over the summer, there were a number of people calling for homeopathic treatment for Ebola. So this is not an isolated incident. It seems that belief in homeopathy is alive and well in the heart of government - precisely what many critics of the Greens were afraid of if they voted for them.

Let me state it here clearly, in case there is any confusion: homeopathy is baseless, does not work, and should not be promoted as a serious medical discipline. It has placebo effects, but no more. That anyone in government could be considering promoting it or supporting it is a disgrace.

Climate change denial. Now of course, the greens have never really attracted any of these. However, in the early days, the idea of climate change - especially as caused by humans - was very fringe, very extreme. These days, the scientific evidence is absolutely clear, there is no doubt that climate change is happening, or that it is being caused by our actions. And yet we still have in government people like Owen Paterson, who rejects the clear scientific evidence. He is not alone - there are climate change deniers at the heart of government.

There are many reasons for rejecting the idea of climate change caused by us, but science is not one. The fact that there is not 100% agreement (more like 99%) is just the nature of the scientific process - it is rare to get 100% agreement. The evidence of the scientific community is overwhelmingly in favour of human-cause climate change. The focus should be on changing this, not arguing against it.


These are the main two areas that I have seen recently. Both are flying in the face of scientific evidence. I do not think that science has all of the answers, I do think there is more to life than that. But where there is a scientific conclusion, I have to accept that, however much I may dislike it. Science has dis-proven homeopathy. Science has supported climate change caused by us. Now I have to get on with it. I can make other arguments, but what I cannot do is argue that the science is wrong.

Reality is overrated

Ok, this one is going to be a roller-coaster, but stick with me. I believe that reality as we experience it is true, but I cannot prove it. In fact, I would argue that it is unproveable. We could be living in a matrix-like reality but we would never know.

I compare to The Matrix deliberately, because they actually had a grasp on the way it could be. Everything we know and experience comes to us through our senses. We take these sensory inputs and process them into impressions of the reality around us, and then into memories. we interpret the sensory inputs through our memories, meaning that they are no more than another sensory input. In fact, our understanding and interpretation of "now" and what we are currently experiencing is simply a set of neurological stimuli.

"OK," you say, "I know some biology, and this is all stored in our brains. so what?" The thing is, all of the biology you know has come via your senses, all of the knowledge that we have, all of the scientific explanation of the reality around us we obtain comes via our senses. We cannot actually know whether our interpretation of reality is accurate, because we have no external frame of reference to explore it from. All we know is that every source of data input into what we know as our consciousness presents a consistent picture that we call reality, and that we can rely on. There is no way that we can know whether this is because it is an external reality or because our interpretation of a generation form of reality is consistent. What is more, because we have a predilection for consistency, it is very hard to know whether even our individual perception of reality is consistent, or whether we simply interpret the reality that we are presented with in a way that is consistent.

What we do find, as we study the way the human mind works is that our ability to impose our personal worldview on the sensory input we receive is quite remarkable. What we find is that any data that doesn't fit in with our worldview - or explanatory picture of how reality is - we tend to reject. This is why it is very difficult to convince somebody that they are wrong in a basic way - that their faith, for example, is mistaken. It is why we often find people stay in abusive situations stay there, because to reject them or get out is a challenge to their worldview. When they do, it can be very damaging to them, because their view of how reality is has been challenged and it takes time to restore this.

The question of whether what we experience is true or not is disturbing to some people. I don't find this, because it doesn't actually make a lot of difference. We can behave as if what we experience is real. But it is useful sometimes to sit back and consider if this core principle is actually one we can demonstrate or not - and it turns out that we are really taking it as a core principle - that is, on faith. Everything else builds on the assumption that the reality we experience has something more concrete than simply our neurological responses to it. But it may not.

There are two points to all of this. Firstly, there is an acknowledgement that our interpretation of reality is based on our own sensory inputs. This understanding is crucial, because, even assuming that the reality we perceive has an existence beyond ourselves, OUR individual reality may differ from another persons. In fact, it will, because it is ALWAYS mitigated by our consciousness.

Secondly, it means that we cannot escape from the possibility that reality is as consistent as it is because it is our own creation. The consistency of reality is important - we can predict and interpret what is going on in other galaxies because we are certain that all of reality follows the same core laws and principles. What we cannot be certain of is whether this consistency is because reality is consistent, or because reality is all our own interpretation.

This is where the matrix references come back full circle. Red pill or blue pill? If you take the red pill, then reality is, you are a human being living in it, and everything is exactly as it was before. You believe what you want. If you take the blue pill, though, you realise that all we take for granted, all the certainties we thought we knew, are gone. It may not make much difference to how you actually behave, how you handle life. There is no way of getting beyond the matrix. But you know just how tenuous this reality is. If your mind survives.

Are we alone?

One important question that is raised repeatedly - and is raised in "What I Believe but Cannot Prove" - is the important issue of whether we are alone in the universe.

It is important to distinguish two questions here: is there other life in the universe; and is there other intelligent life in the universe? These are fundamentally different questions, and have different implications. Firstly, what do I mean by "intelligent life"? I would count this as any species who has an awareness of themselves. It therefore implies that they could have an awareness of other beings in the universe.

So, is there other life in the universe? That is, are there other planets where life has independently evolved? The evidence we have from this planet, and the other planets we have investigated in our solar system, does suggest that life in some form is incredibly resilient, and will find a way to survive in the harshest of conditions. It would seem reasonable to surmise that, if life has evolved anywhere, it would find a way to survive. The question then comes down to whether life had evolved elsewhere, whether the miracle and wonder of life is commonplace or rare.

The question of whether there is life elsewhere boils down to whether the core processes that generate life are common or not, are they easy and natural processes that we can expect to occur everywhere or not? This is actually a harder question to answer that it might seem. While the core chemical components of life are relatively common - Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen - the complexity of the appropriate combination, the necessity for a few other chemicals, the combination of the compounds to make the required amino-acids, the combination of these to produce basic life: these processes are very complex, very difficult. A single celled organism is, in truth, an incredibly complex piece of chemical engineering. How often is this likely to have happened in the universe?

Of course, the universe is very large, so something that will only occur very infrequently will still occur thousands or millions of times. What is more, we don't know whether the processes that turn a few chemicals into life are common or not. We know that if life can start, it seems to be able to adapt to whatever situation, but does it start easily, or only very occasionally? We don't know, and the answer is crucial. If it is common and easy, then we should expect life in many places. If it is not, then life may be very uncommon, even unique.

The second question, about intelligent life, is a different question. For this to have occurred, it requires not just any life environment to be available, but a very stable one, over a long time. this is needed to enable highly complex life to evolve and settle. Our own planet is very unusual - the large moon jeeps it stable in orbit, the goldilocks zone location makes it ideal for a wide variety of life, the presence of larger planets helps to keep the worst of the space debris away from us. How common is a good, stable environment for highly complex life to evolve in the universe? The unusual nature of our situation, the very strange situation that we find ourselves in would suggest to me that we are unusual. Even if life is common, the idea that it should have developed self-awareness seems to require a very unusual state of affairs - our Earths situation is accepted to be peculiar, unusual, very unexpected. Of course, intelligent life doesn't need a situation exactly like ours, but it does need a stable environment. And we do not know how common stable environments are, however they are created.

In the end, there are tow possibilities: We are alone as intelligent beings in the universe, or; we are not alone as intelligent beings in the universe. We have no idea which of these is the reality, but either option gives us a challenge. To be alone should make us value ourselves far more than we do - to treat life as lightly as we do if we are alone is reckless. To be one of many intelligences in the universe should make us consider just how we might appear to others.

The question may be just an interesting point to muse, but the implications of whichever route we go should challenge us and make us thing.

What I believe but cannot prove

I am currently reading a book from the site Edge, asking this question. So I thought it would be an interesting question to answer - what do I believe but cannot prove?

The thing I believe but cannot prove is that there exists a spiritual realm, that there exists reality that is not subject to empirical validation or testing. This is not only something that I cannot prove, but it is unproveable, in terms of scientific or empirical proof. In particular, the empiricist requirement that events are repeatable - I believe that there are events that are one-offs, that are not repeatable whatever you do.

I have deliberately not said "I believe there is a God" - actually, that is a development of the belief that there is a spiritual realm, and one that I would support, but that is an argument you can only start to make if you accept the assumption that there is a spiritual realm of reality, and that this is "real" just as much as the more physical world around us. I will be doing a post later exploring the meaning of reality, because even that is not as solid or defined as we might like or assume.

There are two things that this belief is not doing. Firstly, it is not a rejection of the scientific basis for understanding the reality around us. Trees do not grow because of "mystical spiritual power" - they grow because of reasonably well understood biological processes, because of scientific principles. All I am saying is that the empirical, scientific reality is not all. Of course, this cannot be "proved" in any sense, especially not to someone who starts from the requirement of empirical definition. In fact it is also a matter of belief that is unproveable that the empirical reality is all there is. If that is your belief, and you only accept proof within that context, than I cannot "prove" to you that this is wrong.

Secondly, it is not saying that the spiritual "has to be", to account for things that are not yet explained. I am not arguing for a "God of the Gaps" belief system, because that is a very dangerous and mistaken approach to take. The spiritual reality is not a necessity, which doesn't mean that it isn't real. What it means is that however much scientific advances progress, it will not be squeezed out, because they are not occupying the same ontological space.

What it is doing is saying that science is wonderful, awesome and amazing at helping us to understand the world around us. It can tell me how a tree grows, how and why it progresses through the seasons, it can even go some way towards explaining why I get an emotional response seeing it in various states and stages - and why I can appropriately mourn when it dies. It can explain all of that. And yet, there is still more. There is something in the wonder of a tree, of life, of existence, of reality that is way beyond the scientific empirical definition. There is a spiritual reality in parallel.

So I believe at least.