Cancer Conspiracy ...

Wow, don’t conspiracy theorists leap out at you from all over the place ?

I recently had a discussion with one of them sparked off by the unfortunate death of Natalie Morton from an undiagnosed malignant chest tumor.

The first thing trotted out by the hard-of-thinking conspiracist was of course was the old ‘Confusing Correlation With Causation‘ fallacy : She had the jab and now she’s dead.
Personally I call this fallacy Peasant Logic after the scene in Monty Python’s Holy Grail film where the peasants are trying to reason out whether their captive is or is not a witch. There’s another great reference in the Yes Minister series where Humphrey Appleby calles it Politician’s Logic and quotes ”All cats have four legs. My dog has four legs…” and Bernard Woolley finishes it off with “Therefore my dog is a cat.”
Great fun.

Naturally all of this raised my skeptical hackles and because I’m a teacher at heart I have to get into the fray and try and iron out some of this bloody rubbish.

The first thing that wound me up was the assertion that ‘this is a free country and why shouldn’t I be able to say what I think in public’ especially coming hot on the heels of that loon Jenni Barnett spouting her dangerous idiocy on the national radio.

What’s wrong with saying that sort of thing ? Aren’t people entitled to their opinion ? Well of course people are entitled to hold whatever opinion they like. I may not agree with that opinion but I will fight to the death for their right to say it. So what’s wrong with it ? Well that should be pretty obvious but unfortunately that obviousness is seemingly overlooked by the conspiracy nuts. And even though this was just an internet forum it is rather a big one and it is read by an awful lot of people and there’s no way I’m letting this sort of dangerous rubbish go unchallegend.

So what’s the obvious part ?

It all boils down to the spreading of misinformation. Dangerous misinformation in this case. If the nut cases are allowed to run around unchallenged then people start to assume there’s something in what they say and pretty soon there’s an entire genus of new myths all covered in freshly minted bullshit ready to be pushed into the faces of the unwary. Primarily “the press” should be challenging this nonsense but they’re so busy printing it that they seemingly don’t have time to filter out this bullshit for the benefit of Joe Public who hasn’t got the time either. What with the kids and the car needing fixing and the wife’s feet and the job going down the toilet etc… ad nauseum. It’s a wonder that poor old Joe has time to do anything other than read his copy of The Daily Hysteria.

It doesn’t take more than a few seconds thought to see what’s going on with this sort of thing. A few minutes at most spent googling around and reading some of the more reliable news stories (I include the BBC News website in this classification even though they can get it badly wrong too) would have told anyone that there was a bit more to this story than meets the eye.

Just a few minutes of their time would have cut through the crap and laid open the gaping hole at the centre of the story : She died but we don’t yet know what killed her.

Surely that’s enough to give anyone pause for thought ? Even a conspiracy loon ? Clearly not as was amply demonstrated as this forum thread wore on. And I can’t say I didn’t get a little bit irritated with it all.

A guy called Clifford G Miller was posted as an authoratative source for all things right and correct about MMR in response to my comments. I clicked the link and was taken to the free NTL webspace that you get with your NTL internet connection where this guy had built himself a site containing some of the most heinous anti-vax and big-pharma conspiracy insanity to come my way for a long time. He claims to have a law practice but no qualifications in law. Hmmmm, more like qualifictions. He’s a nut job as you can see.

It really makes me wonder what the conspiracists are seeing when they look at that website. Is it just the jargon or the seemingly impressive but actually vacuous list of endorsers ?
I don’t know. I wish I did.

After my dismissal of this guy’s website I was accused of not being able to see the grey areas and of viewing everything in black and white. You’ll recognise this as the false balance argument where you get hassled for not giving any weight to other ideas on a subject regardless of their validity. And then you get accused of not having an open mind. Tsk. Dara O’Briain has a great example of this false balance in one of his awesome stand up shows. Here’s a clip of what I’m talking about. Check it out from from 3:12 to 3:46 but the rest of it is excellent also.

False balance. Awesome. The assertion that we should assign all ideas equal merit regardless. Well science doesn’t work that way. Some ideas are wrong. Some ideas are stupid and some can be dismissed immediately because they contravene the known laws of physics. But some ideas are great. They might be weird or held by only the tiniest of minorities of people but if those ideas are good then they will eventually be taken seriously provided you can back them up.

Take the case of Dr Barry J. Marshall and Dr J. Robin Warren of Perth, Western Australia who in 1982 discovered the Helicobacter Pylori bacterium and found that it was a major cause of duodenal and gastric ulcers and stomach cancer. They were initially dismissed as ”everybody knew” that no bacteria can live in the battery acid environment of the human stomach. It took a very long time before their research began to be taken seriously by mainstream science. That point may have come when Dr. Marshall drank a beaker of the bacteria and subsequently became ill and developed gastritis. A daring and not recommended course of action.
In 2005 the two scientists were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on Helicobacter Pylori.

It’s all about merit. If it has merit all you need do is demonstrate that merit and eventually your idea will be accepted. Provide the evidence that can be examined and repeated by other scientists and you will be accepted. The original wackiness of the idea is irrelevant.
This is why the free energy people and the conspiracy wackos will never be taken seriously : they can’t provide evidence that their ideas have merit.

I’ve rambled and ranted enough here so I’ll leave the final word to James Randi : Sir, there is a distinct difference between having an open mind and having a hole in your head from which your brain leaks out.

You can read the text here and it’s pretty obvious what my forum name is.