Bad Science: When There's No Science At All

I have to admit I do enjoy National Geographic. Sure some of the articles can be a little wishy-washy, but the pictures are stunning and it definitely keeps my attention and keeps me company far more than an any “women’s” magazine ever would (no, I could give a shit if those are Angelina Jolie’s real boobs, and if she has an eating disorder it is none of my business). This month, however, when flipping through I came across an article that bothered me called Rhino Wars.

The article talks about the illegal trade in rhino horn from Africa to Asia, where it is rumoured to have medicinal properties ranging from fever reducing properties to a cure for cancer. Despite the lack of scientific peer-reviewed evidence, many people believe in this and even doctors suggest it as a possible treatment for cancer.

Because of this demand, poachers have driven all five species of rhino onto the Endangered Species List, selling the horn for up to twice its weight in gold. This has also led to entrepreneurs trying “rhino farming”, where they keep the animals alive and sever their horns two-three inches above the base, which ensures its re-growth within a few years. While it doesn’t seem like an optimal solution, the argument for rhino farming is that it makes for competition for poachers (who kill the rhino before severing its horn) and is a good way to ensure the species' survival. However, there is one big glaring problem that this NatGeo article completely fails to mention:

What about the millions of people that are duped into paying a fortune for something that most likely doesn’t work?

This is where the lack of science becomes incredibly bad science. A search through the literature on this subject has led me to only two studies, from the 1990s, on the effects of rhino horn on hypothermic rats. OK, so it seems as though they have been published in an actual journal with an actual Impact Factor, which is a good start. Unfortunately I cannot access the full article in order to take a good look at their methods, but here is an excerpt from one of the abstracts:

Intraperitoneal administration of an aqueous extract of rhinoceros horn at 5 2.5 and 1 g/ml, showed a significant antipyretic effect in rats with hyperthermia induced by subcutaneous injection of terpentine oil. Similar assays with extracts of the horns of saiga antelope, water buffalo and cattle at 5 g/ml also caused a significant drop in fever

Let’s say for the sake of argument that this is true, and that this effect translates over to humans. So rhino horn reduces fever, so what? So does paracetamol. We already have drugs that do this. Also notice that cattle horn has the same effect. Well, if you have to use some kind of horn, why not use one from an animal that is already farmed and has the same effect?

Here’s the problem, I cannot find a single peer-reviewed paper on the effects of rhino horn on cancer treatment. So what the hell are we waiting for?!

Although I highly doubt that rhino horn will have anti-cancer properties, I have explained again and again that not thinking something likely is no reason to not investigate it. There are doctors that are suggesting this, there need to be studies done. If one, two, three studies are done that show no health benefits, these results need to be plastered in these doctors’ faces and all over the news, only that way can we have any hope of educating people and getting them to devote their efforts to other, tried and tested treatments, possibly saving lives. You want to save the rhino and decrease poaching? Start by decreasing the demand.

And what if these studies demonstrate that rhino horn actually does have an anti-cancer effect? Well great! We can start looking for the active ingredient in the rhino horn so that it can be purified in the lab.

If it turns out that rhino horn does aid in cancer treatment then maybe I’ll be in favour of expanding and trading from rhino farms, at least until scientists are able to identify and replicate the compound that has these medicinal properties. But, until then, I think that rhino farming is a terribly flimsy band-aid over this festering problem.

By supporting rhino farming you are supporting financial interests in keeping the rhino horn trade alive. You may decrease the poaching and black market trade a little, but you are supporting people that do not want it to get out that rhino horn doesn’t have the medicinal benefits people think, because that would hurt sales. I know that there are going to be people that believe in traditional medicine no matter what, but to think that education could not make a huge dent is ridiculous. You only have to look at the past hundred years to see how this is not the case.

The fact of the matter is that, while NatGeo is right to point out the lives of rhino’s that are being saved, they fail to make the more obvious point. It is not just rhinos that are losing lives in this “war”, it is countless sick, desperate humans that are losing their lives as well.

Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar FTW

So yesterday was International Women's Day (woo) and to celebrate the release of the Nude Photo Revolutionary Calendar is here! Yay!

In case you've forgotten (or never knew), #NudePhotoRevolutionary started when Egyptian blogger Aliaa Magda Elmahdy posted a nude photo of herself on her blog, in protest of the rampant sexism and violence against women in her country.

In response, she received threats of violence and all-round condescention for her decision to freely express herself and protest the repressive culture in which she lives.

In solidarity, women around the world decided to emulate her example and produce this stunning calendar which celebrates the female form (of all shapes and sizes), free speech and women's rights.

Even my broke ass bought a copy, so go get yourself one of these! Hang it proudly on your wall and whenever someone comes over and asks "?!" explain the revolution, spread the word, fight for change.

For a free pdf version of the calendar there is also this link BUT CAREFUL it downloads automatically and opens in your pdf viewer, in case you're reading this at work

Oh, and while we're having fun, I thought I'd include this picture too, cause I just love it

Kony2012: Both Sides Of The Support

Yesterday I reposted this video about Kony2012, I facebooked it to my friends, and just as I expected the next day I found my homepage flooded with people shitting all over the project. Stop sending me Kony2012 bullshit! The organization is shady! It’s stupid! Don’t support it! You are all stupid in your blind following of any cause. I knew it was going to happen, and my friends responded right on cue. As usual, I have a response to their criticisms.

 I know full well that there are people that don’t research their causes and just give money to any “charity” in order to appease their guilt. What are you talking about? I gave 5 bucks to Oxfam last month. Im totally helping, now leave me alone Jersey Shore is on. However, for every person that blindly supports a cause without researching it, there are two who blindly finds the existence of a single article criticizing said cause and uses it as an excuse to dismiss it from their mind and justify their apathy, no more research necessary. Here, I wanted to look in to both sides of the story.

For the criticism, here’s an article that I find makes some valid and well researched points. This one is far more snide and dismissive in its tone, but well sourced so I included it. My response to both is this: the video is about raising awareness, not an open call for donations to Invisible Children. Of course many seeing the video will be inspired to do just that, but Kony2012 is a project with a different goal.

I don’t care if IC is shady, because this is about spreading awareness. If IC is shady great, let’s talk about that, this campaign will do more to expose that than not participating ever would because this is thrusting them right in to the limelight. Welcome to the age of communication, information and ideas. If they suck, someone better will take their place, or they will have to restructure and rebuild in order to survive. 

Status updates like “don’t support Kony2012” is an oxymoron. When you post and repost links criticizing IC and about “not supporting Kony2012”, you ARE supporting Kony 2012, youre bringing him into the public forum, you’re discussing him, you’re researching him and making him one of the most famous names in the world. That is exactly what this project has set out to do. 

Here is TYT discussing these aspects too

So now you may ask, well what does me knowing about him change? In this day and age, spreading the word, talking about something and demonstrating that you care about something is the only way to get the attention of people who actually do have the power to make changes. Also, if there are in fact charities that are exploiting the heart strings that are attached to the purse strings, it shines a bright light on these problems and forces them , under criticism, to clean up their act or crumble under scrutiny. 

This is what I am throwing my support behind. Not the charity responsible, not the Ugandan government, but the conversation. The research. The exchange of ideas. The taking of action against this horrible man. That is what Kony2012 is about, and I fully support it.

And if you are talking about it, even to criticize IC, so are you.

Stop Funding Or Ban It?

I have been thinking about this point of possible disagreement I may have with Ayaan Hirsi Ali ever since I put down Infidel that I wanted to discuss her further. As I mentioned in the book review, Ayaan Hirsi Ali glosses over some of her political opinions at the end of the book, vaguely mentioning what they are in the context of the story but never elaborating or explaining why she came to such conclusions. It is in this indirect way that I noticed that, at the very beginning of her political career, she mentions that she does not think the Dutch government should be funding Muslim schools, despite the fact that Article 23 of their Constitution endows them with this right (I presume that is how the article was interpreted, seeing as the Article seems to be more about the freedom of parents to choose how to educate their children, but see for yourself and let me know if there's something I'm missing). Later on, she mentions trying to ban Muslim schools altogether, as well as abolishing Article 23.

This is the point in which I tend to disagree with Ayaan Hirsi Ali. One thing that we can agree on is the issue of funding. I absolutely agree that the government should not be funding any religious schools, Muslim or otherwise, and I also think that they should pay the same taxes that any other private entity has to pay. However, this is a far cry from all-out banning and removing a parent's right to choose (within certain bounds) how to educate their children.

I tend to balk at the idea of banning things because, having only recently left teenagerdom, I remember full well what indiscriminate banning can do. It causes a backlash, a resistance, a barrier to reasoned dialogue because it feeds the flames of the fear of persecution, something that most religions wallow in. It turns the debate into an attack on religion and faith itself, not one on the blatant discrimination that was at the heart of her problem with the schools themselves.

I suppose that this, in essence, comes down to the definition of Islam that Ayaan Hirsi Ali outlines in her book. The way she was raised as well as for millions like her, Islam is at its heart a sexist, violent religion. Furthermore, she claims that because of the fact that the Qu'ran is the "word of God" and cannot be questioned, you cannot be Muslim as well as believe in the true equality of the sexes.

To this I have to make the obvious connection to other main religions. Yes, I agree that Islam is not peace. Yes, I agree that at its foundation it is a sexist, racist and violent religion. However, I believe that it is something that it has in common with the other Abrahamic religions. There are some unbelievably sexist, racist, violent and outright immoral things in the Bible and Torah, and there are still some fundementalists or orthodox believers that hold to these tenants as "truth" because their holy book contains the one true and only word of God (let's not forget this eye-roller in a long list of examples).

However, when it comes to Christianity and Judaism, the majority of believers seem to (admittedly conveniently) have disregarded these unpalatable parts of their religion. It is not the social norm to abhor slavery, despite the Bible defending it repeatedly. It is the social norm to be disgusted by domestic violence, despite the Bible allowing for it. Humans will forever find ways to twist and ignore parts of their religion in order to be able to hold on to it despite their evolving morality. I do not think that the followers of Islam cannot do this too, and every one of the Muslim people I know are a testament to that fact.

It is because of this that I do not think that banning any religious school is the way to go, it is too broad and I think it sends a message that will cause this fight to come to a standstill. Instead, I would propose, a part from not giving any religious institution government funding, to enforce some basic rules in human rights that should be present in the country anyway, making to exception for religious institutions.

You can rule that schools cannot be segregated based on religion, race or gender. You can mandate certain guidelines for education, including sex education and science. You can prohibit the teaching of inflammatory beliefs involving homophobia, sexism or racism. These rules should apply to everyone, every school, no exceptions. If there is a religious school that doesn't like it tough shit, close your doors, because the values you teach are not compatible with the values of the country you live in. These are some rules that the US could benefit from too, another disgusting example of religious discrimination here.

You can decide that your want to declare a political war against faith, all I am saying is that I believe it is a different fight, and one that will be far slower in reaching a conclusion. In this case I believe that the war is about discrimination and the suffering that is allowed and being ignored for the sake of "religious tolerance". I think that making a strong distinction between attacking faith and attacking values that are not compatible with the law of the land will be the quickest way to get to carving out the social tumor of religiously tolerated inequality and suffering. While I know that there are some people that will never be swayed by reasonable arguments and believe this to be religious persecution regardless of the method, but I think this is the best way to get as many people on board as possible.

This is why I do not think that the Dutch should just flat out ban every religious school. It is an uneducated and naive one perhaps, but it is my opinion nonetheless.

Where do you stand on this issue? Why?

Book Review: Infidel

I don't know why, when I decided to bring Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali along with me for my weekend excursion, that it would be one of those books that is very interesting but a little laborious to read. Regardless I was curious, I had heard a lot about her as one of the most influential atheists in modern times, and a black female one to boot, so I brought it along and began reading it Saturday morning.

By Saturday afternoon I was half way through the book and completely lost to the world. Far from being the clinical, dry theological discussion I have no idea why I thought it was going to be, it is a heart wrenching story of this brave woman's life that I had no idea had been through so much.

What struck me most about her initial account of her early life was the utterly calm tone with which she recounts her terribly abusive childhood. There is no sensationalizing what happened to her, no sense of "poor me I was so abused", no dwelling on the violence of some of the scenes that she revisits from her past, but it is exactly this lack of drama that made her story so powerful to me. The chilling stoicism with which she tells her story is in itself the dramatic climax: her story of abuse is nothing special, sensational or spectacular, what happened to her is still happening to millions of girls worldwide. What makes her story amazingly rare is not what she suffered in her youth, but the fact that she managed to escape the shackles that bound her and live a free "western" life that so many of us take for granted.

When reading this book I felt incredibly stupid that, despite the fact that I knew of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and of the film that was responsible for the murder of Theo Van Gogh, I had no idea that she was the one that actually wrote the film that he directed. Why did I not know that? Was I just coincidentally blind to this fact, or do people really not really talk about the fact that she was the one who came up with the idea and wrote the whole thing when discussing the film and Van Gogh's death?

Anyway I suppose that is not really too important. What is important is that this is one of the best autobiographical stories I have ever had the pleasure of reading, and all I could think about while reading it was how many people I would be buying it for next Christmas. I am sure that, if I were to speak to her, I would not agree with everything she believes in when it comes to politics, which she vaguely hints at towards the end of the book but never delves deeper into (for example, why on earth would she argue in favor of having the minimum wage abolished?!). Although I would have been interested to know more about how she reached some of the conclusions that she has, this book is not about her political opinions. It is about her life, about how she manages to save herself and not become a victim for life, but rather a woman who stares right in the face of the ugly oppression that tried to claim her and fearlessly takes a swing at it. It's ugly, no one wants to ackowledge the monster that lives under their bed, but there is it laides and gentlemen, it's far uglier and scarier than you imagined, but worse it is claiming far more lives and causing far more suffering than is even close to being forgivable. It's time to face it, to challenge it, because there are very few women who are going to be able to beat all the odds and save themselves. No matter what you think of her political ideas, or methods, or personal theological opinions, you just have to admire the hell out of her for that.

A little extra on the plus side, the book also has a forward written by the late great Christopher Hitchens, which I am sure many people would enjor if for no other reason than they feel he died far too soon and did not have enough time to write enough pieces for his voracious readers. Personally I don't like reading these kinds of forwards until after I have finished the book, as they are generally one big spoiler alert and I want to form my own opinion of what I am reading without holding another person's words about the story in my head. Whichever order you wish to read them is up to you, just so long as you take a few hours from your life and pick up this unbelievably inspirational story.

Another One Bites The Dust...

I've made it very clear what my opinion is regarding talking about people after they have died. I don't agree that a person's bad record becomes null and void just because they die unexpectedly. I was very surprised to find out that Andrew Breitbart had died suddenly yesterday, and I think that this video recounting his life comes the closest to sticking to the truth.

I of course would go farther than Cenk does in this video. I called Andrew Breitbart a scumbag before and I'll call him a scumbag now. I feel bad that his kids lost a father unexpectedly, but that's where my sympathy ends.

The Atheist Religion

So I keep getting sicker and sicker so I really don't have it in me right now to come up with detailed posts when all I can think is argh why doesn't my eyeball just make up its mind and explode already enough of this pain!!! So I figured I'd post a few videos instead.

This one came to mind due to a conversation I had last week when I met a young man who, while he was in fact an atheist, refused to state the fact because he felt that "atheism has become as much of an institutionalized religion as Christianity". This made me think of my original meanings post in that I realized "atheism" was a word I forgot to include on my list, as the whole "atheism is still a religion" meme is one aggressively pushed by religious extremists. I also wanted to show him this video, which I think sums it up in a great and funny way