An Open Letter to Boots

You may have heard recently that the Parliamentary Subcommittee on Science and Technology heard a panel of oral evidence about homeopathy. It’s a very good watch and I recommend it, even if just to see how subcommittees work (they ask some very good questions). You can watch it here on the House of Commons website, although it’s a bit fiddly with plugins and things, I had to try several times before it worked, and do bear in mind that the player takes a few seconds to load.

Anyway as a result of this, I understand that the Subcommittee will be recommending to the government that they stop funding homeopathy and that they do not make an exception for homeopathic products in terms of licencing.

One of the members of the panel was Paul Bennett from Boots, who stated basically that as long as people want the homeopathic remedies, Boots has no problem selling it. The Merseyside Skeptics Society has written an open letter to Boots which has already been picked up by Skepchicks and Richard Dawkins. I’m posting it here because I agree with it.

There is also more information about this case on the new blog A Glasgow Skeptic, which I’ll also be adding to my blogroll.

An Open Letter to Alliance Boots

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The Boots brand is synonymous with health care in the United Kingdom. Your website speaks proudly about your role as a health care provider and your commitment to deliver exceptional patient care. For many people, you are their first resource for medical advice; and their chosen dispensary for prescription and non-prescription medicines. The British public trusts Boots.

However, in evidence given recently to the Commons Science and Technology Committee, you admitted that you do not believe homeopathy to be efficacious. Despite this, homeopathic products are offered for sale in Boots pharmacies – many of them bearing the trusted Boots brand.

Not only is this two-hundred-year-old pseudo-therapy implausible, it is scientifically absurd. The purported mechanisms of action fly in the face of our understanding of chemistry, physics, pharmacology and physiology. As you are aware, the best and most rigorous scientific research concludes that homeopathy offers no therapeutic effect beyond placebo, but you continue to sell these products regardless because “customers believe they work”. Is this the standard you set for yourselves?

The majority of people do not have the time or inclination to check whether the scientific literature supports the claims of efficacy made by products such as homeopathy. We trust brands such as Boots to check the facts for us, to provide sound medical advice that is in our interest and supply only those products with a demonstrable medical benefit.

We don’t expect to find products on the shelf at our local pharmacy which do not work.

Not only are these products ineffective, they can also be dangerous. Patients may delay seeking proper medical assistance because they believe homeopathy can treat their condition. Until recently, the Boots website even went so far as to tell patients that “after taking a homeopathic medicine your symptoms may become slightly worse,” and that this is “a sign that the body’s natural energies have started to counteract the illness”. Advice such as this directly encourages patients to wait before seeking real medical attention, even when their condition deteriorates.

We call upon Boots to withdraw all homeopathic products from your shelves. You should not be involved in the sale of ineffective products, because your customers trust you to do what is right for their health. Surely you agree that your commitment to excellent patient care is better served by supplying only those products whose claims can be substantiated by rigorous scientific research? Or do you really believe that Boots should be in the business of selling placebos to the sick and the injured?

The support lent by Boots to this quack therapy contributes directly to its acceptance as a valid medical treatment by the British public, acceptance it does not warrant and support it does not deserve. Please do the right thing, and remove this bogus therapy from your shelves.

Yours sincerely,
Merseyside Skeptics Society

Agora

This weekend I went to visit a friend in Madrid, and whilst we were there we went to see Agora, the film with Rachel Weisch that I’d seen adverts for, but I didn’t have any idea what it was about (it’s weird when you don’t watch TV, you see all these billboards and adverts on buses, but all they have is their name and who’s in it. Without the trailer you have no idea what it’s about and most of the time they looks ridiculously crap). Anyway it turns out it’s about the library at Alexandria. Cool!

**Spoilers will be throughout this post alongside my thoughts, if you want to go see it, go and do so before reading this**

Anyway so the film opens by explaining that in the fourth century the Library wasn’t only a great store of knowledge, but that it was also surrounded by religious debate, and the opening scene marks a debate between a Christian and what they refer to as pagans, by which it means believers in the Roman gods. The Christian proves that he’s correct with a ‘miracle’ when he walks across the fiery coals without being hurt, and then his mates throw the pagan into the coals and of course he is burnt. Several characters see this as proof of Christianity. I don’t think I need to debunk that, but I was struck by how petty this god seems to be, to intervene to help a man cross some coals, but not intervening to prevent all kinds of suffering that no doubt were happening at this point in history. People were still dying in huge numbers during childbirth!

Anyway so one day the Christians start mocking the pagan gods, throwing rotten fruit at the statues. As a response to this insult, the pagans, so famous for their rational thought, decide to go on a killing spree, and quite a pathetic one at that. They surround the group of unarmed Christians with swords, but managed to get turned away and take many injuries. The Christians force them back into the Library, and they close the gates and are trapped inside.

I was very much reminded of a verse from the Bible, funnily enough. In Judges 6, Gideon breaks the altar of Baal and when the citizens of the town call for his head for doing it, his father says, “Are you going to plead Baal’s cause? Are you trying to save him? Whoever fights for him shall be put to death by morning! If Baal really is a god, he can defend himself when someone breaks down his altar.” Indeed. Why gods need people to defend them is beyond me.

So this pathetic, but tragically deadly religious bickering reaches a stalemate, both sides wanting blood. The Christian Emperor Theodosius decrees that the pagans will be pardoned, but that the library is to be given to the Christians to do whatever they want. So the Christians come in, destroy all the statues and burn all the ‘pagan’ works in the Library. This page seems to agree with the story, but with a small addition, the pagans had already been kicked out of their temples by the Romans, and then the Christians put up the statues in a church by way of mocking them, and that’s when the riot started. So the pagans aren’t a problem anymore, we now have the Jews and the Christians living side by side.

Not for long. In the film, the Christians go to the theatre on the Sabbath and throw stones at the Jews there. There’s a line where one of the Jews says that they couldn’t defend themselves because it was the Sabbath and that would be work. I suspect the director’s taking a bit of a poke at the idea of the Sabbath here. The Jews retaliate, and we’re in the same situation, with the Roman prefect trying to keep the peace between the two groups. It’s just so petty, and it’s still happening now, with religious fundamentalists still waging wars against each other.

Anyway the interesting thing is that throughout all of this we have the philosopher Hypatia, nominally a pagan, but she doesn’t really refer to ‘the gods’ at all. She’s been pondering whether the sun orbits the earth or vice versa, discovers that both are possible, but comes to the problem that we’re further away from the sun in the winter. She’s a friend of the prefect, who becomes unpopular because he takes advice from this woman (albeit probably the most intelligent woman of her time), which is against the teachings of Paul as we know. Perhaps yet another dig at modern-day religious beliefs on the part of the director? So Hypatia’s literally just discovered the shape of the ellipse in the orbit, by some strange method involving dividing the sun into two parts, and seeing that the sum distance between them doesn’t change, which seems really strange considering she knows there’s only one sun. But I digress. Hypatia gets kidnapped by the Christians, taken to a church where they want to skin her alive. But one of the Christians, a former slave of Hypatia, says to stone her instead, and when they go to gather stones, he suffocates her out of mercy, while she stares at the ellipse shape made by the shadow of the sun through a hole in the ceiling. Nice feel-good ending.

But the message of this film seems clear, and I’m surprised that Christians in the US haven’t announced a boycott on this one as well (I suppose their pastors didn’t notice it so they had noone to think for them). We have religious groups fighting amongst each other, each essentially looking no less pathetic than the others. They claim to have these deep, very important beliefs, but actually in practice these beliefs don’t achieve anything but destruction. The main victims of this destruction are Hypatia as a woman and as someone accused of godlessness, and also science and the progress of the human race. It’s just such a pity that the world has changed so little between now and then. Still now we have the threat of armageddon with nuclear weapons in the hands of religious fanatics, we have religious groups holding back the progress of research into potentially life-saving science, and we still have women and atheists being oppressed in many parts of the world by religious groups. Religionists take note, many of your views seem as pathetic to me as the views of the characters will to you.

Happy birthday, Origin!

Today is the 150th anniversary of the publication of Darwin’s best-known work, On the Origin of Species. Here’s a short piece called the Tree of Life, narrated by the inimitable David Attenborough, as some sort of celebration.

 

 

I apologise for the lack of action here, I’m getting a bit snowed under at uni and my grandmother died this week so I’m a bit under the weather. Of course being abroad and away from those I love doesn’t really help, but I’m doing ok.

EUSA AGM – the other motions

So my last post was about the Bibles in Pollock Halls motion going through the EUSA AGM tomorrow night (again, if you’re at Edinburgh Uni – GO AND VOTE!), but in this one I’m going to take a briefer look at the other motions of interest that are going before the meeting.

First up, and this’ll be the one I concentrate on, is the No Platform Policy motion. Basically the proposers of this motion want it so that anyone belonging to an organisation deemed racist, homophobic, sexist etc should be banned from giving talks or holding debates on campus. I’ll just pull out a select quote:

“EUSA believes:
4. That there is a difference between supporting freedom of speech and promoting or inviting speakers who are very likely to incite hatred on the specified grounds;
5. That therefore, freedom of speech can be respected and maintained whilst actively not giving a high-profile platform to an individual or group who is very likely to incite hatred and has been known to have incited hatred on the specified grounds;”

This is kind of true if it means what I think it does, but irrelevant. It’s true that although organisations have freedom of speech, that doesn’t mean that EUSA has to provide them with a platform, and freedom of speech is perfectly respected if EUSA doesn’t offer that platform. However, that is quite different from banning a group on campus from providing a platform. Yes, the societies we’re talking about do form part of EUSA, but they have their own regulatory systems, and they’re not bound to represent the majority of students on campus, like the elected bodies of EUSA are. In my opinion banning a student society from hosting a controversial speaker is an infringement on freedom of speech, it would be banning someone from giving a platform who actually wants to, quite different from what is stated in this quote I’ve taken out.

I also think this is something of a bad idea. Banning a speaker merely drives the group underground and stifles debate, when the best thing we could hope for is to have the debate and have them well and truly trounced by people with better arguments. It’s very much an idea of Mill’s, but we should encourage opposing ideas to go against each other, it’s the best way to arrive at the truth. Stifling debate in this way could actually make the problem worse.

So, does this make me a hypocrite for opposing allowing Bibles, but also opposing banning fascists? Absolutely not. You’ll remember my argument about the Bibles centred around the religious texts being imposed on people who didn’t want them. I had nothing against the CU or anyone else distributing Bibles on campus to people who wanted them. On campus, ideas should be able to flow freely, that’s what university’s about, but putting them into people’s homes is a different matter. It’s not inconsistent to say that people who want to go to these talks can go, and it’s not being imposed on anyone who’s not interested, and in the same way anyone who wants to protest it can go.

The next motion is Boycotting Israel. I’m afraid the motion is extremely long. I appreciate that there’s a lot to get in, but they’re going have to read this out to be able to vote on it and people are going to get bored and vote against it just for that reason. The motion basically says that Israel is acting illegally through the occupation of Palestine (that much is indeniable), and that EUSA should boycott, disinvest and sanction Israel and its produce, as well as any Israeli institutions. I can’t say I disagree. What’s happening in Israel is nothing less than modern-day apartheid, they’re explicitly treating the Palestinian people differently (most recently there was a report on how Palestinians don’t have enough water for their basic needs, whereas Israelis in the settlements are still able to water their lawns – most of which comes from reservoirs on Palestinian land), getting money from the natural resources of occupied territories including the Golan Heights, and bombing civilian infrastructure. We know that international pressure from NGO’s can make a difference, as we saw in South Africa, so we should be doing everything we can to turn Israel into a pariah state so that it stops what it’s doing. Unfortunately I don’t see this motion going through, there was quite a big backlash against the occupation in George Square.

The Smoking Kills motion is an effort to ban the sale of cigarettes at EUSA outlets. I think students aren’t children and they can decide whether they want to smoke or not. Meanwhile EUSA could use the revenue. They do have a couple of good points about how tobacco companies act in the third world, but tobacco products aren’t like Nestle products, there aren’t any alternatives like there are other chocolate brands. If the proposers of this motion were to ban specific tobacco companies that are known to act badly in the third world, rather than just a blanket ban on cigarettes altogether, I think they’d have a better argument. I also don’t see this going through, there are too many smokers in the student population.

Finally, and most importantly, is the Enabling motion. This one carries a weird amendment with it, some of which doesn’t seem to have an awful lot to do with the motion itself. It basically means that future issues can be decided either at a general meeting as usual, or in a referendum (most likely to be held online). This will prevent problems with the meetings not being quorate, and will enable more students to take part in the democratic process, which can only be a good thing. I only have one problem. It is not clear what will happen if we have the general meeting voting for a motion, and the referendum voting against it. But I’d still vote for it.

Bibles in Pollock Halls? You’ve got to be joking…

Edit: Since writing this, it has come to my attention that the Christian Union actually have nothing to do with the motion (see comment dated 11/11/09). It was proposed by two of their long standing committee members, which is what led to the confusion on my part. I can only apologise for that assumption. Please note, however, that although much of the argument here is misdirected towards the CU, it loses none of its validity.

Unfortunately not. The Christian Union at the University of Edinburgh have put forward a motion for the student association’s AGM to allow themselves or another organisation to put Bibles in each of the bedrooms in Pollock Halls. If you’re a student at Edinburgh University, I urge you to read this post, although it’s likely to be quite long, and if you have a comment, if you disagree or whatever, post it here in the comments thread. I’d like to get a discussion on this motion going and hopefully get a bit of interest so that the necessary 300 students turn up to the AGM and it’s not a complete waste of time for everyone involved.

But first, a bit of history. A few years ago the Student Representatives Council passed a motion banning Gideon or any other religious organisation from putting Bibles in the rooms at Pollock Halls, the student halls. Following that, the CU proposed a motion to the general meeting lifting this ban, which got a majority of the vote, but not enough votes for it to pass (the EUSA system requires that at least 300 people vote for a motion for it to pass, they got 200 and something). This all happened before I was at uni and before the Humanist Society existed, but there are legends that when Gideon were allowed to place their Bibles in the rooms, it resulted in them being thrown out the window, torn to pieces or even in some cases burnt. I’m not exactly in favour of that but it demonstrates how a lot of students feel about evangelising on campus.

Anyway here’s a copy of the motion as it is now. As far as I can tell it hasn’t been amended so this is what will go before the general meeting. Seeing as I’m not in Edinburgh and won’t be able to attend the meeting, all I can really do about it is post a point-by-point rebuttal of what is says. This is more or less the argument I would give if I were to speak, and if I were given more time than you’re allowed at that meeting.

So, first up

The association notes: Article 9 (Freedom of thought, conscious and religion and freedom to manifest such beliefs in public and private) and Article 10 (Freedom of expression which includes the freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers) of the European Convention of Human Rights which is incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act 1998.

That’s absolutely true, it does say that. This is no doubt an inclusion of one of the proposers of this motion, law student David Nixon, who even managed to use the right to freedom of assembly to justify denying non-Christians access to the Christian Union earlier this year. That was bizarre, twisted logic and so’s this. He’s trying to use the right to freedom of conscience and expression to justify leaving a Christian text within the privacy of someone’s room. You have the right to express your opinion, you don’t have the right to come into my living room and do it. Interestingly, the motion doesn’t mention the second point to each of these articles, which states that these rights may be subject to conditions or restrictions in order to preserve the rights of others, among other things.

Next:

The association believes: That the Bible has had a powerful impact on Scottish Culture and is useful to the study of many disciplines including literature, history, law, social anthropology, classics, divinity and philosophy.

That’s true as well (although I’m not sure how it’s useful for the study of law – it is, of course, a perfect example of how not to do philosophy), but so what? Would you use it to justify putting the complete works of Robert Burns in every room in Pollock? The Bible is available online (this point will come up repeatedly, just to warn you), as well as in the library. Anyone needing access to it has it right there at their fingertips.

That many religions, philosophies and spiritualities respect the contents of the Bible.

Most of them consider it blasphemy, actually. Regardless, this is a popularity argument and has no place in a motion of this type.

That many students have taken comfort in a Bible passage in times of distress and this is important given that the University Chaplaincy Centre is only open 9am – 9pm weekdays and is only staffed 9am-5pm.

Let’s take a look at that claim, shall we? Nightline is also open throughout the night, but let’s leave that aside for a minute. What are common causes of distress? Maybe being a member of a disadvantaged or minority group? Say there’s a student who’s gay, but having only just moved to university, noone there knows. Quite a difficult situation, I’d say. Now say that student opens the Bible and discovers that according to that philosophy, they deserve to be put to death. Not exactly ideal. The same kind of discrimination found in the Bible refers to women, pagans, and anyone who’s not a Christian. This isn’t exactly the kind of thing that should be allowed to be placed in people’s rooms. Those who do want to consult the Bible can do so online, or in the library.

That by providing the Bible and other Scriptures the University is not necessarily promoting the contents of such texts but merely making a service available to students. There is nothing to prevent the university or EUSA attaching stickers to any books placed in Pollock making clear that the University does not endorse the views contained within such books.

Yes, it would be making a service available. A service that is already widely available on the internet, or in the library. Hardly one that is lacking at the moment.

5. That it is in the interests of promoting religious diversity and promoting freedom of expression and religion that EUSA do not prevent Bibles being placed in rooms in Pollock.
6. That the University should be a free market place of ideas and as such no view should be suppressed or censored. True tolerance would allow all views a chance to be fairly represented and would not ban the distribution of any books.

Erm, starting with number 5, no it’s not. It’s in the interest of freedom of expression and conscience to allow people to believe and express themselves as they wish in public or private. This is completely contrary to allowing people to impose the Bible onto people who aren’t interested or who hold different beliefs.

As for number 6, the Bible is not being censored. As I’ve said several times now, the Bible is available online and in the library; the University is in fact actively making it available. To claim, therefore, that it is being censored, is nothing short of ludicrous. In addition, the distribution of the Bible has not been banned. The CU is free to, and regularly do, distribute copies of their religious texts. I have 7 copies of John’s gospel given to me by members of the CU. Unless they’ve been taken away since I was last there, there’s a big box of them underneath the stairs in George Square Lecture Theatre, the very building where the AGM will take place! The only difference between them distributing them on campus, and putting them in people’s rooms, is that when they’re distributing them, people can say no. This motion just allows religious groups to push the Bible or other religious texts onto people who otherwise wouldn’t want it.

That any group or society representing any particular point of view who wish to provide literature to be placed in every room in Pollock should be allowed to do so providing the books are made available freely at their own expense.

Oh so we’re not just talking about religious groups? So why don’t we allow the Socialist Society to put a copy of the Communist Manifesto in each room? Of course in response, the Conservative and Unionist Society will want a copy of their literature in the rooms too, and so will any other organised group out there. The University already has this kind of resource available, it’s right next door to George Square and it’s called the Main Library! But that last part, about the books being made available freely “at their own expense” is an interesting addition, I wonder why they put that in? Could it be that they know the CU, with its large membership and funded by the UCCF, is the only group on campus that would be able to afford such a project? Methinks so. More on that later.

The Association resolves: To mandate the President of EUSA to represent these views to Accommodation Services so that the situation can be returned to what it used to be prior to the SRC deciding Bibles
should be removed from Pollock.

You mean returned to what it was before progress was made, right?

Secularists tend to have two responses to this kind of problem. The first, very prominent in the States, would be to allow every group, religious or not, to put their book in the rooms. This is how ludicrous situations like the Washington State nativity scene come about. The second would be to not allow any groups to do it. I favour that option, and here’s why. It doesn’t matter if you give access to all groups, the big fish will always be able to dominate, in this case the CU will be able to put the Bible in the rooms and other groups will struggle. Then we’re back to the situation, where one group is favoured over another, that we were trying to avoid in the first place!

So that is why we shouldn’t pass this motion. Agree? Disagree? Put your comments here!

There are also a number of other motions going through the AGM which are of interest. One is about taking action against Israel, and another is about not giving a platform to discriminatory groups on campus. Maybe I’ll put a similar post up about that one. But regardless of where you stand on any of these issues, go to the AGM and vote! It’s on the 17th November 7pm in George Square Lecture Theatre.