The return of Sokal March 8, 2008
Posted by smiffy in Books, Capitalism, Philosophy, Science.trackback
Alan Sokal, of the famous (or infamous (or, if you’re Julia Kristeva (in)famous)) ‘Sokal hoax’ had an interesting piece in the Guardian recently on ‘Taking evidence seriously’, a defence of scientific rationality when it comes to public spending and opposed to government support for pseudo-sciences like homeopathy or intelligent. The piece appears to be a flag-raiser for his forthcoming Beyond the Hoax: Science, Philosophy and Culture. While it’s not published yet, the blurb on Amazon reads as follows:
In 1996, Alan Sokal, a Professor of Physics at New York University, wrote a paper for the cultural-studies journal Social Text, entitled: ‘Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a transformative hermeneutics of quantum gravity’. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Sokal immediately confessed that the whole article was a hoax – a cunningly worded paper designed to expose and parody the style of extreme postmodernist criticism of science. The story became front-page news around the world and triggered fierce and wide-ranging controversy.
Sokal is one of the most powerful voices in the continuing debate about the status of evidence-based knowledge. In Beyond the Hoax he turns his attention to a new set of targets – pseudo-science, religion, and misinformation in public life. Whether my targets are the postmodernists of the left, the fundamentalists of the right, or the muddle-headed of all political and apolitical stripes, the bottom line is that clear thinking, combined with a respect for evidence, are of the utmost importance to the survival of the human race in the twenty-first century.
This conflation of what might describe as post-modern, post-structuralist, or Twentieth-Century Continental Philosophy (none of which are perfect descriptions, but are about as good as we have) with religious or pseudo-religious irrationality is a well-worn theme in recent years. It’s found in the work of writers like Francis Wheen (in his How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World), Johann Hari, the Butterflies and Wheels crew and most of the guests on Little Atoms. While many of the criticisms made of contemporary or not-so-contemporary phenomena like crystal healing, astrology or the much and deservedly maligned homeopathy are valid, it’s quite a stretch to see them as part of some kind of continuum with the work of Lacan, Foucault or Derrida. In fact, one can tell how poorly a particular writer understands ‘postmodern’ philosophy by the extent to which they rely on the arguments of Sokal and his book Intellectual Impostures (also published as Fashionable Nonsense).
Sokal’s book (co-written with Jean Bricmont) itself is insightful, informed and important. However, it is also rather limited in its argument, as Sokal would be the first to acknowledge. It is not by any stretch a comprehensive attack on ‘postmodern’ philosophy. Rather, it specifically focuses on the systematic abuse and misrepresentation of scientific concepts by a number of key ‘postmodern’ thinkers and writers. In the case of writers like Kristeva or Baudrilliard, the abuse of scientific concepts is not central to their overall philosophy although it might reasonably cause one to question the extent to which anything they write should be taken seriously. For someone like Lacan, the criticism is more damning, but still not overwhelming; much still remains of Lacan’s work even with the ‘topology’ removed. It’s also particularly notable that arguably the two greatest bêtes noires of the anti-’postmodern’ists – Derrida and Foucault – are decidely absent from Sokal’s attack. Derrida is mentioned for an off-hand comment at a seminar about the Einsteinian constant not being a constant and Foucault is only invoked in passing.
For Francis Wheen or Johann Hari (despite his much vaunted – primarily by himself – First) to dismiss the work of these writers on the basis of Sokal’s criticism reflects a profound ignorance on their part. A particularly egregious example of this approach is that of Nick Cohen. Although he once popped in to this site to rebut the suggestion that he didn’t actually understand what he was talking about, the arguments he puts forward in his postscript to the revised edition of What’s Left (reprinted in Democratiya) demonstrates that some of the lessons just aren’t sinking in. Nick writes, with an almost epic lack of self-awareness:
[P]ost-modernists took the liberal idea of tolerance and pushed group-based identity politics into an extreme relativism. I am unqualified to discuss their philosophy, although I instinctively feel it is wrong, but a child could understand their politics, which is why they had to hide them in such convoluted prose.
“I don’t understand the philosophy, but I understand the politics behind it”? Is this any different from the approach taken by those criticised by Sokal? Surely the key error on the part of the Luce Irigirarys and Bruno Latours’ is that they don’t understand the science but claim (incorrectly) to understand the philosophy underlying it. Indeed, the one concrete example that Cohen gives of the ‘politics’ of postmodernism shows that he’s confused even when it comes to basic facts. He writes, of the much-maligned Michel Foucault:
When the Islamic revolution in Iran began its persecution of leftists, the nominally left-wing Michel Foucault said Europeans should not condemn because Iranians ‘did not have the same regime of truth as ours’.
This is simply and factually incorrect. Foucault’s endorsement of the Iranian revolution has been used as a stick to beat ‘postmodern relativists’ for decades now. What’s rarely, if ever, pointed out is that Foucault’s support for the revolution came prior to the fall of the Shah. As Eric Paras shows in his Foucault 2.0 ,which examines the support for human rights and liberty in Foucault’s later work, Foucault never supported Khomeni’s theocracy, nor should his support for the revolution in its early stages be confused with a tacit endorsement of the current regime. Paras writes of Foucault’s support for the opposition to the Shah’s rule:
Foucault expressed scepticism that the opposition movement was primarily religious in its orientation or in its goals. Behind the Islamist rhetoric of the mullahs, he detected “a movement traversed by the breath of a religion that speaks less of the beyond than of the transfiguration of this world”. Even as the Ayatollah Khomeni rallied dissident elements from his haven in France, Foucault was writing “One fact should be clear: by ‘Islamic government’, no one in Iran means a political regime in which the clergy would play a role of direction or leadership”.
He goes on to write:
[I]t should be said that the events of the winter of 1978-79 went far toward suppressing his early enthusiasm for the Iranian experiment. On February 1, 1979, Khomeni returned to Iran in triumph and established a theocracy that promptly and bloodily settled accounts with its opponents. Attacked in the French press for his support of the revolution, Foucault told the reporters of Le Monde, “There is, certainly, no shame in changing one’s opinion: but there is no reason to say that one has changed it when one is today against the cutting-off of hands, after being yesterday against the tortures of the Savak”. Elsewhere in the piece, he argued that “[t]he spirituality to which those who rose up and died referred is in no way comparable to the bloody government of a fundamentalist clergy”.
While one can never be sure what the heroic Iranian bus drivers think about the Death of the Subject, but coupled with his meeting of minds on human rights issues with Nouvelle Philosophes like André Glucksmann and Bernard-Henri Levy Foucault seems little different from that doyenne of muscular liberalism, Azar Nafisi (except, perhaps, for the fact that Nafisi’s support for the revolution – grounded as it was in a rather extreme form of Maoism – was rather more bloodthirsty than Foucault’s).
To return in conclusion, however, to Sokal’s article, it’s hard to argue with his insistence that public policy and state spending should be grounded in evidence-based rationality and honest and open debate. He writes:
The bottom line is that all of us – conservative and liberal, believer and atheist – live in the same real world, whether we like it or not. Public policy must be based on the best available evidence about that world. In a free society each person has the right to believe whatever nonsense he wishes, but the rest of us should pay attention only to those opinions that are based on evidence.
Who could argue with that? The problem, however, is his choice of target in the article. Certainly homeopathy, creationism and, indeed, the worldview of the Bush administration are not representative of a clear-thinking which is grounded in science and objective reasoning. But surely a greater hazard to an informed public debate around what might be termed ’scientific’ issues is much of the scientific industry itself. As Dan Hinds points out in his The Threat to Reason, the influence of market capitalism is a far more pernicious obstacle to the disinterested search for the truth in Western society than any amount of religious fundamentalism or New Age quakery. We saw it in the past with the success of tobacco companies in concealing the link between smoking and cancer for decades, we see it in the attempt to create some kind of false ‘debate’ in relation to man-made climate change and it most recently arose in the story about pharmaceutical companies not releasing the results of clinical trials showing that a number of anti-depressant drugs, including Prozac, had little or no effect on all but the most serious illnesses.
At least when it comes to religious superstition or other discourses which don’t even pretend to be rational, we can point to an objective standard of proof and evidence through scientific enquiry in response. When it comes to the very corruption of scientific enquiry itself through vested economic interests, however, many of the current defenders of Truth and the Enlightenment fall silent. This includes, unfortunately, certain self-proclamed ‘leftists’ like Sokal.
“When it comes to the very corruption of scientific enquiry itself through vested economic interests, however, many of the current defenders of Truth and the Enlightenment fall silent. This includes, unfortunately, certain self-proclaimed ‘leftists’ like Sokal.”
Funnily enough, many members of the environmental movement
have been critical of the philosophy and methods of science
independent of the post-modernist movement: See
Theodore Roszak or Peter H. Marshall, for instance.
We can see the influence of the corporate lobby on the
scientific process in,for instance, the strong efforts of corporations
to deny the existence of man-made climate change.
“One fact should be clear: by ‘Islamic government’, no one in Iran means a political regime in which the clergy would play a role of direction or leadership”.
““One fact should be clear: by ‘Islamic government’, no one in Iran means a political regime in which the clergy would play a role of direction or leadership”.
these quotes are supposed to absolve Foucault, even bearing in mind the subsequent recanting? come on…
Eamonn,
Between the middle of December 78 and November of 79 a lot of people had a great deal of hope that the revolution in Iran would produce a goverment that would be a major improvement of the Shah’s regime. Naive? Yes, but sometimes we live in hope to be only rather bitterly disapointed later. I think that Foucault, like many observers of Iran at the time hoped that a more liberal regime was in the offing. That was certaily the hope of a lot of Iranians, sadly most of these now live in California.
Once Khomeni was allowed to return in February the game was probabaly up. Having read some of his works in a french translation I despaired. Perchance Foucault had not read them and suffered from that in his pronoucements. I would accuse him of being ‘an innocent abroad’ rather than a man with malice aforethought.
I can’t remember who said it but if we are doing two word definitions of Foucault I’d go with “black nihilist”.
Eamonn,
It depends what you mean by ‘absolve’. If you mean whether he was right in the extent to which he supported the Iranian revolution (including, in particular, the Islamist elements of it in opposition to more leftist and secular trends) then the answer’s clearly no. However, that’s a judgement one can only make in hindsight. It’s worth pointing out that there wasn’t really a model of a revolutionary Islamic government one could point to at that time to underline Foucault’s error. We can say that Foucault wasn’t supporting the kind of clerical authoritarianism the revolution eventually descended into. What’s far less clear is what kind of regime Foucault did envisage replacing the Shah’s after the revolution.
It does absolve him, in my view, of the charge that’s levelled at him by Nick Cohen. It simply isn’t true to say that he was some kind of extreme moral relativist and that this inevitably led him to supporting Khomeni. Indeed, surely a moral relativist would be just as likely to support the Shah. Cohen attack not only demonstrates a complete ignorance of the philosophical work of Foucault and other writers, it fails to acknoweldge the fact that Foucault also condemned the human rights abuses of the clerics after the revolution.
As an aside, there’s a pretty good account of Foucault and the Revolution here.
Similarly, Cohen’s critique completely ignores the fact that any political campaigning Foucault actually engaged in, however limited (i.e. on the issue of prison reform and on the Vietnamese boat people) was very much based on an unwavering support for human rights and a defence of the individual against the state. For that reason, I’d also have to disagree with the categorisation of him as a nihilist.
if you don’t have some conception of human rights as being universally valid and the truth as being something more than a story then you are likely to end taking some pretty unjustifable political stances.
I have no doubt that MF meant well and I was aware of the stuff about the boat people etc. but if you are simply against whatever system of power that there is in a given social or political situation, just because it’s there, well, sometimes you’ll be right but sometimes you’ll be really, really wrong.
if you don’t have some conception of human rights as being universally valid and the truth as being something more than a story then you are likely to end taking some pretty unjustifable political stances
Well you can hardly have a conception of human rights as being anything other than universally valid can you? otherwise they wouldn’t be ‘human rights’ they’d be the rights of some section of humanity.
Thing is, humans don’t have rights the way they have eyes or livers; rights can only exist institutionally – there needs to be some juridical institution to bring them into existence, and to have the coercive power to enforce it. To proclaim universal human rights requires some institution with the ability to enforce these rights – and very often that institution is the army of the proclaiming authority. To say people just ‘have’ these rights is an ethical claim bordering on the theological; so, to act on the assumption of universal human rights is to act in the name of some future state of humanity; to treat people as they ought to be treated, rather than as they are.
Nothing wrong with that of course, except that human rights talk so often becomes an alibi for aggression against a non- western, non- liberal other – and, by using the banner of humanity, you deny the humanity ofthe enemy and thus suspend even the rules of war; with predictable results such as Guantanamo.
Foucault knew that truth and power, while not identical, have a tangled relation; and the proclamation of ‘ethical truth’ is more often than not an interested ‘truth’ masquerading as universality.
Human rights talk is not as transparent or self- evident as it looks.
“Well you can hardly have a conception of human rights as being anything other than universally valid can you? otherwise they wouldn’t be ‘human rights’ they’d be the rights of some section of humanity.”
ones hears much talk these of human rights being a western invention, that the culture one is a member of /participates in has some relevance as to whether one may legitimately claim the right to have sex with whom one wishes, choose who one wishes to marry, criticise the government in the territory where one lives etc without ending up with a rope around one’s neck hanging from a crane. Strangely, much of this talk comes from people who perceive themselves to be on the left
“Thing is, humans don’t have rights the way they have eyes or livers; rights can only exist institutionally – there needs to be some juridical institution to bring them into existence, and to have the coercive power to enforce it. To proclaim universal human rights requires some institution with the ability to enforce these rights – and very often that institution is the army of the proclaiming authority. To say people just ‘have’ these rights is an ethical claim bordering on the theological;”
very interesting. it’s goodbye to this then,
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
people only have rights in so far as there is currently an institution to protect them in the piece of real estate where they live? On that view, you can’t object to Guantánamo, for example, as it has been spcifically located so as to be beyond the reach of the US legal system. Same goes for Palestinians in Gaza, the entire population of China et etc
“Nothing wrong with that of course, except that human rights talk so often becomes an alibi for aggression against a non- western, non- liberal other – ”
“Foucault knew that truth and power, while not identical, have a tangled relation; and the proclamation of ‘ethical truth’ is more often than not an interested ‘truth’ masquerading as universality.”
On this very point Norm says
—–
If there is no truth, there is no injustice. Stated less simplistically, if truth is wholly relativised to particular discourses or language games or social practices there is no injustice. The victims and protestors of any putative injustice are deprived of their last and often best weapon, that of telling what really happened. They can only tell their story, which is something else. Morally and politically therefore anything goes.
—-
Language, Truth and Justice. New Left Review 209: 110-135.
Eamonn,
All you’re doing now is accusing me of condoning the things your human rights based discourse is designed to combat simply because I cast doubt on the provenence or efficacy of those notions. On a par with proponents of nuclear deterrence during the cold war accusing CND supporters of condoning the gulags.
sonofstan: I don’t understand your last comment or see how it is relevant to what I wrote
people only have rights in so far as there is currently an institution to protect them in the piece of real estate where they live? On that view, you can’t object to Guantánamo, for example, as it has been spcifically located so as to be beyond the reach of the US legal system. Same goes for Palestinians in Gaza, the entire population of China et etc
You said i can’t object to Guantánamo etc., because i don’t buy into the idea of universal human rights; the way you set up your argument it looked as if you think the only grounds for objecting to savagery is from the perspective of the UN convention. It seems to me to me to follow that you’re saying if i don’t object on the same grounds as you to injustice (or formulate injustice as a category in the same way) then i am offering at least indirect support to the US State Dept. the IDF and the Chinese Govt.
The analogy I was drawing was with those hawks during the cold war who accused those who criticised the arms race of effectively siding with the enemy – the idea that by criticising your unproblematic view of rights and justice i am either on the side of injustice, or at least inadvertently conspiring to help it flourish.
maybe this wasn’t what you meant?
I don’t know your real name or anything about you, hence I would not be well placed to accuse you of anything. I am trying to understand what I see written in front of me. Bearing all that in mind…
If you don’t support the idea of universal human rights, on what basis do you oppose, say Guantánamo? You imply that there are other grounds/bases for opposing savagery? What might they be? On what grounds might one oppose, say, torture, other than idea that all humans have certain rights regardless of their culture, religion, place of birth, side they are one in a particular conflict or whatever?
Without some hard concept of truth – not solely grounded in the culture/history/interests of one side or the other – how do we form an opinion on what is going on in say, Burma?
“It seems to me to me to follow that you’re saying if i don’t object on the same grounds as you to injustice (or formulate injustice as a category in the same way) then i am offering at least indirect support to the US State Dept. the IDF and the Chinese Govt.”
The same question arises from another angle. On what grounds do you reject injustice/formulate justice differently than, for want of a better yardstick, the standards set out in the universal declaration of human rights?
Although he once popped in to this site to rebut the suggestion that he didn’t actually understand what he was talking about
Go on, gissa a link…
Here you go (assuming it was him). On rereading that old post, I see that I was unfair to Sokal, and accused him of the errors that others who invoke him tend to commit (i.e. dismissing an entire body of work on the basis of the abuse of scientific concepts). However, I recently reread his book, and it was a lot more accurate and insightful than I had remembered. My mistake.
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2007/03/07/the-last-of-the-famous-international-posties/
http://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2007/03/19/wed-prefer-if-you-didnt-leave-by-the-door-on-the-right-or-a-little-bit-more-on-nick-cohen-and-that-war/
I can understand why people make the argument that the concept of universal rights is a western discourse used to justify western hegemony, but fundamentally, when push comes to shove, I feel I have to reject it.
I can see where the arguments come from given the gaps in documents like the US Declaration of Independence or French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, and how that carried on in the colonial context even after the UN Declaration, but at the end of the day, I do think people are born with certain innate rights. And every progressive political ideology for the last several centuries has felt the same. After all are not republicanism and socialism based on the belief in rights?
Which points to the danger of the left allowing itself to be influenced by postmodernist discourse, and especially the likes of Foucault. It can lead to an ignoring of reality, and the tendency to view all historical actors, movements, parties, states and their intentions as fundamentally the same. It misses the huge importance of intentions.
and many anti-colonial struggles have been based on the colonised saying “look, all that stuff about the rights of man, all men being created equal etc, how come it doesn’t seem to apply to me…, “
Susan Jacoby’s ‘The age of American Unreason’ may be relevant:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/points/stories/DN-jacoby_09edi.State.Edition1.13a3112.html
“and many anti-colonial struggles have been based on the colonised saying “look, all that stuff about the rights of man, all men being created equal etc, how come it doesn’t seem to apply to me…, “
Eamonn, it didn´t apply to them because “people only have rights in so far as there is currently an institution to protect them in the piece of real estate where they live.” If you take the examples you seem to be citing here – such as anti-colonial struggles, Palestine, Guantanamo Bay – in all of these cases, the ones doing the oppressing are the ones in charge of the political and judicial system. The fight is not just about getting recognition for a philosophical idea – that of innate rights for all – but fighting to have those rights recognised with authorities strong enough to enforce those rights.
That´s the real lesson in the history of universal rights. You have to have the power to enforce them. The UN does not have that power. A declaration of rights, without the judicial muscle to enforce it, is an exercise in spin. I mean, a lot of universal rights movements were based on appealing to the morality of those in power in the hope to change the law. It took a long time for people to realise you have to be in power in order to change stuff.
oh christ I give up
I don’t have time now to answer all these points properly, but a few quick things; Garibaldy – the idea that we are born with ‘innate rights’; well, we’re just not, anymore than women are born to cook and sew or men or born to fight – rights are the result of a process of culturation and, more importantly, of institutional recognition.
We can – and probably should – act as if we are born with certain rights, but that’s a different thing.
And do you think Leftist intellectuals influenced by Foucault are the cause of anything much, in comparison with the US military- industrial complex or the IDF?
As to socialism owing its existence to ‘a belief in rights’ – well, like a lot of soi-disant Marxists, its a while since I’ve read much of him, but I don’t actually think he talks about roghts or justice much – its a class ’struggle’ remember, and history will sort it out….
And Eamonn, you’re absolutely right in comment 17, and its the best argument for universalism certainly…….
Eamonn,
Kindly do not give up. Surely there has always been a desire to establish a set of precepts that all people could/should live by. Some of these came from a religious point of few. Love they nieghbour as thyself springs to mind, then moving on the arguements of the likes of Adam Smith and the other enlightment philosophers. And surely this is still a debate that dominates most philosophy today.
A lot of societies around the world accept the idea there there is such a set of precepts. And it seems to work and has indeed worked much better than it ever has done in the last fifty years. Otherwise we would be living in a state much different from the one we do. We only have 12,000 or so Guards to control a 4.3 million of us. We have a common set of precepts that bind us together as the “proper” way to behave.
This is definitely not about force in an Irish context and the protests about issues such as Guantanamo are not driven out of the barrel of a gun either.
They come from those precepts that seem to be generally accepted. Anyway giving up is only another form of surrender. Mustn’t do that.
SonofStan,
I take your point about rights being dependent on society, institutions and culturation, and I’m not interested in relaunching the Enlightment debate on the origins of society and rights within society. But while I can see your point about rights not being innate but we should act as they are, in practice I’m not sure how much difference that makes.
Large segments of the left have surrendered to the Foucouldian thing. So we get the French CP concentrating on criticising Cuba’s record on human rights while not contextualising it in the big picture of imperialist aggression. And while that makes little practical difference, it clouds the important parts of political struggle and leads to confused thinking. As far as I am concerned there are times when it is legitimate to suspend the exercising of certain rights. Salis populi suprema lex and all that.
On Marxism and rights. You’re right of course that class struggle is key, but does that not come across in Marx’ dedication to fighting for democratic advances at all stages, right to strike etc. Is the point not that Marx sees there are rights but that they must be seized as bourgeois society is not going to willingly surrender them?
I agree with Conor’s point (and yours) that at the end of the day, the enforcement of rights requires power. Hence why I’m involved in political struggle.
In practise, there is no real difference between whether rights are innate or whether we act if we act as if they are. The important thing is to have them enforced at a national political and judicial level.
As for the The UN declaration of Human Rights. A noble document, but the product of its authors. For example, it lists private property as a human right – so landlord rights are human rights. it also makes the point that ALL of its list of human rights are subject to the “morality, public order and general welfare” of democratic societies. So, on the one hand, we have this declaration of universal rights, and on the other, the very same document makes it clear that the national political and judicial systems have the final say on what constitutes the application of our freedoms. So. with the UN, human rights are universal, but morality is not. human rights are subject to national codes of morality and public order. There´s always a touch of the Jesuits about UN declarations. We have universal rights, but they are not to be applied universally.
All of this means that the battle for human rights takes place, first of all, at a national political level. We have to follow Garibaldy´s example and get involved in the daily grind of political action. It’s boring, but it’s the only way. Declarations with caveats are not enough.
With regard to comment #20: “oh christ I give up”. Fair enough Eamonn, that’s your right. I would like to know why you thought my point was completely ridiculous, but, yeah, fair enough.
FYI, Jean Bricmont, co-author with Sokal of Intellectual Impostures, has written a short powerful book which deals with a lot of the issues raised in this post. Humanitarian Imperialism is an attack on the interventionist left from a left-wing perspective. For Bricmont, “the supposed need to defend human rights by military means is … the ideological Trojan horse of western interventionism within the very movements opposed to it in principle.” (p21)
He rejects cultural relativism, which he sees as the opposite pole to “liberal” interventionism, and attempts to criticize “the West in the name of the very values it aims to embody.” (p23)
I particularly like this quote: “The leftist discourse on the Soviet Union, especially on the part of Trotskyists, anarchists, and a majority of contemporary communists, usually fails to realise …[that the Soviet Union was born in the horrors of Civil War and felt obliged to play catch up in terms of industrial growth] in its eagerness to denounce Stalinism.But insofar as a large part of Stalinism can be considered a reaction to external attacks and threats (imagine… a regular series of September 11 attacks on the United States), the denunciation amounts to a defense of imperialism that is all the more pernicious for adopting a revolutionary pose” (p43)
Socialist Worker, anyone?
HUMANITARIAN IMPERIALISM
Using Human Rights to Sell War
http://www.monthlyreview.org/humanitarianimperialism.htm
by Jean Bricmont
Translated by Diana Johnstone
[...] eile: This excellent discussion on Cedar Lounge may be of [...]
If you don’t support the idea of universal human rights, on what basis do you oppose, say Guantánamo? You imply that there are other grounds/bases for opposing savagery? What might they be? On what grounds might one oppose, say, torture, other than idea that all humans have certain rights regardless of their culture, religion, place of birth, side they are one in a particular conflict or whatever?
Eamonn, firstly, sorry for taking so long to try and answer your question – been busy.
I could rephrase you question another way and ask why you need something as abstract as a universal declaration of human rights to object to torture? surely, at the roots of our subjectivity, at what makes us human, is an ability to imagine ourselves as an other, to put ourselves in her place – a pre- conceptual ground for ethics?
My root objection to ‘human rights talk’ is this however, and its something both Conor and Garibaldy above point to; the replacement of politics with ethics. It’s a cluster of beliefs that Badiou characterises as follows (sorry for the long quote)
We posit a general human subject, such that whatever evil befalls him is universally identifiable …. such that the subject is both, on the one hand, a passive, pathetic, or reflexive subject – he who suffers – and on the other, the active determining subject of judgement – he who, in identifying suffering, knows that it must be stopped by all available means
And,
Politics is subject to ethics, to the single perspective that really matters in this conception of things; the sympathetic and indignant judgement of the spectator.
What Badiou is objecting to is this; in place of the revolutionary subject of Marxism – the self- conscious subject of history, the vanguard working class – we have a helpless victimised subject, her human rights abused, and a spectator moved by pity to ‘do something’ – buy a goat, a charity single, fast for a day. What we don’t have is the identity of the oppressed subject and the political actor that old- fashioned socialism gave; the internationalism of the working class based on the identity and solidarity of the primary producer, an identity forged politically against capitalism. Instead we are asked to participate almost voyeuristically – as ‘the west’ – in suffering we know will never be visited on us; a relation that mirrors almost completely the dynamic of global neo-liberalism (see today’s discussion of Waters and O’Shea above)
You ask what grounds I have for objecting to Guantanamo, to Gaza to China without a basis in human rights; might I suggest this? in all three situations you mention, the ‘human rights’ abuse is a symptom of a larger politicalsituation – the ‘war on terror’, the war against the Palestinian people by the IDF, the near- enslavement of the Chinese peasant and working class by a tyrannical party; and in all of these cases, I get the feeling that, for much of western liberal- left opinion, if the symptom were eradicated, the structural injustice of which such things are symptomatic could be left untouched. Thus, as long as Guantanamo detainees are given ‘fair’ trials, and not tortured, the US can continue to act as the near sole arbiter of regime acceptabilty, as long as Gaza and the West Bank are not subject to daily savage incursions by the IDF, the larger issue can be settled by some fudge in which Israel, as the superpower in the area will get more or less what it wants and if China would only stop locking people up, it can continue as the world’s sweatshop (I’m simplifying hugely here, and obviously many do see beyond the symptom, but human rights discourse can lead to a focus on the immediate apparent problem – suffering – without dealing with the politics behind it)
And, as Garibaldy alluded to, human rights talk imposes an equivalence, so that any regime is seen to abuse human rights is ‘bad’ whatever the context; few regimes have torture and denial of freedom as their explicit aims; they are always means to political ends, and the solution to the abuses must involve combatting the larger political aims.
And finally, on a simply pragmatic basis, as leftists, history should teach us that right and justice is almost never granted by an appeal to the better nature of the ruling classes; they are won by struggle. Human rights discourse, by making the spectator the one who is in a position to ‘do something’, and by encouraging the oppressed and disadvantaged to appeal to progressive forces within the world’s ruling elite (that’s us – as Westerners we are de facto that elite) , rather than to organise and resist, further disenfranchises the world’s poor, since, if ethical good intentions ever come up against material comfort, the latter will nearly always win.
Has the kind of human rights discourse we’re talking about ever actually prevailed against injustice? South Africa? possibly, but it was nevertheless wise of the (Marxist) ANC to continue the armed struggle – even if sanctions did eventually begin to bite, the struggle needed white South Africa to begin to really directly fear for their collective future.
The abolition of slavery in the US perhaps – here surely, is a paradigm case of a war being fought against an injustice, largely carried out by those not directly affected by that injustice. Perhaps, but again, it is worth noting that while the specific abuse of slavery was, in the end, removed, it took another century for the actual material situation of Black Americans to improve, an improvement only achieved by black collective effort; in other words, pious, white anti- slavery campaigners probably played a part in removing the obscenity of ‘the peculiar institution’ but the structural political injustice remained because the specific economic structure of the south needed virtually free labour, just as the cheap food, cheap oil, cheap clothes economies of the west need the sweatshops of Asia and South America.
Finally – honest! – I guess I’m suspicious of human rights discourse and the ethicisation of politics because it is virtually hegemonic – I’m always suspicious of ’self- evidence’ and of political actors pursuing political aims by an appeal to ideals that are ‘above’ politics.
The American Civil War was not primarily fought to abolish slavery: it was fought mainly to preserve the Union.
The aim of the movement led by Martin Luther King was to fulfill the truths held be self-evident by the U.S founding fathers: that all men are created equal.
Smiffy, while some of your post went over my head (I haven’t read those structuralists, or post-structuralists, or…), I appreciate the thoroughness of your critique of Sokal. Just one little quibble:
… many of the criticisms made of contemporary or not-so-contemporary phenomena like crystal healing, astrology or the much and deservedly maligned homeopathy are valid…
Certainly homeopathy, creationism and, indeed, the worldview of the Bush administration are not representative of a clear-thinking which is grounded in science and objective reasoning.
I’d go along with the latter characterizing of homeopathy, but “deservedly maligned”? Do homeopaths include a higher proportion of chancers than other professions? I’m guessing you mean more than that, and that you think homeopathy has no effect (apart from placebo effect), and that that has been shown. I would disagree; I think there is very little scientific evidence that homeopathy doesn’t work. So the maligning is undeserved.
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.” –Wittgenstein
People will continue to visit homeopaths. Some (probably most, I think) will be helped, or cured. Some will not. I look forward to seeing disinterested scientific research on the practice, but I don’t expect to be able to draw a firm conclusion in the near future. Unless you can point me to good evidence…
“Sokal’s book (co-written with Jean Bricmont) itself is insightful, informed and important.”
I’m not convinced, given that the part which related to Bruno Latour (whose work I’ve read) was simply wrong. Latour does’t hold the views that Sokal assigns to him, and the work that he quotes doesn’t mean what Sokal thinks it does. The thing about Latour is that he’s working within two traditions (philosophy of science and ethnomethodology), neither of which Sokal has any familiarity with (Sokal’s digression into philosophy of science later in the book is pretty mediocre). He mistakes methodological assumptions for grand statements about reality/science/whatever.
Given this, I didn’t have much confidence that Sokal understood any of the other people he criticised. Some of that stuff might be rubbish (I have my suspicions about Butler and Kristeva), but I don’t think Sokal is able to make that judgement.
Wikipedia says: “In the late 1970s, political activism in France tailed off with the disillusionment of many left wing militants. A number of young Maoists abandoned their beliefs to become the so-called New Philosophers, often citing Foucault as their major influence, a status about which Foucault had mixed feelings.” – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michel_Foucault#The_late_Foucault
As any fool knows, one of these New Philosophers was one André Glucksmann, a regular contributer to ‘Democratiya’. So is it possible that the pro-war Left are in fact Foucauldians?
The price rises in food over the past year, and the blatant plan by the US government to subsidise its farmers via biofuels, are proof not only of the way in which the west exploits and oppresses the developing world, but also how the NGOs and the O’Sheas of the world will never be able to fix the problems. They require concerted action by states. No other powers are strong enough.
Fuck. Senility. Wrong thread
Although it does display the inadequacies of Foucauldian attitudes too.
“surely, at the roots of our subjectivity, at what makes us human, is an ability to imagine ourselves as an other, to put ourselves in her place”
as far as I can judge, that amounts a conception of universal human rights.
if I understand you correctly now, it’s not the core notion of human rights you object to but what you call “human rights talk”
“What Badiou is objecting to is this; in place of the revolutionary subject of Marxism – the self- conscious subject of history, the vanguard working class – we have a helpless victimised subject, her human rights abused, and a spectator moved by pity to ‘do something’ – buy a goat, a charity single, fast for a day. What we don’t have is the identity of the oppressed subject and the political actor that old- fashioned socialism gave; the internationalism of the working class based on the identity and solidarity of the primary producer, an identity forged politically against capitalism. Instead we are asked to participate almost voyeuristically – as ‘the west’ – in suffering we know will never be visited on us; a relation that mirrors almost completely the dynamic of global neo-liberalism (see today’s discussion of Waters and O’Shea above)”
I’ll pass on Badiou but I have a certain degree of sympathy with this line of argument. I think the Palestinians have really suffered from the condescending gaze of those who are sympathetic to them. See lengthy exchange with WBS abou this here
http://tinyurl.com/2mjn8d
see also this
http://tinyurl.com/3yrl3w
“And, as Garibaldy alluded to, human rights talk imposes an equivalence, so that any regime is seen to abuse human rights is ‘bad’ whatever the context; few regimes have torture and denial of freedom as their explicit aims;”
so it might be okay sometime to abuse peoples rights? If it’s being done for the greater good, to secure some valuable goal or whatever…? Isn’t that George W.’s argument?
Apologies in advance if that is not what you meant but it seems to be there.
“Do homeopaths include a higher proportion of chancers than other professions? ”
Anyone who practises homeopathy is by definition a chancer.
as far as I can judge, that amounts a conception of universal human rights.
Not quite – because it doesn’t involve a conceptualisation of rights; it may eventually lead to such a thing but it is logically and intuitively prior – my view is that intersubjectivity, the grasp of the other as an other subject and not as an object starts with a preconceptual grasp or sympathy, rather than with an intellectual understanding of the notion of an other as a complex being ‘just like me’ – so, to object to the torture of another on the basis that it is a violation of her rights seems as counterintuitive as ‘deciding’ to be outraged because someone insults your family or your country because you’ve heard that such things count as outrages.
so it might be okay sometime to abuse peoples rights? If it’s being done for the greater good, to secure some valuable goal or whatever…? Isn’t that George W.’s argument?
Well, sometimes yes, i think we’d all be forced to answer; it’s the ‘would it be wrong to assassinate Hitler?’ question. And it might be argued that a conception of war that removes it from politics and tried to make all war ethical police missions, perhaps paradoxically, makes it easier to treat people as having forfeited their rights, since, in an old-fashioned war may be forced admit a moral equivalence with the enemy, and thus abide by the Geneva convention etc., whereas a war that sees the other as the incarnation of evil in the world is freed from such compunctions.
You’re totally right about homeopaths, th
so it might be okay sometime to abuse peoples rights? If it’s being done for the greater good, to secure some valuable goal or whatever…?
Can you imagine no situation where this might be the case?
Anyone who practises homeopathy is by definition a chancer.
How do you know, Eamonn?
The statement says more about you than about homeopaths.
“Can you imagine no situation where this might be the case?”
only in the case of a just war. War allows an amazingly wide degree of latitude, in moral philosophy terms, for abusing other peoples rights. see this paper
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/~uctytho/StatmanTargetedKilling.html
however, certain things such as torture are never permissible regardless of the excuse.
I don’t entirely buy the Hitler argument. killing him say, in 1920, with the knowledge one could have had of him then couldn’t have been morally justified without resorting to Bush like logic about doing bad things to bad people now to prevent them committing mass murder in the future. Human ability to predict the future is very limited.
von stauffenberg and his briefcase is a different story. there was a war on, von stauffenberg and his colleagues had effectively decided that it would be better if Germany lost the war to the (western) allies. so had hitler been killed on July 20th it would have been as a war casualty.
“How do you know, Eamonn?”
In the same way that I know there are no ghosts, the world wasn’t created in 7 days, that water boils if you heat it enough etc etc
But other people may hold the opposite opinion in entire sincerity.
In my many exchanges with him I have never questioned sobresauts’ sincerity
Nor have I suggested that you have.
-An ahistorical conception of universality is not only false to the phenomenological facts of human experience but is an invitation to ideological reification and political tyranny- Claes Ryn.
In the same way that I know there are no ghosts, the world wasn’t created in 7 days, that water boils if you heat it enough etc etc
I thought so…
I might call it Eamonn’s eccentric epistemology, if I didn’t know that Alan Sokal, Ben Goldacre and others think along the same lines, though they’re not so glib.
At least, you wouldn’t advocate that homeopaths be burned at the stake, even if it’s being done “for the greater good”. You’ll leave that to others.
I don’t object to people believing silly things and indeed defend their right to do so.
I agree with eamonn on people’s rights to believe silly things. However, I think it becomes problematic when it migrates into people making large wads of dosh from selling things to people who believe silly things. One is often suspicious that such people do not really believe the things that they are selling and that their claims about them are not silliness, but straight up lies.
Well indeed, and I’m no slouch when it comes to a game of spot-the-charlatan, and I seem to remember waxing long on the subject when a university whose library once employed me started giving courses in aromatherapy. And yet at the same time it’s plain that there are people who believe in these things and that therefore to assume they are “chancers” is not really reasonable.
soubresauts wrote: “I look forward to seeing disinterested scientific research on the practice, but I don’t expect to be able to draw a firm conclusion in the near future. Unless you can point me to good evidence…
[...]
..How do you know, Eamonn?”
Because a meta-analysis of fair, randomised, controlled trials will show that the people taking placebo sugar pills do just as well as those taking homeopathy pills.
If a ‘remedy’ is subjected to the homeopathic level of dilution it means practically everything is homeopathic. An almost infinitely dilute solution cannot be called a remedy. It’s called water.
also check out the “disinterested scientific research” mentioned in The end of homeopathy?
Because a meta-analysis of fair, randomised, controlled trials will show that the people taking placebo sugar pills do just as well as those taking homeopathy pills.
That’s what you believe.
If a ‘remedy’ is subjected to the homeopathic level of dilution it means practically everything is homeopathic. An almost infinitely dilute solution cannot be called a remedy. It’s called water.
That’s what you call it.
Pax, the only reference you give is an article by Dr Ben Goldacre, medical doctor, Guardian columnist, and media celebrity. Goldacre picks the easy target of Jeanette Winterson who had made a clumsy attempt to defend homeopathy. Goldacre usually picks easy targets, but when he alights on an issue that seriously troubles his friends in the medical establishment, he himself is all clumsiness and avoids mentioning the really important data and reports:
http://www.badscience.net/?p=611, and my comments:
http://tinyurl.com/3565bp
Anyway, as Goldacre gets into his anti-homeopathy groove, he starts to betray his prejudices:
“Now there are bad trials in medicine, of course, but here’s the difference: in medicine there is a strong culture of critical self-appraisal… [Tell us another.]
“With alternative therapists, when you point out a problem with the evidence, people don’t engage with you about it, or read and reference your work. They get into a huff.” [QED!]
And then Goldacre moves onto one of his obsessions — the MMR vaccine:
“There are also more concrete harms… One study found that more than half of all the homeopaths approached advised patients against the MMR vaccine for their children, acting irresponsibly on what will quite probably come to be known as the media’s MMR hoax.”
“Quite probably”? Only if Ben gets his way.
And what “concrete harms” is he on about? What happened to all those kids who didn’t get the MMR? Were they harmed?
Of course the “harm” that Goldacre and the medical establishment really have in mind is harm to public confidence in vaccination programmes.
In Ireland, Mary Harney’s DoHC has a Vaccine Damage Steering Group. What’s worrying is one of its terms of reference:
• Review vaccine damage compensation schemes operating in other countries and identify the most relevant models; and ensure that there is no resultant damage to public confidence in the national immunisation programme. (http://tinyurl.com/2pvvuw)
Sure, a lot of Goldacre’s criticism of some homeopaths, their organizations and their behaviour is valid and very useful. But it still doesn’t justify the absolutist dismissal and condemnation.
Goldacre is very quick to cite The Lancet when it suits him, but the scandal of the Lancet proprietor and the MMR judge didn’t get a mention on his blog: see http://www.jabs.org.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=668
Note the sequence of events:
1) July 2003: Lancet proprietor Crispin Davis becomes a non-executive director of MMR manufacturer Glaxo SmithKline.
2) February 20, 2004: The Lancet throws Dr Andrew Wakefield to the wolves for tenuous reasons. He is dragged through the mud by the BBC, Sunday Times and the Government (including Tony Blair) for four days.
3) February 27, 2004: Mr Justice Davis (Crispin’s brother, aka Sir Nigel Davis) dismisses the MMR litigants’ appeal for restitution of legal aid.
4) June 2004. Crispin Davis is knighted by the Blair government.
And note that those facts were not revealed until last May.
Similarly, Goldacre is ignoring the latest bombshell: the U.S. Government has admitted the vaccination/autism link in settling a lawsuit — the Hannah Poling case. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-kirby/
Goldacre does not serve the cause of objectivity well, so please don’t put him forward as a scientific paragon.
sobresuats: what exactly has been the role of Mossad and the Kosovan mafia in the supression of the truth about homeopathy?
“Because a meta-analysis of fair, randomised, controlled trials will show that the people taking placebo sugar pills do just as well as those taking homeopathy pills.
That’s what you believe.”
Actually that’s what the evidence to date shows. If you want to base your opinions on faith there’s always the Catholic church. Lourdes for example.
While the state of medical knowledge is problematic, medical research being notorious for its sloppiness, its not an argument that really helps alternative medicine people as they’re even worse. One argument that can definitely be levelled at doctors is that they tend to base their opinions of what is, and isn’t, possible on theories rather than evidence. If their theories tell them something can’t be so, then they will tell people that it isn’t so despite what the evidence says. On the other hand homeopathy is all theory (and a dubious one at that) and no evidence…
As for MMR. There is no evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism and Wakefield has been justifiably discredited (the original study was okay, though it didn’t establish a link – it was his subsequent behaviour that was dodgy). I think much of the medical establishment behaved disgracefully in response to his findings, but this doesn’t change the fact that he was wrong and the MMR vaccine seems to be safish.
There is a small risk of brain fever from the MMR vaccine, and the results of this can occasionally be misdiagnosed as autism. As far as I can work out that was the situation with the US legal case that was settled, judging by the rather confused reporting of the Huffinton Post guy.
Of course there’s a greater risk of brain fever if you don’t get the vaccine, but you don’t see anti-MMR people mention that…
what “concrete harms” is he on about? What happened to all those kids who didn’t get the MMR? Were they harmed?
The rate of measles infection has certainly gone up since the scare. (There’s anecdotal evidence too! The other week at my kid’s swimming lessons I sat next to a woman with a toddler, who I swear had measles. I was just glad I’d had it.)
Depends whether you think a massively increased risk of infection with a potentially fatal illness constitutes ‘harm’, really.
Cian wrote:
Actually that’s what the evidence to date shows. If you want to base your opinions on faith there’s always the Catholic church. Lourdes for example.
Pax said that “a meta-analysis… will show that…” Nobody has done the meta-analysis, so that seems like an act of faith on her/his part. Even if all the evidence to date in the orthodox medical literature shows just placebo effect (does it?), that’s not the end of the story. As far as I can see, there has been very little good research on homeopathy. It’s not scientific to be absolutist about it.
…homeopathy is all theory (and a dubious one at that) and no evidence…
And you’re quite certain that there never will be evidence.
As for MMR. There is no evidence of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism and Wakefield has been justifiably discredited.
He hasn’t been discredited, despite the claims of some sections of the media and people like yourself. He is an influential medical researcher with a high profile in American universities. See, for example:
http://www.chem.cmu.edu/wakefield/ (video)
http://www.thoughtfulhouse.com/0405-conf-awakefield.htm (transcripts)
http://autismmedia.org/media2.html
I think much of the medical establishment behaved disgracefully in response to his findings, but this doesn’t change the fact that he was wrong and the MMR vaccine seems to be safish.
Safish? So you do have some doubts about MMR.
The British Government says that MMR is “very safe”. (They would, wouldn’t they?) But compare this carefully-argued paper: http://www.jpands.org/vol11no4/millerc.pdf
Quote: “The conclusions of the Cochrane review on the safety and effectiveness of MMR vaccine violate the standards of evidence-based medicine and are not supported by the body of the review. There are material concerns that the conclusions were influenced by efforts of the British government to avoid liability in claims brought on behalf of allegedly vaccine-injured children.”
There is a small risk of brain fever from the MMR vaccine, and the results of this can occasionally be misdiagnosed as autism. As far as I can work out that was the situation with the US legal case that was settled, judging by the rather confused reporting of the Huffinton Post guy.
I don’t know about you, but I read the posts of David Kirby in the Huffington Post blog, and he wasn’t confused at all. In the Hannah Poling case, the U.S. Government admitted that the vaccination was part of the cause of the girl’s autism. You can phrase it any way you like, but those are the facts.
You say that “the results of this [brain fever] can occasionally be misdiagnosed as autism.” So you’re saying that if MMR caused it, it can’t really be autism, even if it’s diagnosed as autism. You’re losing credibility here, Cian.
Of course there’s a greater risk of brain fever if you don’t get the vaccine, but you don’t see anti-MMR people mention that…
“Of course there’s a greater risk…” That’s what you say. We’ll take our chances without the vaccine, thank you.
I note that you ignored the Crispin/Nigel Davis conflict of interest. Of course.
Phil wrote:
“Depends whether you think a massively increased risk of infection with a potentially fatal illness constitutes ‘harm’, really.”
You’ve got the wrong end of the stick, Phil. The scientific purpose of mass vaccination with MMR is to achieve herd immunity. For this, the health authorities need to reach about 95% coverage in the population. For many years the figure has been well below 90%, and it’s not going to change much in the foreseeable future, in Ireland or Britain. So, what is the point of spending so much taxpayers’ money on funding and promoting MMR vaccination?
Many people seem to lose sight of these basic facts:
* No one needs vaccination.
* All vaccines have nasty side effects.
* Vaccination means massive profits for Big Pharma and big business for doctors too.
* Parents have a right to decide what goes into their children’s bodies.
Calling measles “a potentially fatal illness” doesn’t get us anywhere. When I was growing up nobody spoke of measles like that, and we all caught it. Measles has been around for all of recorded history, and it’s not going away. If you want anecdote… I know many people who refuse all vaccinations. They and their kids are the healthiest people I know.
On homeopathy: Nobody has done the meta-analysis
False – I read about just such a meta-analysis several years ago. It actually showed a tiny positive effect – nothing to shout about, perhaps just enough to suggest that bigger and better-controlled studies might be useful.
Calling measles “a potentially fatal illness” doesn’t get us anywhere.
Except that it’s a statement of fact. Yes, I’ve had it too & didn’t die. I’ve also had chicken pox and didn’t die of that either; a friend’s wife, on the other hand, did. Most people have these illnesses and recover; a few don’t. It seems pretty sensible to minimise the chance of contracting them.
Damned if I understand your ‘herd immunity’ argument. You seem to be arguing that, for as long as immunisation doesn’t reach 95%, fluctuations around (or below) the 90% mark won’t have any effect. But that’s both intuitively false and contradicted by recent evidence.
Parents have a right to decide what goes into their children’s bodies.
Do parents have a right to make decisions on the basis of ignorance and misinformation? Just wondering.
… I’ve also had chicken pox and didn’t die of that either; a friend’s wife, on the other hand, did. Most people have these illnesses and recover; a few don’t. It seems pretty sensible to minimise the chance of contracting them.
By vaccinating? Most European countries, including the UK, don’t vaccinate against chickenpox. Cf. http://www.whale.to/v/chicken1.html
Damned if I understand your ‘herd immunity’ argument. You seem to be arguing that, for as long as immunisation doesn’t reach 95%, fluctuations around (or below) the 90% mark won’t have any effect.
I didn’t say that, but I’ll point out that health authorities insist that there will be outbreaks of the normal childhood diseases if vaccination coverage does not reach a threshold figure of over 90%. I would agree with that assertion, though I disagree with vaccination.
Do parents have a right to make decisions on the basis of ignorance and misinformation? Just wondering.
Now you’re trying to insinuate that people who reject vaccination are ignorant.
I suggest that you could learn from them:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/vaccination.html
http://www.doctoryourself.com/vaccin_2.html
http://www.whale.to/vaccines.html
I wasn’t relying on the results of the Cochrane report, but subsequent studies (all independent of the British government, Illuminati fans) have failed to find a link. This includes a study of incidences of autism in Japan which showed that levels were unchanged after they abandoned the MMR vaccine. JAPS is a fake journal, and a pretty far-right one judging by some of their other papers.
Wakefield was discredited by the fact that there was a serious conflict of interest in his role in a legal case that involved several of the parents of participants in his study and he didn’t disclose this. This is serious scientific misconduct and it taints the evidence. The proper thing to have done would have been to repeat the study with participants with no financial interest in the outcome. He also had a personal financial stake in proving that the MMR vaccine was unsafe, and again its professional misconduct not to disclose this fact. That’s why his coauthors retracted, not because of any conspiracy. Its like somebody who’s been uncovered faking research – he’s tainted goods, nobody trusts him or his research.
There is a tiny chance of brain fever if you get the MMR vaccine (or any measles vaccine). There is a much larger chance if you don’t get the vaccination. It greatly reduces the risk, but doesn’t eliminate it.
I don’t know about you, but I read the posts of David Kirby in the Huffington Post blog, and he wasn’t confused at all. In the Hannah Poling case, the U.S. Government admitted that the vaccination was part of the cause of the girl’s autism. You can phrase it any way you like, but those are the facts.
The US government didn’t admit anything of the sort. They admitted that her encephalopathy may have been caused by her vaccinations, and on balance of probabilities, awarded her money (from a fund designed for just such eventualities). She didn’t have autism, she had three symptoms of autism which is not the same thing. And the encephalopathy was caused by a fever of some kind – a mild fever completely unconnected to the vaccine could as easily done it.
This link is good for anyone actually interested:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/the_hannah_poling_case_and_the_rebrandin.php
Basically she had a three symptoms of autism, but given she had encephalopathy this is not entirely surprising. There was no evidential link between the vaccinations and the outcome – any fever (or even a cold) might have done it), but on balance of probabilities (it was a legal case) she was awarded it by a board that was set up to compensate people who suffer adversely from vaccination (always a small risk, unfortunately. It reduces risks, it doesn’t eliminate them).
“Of course there’s a greater risk…” That’s what you say. We’ll take our chances without the vaccine, thank you.
Right. Statistics. Work of the devil. Like I said, the Catholic church is always an option for you.
Calling measles “a potentially fatal illness” doesn’t get us anywhere.
Oh for god’s sake. All it means is that it might kill you. Tuberculosis is a potentially fatal illness also – would you refuse medicine for that?
Measles used to kill a small number of people every year. It also caused brain and severe physical damage to a larger number. This is hardly controversial.
A meta-analysis has been done on homeophathy. Nobody has found more than small, but statistically insignificant, affects. More research might find something, but then again it might not. To date there is no evidence that homeopathy works, and little to suggest that such evidence will be found. Incidentally, there’s nothing stopping homeopaths doing proper research if they want to. So far they haven’t.
And you’re quite certain that there never will be evidence.
on the balance of probabilities this seems likely at present. I don’t have a stake in it either way. I’m a disinterested observer.
I’m skeptical about homeopathy simply because it is based upon a theory that is largely (and probably entirely) nonsense, rather than proceeding through trials, and careful examination of evidence (both positive and negative). Conventional medicine isn’t perfect in this regard, but its a damn site better than homeopathy. There seems to very little critical self-reflection in homeopathy, which would be worrying in any practitioner based discipline.
Just to clarify (even though Phil already has) that the inclusion of ‘will’ in my first paragraph was unnecessary. My bad.
It should of course be “Because a meta-analysis of fair, randomised, controlled trials show that the people taking placebo sugar pills do just as well as those taking homeopathy pills.”
Although while I’m not sure about the predictive nature of such trials, I’d be pretty certain that they will continue with similar conclusions.
So its not “what [I] believe”, soubresauts.
also check out,
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=42
“Homeopathic “Remedies” are Placebos
After 200 years and numerous studies, including many randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) and several meta-analyses and systematic reviews, homeopathy has performed exactly as described above. The best that proponents can offer is equivocal evidence of a weak effect compared to placebo. That is exactly what is expected if homeopathy is placebo.”
Basically the evidence against homeopathy’s efficacy is overwhelming.
Socialism is death.
http://sinblancaporelmundo.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/una-imagen-una-palabra/
Most European countries, including the UK, don’t vaccinate against chickenpox. Cf. http://www.whale.to/v/chicken1.html
No, but it might not be a bad idea – according to this study, in the UK around 25 people per year die from chickenpox (9.22 per 100,000 cases).
When I was growing up, it was expected that at some point you would get measles, rubella and chickenpox; mumps was less common, but it was still seen as just one of those things that you couldn’t do much about, and which in most cases wouldn’t do much harm.
But there’s the rub: most cases aren’t all cases. Mumps in adult males can cause sterility; rubella in pregnant women can cause birth defects; measles and chicken-pox can kill. We took the risk lightly – just as most of the quotes on the page you link to take it lightly – because there was nothing much we could do about it. In the absence of a vaccine, I’d agree with the MD who said there was not much point trying to avoid rubella, say.
The availability of vaccines changes everything. If we know that X% of the people who contract an infection are likely to die, and if there’s not much we can do at the public health level to bring down the value of X, it seems like a good idea to bring down the number of people who contract the infection. And vaccination is effective in bringing that number down.
health authorities insist that there will be outbreaks of the normal childhood diseases if vaccination coverage does not reach a threshold figure of over 90%.
Eradicating measles would be nice, but if that’s not going to happen it still seems like a good idea to minimise the number of people who can contract it.
Really, I’m at a loss to understand what you’re arguing. It can’t be that measles doesn’t sometimes kill, or that a higher rate of vaccination doesn’t lead to a lower rate of measles infection, because both of those statements are false.
Now you’re trying to insinuate that people who reject vaccination are ignorant.
No, I’m stating that at least some people who reject vaccination do so on the basis of incorrect beliefs, derived in part from ignorance and in part from misinformation. Massive publicity for the results of badly-conducted experiments being a major factor.
I remember chickenpox. The whole family got it over a period of several weeks. It struck on holiday in North Wales, where we were in some dismal chalet, more like a cabin. I’m not sure we could go out and even if we could, it was raining. Still, at least there was a flickering telly and we could try and watch the Test match. And then they dug up the pitch and wrote GEORGE DAVIS IS INNOCENT on it.
ejh – ‘Sham 69′ fans? He innocent wasn’t was he?
On the homeopathy discussion, hasn’t there been a recent report revealing the same for Prozac. It could be we underestimate the ‘power’ of the mind to help in the healing process? I’m not getting all ‘hippy’ in my old age but within my extended family two had strokes, one suffered depression and basically gave up and is now incapacated. The other was determined to ‘get better’ and made a significant recovery. So maybe homeopathy helps some people because they believe it will help?
oops! – first line should read “wasn’t innocent”. I will have to learn to type!
Cian wrote:
I wasn’t relying on the results of the Cochrane report, but subsequent studies (all independent of the British government, Illuminati fans) have failed to find a link.
Are we supposed to know who or what Illuminati fans are? Is it relevant?
JAPS is a fake journal…
What does that mean?
Wakefield was discredited by the fact that there was a serious conflict of interest…
Wakefield has defended himself time and time again over this, and now he’s defending himself before the GMC in England. I think you’ve been reading the wrong media about Wakefield. See: http://tinyurl.com/2nel3o
Its like somebody who’s been uncovered faking research – he’s tainted goods, nobody trusts him or his research.
It is obvious that a great many people trust him. I’m not a fan of Wakefield, since he’s pro-vaccination, but I don’t see the point of denigrating him.
She [Hannah Poling] didn’t have autism, she had three symptoms of autism which is not the same thing.
I think we’re getting the picture: Autism is the disorder that is NOT caused by vaccination. When vaccination is the cause, it can’t be autism; it’s called autism spectrum disorder. Whatever.
This link is good for anyone actually interested:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/03/the_hannah_poling_case_and_the_rebrandin.php
You say that blog is good, and no doubt you’ll say that any blog I cite is bad… But where is the truth?
Basically she had a three symptoms of autism, but given she had encephalopathy this is not entirely surprising. There was no evidential link between the vaccinations and the outcome – any fever (or even a cold) might have done it), but on balance of probabilities (it was a legal case) she was awarded it by a board that was set up to compensate people who suffer adversely from vaccination.
There was “no evidential link between the vaccinations and the outcome”, but the U.S. Government still paid out without contesting the case? It’s as simple as that, is it?
Why is it so difficult for other parents of vaccine-damaged children? Anyway, expect many more of them to sue the health authorities because “vaccination caused those symptoms of autism”. And of course governments will fight to stop them getting legal aid.
And when judges have family links to the medical establishment…
Right. Statistics. Work of the devil. Like I said, the Catholic church is always an option for you.
How would you know?
Oh for god’s sake. All it means is that it [measles] might kill you. Tuberculosis is a potentially fatal illness also – would you refuse medicine for that?
Of course not, but I would certainly reject the BCG vaccine, which is admitted to be ineffective by many doctors.
About homeopathy:
I’m a disinterested observer.
Glad to hear it. Me too.
I’m skeptical about homeopathy…
Me too.
… There seems to very little critical self-reflection in homeopathy, which would be worrying in any practitioner based discipline.
I doubt that there’s “very little critical self-reflection”. Probably most of the published homeopathy literature is not in English, so it wouldn’t be so obvious to us.
Pax wrote:
also check out,
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=42
I’d give more time to those self-proclaimed champions of evidence-based medicine if they didn’t advertise dodgy websites like Quackwatch (Stephen “Combover” Barrett) and routinely advocate scientifically fraudulent measures like fluoridation.
Basically the evidence against homeopathy’s efficacy is overwhelming.
I’m sceptical, but also underwhelmed.
JAPS has no scientific credibility (i.e. on citation indices they don’t show up), their peer review process seems to be a joke and their routinely run whacky papers on far-right obsessions (the link between breast cancer and abortion, for example).
I don’t care if Wakefield has defended himself, and I’m quite capable of finding the facts out for myself without relying upon “the wrong media”. He had a financial conflict of interest, his participants had a financial conflict of interest. He should have declared it, he didn’t. Science is an endeavour dependent upon trust – Wakefield violated that, consequently he can’t be relied upon to produce untainted scientific knowledge. I would feel the same way if (as has happened) he was doing drug research and had hidden financial connections to the drug company. Scientific ethics matter to me, and matter to most scientists, which is why he has been treated in the way that he has.
It is obvious that a great many people trust him.
That’s nice, but not terribly relevant.
I think we’re getting the picture: Autism is the disorder that is NOT caused by vaccination. When vaccination is the cause, it can’t be autism; it’s called autism spectrum disorder.
Who is this ‘we’?
Hanna had a mitochondrial disease, which is a rare genetic disorder, which in her case meant that she was prone to develop encephalopathy (basically brain damage) in response to stress, or fever. Usually the fever is a normal childhoold illness. There is no doubt among any of the medical authorities who examined her that she had a regressive encephalopathy, as a consequence of this her disorder had some features in common with autism.
These features were: poor eye contact, poor relatedness and fixating on fluorescent lights. To meet the standard criteria of autism a person must meet six of the criteria. She wasn’t autistic by the standard definition, which is what the medical report said. So no, she wasn’t autistic.
The vaccination may have caused the fever, but in any child lacking this genetic disorder would have been fine. The vaccination did not cause the brain disorder – that was caused by the (extremely rare) genetic defect.
You say that blog is good, and no doubt you’ll say that any blog I cite is bad… But where is the truth?
The blog post has done a good job of collecting all the available information, which might be of interest to some people who haven’t already made up their minds on this issue. Note, I didn’t use it to support my argument.
There was “no evidential link between the vaccinations and the outcome”, but the U.S. Government still paid out without contesting the case? It’s as simple as that, is it?
You really don’t know much about this case at all, do you.
She sought compensation from the VCIP, which was a special government body set up to provide compensation to anyone who was damaged by vaccinations.Vaccinations are not entirely without risk, and nobody has ever claimed that they were.
The VCIP will compensate any injury attributed to vaccines, where the standard evidence meets a legal standard for civil injury cases (which is far lower than scientific standards). Basically anything above 50%. Given that her fever came shortly after the vaccination, they ruled in her favour ona balance of probabilities.
Why is it so difficult for other parents of vaccine-damaged children?
Because they do not present strong evidence that their children were in fact damaged by vaccines.
Anyway, expect many more of them to sue the health authorities because “vaccination caused those symptoms of autism”.
They already are (if you mean the VCIP), as part of the autism omnibus. Hanna Poling was originally one of the test cases for this, but she was removed and settled seperately. I don’t know why. The other test cases have not gone very well, and they seem to be losing. Due to the special circumstances of the Hanna Poling case, it will have no affect on the other autism cases.
And when judges have family links to the medical establishment…
More conspiracies. Lovely.
More conspiracies. Lovely.
Huh? You implicitly acknowledge that parents of vaccine-damaged children have a right to sue the authorities, but you seem to have no problem with what happened in England — where the judge who stopped the litigants’ legal aid did have a family link to the medical establishment.
Well, we’ll see what effect the Hannah Poling case has on the other autism lawsuits…
The case we were discussing was an American case. Within the American legal system. And within the American legal system there is something called the VCIP – a body set up to specifically compensate Americans who are deemed under the civil legal system’s requirement of proof to have been damaged by vaccines. Not the British legal system, but the American legal system. You do know that Britain isn’t actually the 51st state, right?
Now when you referred to judges having links to the medical establishment as part of comment on that case I, not unreasonably, assumed you meant a US judge. You see conversations have context, and the context was the US.
Now if you had asked me, which of course you never did, what I thought of the UK appeal on the “legal aid” claim I would have said that I thought the judge should have recused himself, and that the appeal should be heard in front of a different judge, but I wouldn’t expect a different outcome.
Oh, and actually the judge didn’t have a link to the medical establishment. He had a link (via his brother, who is a non-executive, which is largely window dressing) to a drug company who make the vaccine. Which is actually worse, and doesn’t sound conspiratorial.
Medical establishment would be senior doctors within the NHS, which does sound pretty conspiritorial. I mean I have a family link to the medical establishment. I’m pretty sure my uncle doesn’t meet with other senior doctors and discuss what to do about the MMR jab.
Well, we’ll see what effect the Hannah Poling case has on the other autism lawsuits…
Unless litigants in the other autism cases have mitochondrial disorders, none whatsoever. Sorry.
Oh, and actually the judge didn’t have a link to the medical establishment. He had a link (via his brother, who is a non-executive, which is largely window dressing) to a drug company who make the vaccine. Which is actually worse, and doesn’t sound conspiratorial.
The medical establishment includes The Lancet, owned by Reed Elsevier, whose executive director Sir Crispin Davis, brother of the judge Sir Nigel Davis, was also (at the time of the judgement) a director of Glaxo SmithKline, the MMR manufacturer. The same Lancet that had, shortly before, withdrawn Wakefield’s paper. Which sounds conspiratorial.
… Not the British legal system, but the American legal system. You do know that Britain isn’t actually the 51st state, right?
You do know that Scotland’s legal system is different from England’s, right?
Reed Elsevier is a publisher, and it is preposterous to suggest that its a member of the medical establishment, any more than its a member of the engineering, or physical sciences, establishments. The editor of the Lancet is a member of the medical establishment, but he has editorial independence which he’s quite happy to exercise (an editorial criticisng Reed’s role in the organisation of exhibitions for the arms trade, for example). Richard Horton is the last person to back away from a fight (the inverse – the Iraq war surveys for example, to name but one), and if his editorial independence was compromised I find it highly unlikely that he would back down without a highly (public) fight. Such a fight would of course destroy The Lancet’s repuation, and would thus damage one of Reed Elsevier’s most valuable assets.
Crispin Davis was a non-executive director of SmithKline. Its a nice little financial extra for directors (but a fraction of what their main job pays), for which they do very little work. They turn up to the occasional meeting, agree to the executives pay demands and that’s about it. Most executive directors have several of these, and they seem to be easily replaced. The idea that Crispin Davis would jepordise his main job (and potentially his career), by putting one of its major assets at risk, in order to help a company in which he held a non-executive position, is extremely unlikely.
When there was a very good reason for the Lancet to withdraw the paper (an undeclared conflict of interest), rather than this rather convoluted conspiracy theory, it sounds whacked.
Nigel Davis should have recused himself because his brother had a financial connection to Glaxo. Its a conflict of interest, if a much weaker one than that of Andrew wakefield.
You do know that Scotland’s legal system is different from England’s, right?
What, really? Gosh. Which doesn’t explain why you thought a US legal case had any bearing on the UK legal system. The right of US plaintiffs to sue is completely irrelivant of UK plaintiffs. You seemed to think otherwise
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/modernism/sokal2.htm
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/modernism/NormanLevitt.htm
That’s very interesting, Louis. You’ve set me reading a lot more.
Pax wrote:
“Basically the evidence against homeopathy’s efficacy is overwhelming.”
Pax, how do you explain animal homeopathy (which is a very big business)?
Did anyone notice how close the Spiked people were to the Blair government? … The political wing of the multinational corporations.
I think it’s unfortunate how Dawkins sometimes gets mentioned in the same breath as Ben Goldacre, Quackwatch, Spiked, Sense About Science, American Council on Science & Health, and so on.
soubresauts, I’m 100% sure I wouldn’t put Goldacre in with Spiked…
Well, Goldacre’s badscience.net site advertises Quackwatch, which is happy to quote the Spiked people. See, for example:
http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/immu/autism.html
I think Goldacre’s site used to link to Sense About Science, but I’m not sure. You have to admit they sound very similar on issues like homeopathy and vaccination.
nobody said the spiked crowd were wrong about everything. If you are dead against 100% of what passes for progressive/liberal these days then you are bound to be right about some matters.
that doesn’t make them any less an unspeakable shower of shites
”
Well, Goldacre’s badscience.net site advertises Quackwatch, which is happy to quote the Spiked people. See, for example:
http://www.quackwatch.org/03HealthPromotion/immu/immu/autism.html
I think Goldacre’s site used to link to Sense About Science, but I’m not sure. You have to admit they sound very similar on issues like homeopathy and vaccination.”
That’s yet another appallingly low example of guilt by association. In this case, it’s not even guilt by association, it’s guilt by linking to somebody who once quoted the guilty.
You have to admit that you sound very similar to all the conspiranoid mentalists in the world on homeopathy and vaccination too.
Who are “all the conspiranoid mentalists in the world”?
Chekov, if you have a point to make, why not make it in plain English?
I would agree that we shouldn’t pay too much attention to guilt by association. I’ll even admit that I’ve seen some useful, well-written pieces on the badscience and Quackwatch websites (dunno about SAS and Spiked).
But… there’s so much sham scientism, pro-corporate propaganda, and sheer bloody hatred on those websites that I want to counter the popular impression that they’re “good guys”.
Unless litigants in the other autism cases have mitochondrial disorders, none whatsoever. Sorry.
Cian, do you have any idea how common mitochondrial disorders are among people with autism?
Nigel Davis should have recused himself because his brother had a financial connection to Glaxo. Its a conflict of interest, if a much weaker one than that of Andrew wakefield.
Much weaker? Do you have any idea how much money was at stake in Nigel Davis’ decision? Or how much money GlaxoSmithKline is earning from MMR?
Well, we’ll see what effect the Hannah Poling case has on the other autism lawsuits…
Cian replied:
“Unless litigants in the other autism cases have mitochondrial disorders, none whatsoever. Sorry.”
Some experts think now that up to 20% of all children with autism may have underlying mitochondrial dysfunction. See:
http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/press032808.php
So it’s beginning to seem like the vaccination-sceptics have the science on their side.
There’s a useful summary of the background to all this here:
http://www.nationalautismassociation.org/press041108a.php
Bear in mind that Ireland follows the U.S. model fairly closely.
Is it possible that Sense About Science and their fellow-travellers are wrong about every issue?