I just got back from New York where I spent an incredible time spending – you can’t really avoid it in the Big Apple – it’s so expensive and you feel obliged to tip anything that moves. I guess I’ll be paying this one off on plastic for some time but I think it was worth it. While there, I undertook two pilgrimages – one to The Dakota apartment block where John Lennon was gunned down in the street

Outside the Dakota, New York, Christmas Day

on Dec 8th  in 1980 – (Like all of the those flashbulb memories, I vividly remember when I heard the news). I went on Christmas morning- no presents to unwrap and the streets were empty. The security guard outside the exclusive building, huddled in his little copper booth, was not in a particularly festive mood – I guess he gets asked the same dumb question all the time and after all, he was sitting freezing on Christmas morning outside a block of some of the most sumptuous real estate that only the seriously-rich can afford. So I snapped my shot of the spot, and then headed over across the road to a corner of central park now known forever as “Strawberry Fields.”

The Mosaic Shrine in Strawberry Fields

The “Imagine” mosaic in tribute of Lennon has now become a tourist attraction and has taken on something of a shrine-type status. I don’t believe in ghosts but it is surprising how easily one’s thoughts turn to imagining Lennon strolling around the park having trodden the very same paths. I guess that’s what fame and adulation creates. New York has always been jammed packed with the famous, but only a few of those of personal significance conjure of the ghosts of Christmas past.

What Was is No Longer

So it was off to 315 Bowery street down near the Village to what was once, the hottest music venue in town, CBGBs. This is where The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Blondie and just about every band that was part of my youth got started. Its heyday was in the the late 70’s and early eighties but it survived up until about 2 years ago when it finally closed down and became an extremely trendy John Varvatos boutique.

CBGBs Today is the now a branch of John Varvatos

Part of the Original CBGB

To their credit, or business savvy, they have maintained the punk interior, replete with memorabilia and a stage set-up with full drum kit and  guitars just daring you to pogo around the shop. They have kept the toilet area almost completely unaltered. I dread to think what went on there…

Anyway, I was never here in its heyday and probably just as well as I guess the transformation from a punk haven into an up market mens boutique would be difficult to swallow. So what did I do? Did I sneak a quick gob on the floor? Are you kidding?? Varvatos had a sale going and I managed to pick up a tidy jacket that was half price. I can hear Joey, Johnny and Dee Dee turning in their graves.

Well that time of year has come round again. The snow has fallen, the lights on the Christmas tree beckon, and all around little faces beam with good cheer. Every year we celebrate traditions – mistletoe, yule logs, and of course the Christmas hit single. In recent years, this has been predictably a manufactured piece of pap from Simon Cowell’s latest winner from”The X Factor.” Except this year, it looks like the public have had enough of being led by the nose on what counts as the number 1 single. Here is what may be the beginning of the end of the worst period of media control by a single individual. Ladies and gentleman, Rage Against the Machine.

If that is not your cup of tea then you could always go for the more melodic and witty masterpiece by the brilliant Australian maestro Tim Minchin…such a great guy.

Now, if only we can take on  Murdoch.

This one really beggars belief! A two-year-old Brazilian boy was admitted to hospital with 50 sewing needles inserted into him. The boy who lives with his mother and step-father is apparently not in any immediate danger but the needles have been inserted close to vital organs making their removal difficult. The mother has no explanation but the finger has been pointed and the boy’s stepfather with the accusation that  it is something to do with black magic. The family clearly live in poverty and once again we are reminded that the most vulnerable always seem to suffer when people turn to ritual.

I hope that this story turns out to be a fake as we discovered with the one about the Peruvian gang last month who were reported as killing victims for their body fat to be sold to the cosmetics industry, but somehow this xray seems pretty convincing that this poor child has been used as a human pin cushion. Whether it is superstitious ritual remains to be determined. Merry Christmas

Senior Dignitaries of Dorchester Rotary Club

I was in Dorcherster, England last night giving the last of my public lectures on SuperSense – yes that’s right – I’m done with that shtick and thinking of new projects and greener pastures for the coming year. It was a cracking turn out of about 400 most elderly people.  It was co-sponsored by the local Rotary Club (could not have been more courteous) who took lots of photographs of me shaking hands with local dignitaries.. I guess they don’t get that many celebrities in Dorchester…;)… Midway, an elderly gentleman “took a turn” and had to be taken out so I hope it wasn’t my cannibal stories. I even had to modify my smutty jokes and discussion of absorbing youth through essential sex. Oh well, the audience bought a decent number of books to sign and they genuinely seemed to enjoy my act.

The Wessex Hotel where they put me up was very fine but obviously catered for the more senior citizens – still it was nice to have a four-poster bed. But what caught my eye on the way up to my room, were the local tourist brochures. Dorchester was hosting the “World Renowned Tutankhamun Exhibition”and there was also a unique museum dedicated to the Chinese “Terracotta Warriors.” Maybe I had misjudged sleepy Dorchester! I would have time to visit these magnificent museums in the morning.

However, when I went to check booking online I found out that although King Tut’s was a “spectacular unforgettable experience – spanning time itself,” it turns out that everything in it was reproduction. And the Terracotta Warriors Museum housed treasures that had been replicated in China – NOT TO BE MISSED! Needless to say, I didn’t bother going. But why? Why do we value the authentic and reject the reproduction? Well, if you have been following the blog or have read the book,  you know the answer by now. No wonder they were delighted to see a real-live lecturer. Anyway, thank you Dorchester.

Are you a bit girly?

Did you know that the ratio of length of your ring finger to your index finger is a marker for the amount of testosterone you were exposed to as a foetus? Testosterone is part of the process that turns little girls into little boys (that’s one of the reasons that men have nipples!). In males the ring finger is typically longer than the index finger and the larger that ratio, the more butch you are. It also turns out that the more butch you are, the less likely you are to believe in the supernatural.

A recent study of  over a thousand Austrian men and women found that  a correlation between the digit ration and supernatural belief. Martin Voracek, a psychologist at the University of Vienna, found that the ratio of length of the ring finger to the index finger predicted belief. Voracek found that “higher feminized” digit ratio in men correlated with stronger paranormal and superstitious beliefs, even when controlled for age, education, adult height and weight, and birth length and weight. Shorter feminized digit ratios in women correlated with more superstitious beliefs, as did a woman’s lighter weight at birth. So it would appear that there is some biological basis for individual differences in supernatural beliefs as I have pointed out in SuperSense.

When I wrote a guest article for the Skepchik Blog, about why there are more female believers in woo, I got slammed down by a whole bunch of naysayers, (especially one sarky commentator) claiming that it was all to do with environment. Well, of course, there is usually some role of environment but if you haven’t figured by now, there is a little bit of the nativist about me.

Last month I had the honour to chair Richard Dawkins when he gave a talk in Bristol about his new book, “The Greatest Show on Earth.” We exchanged respective signed copies of our books and I have been slowly working my way through his though I have to say I have not yet finished – a million writing deadlines of my own to complete.

But I did want to write a post on the opening to Chapter 2 entitled, “Dogs, Cows and Cabbages.” In it Dawkins, asks the question, “Why is it so difficult for people to accept natural selection,” and he gives the answer, that when I read it,   knocked me off my seat – essentialism. If you have not read SuperSense, a large proportion of it addresses this notion that we believe the world is inhabited by essences and that this explains many supernatural beliefs and practices. So you can imagine how gratifying it was to see it pop up in Dawkins’ latest book where he calls its influence, “the dead hand of Plato.”

However, if I had researched SuperSense more thoroughly I would have discovered that essentialism is also the answer given by Ernst Mayr for why people have a problem with natural selection. Mayr points out that since the time of Plato, people have assumed that there is a true identity to reality that cannot necessarily been seen directly. It’s like there is an ideal form for all the things we detect in the world. So there is an essential dog, an essential tree and so forth. All the variation we experience in the world is interpreted as some deviation from an ideal form – a form that is essential. But such a viewpoint is inconsistent with continual change and evolution. Origins of species through natural selection does not fit with the Platonic view and this is a point that I made in the book. You don’t have to teach children this. They naturally assume that all species are essentially different from each other and that’s why they have a problem with accepting Darwin.

Of course, I go further than Dawkins and Mayr in my theory. Essentialism is not just a belief about true identity. It manifests as a supernatural force that can contaminate reality. There is essential evil, essential goodness, essential youth, and indeed I would argue that we essentialize those things we consider unique such as individuals. I argue that an individual’s essence can contaminate an inanimate object or possession – maybe even a signed book. This is one reason why some people don’t want to touch or wear the killer’s cardigan. It also explains why we find the notions of duplication, genetic modification and all manner of procedures that violate the integrity of the individual as abhorrent. We are not necessarily aware of this way of thinking and as I have been at pains to point out, it may operate intuitively, but I think that every child born is still shaking the dead hand of Plato.

Back in January, I blogged about Michael Shermer’s visit to the creationist zoo in Somerset, Noah’s Ark. We had a fun day trying to make sense of the owner, Anthony Bush’s warped sense of reality. “Yes, of course God created all the animals but not in 10,000 years- that would be nonsense. No, he did it in 100,000 years!” proclaimed Anthony, adding, “We not like those crazy literal creationists you have in America.”

Well, today the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA) expelled Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm for bringing the association into disrepute. Sadly, it was not for blatant pseudoscience and misleading the thousands of children who visit the zoo every year. Turns out that Anthony has been a bit naughty. He has been running an illegal breeding programme for endangered species and was exposed by an undercover BBC reporting team that showed he had even buried a tiger at the zoo, contravening health and safety as well as animal care legislation. Anthony Bush’s excuse was that all he had done was treat it as if a pet had died.

I doubt whether expulsion from BIAZA will have any major effect on the zoo; especially if schools are prepared to send children to Noah’s Ark for educational visits. When we were there, Anthony showed us the new educational centre they were completing. Still, he might think twice about burying the elephant in the sand pit. Like most creationists who ignore the overwhelming evidence for evolution, sadly Anthony has already buried his own head there.

Take a good, hard look Mr McCormick - That's not rust in the water.

I don’t usually feel like getting on a soapbox about woo because for the most part, it is harmless belief and we are all a bit susceptible to strange beliefs. However, when those beliefs have devastating consequences for others then it is time to shout out. I wrote about the witch-burnings and albino murders in Africa, but now I return to something a little closer to home.

A couple of weeks ago, a number of us (bad astronomer,  Ben Goldacre) blogged about the British company selling bomb detecting devices to Iraq that appears to be nothing more than simply a divining rod. The company, ATSC is registered in Yeovil, Somerset. (That’s my neck of the woods). ATSC’s managing director Jim McCormick, a former police officer, invented the detectors a decade ago. The “ADE651 device” costs around £35,000 ($60k). It appears to be a telescopic car aerial attached to a black box. Inside there is a plastic card that is supposed to be ready programmed with an electromagnetic ‘resonance’ of what needs to be detected. It is claimed to be based on the principles of nuclear quadrupole resonance but from what I understand that would require generating a magnetic field and sending out a strong pulse – something that seems to be absent in the ADE651 – its powered by body energy! Even if it does use NQR then it seems highly implausible that it can work from an airplane 3 miles up as claimed in the product details. Still, they have already sold an unbelievable £51 million’s worth to Iraq.

Not surprisingly, when a guard and a driver for The New York Times investigating this story, both licensed to carry firearms, drove through nine police checkpoints that were using the device, none of the checkpoint guards detected the two AK-47 rifles and ammunition inside the vehicle. Later, it even failed to detect a grenade and pistol in plain view on the table of the General in charge of the checkpoint, who replied that the operators needed more training.

Mr Jim McCormick, who generally does not return calls, is reported as saying, “We have been dealing with doubters for ten years. One of the problems we have is that the machine does look a little primitive. We are working on a new model that has flashing lights.”

Flashing lights? That will make it work then and ready for the festive period. Something for the kids maybe?

Take a good hard look at the pictures Jim McCormick. These are from the largest suicide car bomb since 2007 that took place in Baghdad back in October this year. I only just discovered that the two cars involved passed through a checkpoint equipped with the ADE651. If this is true, then I don’t think a few fairy lights will make the difference.

Technowiz has been particularly vocal in this issue with a whole blog dedicated to exposing ATSC . You might want to look at the response from Jim McCormick. I think this issue is too important to be reduced to a war of words and name calling. Rather, I think this company and its claims needs to be checked out. It is bad enough that we de-stabilized Iraq, but worse if we knowingly allowed unscrupulous businesses to exploit the naive.

If it turns out that ATSC have really developed technology to discover these devices then I think a Queen’s medal for technology is in order. But if it turns out that it is nothing more than divining, then it has to be stopped.

I have contacted David Laws who is the Liberal Democrat MP for Yeovil, where ATSC Ltd is registered to look into this mater. You might want to drop him a line if you feel as strongly as I do.

lawsd@parliament.uk

No doubt UK readers will be aware that the country’s largest pharmacy chain, “Boots” (formerly Boots the Chemists) admitted two days ago that they sold homeopathic remedies for no other reason that they were popular. Speaking to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which is investigating the scientific evidence behind homoeopathy, the professional standards director for Boots, Paul Bennett said,  ”There is certainly a consumer demand for these products, I have no evidence to suggest they are efficacious.”

So customer knows best. Well as pointed out by an open letter to Boots from the Merseyside Skeptics Society, the British public trust Boots and have neither the time nor expertise to evaluate the claims made by homeopaths. Only this morning, a medical GP and head of the faculty of homeopathy, Dr. Sara Eames appeared on BBC Breakfast television proclaiming that there was overwhelming scientific evidence for the efficacy of homeopathy and moreover, it was not just a placebo effect. This is not simply misleading the general public, this is telling big porky pies.

The whole homeopathy saga is like a broken record. Various voices such as Ben Goldacre or the Quackometer have written extensively on this medieval belief system – yes its older than 200 years (read SuperSense). But now with money involved and the House of Commons, it seems likely that the future of  five NHS Homeopathic hospitals (one in Bristol)  looks increasingly uncertain. But is Boots so bad? I was in another independent pharmacy yesterday picking up Tamiflu vaccine and the place was stocked with all manner of woo from herbal remedies to copper bracelets. People who hang out at these places clearly lap the woo all up.

But what about conventional medicine? Well, things are not much better when it comes to new medical treatments of depression.  I have been writing and researching the new anti-depressants including selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Prozac. These are some of the most common drugs prescribed by GPs today and the truth is that they are most likely as effective as homeopathy.

Last year, a meta-analysis of  SSRIs revealed serious flaws in the clinical trials. The authors confirmed first that the overall effect of these  antidepressants was below the recommended criteria for clinical significance. Then they showed that there was virtually no difference in the improvement scores for drug and placebo in patients with moderate depression and only a small and clinically insignificant difference among patients with very severe depression. The editor of the journal concludes, “These findings suggest that, compared with placebo, the new-generation antidepressants do not produce clinically significant improvements in depression in patients who initially have moderate or even very severe depression, but show significant effects only in the most severely depressed patients. The findings also show that the effect for these patients seems to be due to decreased responsiveness to placebo, rather than increased responsiveness to medication. Given these results, the researchers conclude that there is little reason to prescribe new-generation antidepressant medications to any but the most severely depressed patients unless alternative treatments have been ineffective.”

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the UK National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), and other licensing authorities have approved SSRIs for the treatment of depression. But with such serious doubts about the efficacy of SSRIs, are GPs right to continue prescribing these expensive drugs or should they switch to an infinitely dilute solution of arsenic or cuttlefish ink? After all, both GPs and homeopaths believe their treatments work. I guess the difference is that one seems plausible (altering neurotransmitter activity) where as the other seems supernatural (water memory, essence, vitality – call it what you want). The other main difference is that the process of scientific evaluation should eventually force the medical community to abandon procedures that are invalid.

Still, it does make you think – whether it is the belief in magic or the belief in neurotransmitter imbalance, they are arguably triggering the same mechanisms that make people feel better.

One of the world’s most valuable industries is rejuvenating cosmetics. This business is estimated to be around £6.4 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The average British woman will spend £186,000 on cosmetics in her lifetime, and a large proportion of this will be on anti-aging creams. These creams are largely based on essentialist beliefs that including various youthful ingredients like fetal tissue or mulched placenta will “rejuvenate” aging skin. Another belief is that human fat makes the best soap which according to experts is “pure baloney.”

Peruvian Police Display Bottles of Human Fat Extracted From Murder Victims

What else could have motivated the gruesome murder and harvesting of human fat by a Peruvian gang? The gang confessed to five murders where they hacked off the head and limbs and disemboweled poor peasants and then hung the torsos on meat hooks suspended over candles to melt the fat. The fat they harvested was apparently to be shipped to Italy, via intermediaries, where it would end up being used in expensive skin-softening beauty creams.

Experts are skeptical at the police reports but I could well believe that this gang were misguided. Remember Tyler Durden’s raids of liposuction clinics in “Fight Club?” If the gang had, then they would have probably realized that one of the few things that western society is not in short supply of is fat. Rather, it’s kidneys and livers they should have tried to sell rather than throwing them away

Update: Well it turns out that this story has been a hoax. Reuters just released this report that the police officer in charge has been fired for cooking up a story based on local superstitions.