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stwl2006

Listed below are comments made by stwl2006 between Thursday, 12th February 2009 and Thursday, 26th November 2009.

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What's wrong with football? Blame women! 1:18pm on 26 Nov 2009 "Laughing or horrified?" What, no other options? I can't help thinking that the world Paul Fletcher inhabits is a bit more advanced in its gender politics than (a) that inhabited by many of the commenters and (b) reality. Sure, the report this year will be worded a great deal more carefully, lest it cause offence, but the content will probably be similar in many ways.
Time to eat the pets? 12:00pm on 15 Nov 2009 Most of the responses completely miss the point. It's not a matter of "blame the pets", as opposed to humans taking responsibility; pets are, by definition, animals that humans have chosen to domesticate. It's your choice to have pets - however severe the environmental consequences may or may not be, responsibility resides ultimately with the owners. In the long run, why shouldn't people be persuaded to have smaller pets, like they're being persuaded to have smaller cars?
WHO: Swine flu jab as safe as seasonal vaccine 01:48am on 31 Oct 2009 "2. At 7:09pm on 30 Oct 2009, BrownbankruptsBrits wrote:

Anyone who trusts the government or their friends in Big Pharma need their head`s testing"

Evidently a necessary but not a sufficient condition, eh?
Nutt gets the sack 01:01am on 31 Oct 2009 Some people keep talking here as though Prof. Nutt is an embodiment of the concept of "Science" (their capitals) and the politicians are an embodiment of superstition, intuition or similar. They also seem to think that it's nonsensical to replace him, because Science deals with "the facts" and the facts will remain the same, so any other competent Scientist brought in will say the same as he does.

Regrettably, that's not how science works, although arguably it should. Rather, scientists formulate hypotheses and test them. They report the results of these tests, in addition to hypotheses that have not been proven yet but which they consider interesting or promising.

In this case, the controversial views expressed by the professor cover both outcomes and hypotheses. The findings about the relative harm of drugs should be robust, in which case the Government has no business attempting to disclaim them.

The Professor's views on the effectiveness of the drugs classification system, and in particular the effect on the public of reclassification, are much more conjectural. Notably, he appears to believe that promoting a drug to class A makes it more desirable for users, whereas the Government holds the opposite view. However, there is no evidence (as far as I'm aware) to favour either of these hypotheses above the other.

The Government appears concerned that the publicity attached to the Professor's views on the classification system damages the credibility of its own position. For this reason, they are entitled to dismiss him from his advisory role, which I can't see as an affront to science. The affront to science would be if robust, replicable findings due to the Professor are also to be swept under the carpet for reasons of political expediency. If the Professor's replacement takes pains to distance himself or herself from the existing research, we're entitled to treat their contribution to the debate with suspicion, as it would suggest that the politicisation had then gone beyond the domain of opinion and into that of fact.
Scientists v Politicians: Round 3 12:11pm on 29 Oct 2009 I would usually leap at the chance to support a scientist criticising the Government, but this one doesn't look too promising. If Mark Easton's article is an accurate reflection of Prof Nutt's view, then the professor has succumbed to playing politics with his own statistics. The comparison of the proportional effect of lung cancer versus schizophrenia is a complete irrelevance - the difference in occurrence rates for these conditions ensures that - ditto the comparison with horse-riding accidents. These are exactly the kind of remarks politicians like to make: spurious comparisons that superficially back up the course of action they've already decided upon.

Mind you, in the final analysis, it's still tempting to blame the Government; if they hadn't so sweepingly dismissed the findings of their experts in the first place, said experts wouldn't desperately be trying to defend themselves, and could concentrate on the process of actual scientific enquiry.
No ordinary week for the PM 11:57am on 26 Sep 2009 To return to the blog entry: I think it would be more accurate, maybe even more impartial, to say that there are two media narratives concerning Gordon Brown. One lazily states that he's doomed and seizes on any evidence to confirm it. The other lazily states that he's not doomed and does likewise. Problem is, over the long run, the weight of evidence appears to be on the side of the first narrative.
Why don't the Conservatives spell out their plans? 6:28pm on 08 Sep 2009 It's nice of load_of_bull (comment #6) to go in to bat for the poor and underprivileged MPs. Only problem is, we don't seem to have any of those.
Not so stressed 01:55am on 08 May 2009 Re: #69 (Moncursalion-Occamist): based on your figures, the annual national wage bill is £750bn, not £75bn. Still, I suppose that supports the argument that people make glaring, boneheaded errors when handling large numbers.
Map of the Week: A depressing picture 7:21pm on 06 Apr 2009 While I wouldn't wish to interfere with jennysue's treatment regime, Google searching "Xocai" and "scam" does make me wonder whether she would be as well-served by some less aggressively-marketed product...
Ecstasy risks 12:51pm on 12 Feb 2009 Generally I agree with your analysis, but

"I am not an expert on this kind of analysis, but I do wonder whether we need better evidence to conclude that ecstasy users are significantly more likely to beat someone up on Wednesday nights than their responses to sentence construction."

is a cheap shot. You are referring to a standard technique for psychological investigation, apparently widely accepted as diagnostic. Would you have said "we need better evidence....than some old guy in lab bending over a microscope"?

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