Dolphin apologises to witches

Tom Dolphin, a member of the BMA's junior doctors' committee, ... said he had previously described homeopathy as witchcraft, but now wanted to apologise to witches for making that link.

From The Guardian, reporting on the BMA Conference.

(He was more moderate alsewhere in his speech, referring to homeopathy as "pernicious", "nonsense on stilts", "irrationality", "made up science", "insidious" and "something ...[that] does not work".)

Physician, heal thyself

I have an undistinguished B Sc degree. I am a very minor politician and I work in marketing and it is for the last of these that I apologise.

Last night I was fortunate enough to be invited to attend the annual lecture of Sense about Science. The key speaker was Dr Fiona Godlee, the editor of the British Medical Journal, who combined being interesting, thoughtful, thought-provoking and witty.

The essence of her presentation involved failures in science, particularly medicine. In many cases the culprit was business. For example, she showed how business-sponsored scientific reviews of medical products were almost always positive, while independent reviews were far more mixed. Is it likely that these sponsored reviews are unbiased? Statistically the answer is no: the probability is so remote that it cannot be taken seriously. Over fiften or twenty minutes she presented her case cogently and with eloquence.

I started to disagree with her when she looked at some ways to address the problem. I must say I did so with trepidation. As I have already said, I have an undistinguished BSc while she has a strong scientific resume. But since my view is based on the philosophy of science (if that is not too grand a term), I'm going to put it forward anyway.

In the Olden Days, when I was at school, there was a fairly simple approach to science. It went roughly as follows:

1. A scientist would think of an idea - the hypothesis.
   
2. She would devise an experiment to test it.
   
3. She would run the experiment and collect the necessary and relevant data.
   
4. If the data supported the idea, it would become a new theory.
   
5. Other scientists could repeat the process and get the same results, so independently validating the theory.
   

Intellectually this works. Practically, in the real world, it sometimes breaks down. For example, developing new drugs is extraordinarily expensive. Pharmaceutical companies invest huge amounts of money in each new drug and their scientists invest years of their lives. The must be a great temptation, even in the most scrupulous scientist, to look for the good effects and play down the bad. Possibly that may be succumbed to unconsciously: perhaps dismissing a strange result as an outlier. The commercial pressures will be there too.

At present, science does too little to eliminate opportunities for these errors or for fraud. I suspect outright fraud is fairly rare, although cases such as

• Disgraced cloning scientist Hwang Woo-suk, whose stem cell research was found to have been faked
  
• Andrew Wakefield's MMR scare
  
• and in physics, the cold fusion controversy
  

show that they happen often enough to reach the mainstream media.

If I understood her correctly, the core of Dr Godlee's proposals to address these problems was to reduce commercial involvement in science, especially medicine. I think that would be wrong.

Science needs to look more to itself. Some of the finest brains in the past few centuries have been involved in science: why then is the very core of science, the scientific method, so subject to abuse?

I suggest that a fundamental issue is that scientific research is not sufficiently open to a basic commercial technique: audit. If at key stages research was subject to audit, the results would be more credible. This does not mean making the data or area of research prematurely public but it would mean that when it came to submit a paper for publication or to launch a new product there would be confidence that the research had been adequately conducted.

Who could do this auditing? I think that is less important than defining how it is done. For example, in the UK perhaps the Russell Group of universities could define: what independent checks should be made in each key area of science as that research progressed; what records must be verifiably submitted at each stage; what are acceptable ways of discounting results ("the subject died in a car accident") and unacceptable ("this outlier was so different that I suspect a measurement error was made").

This would not replace peer review. It would give reviewers greater confidence in the underlying methods and might well give them access to the underlying data.

It would benefit science. It would also benefit commerce: whether in medical, physical, chemical or any other area of scientific endeavour, the results of audited research would rightly be more trusted.

This, I think comes back to Dr Godlee's fundamental point: unreliable research undermines good science. If we can improve standards in research it will be of benefit not just to the scientific community but also to the public at large. Trustworthy results will lead to better decision-making, whether it means buying a new pill or investing in technology.

And should that day happen, I won't have to apologise for being in marketing.

How Often is Enough?

I believe it costs about £50,000 to run an election in Hart, the small district in NE Hampshire where I live. That's about a pound per registered voter, which I think is not bad.

The way we run elections here is that in three out of four years we elect one third of our district councillors (for a four year term) and in the fourth year we elect county councillors.

So, for example,

• 2009: elected county councillors
  
• 2010: elected 1/3 of district councillors
  
• 2011: elect 1/3 district councillors
  
• 2012: elect 1/3 of district councillors
  

However, there is the option of having all-in elections instead where we would elect district councillors all at once for a four year term, as we do with county councillors. In these straitened times, that would save us two elections every four years, or about £100,000. In a small district like Hart, that's a useful amount of money.

There is a contrary view that having elections more often gives voters a chance to register their approval or disagreement with the council more often. While that is true, it is costly. It also means that councillors spend more time electioneering and less doing the work you voted them in to do.

As you can tell, I don't favour the annual voting system. That's less important than what you think: would you, as a voter, prefer to vote more often at a higher cost, or would you prefer to save money but have fewer opportunities to register your views?

Please do let me know, either directly or via the comments section below.

Update: For what it's worth, based on a quick scan of their websites our neighbouring councils appear to vote as follows:

Basingstoke: Annually (like Hart)
Bracknell: All in every four years
East Hampshire: All in every four years
Surrey Heath: All in every four years
Wokingham: Annually (like Hart)

UNITEd We Fall

Ten days ago, Laura Solon scythed through the bs to the basic truth of the ongoing industrial dispute between British Airways and its cabin crew. Speaking on Have I Got News For You, she said that the biggest fringe benefit the cabin crew have is an airline to work for.

Now, on one hand I can understand the shock and anger you feel when your employer cuts payments or benefits. I've experienced this myself on a number of occasions, such as when my pension changed from being a final salary pension (good) to a defined benefits one (poor). That one change on its own cost me a few hundred thousand pounds. It cost most of my fellow workers much the same. But it had one huge fringe benefit: we still had a company to work for.

Right now, UNITE seems to be spoiling for a fight, not just at BA. It could scarcely choose a worse time: worldwide the combination of recession and fierce international competition mean that when I (or anyone else) is looking for a job, we are competing against not only the other people shortlisted for this vacancy but also anyone else, anywhere in the world, who can do the same work for a competitor.

Can a lower-paid worker in Ireland or India or the Far East do the same job, just as well? Then why should the company employ you?

This is where UNITE's confrontational approach is self-destructive for its members: the most likely result is the jobs will move elsewhere - whether to Emirates, Ryanair or Virgin. It's not clear how this will help BA cabin crew.

It used to be "United we stand". Today it looks more like UNITE's last stand.

Running for Rob

What, I wonder, is the defining characteristic of the British?

Just as the British have generalisations about other nations, I am sure that other nations generalise about the UK. I arrived in this country with my family in 1994, "on my way to America" and we are still here 16 years later. One of the things that has kept us here has been the extraordinary generosity of spirit of British people. This is at its best when you consider the extent to which people voluntarily support others who are less fortunate: visiting the infirm, shopping for the elderly, collecting for charity, running parish councils, tending to graves and thousands of other small ways of making this a better place to live. Perhaps it comes down to Thriving in Adversity.

On Sunday I saw a good example of this. There was a 10km (6.25 miles in old currency) Fun Run in Newbury and of the several hundred runners, about 50 were Running for Rob. So who is Rob? I don't know him (other than knowing he is a teenager with cancer) but I have a friend who does, so I will quote her words here

Rob is simply the loveliest 17 year old lad - through all of what he has gone through, he never complains and just gets on with all of this treatment. He was at the race and we had a lovely hug when I made just over the hour :-) ... because he knew I wasn't a runner and I would never have attempted a 10k without there being a very good reason to.

He is still studying for his 'A' Levels, plans to take them shortly, goes into school whenever possible, plans on studying Politics and plans to do the Edinburgh Festival again this year as he loves acting and directing and is planning on going on holiday to Greece with his pals and, of course, the pop festivals around such as Reading. I truly believe he is an inspiration to both young and old ... I absolutely adore him and feel we can learn so much from someone so young and I just want him to be back to full fitness again.

I feel he found the pomp and ceremony around the run quite embarrassing - his father wanted to do something positive and, as he is a runner, belongs to Newbury Athletic Club who organise the Bayer 10k, he felt having a team do the run would be that positive. That said, we all raised a lot of money for charity and, back at the BBQ in the garden, I sat with Tracey from Teenage Cancer Trust. They provide facilities and an environment for teenagers who have Cancer as the NHS provide only for children or adults ... and teenagers are caught in the middle. They do truly amazing work and we don't realise it. Rob has one more chemo treatment, scheduled for next week - I think it is Cycle 9. Because I look to the positive, I believe the outcome will be a positive and the tumour has, so far, become smaller and with Rob's stoic, mature and brave attitude, I know he will be clear when they do the final tests. He is just the best (and I only get my running kit on for the best :-)

To support Rob fifty people - many of whom hadn't run 10km in their life before - went through a great deal of pain and raised over £12,000 for two charities: Clic Sargent, which cares for young people with cancer and their families and the Teenage Cancer Trust.

(Click on the photo to see all the runners.)

For those who today are still feeling pain, remember you are part of a great tradition: serving the less fortunate in a typical, understated British way.