Archive for the ‘Friends’ Category

Clever people believe silly things.

This is why the argument that religion must be intellectually tenable because academics and scientists subscribe to such beliefs holds no water. Of course it could be that religious beliefs actually are true or at least make intellectual sense but we cannot say that that clearly aren’t stupid beliefs just because smart people believe them.

Case in point, my friend Jason. He’s a pretty smart guy, attended the University of Leeds, graduated, now part of the Row 1 team here at BuzzBet.

Yet this morning he dropped into the conversation that he takes vitamin pills.

I was quick to point out that such supplements have been scientifically shown under double blind trials involving huge sample sizes not only not to have any positive health benefits but also to have a negative impact on your health.

At very best when you buy vitamin supplements you are wasting your money, at worse you may be increasing your risk of mortality by up to 16%. While it is easy to dismiss such claims when published in the Daily Mail, it is a different matter when such research is published by medical journals and endorsed by the NHS.

And yet Jason’s response was “well, I’m still going to take them.”

Indeed it went as far as “it provides me with vitamins, how can it not be good for me?”

I’m not exactly sure whether this is a problem with credulity in the vitamin companies or incredulity in the scientific community or perhaps even a third option – his dad works for a vitamin supplement company and he assures me that they do a lot of research and development which at first seems to give the idea some substance but then here is an organisation which does homeopathic R&D so it is apparently quite possible to waste time and money thinking or pretending you’re researching a topic which has been scientifically proven to be bullshit (as if you need to look beyond common sense to see that the idea water has a memory of certain incredibly diluted ingredients but has forgotten all the piss and shit it’s been in is anything other than 18th century quackery).

This to me then brings up two questions. Firstly why does Jason, even know he has been presented with the evidence that vitamin supplements don’t work, still subscribe to the idea? Secondly, what can I do to persuade him out of such a belief?

I don’t think either question has an easy answer or indeed one single answer but I will float a few possibilities. Actually the possibilities bare as much of a striking resemblance to the religious topics I usually deal with in day to day life as the scenario which I have so far posed does.

Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly if I had thought about it), the main claim was that of personal experience. Jason claims that he has been taking the tablets for a while and rarely gets ill. Except colds of course – they don’t count, apparently. Bare in mind that he is taking vitamin C tablets and therefore the only illness it really protects against is scurvy. I of course countered this by saying I haven’t been ill recently and I’m not taking vitamin supplements but I can’t imagine this counted for much in the same way you’re not going to convince the religious out of their belief because you “personally, have not experienced god.”

The second claim was that on a scientific basis, or at least a pseudo-scientific one. The argument followed “everyone knows vitamins are good for you, the tablets contain vitamins, therefore they must be good for you.” The counter arguments for this is that you can’t say there is a definite connection there as maybe you need to take them in via eating fruit and that scientific studies have shown that too much vitamins aren’t good for you and probably others which I can’t think of right now but I think a more important point is that the scientific studies show that taking vitamin supplements aren’t good for you and therefore it is fallacious to then build an argument for them from a scientific standpoint.

The other point I found interesting was I brought up the idea of a healthy balanced diet and Jason immediately jumped in and said “well I have a healthy balanced diet as well – their supplements, they go on top of that.” It would seem possible for someone to eat a healthy balanced diet which includes all the vitamins and minerals and would help prevent us falling ill, and yet accredit the lack of illness down to the placebo pills you’re taking on top.

I guess there is also the idea that you have invested time and money in a belief and so you don’t want it to turn out to be false. This is something that Christopher Hitchens often comments on when he talks about the end of the Soviet Union where the communists knew the game was up but didn’t want to let go of their dream.

As for persuading people out of such beliefs, I think education and critical thinking are probably the key. I’m sure I, once upon a time, didn’t go “vitamin supplements huh? Let me just check what the actual scientific basis for such claims are.” I’m sure most people still don’t – as anyone who goes out and buys a 12 mega pixel phone camera will prove.

How interested people are in learning this is another matter though. Jason for example did not seem particularly concerned it was taking at best placebos and at worst a potentially harmful pill every morning. Similarly the anti-wrinkle industry is built on the idea that people just aren’t interested in the truth – the news that Boots had developed the first anti-wrinkle cream that actually may work has done little to dent the sales of other brands.

I would love to hear everyone else’s thoughts on this, especially if anyone else has had a similar experience, I would imagine many of us have.

On Thursday Oli paid me a visit with a number of suprises including a Lil and a late birthday present in the form of a box of wine 😀 . As my blog readerable is mainly sophisticated well educated individuals similar to myself it would almost seem patronising to remind you that such a produce is the finest type of wine as it can breathe when in a box rather than being stuffed up in a bottle.

This was followed by pizza which included extra for myself and Oli and Lil is trying to lose some weight plus the fun of watching a woman take out a bike just outside our house. The guy seemed alright which makes it ok to laugh about. Oli had to rush off in a hurry to catch a train shortly after which resulted in me not getting chance to grab a photo so I present instead one of the classic Chris and Oli pictures. Enjoy.

On Tuesday Rich delivered an updated version of his talk to A-Soc (not that he bothered to update the title slide lol). This was a rather good lead in to the night’s social at Vodka Revolution in which several people managed to work their way through several sticks of shots (a stick being a variety pack of 6 shots)! A messy, messy evening.

Oh how the tables have turned. Today was a somewhat strange Sunday lunch in which George ate and I didn’t. Due to a combination of not feeling too great and wanting to keep my spending under control I didn’t bother actually ordering any, though I did manage to stretch to a beverage of course. Turns out, that’s all you really need. Although I kind of new I didn’t need an entire mixed grill every other day anyway ;).

On Thursday evening I headed round to Rich’s along with George and Jonni for a Question Time pizza party. Between us we got through about five pizzas, as well as several bottles of win and half of Rich’s carton 😀 . This was of course to watch British National Party leader Nick Griffin appear on the programme.

It was at least an entertaining show if nothing else though was mostly just BNP bashing. Not that we should have expected any less of course but I’m not sure it was the most productive thing to do. As Bill points out, it was half way though the show before someone managed to fit an intelligent comment in – that perhaps the failure of the major parties had led to a rise in BNP support.

In the end though it was essentially a witch hunt which didn’t produce the desired result. If a better course of action as Rich pointed out would have been to ask the panel what their policies on health, education and the economy were so they could be compared side by side.

This would have likely done far more damage than the constant barrage of insults that were thrown at Nick and his party which no doubt made us Guardian readers feel good but actually won him a lot of sympathy and support in other social groups. Will the appearance be a good or bad thing for the BNP? I guess we’ll find out soon.

On Sunday evening I got a phone call from Daryl informing me he had accidentally booked Atheist Bus Campaign creator Ariane Sherine to speak at the next Skeptics in the Pub meeting.

So on Monday I headed over to Batley (where Daryl resides into what is essentially a small castle) to discuss ideas of how we could re-launch the group with more exciting speakers and a better format. We began hunting for venues and next thing we knew we were driving back to Leeds to check out The Living Room on Greek Street.

By the end of the evening we had a new venue lined up, a new format in development and a plan to make Leeds Skeptics bigger and better than ever. Win.

I also have to say that Daryl has a very impressive collection of comics. I can’t say I know that much about them but he has box after box of them and all of them looking fancy and collectable. Top marks to anyone who has a replica Lightsaber in their lounge too.

Sunday afternoon we headed down to Shaky Jakes in Headingley for some sundaes to celebrate Viv’s birthday. They literally have every chocolate bar you can think of available to make into a milkshake or sundae and if there is something they don’t have you can even take your own chocolate down and have them use that!

Despite feeling rough on Sunday I endeavoured to make it down to Cuthbert Brodrick for the usual Sunday lunch. This week saw Kate extend her usual diet of chocolate cake to include a bowl of chips too – to which ended up being combined into some radical new version of the chocolate chip.

As usual we headed down to Cuthbert Brodrick on Sunday for lunch. It saw a much overdue return of Sarann and Moz and a lengthly session of gossiping about a number of individuals. It also somewhat disturbed myself and George that we only left the pub a meer 36 hours before returning – does anyone know what the frequency of visiting a Wetherspoon’s is before you’re officially an alcoholic? Not that I was even drinking today but I’m not sure that cancels it out.

On Thursday, The Gijs delivered his talk “Intelligence and Scepticism” to the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire.

The thrust of the talk was that there was an inherent contradiction in Humanism and a rational approach to life because Humanism is something that is very positive and the world on the whole isn’t positive with all the crime, senseless violence, falling out with the people you care about, etc. Although admittedly a lot of this revolves around the Humanist manifesto.

It was never the less a very interesting talk and even though it turned into a bit of a socialist preaching ground at the end (from the audience, not The Gijs) it was a good evening. We finished off at The Well, the rebranded Joseph’s Well which had actually locked their doors because nobody was in there until we came hanging on the door.