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• A reply on Talk: Jason McCue: Terrorism is a failed brand

  Oct 4 2012: Take into account that "branding" of jews, gays, mentally ill, gipsies, ... is exactly what the Nazi's did. These people didn't brand themselves.
  
  Now once you realize the "branding" that needs to be done isn't done by the terrorists but by steering the public, it's not impossible any more to make it a unified, consistent presentation of a given product. As Hitler wrote in his chapter on War propaganda by the way...
  
  Mr. McCue doesn't give all solutions and his talk is not overly convincing, but when it comes down to changing the image in order to break the support, he makes a pretty strong case. Ask the IRA.
• +1

  A comment on Conversation: Why is Marijuana Illegal?

  Sep 28 2012: Marihuana smoking poses as much risks as cigarettes do. Actually, as cannabis burns at a lower temperature than tobacco, marihuana smoke is heavier and contains more carcinogenic chemicals and more tar. It contains also more particles.
  
  This has theoretically two effects :
  1) just like cigarette smoke, smoking marihuana definitely increases the risk of lung cancer
  2) even more than cigarette smoke, smoking marihuana is likely to increase the risk on lung emphysema due to damage to the lungs.
  
  I'm not going to do a complete meta analysis on all conducted studies, but a recent talk by Ben Goldacre gives you a good idea about why your claim is absolute excrement of a male cow. On the other hand, you can eat marihuana in a cake.
  
  This said, Marihuana is illegal because the governement said so. The question is not why marihuana is illegal, but why alcohol isn't. The same arguments used for marihuana go for alcohol:
  - it is addictive
  - it is bad for both mental and physical health if abused
  - it causes a lot of social problems
  
  Reason why alcohol isn't illegal : because making it illegal would make the problem bigger: there would be a complete black market, the quality of alcohol cannot be guaranteed any longer (think about methanol), the governement would lose a lot of taxes, and especially the whole underground moving of alcohol would make it a whole lot more difficult to find and treat the problem cases.
  
  Exactly for that reason, it makes sense to make marihuana legal:
  - you can control additives, percentage of THC and general quality of the sold marihuana
  - you take away a major source of income for criminals
  - you make it more easy to find and treat problematic use
  - you can raise taxes on it, and do something useful with that money
  - you can use a whole lot of money that's now wasted on hunting down marihuana for some bigger problems.
  
  In short: you ask the wrong question, and look for the wrong answer.
• +2

  A comment on Conversation: Should blasphemy be outlawed by the UN?

  Sep 28 2012: Actually, it would make an interesting case to outlaw blasphemy. Muslims aren't allowed to say anymore that Jesus was no son of God. Jews are not allowed to say anymore that the Saviour should still come. Christians can't deny any more that Mohamed was a real prophet. Neither three of these can state that Hindus worship false Gods.
  
  So a consequent ban on blasphemy would practically lead to a ban on at least the three big monotheist religions: Jewism, Christianity and Islam. All three claim that they are the only true believers, and all others worship false Gods. Looking upon it that way, outlawing blasphemy suddenly becomes a rather attractive idea to heighten our chances for world peace :-)
  
  On a serious note though, the whole idea of outlawing blasphemy is close to the definition of hypocrisy. The people yelling the loudest for this, are exactly those that show the least tolerance towards other religions. You can't have it both ways, but many people still try...

• A reply on Talk: Ben Goldacre: What doctors don't know about the drugs they prescribe

  Sep 28 2012: Allow me to disagree very strongly with your "small anomaly". It. Is. Not. Small. It is huge, and everybody even remotely involved in the practice of medical science knows about that. The Cochrane Collaboration didn't come into existence for something you call a "small anomaly" :
  
  http://www.cochrane.org/
  
  Why do you think meta-analysis is an ever-growing field in medical statistics? Why do you think this organization spends tons of money on -if necessary- sueing companies in order to get ALL results out?
  
  Publication bias exists, is proven, and is BIG.
  
  To come back to your topic: If those people come to me with the studies that actually prove the claims of various naturopathic practices, the argument of Sir Goldacre is as valid in that case (and even more). So see the talk of Sir Goldacre for what it is (a strong case) and not for what it isn't (a plead for naturopathy).
• +10

  A comment on Talk: Ben Goldacre: What doctors don't know about the drugs they prescribe

  Sep 28 2012: I applaud you Sir!
  
  Being in the field of statistics for quite a while now, I am very well aware of the problem Sir Goldacre points out. This causes two very serious problems:
  
  1) treatment is even in this age of technology still suboptimal and sometimes outright dangerous
  2) many lose their faith in the classical medicinal world (see comments below for some nice examples) and reject treatments that actually are state-of-the-art
  
  It is a broad problem in science (negative results aren't published) that is particularly heavy in medicine due to the billions of dollars involved in drug development. Luckily, some initiatives try to battle this. To all researchers out here, time to start publishing in some of the very new Negative Results journals, for example :
  
  http://www.jnrbm.com/ : The journal of negative results in BioMedicine
  http://www.pnrjournal.com/ : The journal of Pharmaceutical Negative results
  ...
  
  These journals are gaining momentum, and if we all read them, refer to them and take them seriously, we might even make science a little less biased.
  
  Thanks again Sir Goldacre for stirring up the dirt of Science.
  
  (yes, anybody with that inspiration and drive deserves the title Sir)