Intermeshed with the scientific discussion is some fascinating history and general knowledge.  Why does Western music use certain frequencies while music from other parts of the world uses others?  Who decided what frequency a “C” is, and when?  What is “perfect pitch” and is it any more use than party trick?  What’s the difference between pop music and “serious” music?

Powell comes of the rails slightly when his discussions move away from the physics and history of music and on to more nebulous topics – such as psychology.  Explanations for concepts which are outside the precise and elegant scope of physics or the certainties of historical record come over as speculative and slightly disappointing.  For example, John eschews the idea that musical keys have innate “moods”.  His reasoning is compelling but his alternative explanation – that perhaps the fact that the black key/white key ratio in a piece may change between keys accounts for a change in mood by slightly altering the timing in the piece, because the black keys are further away – is unsatisfying.

These are fairly minor quibbles, however.  The book as a whole is as enjoyable a trip through the basics of musical science as I could imagine.  Those looking for a weighty or challenging handling of the topic may be disappointed, but the aim of this book is not to challenge.  It unashamedly sets out to entertain, and it does an able job.

“How Music Works” by John Powell (Penguin) is out now.

Available on Amazon

Sense About Science are launching an interesting campaign tomorrow outside the Dept. of Health in London, relating to the scheme whereby practitioners of alternative medicine can become professionally registered despite a complete and total lack of any medical training. The proposed regulations will regulate practitioners of acupunture, herbal medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and other traditional medicine systems – regardless of the efficacy or lack thereof of these systems of “medicine”.

Quite rightly, Sense About Science point out that the scheme, by virtue of practitioners receiving an official government rubber stamp, could mislead the public into thinking that alternative medicines are somehow bona fide, and that practitioners of these methods are qualified to give out medical advice.

To this end, an audacious and clever  ”PR stunt” will be taking place tomorrow at 11.30 at the Department Of Health at Whitehall, where those who pop along will be able to receive a diploma in Old Wives’ Traditional Medicine.

The proposed scheme is definitely something that we at the Twenty-First Floor encourage people to support and put their weight behind – with one important caveat.

This is one of the few pro-science campaigns which has the potential to have a UK-wide impact.

Many campaigns seem to forget that Scotland has a separate health, legal and (to an extent) political system to the rest of the UK and thus, lobbying Westminster can often be little more than an interesting exercise in exploring the West Lothian question. Take the 10:23 campaign as an example. It was highly successful in Edinburgh and Glasgow, but the focus of the campaign was Westminster – a parliament that has no power over the funding of homoeopathy in the UK. The Twenty-First Floor did try to redress the balance by running a brief campaign (which, in fairness, is still going on here) to lobby Holyrood; however, we unfortunately lack the manpower and branding with which to truly push the campaign into the limelight in Scotland.

Now, I don’t imagine for a second that there are that many people who supported the 10:23 campaign in Scotland who wouldn’t have been aware of the issues surrounding devolution and the health service, but it would have been nice to have this issue built into the campaign. This would have avoided canvassed MSPs simply stating that they were free to ignore the recommendations of the Westminster Science and Technology committee, and not addressing the issues which were highlighted by the campaign.

Our MSPs need to know that science doesn’t stop just North of the Cheviots and the river Tweed.

In fairness, organisations such as CaSE do run campaigns in Scotland and we hope to help Skeptical Voter tackle the upcoming Scottish parliamentary election. I in no way want to deride the efforts of groups around the country to promote science and battle pseudo-science. However, I feel we need a little more coordination and a little more localised pressure. I’d like to invite any readers involved in science communication to get involved in the discussion about the SaNE (Scottish and Northen England) network idea, which aims to achieve some of these goals (and a few more ambitious ones) by allowing easier communication and coordination between groups. (There is a temporary forum up here and the #sane hashtag on Twitter – please do send us your thoughts).

The SaNE  Network (as christened by Daniella Rudloff many moons ago) is basically an idea to get different skeptics and science communication groups talking, and allowing for easier coordination of skeptical activism and science communication endeavours. There is no limit to what we could do with it: we could share the expertise of geographically disparate science communicators and skeptics on media communication, event organisation and a whole host of topics. We could perhaps organise conferences where the focus is on developing skills in these areas where, by coming together, we could achieve more than we do separately.

By running “national” campaigns without consideration for the devolution settlement, we (I include us Scots-based skeptics in this, and pledge to do better) run the risk of giving Scottish politicians a free pass to support woo and ignore the sterling work of campaigners up and down the whole UK.

“Science has got it wrong in the past!”

So the tired old cliche goes.  Sometimes it’s more specific: recurring favourite is “we used to think the Earth was flat!” or “they laughed at Galileo, don’t you know.”   The point being that, because the conventional wisdom of days gone by has often been outrageously misguided, we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss claims that don’t fit with our current understanding of the universe.  Of course, these points carry no weight.  Mistakes of the past are irrelevant in assessing any current claim.  Nevertheless, that science has been wrong before is perfectly true – often amusingly so.  So, in tribute to glorious past mistakes we’re kicking off a new semi-regular series on some of the scientific embarrassments, mistakes and just general wrong-headedness of days gone by.

First up, we’ve found an excellent article from c1940 on the biology of crocodiles and alligators.  The author, one Malcolm Burr DSc, begins his scholarly investigation of these fascinating animals with a passionate plea that humanity rise up and…. hunt them to extinction.  Malcolm, it seems, does not mince his words when describing his feelings for crocodilians:

…stupid…

useless and dreadful

brutes

Ever the dispassionate academic, good old Dr Burr notes that his “hatred” for crocodiles has “passed all bounds” and that it is now a duty to “destroy every possible specimen”.  Indeed, he implies that this duty should also be felt in the malleable minds of his innocently curious readers.  His call to arms is so impassioned, particularly the tearjerking tale of his devoured dog (see below), that I felt my normally rational self raise a trembling fist to the God of crocodiles and yell “BASTARDS!”

It’s hardly what one would expect from a scientist who understands or cares for the maintenance of the delicate balances within ecosystems; or, for that matter, from anyone who isn’t insane. And quite why a man on a frothing, twitching, Ahab-esque crusade of violence against these reptiles should be commissioned to write an educational article on the beasts is anyone’s guess.

Anyway, Burr soon regains his composure (one can imagine him steadying himself with a firm hand on the side of his armchair as he finishes waving around his brandy glass, brandy sloshing all over his weather-beaten hands, after his red-eyed, red-faced rant) and settles down to educate us on the biology of the creatures he loathes so much.

Current understanding, Malcolm informs his readers, holds that crocodilians are creatures of remarkable longevity. How remarkable? Well, the next page shows a photograph of a “200 year old” specimen. “Two-hundred years?” you might think, “Surely a crocodile’s lifespan isn’t two-hundred years?” And you’d be right. Dr Burr informs us that the animal has another 800 years to go.

The next photograph shows an alligator that Malcolm confidently ages to 225 years old, and describes as a “youthful specimen”.

Of course, some repties, we now understand, can be surprisingly long-lived, but none have lifespans anywhere close to a millenium. A particularly remarkable crocodilian specimen might crawl past 100 years, but not far (the oldest crocodile in captivity was estimated to around 130). Most live a natural lifespan of around 60 years.

Whatever became of Dr Burr remains a mystery. The archives of Google suggest that he authored a text called “The Insect Legion”, possibly another natural history piece – assumedly containing detailed instructions for pulling the wings off butterflies and recommendations on the best brands of salt for torturing slugs. I hate to imagine what his “Tourist’s Guide to Istanbul” suggests.

One thing is certain, though. His plan of crocodile specicide never did come to fruition.  Crocodiles and alligators, thankfully, remain part of our world.

So, the Fringe is over, and what a ride that was!  Three solid weeks of scepticism and critical thinking. We had some amazing events, and hope to post some of them online soon.  But now that the Fringe is out of the way, I need to return to my other duties; namely, this.  After a month away I’d like to welcome you all back to Freaky Friday. I’m looking forward to throwing myself back into these, and have decided to start with a bit of quirky Victoriana.

The combination of the words “Jack” and “Victorian” are likely to conjure up the image of the notorious and never caught Jack the Ripper: a serial killer of at least 4 victims, the accepted number being 5, but possibly reaching double figures if some sources are to be believed.  A knife wielding stalker of the night, preying on those less fortunate, ripping them to shreds– anyone who has seen the crime scene photos of Mary Kelly probably had as difficult a time sleeping that night as I did.  Jack the Ripper is not the only Jack to have terrorised Victorian society; indeed, he wasn’t even the first.  For the first Jack, we must head back to 1837, to a dark street in London.

A businessman walks home after a hard day at the office. He is tired and hungry, wanting to reach his home, when suddenly he sees something in front of him: a well built man with devilish ears and glowing red eyes. He bounces with ease over the high wall of a cemetery and disappears into the darkness.  The businessman is in shock, he immediately files a report and a new terror to stalk the country’s darkened streets springs into popular culture, his name:

Spring Heeled Jack

Now, whether this initial claim has any merits is open to debate: no record exists of a name; no actual testimony is found. It is most likely that these early reports of Jack are nothing more than bogeyman stories designed to entertain and enthral. Indeed, Jack makes his way into the Penny Dreadful literature at the time, much in the same way as the fictitious Demon Barber, Sweeney Todd did. Some also suggest that he is an early mothman, whilst others take a much more skeptical approach which we will address later, but for now, we have many more tales of terror to tell.

A few weeks after Jack’s initial appearance, we have the first reports of a crime of sorts being reported.  In October of 1837, Mary Stevens was walking from her parents’ home to her place of work, on her way through Clapham Common. She was accosted by a man from behind.  He was said to leap from the bushes, grab her from behind and rip her clothes, fondling her breasts with cold clammy hands before running off.  Despite sounding like a rather disturbing individual attempting a rape, this has been attributed to Spring-Heeled Jack, and over the next few weeks, more and more reports came in… such as shadowy figures jumping in front of carriages.  Most of these, if not all, can be attributed to the Victorian love for hyperbole and melodrama, exaggerating the boring to make an intriguing tale.  I find it highly suspect that any of these claims thus far carry any supernatural element and can be put down to random muggers, animals and idiots jumping in front of carriages.  If this was all that the stories contained, then Spring-Heeled Jack may never have come to the attention of the world at large. However, the stories were picked up by the Lord Mayor of London, and a legend was born.

In January of 1838, the Mayor of London read this following correspondence:

“It appears that some individuals (of, as the writer believes, the highest ranks of life) have laid a wager with a mischievous and foolhardy companion, that he durst not take upon himself the task of visiting many of the villages near London in three different disguises — a ghost, a bear, and a devil; and moreover, that he will not enter a gentleman’s gardens for the purpose of alarming the inmates of the house. The wager has, however, been accepted, and the unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving seven ladies of their senses, two of whom are not likely to recover, but to become burdens to their families.

At one house the man rang the bell, and on the servant coming to open door, this worse than brute stood in no less dreadful figure than a spectre clad most perfectly. The consequence was that the poor girl immediately swooned, and has never from that moment been in her senses.

The affair has now been going on for some time, and, strange to say, the papers are still silent on the subject. The writer has reason to believe that they have the whole history at their finger-ends but, through interested motives, are induced to remain silent”

After this report, the newspapers picked up and ran with the story- albeit a supernatural version- and as can be expected, the reports increased.  People were seeing Jack all over the place, and his description grew.  He was now regularly being seen as the bear creature; of course, this could be solid proof of the supernatural being or an actual animal, not necessarily a bear.  The problem is none of these anecdotes can be verified; many take place at night, and there is not, at this time, any legitimate investigation going on.  The explanations for a non-supernatural cause are legion.  Maybe it is supernatural; maybe it is an animal; maybe it is a man in a clever costume; maybe it is over-active imaginations; maybe it is lies; maybe it simply an explanation people are giving for the unexplained.  Let’s replace “Jack” with “ghost” for a while, shall we?  Every single criticism ever levelled at ghosts can apply to Jack right now.  It is highly likely that over-active imaginations, combined with misidentification and the press spreading tales of a demon,, have helped to perpetuate the myth. Shortly after the press picked up the story, sightings were reported in Sussex, Northampton and across the south and middle of England.

The reports of Jack’s abilities began to get more sinister, and now, included his ability to breath blue flames- if this was a real man playing a prank, could the blue flames be evidence that he is using a primitive flame thrower?  The colour would match the blue of a gas light- look at your cooker next time the hob is on.

Eventually, Jack’s sightings became less common though there were occasional sightings throughout the 1840s and 50s.  It was not until 1877, however, that Jack returned to prominence.  In the Aldershot Military Barracks one night in August a soldier was on duty when he heard a metallic sound, followed by the appearance of the bouncing Spring-Heeled Jack.  The soldier fired at Jack, and was joined by the rest of his unit as the Spring-Heeled Terror disappeared.  Jack continued to appear occasionally, and was even reported to be seen as recently as 1986, on the Welsh border.

Ultimately, no final and irrefutable explanation for who or what Jack was has been put forward, but there are suggestions and ideas.  If we, for the sake of argument, remove the paranormal explanation that he is some sort of demon, then what are we left with?  One possibility is that these witnesses did indeed experience something, but that something was unexplained, and has become Spring-Heeled Jack.  As with many reports of ghosts, it is simply an unexplained occurrence which the witness has called a “ghost”.  Ghosts stories were really coming into their own in the early Victorian era, as were tales of bogeymen and demons. It is not unlikely that Jack was an explanation given to bizarre phenomena.

Jack may also have been a real man playing a prank.  We have several opportunities for it to be a man. Possibly the early attacks, such as the attempted rapes, were nasty vicious men who had been given the honour of being called Spring-Heeled Jack.  As to the “real” Jack, there is a possibility.  The Marquis of Waterford was a drunk young noble, willing to do anything for a bet, and was well known for springing out on travellers at night to scare them. With his time and money, it is entirely plausible that he could have manufactured much of Spring-Heeled Jack’s character.  With a little make-up and flair, combined with dark nights and overactive imaginations, the Marquis could very well have become Spring-Heeled Jack.  He died in a riding accident in 1859, but copycats may have taken over.

As flamethrowers have been around for almost 2000 years, it is not impossible either that one could be constructed and used as part of a prank.  It seems unlikely, but obviously we cannot rule out the possibility that someone used a flamethrower in order to create fear, and this became part of Jack’s makeup.  But what of his bouncing high, his trademark Spring Heeling?  Well, as we can see today from “free runners”, if you are in the right physical shape, you can appear to do gravity defying stunts, but also (and maybe this is where the mechanical sound at Aldershot comes in) the assailant may have been wearing specially made boots allowing for a higher bounce.  There are boots available today that can be bought commercially and creating a high bouncing effect.

The most likely explanation, however disappointing, is that Jack is one of the many Victorian Bogeymen that has become almost fact despite being nothing much more than imagination and Penny Dreadfuls.

Following this theme, the next instalment of Myth Information this coming Monday will look at the legend of Sweeney Todd and refute the myth that he was a real man.

Dario writes on many and varied subjects at Remain Indoors.

One of the landmarks of pioneering science work in Dundee is the research facility for the College of Life Sciences – noticeable from across the Tay as an enormous blue and white building. Within this building, world-beating research into human pathologies from cancer to tropical diseases takes place, as well as cutting-edge investigations which broaden humanity’s understanding of how life operates at a chemical and cellular level.

The research facility will be throwing open its doors to the public on September the 18th, so that everyone can take a look at what goes on inside. There will be chances to meet with scientists who work at the forefront of their fields, demonstrations of the kind of research that takes place in Dundee, and the chance to take part in a guided tour of the state-of-the-art laboratories.

For anyone with an interest in the sciences or just a healthy curiosity at what goes on inside one of Dundee’s most imposing academic landmarks, it’s an opportunity not to be missed. Information about the day can be found on the University’s web pages here.

We are once again indebted to The Guardian’s “Comment is Free” section for furnishing us with yet another Bad Argument winner. This week’s victor is moral philosopher Mary Midgley, who takes issue with theoretical psychologist Nicholas Humphrey’s efforts to account for the evolution of consciousness; efforts not exactly kind to mind-body dualism.

Her counter-argument, “Metaphysics and the Limits of Science”, begins with:

Is physical science – as some people say – omnicompetent? Can it (that is) answer all possible questions? If, for instance, we ask why human beings sometimes behave so appallingly – or how we know that they shouldn’t behave so appallingly; or what is the best way to deal with inner conflicts; or whether depression is a physical or a mental trouble – can we look to the physical sciences for an answer?

This idea that science is an all-purpose oracle dealing with every kind of question is surely very odd.

Already, we are on shaky ground. Who are “some people” that say “physical science” is “omnicompetent” and can “answer all possible questions”? Who is it that claims science is “an all-purpose oracle”? Midgley doesn’t say, although she clearly finds Humphrey a suitable candidate (I will return to this later). Nor is it clear what ‘all possible questions’ means: questions of every kind, whether pressing or trivial, scientific or unscientific, genuinely put forth or imagined? Where such a sweeping statement originates is not shown.

In any case, many of the issues given aren’t beyond scientific inquiry. With regard to human behaviour, we could look to various branches of psychology, or sociobiology. On moral behaviour, for example, Frans de Waal makes the case that its initial building blocks can be observed in the social behaviour of primates, in that they follow a set of social rules, show reciprocal acts towards one another, are capable of empathy, and can defuse potentially dangerous situations within the group. The assertion that what ‘should’ constitute moral behaviour remains out of bounds might at first seem valid, but it neglects the crux of the matter: that our judgements on what ought to be moral could be undermined by what our evolutionary development inclines us to already perceive as moral.

This distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ recurs when asked what the best way to deal with inner conflicts is. Although the issue of dealing with inner conflicts is not directly scientific, one fails to see how understanding the underlying psychology would hinder rather than help. After all, counselling for depression includes information on what it entails psychologically, to allow the patient to recognise these states of mind. Additionally, asking whether depression is “physical or mental” is absurdly simplistic, as if this were an either/or proposition, as the Cartesian dualists would have us believe. Is Midgley seriously implying that the processes in the ‘physical’ brain are to be considered as separate from mental states?

Midgley then identifies a particular quote of Humphrey’s which she is opposed to; unfortunately, this quote does not concern his theory on consciousness at all, but refers to the scope of science generally. She claims this exemplifies Humphrey’s belief that science has managed to “provide a sufficient explanation for everything that is or might be”:

“Two hundred years later this programme for a self-sufficient science has succeeded beyond the dreams of its inventors … The major puzzles of existence have been pulled to pieces [by] all-conquering and consuming scientific rationality. Indeed, the basic laws that govern everything have turned out to be fewer in number and, to those who understand them, simpler and more beautiful than anyone originally guessed. So successful has it been that many scientists would now say, and even fear, that there will soon be little left for them to do.” (Emphasis Mary Midgley’s.)

This is the only support provided for the attributed sweeping statements. While indeed overstating the case by supposing that scientists might soon be left with little to do, Humphrey does not say either that science already has explained everything, nor that science will answer all possible questions. The portrayal is not of people who believe science is an all-purpose oracle: it is of people who’d expected to discover less than what they consequently did. The inference arises more from Midgley’s not-so-innocent emphasis than the paragraph as a whole.

Midgley goes on to hold up the ‘crisis’ between the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics as testament to science’s shortcomings, adding that “serious scientists know that their enquiries are endless; any answers always raise a swarm of new questions”. That some scientific discoveries bring up new, interesting questions doesn’t indicate that they are therefore doomed to do so ad infinitum.

…the success of 17th-century physics was due wholly to its founders seeing the need to limit its scope – to separate out physical questions from others that were entangled with them. When Isaac Newton said that he felt he was only a child picking up shells on the shore of an infinite ocean, he did not mean merely that it might be a couple of hundred years before physicists managed to discover and explain everything. He meant that life as a whole is radically mysterious.

Here, an argument from authority is thrown in for good measure. Whether Newton found life as a whole “radically mysterious” is neither here nor there. Moreover, if Midgley is so evidently swayed by difficulties in reconciling some theories with that of relativity, then ‘limits’ in the scope of Newtonian physics do not emerge triumphant.

Lastly, Midgley dismisses Humphrey’s claim to settle the mind-body problem by showing there’s no need to postulate a life-force or soul to account for consciousness, as, apparently, “that was never the point”. If not, then it’s difficult to see what is the point– for what is a consciousness or mind that exists independently of physical processes in the brain if not a soul or life-force? The concluding paragraph lays out this simplistic dualism plainly:

Our problem here is to understand the relation between these two things – between our inner and outer life, between consciousness and its objects, between the vulnerable self and the world it has to deal with. This is not a physical problem. It is a problem about how to understand and face life as a whole. And it is not about to go away.

“Inner life and outer life”, as if inner sentiments were not responses to external conditions; “consciousness and its objects”, as if consciousness was not tied to a material being. The vulnerable self has to deal with the world because it is intrinsically part of it. To say that this is not in any way a physical problem is misleading. An understanding of the physical make-up of the universe is precisely what is necessary to understand life within it, and the more that science can add to our understanding, the better.

Mary Midgley’s prize, if she wishes to accept it, is “Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain” by Antonio Damasio. Outlining the somatic marker hypothesis, the book argues against Descartes’ dualistic separation of mind and body, with Damasio looking at sufferers of frontal lobe damage, including Phineas Gage as well as his own patients, who showed changes in their behavioural and cognitive capabilities afterwards.

By Dario Battisti

The Raëlians have been making minor headlines across the pond recently, protesting against a proposal in San Francisco to ban topless sunbathing out of fear that the sight could “traumatise children”. While pointing out that this is not that big a deal, especially as in many European countries the practice is common, is fair enough, the message would perhaps sound more credible coming from someone other than a movement which is infamous for its promotion of hedonism… and the belief that all life on Earth was genetically engineered by aliens.

The Raëlians are a UFO religion founded and led by ‘Raël’, or as he used to be known, Claude Vorilhon, a former race-car driver and motoring magazine journalist from France. Vorilhon claims that on December 13, 1973, as he was commuting to work, he felt an inexplicable urge to visit a nearby volcano (not on his way to the office), and, while there, a UFO descended. An alien called Yahweh emerged from the craft, and invited Vorilhon in for a chat. There, he was entertained by sexy sexbots, while Yahweh told him, in fluent French, that all past gods were aliens known as the Elohim, that all life was created by their alien scientists, and that Vorilhon himself was to be their representative on Earth. Vorilhon renamed himself ‘Raël’ and founded the Raëlian movement, which claims to have approximately 55,000 members today.

The Raëlian logic on the creation story– that aliens genetically engineered all life on Earth (ever)– puts them firmly in the Intelligent Design camp; their belief system rejects evolution. This assumption ascribes intentionality behind the complexity of the natural world in a similar manner to creationists who presuppose divine design: namely, that if humans have the capacity to tinker with genes, then life throughout the universe must’ve been created using similar advances. When faced with the obvious question of where the Elohim themselves came from, the official line appears to be that they were also genetically engineered by some aliens, who were also genetically engineered by some aliens, who were also genetically engineered… ad infinitum. It’s E.T. all the way down.

Many Raëlian beliefs are downright bizarre– such as the notion that Samson lost his strength following his haircut due to hairs being natural telepathic antennae, or that Raël was whisked off to have lunch with Jesus, Buddha, and Mohammed on the Elohim homeworld. Others have proven somewhat more controversial.

Original symbol and revised symbol

One contentious issue was their plan to build an official “Raëlian Embassy for Extraterrestrials” to welcome the Elohim for their return in 2035. The original intention was to build this embassy at a ‘neutral area’ in Jerusalem. This did not go down well with the Israelis, as the Raëlian symbol, which would be displayed on such a building, consists of… a Star of David with a swastika in the centre. The Raëlians adapted their symbol to resolve this (Raël claims the Elohim conveniently contacted him with orders to do so), but the proposal was still rejected. Plans to have the embassy built in Lebanon also fell down for exactly the same reason. Currently, the Raëlians state that “several [countries] have indicated an interest in allocating space for such an endeavor. Preliminary discussions are already under way!”

The group have also faced criticism from some for their incredibly liberal sexual attitudes, with its emphasis on free love. The Raëlians have two women-only groups in their ranks: “Raël’s Girls”, and the “Order of Angels”. Raël’s Girls is made up entirely of workers in the sex industry, set up as a counter to the Christian “JC’s Girls” organisation. The Order of Angels aims to ‘promote femininity’ and defend Raëlism in general; it has also been alleged to provide sexual gratification for Raël personally. Unsurprisingly, these factors have only added to the impression that Raëlism is a ’sex cult’ as well as a UFO cult (hence why their involvement in the aforementioned protest seems unfortunate).

Yet what the Raëlians are most notorious for is the headlines which they made back in 2002, for claiming that they’d managed to clone a human being.

Clonaid

The claim was made through the Raëlian movement’s sister organisation, Clonaid. A press conference was called to announce the ‘news’, where Clonaid director Brigitte Boisselier told the world’s media that they had successfully cloned the baby girl of a 31 year old American woman, which they unimaginatively named “Eve”. The claim was easily dismissed as Boisselier provided no evidence whatsoever that the cloning had taken place. Initially, she reassured critics that an independent expert would confirm the cloning via DNA testing. When this did not occur, it was simply stated that the details could not be revealed as that’d undermine the safety of the family involved. The incident was widely (and correctly) dismissed as a publicity stunt.

The Raëlian stance on cloning is optimistic, to say the least. Keeping in mind their view on how life was created, Raëlians believe that cloning technology holds the key to immortality. That is, they believe that one could live forever by cloning one’s body and (somehow) downloading thoughts and memories into the cloned body’s brain.

In spite of this failure to show any kind of capacity to clone anything, Clonaid is still offering its services to prospective clients for somewhat extortionate fees– charging $200,000 for a clone, amongst other products and services. What is even more disturbing is that this is clearly aimed at those who are emotionally vulnerable and undergoing particularly hard times. Here is a list taken from the Clonaid site of people who could benefit from the service:

Clonaid™ can help you:

• If you’re sterile and have lost hope of having the child you dream of.
• If you’re homosexual and deeply desire a child who would carry your own genes.
• If you’ve just lost – or are about to lose – a beloved family member and would like to see an identical twin of that person begin a new life.
• If you’re HIV+ and want to have a child that would be your genetic twin – without infecting either the baby or your partner with the virus.
• If you simply want to be cloned, whatever your reasons may be.

In addition to this, Clonaid claims to offer “therapeutic cloning” for:

Brain disorders like Parkinson and Alzheimer thanks to derived brain cells
Diabetes thanks to derived insulin-producing pancreatic islet cells
Spinal cord damage thanks to derived nerve cells
Autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis thanks to derived cells of blood and bone marrow Cancer

All this seems a sorry and despicable reminder that you can’t spell “Clonaid” without “con”. In 2003, CBS News reported on just such a case of exploitation of the emotionally distraught; the case of Mark and Tracy Hunt, who had invested $500,000 to have Clonaid ‘resurrect’ their dead son. What truly came as shocking news, however, was the revelation that Clonaid isn’t technically even a real company.

Clonaid doesn’t even have a street address. When we wanted to talk to Clonaid about its status, we were asked to come to Montreal and meet Clonaid’s CEO at a hotel.

Despite repeatedly referring to itself as a company in its press and media releases– indeed, as “the first human cloning company”– Clonaid does not have company status. Their official website does include the following “Did You Know…?” disclaimer on its sidebar out of view, as an aside:

Did you know..
CLONAID is a project name. The company name under which we operate is different and is not revealed for obvious security reasons as to protect the safety of it’s employees and customers.

To clarify: Clonaid did not clone a human in 2002. Clonaid have not cloned a human since. Clonaid have never and will never clone a human, and no one should be paying ludicrously high amounts of money for them to do so– or more accurately, for them not to do so.

It would be easy to laugh off the Raëlians as harmless eccentrics. Many of their views are certainly outlandish enough to seem comical. Yet as we have also seen, there is a worrying picture of the role of women in the movement, and worse, with regard to Clonaid, there is emotional manipulation for financial gain. Aliens bear the responsibility for neither.

Actually, let’s leave that one there for the sake of all of our mental health, and get straight on with Dario’s cartoon for this week…

Luckily we can now keep AIDS at bay in people with HIV infection. Anti-retroviral drugs, which must be taken every day with little room for error, can extend lifespan to around 30 years post-diagnosis (normal lifespan is about 10 years). The treatments are frequently effective, but not always. Even when they are, the patient is still at high risk from numerous cancers, gastrointestinal disorders and serious cardiovascular problems. The patients will have difficulty gaining weight or maintaining normal levels of fitness. The drugs themselves can cause birth defects if the patient conceives a child.

These unthinkable ordeals can be avoided through the use of condoms.

Verrucas are warts that occur on the sole of the foot. The main problem with verrucas is that they look a bit unsightly. Treatment can take the form of cryotherapy (the wart is frozen with liquid nitrogen and removed) or application of salicylic acid. Cryotherapy is the most common of these two treatments. The main side-effect of cryotherapy is mild, transient pain.

This week, writing in the Guardian, Zoe Williams made the breathtakingly ignorant argument that infecting someone with HIV through negligence is comparable to going swimming while infected with a verruca.

Williams has taken issue with the prosecution of German pop star Nadja Benaissa for failing to disclose to sexual partners that she was carrying HIV. Such prosecutions, Williams rants, are brought frivolously in a prevailing culture of sexual conservatism. On Williams’ planet condemning HIV positive people who engage in sexual activity without alerting their partners or using condoms is simply an authoritarian conspiracy to wrest control of our sex lives back into the hands of the state.

Of course it’s because it’s sexually transmitted; this is about retaking the territory of sexual morality, from which the state has been systematically ejected. It is no longer acceptable to pillory the promiscuous merely for existing: if, however, their behaviour can be reframed as a concrete threat to others, rather than a nebulous menace to society, then authoritarianism is suddenly back in the conversation. The agenda of social conservatism – that promiscuity is wrong, that homosexuality is aberrant, that women should be the gatekeepers of sexual activity, since men can’t help themselves (unless of course they’re homosexual, in which case they should try harder) – is so thoroughly rejected in general terms that this opportunity to revivify it was too good to miss.

The fuel of this spectacularly stupid position seems to be her observation that we don’t prosecute for negligent transmission of other conditions – such as verrucas. In Williams’ possibly gin-muddied mind, the fact that both conditions are “manageable” is all important. She disregards the fact that there is a spectrum of experiences which we might consider manageable – the death of a loved one is manageable, this doesn’t make it a comparable experience to the death of a goldfish – and concludes that having unprotected sex with someone when you know you have HIV is morally comparable to knowingly going swimming with a wart on your foot.

In reality, as far as “manageable” diseases go, having HIV is a world away from having a verruca. Yes, they’re both infections, and yes, both can be transmitted by negligence but the consequences are hardly the same. Is Williams’ also confused as to why the law treats a scuffle in the street culminating in a fat lip and a bruised ego differently from the infliction of a potentially fatal knife wound? After all, both are violent crimes, both produce “manageable” harm.

The treatment of verrucas and HIV as equivalent would be one of the most ignorant and offensive things I have ever heard about the disease, if it wasn’t so absurd.  HIV is a life-changing diagnosis; and infection is simple to prevent.  Neglecting to inform sexual partners of this risk to their health is morally reprehensible and it is well within the perimeters of sensible governance to legislate against it.

Zoe’s prize, should she wish to accept it, is a verruca sock (pictured).  If she prints out her future articles on A4 paper, rolls them up and sticks them inside one of these instead of handing it to her editor, it may help to prevent the spread of absurdity in the swimming pool of ideas.