United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

BruceInOz said:
Unfortunately I suspect that, from within their bubble, they sincerely believe that truth is on their side.
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I'm not so sure.

I'm speaking very generally below, and examples come to mind of people we all see in the news constantly. But I can say no more on that.

There are people I've encountered who seem genuinely puzzled by the importance most people place on truth and honesty, like it is outside their ability to comprehend, at least in the sense most people define such things. I've come to the conclusion that is exactly it in some cases. Some seem to live by a prod-the-frog kind of doctrine; if I do this, then does it do that. Sometimes what they do aligns with truth and integrity, other times not, it's kind of incidental. Sometimes of course they will know that a particular prod will be more effective if it seems to align with truth etc, but my cynical view is that that is their only motivation for being 'honest'.
 
Mithriel said:
I am not well enough to go into it just now but she was part of a group of I think marxists, who went on to have the journal "spiked" Their goal was to get themselves into positions of influence.

It is not about truth, it is about agenda.
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Trotskyists, rather than Marxists - they founded the Revolutionary Communist Party. The irony is that Spiked is very much a right-Libertarian publication (funded by Charles Koch no less!), and could hardly get further away from communist and left-wing ideology.

It certainly speaks to their utter lack of fixed principles and their follow-the-way-the-wind-blows opportunism.

(Edited to add: this is definitely heading towards falling foul of the "no politics" rule, though :) )
 
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BruceInOz said:
Unfortunately I suspect that, from within their bubble, they sincerely believe that truth is on their side.
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Which is a characteristic of belief systems, not science. Real scientists know they could be wrong and moderate their claims to that effect, especially when lives are at stake, which is something they don't even understand. String theory has 100000x the evidence basis than any of this crap and the first thing a string theorist will say is that none of it is proven true, just has yet to be proven wrong.

Feynman would beat these fools' heads with bongo drums.
 
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strategist said:
They are awfully far on the right in terms of words and actions for being someone stating to be on the left.
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The thing I read said it was about destroying society to build it again better but it was all too complicated for me to follow.

Just mentioned it because we often try to understand the things they do but we are not in possession of all the facts. The one thing we do know is common sense has flown out the window :)
 
feeb said:
Trotskyists, rather than Marxists - they founded the Revolutionary Communist Party. The irony is that Spiked is very much a right-Libertarian publication (funded by Charles Koch no less!), and could hardly get further away from communist and left-wing ideology.

It certainly speaks to their utter lack of fixed principles and their follow-the-way-the-wind-blows opportunism.

(Edited to add: this is definitely heading towards falling foul of the "no politics" rule, though :) )
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I met some members of this group when I was involved in an organised protest in London. It was a coincidence that our personal interests converged.

They were very well connected and had links to many areas. They could organise publicity and photographers.

Instead of being an upfront political party using the current model, they are quietly recruiting and placing members into universities and institutions.
 
Finn has a letter in 'The Times' today on vaccinations. He has also done briefing for the SMC on the subject.

He is against government intervention to make vaccinations compulsory. This is the same line as Fox and the Spiked crowd take on this issue (and just about every other). It seems he may be a kindred spirit.


VACCINATION POLICY
Sir, Just because there are clear examples that vaccination coverage rates can go up when you push people to do it by making it a school entry requirement or by withholding benefits, that does not mean that it is the only or even a sustainable way to create a stable and successful vaccination programme (report, Sep 30, and letters, Oct 1). As it is undoubtedly possible to do well without such strategies (as seen hitherto not only in the UK but also in Scandinavia and other European countries such as Portugal), surely compelling people ought to be a last resort. Resources would be better spent in schools, teaching children about vaccines, rather than on policing their parents.
Adam Finn
Professor of paediatrics, University of Bristol
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ETA: I should say I don't want to start a debate again about vaccinations or about government policy on them (which would be off-topic and likely against forum policy). I do however think that Fox's membership of this Furedi-Spiked group is relevant to ME. Their approach generally is against government intervention as they think this develops dependency and essentially that's what they think about ME: to treat it as a biological illness and not to administer the 'tough love' of CBT-GET is against our own interests.
This 'robust approach' (in general not just regarding ME) is shared by many and perhaps given the links between Fox and Finn by Finn.

Further edit: deconditioning = dependency?
 
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JohnTheJack said:
Finn has a letter in 'The Times' today on vaccinations. He has also done briefing for the SMC on the subject.

He is against government intervention to make vaccinations compulsory. This is the same line as Fox and the Spiked crowd take on this issue (and just about every other). It seems he may be a kindred spirit.
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Interesting. Fox does indeed mention Finn in this article:
https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/beware-creating-fake-news-on-mmr/

Which I largely agree with - remember that the proportion of 5 year olds who have had at least one MMR dose is 94.9%, only 0.1% from the highs - those who only receive one dose, or receive the first dose after 2 years of age tend to come from disadvantaged and/or immigrant backgrounds. Which is to say, most changes in the vaccination rates are not due to anti-vaxxers (which have not changed much in numbers), but a failing of the public health system.
 
An interesting thing about the SMC is that it was not set up by Spiked as one of its hydra-heads, but has become one of them, with Spikies doing the office work. I'm not sure of the process by which this was done. At first glance, the SMC's championing of junk science on ME/CFS seems paradoxical, as another Spiked hydra-head is Sense About Science, which was set up to oppose quackery, but Spiked itself is a mish-mash of ill-matched ideas. Spiked claims to be libertarian, yet you can find on its website articles opposing assisted suicide, opposing dropping the voting age to 16 (whilst it complains that political parties treat people as children!), opposing gay marriage in Ireland during the referendum there, and so on. There are all sorts of other contradictory things that I could mention.

Spiked also is moving steadily into climate-change denial, which puts any scientific credentials on its part severely into question. Whether the non-Spiked boffins in and around the SMC know about this aspect of Spiked is a good question: getting backing for a so-called scientific investigation into ME/CFS from an organisation getting into climate-change denial could be a bit embarrassing for the PACE brigade and its sponsors at Bristol University.
 
Dr_Paul said:
I'm not sure of the process by which this was done. At first glance, the SMC's championing of junk science on ME/CFS seems paradoxical, as another Spiked hydra-head is Sense About Science, which was set up to oppose quackery,
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In the UK Sense About Science have backed PACE and the 'harassement' stories in a big way. But in the US they have done the opposite.
 
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