United Kingdom: Science Media Centre (including Fiona Fox)

Unfortunately I suspect that, from within their bubble, they sincerely believe that truth is on their side.

 

I think it's actually an "honorary" degree, but I also would have accepted an "ornery degree."

 

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'.

 

Or quality...

Those professionals who think it is unimportant to critically read the method and results of a study, when you can just read the discussion and conclusion.

 

Absolutely. It can have the unfortunate effect of things not going as planned.

 

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.

 

They are awfully far on the right in terms of words and actions for being someone stating to be on the left.

 

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 )

 

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.

 

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

 

At both ends of the horseshoe, the ends may differ but the means are generally the same.

 

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.

 

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.

 

Free reservations for a Fiona Fox talk in Bristol on 25th November!:

Science in the headlines – where science meets controversy
by NIHR Bristol Biomedical Research Centre

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scie...science-meets-controversy-tickets-77144333779

 

Technically, who knows better about politically motivated science reporting than those engaging in it? Straight from the horse's ass!

 

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.

 

In the SMC Factsheets and Briefing Notes section they tell me:

"Please note that our Factsheets and Briefing Notes have now been retired and are no longer available for viewing or download."

Perhaps they have been retired together with Prof Wessely (who isn't on the Board of Trustees anymore)?

Edit: If you click on http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/cfsme-the-illness-and-the-controversy/

you will be told: