Scientists advise, politicians decide

A spat about nothing, just what the media ordered on a dull November Monday.

Nutt go to the naughty corner for a tranquilizer and ex Postie Union Boss Johnson go and solve the postal strike.

Firstly, Economists are not scientists, their credibility is completely shot, they will soon be talking about an upturn in retail sales in Sagittarius and a bleak outlook for Capricorn. Secondly, the Climate Changers aren’t proper scientists either and here governments all over, not just ours, choose to listen to the Nutters (no pun intended) and ignore and silence the ones who are expert in the disiplines that matter and listen only to the polar bear watchers and snow thickness measurers. Politicians of all colours are morons.

Show me – from before his sacking – Nutt’s Daily Mail article ‘campaigning against Government Policy’ – or his interview on the BBC – you can’t, because there aren’t any. Nutt gave a lecture to academics at Kings in July, which was published in an academic journal in October. And for presenting to scientists the science, he gets sacked. This is not about ‘advisers advise, ministers decide’, but about only accepting policy based evidence, and ministers seeking to censor science. Shame on you for swallowing Johnson’s line whole.

If the UK survives as anything akin to an independant country over the next 2-3 years the only way to deal with cannabis (which is actually a very small issue now when compared to other far more pressing and dangerous problems) is to have a public (unfortunately meaning combination of MP’s and other government officials) work with a group of qualified medical, social and psychiatric experts to determine how, when and where for the distribution and sale.

One will need to give the MP’s enough time to figure out how they and their friends will be the holders of the various permits to produce, package and distribute the drugs so that they have the opportunity personally to receive economic benefit from any change in the laws. In effect they will become, along with the tax authorities, the benficiaries of the cash/profits currently going to organised crime and the network of dealers around the UK and feeding into the UK population from the EU, US and elsewhere.

“Bootlegged” and untaxed dope, hence lower-cost dope, will be present as it is whenever regulation and taxation become present, so there will continue to be a form of private sector competition with the business controlled by government officials and their friends. It’s all really quite simple and will allow the public officials to cover up their economic benefit will all sort of self-serving, self-righteous palaver for many years.

“These days anyone who dares to question the scientific basis for man-made global warming gets it in the neck from the scientific community.”

No, you get it in the neck from politicians, just as you did when you questioned the evidence for invading Iraq. Don’t confuse the issues here, we don’t trust politicians to make good decisions and that’s all there is to it.

Prof Nutt may be right, he may be wrong, but he has a much purer motive than those who claim to seek his advice.

Economics is a science by definition. What does that make economists then?

“They are also required to make decisions for themselves based not just on advice but on their beliefs and their political instincts.”

Just a minute.

Not so fast.

If the criteria for inclusion in Category C are known and verifiable and cannabis satisfies those criteria, then no amount of judgement and personal preference can alter that fact. That’s science. So there are limits to this business of making decisions on the basis of their own beliefs and instincts.

If Alan Johnson’s instincts tell him that your name is “Celia Johnson” and not “Benedict Brogan”, I take it that you won’t wait for the voters to decide before correcting him.

Mr Johnson has form. In June, he wrote a foreword to the Home Office paper ‘Safeguarding Identity’, saying that he fully endorsed the plan to make ID cards an essential part of everyday life. He also announced in June that ID cards were not going to be compulsory. Try squaring that circle, http://dematerialisedid.com/BCSL/Johnson.html

What about the goons behind Mr Johnson, the civil servants at the Home Office? They claim that the UK’s borders can be protected using face recognition technology. There is a lot of evidence against that claim and none in its favour. They proceed anyway, even though the FBI themselves have advised that the technology is not worth investing in, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/libertycentral/2009/nov/01/biometrics-home-office

Professor Nutt is to be congratulated for demanding of the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister the standards of logic and scientific evidence demanded of our children for GCSE.

Much as I regard Alan Johnson as another fake Labour Cabinet Minister – he is right on this one. Advisers do advise. Most of us would be as nutty as the professor to act always on the advice of our parents, bank manager, estate agent or garden cenre ! Most of us listen to what others say and then decide. We are then accountable – although I probably blame my bank manager for his **** advice !

What compounds the stupidity of the Nutt is comparing ecstasy with horse riding. Illicit drug use is linked to criminal gangs. They make BILLIONS and in turn corrupt our whole society – politicians, the police and local democracy.

So *** off Professor. We pay you and your liberal left left mates already through extorted taxes. Most Brits know the difference between right and wrong – we do not need self important professors to tell us. Whether it is on drugs, criminality, childcare or education.

I have no problem with the broad thrust of your article in that the final decision lies with the minster. However the truth is incovenient and would of meant less nannying and bullying from the Labour government.

However you take the the government’s stance on the alleged harm of second hand cigarette smoker (SHS). They were only to ready to believe the charlatans like fake charity ASH. Trebles all round and a promotion.

As Alvan Feinstein, Yale University epidemiologist said of SHS, “Yes, it’s rotten science, but it’s in a worthy cause. It will help us to get rid of cigarettes and become a smoke-free society”

The civil servant in charge of “Tobacco Control” at the Department of Health is John Tilley. Here he is being publically being quoted in a local paper, “action on smoking in the home will be a necessary part of future strategy on tobacco control.”

How dare an unelected civil servant dictate policy and set the agenda. Especially as the government wishes to invade the sanctity of ones own home. What authority does he have in this arena? I have debated Tilley before, he is either grossly misinformed, crassly ignorant or willfully misleading the public.

The last time I looked he was still employed by the D of H.

http://www.lcolby.com/colby.htm

http://www.lincolnshire.gov.uk/section.asp?catid=24321&docid=80559

Engineers and M.D.’s ought to advise, not scientists. If a scientist makes a mistake, they go to jail. If a scientist does, he shrugs and moves on. Remember Y2K? Scientific competency is not licenced by the state, only by other university peers.

Scientists have no ante at the table, because they don’t work at a profit, they are grants scroungers. Engineers and doctors have it all at risk, every contract they take on, their reputation, their livelihood, the lot.

If you don’t have P. Eng. or M.D. after your name and you are talking about either chemical and thermal mechanical engineering issues, which global warming pro or con is, or the damage drugs do, which is entirely a medical issue at core, you are talking through your hat and pretending to a competency you do not have, which is worse than telling porkies. You are seeking to kill people’s livelihoods or misrepresent reality for either your own profit and to satisfy your own egotistical sense of 18th century Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner ranters’ self-worth, then passing the plate, which is why theologians are perfectly correct in identifying science as just another competing religion.

To Walt OBrien @ 1.19PM

FYI information David Nutt degree’s include a Doctorate in Medicine from Oxford…
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/media/experts/jsp/public_view/expertDetails?personKey=EV5pUDbZl6xIgvJZqvJti0QX7c6ljr

I hope this allays your concern. It was very easy to check….. and any good scientist checks his facts before posting.

Brogan’s argument is essentially the old civil service jingle about scientists: “on tap, not on top”. It is that attitude which has left us facing a shortage of power stations for the next twenty years.

It is indeed a good question to ask, “how does a non-scientist distinguish bad science from good science?”. The answer is that we need more scientists in the decision-taking positions where that question has to be answered.

How many of those 350 economists mentioned in the article were government paid advisors and out of those how many were sacked for airing their view?

This article misses the point. The furore isn’t about how a government department should ‘act’ on advice sought. It is about the governments inability to ‘tolerate’ opposing views.

“The answer is that we need more scientists in the decision-taking positions where that question has to be answered.”

And when the scientists are wrong?
What then?

Either we elect our legislators, or they select themselves on scientific merit.
There is no in between.

My bag was science, engineering and senior management, no bias here.

If a Minister of the government and a senior Acedemic, representing a number of people with a grievance, cannot sit down over a pie and a pint to discuss these problems they should be both fired.

What calibre of people do we have running this country when the first bullets of personal discontent are fired through the back door into the domain of the media.

I repeat my previous suggestion, Nutt go to the naughty corner and take ’something’ of your own choosing, whilst you, exPostie Union Boss Johnson go and sort out the Royal Mail dispute, make yourselves useful for a change.

Ministers do indeed decide. But if ministers make statements of “fact” that are empirically false – as the Labour government has done on the matter of the health effects of various drugs – they should expect to have this pointed out by the advisers they choose to ignore. Pharmacology is not the same as economics. The latter is entails policy and evidence that are inextricably linked, and is unavoidably coloured by politics. The impact of cannabis on human health is observable, and has no necessary link to drugs policy.

Don’t forget, this is the government that promised “evidence based” policy. Yet again, it appeared they lied.

There are very few “facts” in life. Most are a series of scientific conclusions mixed with personal opinion. Academics are as prone to selective use of information as politicians.

We are told emphatically that MMR is safe for example. Cobblers to that – being old enough to remember when Thalidomide was conclusively safe. Vioxx, the Merck heart drug was emphatically safe. Is that why Merck have put aside 1.5 BILLION dollars to compensate US victims of the drug ?

The Nutty Professor and his equally know all friends are entitled to their opinions ( they are not pure “facts”). But they are merely advisers.

The greater pity that we cannot wind up scores more of these quangos and advisory bodies which drain the wealth of the UK . It used to be proven beyond doubt by builders that Tower Blocks were the way to live and by Educationalists that Comprehensives were the best from of Education. Now those are two “facts” that have been proven somewhat dubious over the past 40 years or so.

I rarely agree with anything that this sordid Labour lot say. Possibly Alan Johnson and the Nutt deserve one another ?

THe ACMD are not an expensive quango – they represent excellent value for money, and are essential to the funtioning of the misuse of drugs act.

The Government have this very wrong, and the Tories will mess it up even worse.

I agree with Benedict completely on this one. Yes, I know many of us are angry with the political class, but really, it is a case of advisers advisers, and Ministers decide. That’s what we vote for. The unelelected Prof can enjoy the purity of his chosen discipline, but it is Ministers who must look at the effect of anything on the bigger issue: reality, and the wellbeing of a country which is an issue that is a blend of disciplines, not just simple-minded science.

However, I’m more concerned with another theme instead of this spat between a quangocrat and his boss. It reminds me of a Sherlock Holmes storyline: the dog that didn’t bark.

Where was the civil servant who ought to have assisted the Minister in resolving his issue with more finesse, and less of a pointless kerfuffle? Or was the kerfuffle intended, as a useful distraction from other, more difficult issues?

Hmmm…just wondering. It’s all a bit odd.

PS
Just an anecdotal tale. A few years ago, my most excellent NHS GP told me that cannabis use increases the risk of psychosis many times over, and she was dealing with the sad sight of 20-somethings who she had known since they were babies now appearing before her with the early stages of mental health problems which, based on her experience, not some Ivory Tower purist statistics, told her that the condition of these young people would get worse, in most cases.

So, Mr Johnson. Take the heat. Do what needs to be done. The country’s wellbeing rests on your decision, based on many qualified opinions, not just some Prof who has the bare faced audacity to go beyond his remit; he’s there to advise, not decidem, as many believe, and we are backing you on this one.

kiningan,
I’d believe your point if it were not for the Prof’s gloating since becoming the center of a news item. See? His vanity suggests that the Home Secretary knows something you don’t. Just my instinct. I might be wrong, and so may you be. I trust my GP, and those I’ve known in the pharmaceutical business, more than I trust the Prof. Why? Because the world beyond his science lab is a much more complex place than his ego seems able to accept.

geoffthereff,
Absolutely correct in the real world, but unfortunately, we are having to deal with the precious political class, and their paid monkeys…err…advisers.

…and the vain Prof would do well to contemplate Mikea’s comment at 5.42pm. It just goes beyond blind science.

@David L on Nov 2nd, 2009 at 2:36 pm

Excellent return. Your round completely.

Has Professor Nutt any cert’s other than academic and is he paying omissions and errors insurance (malpractice insurance)? Offices in Harley Street? A practice in substance abuse remediation and recovery? That’s the point I was trying to make in differentiating between scientists and practitioners licenced by conventional governmental bodies. Surely you see the difference between hands-on players and academic theoreticians trafficking in the latest and greatest fashion of thought, please?

Science was once mesmerism, phrenology, eugenics (Houston Stewart Chamberlain and Gobineau), animal magnetism, humours, Y2K and astrology, remember.

Still a tendency to kill the messenger in the United Kingdom when our continental cousins are much more sensible and empirical about the evidence Professor Nutt stood by. Judging by these comments I’m quite sure he’d have been better of making up his findings.