Muslims for the Ethical Treatment of MRSA

Now, I'm not normally one to quote the Torygraph, but it seems that there has been a slight culture clash between the cultures of Islam and medical hygiene. It seems that a few muslim medical students have been refusing to roll up their sleeves and scrub up properly in line with hygiene regulations designed to reduce the spread of infections. You know, like MRSA. That most friendly fluffy antibiotic resistant bacterium that just loves to kill people in hospitals.

The Islamic Medical Association had this to say:

"No practising Muslim woman - doctor, medical student, nurse or patient - should be forced to bare her arms below the elbow"

You know what? They're right, because any doctor who refuses to do this on such preposterous grounds should be sacked. Simple as that. Apparently they have the right to modesty. Well I suspect the patient has the right to live. How did that little quote go anyway?

First, do no harm.

So, when the potential students roll up, just give them a questionnaire:

1. Will you follow the hygiene laws, put in place to stop patients dying?
2. Will you treat people, even when they have diseases your religion says are sinful?
3. Will you, in fact, apply science based medicine to all of your cases?

If you answered 'no' to any of the above questions, please sod off. I hear there are many fine places in made up subjects like theology that might suit you better.

An Archbishop Says What?

What?
Although I have to say I wasn't entirely surprised to read the latest piece of drivel to dribble out of our friendly local primate - Are CofE types primates like the Catholics? Ah who cares, he is a primate either way. Apparently we need to adopt some aspects of sharia law in the UK in order to make our muslim friends feel at home.

You know what? No we oughtn't. In fact, we shouldn't just oughtn't, we should damn well complain, although probably in a very polite British sort of a way. After all, he is only an archbishop, and nobody really listens to him any more. Except maybe those dratted Christians, and there's quite a few of them...

Obviously, he is careful to make sure that he doesn't want any of the "extreme" elements like stonings and reductions in women's rights. What he wants is, apparently, all the good fluffy bits of sharia law that don't hurt anyone's civil liberties. Although which bits of sharia law those might be, I'm not too sure. To be honest, it's not even the extremity (or lack thereof) of the laws that matters here, it's the fact that having parallel systems of laws for different religions is a really stupid idea.

We shouldn't change our laws "to make other people feel at home here." Either they were born here or they emigrated here, and they can abide by the laws of this country - and enjoy the right to have them changed by the due democratic process. If the latter, I would suspect that some of them are escaping the brutality of sharia law as practiced in some countries. How much more at home do we make those people feel by introducing it?

Also, is it not odd to imagine a system whereby one is asked one's religious preference before going to court? It seems to me that as an atheist I might benefit from being able to unscrupulously choose whichever system is most beneficial to me at the time. They wouldn't be allowed to deny me the right after all. This country is effectively - and should be officially - a secular state. The law should not recognise religion as an excuse to be treated differently just as it should not be discriminate against people for their religion.

Finally, would it not cost the state a whole bunch more money to have multiple systems of law functioning side by side? That's not really relevant I guess as the main thing we need to do here is make sure we don't end up back in the sodding dark ages trying people on the basis of their religious beliefs.

A Week Without Posting? Dear oh Dear.

It appears that I have been neglecting my (self-appointed) duties, but I was out of town - as I believe they say in that quaint rural colony across the Atlantic - doing science. They don't have the internet in forn parts so I was also away from the blogosphere. Ignore those people who try to tell you it's a blogodisc that is actually flat, because it's not. It might, in fact, be banana or maybe donut shaped but it sure as hell ain't flat.

So, on to business. There are a couple of things in my head that are itching to be blogged about right now, but I need to give them some more thought. One is the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill (HFEB) or, more specifically, the pro-life opposition to it. Sadly, some of the stupidest opposition is on Facebook so I'm not going to link to it here. Suffice to say, one of their chief concerns is the creation of

"Animal-Human Hybrids..." (Cue pipe organ solo. Take it away Tarquin!)

complete with sinister capital letters as if to suggest that scientists will be creating a half duck, half man tomorrow.

Most of the opposition comes from the anti-abortion lobby because the bill also outlines the ethical and sensible use of embryonic stem-cells by science. You know, that science with the potential to help those with crippling and debilitating medical conditions?

Some of the opposition also comes form the anti-gay-marriage crowd as the Bill also proposes altering birth certificates to allow for same-sex couples, or as they put it

"Removing the Need for a Father..." (The organ solo should still be going.)

Yes, that's right, we're going to exterminate all men! Mwahahaha! Oh wait, we're not. We're just liberalising laws about parenthood in an increasingly secular society.

Others are working on more reasoned type arguments based on closer reading of the literature on this. I'm going to stick to ranting as it's easier, and I have my own "literature" to read. Once I've sponged my melted brains off the floor I hope to provide a rant-based review of The Irrational Atheist by Vox Day. The pseudonym pretty much sums up the author being both arrogant (The voice of God? Pull the other one, it's got little flying pigs dangling on it) and using a pun at the same time. Now that's multitasking!

Why Use YouTube When You Can Use GodTube?

Well, because YouTube has all of the same crap that GodTube has, along with some videos that are actually good. Just by typing the word "creation" into the search function (I know, why would any sane person do that?) I found the following little "educational" piece by a cretinist named Charley.
The scariest thing about the video is that this Charley fellow says that he lectures high school kids. Those poor bastards. What did they ever do to deserve that?

Anywho, the video serves as reasonable evidence that, whatever religious leaders say, there are plenty of people out there believing this nonsense. So, because I'm twiddling my thumbs waiting for the free online publication of the latest anti-atheism book, I'm going to summarise his arguments below:

Charley has four problems with evolution. The best thing about them is that they are even more simplistic than the normal, more "sophisticated" cretinist arguments.

1. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics says that things don't get more complex so life can't have evolved.
If this was an episode of QI there'd be alarms going off very loudly right about now. This is about the least sophisticated cretinist argument, and any high-school level physics student can refute it. The claim is that the 2nd law states that life could not increase in complexity (a reduction of entropy) over time as entropy can only increase or stay the same.
The 2nd law of thermodynamics, ladies and gentlemen:

In an isolated system, a process can only occur if it increases the total entropy of the system.

Many have pointed this out before me, including Dave Gorman, but Charley's version is particularly fun because of the example he gives.

"A battery goes from charged to discharged. It does not recharge itself."

And quite right too. But let's say we connect the battery to a large external power source, say a fusion reactor for example. What happens then? Oh yeah, it recharges at the expense of the increasing entropy in the fusion reactor.
Now let's imagine for a second that the Earth has its own enormous fusion reactor, just hanging there in space and showering us with vast amounts of energy for free. What an unusual world that would be. Imagine looking up one morning and seeing a huge, fiery ball of energy just hanging there in the sky. There would surely be chaos! Panic in the streets! Headlines reading "Humanity Flees in Face of Fiery Hell-Sphere!"
Anyway...

2. There are gaps in the fossil record.
That's pretty much it. As with the other cretinists he requires that we are able to dig up a fossil of every single animal that ever lived on this planet. Only then would they stop harping on about the fact that there are no intermediate fossils between this and that already discovered intermediate fossil.

3. There is no known mechanism for Evolution to occur.
Oh yeah, he said it. Apparently DNA is just there for show. Also:

"Mutations are damaging the information not increasing it."

"Dogs do not change into cats, because the information for the cat is not in the dog."

Do I need to even say anything after these quotes? Except that much of the genome of dogs and cats is shared. Oh, and I was sure I read about single genes being able to activate the expression of features in animals that normally don't have those features...

4. The mounting evidence that the Earth is not four and a half billion years old.
He's right here. I think the current estimate is more like 4.54 billion. Although I can't help the niggling doubt that he wants to move the estimate in the other direction...

I know, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. Really big fish in a really small barrel. I just couldn't resist. I'll try not to do the easy ones too much more. I'll probably fail though.

Cretinism Coming to the UK

Ken Ham, president of lucrative US Young Earth Cretinism propaganda machine Answers in Genesis, is coming to the UK on another speaking tour. It turns out he's been here before and I just didn't notice. It would be quite easy not to notice as they don't make much of a song and dance about these tours in the mainstream media.

For those people who may not have heard of Ken Ham, he is from Australia - a country that seems to produce more than its fair share of cretinists - and he used to be part of the Institute for Creation Research, the same organisation that gave us Duane The-Fossils-Still-Say-No! Gish. He is obviously a very "good" Christian and describes his wife as "very submissive" as though this is a good thing. Who the hell wants a submissive wife? Where's the fun in that? Unless of course you - and she - are into that sort of thing... Nudge nudge, wink wink, a nod's as good as a wink to a blind bat, say no more etc.

Answers in Genesis is, of course, the illustrious institution that brought lucky old Kentucky the $27-million Creation Museum: 60,000 square feet of animatronic dinosaurs making nice with humans with a medievally themed gift shop at the end. I can only assume the theme is intended to be a nostalgia trip for those cretinists who miss a good burning at the stake.

Obviously Ham's view are controversial, although not with actual scientists. That controversy ended a long time ago. The cretinists lost, they continue to lose and yet they refuse to admit it. No, Ham's views are, of course, controversial with the old earth cretinists who don't understand how he can ignore so much data about the age of the Earth, whilst they quietly sweep evidence for evolution under the nearest unfeasibly large rug.

So, Ken the cretinist is coming to Leicester on April the 3rd 2008, presumably to peddle the same old crap as usual about magic and how the entire edifice of science is deluded and wrong. I'd also like to note that there seems to be a cretinism conference in Wales from the 28th to the 30th of January 2008, although they seem to want £130 just for attending. This is a price I'm fairly sure I'm not willing to pay just for inevitably being thrown out at some point for setting off the brain scanner.

On a side note, I'm becoming increasingly aware that there might be more cretinists in the UK thn I had first hoped. They seem to pop up everywhere and I've even met a few, although they were in the University's christian union, an organisation I might feel the urge to blog about later on.