Climategate!

By Martín Bonfil Olivera

Published in Milenio Diario, november 9th, 2009

The scandal was very well timed: one month before the United Nations climate change conference took place in Copenhagen, Denmark, some hackers, probably Russian, broke into the servers of the Climatic Research Unit at East Anglia University, in England. They extracted one thousand e-mail messages and two thousand assorted documents, that were then published over the internet.

The objective? To "prove" that climate change experts manipulate data, hide information, ridicule and insult their adversaries –climate change denialists that oppose the fact that global warming is real, or consider it as natural phenomenon, not caused by human activity– and prevent them from publishing their arguments.

And it's true: some documents seem to show evidence of these kind of manipulations. The issue is being investigated to determine if there has been bad scientific practice. If it's confirmed, it will be punished. Also, published data is being verified, to ensure it's reliable.

But it's very probable that we're dealing with a discredit campaign to weaken the International Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), the United Nations, the scientific community and the governments which, right now, are discussing in Copenhagen the urgency of taking measures to diminish the greenhouse effect emissions to attenuate, as much as possible, the damage global warming is already causing.

Sadly, for people who are not specialists, the exhibition of the dirty laundry of scientists in action can be scandalous. In contrast with the pure and untainted –but false- image of science as an infallible method to discover absolute truths, to see researchers as human beings, who commit mistakes and have envies and political interests is a good way to challenge the results of their investigations. But they forget that the reliability of such results it is not given by the personality of individual scientific people, but by a very hard to manipulate collective, international and public quality control process.

It is easy to discredit something by inventing conspiracy theories and exhibiting isolated and out-of-context data. But, independently of the very high economical and political costs of modifying our industry, to play the fool before climate change is an inadmissible risk.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Scientific intolerance

By Martín Bonfil Olivera

Published in Milenio Diario, november 4th, 2009

A month ago I criticized the fraud commited by people who promise to cure to almost any disease by using a machine called SCIO (against, of course, of a good amount of cash).

As always when pseudoscience and charlatans are attacked, I received some congratulatory e-mails, and some other (not many, luckily) that accused me of being dogmatic, intolerant and of disqualifying "other" forms or rationality "that deserve the same respect as the scientific worldview".

It's common to accuse science, and the people who practice it, promote it or communicate it, of being intolerant. But we must remember that science seeks only to study nature, in order to produce reliable knowledge that allows us to understand it and maybe predict it. When referring to the intolerance of science, normally what is questioned is its refusal to recognize practices such as astrology, the study of paranormal phenomena, miracle therapies based on principles "that go beyond science" or conspiracy theories, as scientific.

This exclusion is due in part to the fact that the methods of these disciplines ar not rigorous enough, or their data do not look reliable (in case they are not straightforward fakery). Sometimes, what is not acceptable are their study objects, since science studies only natural phenomena, not supernatural ones.

In science, for a statement to be accepted, it has to go through a complex process of peer review that involves the verification of data and methods, and the discussion of results. The reasons why scientists accept a affirmation have to do with its logical coherence, its plausibility within the existent scientific frame of knowledge, the reproducibility of experiments in which its based, and other reasons (among which some dose of politics and ideology are not excluded).

However, nothing makes a scientist happier than to discover that something that was known turns out to be incorrect. To find mistakes and inconsistencies in scientific theories forces researchers to find even better explanations. This is the force that pushes science forward.

But, for the process to work, it has to be subject to a highly rigorous quality control. The first duty of a scientist is not to delude himself. Science has an unavoidable commitment with reality. If, sometimes this sounds like intolerance, that's not a problem of the scientific method, but of the disciplines that try to pass as scientific... when they are not.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Bad science-fiction

By Martín Bonfil Olivera
Published in Milenio Diario, September 30, 2009

Last week I commented that good science fiction combines genuine science and imagination, and obtains stimulant stories that reveal something about human nature or about current or future societies.

On the contrary, bad science fiction constructs fantasies that "sound" scientific but are not based in legitimate scientific knowledge, and many times openly contradict it. It usually presents amazing technology, some of it real (laser beams, computers, robots) and some less plausible or plainly impossible (force fields, time machines) to sustain the drama which is actually just adventures. It's simply fantasy with a science flavour. Movies such as Star Wars and a lot of what is transmitted in TV as "science fiction" are clear examples.

But still, bad science fiction is an honest entertainment. The problem is that there are also mixtures of science and fiction which are dishonest: think of the innumerable quacks and charlatan scams that claim to have discovered new scientific principles and to possess the "secrets" to cure any disease.

Let's take a popular example. What if there was a machine capable of healing us just by being connected to it?

An American guy that calls himself "professor" William Nelson, and affirms to have worked in the Apollo project for NASA, moved to Budapest and started manufacturing a machine that "restores the bio-energetic balance of the body".

He calls it SCIO, for Scientific Consciousness Interface Operation (also known as EPFX, QXCI or Quantum Xrroid Interface System; all these name don't have any meaning whatsoever, of course).

Nelson looks just like what he actually is: a full blown charlatan, a fraud. But he is a great seller and his machine is popular in a lot of countries, including Mexico. The number of quacks that offer "treatments" with this almost-magical machine is rising, as well as the number of their customers, which are really only victims of their own wishful thinking and of the ignorance or malevolence of the so called "therapists". The scam is also dangerous, because it claims to substitute legitimate medical treatments.

Good science fiction is not about impossible things, but, precisely, about the things science considers possible, and starting from there, it constructs fantasies. In contrast, the SCIO machine, whose ale in the USA, by the way, is prohibited under charges of fraud, is bad science and bad fiction: a lie and a disrespect to the intelligence and good faith of people in pain.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Crazyness and losses

By Martín Bonfil Olivera
Published on Milenio Diario, september 16, 2009

In memory of Antonio Sánchez Ibarra

Yesterday, Roberto Garza in MILENIO DIARIO proposed that the activation of the pleasure brain centers that make people become drug addicts –or alcohol addicts, I might add- can explain why frequently "the most compulsive drug addicts are 'saved' by throwing themselves into a sudden religious conversion".

On the same page, religion expert Roberto Blancarte judged that the important thing is not whether we are dealing with a crazy person or somebody that really "talks with god", but to value their actions and sanction them in consequence, whatever their motives.

The truth is that the actions of evangelic priest José Mar Flores Pereyra, "highjacker" of a Mexicana airplane on 9/9/9 caused direct damages -and also indirect ones, through the wild speculations they generated.

Some people would like to directly blame his religious beliefs. I think this is a non-justified generalization that can spur discrimination against those who profess non-catholic religions.

We atheists and freethinkers tend to think that religions foster superstition and magical thinking. Personally, I think that religious thinking and rationality are not compatible (the great biologist Richard Dawkins, a furious promoter of atheism, of whom recently Blancarte spoke in his column, argues that to indoctrinate kids in religious faith is a form of child abuse).

But I think we have to distinguish between individual actions and group actions. (Although we have to, also, be careful with fanatics: the mother and wife of "Josmar" unconditionally approve of his craziness. And France is having serious problems with sects such as scientology, as reported yesterday in Milenio Diario.)

It is not a minor problem. Without a doubt, part of the solution lies in the promotion of scientific and rational thinking (which are, actually, the same thing).

That's why I am very sorry for the loss, last Sunday, of a great friend of mine and a great Mexican promoter of science: Antonio Sánchez Ibarra, from Sonora, a state in the northern part of Mexico, winner of the National Prize for Science Popularization in 2000, and an enthusiastic promoter of a lot of projects for the diffusion of astronomy, not only in the North of our Country, but in all of Latin America as well.

We certainly could use more promoters like him in our country.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Inmegen: ¿good or bad news?

By Martín Bonfil Olivera
Published in Milenio Diario, September 9th, 2009

On August 26 mexican newspaper MILENIO Diario reported that the Federal budget for 2010 will feature a 47% cut to the National Institute of Genomic Medicine (Inmegen). 120 million pesos less (from 252 in 2009 to 132 in 2010).

The natural reaction would be anger, sadness or resignation in view of another example of the lack or value our government assigns to scientific research. Inmegen would be an isolated step in the right direction, and this cut is a worrying symptom against which we should protest. This is what Gerardo Jiménez, the Institute's head, did when he declared that the decision "puts several projects of scientific research related to the study of chronic and degenerative diseases at risk".

But there's another side of the coin. Inmegen has been questioned from several fronts. The most serious one is about corruption in the construction of their building, started in 2006 and today still unfinished and abandoned. Several damages to the Federal Treasure were identified, worth 33 million pesos, as well as overexpenses for 78 million (111 million in total). Its administrative director was fined with almost 3 million and incapacitated for 10 years by the recently disappeared Public Function Ministry (the architect responsible of the building was also incapacitated, for 15 years).

And the science being done at Inmegen also has its own problems. Their relatively modest study of "the Mexican genome" was artificially blown up to turn it, according to Mexican president Felipe Calderón, into "our entrance into XXI century medicine". The still distant benefits of genomic medicine have been exaggerated wildly. Its capacity for sequencing (reading) genomes, under-used during the influenza epidemic, has now been exceeded by the National University (UNAM), which –even with its ever-present limitations and its budget problems– has just inaugurated superior installations. And its reductionist approach, patent in talk of "Mexican" or "sonoran" (from the mexican state of Sonora) genomes, is biologically and even ethically questionable.

The traditional image of Mexicans is one of lazyness: a guy with a big "sombrero" and a sarape sleeping against a cactus. I think our real problem is one of perseverance: when necessary, we are able to start taking actions to solve our problems.

But sadly, we do not follow up. We build the road but don't give it maintenance. We created a Federal Elections Institute, but we didn't protect it so it wouldn't fall apart and loose all credibility. We created the Inmegen, but we don't guarantee it an appropriate building, personnel nor budget, and we don't ensure that budget is spent honestly.

What a waste.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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Fox: disatrous horoscope

By Martín Bonfil Olivera
Published in Milenio Diario, August 19, 2009

It's not surprising that Vicente Fox, Mexico's former president, declared on Saturday 15, at his Centro Fox in San Cristobal, at the graduation ceremony of the first generation of its Master in Politics course, that Mexico's economical crisis of is the result of "a convergence of stars in a negative sense, of negative vibes".

It's not surprising because he is very well known for his capacity for saying nonsense. Because his lack of culture is legendary. And because, even when he was president, it was clear that he and his wife Martha believed in all kinds of quackery.

Santiago Pando, the star advisor of Fox's presidential campaign, claimed to receive advise from the "galactic mayans", "light beings" whose voices he heard. And the President's Office hired a clairvoyant in 2006, Rebeca Moreno Lara, who acted as "mystical advisor" for the first lady.

So it's not surprising , but it is outrageous and worrying. It seems that, as a country and as a society, we still believe that the causes of our problems are in the stars, not in our own actions and decision. No wonder we haven't been able to solve them.

For the pseudoscience of astrology, certain "star combinations" are disastrous, fateful: they cause disasters (from the word disaster, stellar cataclysm and therefore something bad produced by stars).

Astronomers are tired of explaining that such star combinations don't really exist. They're only an effect of perspective: although two stars, seen from the Earth, may appear to be in "conjunction", they are separated by millions of miles (if not, by light years, equivalent to around 10 billion kilometers).

Maybe Fox's declaration is, by itself, a disastrous sign: a signal of the failure of our educational system, which allows that somebody that was the president harbours these primitive beliefs. Of the failure of our political system, converted into a publicity-driven media-cracy, that allows this uncultured character to win an election by a wide range. Of the failure of the effort by we science journalists and science writers, who have not managerd, through the media, to carry a minimum of scientific culture to the average citizen.

"Certainly" (as Fox would have said), a very bad sign.

(translated by Adrián Robles Benavides)

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