Wednesday 29 August 2007

politics and science, or not...





kudos and smarties are the prize for blogger angmoh, who shared the news of this spectacularly asinine Early Day Motion in the House of Commons with the Bad Science forum. In a nutshell, the morose statement expresses support for NHS-funded homeopathic hospitals.



For the uninitiated, instead of referring to the bowel movements of our esteemed Parliamentarians (b'dum tsh...), Early Day Motions are a vehicle for individual MPs to drum up support for or publicise a particular cause - they rarely see the light of day in the debating chamber, but are a neat way of nailing one's colours to the mast on X, Y or even Z.



Many, far too many, MPs have signed up to support this Motion.



As the merits, or otherwise, of homeopathic hospitals have been covered elsewhere (for instance see Ben Goldacre's musings on this subject, or Prof. David Colquhoun's ongoing efforts), I won't go into details. suffice to say that this EDM is a clear statement of intent from those who run the country: to hell with rational, evidence-based, scientific reasoning, let's run Britain like a greasy spoon cafe - order what you like and you'll get it with a side of chips, whether it's good for you or not.



as angmoh suggests, you can find out if your own MP is, technically, a numbskull, by checking the EDM link above and scrolling through the names for your elected eedji. If they're a signatory, writetothem.com is the place to go to register your discontent. here's my effort. will it make a difference? who knows? still, a good way to vent your spleen!

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