Scence is blind - Botswana Guardian

Saying something out loud doesn't make it true. Writing something in a newspaper doesn't make it true. Even just believing something doesn't mean what you believe is true. In the past people were taught, and genuinely believed, that the world was flat. They believed that the stars were gods, that the Sun rotated around the Earth and that illness was caused by evil spirits. But we moved on. We embraced knowledge rather than superstition and we put behind us beliefs that had no foundation.

Or did we?

Last week the astonishing South African Minister of Health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, stated that traditional healers, whose work is soon to be integrated into the conventional health system would not have to prove that their remedies actually worked. Specifically she said that traditional medicine should not be "bogged down in clinical trials". According to the BBC she said that "We cannot use Western models of protocols for research and development".

Yet again she has missed the point. There is no such thing as a "Western protocol for research". There is no such thing as “Western research”. In fact there is no such thing as "Western medicine" any more than there is "Western sunshine". Medicine is medicine and the only real distinctions we should make are between medicines that work and those that do not, between ideas that are useful and those that are not, between things that actually help humanity and those that do not.

The scientific method, the approach that genuine medicine really uses, is based on one key thing. It's based on predictions that can be falsified. Not things that can be proved but things that can be falsified and that's what the clinical trials that Manto complains about are really all about. They are about really testing a theory that something works and testing it rigorously. What she presumably fears, along with homeopaths, reflexologists and herbal medicine sellers is the dreaded "double-blind, controlled trial". You get two groups, one gets the medicine you are testing and the other gets something that looks and feels like the medicine but is really often no more than a sugar pill or a glass of water. The key thing is that neither the people taking the medicine nor the doctors or nurses who actually give it to them know which is which until the end of the trial. Only then are the details taken out of a sealed envelope and the results properly analysed. That way can you remove the effect of people’s expectations. That way you can rule out the placebo effect, which is what happens when people believe they are getting a medicine when in fact they are not but they get slightly better anyway, just because they believe something is happening. The placebo effect is a powerful effect and it’s only by “blinding” both the patients and the doctors in a trial that you can rule out it’s effect.

In that sort of trial we could see whether so-called traditional medicines work. Hopefully some of them would. Maybe we really would find something marvelous that can really help humanity. Maybe science and tradition could come together and we could see through the medieval distortions and ignorance surrounding us

True science is a genuinely wonderful thing. Like justice it is blind. Blind to untruth, blind to expectations and blind to prejudice. Like all truth it is blind to prejudice, blind to ignorance and blind to lies.

A cure for everything? - Botswana Guardian

It really is getting worse. In the past I’ve been irritated by the nonsense from various organisations trying to sell their useless rubbish. To begin with it was the Scientologists selling their ludicrous “we can fix everything” courses while hiding their deranged belief that our minds are inhabited by the souls of multi-million year old aliens. Then it was the alternative health movements who advocate fiddling with your feet, your bottom or your gullibility, homeopaths who think water has a memory of an ingredient that is no longer there, pseudo-oriental doctors who think sticking needles into part of you will rebalance your chi and then the silliest product in the history of unscientific rubbish: the detox foot pads.

This is all, of course, utterly unscientific, utterly without evidence and utterly useless. It’s all based on lies, naiveté or ignorance.

However despite this being completely silly I have always been able to see the funny side. Until recently every bit of pseudoscientific hogwash that I’ve come across has at least been amusing.

Until last weekend.

There I was strolling with my family around Riverwalk Shopping Centre when we passed by a pharmacy. An advertisement in the window offered “Rise-up and walk – the broad spectrum herbal medicine”. OK, I thought, here we go again, some herbal concoction made from leaves that hints, in vague terms, that it can help your immune system or can boost your health. Not so. This one was different. I won’t describe their claims, I’ll quote them directly:

“Effective Solution to Athritis, Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Cancer, Typhoid, HIV/Aids, Gynaecological Disorders, Viral, Fungal & Bacterial Diseases among others”.

Where to begin?

Well, perhaps by nominating the producers of this remarkable medicine for a Nobel Prize for Medicine. If this rubbish can, in fact, cure everything from typhoid to HIV/AIDS then the producers deserve a prize. At one stroke they have cured the world of AIDS, bacterial diseases like TB and typhoid and removed the threat posed by cancer.

Alternatively we can have the peddlers of this criminal rubbish reported to the Consumer Protection Unit for breaking the law. Our very own Consumer Protection Regulations state that suppliers have breached the terms of the Regulations if they quote “scientific or technical data in support of a claim unless the data can be readily substantiated”. They are also in trouble if they promise “outcomes where those outcomes have no safe scientific, medical or performance basis”.

Let’s be clear about a few things. There are no products that can cure cancer that can also cure typhoid, HIV/AIDS and diabetes. Anyone who tells you differently is either a fraud or a fool.

I genuinely wish there was such a cure, I really do. If it existed my wife wouldn’t have lost her sister, my father wouldn’t have lost three years of his teenage life to TB and millions of other people would be alive today.

But it’s simply not true. It’s a deliberate lie. It’s an attempt to cash in on our desperation and that’s what makes it so repellant. Sooner or later someone is going to spend money on this worthless rubbish and will stop taking their real medicine. Then they’ll die.

I beg you all not to buy products from suppliers who sell false hopes to the desperate. We really must all stand up against this sort of deception. Lives are at stake.

Shouting fire? - Botswana Guardian

Do we have a right to unrestricted free speech? Well, most of us would instinctively say that yes, of course we do, we live in a democracy and we can say what we like. Or can we?

Oliver Wendell Holmes, the famed American Supreme Court judge once said in a ruling that “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic”. In other words there are certain things you can’t say. You can’t shout fire in a theatre if there isn’t actually a fire. We’re simply not allowed to say things that will cause panic or that may cause death, injury or civil disturbance.

So what are we going to do about Pastor Tshifhiwa Irene who visited Francistown recently and who told the crowds that God has decided to end HIV/AIDS in a few days?

According to the Midweek Sun Pastor Irene, who had presumably forgotten to take her medication that day, reported that HIV was caused by a committee of demonic principals, chaired by Lucifer himself, who took blood from a crocodile, a snake, a tortoise and a hyena, mixed it with demonic saliva and blood which then somehow produced AIDS to destroy humanity. There’s no point in trying to understand this deranged claptrap because it’s, well, deranged claptrap.

However I suppose we’re all entitled to our ludicrous opinions. Botswana is a free country where the state isn’t allowed to forbid ideas, no matter how weird they might be.

What I DO object to is when people like Pastor Irene shout fire when there isn’t one. She apparently went on to report that on 20^th November God started to roll out his big plan for ending HIV and AIDS and predicted that very soon “All children born of HIV positive mothers will be free of HIV”.

Let’s get our facts straight. There genuinely HAS been a reduction in the proportion of children of HIV positive mothers who were born with HIV and that’s tremendous news. But it wasn’t religion that did that, it was our Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission program. It was PMTCT that took the proportion of HIV positive children born to HIV positive mothers down from 40% to less than 4%. It was PMTCT backed up by rationalism, logic and medical science that did it.

Luckily also present at the so-called prayer crusade in Francistown was the local MP and Government Minister, Phandu Skelemani, who is reported to have said afterwards “She must be out of her mind” and proceeded to ask local politicians “How can any self-respecting leader attend such a misleading service?”

Coincidentally another recent story from Francistown reported that the police were investigating piles of anti-retroviral drugs and hospital cards that were found near makeshift community churches. It seems that encouraged by religious fanatics patients are throwing away their hugely expensive drugs in the hope of promised miracle cures. Cures that of course miraculously don’t ever happen.

I believe very strongly that if only one HIV positive person is persuaded to leave the PMTCT program or to discard their ARVs as a result of what Pastor Irene and her colleagues say then she and her fellow preachers will have blood on their hands. She has gone further than we should accept. Her speech may end up not being free but in fact very expensive indeed.

Barry Eustice – a personal tribute

Barry Eustice died last week and Botswana is a slightly poorer country because of it.

Barry was well-known throughout Botswana for his charitable walks, walks that covered Botswana but also other countries, raising many millions for the disabled wherever he went. I’m not going to repeat all the dates, distances and achievements, many others are better placed to report on those. Yes, he got an MBE for his achievements but that wasn’t what impressed people.

Barry was a role model, a demonstration of the spirit that can overcome the greatest of disabilities and was living proof that whatever fate throws at you there is always room for a smile. Well, in Barry’s case a load of smiles and a few beers as well.

I first grew to know him a decade ago as a regular in the bar at the President Hotel in Gaborone. He seemed to be forever there, sitting on a bar stool, surrounded by friends of every background, often with the Weekly Telegraph crossword half-completed (but not for long). One of the first things he ever said to me was “Who directed Dirty Harry?” “Don Siegel”, I said. We knew then that we had each met someone with the same level of passion for the sort of knowledge that is completely useless but that comes in very useful in pub quizzes and long conversations in bars after you’ve had a few.

A few years ago my wife Kate and I were part of a large team of people that was helping Nomsa Mbere and her followers prepare for her walk across the Makgadikgadi Pans. In order to launch the walk publicly there was a gathering at the Maharaja and I persuaded Barry, as a famous walker, to come along and give everyone an uplifting talk. After a series of, I have to say, rather unexciting lectures up sprang Barry. Within minutes he had the audience eating out of his hand. There were stories of mishaps, accidents, women ending up topless and the occasional President who would come along to wish him well. It ended with Barry doing one of his party tricks. After a comedian’s warm-up he showed us how he could balance one of his crutches vertically on the palm of his hand. “See”, he said, “just because I’m disabled, it doesn’t mean I’m incapable!”

The last time I saw Barry I was sitting in a restaurant with a visitor from South Africa when Barry slowly walked by. He joined us and then I watched as my guest sat open-mouthed as I made Barry share some of his stories. He seemed to have that effect on people. Here was a rather diminutive, elderly-looking, disabled man who would stun his guests with his achievements.

Barry raised the profile of the disabled in Botswana. He raised enormous amounts of money. He bothered government and businesses into donating to charity. He started the Botswana branch of the Cheshire Foundation. Like Leonard Cheshire, Barry achieved what very few of us can hope to do with our lives. He made a real difference to the society he lived in.

In an age of mortals, he was a hero.

A change of career? - Botswana Guardian

I think I’m going to train to be a lawyer. I know 43 might be a little old for a career change but I’ve spent some time recently reading our laws. Some of them like the Collective Investment Undertakings Act are incredibly dull but many of them are fascinating.

One of my favourites is the Penal Code. Discrimination is illegal. Anyone who treats another “less favourably” on the grounds of colour, race, nationality or creed can be fined up to P500 or go to prison for up to 6 months. It’s illegal to deliberately wound anybody’s religious feelings. It’s obviously not illegal to say you don’t believe something someone else believes or even to point out flaws in their belief systems but going out of your way to offend them is punishable by up to a year in jail. So don’t do it OK?

Then there’s witchcraft. Not acceptable. The Witchcraft Act makes it illegal to tell fortunes or to find stolen or lost things using any claim to supernatural power. The thing I like best about the Act is that it refers to “so-called witchcraft”. The authors of the law knew it was all unbelievable hocus-pocus and, quite rightly, outlawed it.

However, every so often the laws take a small step sideways and have, in my slightly humble opinion, erred. For instance the Botswana Health Professions Act, 2001 demands that any health professionals must be registered. All very sensible so far. Doctors, dentists, pharmacists and other recognised professionals like opticians, occupational therapists and physiotherapists all have to prove their legitimacy before they can practice. However the Act then mentions what are called “Associated Health Professionals”. This includes chiropodists who are a logical bunch but then goes on to include homeopaths and acupuncturists. This is a mistake. Those last two professions are based on pseudoscience. There is no real, scientific, rational evidence for either homeopathy or acupuncture. They are both based on rubbish. No clinical trials into their effectiveness have ever shown any real effect. I think it’s an insult to chiropodists to lump them in with charlatans.

Back to the Penal Code. The wonderful clause 92 makes it an offence punishable by a fine of up to P500 to say or write anything that expresses hatred, ridicule or contempt for any person or group based on their “race, tribe, place of origin, colour or creed”. It’s simply illegal to make sweeping, offensive generalisations about people because they’re black or white, born here or elsewhere. We are all given the same protection from being insulted.

Of course none of us have any protection against logical argument and reasoned criticism. None of us deserve any such protection. All of us, every day, are open to criticism of our beliefs, our values and our allegiances. That’s the way of a democracy and we are all VERY fortunate to live in a genuine democracy. Millions of people around the world are dying to have the rights of free speech and the protections we have. The people of Burma, led by Aung Sang Suu Kyi, are struggling to have just a fraction of what we have.

So I’m just very happy to be in a country where free speech is not only respected, it is also protected and encouraged. If anyone thinks I’m talking nonsense I would be delighted to see reasoned arguments saying why. If, however, all people can come up with is that I’m wrong because I’m white then not only are your arguments silly, they may even be illegal!

Alternative medicine can cause alternative illness - Botswana Guardian

It goes on and on. The parade of rubbish, nonsense and drivel masquerading as “alternative medicine”. In the Advertiser last week two advertisements offered something rather special.

Promises. Just promises. Nothing else.

The first was from Lam-Med Health Care. It asked whether we suffer from “Arthritis, Cramps, Cellulite, Muscular Pains, Back problems, Cancer, Poor circulation, Stress, High Blood Pressure, Diabetes, Asthma, Eczema etc”. The solution to all of these problems? “Health through the power of Oxygen Ozone”.

The second, from “Siloam”, asked if we’re suffering from problems including “Insomnia and Headache”, “Sciatic nerve, rheumatism, arthritis” and yet again “High blood pressure”. The solution? “Reflexology and muscle and bone adjustment”. This lot go one stage further and promise that “you will be free from the suffering”. They say that Siloam “is the solution to your problems”.

Where to begin.

Firstly everything offered is known to be utterly useless. In case you don’t know reflexology is based on the idea that the soles of your feet somehow map the structure of your body. They say that if you apply pressure to various spots on your feet it will affect your organs. Squeeze here and your liver will be affected, tickle here and your spleen will be in top-notch shape.

This is nonsense. Every time there has been serious scientific research into reflexology it has been shown to have no more of an effect that having your feet massaged. Of course some of us might like having our feet massaged. It’s not my thing but people say it’s wonderfully relaxing and feels terrific. But that doesn’t make it medicine. It doesn’t make it true.

As for ozone that’s rubbish as well. Not only is there absolutely no evidence that ozone helps with any health problems, there IS evidence that ozone can actually be harmful to our health.

Then there’s the danger of relying on this rubbish rather than things that do work. Like medicine. Medicine based on science. Science that is rational, logical and enlightened. My fear is that some poor soul, suffering from one or other of the nasty conditions mentioned will go to these charlatans and take their nonsensical treatments rather than something that actually works. The risk is terrifying. Instead of taking real medication for potentially dangerous disorders like high blood pressure, asthma and diabetes they’ll take some ludicrous herb or the useless reflexology approach. Who knows what might happen. Someone’s going to die, if they haven’t already.

I’m not going to say that traditional or herbal remedies have no effect. We all know how many conventional medicines come from natural origins. Penicillin was discovered when samples in a laboratory were infected by an air-born mould. Warfarin, commonly used to treat heart conditions, is found in many plants such as sweet clover and even in liqorice.

But the trouble is how unpredictable herbal remedies can be. If I go to my local pharmacy and buy paracetamol I know for sure that each tablet contains exactly 500mg of paracetamol. With herbal remedies, who knows? The only certainly I have is if I use a homeopathic “remedy”. At least with those I know they contain nothing at all!

I think it’s about time that we did something to fix this problem. Luckily we have the tools to act. These nonsensical therapies cost money. That makes us consumers. The Consumer Protection Regulations make it really unwise to offer products where “the supplier promises outcomes where those outcomes have no safe scientific, medical or performance basis”. Reflexology and ozone have no scientific or medical basis. The fantastic news is that they are illegal!

We’re being invaded - Botswana Guardian

No, I’m not talking about Zimbabweans, I think we’re under threat from something much more dangerous than illegal aliens, health charlatans and international consultants telling us we’re doing everything wrong.

We’re being invaded by nonsense.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve encountered several ludicrous ideas. The Scientologists will probably say this is because of alien ghosts in my brain but I blame something much more harmful: the internet.

Several times in the last few weeks I’ve received emails announcing the release of a DVD called The Secret. This DVD, which you’ll not be surprised to learn costs money, tells us that our thoughts can “create reality”. Just thinking that you’ll become a millionaire will make you a millionaire. If you just think that your marriage is going to be wonderful then it will be wonderful. Just thinking that it will rain, will, yes, you guessed it, make it rain. The trouble is it’s not all positive, there’s a negative side as well. We become ill apparently because we think bad thoughts. Presumably we get robbed, raped and murdered because we made it happen with our bad thoughts?

Apart from the cruelty of the message that The Secret delivers, there is of course, the utter nonsense that it comprises. Did we have a drought because we made it happen by being negative? Did the tsunami kill all those people because they weren’t thinking happy thoughts? Did tens of millions of people die during the Second World War because they hadn’t bought a DVD from a bunch of New Agers? Can you make HIV leave your body just by thinking?

Of course not.

I’m a big believer in positive thought but I do recognise it’s limitations. Positive thought alone doesn’t do anything. It’s what results from positive thought that matters. We’ve all known people who have managed to survive illness and adversity and whose positive outlook has made them a great role model but their outlook was just helpful, it didn’t itself cure anything. There is almost always a third factor behind such obvious associations.

Someone who retains a positive outlook when faced with illness is surely the one who is also more likely to improve their diet, cut down on the booze and start exercising? Surely it’s those things that help them live longer, recover more quickly and become healthier?

We get the same thing from all the other purveyors of the “thought makes reality” message. Whether it’s The Journey talking about cell memory, churches telling the congregation that prayer alone will make us rich or the Scientologists saying that we just need to clear out all those pesky aliens from our minds, it’s all the same.

As Oscar Wilde said, the truth is never pure and rarely simple. Our health and wealth are, in fact, heavily influenced by things beyond our control. Of course we can modify our destiny hugely by taking personal responsibility for it. We can work harder, learn something new every day, and listen to genuine, qualified experts when they give us health advice but we can’t avoid the fact that much of what happens in life is beyond the control of positive thinking.

At a more profound level my objection is that so much of this is simply untrue. Cells don’t have memory any more than rocks do. Wealth comes from good fortune for a few lottery winners and the grandchildren of millionaires but mostly it comes from hard work, imagination and talent. As for Scientology aliens in my brain, well, I think they gave up and went home years ago.

Colour blindness

It occurred to me that HIV, wickedness and ignorance all have something in common.

They are all colour-blind.

HIV can’t see in colour. It doesn’t check someone’s colour before it infects them. It doesn’t take a quick peek to see whether it’s about to infect someone black or white. It doesn’t even check to see if someone is male or female. In fact it’s very liberal and totally unbiased. If it didn’t cause such suffering and distress we’d probably admire it for being so unprejudiced.

Wickedness also doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t decide who to corrupt by looking at their skin colour first. You don’t need to be an academic to see the appalling history of human wickedness.

Adolf Hitler was wicked and white, Idi Amin was wicked and black. Joseph Stalin was wicked and white, Haile Mengistu was wicked and black and Pol Pot was wicked and oriental. Like most serial killers each of them slaughtered largely within their own ethnic group. In none of those cases did skin colour play even a tiny role. They were all just plain wicked. No ethnic group has a monopoly, or even a majority share, in wickedness. In fact it’s fairly evenly distributed. It’s a thoroughly human failing, not an ethnic one.

And finally ignorance. Ignorance knows absolutely no boundaries and unfortunately seems to be present in epidemic proportions. Just take a look at the enormous spread of ludicrous superstitions and crazy pseudo-religions spreading through the world. Whether it follows the decline of regular religion I’m not sure but you can’t avoid the latest nutritional, self-help or other “New Age” lunacy everywhere you go.

I don’t think it’s pushing a point too far to state that willful ignorance has even played a huge role in the disastrous situation the US government got themselves into in Iraq. Pretty much everyone else in the world was saying they shouldn’t try it but their minds were closed and a determined ignorance won the day.

However, it’s not just in the west that ignorance raises it’s ugly head. Just across our border in South Africa their esteemed leaders have regularly fallen into disastrous and (verging on criminal) flirtations with AIDS denialism and the awful German Matthis Rath and his horrible vitamin concoctions that “allow the prevention, treatment and eventually the eradication of today's most common diseases”. Well, they do after you’ve made him rich of course.

It’s not just Rath though. We’ve had the misguided here in Botswana saying they can cure AIDS with apple juice and prayer and others who say that walnuts are better than ARVS. Is it improper of me to call that last one the “Nuts theory”?

It’s not been widely covered here but we had an even more remarkable case of either willful madness or possibly just badness a month ago in Gambia. Their president, Yahya Jammeh, has announced that with his own combination of the Quran and some herbs he found in the forest he can cure people of AIDS within three days. According to the Gambian State House web site (http://www.statehouse.gm) his claims have left medical experts in Gambia “mesmerised and stunned”. Presumably because they knew he’d have them shot if they didn’t look suitably impressed.

My point is simple, if a little long-winded. There IS a strange parallel between HIV on the one hand and wickedness and ignorance on the other, but to assume that any particular group has a monopoly on either wickedness or ignorance is, in my view, wicked and ignorant.

Medical malpractice?

Last week Gilbert Sesinyi wrote a response to a letter I wrote. I had objected to his idea that doctors and medicine were the source of our ill-health problems. According to Gilbert all we need is to do is avoid processed food and the “whiteman” and things will be OK.

For instance one of Gilbert’s central ideas seems to be that all organic chemicals are good for us and inorganic ones are all poisons. This is a huge simplification. Oxygen, baking soda and water are all inorganic along with an enormous range of minerals without which we’ll die. On the other hand nicotine, monosodium glutamate and most nerve gasses are all organic compounds. The terms organic and inorganic don’t mean the same as good and bad.

He says that people aren’t living as long as they used to and that this is medicine’s fault. I wanted evidence for this. All we got from Gilbert was an observation that his grandparents lived longer than his parents. Sorry Gilbert but that’s not evidence, that’s an anecdote. It’s a bit like saying that Uncle Albert smoked 20 cigarettes a day, lived to be 90 and therefore smoking isn’t dangerous.

The facts are actually simple. If you exclude the people dying because of AIDS, we are living longer than ever before. It’s our average life expectancy that has decreased and it’s AIDS that did this. Simple as that.

We then had to read Gilbert’s opinion that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. Instead he says that AIDS is due to poor nutrition, cellphone usage and “the whiteman’s culture”. This is similar to the evil nonsense South Africa has been forced to endure from the revolting Matthias Rath. All you need to do, says Rath, is buy vitamins and AIDS will go away. Oh and if you can buy them from him things will be even better. Well for him they will.

I really do object to this reckless, often paranoid denial about HIV and AIDS. I know people living with HIV and they have achieved amazing feats in coping with their infection, modifying their lifestyle, taking ARVs when required and continuing to be valuable members of the community. The denial movement slaps them in the face.

We should count ourselves lucky that we live in a country that is relatively free of AIDS denialism. Countless numbers of our South Africans cousins have died as a result of it and it’s a tribute to us as a country that our government, our health sector and most of our people have avoided the temptation to blame someone else for our situation and instead have taken some level of responsibility for it ourselves.

While all this got me a little hot under the collar Gilbert’s other assertions just made me laugh. Apparently I’m “a member of the oppressor’s nation, the white people”. Furthermore white people are all “either evil or the beneficiaries of evil”. Why can’t we shed these out-dated notions that categorise people “by the colour of their skin rather than the contents of their character”?

A much wiser man than me once said “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”. He also said that “we must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools”. He was black by the way, although he did have a very “white” name: Martin Luther King.

Oh, did I mention that my grandmother is 87 and is fighting fit?

Richard Harri-whiteman

A reply from Gilbert Sesinyi in the Botswana Guardian
"Doctors do as they’re taught".
Rest assured a response has been submitted already from this "member of the oppressor’s nation, the white people".

Be wary of doctors?

I read with surprise and some degree of outrage the column by Gilbert Sesinyi last week in the Botswana Guardian. His piece entitled “Be wary of the doctors” was a startling piece of scaremongering and I think potentially dangerous.

In his column Gilbert suggests, amongst other things, that “the whiteman… is motivated by profit over excellence” and “His ways are surely the ways of death”.

It’s probably best if I gloss over who exactly this “whiteman” might be. I know it’s not me, because I happen to think profit and excellence are equally good things and that they can’t be divorced. Also, with the exception of that snake in my back yard a few months ago I don’t think I’ve killed anything recently.

The worrying thing about what Gilbert wrote was to do with health and the medical profession. Unfortunately much of what he wrote is clearly mistaken. For instance he states that “there is evidence that ancient man lived much longer than modern man”. What evidence? My understanding is that worldwide people are living longer than ever before. It is reckless to suggest that because the average lifespan here in Botswana has dropped into the 30s that this is because of medicine. It’s down to AIDS. It’s because of the medical and pharmaceutical professions that we have ARVs. The ARVs that are helping to increase lifespans despite the effect of HIV, not reduce them.

It’s also mistaken to suggest that doctors know nothing about nutrition. Gilbert asks why doctors don’t tell us to avoid processed food, refined flour and sugar and food laden with pesticides and fungicides. Well, as someone who spent the first half of his career surrounded by doctors I can’t remember ever meeting a doctor who didn’t go on and on about healthy eating. Also, without at least some of those chemicals we wouldn’t actually have any food to eat.

There is nothing inherently wrong with chemicals. Salt is a chemical. Baking powder is a chemical. Monosodium glutamate, otherwise known as MSG, which Gilbert suggests is a poison and “the root of chronic diseases”, is a naturally occurring substance found in tomatoes, peas and in soy sauce.

I firmly believe that we should be skeptical about all things and I certainly don’t exclude medicine and doctors from my skepticism. However we must be reasonable and accept that despite some failures, despite some scandals and despite some people seeing medicine as the solution to all of life’s problems, medicine is why most of us are alive today. Without medicine I probably wouldn’t have lived to an age when I would be grumpy enough to write irritated (and probably irritating) articles for newspapers. My wife would be dead, my eldest son would never have been born and my parents wouldn’t have lived long enough to know their grandchildren.

The solution is, as always to use our brains. If a doctor says that HIV was developed by the CIA in conjunction with aliens that doesn’t make it true. History is littered with the aftermath of charlatan doctors and healers who have brought about suffering and death, but that doesn’t undermine medicine as a body of knowledge and doctors as people who help us live to a ripe old age.

I often think it’s amusing, in a savage sort of way, to wonder who those who oppose medicine would call for if they, or heaven forbid, their children were injured in an accident? A nutritionist or a qualified doctor? I know who I’d want to see in a white coat.

Xenophobia - Botswana Guardian

I’ve been thinking about xenophobia. We can’t avoid it these days, it’s one of those fashionable words that suddenly become the in thing.

Whether it’s to do with foreign investment, the Basarwa relocation issue or the termination of expatriate’s work permits it’s a word that keep on cropping up.

People seem to think that xenophobia means a fear of foreigners but that’s not actually true. It’s much wider than that. It actually means a fear of the unknown. It can be anything, not just an unknown or perhaps strange-looking human being. You can be xenophobic about someone from the next village, not just someone from a different continent.

To some extent I suppose that it’s a natural reaction. If you think back a few hundred thousand years to when humanity was in it’s infancy, being afraid of something new was probably a very wise approach. The new, unknown thing really might want to eat you. Although we’ve moved forward a long way, there’s a huge part of each one of us that remains back in the primitive days, showing primitive reactions.

You see it all over the world of course. The list of places where xenophobia has led to death and destruction is endless. Rwanda and Burundi, Serbia and Croatia and, now I get really depressed, the Middle East. Despite reasonably successful efforts at reconciliation there are still issues in Northern Ireland, Cyprus and even in South Africa. In fact it’s probably easier to list the places where there hasn’t been any history of xenophobic conflict. Well, it would be if I could think of any. Iceland perhaps?

But just because something is “natural” that doesn’t mean we should just accept it. We all have so-called natural instincts that we know we shouldn’t give in to. I’m a man, I know these things! And just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s good. In the same way, just because something is “unnatural” it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Condoms, hypodermic syringes and newspapers aren’t “natural” but they are all wonderful inventions that do untold good.

I’m a firm believer in understanding our nature, where we come from and what our instincts are but I also believe we are smart enough, have developed a sufficient understanding of what’s right and wrong and most importantly have sufficient self-control to overcome our more primitive instincts. Whether it’s an instinct to steal, fight or rape we all know these things are wrong and repulsive and we shouldn’t do them. Saying it’s natural is no excuse. Saying that you can’t overcome your instincts is nonsense.

The same goes for that specific type of xenophobia: our fear of strangers. Just because your instinct says you should reject someone who looks different to you, well that doesn’t make it right.

Surely we all know that people vary? Isn’t that one of the most interesting thing about our miserable species? Isn’t it actually rather wonderful that if you walk though one of our many shopping malls you see people of every shape, size and colour?

I’d go so far as to suggest we need to adopt a new approach. Xenophilia. A love for the unknown, the new and even what we might call strange. Let’s start welcoming variety. It doesn’t mean we all have to change ourselves, just that we should see new people and things as challenging, interesting and maybe even exciting

One last question. Where would we be now if Seretse and Ruth had both been xenophobic?

Religious punchups

I’ve been experiencing a mixture of amusement and sadness following the recent arguments in the Botswana Guardian between Muslim and Christian writers.

Last week two Christian writers responded, in quite vicious terms, to Iqbal Ebrahim’s article suggesting that there is overlap between Christianity and Islam. A number of things struck me about their letters. Much of their argument was of the “My religion is better than yours, so there!” type, no more mature than an argument you might hear between two 7-year olds in a schoolyard.

However what struck me most was the absolute absence of logical thought. Arguments like “My religion is the sole truth because, well, my holy book says it is” aren’t even slightly intelligent debate in my view.

Quoting from scripture as an argument doesn’t really work terribly well when it’s the scripture you’re quoting that you are trying to prove is true. “My book is true and is the only true book, because it says it is” doesn’t work for me. Anyway can’t the same argument can be made for the Koran? And the holy texts of Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, the Moonies, even the lunatic ramblings of the Scientologists. They say they are the truth, so, well, they are the truth. Sorry, you’ll have to try a little harder than that.

Also I don’t think that the suggestion that Christianity is better than Islam because it came first works either. That’s about as logical as saying that my car is better than yours because it’s older than yours.

Actually maybe my car is analogous to religion. It consumes huge amounts of energy, it isn’t perfectly reliable and it pollutes the environment. I sometimes wonder if it’s worth the bother of keeping it. I love it though, however irrational that affection might be.

I would be very impressed if ever I actually saw a simple, logical and above all, rational argument from someone selling their religion. “It’s about faith, not rational argument” doesn’t work. Blind faith is, after all, blind. It can’t see.

On one of my occasional tolerant days I can be charitable towards religious organisations like the Salvation Army, like old-fashioned priests working for nothing in a village tending to the sick, the poor and the distressed and like those honest, hard-working and friendly people I know and respect. The trouble is they are undermined by the sharp-suited, limo-driven, mansion-inhabiting crooks you see on the religious TV channels.

More often than not I see religion rearing it’s ugly head behind almost all the conflicts our world sees. I don’t care whether it’s terrorism, Presidents saying they are advised by God to invade other countries or mullahs declaring fatwas that authorize the killing of authors because they wrote very long, dull books. What I see from religion is rarely peace. Instead I see hatred, contempt for followers of other faiths and a complete absence of rationality.

Back to the Guardian articles. The person I actually feel sorry for is Iqbal Ebrahim. In his article a couple of weeks ago he stood up, showed us that he is a member of that vast majority of Muslims who are perfectly decent people and extended the hand of friendship and understanding. And he got slapped in the face. Tell me, does the Koran teach that we should turn the other cheek?

I know some of the things I’ve said will irritate some people and I’ll probably be called an atheist, a heathen and perhaps even an infidel. Don’t worry though. I think those would all be compliments.

Detox your brain - Botswana Guardian

I’ve now twice seen a simultaneously hilarious and depressing bit of nonsense on DSTV, along, probably, with the rest of southern Africa. A Home Shopping spot dedicated to the amazing “Detox Foot Pads” from a company called Remedy Health for just R169.95. Apparently you stick these pads to the soles of your feet at bed time and they apply warmth to the reflexology points and "detox your body while you sleep". The advert claims that this boosts your immune system. According to the personal testimonials from a range of grinning faces you wake feeling refreshed and with "less toxins and impurities". (For now I’ll ignore the fact that I think they mean "fewer", not “less”.)

According to the various buffoons presenting these pads they generate "far infra-red radiation equivalent to a full cardiac workout". The graphics they showed of two glowing feet were apparently "Thermo X-Rays" that showed "the incredible effects". Actually it looked more like a kid's drawings of feet with wobbly orange spots but maybe I'm too cynical and perhaps "Thermo X-Rays" are a bit of medical technology I've missed over the years.

Unfortunately they fail to point out that what they say is just complete rubbish.

To begin with there’s the reflexology angle. Reflexology is based on the notion that the soles of your feet are somehow connected to every other part of your body. Stimulation of specific spots on your feet can remedy problems in related organs of your body. However, it overlooks the fact that these connections simply don’t exist. They’re not there. Nowhere. They are as imaginary as the supposed benefits that reflexology offers.

Bring me an anatomy textbook and we can fail to find these mythical connections ourselves.

Then there’s the issue of “detoxing” through the soles of your feet. The advert shows some used foot pads and, amazingly, they are all blackened with what we are told are the toxins extracted from your feet. No chance that the dirt could just be from dirty, sweaty feet is there? Feet are actually horribly grubby things. Why do you think they smell so bad if not washed?

My initial thought was that the marketers of this nonsense assume that we are just gullible but the more I think about the hints about boosting your immune system the angrier I become. Don’t forget people like Mantho Tshabalala-Msimang, the Minister of Health in South Africa who recommends beetroot as a remedy for AIDS? It was also Tshabalala-Msimang who at one point circulated around her Ministry a pamphlet explaining how the CIA and aliens were behind the pandemic.

The danger is that this sort of nonsense from national leaders opens up the victims of the pandemic to all sorts of charlatans and con-artists. Look at people like Matthias Rath and what he's been up to all over the world, claiming that ARVs make things worse, that HIV and AIDS aren’t connected at all and that if you buy a few vitamin pills things will get better. We are very lucky in Botswana that, when it comes to HIV/AIDS, our politicians, health professionals and community groups haven’t fallen victim to this criminal nonsense

While I think that satellite TV, newspapers and the internet are wonderful things they also have the ability to spread deception, dangerous conspiracy theories and outright lies. Detox foot pads may be a relatively innocent example but they are not that far from things that threaten our welfare, maybe even our lives.

Sometimes the detoxing we need is not of our bodies, but of our brains.

Your future is behind you - Botswana Guardian

I’m converted. Despite being a confirmed sceptic in the past I’ve now discovered something that has changed my mind about all that new age stuff and the traditional mumbo-jumbo.

Some of you may have seen on TV the profoundly eccentric Jacqueline Stallone. As well as being the actor Sylvester Stallone’s mother she is also a high-profile Hollywood astrologer and crystal-waving, New Age loon. Go visit her website at www.jacquelinestallone.com and take a look.

Thanks to Robert Carroll, the author of the fascinating Skeptic’s Dictionary (www.skepdic.com), I heard about her latest project.

Rumpology.

There’s no way I can explain this wonderful new science better than Ms Stallone herself. She says:

“Just as a print of your fingerprints, palms, soles and ears tell a story, so does your rump. The lines, crevices and folds of your rear-end can, to the trained eye, reveal your personality, fate and future in luck and love”. Apparently your left buttock represents the right side of your brain and, somehow gives clues to your past as well. Similarly, your right buttock will give Stallone clues about your reasoning ability and language skills. She says that her analysis of your bum “will indicate whether you are going ass-backwards (back in that little closet called the left brain) or are going forward, “taking the plunge” with your right brain God-given tools of intuition and creativity.”

What she asks you to do is to send her a digital picture of your bare bottom and a payment of $125 and in return you get a “personal, condensed, no frills report on the signs and markings on your rear end”, “a condensed one-year prediction in the direction your rear end is taking you” and best of all an A4-sized colour picture of your backside “which you may want to frame as a family keepsake… or give as a gift to a special person”.

Now obviously this is one of the best examples of complete pseudoscientific hogwash I’ve ever seen. In fact it’s such an extreme case I’m not sure it’s even worth trying to suggest it’s nonsense. With reflexology, homeopathy and all the other New Age rubbish there is at least something to get your teeth into. They are expressed in sufficiently scientific sounding language that anyone with an understanding of scientific method can rip them apart. Not so with Rumpology.

So instead of arguing with it I’m going to adopt it completely. I think Rumpology is fantastic.

In fact I’m here to announce my own version of Rumpology. I’ve taken the basic principles and developed them to a new, advanced level. I’m going to set up a new organisation to be called the Applied Rumpology Studies Establishment. For a start we’re doing away with all that business of sending digital photographs around the world. No need for that. At A.R.S.E. we do all the readings ourselves, by hand. At A.R.S.E. we believe that you can’t do a real reading with just a picture. Obviously you need to give it a good feel with bare hands.

So, if you feel that your life is lacking direction, you need a vision of how things can be better and more rewarding pop on over to the A.R.S.E. team for a feeling, sorry a reading. You’ll be impressed with how thorough we can be, how prolonged the reading will be and quite how many volunteers there will be to read you.

If you have a nice one that is.

The experiment - Botswana Guardian

I’ve been a bad boy.

I recently conducted an experiment. Not a conventional, scientific experiment, but a rather eccentric one. One that investigated, in a very amateur way, the gullibility of the public.

So if you read this article and find that you were one of my experimental subjects, or should I say victims, and you feel like I’ve abused or insulted you then I apologise. I’m sorry. I really am. Well, perhaps just a little.

I wanted to see how gullible people could be. Not uneducated and ignorant people but literate, intelligent, 21^st century people. In fact exactly the sort of people who read the Botswana Guardian!

Those of you with internet access may have come across the eDumela website (www.edumela.com). This is a really great community site where people can chat, post messages, have online debates, post their pictures and maybe even find love.

A few weeks ago using an assumed name I posted a message to one of their Message Boards that suggested something ludicrous, something that can only be described as a ridiculous conspiracy theory. A story with absolutely no truth at all. None at all. A story that was plainly, clearly and obviously nonsense. One that I made up.

I suggested that the US government is relocating their base at Guantanamo Bay to the Kalahari and that there is a secret CIA base inside Kgale Hill overlooking Gaborone.

I’m not going to waste good Botswana Guardian newsprint on explaining why these rumours are nonsense, they just are OK? Oh and if anyone thinks that I’m somehow defending US foreign policy, well you clearly don’t know me.

After posting the original message I made no follow-up postings, didn’t respond to anything anyone else posted and in no way reinforced the original rumour. I wanted to see how many people would respond and what sort of reactions they would have.

Twenty-eight people posted responses to this ridiculous story and some of their responses were rather curious. A few of the responses suggest that people simply believe the rumour (“I’m sure this is all true”, “You’re not alone”).

However the really weird thing was how many other conspiracy rumours appeared as a result of the posting. One poster suggested that “US citizens in Botswana are immune to our laws” which is just nonsense. Others suggested that “Botswana is a CIA listening post”, “the US set up RB1 as part of their intelligence communication system”, “Batswana are being used as bio warfare lab rats” and that “the CIA have penetrated the high office in our land”. My favourite though is one really wild response. Apparently American Peace Corps volunteers are all CIA spies and part of a wider US conspiracy to involve groups like the Jehovahs Witnesses in intelligence gathering.

Where does all this come from? Maybe it’s something to do with the Internet? Perhaps the enormous amounts of information available and the ease with which it can be published contributes towards it? Do a search on the Internet for the words “conspiracy” and another of your choice and you can find a huge range of nonsense about how the CIA are behind everything, how the freemasons or the Jews really run the world and that the British Royal Family are really lizards.

So does it matter? Isn’t it all just harmless? Actually I think it can be dangerous. Think how much time has been wasted in South Africa in the battle against HIV and AIDS. Ludicrous conspiracy theories about how HIV has either nothing to do with AIDS or how it was invented by the CIA and aliens have had a devastating effect on people’s behaviour and the provision of ARVs.

Conspiracy theories cost lives.

Crooks in the pulpit - Botswana Guardian

On the 25th January this year the Daily News reported that Ogomoditse Matsila, the Acting Director of the Department of Civil and National Registrations said that it was "possible that some churches and other organisations could be used for money-laundering or tax evasion".

She also mentioned that the powers her Department have to regulate and monitor churches are limited and don't give them the right to inspect and record the goings on within the churches.

Excellent! I don’t think we really don't want the religion police running around and checking up on the activities of honest, respectable church-goers do we? No, we don't. Most churches are, of course, respectable, charitable and honest. Despite not sharing their beliefs I obviously recognise the good works so many do, the sense of community they give to their followers and the personal morality they teach.

However I think that Mma Matsila and her colleagues deserve credit for realising that religion and spirituality are very often covers for fraud, deception and, in quite a few cases, crime.

I really worry about the flow of churches of all descriptions and varieties into the country. For instance can there really be that many varieties of the Christian message? Is there really a need for another charismatic preacher when we have loads of them here already? What else have they got to preach to us? More importantly, what else is it they want from us?

At the simplest level I suspect that a number of preachers get a real kick from the performance they deliver. Most people who have become comfortable with public speaking will confess, if you push them, that they get a kick out of being the centre of attention. I know that I do. I enjoy standing in front of people and have them listening to me. It makes me feel good, makes me feel that what I have to say is important and, here I go confessing again, it makes me feel important as a person. Even though I know I'm not!

I suspect that many preachers feel this way as well, but even more so. They are having a real influence on people's lives. They are changing people's behaviour, their values and their outlook on life. What a feeling that must be! I don’t have a problem with this so long as what they are doing is legitimate.

My problem is with the con-artists. I'm not going to be silly enough to mention any here in Botswana but consider one of the most famous cases. An American evangelist called Peter Popoff. He was famous for his televised gospel shows where he would heal the sick. "Miraculously" he would call out the names of people in the audience who he had never met. He would announce before actually meeting them what was wrong with them, what they desperately desired and amazing personal details that he couldn't possibly know. Or could he?

Popoff was exposed as a con artist several years ago by one of my great heroes, James Randi. Randi has devoted much of his life to exposing charlatans, frauds and crooks and has set up an educational institute to continue his good work. I urge you to visit his web site at www.randi.org to learn more about what he and his associates do. If you don't have access to the Internet please write to me at P. Box 403026, Gaborone and I'll sent you more information.

Randi was convinced that Popoff's so-called abilities were not even slightly miraculous. He and his team went to one of his so-called miracle crusades with a radio receiver. Pretty soon they picked up signals being transmitted by Popoff’s wife to a tiny receiver in his ear. Before entering the hall every attendee had been asked to fill in a card outlining their personal details, their ailments and what they needed. Popoff's wife would then read these to him over the airways, allowing him to appear to have miraculous abilities.

Popoff went bankrupt shortly after he was exposed by Randi and his team. However the bad news is that he’s back again on the Internet preaching about how his followers should ignore his critics because they are the agents of Satan. I suppose that means me as well now. I’ve been called many things in my time but an agent of the Devil is a new one.

However how many of the TV evangelists we see on Channel 77 are up to the same tricks? Last year Carte Blanche on M-Net broadcast a major expose made by the Canadian Broadcasting Services on Benny Hinn and the staggering amounts of money he raises (and keeps for himself it seems). What’s that I remember about rich men entering the Kingdom of Heaven and something to do with camels and the eye of a needle?

I’m not suggesting that all the new preachers flowing into Botswana are crooks like Popoff. Clearly that wouldn’t be true. I just think that before we trust a new charismatic preacher or religious group we should do our research. We should think carefully about what they say. We must take step back and start from a position of scepticism, not trust. Only when they have proved themselves should we consider trusting them.

Maybe I can put it more simply. Never trust a preacher in a Mercedes.

Scientologists - Letter to Sunday Standard 9/9/2006

Outsa Mokone

The Editor
The Sunday Standard
P/Bag 351
Gaborone
Botswana

9^th April 2006

Dear Mr Mokone

I was very surprised to see the article published in the Sunday Standard on 9^th April entitled “Scientology paints Botswana yellow” which covers the efforts this bizarre cult is making to convert people in Pandamatenga.

You make very veiled suggestions about me in the article, even though I am not named. As far I can recall only two people or organisations have written anything negative about the Scientologists in the Botswana press. I was one and the other was the Sunday Standard. You refer to “vitriolic letters to the editor write-ups”, which can only have been the ones I wrote. If you don’t have the courage to name me then please let me do it for you. What persuaded you at the Sunday Standard to fall for their propaganda? Have the alien ghosts the Scientologists believe in got to you?

My impression of your article is that it has been lifted directly from Scientology propaganda. 17 of your 24 paragraphs contain quotes directly from the Scientologists or flattering statement written to them from their gullible admirers. Only one paragraph even suggests that their may be any reasonable critics of this ridiculous cult, namely the very sensible German Government.

I wonder how many of the people in Pandamatenga really know what the Scientologists believe in? How honest have they been? Maybe I can fill in the gap they left?

One of their core (and confidential) beliefs is only made available to those who have paid enough and reached what they call “Operating Thetan Level 3”. This is that 75 million years ago Xemu, the Emperor of the Galactic Federation, decided to cure his over-population problems by murdering excess aliens by bringing them to Earth and killing them with hydrogen bombs. The souls of these people were then brainwashed with a "three-D, super colossal motion picture" for 36 days. These souls managed to escape and now haunt our minds and cause all our mental health problems. At the same time apparently this Xemu guy implanted both Christianity and Islam in our collective memory.

I am NOT making this up! Court records from the USA prove this and I would be very happy to make copies available to anyone interested. Oh and do the cult mention that before he founded his own religion L Ron Hubbard was a failed science fiction writer?

You appear to have breached your own “accuracy test” in publishing the article. Your own standards state that you must ask yourself “what absolute proof do I have that the story is correct”. Much of what you wrote in the article is absolutely false. For instance towards the end you refer to “how successful it’s drug treatment programs are” when the only scientific research into Narconon, the Scientology drug treatment program, showed it to be a catastrophic failure.

This study was conducted in Sweden in 1981 and the Scientologists claim that it showed 76.8% of 61 drug abusers they treated were drug-free four years later. However if you examine the report you find that only 14 of the 61 actually completed the Narconon program. Of those 14 only 4 said they hadn’t used drugs since. That’s a real success rate of just under 7%. That is not a success by anyone’s standards.

Incidentally your readers may have noticed that it’s not even possible to have 76.8% of 61 drug abusers without cutting them into pieces. It doesn’t come to a whole number.

In February 2005 the California State Superintendent Jack O'Connell urged all schools to drop the Narconon program after research concluded that it offers inaccurate and unscientific information and is seen by most as just a recruitment wing of the Church. In 1989 Everett R. Rhoades, M.D., the US Assistant Surgeon General said of Narconon that it “cannot be considered medically sound”. In 1991 the Board of Mental Health of the State of Oklahoma declared that Narconon “is not medically safe”.

I must also say that I am genuinely outraged that the cult has persuaded our police officers, teachers, customs officers and community leaders to lend them their support in their official capacities. Maybe we should ask Government if these officials were in fact authorised to endorse the actions of this cult?

Yes, people may think I have some grudge against the Scientologists. Yes, I suppose I do. Maybe my problem is that they were founded by a lying, cheating, apartheid-supporting, drug-abusing fantasist who constructed a church to make money from the gullible and the naïve. How can the cult he founded deserve any respect when they still idolise and canonise this now deceased drug-crazed madman?

I would like to end with a few quotes from the lunatic Hubbard himself that give a flavour of the true beliefs and ethics of the Scientology cult.

“Make money. Make more money. Make other people produce so as to make more money.”

Regarding critics of the cult he said “May be deprived of property or injured by any means by any

Scientologist without any discipline of the Scientologist. May be tricked, sued or lied to or destroyed”

And my personal favourite, written in 1952: “The only way you can control people is to lie to them. You can write that down in your book in great big letters. THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN CONTROL ANYBODY IS TO LIE TO THEM.”

With best regards

Richard Harriman

Sceptical about... Alternative Health

Everywhere we look there are offers of so-called alternative or complementary health products and services. There are homeopathic remedies in health shops, reflexologists that cure our illnesses by fooling around with our feet, people that sell us crystals because they channel energy and, well, the list is almost endless and seems to be growing every day.

So am I going to say that it's all rubbish and that people are wasting their money every time they buy one of these remedies?

Yes.

Well, OK, perhaps not all of them. I may be sceptical but I'm not totally dismissive. I DO realise that many of the mainstream medicines we consume came from what you can call "natural" origins. Penicillin for instance was discovered when samples in a laboratory were infected by an air-born mould. Warfarin, commonly used to treat heart conditions, is found in many plants such as sweet clover and even in liqorice.

So I'm not against the idea that tomorrow scientists might discover that another so-called natural remedy does actually contain chemicals that cure disease and boost health. It happens all the time. Scientists all over the world are examining traditional remedies and finding amazing things.

What I AM against though is some of the more ridiculous claims that have absolutely no scientific basis.

A good example is homeopathy. The idea behind homeopathy is quite simple. An ailment can be treated with minute quantities of substances that produce similar symptoms to those of the ailment. Quite how this works is never explained although homeopaths no doubt want us to think that it's a bit like vaccination where an inert form of a dangerous infectious agent is given to the patient so he or she can form a resistance to it.

However, homeopathy and vaccination are completely different. One has a scientific basis and can be proved to work and the other? Well, no evidence I'm afraid, other than those "experiments" conducted by homeopaths themselves and they aren't exactly renowned for their scientific credentials.

Oh and one other difference between homeopathy and vaccination? One actually contains an active ingredient and the other doesn't. Homeopathic "remedies" are produced by repeatedly diluting a sample of the supposedly active ingredient. A homeopath may take a 1% solution of the active ingredient, perhaps a plant extract in water or alcohol and dilute it further several times. After being diluted to 1% each time you can quickly work out that after 10 dilutions only 1 atom in every hundred billion billion will be of the so-called active ingredient. And the most common forms of homeopathic remedy are actually diluted in this way thirty times. There is simply nothing left from the original ingredient. There's nothing there apart from water or alcohol.

So how do homeopaths claim it works? Well, if you have scientific background, sit down before reading further.

Apparently the water in which this ingredient once resided "remembers" that it once met the substance in question. Homeopaths talk seriously about "the molecular memory of water". And there was me thinking water was just hydrogen and oxygen and not something that remembered previous visitors.

Want another absurdity? Homeopaths believe that the more diluted the liquid becomes the more effective it is. And another? The principle of homeopathic "succusion" states that the remedy becomes even more effective still if you thump it against the heel of your hand or a leather pad. I promise you I am NOT making this up.

Homeopathy is nonsense. It flies in the face of all that we have learnt over the last couple of thousand of years in the fields of chemistry, physics and biology.

So what about all of you who have taken a homeopathic remedy and felt better afterwards? Were you imagining it? Was your mind playing tricks on you?

I don't think you were imagining it and I don't think you've gone mad. It just wasn't the little phial of water you drank that made you feel better.

So what was it? Well, there are three possibilities. Firstly you may have just got better! It happens. People just get better. Their bodies fight an ailment and win. Our bodies are usually pretty good at it. They have had millions of years to develop an immune system after all.

Secondly, there's the intervention effect. Sometimes just deciding to take action about your health brings about an effect indirectly. You start eating properly, taking exercise and looking after yourself better and this might involve you starting to take homeopathic remedies. Why assume it's the remedy that did it? Maybe all that extra fruit you ate that kept the colds away? At least fruit contains Vitamin C, something that actually does something!

The last possibility is the one that people often dismiss but is actually one of the most remarkable things that can happen in medicine. A truly remarkable effect that should never be dismissed or thought of as somehow second rate. The placebo effect. Just the action of taking medication can bring about an improvement, even if the medication is no more than a sugar pill. Nobody quite knows how it works but it does.

So why not embrace these possibilities instead of assuming that the homeopathic remedy you bought did something when it cannot possibly have done so?