Just what have I let myself in for?

I'm going to The End Of The Road festival in about a month and I just received the following message from their facebook group:

PEACE INTENTION at End of the Road

As the theme of our healing field this year is Peace, we thought we'd take part in this, and you're welcome to join us by signing up:

The Global Peace Intention Experiment

A Live Aid of scientific experiments will test the power of group mind to lower violence around the world

If all of us send a good thought for peace can it actually work to restore peace in a war-torn area?

Lynne McTaggart, author of the best-selling book The Intention Experiment, is asking thousands of participants to join together, via The Intention Experiment website, on Sunday, September 14, for the first of a series of ‘Peace Intention Experiments' to send an intention to lower violence in a particular war-torn city. The actual location will be revealed on the day. The experiment will likely run for a week and involve 10 minutes of intention a day.

McTaggart is working with a prestigious team of top scientists and philanthropic organisations to devise a strict protocol and measure results. Thousands of participants from 80 countries around the world have already signed up.

To participate in the Peace Intention Experiment, please register on http://www.theintentionexperiment.com/peace

You will then be sent instructions about what to do on the day.

At End of the Road, we are gathering in the healing field in the Secret Garden, where we will send the intention together. But you must sign up in advance as above, and be sincere about carrying through.

*facedesk* *re-read* *facedesk*

Are they fucking serious? They not only think they can affect something by thinking about it, but they're going to pretend its a serious scientific experiment with a measurable outcome? How are you supposed to measure the outcome, is there a "war-torn city" out there which is able to provide reliable data on just how much violence there was during a specific 10-day period? How do you define violence in the first place? Who are these "top scientists" who are involved and what the hell is a "top scientist" in the first place? Is there an international premier league of scientists I've never heard of?

I sincerely hope the rest of the festival isn't as infested with woo, its supposed to be a nice relaxing weekend listening to some amazing bands and clearing my head, I don't want to have to spend the entire time dodging quacks and resisting* the temptation to argue with new-age weirdos. The EotR website gives no suggestion of any sort of woo element to the festival and the inclusion on the line-up of Robin Ince, Britain's greatest (only?) skeptic comedian, is certainly a good sign. I really hope he hears about the above "experiment" in time to include something about it in his set, it would fit in perfectly with the stuff he did at Latitude and if it educates a few of the people who would otherwise have taken part it has to be worth doing.

*Who am I kidding, I'll never be able to resist. Better get re-reading The Demon-Haunted World so I've got my basic arguments down. I know its a pretty much pointless exercise, but sometimes you just can't help yourself.

Bone-cracking Quacks

It would appear the British Chiropractic Association are a bunch of deluded, litigious cunts.

From the look of Gimpy's breakdown of the article the case is never going to get anywhere and with any luck will massively backfire by showing up chiropractic for the complete nonsense it is. I for one was completely unaware just how totally full of shit it was until the above posts started appearing, there had been the odd mention of it on bad science blogs before but I'd never really looked into it. The 'offending' article is a fantastic introduction to just how batshit-insane this stuff really is, while the original has been taken down by the spineless Guardian it can still be found here, on a russian server well out of the reach of the BCA. Time to forward it to everyone I know who has ever visited one of these weirdos...

(Un)Professional Indemnity

There was an interesting point raised regarding insurance for nutritionists in the comments following Ben Goldacre's latest Bad Science column. I thought it deserved expanding on and as this is actually an area I do know something about its time me to take another random leap into bad science blogging (because music and politics just aren't enough...)

Firstly I want to point out that the victim in this case should be extremely relieved that there was any professional indemnity cover in place at all, shockingly the only people who are required by law to have P.I. cover are lawyers, accountants and financial advisers. It would appear it is a requirement for membership of BANT (The British Association for Applied Nutrition and Nutritional Therapy), but as has been pointed out on Bad Science in the past anyone can call themselves a nutritionist with or without qualifications or memberships of professional bodies. Of course a claim could still have been pursued without there being insurance cover in place but with a claim this size (around £1.5million being claimed) you have no chance of seeing the bulk of the damages unless the person you are claiming from is extremely wealthy. What I am struggling to understand is how nutritionists get P.I. cover in the first place. I have found a standard P.I. policy wording online here, where section 2.1 states:

"Insurers agree, subject to the terms of this policy to indemnify the insured, subject to the indemnity limit for claims, against any claim (including claimant's costs and expenses) in respect of any civil liability which arises out of the conduct of professional business by reason of any negligent act negligent error or negligent omission occurring or committed in good faith by the insured and/or others expressly authorised to act for and/or on behalf of the insured."

From my point of view as a claims handler I would struggle to try and defend any claim arising out of nutritionists advice unless a sound scientific basis could be found (yeah, that's gonna happen...) I can't see how it can possibly not be considered negligent to advise someone to follow dietary advice which has no proof of safety and efficacy.

I am very surprised insurers are willing to grant cover on these terms, I suspect it is mainly down to them not looking at what it is nutritionists do in enough detail, hopefully the massive pay-out in this case will be enough to make them take another look at who it is they're actually providing insurance for and lead to massive premium increases/refusal to place cover when they realise their clients are regularly giving advice which could be actively harmful.

I'd like to try and get hold of a policy specifically written for a nutritionist in order to see if there is any difference in the wording but I suspect with most of them being individual practitioners/small partnerships they wouldn't have individually tailored policies and the one I linked to above is probably pretty much all they get. If this is correct, I would strongly encourage anyone who has suffered any ill-effects (which they weren't warned about) after visiting a nutritionist to contact a good solicitor as I'm confident a case could be made on the basis that their advice goes against medical science.