Re: Irresponsible Ad

At Sun, 10 Jul 2005 00:22:00 GMT, message
<m3k6jz8qgd.fsf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> was posted by
nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Z.), including some, all or none of
the following:

>> >> > "I have to declare a competing interest, I sit on the Board of
>> >> > Science.
>> >> "scientific" credentials: check.
>> >"competing interest" ... didn't you see that?

>> Yep. That's a reference to the fact that the debate only happened
>> because the Board of Science had unilaterally changed the BMA's
>> published policy without reference to the membership, based on "new
>> science" which turned out to be largely old, bogus or plain wrong.

>Conspiracy theory.

Your ignorance of this background does not make it any less true.

In 1999 the Board of Science set a policy against compulsion based on
a wide-ranging review of evidence, including consideration of those
countries where compulsion had been tried. It included input from
public health doctors. In 2005 the Board of Science published "new
evidence" in a paper written by a Dr Jaysingham (of no known
publication history) which claimed that there were 50 child cyclist
head deaths a year (false: real figure 10); that the drop in cycling
in Australia post-law was due to a change in the legal age for driving
(false: the age for an accompanied learner permit changed by one year
in one state), and that the experience of Ontario indicates that
enforced laws do not deter cycling (false: the Ontario law was not
enforced and no systematic measures of levels of cycling were taken
anyway). It excluded from consideration all evidence conflicting with
its core premise, as is common in the pro-helmet camp, *including*
much of the evidence in *their own report* from 1999. Many of the
statements in the new paper can be traced directly to a single group,
the Bicycle Helmet Initiative Trust, whose agenda is compulsory helmet
use (and who have been found to use misleading claims in
advertisements).

Interestingly, when the falsehood of these claims was pointed out, the
report was amended, for example removing the figure of 50 (to be
replaced in the debate with 594!). But even without the supposed
"new" evidence, they still claimed that a policy change was necessary!
All the evidence they cited had already been considered in 1999, the
only change was the excision of any data conflicting with their
desired outcome. So much for "new evidence"...

>> >> > "I was thinking of dropping this, it's a water melon, on the
>> >> > floor, to show how effective a helmet is but health and safety
>> >> > suggested that if the melon does splatter I've got problems...
>> >> Watermelon: check.
>> >Joke - check

>> So you say, but doctors do not generally joke about head injuries.
>> There's no indication of humour in the transcript (unlike in my
>> original comment).

>You don't see the humor in joking about "health and safety" having
>a problem with a splattering watermelon?

As you may have noticed, Bill, I don't think that lying to people to
get them to support a policy which has caused more harm than good
wherever it has been tried is quite the barrel of laughs you
apparently think it to be.

>> Funny old place, ZaumenWorld. Comment on Usenet: must meet
>> jurisprudential standards of accuracy or be denounced as fraud; policy
>> debate in influential public body: say what you like, it doesn't
>> matter, even if they do quote you in Parliament. Inconsistency, thy
>> name is Zaumen :-D

>What a liar!

>From the Dictionary of Zaumenisms -

Lie: Disagreeing with Zaumen

Yep, by that definition I'm lying :-D

Meanwhile, back in the world of normal English usage, you are still
uncritical of the false claims made in debate in an influential public
body, but hysterical about their presentation on Usenet. That is most
revealing.

>In your original statement can be found searching for Message ID
><d3rdc19tgu9c47hk1tchbf4ju4tssl401g@xxxxxxx>. Here's the exchange
>
> In this case, I can back my statement with as many quotations
> from the studies as you like. I said: every pro-helmet study
> of which I'm aware ignores cause and effect; I stand by that.
> Can you cite one which doesn't?
>
> >You'll get the same reaction if you talk about carbon dating
> >to someone who thinks the earth is only a few thousand years
> >old.
>
> LOL! Last week British doctors were given a figure for deaths
> fifty times too great, quotes the 88% figure, told that
> observational studies were randomised clinical trials and
> assured that dropping a watermelon in a helmet was an
> appropriately scientific model for the efficacy of helmets.
> And yet it is the sceptics - those who say "prove it!" - who
> Bill accuses of being zealots!
>
> Thanks for some laughs there, Bill.
>
>Note that you stated point blank that British doctere were "assured
>that dropping a watermelon in a helmet was an appropriately scientific
>model for the efficacy of helmets." And you dropped that in from out
>of the blue to justify your claim about the faults of "pro-helmet"
>studies in general.

You seem to have ignored one or two other comments in there for some
reason. How about the request for a citation of a flawless pro-helmet
study? You haven't answered that one, thanks for reminding me. For
one who is so adamant that no sceptical opinion may be uttered on
Usenet you must surely have some pretty solid evidence to back you!

So, what we have is a reaction to your assertion that sceptics are
like creation "scientists". The reaction is that helmet zealots have
resorted to lies and distortion to promote their case. This is
demonstrably true. Even if one were to exclude the watermelon
comment, I still identified three provably false claims made in
support of the motion, and you identified two more, and as seen in
this post you have identified others which I considered below the
radar, but just as false for all that.

And yet you are raving hysterically about the presentation of these
facts on Usenet, while quietly ignoring that one of the most
influential public bodies in the UK has changed its policy to support
something which has never worked wherever it's been tried, based on
lies (in the usual English usage, e.g. stating 594 fatalities when the
relevant figure is ten, and representing observational case-control as
clinical trials) and distortions. Very revealing.

>> >> > "My division was divided on this motion and I've been told by
>> >> > my division to propose this motion in as neutral way as
>> >> > possible. [Laugh from audience]."

>> >> Audience acknowledges he's a zealot: check.
>> >Audience aknowledges that he has a sense of humor.

>> Really? You think it's *funny* that he acknowledges he's going to go
>> against his division's requirement to present the issue in a balanced
>> way? You are most odd.

>Another of your lies: he never said that, and he *did* present the issue
>in a balanced way. Here's what followed the humor.

So you say. But the record states that his division told him to
present the issue in a balanced way, and the audience laughed when he
said that; my conjecture is at least as supportable as yours.

> "Cycling helmets, we all know, are effective cheap devices
> that save lives and cycling accidents.
> "This is incontrovertible.

A demonstrably false claim about which you have made no comment at
all! How hypocritical you are.

> "The motion recognises we need to move along the road to
> compulsion some time in the future.

Another false claim! Who says we "need" to? What we "need" to do is
reduce risk at source, which will also benefit the child pedestrians
whose head injuries are both more numerous and form a higher
proportion of all injuries. But you make no comment about his use of
proof by assertion. What hypocrisy!

> "This debate is about the rights and responsibilities of our
> society versus the rights and responsibilities of the cyclist
> in our society.

Really? And there was I thinking it was about the false portrayal of
cycling as something so dangerous that no journey, however benign, can
safely be made without special protective equipment - a curious claim
when you consider that the dominant source of injury falls well
outside the design parameters of the proposed intervention!

> "It includes the loss of the cyclists' freedom if he is forced
> to wear a helmet versus the real risk of death or permanent
> brain injury if he doesn't.

And no measure of the real risk is given! On average we ride around
3,000 cyclist-years between injuries serious enough to require
treatment. That is the real risk. The real risk is less than that
crossing the road! That is the real risk. Under a third of cyclist
hospital admissions involve head injury! That is the real risk.

Furthermore, that is *not* the only -or even the primary - argument
against compulsion. The main arguments about compulsion are that it
has never worked wherever it's been tried, and that the inevitable
reduction in cycling will result in greater disbenefits than any
possible benefit. Holland (high levels of cycling, low - near zero -
helmet use) is the least obese nation in Europe. Australia
(substantial drops in cycling following laws, utility cycling levels
still depressed) is now the second most obese nation on Earth.

For some reason you say nothing about this false portrayal of the
grounds for opposition, despite the fact that the real grounds are
also included in the transcript! Go figure.

>I.e., he stated the discussion was about tradeoffs, which is true.

Up to a point: he omitted most of the tradeoffs. He said that
opposition is based on libertarian considerations, when actually it's
based on evidence. Whether or not you agree with the interpretation
of that evidence is immaterial, opposition is undoubtedly *not* based
solely, or even primarily, on libertarian grounds.

Actually the tradeoff is significant reductions in cycling,
enforcement problems, a possible increase in risk per remaining
cyclist (cf. Australia) and costs in helmet purchases which outweigh
the savings in injury costs, balanced against a theoretical reduction
in head injuries which has never, as it turns out, been realised in
any jurisdiction where such a law has been tried. Not quite as
clear-cut as he makes out! And you know these facts. Especially you
know about the cost-benefit analysis, because you *love* the study
which shows that helmets cost more than they save, but you say nothing
about the omissions of these facts from his equation. What hypocrisy!

>You may not like the tradeoff that they arrived at, but it is simply
>a lie to call him a "zealot" based on what he said in this debate.

No, it's true enough. Anyone who states that there is a "need" to
apply special protective equipment to something which is not, by any
objective measure, unusually dangerous, and who is prepared to do so
in defiance of his sponsoring division (the area section which sent
him, not the Board of Science), is clearly a zealot. But of course
you are intent on portraying only sceptics as having quasi-religious
beliefs, despite the reams of evidence we cite. Unsurprising in a
zealot, yet you fiercely assert that you are not one.

><Hundreds of lines of repetitive garbage, some of it infantile, snipped>

You disappoint me, Bill! All those are already in the Dictionary of
Zaumenisms-

Repetitive: Argument which is repeated due to Zaumen's previous
evasions. Often used as an excuse to evade it in future postings
Garbage: Reasoned argument, generally with links
Infantile: Argument showing Zaumen to be wrong
Snipped: Evaded, especially of inconvenient facts

No new ones at all in this post, you're slipping!

>I'm really not going to wast time laboriously correcting each and every
>fib you tell, Guy, when you are have been 100% wrong so far in your
>current post alone.

LOL! Whereas in fact the transcript shows that, as stated, we have
four demonstrable falsehoods in the "for" case, plus the extra two you
identified and another couple you pointed out above, and yet you say
*nothing* against these while raving hysterically about their
presentation on Usenet! What a hypocrite you are! But then, nobody
ever thought you were anything other than a zealot, despite your
protestations to the contrary.

Guy
--
May contain traces of irony. Contents liable to settle after posting.
http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk

85% of helmet statistics are made up, 69% of them at CHS, Puget Sound
.

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