The Cock Bucket

Let’s get this very clear. Chiropractic is stupid. It was made up by some guy with some fairly weird ideas and in the years since its invention has not stood up to any evidence-based scrutiny whatsoever.

However, the British Chiropractic Association have started throwing their weight around like some lumbering, uncoordinated playground bully with a pea-sized brain rattling round its skull. They sued Simon Singh for libel for some perceived insult. And won. Well, the first stage. The rational community is outraged and is now fighting back. Singh will appeal.

So here is a bucketload of links for your reading pleasure:

Sense about science has a petition. Sign it.

DC’s Improbable science has more links and a nice quote:

“A crank on magnetism has a crazy notion hat he can cure the sick and crippled with his magnetic hands. His victims are the weak-minded, ignorant and superstitious, those foolish people who have been sick for years and have become tired of the regular physician and want health by the short-cut method he has certainly profited by the ignorance of his victim. His increase in business shows what can be done in Davenport, even by a quack.” [quoted in Rose
Shapiro's book, Suckers]

PZ Meyers has something to say. Singh is principled and brave apparently.

Derren Brown comments on the situation.

The quackometer has yet more excellent commentary and a quote from Stephen Fry amongst others:

“It may seem like a small thing to some when claims are made without evidence, but there are those of us who take this kind of thing very seriously because we believe that repeatable evidence-based science is the very foundation of our civilisation. Freedom in politics, in thought and in speech followed the rise of empirical science which refused to take anything on trust, on faith, on hope or even on reason. The simplicity and purity of evidence is all that stands between us and the wildest kinds of tyranny, superstition and fraudulent nonsense. When a powerful organisation tries to silence a man of Simon Singh’s reputation then anyone who believes in science, fairness and the truth should rise in indignation. All we ask for is proof. Reasoned proof according to the established protocols of medicine and science everywhere. It is not science that is arrogant: science can be defined as ‘humility before the facts’ — it is those who refuse to submit to testing and make unsubstantiated claims that are arrogant. Arrogant and unjust.”

Slightly out of date but still informative is Nick Cohen in the Guardian.

Less of a media darling than the rest but still lucid and informative, our own Dave Cross is, well, cross.

The New Scientists also has a bash defending the right of scientists to examine evidence critically and speak out when it is found wanting.

OK, that’s a lot of links. By now you should be getting a feeling for the level of contempt felt by rational folks against these charlatans. In case you’re in any doubt, read these informative pages that have been around since before this blew up:

The New Scientist on what you should know about Chiropractic.

Where’s The Harm catalogs deaths and injuries from chiropractic. This destroys any argument about it even being a placebo. Placebos don’t kill people.

DC has a lovely overview of alternative medicine in general in his Patients Guide to Magic Medicine.

And finally, Skepdic has a history of the practice of chiropractic with a veritable cockbucket of links and references for the keeners amongst you at the end.

I now trust that when someone tells you that they’ve been helped by such fantasy you will at least look at them with a slightly more cynical eye, and with courage, attempt to put them straight.

I got quite angry writing this. Let’s hope the reverse in the courts will wake people up to what’s going on.