Category Archives: science

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, medical, science

Drugs to be Legal in 10 Years?

Yes, you read it right! This was the thrust of a BBC News item yesterday. Richard Brunstrom, Chief Constable of North Wales, believes that in about 10 years time drugs which are currently illegal will be legalised. His logic is impeccable:

  • Over 50% of all recorded crime is caused by people feeding a drugs habit.
  • Despite drug misuse falling (slowly) because of better treatment programmes it is still causing a £20bn a year hole in the country’s finances.
  • Portugal has already gone the legalisation route
  • And it is being talked about elsewhere in the world (although the article doesn’t specify where!).

All that is needed is a shift in public opinion (as has happened against drink-driving in the last 20 years or so) and the change will become inevitable, Brumstrom appears to believe.

But interestingly there is one argument which hasn’t been used – and which is sometimes used for the legalisation of cannabis: if it is legal you can regulate the supply (by licencing sellers) and you can tax the proceeds. That has to be powerful: stop large swathes of crime, save £20bn a year, and generate income as well.

Even so, personally, I can’t see it happening. I cannot see any politician sticking their neck out and advocating such a policy, let alone voting for it. The legalisation of cannabis I think will come, although it may take a while yet. However I’m not sure that the legalisation of heroin, cocaine, etc. isn’t a step too far even for me, at least at present. But it is an interesting idea, and one worthy of discussion. And hoorah for a senior plod who has enough foresight to be able to think outside the box!

amusements, current affairs, environment, medical, quotes, science, sexuality, thoughts

Dr Alice Roberts

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In the latest issue (January 2008) of BBC Focus magazine (science for the intelligent 10-year-old) there’s a mini-interview with one of the few females on TV who really do make my heart beat faster: Dr Alice Roberts, “clinical anatomist, archaeologist, TV presenter and author”, also a very talented artist and a qualified medic. Those of you in the UK who’ve watched either Time Team (Channel 4), Coast (BBC2) or Don’t Die Young (BBC2) will know Alice Roberts as the slightly off-the-wall girlie with the dyed red hair. The interview includes:

What’s the greatest threat to humanity?
Humanity.

Who would you clone?
I wouldn’t. Sexual reproduction is much more exciting.

What would your epitaph say?
Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni. And I’d be buried in a chariot just to fool future archaeologists.

Seriously Zen Mischief!

amusements, current affairs, pleasures, science

Fictional Flying Carpets

Magic carpets are GO! According to a report in the Daily Telegraph of 19 December magic carpets are no longer a flight of fancy confined to the realms of the Arabian Nights. Professor Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan of Harvard has shown that the flying carpet is possible under the laws of Physics, although to be useful a lot of work will have to be done on the power to weight ratio. Good news for those of us who hate wasting time travelling.

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, memes, science, thoughts, topographical

Creationists Plan British Theme Park

There’s an article in today’s Observer which, at a personal level, I find more than somewhat disturbing. It begins

A business trust is looking at sites for a Christian showplace to challenge the theory of evolution.

Apparently there are plans being laid to build an intelligent design (ID) theme park (my phrase) in NW England.

At a personal level I find this deeply disturbing. Christianity, indeed all religion and politics, is about belief. But those who believe in ID claim it as science. Science is about knowledge. Thus belief does not (and by definition cannot) equal knowledge. ID is not science, or knowledge, but belief.

What’s more I find this Christian proselytising of their (to me misguided) beliefs objectionable. For me it is a basic human right that everyone is allowed to believe (or not) whatever they choose without having someone else’s beliefs rammed down their throats, as is the Christian way. Don’t get me wrong. I find all proselytising just as objectionable; it’s just that Christians seem to have a particularly well developed, self-righteous and nauseating form of it.

But this does give me a moral dilemma: freedom of thought and speech. Everyone is entitled to their opinion/belief, however misguided. And they are entitled to be allowed to express that belief. So morally I have to allow these people that freedom. I just find their beliefs, their methods, their self-righteousness and their closed minds deeply obscene.

medical, memes, photography, science, thoughts

Friday Five: The only nasty thing I like

1. What’s the last movie you saw?
At the cinema: probably Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s Pictures at an Exhibition in 1973. On TV probably some Lord of the Rings-ish thing last Christmas. See, I keep telling you I don’t do films.

2. Are you gentle?
Me? Gentle? Oh do be realistic, I’m about as gentle as a clumsy hippo!

3. Do you sleep with your bedroom door shut?
Nope, not at home, not usually even when we have people staying; we both hate shut doors. Tend to shut the door at other peoples’ (except my mother’s) but really only ‘cos most of them do. And when I was a student, although I shut my room door at night it was never locked, and often left ajar when I was in during the day. In this house shut doors are really only for one thing: to keep a cat penned in – and even so most of the doors can’t shut ‘cos there are things (like a pile of books) in the way.

4. What’s your middle name?
Cullingworth — my mother’s maiden name. Not many around and none now in my line of the family as my mother was one of four sisters. Cullingworth is a small village in Yorkshire, so the family come from there originally.

5. Friday fill-in:
I could learn to like not having to work to eat.

[Brought to you courtesy of Friday Fiver]