ARGH! How to give your journal a bad reputation

Received on 21 February 2017:

Dear Dr. Richard J Edwards,

Good Morning…..!

We are in shortfall of one article for successful release of Volume 3, Issue 2. Is it possible for you to support us with your transcript for this issue before 28th February? If this is a short notice please do send 2 page opinion or mini review, we hope 2 page article isn’t time taken for eminent like you.

We are confident that you are always will be there to support us.

Await your response.

Sincerely,
Brittney Reeves
Advanced Research in Gastroenterology & Hepatology (ARGH)

Begging for a two-page article in a week from someone who doesn’t even work in the field… ARGH indeed!

Are data scientists just "research parasites"?

Although it passed me by at the time, the New England Journal of Medicine - a highly respected top-tier medical journal - featured an editorial on data sharing¹ in January. It was so bad, that the International Society for Computational Biology (ISCB) felt the need to respond in the most recent issue of PLoS Computational Biology². I’m glad they did, for the editorial was awful.

It starts quite well:

The aerial view of the concept of data sharing is beautiful. What could be better than having high-quality information carefully reexamined for the possibility that new nuggets of useful data are lying there, previously unseen? The potential for leveraging existing results for even more benefit pays appropriate increased tribute to the patients who put themselves at risk to generate the data. The moral imperative to honor their collective sacrifice is the trump card that takes this trick.

But then rapidly goes downhill:

However, many of us who have actually conducted clinical research, managed clinical studies and data collection and analysis, and curated data sets have concerns about the details. The first concern is that someone not involved in the generation and collection of the data may not understand the choices made in defining the parameters. Special problems arise if data are to be combined from independent studies and considered comparable. How heterogeneous were the study populations? Were the eligibility criteria the same? Can it be assumed that the differences in study populations, data collection and analysis, and treatments, both protocol-specified and unspecified, can be ignored?

Many of us who have actually conducted data analysis would retort: if you have concerns about the details then you should be making those details clear. If choices are important, explain them! For sure, you cannot just blindly combine multiple datasets that have different biases etc. but what decent scientist would do that (without an explicit caveat regarding that assumption)?

Longo and Drazen seem to be implying that all data scientists are bad scientists. As I’ve said before, Bioinformatics is just like bench science and should be treated as such. If you are making dodgy assumptions about data, you are doing it wrong. (Though people do make mistakes - the data collectors too.)

It gets worse:

A second concern held by some is that a new class of research person will emerge — people who had nothing to do with the design and execution of the study but use another group’s data for their own ends, possibly stealing from the research productivity planned by the data gatherers, or even use the data to try to disprove what the original investigators had posited. There is concern among some front-line researchers that the system will be taken over by what some researchers have characterized as “research parasites.”

Apparently, some people might think I am a “research parasite” because I sometimes analyse other people’s (published) data without talking to them about it. I’m glad the ISCB called them out on this. Newsflash: science only makes progress by people trying to disprove what other researchers (and, ideally, themselves) have posited. Science is a shared endeavour. If someone uses your data to do something (good), good! If you don’t want that, embargo the data or delay publication. Then question your motives; if glory is what you seek, perhaps you’re in the wrong profession?

A researcher frightened of “stolen productivity” is perhaps a researcher struggling for ideas. (I’d love someone else to answer some of the questions I have kicking around so that I could move on to the next thing!) A researcher scared of someone trying “to disprove what the original investigators had posited” has bigger problems.

The rest of the editorial is not so bad, as it tells the tale of a fruitful collaboration between “new investigators” and “the investigators holding the data”. Of course, this is the ideal scenario, short of generating the data themselves. The fact that the authors felt the need to stress this - and the language used of “symbiosis” versus “parasitism” - demonstrates that Longo and Drazen are utterly clueless about the modus operandi of the disciplines they discredit. Whilst ideal, direct collaboration is not always feasible. Sometimes - when the original investigators are too attached to their pet hypothesis or conclusion - it is not desirable.

They end:

How would data sharing work best? We think it should happen symbiotically, not parasitically. Start with a novel idea, one that is not an obvious extension of the reported work. Second, identify potential collaborators whose collected data may be useful in assessing the hypothesis and propose a collaboration. Third, work together to test the new hypothesis. Fourth, report the new findings with relevant co-authorship to acknowledge both the group that proposed the new idea and the investigative group that accrued the data that allowed it to be tested. What is learned may be beautiful even when seen from close up.

This sounds OK - and the described model may even be data sharing at its best - but the implication that anything short of this ideal is somehow inadequate is naive and unhelpful.

First, one person’s novel idea is another person’s obvious extension. And anyway, why should having one idea give you automatic rights to all obvious extensions?! Why should the rest of us trust the data gatherers to do a good job - especially if they exhibit attitudes towards data akin to these authors?

Second, identifying a potential collaborator does not guarantee collaboration. Ironically, the kind of paranoid narcissist that would use a term like “research parasite” is unlikely to be open to collaboration.

Thirdly, citation is a form of co-authorship that acknowledges “the investigative group that accrued the data”. Wanting full co-authorship where additional intellectual input is not required is just greedy. (And a note to the narcissist: self-citations are generally seen as lower impact than citations by wholly independent groups.)

Longo and Drazen should stick to commenting on what they know, whatever that is, and leave data scientists to worry about how they conduct themselves. With this editorial, they have done everyone - not least of which themselves - a deep disservice.

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1. Longo D.L., Drazen J.M. Data Sharing. N Engl J Med, 2016. 374(3): p. 276–7. doi:10.1056/NEJMe1516564.

2. Berger B, Gaasterland T, Lengauer T, Orengo C, Gaeta B, Markel S, et al. (2016) ISCB’s Initial Reaction to The New England Journal of Medicine Editorial on Data Sharing. PLoS Comput Biol 12(3): e1004816. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1004816.

A vote for Brexit is a vote against the next generation

At its heart, is “Brexit” really any more complicated than whether you are self-centred and introspective (leave*) versus you care about the world and the next generation (stay)?

There is only really one thing in this world worth really worrying about, and that’s Climate Change. Make no mistake: this really could destroy civilisation. Really. Unless it is either stopped or mitigated, all that other stuff - jobs, health, education, even wars - is just polishing a turd.

Fighting climate change needs increased international cooperation. It needs national governments being held accountable through international agreements and organisations. The Brexiters and Trumps of this world are happy to feed off everyone else’s misery to line their own pockets. They will hopefully be dead before the shit really hits the fan. Hopefully, so will I. Our children won’t.

Humanity has progressed greatly over the past few hundred years. Knowledge, healthcare and the potential for political influence has been opened up (in developed countries, at least) to the masses. Let’s not support individuals who hark back to mythical “glory” days in which only the established elite had anything. In former times, when America or Britain was perceived as “great”, this was always at the cost of the poor and minorities. It was about lording it over your (perceived) inferiors, both nationally and internationally. It was about the status and riches of ruling classes. It was about powerful people sending powerless people to die in their millions for pointless causes. It was about gaining superiority in the game of “us versus them”.

In the 21st Century, greatness must mean something different. It must be about the state of the lowest citizen, not the highest. There is no “them” - there is only “us”. Nations and countries are arbitrary boundaries, drawn up for bureaucratic and political reasons, with no actual basis. Race is a myth. People are people, the world over.

Unless we realise this, we are all doomed. When the wings fall off and the plane crashes from the sky, it doesn’t matter whether you’re in business class or economy.

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* There will of course be some UK “winners” in the Brexit scenario, who will benefit from the removal of competition and/or want to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. However, to think that Brexit serves the nation’s self-interest, you probably need to add “deluded” to the attribute list, as John Major makes clear.

ICBCSB 2015: Another scam conference comes to Australia

I am a bioinformatician working in Sydney, Australia. I recently helped to organise the ABACBS2015 conference in Sydney, where ABACBS stands for the Australian Bioinformatics And Computational Biology Society, of which I am a member. I am also part of the New South Wales Systems Biology Initiative. You may therefore find it surprising to know that I found it surprising to find out that in December, Sydney NSW will be host to "ICBCSB 2015 : 17th International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational and Systems Biology".

This is not the only surprising thing about ICBCSB 2015. For Sydney is actually at least the 15th 17th International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational and Systems Biology (ICBCSB 2015). Next week, the conference is being held in Madrid. Last month, there was the 17th International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational and Systems Biology in Bali. And Prague. And Chicago. And Istanbul. The 17th International Conference on Bioinformatics, Computational and Systems Biology (ICBCSB 2015) has also been in Venice, London, New York, Berlin, and Geneva and will be held in Penang and Dubai. And that’s just in the first two pages of a Google Search - there are more (including Lisbon and Stockholm).

This makes OMIC Group Conferences look positively legit. Indeed, the organisers of all 15+ ICBCSB 2015 conferences - the World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology (WASET) - seem to be basing their conference business model on that of OMICS. Or perhaps it was the other way round. Either way, if you replaced the WASET logo on the website with OMICS Group, nothing would seem out of place.

If you have ever attended a (real) scientific conference, pick one of those past conferences at random, for example Berlin, and click on the conference photos page, then tell me if you have ever seen anything so depressing in your life. And remember: these are the photos they chose to put up, so presumably show the conference in its best light. Given the number of group photos of (all?) the delegates, I wonder whether they had time for much else other than publicity shots. And in case you are thinking: “those are probably just the invited speakers”, I would bet good money that the delegates were all invited - and still had to pay top dollar to attend.

Finally, in case you have any doubt, just Google “WASET scam”. It does not make for happy reading.

If you are in bioinformatics or systems biology, please spread the word far and wide about these conferences and why they should be avoided at all costs. The sooner we starve the likes of OMICS Group and WASET of naïve unsuspecting scientists to prey on, the sooner these parasites will f#@k right off. There are plenty enough legit conferences to choose from. (Yes, it makes me angry.)

And if you have already signed up for Sydney ICBCSB 2015, do not despair. As luck would have it, there is a real bioinformatics event being held in Sydney that same week: BioInfoSummer 2015. It’s more of a workshop than a conference but there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss science with some excellent bioinformaticians and systems biologists. At least that way, you won’t waste the plane ticket and hotel costs, even if WASET won’t give you a refund for pulling out. (Not likely!)

Bioinformatics is just like bench science and should be treated as such

A bad workman blames his tools. A bad life scientist blames bioinformatics. OK, so that’s a little unfair but so is the level of criticism levelled at bioinformatics by people who should know better. If you are a bioinformatician, it is inevitable that you will run up against the question of whether you ever do “real” science.

If you are unlucky, it will be as blunt as that. At the end of a bioinformatics seminar earlier this year, someone actually asked (in what was meant to be a good-natured way): “Is bioinformatics real? I give the same data to two different bioinformaticians and get completely different answers!” Often, it is is in the subtle form of: “are you going to validate that in the lab?” - as if validating it another way would not itself be valid.

If you are a bioinformatician and are asked a question like that, the correct answer is: it’s as real as [insert appropriate “wet” discipline of choice]. For bioinformatics is science and like all science it can be done well, or it can be done badly. It can generate meaningful results, or meaningless results.

If you want to get meaningful results, you have to treat it like a science, rather than a “black box” of magic. What do I mean by that? Here are my not-quite-buzzfeed-worthy, “8 shocking ways that bioinformatics is just like bench science”:

1. Experience and Training. You wouldn’t hand someone a wet lab protocol for, say, Southern blots, give them a key to your lab and say, “off you go” without first giving them some training and, preferably, the opportunity learn from someone who already knows the procedure. If you do, expect bad results. Bioinformatics is no different. Just because a two year old can work a computer these days, that does not mean that bioinformatics is easy. A two year can also press “Start” on a PCR machine.

2. Optimising your workflow. If you were doing a PCR, you wouldn’t just find a random paper you like that also did a PCR, copy the Mg²⁺ concentration etc. and then bung it in PCR machine and run the default cycle. Likewise, you should not just stick your data into a bioinformatics program and automatically expect it to do the right thing. Just as to be a good molecular biologist, you need to be (or know) someone who knows a bit of chemistry to understand what’s going on, to be a good bioinformatician, you need to be (or know) someone who knows a bit of molecular biology (and chemistry! and sometimes physics) to understand (a) the data you are putting into a program/workflow, and (b) what the best way to process that data is. If you make the wrong assumptions of your data, you will get the wrong answer. (And if different people make different assumptions, they will probably get different answers.) Computers just do what they are told - don’t blame them if you tell them to do the wrong thing. (It is also important not to get “target fixated” on perfect optimisation; just like for bench science, the performance of your bioinformatics workflow only needs to be as good as your experiment/question demands.)

3. Planning. You wouldn’t start a bench experiment without planning it first. Just because bioinformatics is not time-dependent, that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t plan your analysis before you start. Know what your final output is going to be and work backwards. Making decisions as you go along is a great way to make bad decisions. Sure, have a play to work out how things work but then go back and do it properly from beginning to end.

4. Lab notes. You wouldn’t just stick a tube labelled “20/8/15 mouse 3 PCR” in the freezer and expect to remember what it was and how it was made 3 months later. Instead, you would (hopefully!) keep a meticulous record of primers and reaction conditions etc. in your lab book. Bioinformatics needs the same record-keeping mentality. Program version numbers, dates and settings are important. Write them down. You will almost certainly end up running an analysis more than once, and it won’t always be the last run that you end up using. You do not want publications to be held up because you are having to re-run your bioinformatics just to work out what settings you settled on.

5. Labelling. Even with a well kept lab book, you wouldn’t store samples or extracted DNA in tubes labelled “tube 1”, “tube 2” etc. for every experiment. If someone rearranges your freezer - or there is an emergency freezer swap following power/equipment failure - you could quickly get muddled up. Likewise, don’t call your files things like “sequence.fasta”. You’re just asking to accidentally analyse the wrong data. Include multiple failsafes so that if you enter the wrong directory, for example, your file names won’t be found. (A pet hate of mine is bioinformatics software that outputs the same generic file names each time it is run for lazy scripting.)

6. Reproducibility. Bioinformatics is - or should be - extremely reproducible in a trivial way. If you put the same data into the same program with the same settings, you should get the same answer. In this sense, it should have the edge over bench work - you do not need to repeat experiments. Right? Well, not really. Just because it should be consistent in how it goes wrong, you cannot be sure that a bioinformatics tool is not getting confused by some subtle nuance or peculiarity of your data. Try with another tool that does the same job, or change a setting that should make no difference, and check that you get qualitatively the same answer. (Better still, try changing a setting that should make a predictable difference and make sure that it does.) Just as you can get a misleading lab result if you mislabel your tubes or add the wrong buffer, you can get a misleading bioinformatics result if you mislabel your data or use the wrong parameter settings.

7. Validation. Bioinformatics often receives a certain amount of flak that it is not “real” and everything needs to be validated. This is true, up to a point. The forgotten point is that nothing is real and everything needs to be validated. In the lab, you rarely actually measure or observe something directly - you are inferring reality from things you can measure (e.g. fluorescence) based on what you think you know about the system (e.g. what you’ve labelled) and certain assumptions (e.g. lack of off-target binding). You then have to perform additional experiments - and/or bioinformatic analysis of your data - to test that your assumptions appear to be good and that there are not alternative explanations for your observations. Bioinformatics is no different. NO different. You make assumptions and you make inferences based on observed outputs. These assumptions and inferences need to be tested. This might be by “validation” in the lab. It might be by independent analysis of other data. The only reason the former is more common is that one often needs to generate new data, which clearly bioinformatics cannot do. However, if the data already exists, there is no reason why bioinformatics cannot be used to validate other bioinformatics, or even bench experiments.

8. Limits. Regrettably, bioinformatics is not a magic wand. (Sadly, we are not bioinformagicians.) It cannot correct poor experimental design. It cannot overcome a lack of statistical power. Just like at the bench, if you design an experiment poorly, include confounding variables or overlook covariates, you might not be measuring what you think and/or you might not have any signal from your analysis. It is tempting to think that bioinformatics is more limited that bench science because we cannot collect our own data, but this would be wrong. Bench data is the raw material on which bioinformatics is performed. We can collect new data from other data - much of sequence analysis is doing just this. Of course, if our particular study focus of interest has no data, we need to generate it. But if you want to study the affect of a certain drug on a certain cell line and either/both do not exist, you have to generate that too.

So, what can we do about it? Bioinformaticians have to take some of the responsibility, largely because we are the ones that write software that perpetuates the myth that understanding parameters is not important. What do I mean by that? Well, often the documentation or “help” for bioinformatics tools is poorly written and poorly maintained - if it exists at all. When it does exist, it is usually written with expert users in mind. The novice is flooded with parameters and does not know which ones are important, or when. One solution is to write a series of protocols in the same vein as bench protocols, highlighting when one might want to change certain parameters - and which parameters are most important. (I am no saint in this department, sadly. If nothing else, this post has made me more determined to do better.)

The bottom line is quite simple, though:

Bioinformatics is science. Full stop. It is no better than other science. It is no worse than other science. People do it right. People do it wrong. However, if you are worried that it’s not real, the chances are that either you are doing it wrong, or you have deluded yourself about the “reality” of observations from bench science.

WTF, Britain?!

This could be an audioblog post today, in the form of The Bugle, episode 292, as it sums up my feelings about the recent UK General Election. And that feeling is:

What The F#@k, Britain‽

Hopefully, the Labour Party will now get someone decent in charge. I can’t help but agree with Andy Zaltzman’s reading of the situation: people had a last minute change of heart on the basis that they could not imagine Ed Miliband as Prime Minister.

Following the LibDem coalition shenanigans, all three major parties have now shown that they cannot be trusted to keep promises in power. Therefore, you cannot really be sure what policies you will get, whoever is voted in. On the other hand, one thing you can be sure of is who will be PM, at least to start with. However odious the Tory policies may be, David Cameron can at least hold his own on the international stage. Ed Miliband, on the other hand, is embarrassing to watch on any stage.

In an ideal world, politics would be all about policies. (Which is probably why so many people were too ashamed to admit to the pollsters that they were going to vote Tory.) Sadly, this is not an ideal world. When it comes to a leader, it’s not just the ideas that matter. Personality counts. Charisma counts. With Miliband, Labour had someone who had all three. Then, for reasons that remain a mystery to me, they elected his brother as leader. Hopefully, the country won’t suffer too much as a result.

My other hope is that Lib Dem supporters will stop punishing the party for one bad mistake on tuition fees. I know that they let people down, but no more than Labour or the Conservatives have done in the past. 27 of their lost seats went to the Tories. Really, people?

At least Nigel Farage will be departing along with Nick and Ed, even though that’s only because the UK electoral system is so unrepresentative. With any luck, UKIP will now wither and die. (I'm not feeling lucky.)

Yet more OMICS Group spam full of vacuous rubbish

Despite unsubscribing from a mailing list that I never subscribed to, OMICS Group keep sending me pointless emails to crappy conferences. Today it was “Biodiversity-2015”:

Biodiversity-2015 is specifically premeditated with a unifying axiom providing pulpit to widen the imminent scientific creations. The main theme of the conference is “Share and Enhance Ecological & Geological Conservation research” which covers a broad array of vitally key sessions.

“Biodiversity-2015 is specifically premeditated with a unifying axiom providing pulpit to widen the imminent scientific creations.” Wow! Someone had been over-using their random vacuous crap generator.

Again, no explicit mention of OMICS Group as the organiser was made, although this one did mention “accepted abstracts will be published in the respective OMICS Group Journals”. (For free - they’re so generous!)

At the end of the email, they tell me to:

Have a Great Day Doctor!!

Well, with two exclamation marks, do I have any choice?! What would have made a greater day would have been (a) not receiving the email in the first place*, and (b) having the “To unsubscribe click here” line at the end of the email actually contain a hyperlink. Instead, the “click here” was just text in a different colour!

*I’m not being entirely honest with (a) - I think my day was brightened a little by “specifically premeditated with a unifying axiom providing pulpit to widen the imminent scientific creations”!

OMICS Group strike again with more scam conference spam

I am always wary when I receive an email that begins something to the effect of:

Dear Colleague,

The purpose of this letter is to solicit your gracious presence as a Speaker at the upcoming 5th World Congress on Cancer Therapy on September 28-30, 2015 which is going to be held in Atlanta, USA.

Soliciting my gracious presence smacked of an OMICS Group “predatory” conference invitation. The rest of the email went on:

The aim of this conference is to learn and share knowledge in cancer research. Leading World cancer researchers, Public health professionals, scientists, academic scientists, World Breast Surgeons, Medical and Surgical Oncologists, Radiologists, Researchers, Healthcare professionals, Industry researchers, Nurses, Scholars, Decision makers, Students and other professionals gather in Atlanta to speak at our conference.

Exceptional Benefits

All accepted abstracts will be published in the respective Journals
Each abstract will receive a DOI provided by Cross Ref
Certification by the organizing committee
Global Exposure to your Research
Best Poster Competitions and Young Researcher Competitions
The Career Guidance Workshops to the Graduates Doctorates and Post-Doctoral Fellows
Networking with Experts across the globe

For more details on scientific sessions and abstract submission, please Click Here

In closing, we would be pleased and honored if you would consent to be our speaker at our Conference.

I will call you in a week or so to follow up on this.

Regards,
Isaac Bruce
Cancer Therapy 2015
2360 Corporate Circle
Suite 400 Henderson
NV 89074-7722, USA
cancertherapy@conferenceseries.com

The thing I find most curious is that there is not direct reference to OMICS Group anywhere in this information: they don’t even name the “respective Journals”, which are presumably OMICS journals as with their other conferences. The address and even the email address are equally opaque.

If you do “Click Here” then you go to an abstract submission page with the “OMICS International” logo and some OMICS Group references/email addresses but even here they opt not to use an omicsgroup.com URL.

This does not strike me as the behaviour of an organisation that is proud of their brand. Indeed, I suspect that they know that their brand is toxic thanks to their reputation for predatory journals and conferences and thus try to lure people to submit an abstract (with a hefty $899 registration fee) before they realise their mistake.

The only other clue was the line hidden at the bottom in small font:

You are subscribed to OMICS Group as XXX. If you do not wish to receive any further communications, please click here.

Suffice it to say that I clicked there.

Always check seat guru, even for small planes

Our recent holiday in Tasmania was fantastic but did not start entirely well.

I checked us in online, not long after check-in opened. I thought that our allocated seats might have been over the wing, spoiling the view, so I decided to check whether anything better was on offer. There were not many available seats left but there were a couple of window/middle pairs nearer the front of the plane, in row 9 on the left and somewhere nearby on the right. I figured that during the afternoon flight time the sun would be in the west and we would mostly be heading south, so the left side was probably better. This also had a better chance of coastal views, I thought. Seats 9A & 9B selected. Checked in. Job done.

Later, we became interested in what type of plane it was. (I can’t really remember why: it might have been curiosity as to the number of rows and which ones might therefore be over the wing.) Googling the route, I came across the Seat Guru entry for the likely plane (the one flying the route that day) and I took a quick look. And horror!

Seat 9A is an Economy Class seat that is missing a window.

For reasons that still mystify me, the one window seat on the whole fecking plane without a window was the one that I had so carefully selected for my wife. WTF, Virgin‽ (Actually, that should be "WTF, Boeing‽" - Qantas planes are the same.)

I always check seat guru for long haul flights and big planes but it never even occurred to me that there could be such a crappy seat on small plane like a Boeing 737-800. (Fortunately, my wife was very gracious and laughed about, so my grumpiness on discovery did not last too long!) Lesson learnt.

Always check Seat Guru before choosing your seat. (It probably gives a better indication of the wing rows too!)

Increase your mailbox and get a new massage

I just can’t understand the authors of phishing emails. Why go to all that trouble to mimic an Outlook full mailbox message and then not even bother to proof-read the English. Don’t con artists have any standards? It’s just insulting. (A massage would be nice, though.)

Don't put plastic bags in recycling bins

Without recycling - especially plastic recycling - we're all doomed. Seriously. But what’s possibly even more tragic than selfish people who don’t bother to recycle when the service is offered, is people who go to the effort of sorting their recycling and then completely nullify their effort by sticking it in a plastic bag.

There’s some good information on why this is so bad at Planet Ark. It’s worth repeating the main points here:

Human health and our natural resources

The first level of sorting at recycling stations is done by hand.

Workers at the recycling station are sorting through tonnes of material an hour and don’t have time to open bags to find out what’s inside. Your plastic bags could be filled with recyclable material like glass or plastic bottles or aluminium cans. Or they could be full of contaminants like food scraps, plastic wrap or unwanted wine glasses. Even worse, they could be full of dirty or dangerous material like dirty nappies or medical equipment.

Since it’s too dangerous and time consuming to open and sort the bags, they have to be removed from the recycling stream and thrown into the rubbish. That means valuable resources will not be reclaimed. Instead they will be wasted in landfill.

Recycling system efficiency

The next issue with plastic bags is that they interfere with the automatic sorting machines.

Conveyor belts feed the recycling into rotating tunnels, onto spinning wheels and past magnets and eddy currents to separate the plastic, glass, paper, aluminium and steel cans. Plastic bags cannot be sorted from other materials by existing machinery. Instead, they get caught in the conveyor belts and jam spinning wheels and can bring the entire sorting station to a halt. The bags then need to be found and removed by hand - a time consuming and often dangerous process that reduces the overall efficiency of the recycling station or materials recovery facility (MRF).

The photo above shows the sign on all of the recycling bins in our building. Despite this, people still keep putting plastic bags in recycling bins! When I dropped down some recycling earlier this week this is what I found:

Being a good citizen (and without any other crap in the bin), I emptied it out and stuck the bag in the regular bin. Usually, I am not so brave.

It left me feeling angry at the laziness and/or ignorance that made someone think that this was acceptable behaviour. If you see someone put plastic bags in recycling, please tell them not to. And if you do… Stop! Put them in the regular bin or, better still, a dedicated plastic bag recycling bin at your local supermarket (if it has one).

OMICS Group Conferences - Sham or Scam? (Either way, don't go to one!)

I want to preface this post by saying that it’s been one of the harder ones to decide whether to write. On the one hand, it feels a little unprofessional and self-sabotaging to criticise a conference at which one was an invited speaker. On the other hand, my recent experience of an OMICS Group conference was so poor that I feel compelled to warn others. One thing I want to make clear from the outset, however, is that I do not want to denigrate any of the speakers; despite the shortcomings of the conference itself, there was nothing wrong with the contributions of those in attendance. (I wish I could say the same of the OMICS Group organisers.)

Earlier this year, I was invited to speak at the OMICS Group 3rd International Conference of Proteomics and Bioinformatics, held in Philadelphia earlier this month. It sounded like it would be a fairly big conference - the topic was broad, the website listed 24 conference organisers (including scientists from renowned Universities), eleven thematic tracks and venue pictures featuring a conference room of reasonable size set up for a talk. Although I am not generally a fan of massive conferences, it is good to present at one; I recognised a couple of names of confirmed presenters, one of whom was a friend, and after weighing up the costs I decided to accept the invitation. With hindsight, I was rather naïve and/or gullible in accepting the invite. The conference website, it seems, is very misleading - it lists four front-page “Renowned speakers”, for example, of whom only two actually spoke at the conference. At the time, though, I had no particular reason to be wary.

There were a few bad signs before even turning up to the conference, included poor information regarding the speaker guidelines and even the hotel in which the conference was taking place. The big one that worried me most was the timetabling of the conference when the full scientific programme was finally released. Despite 11 “tracks”, the conference was organised into a single stream. This is not so bad in itself - parallel sessions often cause problems of clashing talks of interest; the issue was that the resulting programme was so crammed full, there were hardly any breaks.

As anyone who has been to conferences knows, many of the most productive parts of the conference are the conversations over coffee, lunch and evening refreshments. This conference had scheduled two 15 minute coffee breaks and 40 minutes for lunch in the context of days of 9-6 talks. A one hour “cocktail” (beer and wine) session was listed for each day but there was no conference dinner or other activity to promote extended interaction. Not only was I worried about the lack of interactions - particularly for someone a bit introverted like me who is a bit slow to warm up - from past experience, there was a chance that talks would over-run to the point that breaks would disappear and/or it would take longer than the coffee break to get everyone out of the auditorium and lined up for coffee.

(As it happens, concerns about breaks were ill-founded. The reason for this is that the disorganisation of the conference at the event and the alarming no-show rate of speakers meant that we often ended up with extra time for breaks. The exception to this was Day 1 but I’m getting ahead of myself and will come back to that.)

Despite these warning signs, I really wasn’t ready for the shambles that was to come. Having had breakfast on Monday in the wrong room due to lack of information, I went to the conference suite to register and make my way to the conference room. The conference pack itself set the scene for the conference, being mostly advetising for OMICS Group activities with precious little regard for the science. (No lists of attendees, or places to write notes that I could see.) This was then reflected in the venue.

For one thing, it was tiny. I mean tiny. The venue image that I previously interpreted as the one of several parallel sessions turned out to be twice the size of the venue for the entire conference. This is partly because the room had been divided and the other half was being used for another OMICS conference. (There were three in the hotel plus one or two other meetings not organised by the OMICS Group.)

Not only was it tiny but the layout was awful - half a dozen large round tables surrounded by ten or so chairs each. Given that there were 52 speakers on the programme plus four keynote speakers and one workshop presenter, this was not encouraging. A conference with 24 listed of conference organisers having not much more than double that number of participants tells you that there is a problem somewhere. The biggest thing in the room was the banner advertising the OMICS Group and its sponsors.

Things did not get any better once the conference began. The schedule included a rather intriguing 30 minute(!) slot for an "opening ceremony", which again added to the pre-conference illusion of grandeur. In reality, it was five minute introduction by an unfortunate member of the keynote forum who seemed to have been volunteered for the role not long before. Furthermore, the absence of formal organisation was such that agreeing to this role seemed to land him with the unenviable task of essentially organising and managing the rest of the speaker lineup for the rest of the conference. To add insult to injury, this was someone who was not even on the organising committee.

The rest of the day was odd, bordering on farce. Things started OK. Thanks to the “opening ceremony”, we were running ahead of schedule. One of the keynote speakers had substituted a junior member of their lab in their place - a good move, I now see - but the keynotes were generally interesting and I was beginning to think “maybe this won’t be so bad”. At that point, the conference organisers made their only detectable organisational intervention - the group photo.

Quite why you want a photo showing how embarrassingly tiny your broad International conference is, I don’t know, but they did - enough to not only obliterate our time cushion but (thanks to some comically bad preparation and organisation by the photographer) also eat into the scientific schedule. This for me summed up the whole endeavour: science taking second place to OMICS Group publicity. The photo is now up on the website and reproduced below. I count 48 people. There were 57 listed speakers. (I will come back to that!) Remember, this is for a conference with an alleged 24 organisers!

I now suspect that essentially everyone at the conference had been invited to speak and that the “organising committee” had no role in the organisation or speaker lineup - indeed, I wonder if they all even know that they are being listed as organisers. Nevertheless, after a now-delayed coffee, things picked up again with some interesting talks, although there had clearly been little or no instruction (and sometimes little thought) regarding the technicalities of getting talks ready and computers switched over etc.. (There wasn’t even a clicker for advancing slides - I had to use my own!) Thanks to a few hiccups compounding the photographic nonsense earlier, we were late for our 40 minute lunch break.

Lunch. This should be one of the best times in any conference - a time to discuss the science of the morning and look at what’s on offer in the afternoon. After a couple of interesting talks, I was looking forward to a bit of discussion. Instead, lunch was a buffet affair on the mezzanine floor, shared by all the conferences and with insufficient tables and seating to be able to sit even with the two or three people you were just chatting to in the lift. On one occasion, I stood up to get a coffee after lunch and found my seat taken by members of another conference before I could return to it. Later, we were even asked to leave our table to make room for the next conference when I was still eating. (On that occasion, we were still well within the allotted lunch time on the programme.) The food itself was pretty nice but lunch, thanks to shoddy organisation, was one of the worst conference lunch experiences I have had.

The rest of the conference bumbled along in much the same vein. I’ve been at a few conferences where the schedule has been re-jigged slightly on the day but never before have I been at a conference where speakers were AWOL and nobody appeared to know. Before each talk, there was a hopeful appeal to the audience for the speaker to come forth and show themselves - or, as in a few cases, not. The first couple of times, I thought it a bit rude to just not show up but I fear that the real reason might be a bit more sinister - the OMICS Group, it seems, have a reputation for not refunding people who decide to pull-out of their activities; given the small size, I would not be surprised if they kept those that withdraw on their programme. As far as I can tell, the OMICS Group simply do not care if conference is a disaster, as long as they can spin it as a success. The packed programme quite possibly exists only to maximise the number of names they can associate with their conference for some credibility.

One of the saddest things - and one of the reasons for this post - is that a little more research on my part would have warned me off. The Scholarly Open Access blog had an article from January this year: OMICS Goes from “Predatory Publishing” to “Predatory Meetings”. (My wife emailed me the link at the meeting but I wasn’t brave enough to read it until at the airport to come home!) The title says it all really but some of the content within resonated with me quite strongly.

Now new evidence has surfaced revealing that OMICS, which is also in the business of organizing scientific conferences, has been 1) using the names of scientists, oftentimes without their permission, to invite participants to their meetings, 2) promoting their meetings by giving them names that are deceptively similar to other well-established meetings that have been held for years by scientific societies, and 3) refusing to refund registration fees, even if their meetings are cancelled.

First, OMICS implies that its editorial board members are conference organizers by placing their names and photographs on their conference web pages, and by sending email invitations to their meetings which are “signed” by members of the editorial boards. However, many of these people never agreed to be meeting organizers, and some have never even agreed to be become OMICS editorial board members.

The rest of the post - and the comments (to which I have now added) - do not make comfortable reading. The author ends by saying:

I strongly recommend, in the strongest terms possible, that all scholars from all countries avoid doing business in any way with the OMICS Group. Do not submit papers. Do not agree to serve on their editorial boards. Do not register for or attend their conferences.

I find myself having to agree. Despite the small size, lack of focus and crappy organisation, I did actually get some useful outcomes from the conference but these were despite the efforts of the organisers rather than because of them. Some of the science and individual presentations were of good quality but this was the worst scientific conference that I have attended by a long stretch - and I let them know as much in my feedback form! (Of course, visiting the conference website now shows a bunch of supportive quotes of praise, making it look like an unmitigated success. Either these individuals were at a different conference to me, have not experienced a good conference, or are way too polite.)

The whole thing left me feeling a little violated, to be honest. The delusions of grandeur portrayed by my “Certificate of Recognition” does nothing to ease this sense:

OMICS Publishing Group and Editor (s) … enjoy special privilege to felicitate [me] for his/her phenomenal and worthy oral presentation…

Even worse is what happens if you click “View More” following the “Renowned Speakers” on the front page. Another page is opened listing 42 “Executive Editors”. I am dismayed to find myself listed among them. I am not sure what qualifies someone for the list - as far as I can tell, not all those listed spoke at the conference and not all of the conference speakers are listed - but I want to make it quite clear that I have made no executive and/or editorial contribution to the OMICS Group. I have contacted them about this error, so hopefully it will be rectified. (I am not holding my breath.)

I am not sure whether they are fraudsters but, either way, I also strongly advise boycotting OMICS Group activities on the basis that they are scientifically bankrupt beyond anything that individual attending scientists bring to that activity. It is possible that I was just unlucky. Given the Scholarly Open Access comments and the apparent lack of embarrassment - and total lack of apologies - at the utter shambles that was the OMICS Group 3rd International Conference of Proteomics and Bioinformatics, I highly doubt it. For this reason, I feel the need to warn others.

Conferences are not cheap, so save your money and use it to go to a conference organised by scientists, for scientists, with science and not money/prestige/publicity as the primary motivator. Based on my experience, this will not be one organised by the OMICS Group.

There is one other thing I have learnt from this experience: if you are invited to present at a conference, do your homework.

[NB. I have made the OMICS Group aware of my thoughts and concerns. I will update this page in the light of any responses.]

[Update 4/12/13: Although OMICS Group never responded to any of my emails, it appears that they have modified their conference homepage and I am no longer listed as an “Executive Editor”. Doubly so, in fact, as they have corrected the title to read “Renowned Speakers” instead and removed me from the list!]

[Update 18/8/15: ABC have a recent exposé of predatory publishers (including OMICS), which is worth a read or listen.]

Are anti-vaxxers worse than Homeopaths?

Vaccination has hit the news again recently following an outbreak of Measles in Swansea. Sadly, indications are that this might be the direct result of successful lies and scaremongering by the fraudulent Mr Andrew Wakefield (not "Dr", since he got struck off “dishonest, unethical and callous” behaviour) at the end of the '90s, which caused a lot of parents to avoid giving the MMR jab to their kids. (And he's not finished.)

I don't generally go in for naming-and-shaming on this blog but if you are not familiar with Mr Wakefield's awful behaviour - and he still somehow seems to have supporters - I suggest you read this informative infographic by Darryl Cunningham, "The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield", or the more in depth expose by journalist Brian Deer. Not only did Wakefield fabricate data but he also had direct financial interests in seeing the MMR vaccine withdrawn. Bizarrely, far from being disowned by the anti-vax and alternative health community as a fraud and a miscreant, he has been embraced as a champion and hero of the cause.

Anti-vaxxers come in three main flavours, as far as I can tell. First, there are the snake-oil salesmen, who are actively trying to raise funds and/or sell alternative medicine through their scaremongering. These are the worst of the set because they pretend to be campaigning for truth when really they are putting people at risk by spreading lies to line their own pockets.

Second, there are the conspiracy theorists. These are deluded - often by the snake-oil salesman - into thinking that there is some giant conspiracy across science and healthcare professionals to lie to the public because we're all in the pocket of big pharma companies. (It is particularly ironic when these people support the likes of Andrew Wakefield, who was paid to discredit the MMR vaccine!) The tragedy here is that I suspect they are occasionally right about specific cases but, like the boy who cried wolf, who is going listen to them when blanket opposition to vaccination is so patently absurd? (I suspect this group also includes those who have been unfortunate enough to have a child suffer a rare condition or reaction and are looking for something more sinister than bad luck to blame.)

Lastly, there are those who are in favour of living a more "natural" lifestyle and who have sadly been suckered in by the more militant anti-vaxxers in online forums and the like. They may not fully buy into the whole "vaccines are evil" conspiracy, but they have been sufficiently brainwashed regarding the perceived dangers of tried-and-tested vaccines - and dulled to the very real dangers of not being vaccinated - that they avoid vaccinating their own children. This last camp includes the author of the recent "Comment is free" column in the Guardian, "Why I wish my daughter had been vaccinated". I hope more people read it. The evidence is clear. Vaccination is one of the most important medical innovations in history and has saved countless lives. As the article points out, people can only afford to be so complacent about it in the 21st Century because it has been so successful.

It is true that not all vaccines are 100% safe for 100% of people, and some of the stabilisers and adjuvants (immunity boosters) can have risks associated with them - which is why all new vaccines go through intensive testing, clinical trials and monitoring (as MMR has). These are not generally what the scaremongers are talking about, however, as they are generally not just opposed to new and unproven vaccines (indeed, they often promote their own unproven remedies) but instead trot out the same set of busted myths as a basis for opposing vaccination in general. These common myths are explained in "Six myths about vaccination – and why they’re wrong" from a great Australian site that I will be visiting again, The Conversation. (But you will still find them repeated.)

There is a small but genuine minority of people for whom vaccination is not possible, usually due to an allergy or immune deficiency of some kind. These people - along with the other small minority for whom vaccination fails - are wholly dependent on "herd immunity" to keep those nasty diseases at bay. This is the very real phenomenon where a sufficient proportion of the population is immune such that the disease is unable to take hold and spread.

By refusing to get their children vaccinated and discouraging others from doing so, anti-vaxxers are weakening the effects of "herd immunity" and out-breaks such as the current (and frankly embarrassing) UK measles outbreak in Wales are the result. You are not just endangering your own children, you put the children of others at risk, and that is just not fair. It's a bit like people who think that speed limits or the Highway Code do not apply to them. You can get away with such behaviour for a while so long as everyone else is following the rules because they are keeping you safe with their diligence. Whether born of ignorance or not, it's selfish, pure and simple.

But what if you are worried that you are one of those - or might be - with a genuine bad reaction to vaccination? Don't you have the right to avoid that risk?

No. First, bad reactions to vaccines are both rare and even more rarely as bad as getting the disease you are being vaccinated against. We tend to forget that because, ironically, vaccination has been so successful that incidents of these nasty diseases are themselves rare. Yes, you might be the unlucky one to experience a bad reaction - but you might equally be the unlucky one to get the life-threatening disease if there is a lack of herd immunity. Second, because of herd immunity, people with known bad reactions to vaccination should be even more pro-vaccination! Without the ability to get protection themselves, they are relying on the civil responsibility of others.

I've blogged a few times about Homeopathy, a sham treatment of sugar pills or water with no scientific basis nor evidence for efficacy that (shamefully) is still offered on the NHS in some places. Most homeopathic treatments are targeted at fairly innocuous conditions and are usually sold alongside real medicine, so the main damage done is to your finances (and maybe your pride once you realise you've been scammed). Apart from the diversion of funds from legitimate treatments, however, the damage done to third parties by Homeopaths is minimal.

"First, do no harm."

These words, attributed to Hippocrates, nicely sum up the essence of the "Hippocratic Oath" that (ethical) practitioners of medicine generally swear to. Anti-vaxxers, in contrast, put innocents at risk, including those who have not embraced their twisted and deviant message of lies. For that reason I think, yes, they are worse than Homeopaths - at least if you buy into the hogwash of Homeopathy, you are usually only harming yourself. (Sadly, that's not always the case and reliance on homeopathic treatment can kill children too. I think the effects on society are smaller, though. That said, the lesser of two evils is still evil.)

Not so much a ‘wake up call’, having pro-homeopathy MP David Tredinnick on the Commons science committee is the stuff of nightmares

Sadly, the recent kerkuffle over the portrayal of homeopathy on the NHS Choices website and the government's flagrant disregard of scientific advice on culling badgers may well just be the tip of an iceberg that the good ship Great Britain is sailing towards, full speed ahead.

Apparently, the Conservatives want to be the Republican Party so much that they have elected science-illiterate MP David Tredinnick to both the Commons Health Committee and Commons Science and Technology Committee. The problem? In the words of Miriam Frankel in her recent piece, ‘Wake up call’: Q&A with pro-homeopathy MP David Tredinnick, this is a man who "thinks the moon influences human behaviour and believes that homeopathy works."

As a scientist, the piece does not make happy reading.

"I’ve come onto this committee as someone who wants to see it take a broader view of science. I don’t believe that science is about defending the status quo: it’s about pushing boundaries. It’s really significant that I got onto this committee and I think it should be a wake-up call to those in the scientific community who don’t want to explore alternatives."

This doesn't sound too bad until you realise what the alternatives are that he wants to consider: homeopathy, acupuncture and herbal medicine.

"I think there are some good, double-blind placebo-controlled trials that have been conducted by the Integrated Healthcare Hospital, formerly the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital. But there’s also an enormous amount of evidence available through the observation of patients, so we shouldn’t ignore that. The other thing is that is very safe and very inexpensive. It should be more widely available on the NHS. And we should be teaching people to use simple homeopathic kits to stop unnecessary visits to doctors’ surgeries."

What?! Have you even read the House of Commons Select Committee (Science and Technology Committee) Evidence Check for Homeopathy? It's "safe and very inexpensive" because it doesn't contain any active ingredients! It has been explored by science. What possible motive do scientists and doctors have for not promoting homeopathic medicine if it actually worked? Not knowing how it works? We don't know how Paracetamol works but we use that.

It gets worse:

"I think that if the sun has an impact on our lives and the moon has an impact on the tides and cycles, it is logical to suggest that it might have an impact on other aspects of our lives as well. It’s accepted that at certain times certain people’s behaviour gets more extreme at the full moon—that’s, I think, scientifically proven. Hormonal reactions to increased positive ions in the air—the full moon effect—can cause hyperactivity, depression, violent behaviour, etc."

No, David, that's unscientific crap. You're right that science is about "pushing boundaries" but the way we push those boundaries is by ruling out the hogwash, like homeopathy and "the lunar effect". It is most certainly not by promoting hearsay and anecdote as a basis for policy or a way to determine efficacy.

Someone made a petition to remove David Tredinnick from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee but it's been rejected because "E-petitions cannot be used to request action on issues that are outside the responsibility of the government". Hmmm. I'll feel another letter to my MP coming on.

h/t: Rachel Nesbitt at the Society of Biology.

Chris Packham shows his star quality in defence of the badgers... and farmers

The British Government's Campaign of Stupid is continuing in full force with the recent news, Pilot badger culls in Somerset and Gloucestershire approved. This is after MPs voted to reject plans for the cull last October following massive scientific and public opposition to the cull.

The issue is summed up nicely in a This is Somerset post, BBC Springwatch star Chris Packham: Face the facts, a badger cull won't work. It's well worth a read - well balanced and cutting right to the heart of the matter. This is not just about trying to save badgers - it is about ignoring scientific evidence and plowing ahead with an expensive course of action that is more likely to make things worse than actually help. That money should be going towards trying to find genuine solutions for the TB problem - such as effective vaccination and finding ways to combat the EU ban on products from vaccinated animals. And this is the big problem with politicians ignoring scientists on scientific matters - public money is wasted on solutions that do not work whilst the problems themselves do not get solved.

h/t: Neil Gostling.

The stupidity of poaching rhino and the wider importance of evidence-based medicine

Extinction - and danger of extinction - is sad whatever the cause but when the cause is motivated by sheer nonsense it is particularly upsetting. Black Rhino are critically endangered and under increasing threat from poaching because of their horns. (The picture is actually of Southern white rhino at Dublin Zoo, which are "near threatened" rather than endangered.)

The stupid thing is that the horns have no intrinsic value - they are just keratin, which is essentially the same material as hair and nails. It is only because traditional medicine in several countries value rhino horn so highly, that poaching is so lucrative. Rhino horn has no clinically proven benefits. You might as well grind up your toe-nail clippings. (Try spinning that as an aphrodisiac.)

I've moaned before about Homeopathy and the like but the importance of evidence-based medicine goes well beyond the obvious issue of efficacious treatment. Promoting any woo indirectly supports all the tragedies associated with extreme cases, including using endangered species in "traditional" medicine. If it really works, the chances are that we can work what it is that is actually having an effect - and possibly why - and try to find an alternative source. All the time we embrace ignorance, we embrace ignorant practices.

Is technology ruining the moment?

Like many people, I was at home when the New Year was rung in, so I could only watch the fireworks on TV. They were, it must be said, pretty spectacular (although I actually thought there were too many at times) and I felt a twinge of jealousy towards all those watching it live above their heads.
Jealous, that is, until the camera panned across said crowd and revealed all the upturned faces, staring into the LCD screens of their cameras and smartphones.
Is the memory of the 21st Century human really so bad that we have to try and capture every event and every moment on a digital device, however inferior that would be to the experience itself? (Even the best camera equipment is not going to have a dynamic range or field of vision to challenge the Mark I human eyeball.) I could almost understand it if the event was not being televised and recorded for prosperity anyway. (It's on BBC iPlayer, which is where the screen grabs are from, if you missed it.)

I think I'm going to add another New Year's aspiration:

☑ Enjoy the moment. Learn to recognise when the view or the moment is just too special or breathtaking to be distracted by trying to get the perfect shot for the future.

Hmmm. That's two rants in a row. Must make the next one a positive post!

It's not cool to label your diagram "hot pink"

One of our assignments has students making pretty PDB structure diagrams using UCSF Chimera. Some of them are very good at it too. (The picture left is from the Chimera Image Gallery, not a student.)

I am always amazed by some of the figure legends, though, which feature colour descriptions such as "hot pink", "forest green" and "dodger blue". This is not so bad when there is only one pink, green and blue in the diagram - it can just be written off as idiosyncratic and superfluous. When I am asked to contrast "cornflour blue" with just "blue" in the same image, however... well, now we've crossed a line into downright unhelpful. Stick to "light blue" and "dark blue" - and if that's not clear enough, then pick another colour!

The cursed cliff-hanger and the cost of Capitalism

For any CSI fans out there who have not yet seen the series finale of series 12 (the one with Ted Danson in it): don't! Not yet, at least. For, as with so many TV series these days, it ends on an irritating cliff-hanger that we have to wait who-knows-how-long to find out what happens.

Now, of course I know why they do this. They want you to watch the next series and what better way to suck you in than by leaving everything hanging and needing a resolution? Well, I'll tell them what better way... just make a good series that has engaging characters and plots, wraps up the pressing story lines in a satisfactory fashion and leaves enough open ends in long-running plots to make us want to watch more - like a good film leaving things open for a sequel. If you want to go for the suck-us-in suspense, then run some trailers before the series starts with some exciting hints of what is to come.

Ending a series after what is explicitly the first part of a two-part episode, on the other hand, is not good. Suspense and intrigue do not grow with time - quite the opposite in fact. The longer the wait, the less we end up caring. The emotional investment is diminished, not enhanced.

I am reminded of when I saw The Negotiator at the cinema. It was a good, engaging film and reached an exciting climax where one of the characters had a gun trained on another and we did not know if he was going to pull the trigger... and then the projector broke. The lights came on, the machine got fixed and fifteen or so minutes we got back to the action but, by then, the suspense was already dead. I was still interested to see what would happen but I cannot say that I really cared any more. And that was fifteen minutes, not fifteen weeks!

The chances are, we'll already know roughly what's going to happen before Series 13 even starts - the promotional footage or press releases of who's signed on for another season are bound to give it away. And another interesting plot will be ruined by the desire to make money. Actually, no. Not to make money - to make more money. It's nothing more or less than selling out - compromising your art for money.

And herein lies the problem with seeing Capitalism as the basis of "Western civilisation". The bottom line is always the bottom dollar. It seems increasingly unlikely that decisions for the public good will ever be made if they are not also the economically most sensible. I'm all in favour of competitive markets and personal finance but that doesn't mean that the rich should be able to do whatever they want nor that the ultimate worth of something is financial. There are things that you cannot put a price or value on - happiness, integrity, pride, education - and they sometimes mean that decisions should be made based on quality and not cost (or, in the case of TV, income). I think that The Olympic "Legacy" is a prime example of this.

And that is why I will always have a bit of socialism running through my veins. Sometimes, we all just need to suck it up and take one for the team - and sometimes we need protection from the fat cats that ruin it for the rest of us just to line their pockets. I just hope we get a government that feels the same way before the NHS and British Universities are ruined for good.

There is no "Leader of the Free World"

Last Thursday, the BBC News magazine had an article entitled US election: How can it cost $6bn? It's an interesting piece, not least for seeing how people try to rationalise spending "more than the entire annual GDP of Malawi" on an election. (It's not just that America is bigger, they spend an order of magnitude more per head on the election than us Brits. (This is despite, as far as I can tell, having a much more restricted set of options - it's a two party system! How hard can it be?!))

That's not really what I want to rant about here, though. The thing that riles me is that oft-repeated and ill-founded superiority that many Americans seem to have:

Michael Toner has his own favourite analogy: "Americans last year spent over $7bn [£4.5bn] on potato chips - isn't the leader of the free world worth at least that?"

Ignoring the fact that perhaps is perhaps a poor reflection on how much Americans spend on potato chips rather than a good reflection on the cost of elections, (1) There is no such thing as the "Leader of the Free World" and (2) if there was I certainly wouldn't pick an American politician for the job.

I recognise that back in the Cold War days, things were a bit different. The "enemy" was the USSR and America probably really did lead the "Free World" in opposition. Today, however, the "enemy" (such as there is one) is not communism or terrorism - it is population growth and climate change. Where does the Heartland Institute and other fossil fuel lobbying organisations find most traction? Which country failed to ratify the Kyoto Treaty? America. Not the kind of leadership that I'm after, I'm afraid.

I am not saying that I think America is terrible and Britain or Europe is perfect. However, I am saying that Britain/Europe is easily as good as America in the "Free World" stakes and, in some arenas, a damn sight better. I am happy, for example, to live in a country where guns are heavily restricted, and where it is not legal to fire someone just because they are gay.

I'm not so happy with Britain's willingness to follow our American cousins into war, or the level of support and protection that the cult of Scientology gets here, or our terrible libel laws, but other (non-American) countries, happily, do much better on those counts. America is a great nation (in both senses) but it is not the great nation and non-Americans don't spend all their time wishing that they'd been born in the U.S.

Americans sometimes remind me of the medical students that I went to University with - they have been told that they are the greatest and the best so often that they cannot understand why anyone would not want to be like them. I probably could have done medicine if I'd wanted - I had the grades for it - but I didn't out of choice. I found Genetics more appealing. I didn't have the same choice about where I was born, clearly, but I am just as (or more) often thankful for being British rather than American than I am regretful that the opposite is true. (I do like American Football!) I find Britain (and several other countries) more appealing.

So, America, please stop calling your President the "Leader of the Free World". It's annoying, it's not true, and it's counter-productive if you are after respect.