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2. oktober 2002
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Journalists are Blonde, too
Last week, a story went around the world that German scientists had predicted that blonde hair will go extinct in the human race in 200 years. Many news sources attributed the claim to a report from the World Health Organisation (WHO).
There is just one problem. The WHO never issued such a report. Neither, apparently, did anyone else.
The WHO received a significant number of requests from journalists about this alleged study. On that very day, it had issued a serious report on the health situation in Palestine, and this, sadly, received far less attention than the hoax story.
Notch one more down to journalists not bothering to check their sources.
9:05:08 PM 
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The High Cost of Skepticism
Debates over repressed memories have raged among psychological researchers and clinicians for decades. A number of therapists argued, especially in cases of childhood sexual abuse, that victims had completely suppressed memories of abuse, and that various methods like hypnosis or dream analysis were successful in bringing real memories of past trauma to light.
However, the scientific community was mostly unimpressed, especially since laboratory experiments failed to support the allegations, and on the contrary demonstrated that such 'therapies' created memories, memories about events that had never happened.
Some therapists had created dramatic tales of Satanic Ritual Abuse, which caused massive media panics worldwide, and broke up countless families and destroyed the lives of many innocent people.When the panics waned and the claims were investigated by more sober minds in the scientific and law enforcement fields, the repressed memory theories mostly went into disrespute.
However, in 1997 psychiatrist David Corwin put forth a case study of an alleged victim of childhood sexual abuse, called "Jane Doe," and it appeared that between original interviews at the age of six, where she told about sexual abuse by her mother, and new interviews when "Jane" was seventeen, she had indeed repressed these memories. Only when she saw tapes of herself at six, "Jane" seemed to 'recall' the events. This case study seemed to support the claim that childhood trauma can, in some cases, be suppressed from memory.
The well-renowed psychologists Elizabeth Loftus and Melvin J. Guyer set out to investigate this case study, and used a journalistic investigative method to find a significant number of facts that Corwin had failed to report. The two-part article is published in Skeptical Inquirer, and demonstrates well the pitfalls on relying on single case studies. It does, to put it mildly, raise serious doubts about Corwin's original work and conclusions.
However, perhaps more chilling was what Lofthus and Guyer found out about the academic community itself. A friend of Lofthus and Guyer, social psychologist Carol Tavris, writes a shocking story about how university administrators and the Institutional Review Boards were able to put the two scholars through a kafkaesque nightmare of suppression of research, anonymous and secret allegations and legal problems. This is a sobering story for those who believe, or hope, that scholars are subject to the same freedom of speech that is guaranteed to others.
8:50:06 PM
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US will "Thwart" Inspections without new Resolution
The US is pressing the UN to adopt a new, tougher resolution on the return on weapons inspectors to Iraq. Officials have said the US is prepared to "thwart" the inspections if the UN Security Council does not adapt a new resolution.
Primarily, the US wants a resolution that automatically allows "all necessary means" — that is diplomatese for military force — if Iraq does not follow the resolution. The problem is that this will give the US a free mandate to decide whether conditions have been met or not, effectively making Bush the judge, jury and executioner for Saddam Hussein's regime without the need for further decisions in the Security Council. This will sideline Russia, China and France, and that is not very satisfactory to them, even though they will save some face, and they will save the UN's prestige to some degree.
The secondary option, which the US seems willing to accept if the first proves politically infeasible, is a two stage process, where the Security Council will first issue a stern resolution, and then meet again to evaluate the progress of the inspections. Only then, possibly, will it give the green light for use of force. Exactly how the first resolution need to be drafted to satisfy the US administration is subject to intense diplomatic debate now.
The problem with the US' threats to "thwart" weapons inspections is that the inspectors operate under existing Security Council resolutions, and do not need any new resolution. Neither do they take orders from Washington. Thus, the US simply cannot legally stop this process. What it can do through political pressure is, of course, another issue entirely.
7:46:01 AM
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Namibian President Ban Foreign TV Programmes
Namibian President Sam Nujoma has created full confusion in the state-run broadcasting corporation by banning foreign programmes, Ananova reports. He blames western values for 'corrupting the country's youth.'
Nujoma's is mirroring Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe in a number of paranoid, homophobic outbursts, blaming the west for causing homosexuality in Southern Africa. Obviously he thinks that stopping the broadcast of the science fiction miniseries Dune will bring the confused youth of Namibia back into the heterosexual fold. Admittedly, the scheduled replacement, a programme on the recent ruling party congress, is pretty certain to not arouse any erotic excitement.
Since Nujoma thinks European and American values are so bad, I would like to ask him where his cars and the weapons his soldiers use are produced.
Blaming foreign influences for the country's ills is, however, a tried-and-tested strategy for unscrupulous politicians eager to take attention away from broken promises. That is at least one European 'value' that Nujoma has learned to appreciate.
4:04:18 AM
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© Copyright 2002 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.11.02; 00:16:20.
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