Drug policy madness in the UK

The absolute sheer stupidity of officials in the UK trying to tackle problem drug use is completely astounding. I was almost shouting at Radio 5 at lunchtime when I heard an official from Westminister City Council saying that they want to tackle an epidemic of usage of the drug 'Spice' (which is now an umbrella term for various drugs which mimic certain effects of cannabinoids, but which are many many times more harmful) by re-classifying the drug from Class B to Class A. I mean, are you f*cking kidding me? Their argument is something like: The drug 'Spice' is illegal already, but usage is still increasing, so we will solve that issue by essentially making it more illegal! If anybody seriously thinks this is a valid solution then they are beyond deluded, and would probably decide to try and dig themselves out of a hole by digging deeper.

The legal status or the classification of a drug will have little, if any, impact on its usage. Spice is already illegal and people are abusing it, so why will they stop because it's a class A instead of a class B? Have people stopped using Heroin, Cocaine, Crack, Crystal Meth, MDMA etc because they are class A drugs? Obviously the answer is no. Furthermore, people turned to Spice because it was originally legal whilst Marijuana was illegal. Marijuana has negative effects on health for sure, but is many times safer than Spice, and had it been legally available and regulated, we may well not be seeing a wave of problem drug usage of Spice. I really cannot state this enough, or more passionately - criminalization of drug use DOES NOT WORK to prevent drug use or to eradicate health issues caused by problem drug use.

We have to move away from trying to tackle problematic drug use as a criminal matter, and treat it as a health and social issue. Furthermore, we should be asking why are people making themselves semi-unconscious on Spice? It's an over-simplification, but the answer is because they are unhappy and in pain. People tend to fall into patterns of problem drug use because they want to nullify the pain of existence. We live in a society which values GDP over personal happiness, a materialistic society imbued with a winner-takes all attitude that is increasingly marginalizing the poor and less fortunate. So many people in modern society are becoming isolated, cut-off, undervalued or ignored - they are growing up from wounded children into wounded adults, and when nobody is there to support and care from them, they turn to any substance that takes the edge off their difficult existence. Drug addicts are often demonised (not infrequently by people who use alcohol or tobacco very liberally) but this in itself is perpetuating the problem, because addicts are very often victims of a heartless and demanding society and they need our help. In terms of drug use, this isn't even touching on the fact that the majority of drug users do not proceed into addiction.

If the money spent on arresting and prosecuting non-violent drug offences was instead put into drug harm-reduction and rehabilitation schemes, then we would soon see a beneficial impact throughout society. There is evidence that such an approach is effective and sensible, for example in Portugal they moved from criminalizing non-violent drug users to a focus on harm-reduction and rehabilitation in 2001, and have seen very positive outcomes (for a quick overview see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_policy_of_Portugal).

People responsible for drug policy need to wake up now, and completely change their approach. It is as clear as day that this simply must happen, and I really hope that in my lifetime we will see a move in this direction.

Thanks for reading.

The evidence for evolution that Ray Comfort ignores

I recently read an entry on the evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne’s blog (Why evolution is true) which discussed a recent film by the Christian evangelist Ray Comfort (see here: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/08/11/odious-ray-comfort-movie-watch-it-below-to-be-distributed-in-public-schools/).  I was already aware of Ray Comfort, mainly thanks to an absurd video he made in which he claims that the banana is a nightmare for atheists because it is so well designed for mankind that it must have been created by God (see the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4yBvvGi_2A as an aside, I particularly like it when Comfort says that almighty God has made the banana with a non-slip surface). The latest offering from Comfort is entitled “Evolution vs. God” and it can be split into two distinct sections. The first section shows Comfort attempting to demonstrate that there is no evidence for evolution, the second section turns into a forcefully manipulative attempt to convert the interviewees (and thus any viewers) into Christians. You can see the film here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0u3-2CGOMQ.

I actually could write for quite some time about the whole film, it is full of false statements, manipulated interviews, ridiculous questions and erroneous assertions. However, I have decided to focus predominantly on one aspect of the first section which involves the main attack on evolutionary biology that Comfort makes. However, before I discuss the content of the film, it’s important to note one thing: Ray Comfort is not interested in understanding evolution, he is not open to learning about the overwhelming evidence, and before any interviews took place he had already decided to reject any evidence that was offered. For these reasons, it would be justifiable to simply reject Comfort’s film due to its inherent bias, but I want to explain this in a bit more depth as I know that superficially his approach can appear convincing.

Comfort wants to show the viewer that he is approaching experts, and knowledgeable students, and that none of them can explain a good reason (except faith) to believe in evolution. Comfort also wants to demonstrate that none of the experts can provide a satisfying example of evolution in action. Through the interviews shown, Comfort apparently demonstrates the lack of evidence showing the transformation of ‘kinds’, which he deems the only acceptable evidence for evolution. Because nobody can give an answer that Comfort will accept, he suggests that this proves evolution is not supported by the evidence. Comfort repeatedly points out that biologists have only documented the change of organisms within their own ‘kind’, e.g. fish into other fish or bacteria into other bacteria. Now, I don’t know if anyone asked him what a kind was and it was thereafter cut from the final film (most probably) but this is a vital question, how does Comfort define a ‘kind’? I know it is a term used in the Bible, but what does it mean as a biological definition? I can give you an answer: it is an indefinable and unhelpful term. Comfort says he isn’t interested in the examples of observed evolutionary change provided to him, because he only wants to know about a change in kinds. Comfort states this over and over with such certainty and conviction that one might even believe that he has a point; however, although Comfort believes he is striking a blow against evolution, he is in fact making a meaningless statement which is of no consequence.

In biology we don’t ever refer to kinds, we use taxonomic groupings which even today are based largely on the definitions established by Carl Linnaeus in 1735. An example is shown in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1: An example of taxonomic classification. Each major taxonomic group is listed in the coloured boxes, and the text to the right of each box lists the taxonomic groups to which the leopard (Panthera pardus) belongs.

If Comfort was challenged to state where a ‘kind’ fell in the official system of classification, he could not answer. I expect he would claim that birds are a kind, cats are a kind, dogs are a kind, fish are a kind etc. But, cats and dogs belong to the same order of mammals (carnivora), so shouldn’t they actually be the same kind? I don’t want to dwell on taxonomic classification, especially as it may be unfamiliar to non-biologists, but I feel this brief discussion is necessary to demonstrate how meaningless it is when Comfort asks for evidence of a ‘change in kinds’. The evolutionary transition between a bony-fish and a cartilaginous shark is actually huge, but even if Comfort was shown the astronomically unlikely event of a shark evolving into a trout before his eyes he would dismiss it as being only a change within the ‘fish kind’; however, his assertion doesn’t match the classification which biologists use which places sharks and bony fish in completely different classes.

Comfort then goes further to claim that Darwinian evolution = a change in kinds, but this is a definition he has created himself and is actually incorrect. What Comfort is asking for is for someone to undertake an experiment which shows a dinosaur evolving into a bird, or to show an early semi-aquatic four-limbed creature (known as tetrapods) evolving into a mammal. These evolutionary transitions took millions of years and clearly cannot be recreated for human observers to directly witness, and Comfort knows that full well. Therefore, he is asking for something which he already knows cannot be provided, and then he essentially sits back smugly and says “see, I told you there is no evidence for evolution”.

Comfort’s main point is that it is impossible to be sure evolution has taken place because nobody was there to observe each evolutionary change. Direct observation is just one type of evidence, and what Comfort either doesn’t know, or more likely chooses to ignore, is that there is a mass of genetic, palaeontological, geological and morphological evidence which clearly shows that evolution has occurred. It is not possible for me to sum up the evidence here, because it really is so overwhelmingly large and completely unequivocal. Just because we didn’t see the evolutionary changes take place, it doesn’t mean we don’t have evidence. We can infer what has happened over evolutionary time by the masses of evidence that we do have. When every line of evidence we have all points to the same conclusion, then we can be as certain as possible that our conclusion is correct.

To demonstrate my point, consider the following scenario. I put a male and female fish (both virgins) together in a fish tank with a supply of food. I leave the tank unobserved for 6 months and when I return I now find 20 fish instead of 2. In this case I would have firm evidence that the male and female had successfully reproduced, and even though this conclusion was reached through inference, I doubt anyone would doubt its validity. However, if I were using Comfort’s logic I would have to admit that I had no evidence that the two fish produced offspring because I didn’t actually see the spawning of eggs and the subsequent fertilisation of those eggs by the male. Comfort believes that if nobody saw a process take place then you can’t be sure that it happened. My point here is simple but important: we don’t have to physically witness an event to have evidence that it has occurred. It doesn’t take much thought to see the error of Comfort’s logic. My only hope is that one day he will see his error and open his eyes to the evidence that he dishonestly claims he is seeking.

I am aware of the length of this blog, so I think it’s best to sum things up. The reason I wrote this piece was because I value the truth immensely. People like Ray Comfort, no matter what their reasons are or how ‘good’ their intentions might be, are deceiving people and spreading misinformation. Comfort’s film aims to manipulate the audience into thinking the same way as he does. In my opinion everyone should be encouraged to evaluate the evidence for any given matter and come to their own conclusion independently. I wouldn’t want anybody to accept evolution simply because I have said so, in fact I encourage anyone who hasn’t done so to seek out the evidence for evolution (openly and honestly). It is my genuine belief that anyone who investigates evolution fully will be as fascinated and enthralled by it as I am. I suppose my take-home message is that “Evolution vs. God” is a dishonest documentary (or should I say anti-documentary?), and if you have seen it I encourage you to critically analyse everything in it.

As always, thanks for reading and comments are very welcome.

A question of sanity.

The question ‘How can we define insanity’ (or the reciprocal question of ‘How do we define sanity’) has long been of interest to me. This subject came back to the forefront of my mind during the trial of Anders Behring Breivik. His trial is now over and he awaits sentencing, which is expected at some point during August 2012. His horrifying killings, which led to this trial, have been well publicised (although if you would like further information then this Wikipedia page is as good a summary as any: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik); however it is the issue of whether he should be convicted of the crimes, or deemed insane and placed in a mental institution, that I will consider here.

To briefly summarise, Anders Breivik admits that he killed 77 people on the 22^nd July 2011 – but, and this is the critical part – he denies committing murder. He sees himself as a soldier, fighting a war against the enemy, which for him can be broadly classified as ‘multiculturalism’. Thus, even though he brutally murdered many people, he feels that he is not a criminal because he is fighting for a higher cause. In his opinion he is fighting for what is true and pure, and he believes he will eventually be thanked for his part in this ‘war’.

Now, to some people that seems like ‘crazy’ thinking and maybe clear indication he is ‘insane’. Yet, he knows full well that he killed people, and in his trial he has shown flashes (granted, only occasional glimpses) that he realises his actions caused pain and suffering. He claims to have trained himself so that he could kill without feeling remorse or guilt. This seems to me like someone committing horrors with the full knowledge of what he is doing. What is more, if you read his testimony during the trial you will see how meticulously he planned his attacks, how thorough he was, how careful he was. Sure, he isn’t a genius, and he may be deluded - but is this someone who is insane and thus not suitable for the receipt of a jail term?

I don’t claim to be a mental health expert, nor can I give an absolute answer to the questions I pose. I merely propose this as a good way for us to examine our beliefs on what is insanity and what is sanity. The rationalizations of Breivik are very reminiscent to those by two Mormon fundamentalists, Ron and Dan Lafferty, who committed a brutal double murder (this is quite brilliantly analysed in Jon Krakauer’s book ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’). These two brothers believed they were ‘working for God’ and in 1984 they received divine revelation that they were to kill their sister-in-law and her 1 year old baby daughter. As in the case of Breivik, the men admit they committed the killings, but insist they have committed no crime – they were doing the work of God and that cannot be considered illegal or immoral. They say they were soldiers of Christ and that God’s laws are higher than man’s laws, so if he tells you to do something then you had better do it!

Is this insanity? It might sound so on the surface. They claim to have had direct contact with ‘God’ who told them to kill two innocent people because “... they have truly become obstacles in my path ....” (God’s words as transcribed by Ron Lafferty – he received messages directly from God and typed them out as he was instructed).  Few would disagree that it sounds insane. However, how many people receive direct messages from God daily? Naturally, they aren’t always messages of destruction (although, they sometimes are) but are they insane when they hear the voice of God telling them what to do? If people are ‘instructed’ by God to give their money away to charities then we may praise them, if they are instructed by God to steal money from the poor then are they insane? People hear God telling them to change jobs, move home, sell their car, visit a certain town at a certain time, advising them whether or not to get married, what sex their child will be - and so on. Is it only insanity when we dislike the outcome of a message from God, or when certain actions go against the moral standards of the time?

To continue with this point, if someone claims to receive messages from an invisible other-worldy spirit called ‘Brigadier Smith’ who once roamed the earth, died and rose to life, and now sits in a glorious golden castle surrounded by pink unicorns, we quickly dismiss this as the ramblings of a madman. If we replace the words ‘Brigadier Smith’ with ‘Jesus’, ‘golden castle’ with ‘heaven’ and ‘pink unicorns’ with ‘angels’ then plenty of people are willing to accept it. In both cases, we cannot see the spirit, we cannot prove they exist, yet is one claim insane and the other sane? Is it just because only one man believes in Brigadier Smith and over 2 billion purportedly believe in Jesus? Perhaps if one man gets enough other people to believe in Brigadier Smith then his claims can be considered sane. Why is this? Do we judge sanity by how many people believe incredible things? If so where is the sanity/insanity cut off, when 100 people believe it, 1000, 100,000, 1,000,0000?

On a disturbingly regular basis, people are falling over in churches when they are ‘slain with the holy spirit’, or enthusiastically talking in a completely unintelligible ‘language’ which they claim is ‘speaking in tongues’.  What do we think when people fall over randomly in the street? We probably rush to their side wondering if they need medical assistance, but if they claim that they were overcome by a beautiful, invisible and powerful spirit we probably assume the medical assistance they need is of a psychiatric kind. How do we react when we see someone walking down the high street apparently spouting mumbo-jumbo loudly to themselves? We may feel they are behaving insanely, or maybe on drugs. I don’t mean to suggest that these acts are in any way criminal, whether they do it in church or not, but it serves to demonstrate my point. What is insanity and how do we define it?

Perhaps a supposed ‘crazy’ act is only judged sane or insane depending on the context. If people mutter incoherent ramblings in a church or prayer meeting then we may say they acting in a ‘sane’ way; but if they do it in the cinema or the middle of a shop then are they now acting in an ‘insane’ manner? Or, is it again that we judge the act depending on how many others do it? Millions of worshippers (of different faiths) take part in activities that we might judge irrational, or bizarre, in another context, but when hundreds gather together and do it simultaneously then it becomes ‘normal’ behaviour. When God ‘speaks’ to a few hundred fundamentalist mormons and tells them that pluralist marriage is right and proper, then most people say they are acting insanely; when God speaks to millions of fundamentalist Christians telling them that homosexual marriage is completely abhorrent then many feel they are behaving sanely. How are we judging whether this is sane or insane?

Let’s return to Breivik for a moment and consider a merging of his agenda with something slightly (but not very) different. Suppose that a man hears a voice from beyond this world, telling him that terrorism is a threat to the west, and to democracy, and must be stopped. Suppose this man takes it upon himself to attack the source of terrorism, as he sees it, and enters an Arabic country where he collects weapons and plans an attack. He believes he is justified in killing people, it is not murder it is a ‘war on terrorism’, and there is a greater good. He feels strong in his conviction, the other wordly voice tells him that he is right, he feels at ease, the spirit inside him guides him on. He undertakes a killing spree, he tries to kill only those that he has identified as terrorists, but to his regret many innocent civilians get caught in the crossfire. How do we judge this man afterwards? Do we believe a spirit from beyond actually spoke to him? Do we think he is insane, or has he acted abhorrently but in a sane manner?

I am sure you know what I am getting at. George Bush allegedly heard from God that he should invade Iraq. Let’s lay aside the fact that God was conveniently telling Bush to do something that he already wanted to do (it’s very interesting how God’s voice always matches the internal philosophy of the person who hears it); should we believe that Bush ‘heard’ the voice of God? If so, is he different from Dan and Ron Lafferty who heard God’s voice and followed it to a murderous end? Is he different from Anders Behring Breivik who took it upon himself to act as a ‘brave soldier’ and fight against the global threats he perceived? What about the terrorists who flew planes into the two towers; they were taking part in ‘a war’ against the ‘evil’ tyrants of the west, with the instructions of God and the promise of a reward in heaven ringing in their ears. All of these examples have a strong ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality, and our judgement of their morality and mental states apparently only depends on context. George Bush can take a country to war, and millions of others can take part, but apparently that is not insanity. A single man, or a few terrorists, can do something quite comparable and that is clearly insanity. Is the definition really as clear cut as this?

As I have mentioned before, I have no answers but I enjoy pondering the conundrum. Maybe there is no insane or sane, just a continuum of beliefs with some people occupying the extremities but more of us sat in the larger middle section. What I think it demonstrates nicely is that there are few black and whites in this world, no absolute definitions for us to conveniently follow. Moreover, we should take great care in examining our beliefs and our thought processes –  and most importantly weigh them up rationally against the evidence. I imagine most people will not need to carefully weigh up a belief that God wants them to kill a relative, or that they are an important solider in the fight against multiculturalism. Nonetheless, it pays to carefully evaluate both the things which we are told by others, and our reasons for believing in the things we do.

In summary, I suppose Anders Behring Breivik may be insane, he may have a genuine mental illness – how we judge those is another can of worms which I’ll keep shut for now. There are genuine mental problems, and he may have one. I just think it’s interesting how many others who share some of the same ideals and traits could be placed into the same category (but never are). The questions I have raised are difficult ones and I will now leave you to ponder them, I know I shall continue to do so.

Selfish genery

One thing that has struck me recently is the odd nature of some of the opposition to ‘The Selfish Gene’ approach to evolution; I would tend to call this the ‘gene centred view of evolution’ but it was of course expertly summed up in the famous book (of the same name) by Richard Dawkins in 1976. Dawkins actually used the book to synthesise much other research into one coherent whole; and, by use of clear and helpful analogies, explain how that natural selection operated at the level of the gene. At the time of writing there was still a lot of support for group selection (that natural selection may occur between groups of organisms) and Dawkins was trying to demonstrate that this was erroneous. The alternative to this is individual selection – that natural selection operates on differences between individuals. Dawkins sought to go further, and I feel by the very basic tenets of biology he must be right, that natural selection operates on differences between the genes within individuals.

 

Before going on with this blog I will make one point; I am an undergraduate and I’m by no means an expert – in fact I am trying to make it clear that I am not claiming to be an expert. I write this blog based on my understanding of biology and my current knowledge of the scientific literature. If anybody notices errors then please feel free to let me know. Also, to explain all the background in careful detail here would take many thousands of words. I would encourage anyone who hasn’t done so to read The Selfish Gene for themselves, and ideally other books about natural selection and evolution.

I was inspired to write a blog on this when I happened upon a section in an old Open University course book on Human Biology. I remember being a bit confused by this section at the time I first read it, but re-reading it now made me realise that confusion about Dawkins’ work even seems to have crept into university student literature. I don’t wish to criticise the Open University as I found them to be an excellent organisation, and this is only 2 pages in a 200 page book. Neither am I suggesting they are challenging evolutionary theory, this section appears in a chapter in which they talk about Darwinian evolution and natural selection. There are a few strange arguments laid forth in this short section, I will deal with one in this blog post and may follow up with some further posts about some of the other points they make.

An issue with this section becomes clear with the heading entitled ‘Nature and nurture revisited’. They talk about whether anything “... in addition to genetic inheritance should also be taken into account when considering evolutionary change” (italic emphasis is theirs and not mine). They then go on to say “There is at one extreme, a gene-centred theory of evolution popularized by the biologist Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene (1976), which views organisms as nothing more than vehicles for ensuring the survival of genes. In this highly reductionist account, all the characteristics of an organism (behavioural, psychological and physical) can be traced to the activity of its genes”.

I realise now, as I start to write more on this, it would actually take a very long time to pick this apart and explain where I am coming from. I will focus on making two points. Firstly, by including this in a section about nature and nurture, I think this shows the author’s desire to indicate that Dawkins’ work reflects a theory of genetic determinism – that it is an extreme view. They wish to suggest that Dawkins says that genes are the be all and end all - environment, social interactions and learning are all inconsequential because everything is explained by the genes. This is the old nature vs. nurture dichotomy, but it is a false dichotomy and the view is not held by Dawkins or any other major biologist whose works I have read. Yes, Dawkins argues that it is differences in the genes that lead to differences in the organism that are then subjected to natural selection – but he is not espousing genetic determinism nor is his an extreme view. He is not trying to say that everything that we see in an organism is a product of the genes alone – in fact if he were to say that (or if any biologist were to say it) he would be going against masses of evidence that organisms often show phenotypic plasticity – simply meaning that the same genes can lead to differences in an organism if they are subjected to different environments. Dawkins knows full well, and if you read The Selfish Gene (or most of his other major work) you will see, that genes and environment always interact during the development of any organism.

But, if Dawkins argues that it is the genes that are subject to natural selection, then isn’t that genetic determinism because the differences must lie in those genes? No, it is not. By definition the reason for the differences must lie in the genes, and I would love anybody to explain how we can get heritable change in any form outside the genes. It is the genetic code that is inherited vertically from one generation to the next, even a small change in a tiny part of the genetic code could make a net difference in some trait of that organism (although changes in non-coding DNA would not); if the altered trait gives an organism an advantage in its environment it may lead to evolutionary change within that species (over many generations). If an organism gains an advantage due to some change of a non-genetic kind (perhaps the organism happens to source a particularly fruitful food supply which he can monopolize) then he may survive better than other organisms and have more children. But, here is the key point, do his children necessarily inherit the food supply? They may do, they may not. The parent may have depleted it, some other organism may find it, the environment may change and the food supply may disappear. It is only genes that are fully heritable (Dawkins calls them replicators); offspring do not inherit the environment in the broader sense of the word – although, of course they are likely to live in the same environment as their parents.

Having said all that, any gene whatsoever needs a complex interaction with all kinds of environmental variables; such as nutrient supply, hormones during development, temperature, social interaction, the action of other genes and much more. An organism may inherit a gene that has the potential to produce a morphological (physical) difference, let’s say in a kangaroo’s leg musculature to improve jumping, but without the right nutritional input at the right developmental stages it may not develop any stronger legs than other kangaroos without the altered gene. In the gene centred view of evolution nobody is arguing that only genes are involved – but instead they argue that it is the genes that contain the heritable variation that produces differences in individuals on which natural selection can act.

And so to my final point (I promise). Later in the section there is reference to “ ...the holistic view of evolutionary change”, let’s lay aside this odd terminology as I’ve never heard the term before in terms of biology, and see what they are driving at. I quote “This approach to an understanding of evolution asserts, just as Darwin did, that whole organisms are subject to natural selection”. Hmmmm. Does Dawkins not agree with Darwin? I doubt you will find many more committed Darwinists working today in evolutionary biology than Richard Dawkins. More to the point, does the ‘Selfish gene’ theory suggest that whole organisms are not subject to natural selection? No. It states no such thing. The point being made is quite subtle, of course Dawkins realises that it is the actual organisms which live or die; the point is that it is differences at the level of their genes which provides those differences in organisms on which natural selection can act. I may be repeating myself or restating an earlier point, but I think it worth doing so because it seems that this point is often accidentally, or wilfully, misconstrued.

Well, I’ve gone on for long enough. I feel better for getting that off my chest – not that I’m kidding myself than anyone is likely to read all this! However, if anyone reads some, or all of it, then many thanks for reading! Comments, as always, are welcomed.

Dominic

The Piano Teacher - my review

I'm on some kind of a roll with reviews of films. I saw The PIano Teacher by Michael Haneke yesterday and felt compelled to get my thoughts down straight away. I'll try and write a different kind of blog soon, but for now here is my review of a very dark but compelling film. You can see my comments here on Imdb.com too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0254686/usercomments-224

I'm not sure I should really attempt a review of this because I doubt very much that I can sum it up or even begin to describe the power of this film. One thing to say is that it is extremely challenging viewing and if you are unsure of watching this make sure you know what you are in for first. Not that anything could prepare you for this film, but be aware that it is a dark and often disturbing look into some of the most troublesome aspects of human behaviour.

I can't say that this is an enjoyable film - that surely isn't the right word. However, this is filmmaking at its very best, coupled with a central performance from Isabelle Huppert that genuinely deserves the high praise it has received. I was only introduced to Michael Haneke very recently, and this is only the 2nd of his films that I have seen, but he is clearly an incredibly gifted director and writer who makes films almost unlike any others I have seen.

Films of sustained intensity and anxiety are quite rare, and there are very few films I have seen that are able to achieve the intense and foreboding atmosphere that Haneke, and also Isabelle Huppert, craft here. What is unique is that Haneke doesn't rely on a chilling musical score to build tension, nor is the film cast in dark and brooding light that suggests to us what the underlying nature of the story is. Haneke builds the tension with supreme subtlety and ingenious craft. The only music that is used comes from the piano playing of the characters themselves; the beautiful and artistic music is juxtaposed with the dark and secretive thoughts of Erika.

We gradually delve into the troubled mind of the otherwise austere piano teacher, Erika, and get glimpses of a side of her which initially seems almost out of place. Her acts are played out to a backdrop of a sad and lonely existence, one in which she is still controlled by a domineering and rather embittered mother. The mother, played excellently by Annie Girardot, perhaps gives us a tiny insight into why Erika feels trapped and repressed.

Huppert is astounding and the subtle nuances of her performance are indicative of an actress at the very top of her game. Huppert conveys so much fear, sadness, lust, anger and even love through a veneer of temperance. She constantly reminds us that these feelings are largely repressed and yet we can see them bubbling under the surface. Huppert betrays these underlying dark emotions often with as little as a slight shift in her facial expression – make no mistake this is acting of the highest calibre; subtle, understated and yet utterly powerful and compelling.

The actions of Erika are often quite alarming and certainly not appealing, and yet it is the hallmark of excellence, in both Haneke's script and Huppert's performance, that we can still sympathise with this woman. Even, if it is only a fleeting glimpse of sympathy or understanding – it is still there. That is how I felt, and that is another reason why the film is so challenging. Should I feel sympathy? Should I feel anger? Should I feel disgust? Haneke doesn't insist that we feel one way or another, he lets the power of the story carry itself and the viewer is left to sift through this thickened sea of conflicting emotion.

As I said at the start, I don't think I can do this film justice on paper – it has to be seen; and if you do choose to see it you will get something much more – you will feel your way through it. As I watched this film I felt an array of different emotions; I was gripped, tense, anxious, saddened, disgusted and much more. By the end I had a barrage of unanswered questions and I wasn't even sure how to feel about what I'd seen. That is the beauty, and I do mean beauty, of this incredibly thought-provoking and dark film. If after reading this you think you can stomach the content then I would encourage you to watch it for a very unique film experience. It is a breathtaking film but one that might well leave you with an uncomfortable feeling deep in the recesses of your subconscious. 9/10.

The Fighter - my review

Well, University life has been very busy so I haven't posted much. I've just written a review of The Fighter which I posted to Imdb.com, I've been meaning to do it for months. Here it is in full, or you can see it on Imdb.com here: http://imdb.com/title/tt0964517/usercomments-280

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I had high hopes for The Fighter, not only due to the praise which was lavished on it, but also because I loved 'I heart Huckabees'. I know that was a film which polarised opinion, but I thought it was inventive, intelligent, funny and excellently written. I was therefore expecting The Fighter to provide something new. Perhaps expecting David O'Russell to take the boxing movie genre in a completely new direction was asking too much, but I did expect to find unique elements for a film of this kind.

What I saw was a film full of cliché and caricature. I didn't find it very compelling or exciting; instead I found it to be flat and frequently annoying. It was like O'Russell found a book of 'fighting movie clichés' and made sure he included them all. We get the traditional training montage played out to cheesy rock music - something that has been seen, and parodied, many times before. What about the other boxing cliché classic of several fights shown as a highlights package to chart the protagonist's rise up the ranks? Oh yes, O'Russell includes that as well. I actually couldn't believe my eyes that this was felt to be the best way to tell the story. Surely they could have come up with something more original!

I understand that it's the characters being portrayed that are annoying; however, some of them are like cartoon caricatures and infuriating to watch. The gaggle of aggressive sisters were the worst by far. They were not funny or interesting, they had no emotion, no depth and nothing for me to connect with. Amy Adams played Charlene very well, but again I found her to be an aggressive stereotype and I couldn't connect with her character. The scenes with the sisters, Alice and Charlene arguing were cringe-worthy. I can watch old re-runs of the Jerry Springer show if I'm into that kind of 'banter' but it brought nothing of worth to the film.

That brings me on to Melissa Leo as Alice Ward. She landed an Oscar and received much praise for her performance. I have to say that this was a solid, and certainly strong performance, but I don't think it comes close to being worthy of an Oscar. It was one dimensional and abrasive and never gave us a chance to see the woman behind the stern exterior. She stomps around moodily, cigarette in hand, dishing out barrages of f- bombs, and not much more. I couldn't find any depth, or motives, she seems like a cartoonish comedy character and not something to be taken seriously. Maybe we can blame the screenplay – but I think her performance really lacks something, which I look for in really great acting.

So then, what about Dicky and Micky surely they are the heart of the film and the ones who matter. I like Mark Wahlberg a lot and I don't think this his performance as Micky Ward is a bad one, but it rumbles along but never soars. I think it's more of a problem with the screenplay than the acting. I just didn't care about Micky enough to get into the film. After all, he is what this story is about and it is a failing of the film that you never get to see anything that lies behind the mask of bravado worn by this 'tough man'. What drives Micky on? What does he care about? We get glimpses perhaps, but never enough to flesh out the character so we can truly empathise with him. Having said that, the film hooked me in just enough during the last 20 minutes to root for Micky in his big fight, but prior to that I didn't become engaged with what was going on.

Christian Bale also took home an Oscar for his performance as Dicky, and whilst it was good I felt it was lacking heart. Yet again, this is partly to do with the screenplay. The drug addict and unreliable brother who comes good in the end is perhaps another cliché, but one that can be used effectively if it's done well. I though Bale was good, don't get me wrong, but I was left feeling that there was no emotional depth to the character that would give the audience something to care about. Having said that, there is a short scene at the end of the film where Bale showed true emotional depth and it was certainly pitch-perfect acting. But, 10 seconds of engaging and heartfelt acting doesn't warrant an Oscar. Maybe I'm being harsh on Bale but after what I had read about this film I was expecting a lot more. For example, I think he is much better in The Machinist (and I'm not referring to the weight loss method acting, I'm referring to the heart of the performance).

It may seem like I've totally slated the film but I'm not saying that it's awful. I just think it falls well short of the hype that surrounded it during awards season. I can't see how it deserved nominations for best film or best director. Overall it's OK, I think it's worth watching but it's not something I would choose to see again. It had a few decent moments, but overall there is no meaning. Essentially it contains a lot of angry people shouting at each other for long periods, interspersed with average boxing scenes. It's hard to care about the characters and I think it pushes away any real connection a viewer can have with the story. The last 20 minutes were a bit better but that wasn't enough to redeem it in my eyes. I think it could have been so much better, and in the end I was very disappointed. Obviously enough people loved the film, so I guess it's still worth giving it a go, but as far as I'm concerned it's average and not an award-winning film. 5/10

The wonder of biological development

First of all - Happy New year! I still haven't managed my goal of more frequent posts but I will keep trying. This post is about one of the (many) areas of biology I find fascinating.

I could list hundreds of reasons why I chose to study biology because it really is a rich and diverse field which is thoroughly fascinating in many ways. If I had to specify an overarching theme of biology to explain why it sustains my interest, then I would perhaps say the astounding complexity and powerful beauty that underlies biological processes and systems.

Whilst I was considering this recently one thing struck me very strongly, and that is how some very surprising and often highly complicated biological processes are taken for granted by all people; whilst some others which are based on the same underlying biological themes can be challenged and sometimes derided as fanciful.

To give a good example of the kind of thing I mean I will chose a process familiar to everyone – because it is a key moment in how we all came to be here in the first place. I am referring to fertilization; when a sperm entered an egg and produced a single-celled zygote (the initial product of fertilization prior to development into an embryo). Immediately after fertilization a human zygote is roughly around 150 micrometres in diameter (one micrometer is one millionth of a meter); please take a moment to consider the kind of size we are dealing with. However, the key point I want to press home is that the zygote forms the first cell of a new human body. The zygote has one cell only, but importantly that cell contains the full complement of DNA that will go on to produce the embryo and finally a new baby.

It is not my intention to provide a technical account of development despite the fact it is thoroughly absorbing and well worth reading into (although, my level of knowledge would only allow me to give detail to a certain point in any case). What I primarily want to get across is the almost unbelievably complex and ordered process which takes place to turn one tiny cell into a human body with at least 10 trillion cells (estimates vary of the total number of human cells). Please dwell on that difference – one single cell turning into trillions of cells. Whilst a human body is developing the various tissues, blood vessels, nerves, bones, organs and limbs develop in the correct order, in the right place and at the right time of development relative to each other.

Every cell in your body derived from that initial and tiny zygote. That single cell contained the instructions for making every part of a human body. Again, in an almost mind-boggling feat of complexity the relevant instructions were only turned in each appropriate part of the body. That’s why your eyes became eyes and not fingernails – even though the cells in your eyes contain the instructions for making fingernails as well as the instructions for making a heart, a strand of hair, a toe or any part of the body you could name.

I don’t know about you but I find this truly wonderful and amazing and it drives me to learn more about how this transformation takes place. I have been focusing on humans but let’s not forget that the equivalent happens for all other animals, plants or fungi - and for all multicellular life with specialisation of form (as an aside, a great deal can be said about the complexity of bacteria and other unicellular life – but that is off the point here).

Think for a moment how readily this feat of transformation is accepted by us all. We all accept that a human develops in this way. Again, we have no issue with the fact that a tiny seed can develop into a Giant Redwood tree (Sequoia) over 100 metres tall – again note the difference in size and form between the seed and the tree. We are equally familiar with the fact that a caterpillar will pupate and change form quite remarkably into a butterfly or moth that takes to the air; again consider the difference in form between the stages. To me, these facts are all astounding and yet I have barely scratched the surface of biological wonders.

Having made plain the quite astonishing developmental processes which we often take for granted, I am left to wonder why many people will argue that similar transformations of an evolutionary kind are not possible. I have heard many people tell me how absurd it is to suggest that life as we know it arose from simple unicellular organisms. I don’t wish to claim that ontogeny (development) is exactly the same process as evolution because that would be slightly misleading. What I do wish to suggest is that we should be no more incredulous about unicellular life evolving into complex multicellular life over 3,500 million years, than we are at a single fertilized egg becoming a fully formed human in around 9 months. They both involve a complex, step-wise and highly ordered biological process of change over periods of time. Furthermore, understanding development sheds light on evolution.

Recent progress in evolutionary-developmental biology (or Evo Devo) has cast light on how changes in development drive large evolutionary change. It can be shown how changes in the timing of gene activation, or even in the location of where genes are turned on, can produce quite striking differences of form. One interesting example I recently learnt of during lectures is how the webbing in ducks feet are formed. During development bird feet are webbed but the expression (turning on) of certain genes causes the webbing between the toes to die; the toes themselves do not die off because another gene called ‘Gremlin’ is expressed on the toes - this prevents the toe cells from being killed. In Ducks, Gremlin is also turned on in the webbing and therefore it does not die and they are born with aquatic webbed feet. If chicken embryos are manipulated so that Gremlin is expressed in the webbing (before it is killed off) then they too are born with webbed feet. This is quite a complex process and difficult to sum up easily in a few sentences, the take-home message is that by changing where a gene is expressed can change the form of feet quite dramatically – a simple genetic change produces an evolutionary step. We may think ducks and chickens have very different feet but the underlying genetic changes are very small.

If you are intrigued by this idea of ‘Evo Devo’ then I would recommend reading “Endless forms most beautiful” by Sean B Carroll for some greater clarity and insight than I have just provided.

I was inspired to write about this because both evolutionary change and developmental change stir up a sense of awe inside me, and that is a primary reason I have chosen to study biology. I hope that I have been able to give a glimpse into the remarkable complexity and beauty that biology offers and that you may decide to find out a bit more about it. I can only touch upon things in a blog but rest assured there are many more examples I could give – and more interestingly there are many more waiting to be discovered!

Many thanks for reading,

Dominic