WW1 - Myths or Not? A response to Dan Snow

[*EDIT* - I highly recommend Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast series Blueprint For Armageddon for more information on the causes, ambitions, suffering and circumstances of WW1. Several edits have been added below since I listened to the series so far.]


Recently, British politician, ex-journalist and English Graduate Michael Gove caused controversy by claiming the history of World War 1 had been unpatriotically “white-washed” by “left-wing academics”. Worryingly, Gove is still the Conservative Secretary of State for Education.

Responses to his outburst have been fairly damning.

This one by the historian Gove singled out in his attack is quite interesting.

On January 20th 2014 this article by history graduate and television presenter Dan Snow appeared on the BBC website claiming to debunk “10 common myths” about World War 1. The timing is interesting and although the facts quoted are for all I know entirely true (and an historian friend tells me they are) I was unhappy with the way the article was presented, the 'myths' lined up to knock down, and the methods used to do so.

I'm not an historian, but I felt the need to address myth 1 as soon as I began reading it. Myth 1 isn’t a matter of history, it’s a position reached by cherry-picking statistics.

As a psychology graduate who’s studied statistics as applied to populations, and as an art graduate aware of how easily and effectively perspectives and feelings can be manipulated, I’m qualified enough to challenge the article. Then after myth 1 I thought I should complete the set.


Myth 1. It was the bloodiest war in history to that point

Debunked? Snow says no because 20-30 million were killed in the Taiping Rebellion in China 50 years earlier and, expressed as a percentage of the population, the British death toll of WW1 was half that of the English Civil War in the mid-17th Century.

Not mentioned: In the 13th Century Genghis Khan’s forces killed perhaps 40 million people, while the transition from the Yuan Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty in 14th Century China caused 30 million deaths. China has a history of extremely bloody conflicts, yet these have mostly not affected Europe in any direct way (luckily for us Genghis Khan died before he could ransack the entire old world). While not detracting from the suffering and horror of those conflicts, ‘The Great War’ was so shocking to Europeans because we hadn’t seen it’s like before.

“In history” is a phrase uttered by English speaking nations generally to refer in a rather arrogant way exclusively to the history of Europe and its colonies. Despite the size and duration of the dynastic empires and technology centuries in advance of ours we habitually omit China from historical accounts. Introducing Chinese history to this argument is somewhat beside the point because the issue here is the European concept of history and its effect on our culture.

During the English Civil war the population of Britain was approx. 5 million and 4% of that equals about 200,000 deaths (causes not mentioned). In 1914 the population was over 46 million and 2% of that is about 920,000. Mr Snow is telling us here to view the number of British deaths as a percentage of the number of people alive in Britain at the time so that we can see the impact of WW1 wasn’t as bad as the impact of the Civil War. Remember this for later when we get to myth 6.

17 million in total were killed in WW1 and 20 million were wounded. There’s no discussion about the wounded or the causes of such a high number. This is something that requires further information if the comparisons are to be of any use. And numbers of wounded from the Taiping rebellion and the English Civil War ought to be included as measuring the ‘bloodiness’ of a war shouldn’t be limited to number of deaths.

Of the 6.5 million civilians who died in WW1, the causes include malnutrition and disease. The Taiping death toll mentioned includes those who died from plague and starvation. If we add those who died in the 1918 ‘Spanish Flu’ pandemic to the WW1 casualties the number rises to at least 65 million deaths. The much deadlier second wave of the flu in 1918 has been attributed to the circumstances of WW1, making the secondary effects of that war global. It’s believed Spanish Flu killed in total 50 to 100 million people worldwide.

WW1 lasted just 4 years, not 15 years like the Taiping Rebellion or 9 years like the English Civil War. If WW1 had continued for more than twice its duration who can estimate what levels of starvation and sickness would have occurred, what advances in technology or how many would have been killed in action? To express the number of dead as a percentage of the population without then comparing duration is misleading and counter-productive if one’s goal is to inform and provide context.

Result: Not really a myth. The attempt at debunking is clumsy and inappropriate. Put this information in a proper, complete context and then see if any other European conflict up to that point had effects as far reaching with as many casualties over such a short period of time, and include the lives ruined and the suffering of the wounded in any attempt to quantify how ‘bloody’ a war was.


Myth 2. Most soldiers died

Debunked? Not a myth I was aware of. Having seen many examples of footage showing the wounded, including blind soldiers walking in line with hands on each others’ shoulders, and judging from the 20 million wounded mentioned above, I’m unsure where this myth comes from.

Not mentioned: Surviving a war does not mean the effects of it have ended, nor the suffering. The blind, shell-shocked and mutilated survivors returning to Britain after the war were a continuation of it’s horrors, not a peaceful end to them.

Result: Not a myth I had heard of.


Myth 3. Men lived in the trenches for years on end

Debunked? Frontline troops were rotated and few spent more than 3 days at the front.

Result: I lack the knowledge to engage with this point, but I was surprised to hear it. If Mr Snow is telling the unclouded truth here then I would agree that the myth is in contrast to the facts – if they are facts and not out of context statistics that neglect pertinent data.

[EDIT - from Blueprint For Armageddon, it sounds like the three days at the front claim is incorrect. Troops were rotated once it was realised 'shell shock' was a real condition, but contemporary accounts and military strategies discussed in the podcast suggest weeks rather than days were the norm. Even so, and even if the rotations were speeded up later in the war, the conditions these men were under would have been Hellish for just half an hour. Shells fell in what became known as 'drum-roll fire', exploding so frequently the blasts were like the barely indistinguishable beats of a drum-roll. An account by a Russian soldier described how when his unit was issued with their rifles they had to pick off the pieces of bloody flesh of the previous owner. 

If the 3 day rotations Mr Snow is referring to are from the last part of the war or from specific battlefields, then he has neglected pertinent information, cherry-picked statistics to fit his claim, and the claim is wrong. I doubt anyone lived in the trenches for years on end, nor have I heard that said. It is more likely people would believe the soldiers were killed at the front. 

Challenging a 'myth' about trenches with a claim about the front line also neglects the fact that trenches ran back several miles from the front lines, connected by perpendicular trenches. Troops at the front might be rotated and replaced, but that doesn't mean they were sent off to pleasant locations to relax. Many were merely moved to the trenches further back, risking life and limb to get there as artillery often shot deep into enemy territory and the communication trenches could be reduced to mere tracks. Craters along the routes in some battlefields could be so polluted by toxic chemicals they were bright green and so deep soldiers who fell in usually drowned, weighed down by their kit. Anyone trying to help them out risked slipping in the mud and drowning with them so they could expect to be left to die horribly in their own territory miles from the front on their way to relieve the troops there. The troops heading back from the front line ran the exact same risks and would then be ordered back again when it was once more their turn. If they refused they were shot and their widows were denied a war pension.]


4. The upper class got off lightly

Debunked? Anyone familiar with Blackadder Goes Forth (a programme Michael Gove quoted as being a source of left-wing myths about WW1) would be under the impression the upper class were just as badly off as everyone else unless they were a senior officer or stationed safely back in HQ.

Expressed as percentages, the statistics are that 12% of ordinary soldiers died compared to 17% of officers. 20% of Etonians who served died.

Not mentioned: Yes, the sons of Prime Ministers were among those killed, but it’s important to remember the culture around warfare at the time. Combat was thought to be the making of men of the upper classes, while for the working class it was all about sending in large numbers.

British junior officers were deployed in high numbers, roughly 1 to every 30 men. In terms of casualties, officers accounted for roughly 1 in 20 men. So although many officers died, far more working class soldiers died.

The Western Front, July to December of 1917 saw 22,316 British officer casualties and 426,298 other ranks.

Result: This myth fell out of fashion a long time ago, but assuring us lots of toffs were killed too doesn’t lessen how shocking the war was. In fact it demonstrates it. That shock became part of our culture and is still being felt today.

Comparing the percentage of upper class casualties to the number in the population then contrasting it with the number of lower class casualties compared to the total lower class population would give a very different statistic to simply comparing the percentage of war dead who were upper class.


Myth 5. 'Lions led by donkeys'

Debunked? More than 200 generals killed, wounded or captured and were considerably closer to the action today.

Not mentioned: Even the worst generals need to be in contact with the front. WW1’s cables, carrier pigeons and man with a note communications technology meant officers had to be nearby compared to modern warfare with satellites and drones that allow generals to be in another country to the conflict they oversee. Had the article compared the number of generals at the front in WW1 to those in, say, ancient times where they needed to see the action for themselves so would be at the top of a nearby hill then WW1 commanders would come off badly.

The quote was quite possibly invented by Alan Clark long after the war, but has complex origins. Like any generalisation of this kind, it should be seen as a subjective viewpoint expressing an opinion. It’s an insult, for goodness’ sake, so of course it’s going to divide opinion. The question isn’t whether it’s true but whether there is any truth in it.

When the French and British stopped the German advance at Marne they could no longer outflank the German army, so for several years they launched charge after charge across shell-cratered mud into barbed wire, trenches, machine gun posts and artillery fire in an attempt to gain ground. This tactic didn’t work, but eventually Germany was defeated. Could or should this have been done differently?

Result: Too subjective to call. Human failings, a terrible wake-up call for the military and what might seem to some a very slow response to the requirements of modern warfare. “Yes, but we won,” is not a credible argument as the point here is that millions died while we went about it. If a business model had performed as badly for a company over several years and then eventually the CEO tried something new and turned everything around we might still say that CEO was a fool for taking so long. The question is whether the necessary adaptations could have happened sooner and if deaths could have been avoided. Answers on a postcard.

[EDIT - One problem with the technological advances and the change of strategies was that no one had tried them before. Generals were reluctant to commit to a new strategy without knowing its effectiveness. Tests were needed in less vital positions first, but if they proved effective the enemy were pre-warned before they could be used for greater impact in more vital positions. 

Meanwhile, some units were steeped in historical glory and many senior officers were former cavalry; asking them to accept obsolescence was something many were reluctant to do and it was in conflict with the prevailing view of how wars should be faught. Lifetimes of experience were being swept aside and that meant the commanders of the armies had no way of being prepared for what was asked of them. 

This is Napolean's French cavalry in 1812...
Image via www.twcenter.net

This, I'm told, is a coloured image (via Reddit) of French cavalry in 1914. 

Notice anything different about the cuirassiers in the second picture from a century later? Their breeches are red.  

French cuirassiers in Paris, August 1914.
Image from Wikipedia.

Arguments have been made that by later in the war the commanders should have adapted to the situations they faced. These are arguments you would need to do a great deal of reading to join in with and I have not done nearly enough to do so.]

Myth 6. Gallipoli was fought by Australians and New Zealanders

Debunked? Fewer antipodeans fought at Gallipoli than British, and 4 or 5 times more British were killed than Anzacs. The smaller sizes of those countries’ forces and home populations have somewhat skewed the perception of their level of their involvement and their tragic losses have overshadowed the British and French who fought there.

Not mentioned: This may be true, but to argue the point Mr Snow uses the exact opposite stance to the one he used in myth 1 to demonstrate how comparatively less bloody WW1 was than the English Civil War.

Result: Myth. Mel Gibson’s early starring role in the film Gallipoli has probably added considerably to this myth. Perhaps the tragedy of the Australian and Kiwi losses has given cause to focus on them in this instance.

Gaba Tepe, Gallipoli Peninsula 

It’s worth saying that if an historian chooses to illustrate a point one way, then uses the exact opposite perspective to demonstrate a point later on, it makes it hard to agree with him. Percentages of the total national population killed or wounded are merely statistics with no weight out of context. Neither points are incorrect, but WW1 can’t be said to be less bloody than the Civil War by percentage of population if later on you switch tactics and compare total numbers of nationalities killed. It’s inconsistent.

Gallipoli has probably been remembered as an Anzac battle because so many of the total number of troops committed died there; meanwhile WW1 has been remembered on the whole as a slaughterhouse for ordinary soldiers because, despite the 1 in 20 (mostly junior) officer casualties, so very many ordinary soldiers died. A large percentage of officers were killed, but if you compare with the 20 times larger number of ordinary soldiers killed the 12% vs. 17% statistics mentioned in myth 4 above become meaningless.

What this tells us is that we view the information emotionally, not in a detached, book-keeping manner where we enter the numbers of the dead into columns and total them up at the end. And if we have decided to put the numbers in columns we had better make sure we work consistently if we want our arguments to be convincing.


Myth 7. Tactics on the Western Front remained unchanged despite repeated failure

Debunked? In the four years of WW1 tactics and technology radically changed.

Not mentioned: When they changed. How long did the old-fashioned attrition and slaughter keep going before they tried something new?

German cavalry patrol, 1918
Image source: museumsyndicate.com

Result: Subjective and requiring further information. Only automatons would fail to perceive the need to alter tactics while so many men were being gunned down. The question is the same as for myth 5: Could the changes have come quicker? Back then the British military wasn’t known for adapting quickly. What made them change when they did? Did something stop the necessary changes happening immediately after the first disastrous encounter and if so was it a failing on the part of the commanders? 

[EDIT - see above edit to Myth 5. Tactics for many began like any other war up until that point. They quickly changed, but some things, some attitudes were less quick to change. Cavalry charges were obsolete, but horses were still the fastest transport available. Artillery became so devastating entire fortresses were abandoned as they were shown to be useless, torn open like fresh bread and from miles away. Some tactics did change, some did not, some were changed cautiously.]


Myth 8. No-one won

Debunked? Mr Snow says “in a narrow military sense, the UK and her allies convincingly won”. 

Not mentioned: What the war was being fought over in the first place.

[EDIT - Germany had no plan for what they would do if they won the war. My limited understanding is that, to oversimplify, Germany was a new, large and very powerful country. During escalating hostilities they marched an army through Belgium to fight France before France and Russia could mobilise and surround them. The Belgians did not stand aside and let the Germans through unmolested, they defended their territory and the British stepped up to assist. Germany was not building an empire, they were most likely acting out of the fear of being invaded and becoming part of someone else's empire. The fear of superior military might led to aggression on all sides. Various treaties sealed the deal.]  

Result: It was a military victory in the “narrow sense” (translation: there wasn’t much to celebrate about it, all things considered, except that it was over) that it was a miserable, technical and perhaps pyrrhic victory, but the families, loved ones and whole villages that were never to see the return of their men must surely have felt no kind of victory at all. That's why WW1 is remembered by many as a tragedy and a failure.

Michael Gove would have us believe WW1 was a triumph over an empire-building aggressor who challenged our way of life, but he seems to have forgotten that at that time Britain had an empire of its own and was not yet a full democracy, whereas Germany had given the vote to all German men (at least) by that time. I know too little of the complex politics of the day to make a judgement, but saying we defeated an evil foreign power is over-simplifying matters considerably and seems to conflate WW1 with WW2. Comparing those wars, I don’t believe anyone is confused over what our purpose was between 1939 and 1945 nor what we averted by winning. Retroactively casting the Kaiser as a proto-Hitler is misdirection. History is complex, but becomes remarkably simple if you remove the details until few facts remain. This is how we end up with myths and Gove is trying to supplant one set with another, while the truth is harder to fit into a political speech.

Ask most British people what WW2 was about and they’ll probably say it was to stop Hitler.

Ask Google Images and you get a straightforward graph. 

Ask even the educated what WW1 was about and I’d be surprised if most of them can give you much of an answer at all beyond muttering about treaties and the Arch-Duke Ferdinand.

And the graph is a bit harder to understand. 

If you’re talking about who won a war you have to consider what the aims of each side were. Strange as it sounds, beating the enemy into submission may not be your objective and in some cases can cause big problems. Claiming a victory when the objectives are far from clear is the school playground version of war. Only a complete understanding of the circumstances prior to, during and after the war will tell you who won. If anyone.

Myth 9. The Versailles Treaty was extremely harsh

Debunked? I leave this one to the experts as it’s rather technical. It’s likely things were distorted by some in the following years in order to promote the Nazi cause and rally the German people. There will be those who felt they had a genuine grievance, just as (hopefully not to insult the memory of such colossal suffering with such an inane analogy) many smokers today will talk at length about their freedom and rights to smoke where they want. My point is that whether something is fair or harsh is entirely subjective and even relatively small things can become the cause of great dissatisfaction. 

Result: Unknown.


Myth 10. Everyone hated it

Debunked? Not everyone had a bad war.

Not mentioned: As seen in most post-1970s war films, there’s a persistent idea that opportunists took advantage of war for their own personal gain and had a good time going about it. Whether rich investors, governments acquiring land and resources, quartermasters over-charging for supplies or Clint Eastwood stealing Nazi gold, this trope has become a familiar aspect of fictional war stories.

Result: Not a common myth. The common myth is more likely that the officers thoroughly enjoyed themselves while the other ranks under their command died.

For centuries a foundation of war was that combat made boys into men, both psychologically and, more commonly for the elite, financially; that it made nations greater, both in size and resources. WW1 began while that view was still widespread, but by the end of the war attitudes had changed.

***

Whether WW1 in its 4 years was less bloody than an earlier 15 year war in China, whether the wounded outnumbered the fatalities, whether an unusual proportion of the upper classes was killed in action, whether the generals were decent men facing difficult decisions and adapting to new circumstances or entrenched old fools resisting change at the cost of people’s lives; none of that, 100 years on, is what really matters.

Celebrating Armistice 

In the last few decades there has been a trend among some historians to re-think the circumstances of WW1 and re-frame it as a fight for British values against an aggressive enemy. This is no more accurate than the view it was an accidental and mismanaged disaster from beginning to end. Any historian, politician or television presenter casting WW1 in a simple light either has an agenda they wish you to comply to or hasn’t done enough homework. It was complicated, it was horrible, it was the cause of much suffering and has entered popular culture as a preventable tragic mistake. Any argument popularising a view that a war, any war, was a good idea needs to be examined very closely.

Vaux, France 1918 

Dan Snow’s article contains factual information wrapped in meaningless statistics in a poorly executed attempt to contextualise WW1, at times relying on contradictory arguments and inconsistent perspectives. I question the sense and the purpose of writing an article on the subject so soon after Michael Gove made his controversial speech and attempting to reduce so much of the information to hard quantifiable ‘facts’. Statistics aren’t facts, they’re tools and like any tool they can be used badly.

The Future of Star Wars

President of Lucasfilm and Star Wars brand manager Kathleen Kennedy recently spoke about the future of the franchise. She spoke, but nothing was really said.

Specifically, she was asked if the spin-off films will distort the narrative of what is now becoming known as ‘the saga’. Fans already know it’s a big galaxy, and Ms. Kennedy confirmed that it was large enough for “endless opportunities” of new stories and characters, but the subject under discussion was whether we should expect two entirely separate threads of films and tie-ins or a complex weave of story-lines in the way the Marvel franchise has been handling the Avengers brand(s). This is what she said:

"George was so clear as to how that works. The canon that he created was the Star Wars saga. Right now, episode seven falls within that canon. The spin-off movies… exist within that vast universe that he created. There is no attempt being made to carry characters (from the standalone films) in and out of the saga episodes. Consequently, from the creative standpoint, it's a roadmap that George made pretty clear."

It’s a fairly vague ‘for the time being/may be subject to change without notice’ response, but then how could it be otherwise?

Star Wars is being re-vamped but not ‘rebooted’ in the current sense. No one is re-imagining George Lucas’ creation, they’re recreating it. At least that’s what millions of fans are assuming and there’s no evidence so far to the contrary. Abrams is, as usual, being highly secretive. I don’t see any benefit in it myself if, as we’ve been told today, the script is finished. Why not throw a few bones to the fans? They must now know if Hamill, Ford and Fisher are in it and releasing that information would increase talk and speculation (i.e. hype, which is free magical advertising that makes people really want to see your film), and JJ Abrams knows keeping secrets can have an adverse effect, as was the case with the deliberately created yet anti-climactic (non)surprise that [SPOILER ALERT] Benedict Cumberbatch was in fact Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness.

Of course, a lot of fans are now hoping he's secretly playing Thrawn in Episode VII. He isn't. 

Or maybe there are a few red herrings in the mix already and speculation and rumour has led us up the garden path. Maybe the script isn’t really finished, or there are several modular versions with different combinations of characters pending the final agreements. Who knows?

Artoo knows, as usual. But he never tells.

Back to Kathleen Kennedy. I’d say her comments indicate that at this time they don’t want to limit their options or tie their hands. They want as much free rein as they can maintain in order to keep the franchise flexible and give the writers as much creative scope as possible, while at the same time maintaining a cohesive brand. Can’t argue with that.

So, while we wait, here's something to remind us what we love about Star Wars.

Star Wars Episode VII - what to keep, what to drop?

Today io9 asked what would you keep in and leave out of the new Star Wars sequel.

These are my thoughts:

Main characters - Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie. R2D2 & C3PO are still in service but falling to bits.

Opening scene: in space. Big ship fighting little ship, a nod to ANH.

The Empire are still around. Only minor changes to uniforms and equipment –they hate individuality and change!

New TIE fighters have no shields! Show them as they are – fast and numerous, like a swarm of flies around the slower, tougher fighters.

Ignore EVERYTHING from the TIE Fighter games!

I loved the game, but to make solo play possible they did some weird things.

A power vacuum after Palpatine’s death allowed the New Republic to gain a foothold, but soon they were fighting a defensive battle against the re-formed Empire.

At first the Imperial forces split into factions, then someone rose to power. He is the film’s main villain. Not Thrawn. Not a Force-user. More like Tarkin.

This may be Hugo Weaving's role.

New management and reduced numbers means the Empire could relaxthe non-human rule and allow near-human personnel. An opportunity to please fans a little by showing some blue-skinned Imperials.

Include women Imperials! All ranks, including stormtroopers.

Women front-line soldiers on both sides.

Control of the galaxy is up for grabs and the good guys are currentlylosing. The heavily populated worlds are committed to sides so the battles are foughton frontier worlds.

Not Tatooine again!! Some other backwater planet with a simple climate.

No world-destroying super-weapons!

Force-users are incredibly rare!

Leia is the boss Jedi. Yes, Leia! Luke is out looking for Force-sensitives. What he finds worries him (tricky issue here. We need one or more Dark Jedi and there HAS to be a good, simple reason they exist).

Or Leia is the new Dark Jedi and Empress of the Galaxy. She's going to have a harder time forgiving Darth Vader than Luke. She saw none of his good side and plenty of his bad. She might despise the Jedi for letting Anakin down and despise the Sith for corrupting him. In her anger she could attempt to purge the galaxy of all traces of both and in doing so slip to the Dark Side herself while trying to do something for the greater good.

The New Jedi Order is radically different. Wiser, trains young adults, allows emotions but teaches control.

Luke’s padawan is his niece, Leia’s daughter. Leia’s padawan is Luke’s son. Only at the end of Episode VII do they become Jedi Knights, in a ceremony (a nod to ANH) and a set-up for the next film where they become the main characters.

No one under 40 is allowed to be a Jedi Master!

Introduce various rogues and shady characters – smugglers,bounty hunters, assassins. Most people on the frontier worlds are either rogues, villains or trying to ignore the war. Show how the war comes to them and they have to choose a side.

Boba Fett is still alive. He shot his way out of the Sarlacc when everyone had gone. Kill him off in a climactic showdown with Han.

Han shoots first!

After an epic fight, intercut with Luke and niece in a lightsaber fight against a villain that will somehow lead to the plot of the next film (Dark Jedi?), Fett dies but mortally wounds Han. He dies in Leia’s arms. Put in a clever bit of dialogue about their love that ends with Han’s last words – “I know.” Not a dry eye in the house.

Link the Boba Fett fight and the lightsaber fight with a crushing defeat of the main villain’s plans. Victory for the good guys, butonly just. The Empire is beaten this time, bad guys in disarray, but will return in the next films.

Drop the politics.

Nothing about taxes.

Shady characters show their true colours and either becomegood guys or bad guys. White hats and black hats – no one wears a grey hat forlong.

Battle scenes are not CGI showcases. Keep them simple. Less is more!
References to previous films are subtle. Enough to establish the pedigree. Keep it natural. If it feels forced drop it.

The Aliens Came to Earth, Just Once

It’s not widely known, but in 2011 an alien ambassador visited Earth to meet with 20 of our world leaders.

After introductions were made, the ambassador’s first question was to ask how many of those present were psychologists. The answer came as a surprise.

“Really?” said the ambassador. “None of you? Let me check if I’ve translated the word correctly. Is psychology not the study of human behaviour, of how humans function; how to identify and understand their needs, their shortcomings, what inspires them or demoralises them, what they dream of?”

“Ah,” said the leaders. “We see the mistake here. We have indeed studied those things, but we have different names for them.”

“Forgive me,” said the ambassador. “My translator has now updated me. So then, which of you are artists, poets, sociologists, educators, writers?”

“No, no,” said the leaders. “Those aren’t the right names either. Here, let us explain.”

Each then proudly told of his or her academic qualifications while the small translating device whispered in the ambassador’s ear. The meeting continued a little while longer, then the ambassador thanked the leaders for their hospitality and returned home.

There has been no further contact from the aliens since that day.

Academic Qualifications of World Leaders in 2011:

SARKOZY (France) - Masters degree in Private Law
OBAMA (USA) - Degree in Political Science, degree in Law
MERKEL (GERMANY) - Masters degree in Physics
CAMERON (UK) - Degree in PPE (Philosophy, Politics & Economics)
HARPER (Canada) - Masters degree in Economics
ZUMA (South Africa) - No formal qualifications
FELIPE CALDERON (Mexico) - Masters degree in Economics
FERNANDEZ DE KIRCHNER (Argentina) - Degree in Law
ROUSEFF (Brazil) - Degree in Law
HU JINTAO (China) - Degree in Engineering
NAOTO KAN (Japan) - Degree in Law
MANMOHAN SINGH (India) - Masters degree in Economics
SUSILO BAMBANG YUDHOYONO (Indonesia) - Military qualifications
MEDVEDEV (Russia) - Degree in law
RECEPP TAYYIP ERDOGAN (Turkey) - Degree in Business Administration
VAN ROMPUY (EU President) - Degree in Philosophy, Masters degree in Economics
BERLOSCONI (Italy) - Degree in Law
GILLARD (Australia) - Degree in Law
KING ADBULLAH (Saudi Arabia) - No formal qualifications
LEE MYUNG-BAK (S Korea) - No formal qualifications

A Disagreement with Oliver James

On October 12^th 2010, Guardian regular Oliver James posted thisComment is Free web-article on the role of genes in psychology.

This was around the same time I became aware of the many criticisms online of Oliver James. He appears to be to psychology what Patrick Holford is to nutrition – a vocal and popular individual whose every utterance has scientists up in arms.

I read many of the comments underneath the article and found the arguments fascinating. I was surprised at just how many people were scathingly critical of James, not realising then as I now do that mistrust of his claims is rather widespread. In my opinion this is deservedly so and I was pleased to see that many others share my criticisms yet frustrated to read several comments supporting or going even further than James. So on October 14^th 2010 I posted the following under the username Pumellhorne:

Is anyone still taking Oliver James seriously? His work is dubious at best and his research is flawed.
If anyone can show me an example of genetics which doesn't occur in an environment, or environmental factors which affect a person without genes I'll start listening to these arguments of convenience.

Later that day someone calling themselves Badmonkey posted this:

@Pumelhome
ill informed, not what has been stated and most of all boring

To which I replied:

@Badmonkey
Incorrect, aggressive and most of all laughable.

Badmonkey then perhaps decided to attempt a more reasonable post:

@Pumellhorne
It seems pretty clear that you have a lot of hate for OJ, but on a basis that he says it is all environment, that is not what he is saying....?
I am puzzled by your vitriol for someone who has not stated what you claim.
May i suggest some "love bombing".
Infact i think OJ is trying to keep it balanced between the two as you (and i for that matter want) but the way that it is balanced by the evidence is 70% - 30% in the environments favour thats all not 100% either way and you can't expect to get always nice 50-50 splits i'm afraid it is not the way the world works.

All this was, of course, interspersed with many other posts by people both for and against James’ view. I decided to spend some lunch hours responding to this person (see below) who felt in a position to comment on my feelings based on so little information.  Badmonkey did not reply. The whole thing was then made rather interesting when Oliver James himself popped up and commented on the many negative posts about him and taking the opportunity to tell us he thought he’d “nailed” Stephen Pinker in a live debate. Not what Stephen Pinker said incidentally and I’ve quoted Pinker’s comment below. I took the opportunity to question Mr. James, but much like Badmonkey, he seemed intent only on firing off a noisy salvo before retreating to safety. Here is my lengthy response to Badmonkey:

@Badmonkey

Quote:

1) It seems pretty clear that you have a lot of hate for OJ,

2)…but on a basis that he says it is all environment, that is not what he is saying....?

3) May i suggest some "love bombing".

4) I am puzzled by your vitriol for someone who has not stated what you claim.

5) In fact i think OJ is trying to keep it balanced between the two as you (and i for that matter want) but the way that it is balanced by the evidence is 70% - 30% in the environments favour thats all not 100% either way and you can't expect to get always nice 50-50 splits i'm afraid it is not the way the world works.

1) How on Earth do you interpret this: “Is anyone still taking Oliver James seriously? His work is dubious at best and his research is flawed” as “a lot of hate”? Perhaps it says something of your own belligerence that you took it that way.

2) No, on the basis that he is unscientific and that he makes claims without doing enough research. He sells books on highly emotive subjects that play on and exacerbate a particular set of stereotypically left-wing, middle-class fears and I have quite recently become aware of how often he is wrong. Yet still he somehow manages to retain people’s respect.  Also because, as Stephen Pinker put it:

“He is in at the end of a declining field and he is desperately trying to prop it up. He is rather a boorish individual. He had a tantrum on air.'”

Whether Pinker is right about the declining field or not I don’t presume to say, but he’s not the first person to talk about James losing it in a live debate.

3) May I first remind you that you entered into debate with me with an aggressive post that attempted to comment, inaccurately, on the level of my knowledge. Any effort by you to sound reasonable now will inevitably be tempered by that start.

With wikipedia defining “love bombing” as: “the deliberate show of affection or friendship by an individual or a group of people toward another individual” it would seem inappropriate advice for this situation. I can only assume it’s an attempt at humour by referencing terms previously used. How drole. If you’re attempting to suggest I’ve been detrimentally affected by a loveless environment in my childhood and that I’m taking it out on James I hope you can see how ironic that would be. Perhaps you might also want to consider how vicious and out of place it is to make allegations about my parents, especially as your comments are based only on the two very short comments I made and that you and I are complete strangers.

4) Can something be vitriolic and boring? And I managed it in just 3 sentences? Amazing!

What is it that you think I’m claiming? Perhaps I was too minimal. My ‘claim’ would be that the variables psychologists are trying to remove for empirical study of their theories (genes from one side of the argument, environment from the other) cannot be removed and that serious confounding variables will always remain. They are, by necessity, in vivo studies and due to the factors I’ve mentioned I don’t believe they can properly be called empirical scientific experiments.

5) Who said it was supposed to be a 50-50 split? Where are you conjuring that figure from? The only people I’m hearing saying it’s 100-0 splits are some of the people posting on this thread and my comment was as much aimed at them as at fans of James. Your continuous extruding of my short sentences into more sinister, bold and inaccurate claims shows a deep misunderstanding and failure to engage with what’s been presented to you in small chunks.

Thanks for telling me "how the world works" though. Very kind of you. And your qualification for this is what exactly? That you live in it? How unbelievably arrogant and boorish of you.

Although I fail to see how you’ve reached the erroneous conclusions you’ve based your rebuttal on, I suppose my original comment could have been a little misleading due to the sparsity of detail I presented about my opinions, level of education, upbringing (all of which you seem to have a desire to comment on) so I could forgive your mistakes, if not your unpleasant attitude. Instead I’ll offer you some assistance in understanding what I’m saying.

Throwing stats out into the argument like 70% of this and 30% of that is a nonsense. First let’s consider what you’re trying to measure. How do you define 70% of a person’s development? As 70% of their age? Of their brain cells? Of the number of factors which affected them in childhood? Can you not see how ludicrous that is? How can someone possibly make a claim that ‘x = y% of z’ when z is as undefined, unique and stubbornly unfathomable as personality? Do you think Pinker or James fully understand how the mind is formed? What cognition amounts to? What consciousness is? What goes into the making up of you or me in childhood? They don’t. No one does.

link - consciousness

Discrete numbers are lovely though, aren’t they? They fit into nice neat rows and you can use them to justify any argument you want with just a bit of framing and being economic with your input and output. Unfortunately real people aren’t divided into percentages of development and can’t be split like that.

Up until Judith Dunn kicked off the research into sibling psychology in the 1970s the established view was that all children from the same family were pretty much psychologically identical due to shared socio-economic conditions. Prof Dunn’s own children didn’t fit this view and she wondered why. When she found no prior research on the differences of siblings she started her own. 40 years later there are well-respected people making a living out of attempts to slice up how much siblings respond to an environment, sometimes as if they were the same person in separate situations. I’m saying this is wrong-thinking by James, Pinker and those people on here arguing about nature vs. nurture as if it could be ‘proved’ either way.

Pinker is wrong because, despite using a scientific approach, he isn’t allowing for the fact that any studies will inevitably still occur in a family environment and that the number of confounding variables in the study will skew any results no matter how much twins look and dress alike or whether they both married a travel agent named Janet. James is wrong because no matter how hard he looks at the family environment, which he has made a living from for a long time now and has a huge vested interest in, there will always be genetic factors that can’t be isolated. If he was proved wrong he’d be utterly discredited.

I would say, if pushed, that the whole argument is flawed and that money is being made on both sides because it’s such an emotive and marketable issue and that it’s best to treat the whole thing with suspicion. Time would be better spent on research into how genes and environment interact and what factors are present in situations of interest to society. For an example of how environment and physiology (although not necessarily genes in this case) interact, you might want to look at this TED video of Jim Fallon.

I’m passionate about psychology and I’m frequently reminded of the barriers that remain between a fundamental issue of psychology (i.e. that it is a factor in everything we do) and those it could help (i.e. everybody). Too many people are held up as experts but are no more than quacks. I don’t hate quacks, I simply have no respect for them and I dislike the way they subvert progress to line their own pockets.

I think I’ve been more civil with you than you have a right to expect, Badmonkey, because it’s not my intention to cause rifts for my own pleasure. I hope to see an end one day to quackery and I hope this clears up some of your misconceptions.

[end]

Here is Oliver James’ post in the comments:

OWJames

·         Those who mention The Blank Slate and my Radio 3 argument with Steven Pinker should listen to it again on www.selfishcapitalist.com.

I believe that on that occasion I nailed him as unable to produce any evidence from twin or adoption studies that criminal violence has a genetic component. Yet in his book, he stated that it does.

Nailing him did take quite a bit of work because he refused to address my question.

For those who maintain that I am saying everything is nurture, I would point out that I accepted that the Thaper study found genes played a role in 16% of cases (though that needs to be replicated).

Those saying I ignore epigenetics are ignoring the point I make about the depression variant in my article - the purest epigenetic finding so far in this field, and looking increasingly as if it does not hold up.

Oliver James

My question to him was this:

But isn't this a case of oversimplification for the sake of taking a stance?
What is inescapable is that 100% of those with ADHD in Thapar's study possess genes and are also constantly immersed in environmental factors. It's a false dichotomy.
I'm not being facetious, I genuinely fail to see how you, Stephen Pinker or anyone else can realistically claim to be isolating your chosen variables sufficiently to say how much they influence development.

Unsurprisingly, there was no reply from him. Another contributor to the thread, Daen, posted the following, which very nicely (very technically) addresses some of the issues with Oliver James’ alleged expertise:

            OWJames: I presume that the depression paper you refer to is Risch et al, "Interaction between the serotonin transporter gene (5-HTTLPR), stressful life events, and risk of depression: a meta-analysis" (JAMA. 2009 Jun 17;301(23):2462-71). That paper simply considers allelic variation of the serotonin transporter gene (the SS, SL, or LL genotypes), and not epigenetic modification at all! It demonstrates considerable confusion on your behalf that you believe that these things are equivalent.

A search of PubMed for "epigenetic depression" gives the recently-published paper from Olivier et al "The age-dependent effects of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in humans and rodents: A review" (Prog Neuropsychopharmacol Biol Psychiatry. 2010 Sep 25), which considers the huge gap in therapeutic indices between adults and children for the SSRI drug fluoxetine.

From the same search: yet another relevant and recent paper on epigenetic effects in stress-induced psychiatric disorders comes from Uddin et al, "Epigenetic and inflammatory marker profiles associated with depression in a community-based epidemiologic sample" (Psychol Med. 2010 Sep 14:1-11).

And another from Xu and Andreassi, "Reversible histone methylation regulates brain gene expression and behavior" (Horm Behav. 2010 Sep 15).

And so on, and so on.

Please, Dr James: you are evidently deeply unclear about some important aspects of genetics and should absolutely steer clear of commenting so definitively upon such an important and potentially controversial area, especially with a political agenda, until you have gained sufficient knowledge of the subject to comment precisely and accurately upon it.

And one more which does a very good job of demolishing your argument, from Plazas-Mayorca and Vrana, "Proteomic Investigation of Epigenetics in Neuropsychiatric Disorders: A Missing Link between Genetics and Behavior?" (J Proteome Res. 2010 Sep 9). I felt this was relevant enough to include the abstract.

Neuropsychiatric disorders affect a large segment of the human population and result in large costs to society. The majority of such disorders have unknown underlying causes. Recent evidence suggests an important role for epigenetic regulation in the emergence of neuropsychiatric disease. Epigenetics may provide a link between genetic and environmental factors and behavior. Epigenetic signaling involves changes on the structure of chromatin; such changes are often triggered and maintained by the post-translational modification of chromatin proteins and/or DNA. Recent proteomic technologies have enabled the study of epigenetic mechanisms in a high-throughput manner. This review will provide an overview of the major epigenetic pathways and modern techniques for their study, before focusing on experimental evidence supporting a strong role for epigenetics in selected psychiatric disorders such as depression, schizophrenia, and drug addiction. These results highlight a great need for the inclusion of the proteomic characterization of epigenetic mechanisms in the study of gene/disease associations in psychiatric disorders.

The next day I spotted this article by Bob O’Hara (in the Grrl Scientist blog) in which O’Hara cuts James’ argument to pieces and where James himself wades in again on the comments thread, but once again declines to enter into debate after (perhaps a bit aggressively) saying his piece.

The thread of comments under it is fascinating too. If you’re interested in how and why inexpert people appear in the press as scientific experts  I urge you to read the thread and follow the links.
Oliver James has repeatedly been criticised for constructing and demolishing straw men and for failing to research his topics properly. Yet still he sells books, writes popular articles for national newspapers and is invited to take part in important and influential debates.
I’m not going to question how he’s managing to do this, that issue is dealt with very well elsewhere. Instead I’ll use this space to make a point.
It’s time we started taking responsibility for the experts that fill our book shelves and our airwaves. We choose them by buying the newspapers they work for, by buying the books they write on subjects of which we care deeply about but know little, by watching the TV shows offering them opportunities to tell us how they think things are, and also by failing to register our dissatisfaction with what they tell us. The internet has given us the power and the responsibility to check the facts before signing up for them. We should call out any person who’s argument isn’t backed up by the research in that field, write to the people employing them or comment on their websites to make our dissatisfaction known,  and always, always question what they tell us. Don’t passively accept everything, even from a trusted channel or paper. And perhaps above all question what the day-job is of the person being paid to tell you these ‘facts’. 

Earning the Respect of Our Children

We often hear it said that young people have no respect anymore. Why should they? What have we, the adults, done to earn it? Half the adults in this 2011 survey said we should beat children with sticks if they don’t do what we tell them or should they dare emulate us before the time we say they are allowed to. The truth is we should be asking how our children see us.

The majority of the looters in the craze of ‘shopping with violence’ that swept the UK in 2011 weren’t young people, they were adults with previous convictions for stealing. Rarely does a month go by without news of corruption in the adult world, including police, media and government. Tax evasion and benefit fraud are commonplace. Schools are regularly sued by parents for compensation, often over something that would’ve been shrugged off a generation ago. Everyone has their hand in the sweetie jar. Meanwhile children are denied access to the natural world that’s being destroyed by adult greed and incompetence and are kept indoors by parents paralysed by fear, exposed to a sensational media obsessively telling everyone what a mess the world run by adults is.

My generation will be remembered as the one that always looked to others for excuses rather than to themselves. We venerate our grandparents as heroes of a just war despite the all too human failings of that era. We vilify our children as barbarians at the walls of our magnificent, indignant moral empire. We blame our parents for locking up all the middle-class money in their property investments, leaving us to earn our own fortunes in a madly spiralling economy. We plough through all that has gone before to find comfort in meaning and entertainment already familiar to us, not daring to try anything new in case it fails to live up to standards skewed by nostalgia. Films are remade again and again yet usually fail to achieve the status of the originals, unable to evoke the same fond, inaccurate memories. We re-hash the same fashions we or our parents grew up with, at best being inspired by the finest motifs of the period and at worst blindly assimilating those elements of a style that makes it to the high street.

As a society we relentlessly pursue commerce for its own sake with no thought of the long-term consequences, concerned only with our own personal conveniences. We fill our children’s lives with substitutes for love, nurture and attention while we remain absent from their sides spending our days with our noses hard against the grindstone so we can earn more money to throw at the problems our work-centric lives create. And we wonder how anyone dare not show us respect for all the hard work we do. We wonder how young people, genetically programmed to challenge establishments, have the gall to disobey us. We forget the indolence we grew up with ourselves and the rebellious heroes who shaped and inspired us. Marlon Brando in The Wild One, James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust days, Marc Bolan, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Morrisey… Rebels who challenged everything society stood for and who caused outrage whenever they raised their sneering, disrespectful heads. It’s always been this way.

The one thing my generation has done that I am most proud of is to begin to recognise and address the problems caused by the ugliness and extremities of previous generations’ attitudes. One such issue was the use of violence against children to gain their obedience. Now it seems many of us learnt nothing and will happily teach our children that brutality is a valid argument and that power justifies cruelty. We’ve already convinced our children they have no future on a poisoned planet with corrupt institutions and dwindling resources, and soon perhaps we will show them that we are willing to sacrifice anything if we think it might make our meaningless and miserable lives pass a little easier.

Or perhaps we can inspire generations to come while honouring the memory of our ancestors by taking the opportunity to change how we live, re-imagine the way we obtain and distribute energy, stop the culture of entitlement that has turned luxuries into perceived necessities, and take responsibility for our own lives and the world we live in by each and every one of us striving to become an adult. We shall see.