Post by Teddy Bear on Oct 13, 2011 18:41:08 GMT
In the same way that the BBC like to use 'impartial' and 'unbiased' sources to justify their agenda, like the UNHRC, anything with EU attached to it, the Met Office, etc, expect to hear more 'independent' studies on any topic they feel strongly about from a group called the Social Issues Research Center (SIRC), and in this instance, one of their directors - a social anthropologist called Kate Fox.
We know there are many who study and obtain degrees to really benefit mankind. Then there are those who realise they can benefit their bank accounts much more quickly and efficiently by selling their 'title' to justify any particular stance the highest bidder wants perpetrated.
In this example Kate Fox tells us on the BBC website that the dangers of alcohol are nothing like we imagined, titled Viewpoint: Is the alcohol message all wrong?
What is not made clear by the BBC or Kate Fox. is that her clients include a lot of refineries and brewers.
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) ran an article on this 'research center' highlighting its dubious credentials about 18 months ago, but the BBC won't have expected its public to be aware of that.
Fortunately, Andrew Brown at The Telegraph is.
We know there are many who study and obtain degrees to really benefit mankind. Then there are those who realise they can benefit their bank accounts much more quickly and efficiently by selling their 'title' to justify any particular stance the highest bidder wants perpetrated.
In this example Kate Fox tells us on the BBC website that the dangers of alcohol are nothing like we imagined, titled Viewpoint: Is the alcohol message all wrong?
What is not made clear by the BBC or Kate Fox. is that her clients include a lot of refineries and brewers.
The British Medical Journal (BMJ) ran an article on this 'research center' highlighting its dubious credentials about 18 months ago, but the BBC won't have expected its public to be aware of that.
Fortunately, Andrew Brown at The Telegraph is.
Why alcohol is not as strong as we imagine – or is it?
By Andrew M Brown Health and lifestyle Last updated: October 13th, 2011
The effects of alcohol are not nearly as powerful as we imagine. In fact, cultural norms and the behaviour of people around us have more to do with how we behave when drunk than any properties of booze itself. Booze makes us slur our speech, bump into tables and so on, but it doesn't determine how we behave and what happens to our personalities. It doesn't make us smash windows, punch people, grope women and generally behave like yobs: we do that, in Britain anyway, because that's how we've learnt to behave when drunk. We've seen other people do it, and it's part of our culture.
This is what Kate Fox argues in an excellent article on the BBC website. She believes that everything we're told about alcohol, far from improving people's behaviour, actually acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The "messages" we take on board encourage us to believe that booze has almost magical powers to change our behaviour, when it doesn't. So drinkers behave as they expect to – which is often anti-socially and violently. Miss Fox wants to see alcohol education that transmits these messages instead:
"Alcohol education will have achieved its ultimate goal," Fox writes, "not when young people in this country are afraid of alcohol and avoid it because it is toxic and dangerous, but when they are frankly just a little bit bored by it."
She makes her point very well and the whole article is worth reading. I have two doubts though. First, I slightly wonder whether she invests government propaganda and public education with more influence than it actually has. It's true that people in Britain behave badly because they've learnt to. But don't they also behave like that because they want to, as well? In other words, they like behaving like yobs.
The second thing has to do with Kate Fox's organisation, the Social Issues Research Centre. According to an article in the British Medical Journal (from September 1999, admittedly), this august-sounding body in linked to a market research company called MCM, whose have included Bass Taverns, the Brewers and Licensed Retail Association, the Cider Industry Council, Grand Metropolitan Retail, the Portman Group (jointly funded by Bass, Courage, Guinness etc), Pubmaster, Rank Leisure, and Whitbread Inns, as well as some Australian brewing operations and several other businesses.
Kate Fox herself, who is the director of both MCM and the SIRC, has said that she doesn't think this amounts to a conflict of interest. She is, after all, a social anthropologist and, like all researchers, she has to get her funding from somewhere. The trouble is that her conclusions are quite booze-friendly. She's essentially saying alcohol isn't the cause of anti-social behaviour and violence we think it is. Since this happens to be the message the drinks industry would like us to grasp too, her organisation's links with alcohol producers raise a doubt in the mind.
NB For more information about SIRC and its various supporters in the food, drink and pharmaceutical industry, read this article from the BMJ in 2010.
By Andrew M Brown Health and lifestyle Last updated: October 13th, 2011
The effects of alcohol are not nearly as powerful as we imagine. In fact, cultural norms and the behaviour of people around us have more to do with how we behave when drunk than any properties of booze itself. Booze makes us slur our speech, bump into tables and so on, but it doesn't determine how we behave and what happens to our personalities. It doesn't make us smash windows, punch people, grope women and generally behave like yobs: we do that, in Britain anyway, because that's how we've learnt to behave when drunk. We've seen other people do it, and it's part of our culture.
This is what Kate Fox argues in an excellent article on the BBC website. She believes that everything we're told about alcohol, far from improving people's behaviour, actually acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy. The "messages" we take on board encourage us to believe that booze has almost magical powers to change our behaviour, when it doesn't. So drinkers behave as they expect to – which is often anti-socially and violently. Miss Fox wants to see alcohol education that transmits these messages instead:
a) alcohol does not cause disinhibition (aggressive, sexual or otherwise) and… b) even when you are drunk, you are in control of and have total responsibility for your actions and behaviour.
"Alcohol education will have achieved its ultimate goal," Fox writes, "not when young people in this country are afraid of alcohol and avoid it because it is toxic and dangerous, but when they are frankly just a little bit bored by it."
She makes her point very well and the whole article is worth reading. I have two doubts though. First, I slightly wonder whether she invests government propaganda and public education with more influence than it actually has. It's true that people in Britain behave badly because they've learnt to. But don't they also behave like that because they want to, as well? In other words, they like behaving like yobs.
The second thing has to do with Kate Fox's organisation, the Social Issues Research Centre. According to an article in the British Medical Journal (from September 1999, admittedly), this august-sounding body in linked to a market research company called MCM, whose have included Bass Taverns, the Brewers and Licensed Retail Association, the Cider Industry Council, Grand Metropolitan Retail, the Portman Group (jointly funded by Bass, Courage, Guinness etc), Pubmaster, Rank Leisure, and Whitbread Inns, as well as some Australian brewing operations and several other businesses.
Kate Fox herself, who is the director of both MCM and the SIRC, has said that she doesn't think this amounts to a conflict of interest. She is, after all, a social anthropologist and, like all researchers, she has to get her funding from somewhere. The trouble is that her conclusions are quite booze-friendly. She's essentially saying alcohol isn't the cause of anti-social behaviour and violence we think it is. Since this happens to be the message the drinks industry would like us to grasp too, her organisation's links with alcohol producers raise a doubt in the mind.
NB For more information about SIRC and its various supporters in the food, drink and pharmaceutical industry, read this article from the BMJ in 2010.