Brian Clegg's Blog, page 56

What is good quality evidence?

I've recently had an interesting email discussion about UFOs, which has some lessons to learn for UFO fans (and for politicians, amongst others) on what constitutes good evidence. I had reviewed a book called The Compelling Scientific Evidence for UFOs and this resulted in some discussion with its author, Erol Faruk.

I'm what I'd call a hopeful sceptic when it comes to UFOs. I'd really like UFOs to exist, but I expect the evidence supporting a UFO sighting to be strong - let's fact it, this is a pretty remarkable claim, so we need strong evidence if we are to support it.

A big problem I have with many UFO sightings is that they are based on either pure witness testimony or very bad photographs that just show lights in the sky or fuzzy blobs. In other cases, UFO investigators make a huge leap from 'there's something strange' to 'because it's strange, it must be caused by an extraterrestrial ship.' I'd like to give two examples that cover these three issues.

Let's start with the fuzzy photos. There are all sorts of problems with these. One is the ease with which they can be faked. Like many before me, I've been tempted to have a go at this myself when I was at university, though just for fun.

Here's one of mine, showing a flying saucer over Aviemore, Scotland. It's actually a metal camping plate, thrown frisbee-like, and could have been better, but you get the idea. (These days it would be trivial to do with Photoshop, but back then it was not an option.)

I don't doubt that many of these fuzzy images we see aren't intentionally fake. But so many of them are pretty much fuzzy lights in the sky (try living near Heathrow as I once did), or could be ducks, reflections, all kinds of confusing things. Nowadays most people carry a good camera and routinely take clear, quick snaps, so we should be getting lots of good, clear photos. We aren't.

In my email discussion I brought up the particular issue of a sighting of a craft over Phoenix, Arizona in 1997, detailed in Faruk's book. According to this, ‘hundreds, possibly thousands of witnesses’ saw the Phoenix craft in 1997, but without producing any clear photos. By then many people had video cameras and many of the witnesses were out to see the comet Hale Bopp and would have had cameras on tripods etc. Where are the good, clear, unequivocal photos and videos? In the 1980s, I saw my own equivalent of a UFO (except it was identified). I looked out of a window at home and my jaw dropped to see a space shuttle on the back of a 747 flying past. I was not expecting it and had no camera prepared - but I still managed to get several clear enough photographs of it. What photos I’ve seen from Phoenix are just lights in the sky.
Unlikely to be a bird or Venus
The response I got to my doubt was 'For many UFO sightings there is "shock" element which usually leaves witnesses rooted to the spot as they're fixated on watching the unknown object with the result that they don't think of rushing indoors to locate a camera to get evidence of what they're seeing. Take a look at the first part of this video [linked] showing several witness testimonies of the Phoenix boomerang object from different vantage points.' But I don't want testimonies, I want good evidence. And I really
don’t accept the shock argument - I was shocked to see a space shuttle outside my window, but it was all the more reason to get a camera. And lots of these people out to see the comet would already have had cameras: they wouldn’t have needed to go and get them, so it should have been even easier for them than it was for me.

To finish off on photos I'd also mention the infamous 'saucers over the Capitol building' photo from Washington in 1952. This looks really impressive as often shown as a cropped shot of the Capitol building with an array of lights in the sky over it - far too regular to be anything other than a UFO formation. Only when you look at the full, uncropped photo, there is exactly the same pattern of lights on the steps in front of the building. The 'UFOs' are lens reflections from the street lights.

With the Phoenix example I was constantly referred to the witness statements. Erol commented 'No, witness testimony is rightfully not considered "good" scientific evidence, but if it comes from entirely credible witnesses - and multiple ones at that - they also cannot be summarily dismissed in my opinion. Once you have some spare time do take a look at that video and judge the credibility of the witnesses yourself. As far as I know none of them were - unfortunately - in a position to snatch a camera to take photos. Does that mean that their testimony is worthless?' Well, yes, pretty much if it is unsubstantiated by evidence. Human beings are terrible observers. And it's very easy to see something in the sky at night and misinterpret it. We need stronger evidence than testimony.

Which brings us onto the topic of Erol's book. This was another sighting in Delphos, Kansas. Three members of a family allegedly saw a craft which had landed on their farm take off and fly away. They  describe finding a glowing ring where the craft had landed, which they took a photo of. In following days there was a white ring on the ground and the soil where the craft had apparently been in contact seemed strange. Erol later analysed the soil and found it contained some interesting chemical constituents that made it water resistant and fluorescent. That is, indeed, interesting. The problem is that in and of itself, a strange material in the soil does not in any way indicate extraterrestrial involvement - that suggestion is solely based on the witness testimony. There was, of course, the photo of the 'glowing ring' - but this is indistinguishable from a photo of the white ring in the daytime. It has also been suggested elsewhere that there was a circular chicken feeder on the farm previously at this spot, which could have caused the markings.

And here we get the problem of separating good evidence from bad. Erol's response to my points was 'My analysis showed the presence in the ring soil of a highly water-soluble organic compound which I characterised in terms of its light absorption and fluorescence properties. I then used this information - and only this information - to propose a hypothesis for the sighting report. This hypothesis perfectly explains the vivid colours of the UFO [reported by the witnesses] and of the glow observed between the object and the ground during Ronald's observation. It also explains the glowing ring left behind after the UFO departed of which a photo was then taken . It perfectly explains the ring elongation of the ring towards the wind direction on the night of the event. It also explains the pitted craters on the ring felt when the witnesses touched its surface, as well as the moistness of the ring and the noted anaesthetic effects consistent with the dual hydrophobic/hydrophilic nature of the soil compound.'

Unfortunately, the only evidence that the ring was produced by a UFO was witness testimony from a small group of people (who allegedly were paid for providing their story, though I don’t know if this true). There was no strong evidence for either the presence of the UFO or the glowing ring - again, the only evidence this wasn't a flash photograph, or that it was taken at night, was from the witness statement. The only strong evidence was the chemical analysis - which showed there was something unusual in the soil, but did not provide anything suggestive of extraterrestrial origin. The weakness was the dependence on the family’s testimony to make the connection from ‘unusual chemical deposit’ to ‘UFO’.

I am not in any sense saying that this shows there aren’t UFOs. It doesn't. No evidence can prove this. But we always need to be aware of the quality of evidence at each stage of making a connection. And in this case, while one bit of evidence is good, it is nowhere near enough to make the leap to evidence that an extraterrestrial craft landed.

An admission of tax avoidance

I was somewhat unnerved to hear the shadow chancellor saying we should crack down on those involved in tax evasion and avoidance. Lumping the two together both dilutes the fight against the criminals and threatens to stigmatise a fair percentage of the population.

As there's often confusion between the two (I certainly have to check every time I use the terms), evasion is illegal. It is engaging in deception to reduce your tax bill. Avoidance is choosing an approach within the law to reduce the amount of tax you pay.

The reality is that I - and plenty of you - have indulged in avoidance. A simple example is choosing to put your savings into an ISA rather than an account where you pay tax on the interest.

Of course some avoidance - such as the complex structures used by the likes of Google and Amazon - should be prevented from happening. But in the end that's a matter of sorting out the tax regime. If HMRC simplified our incredibly complex tax structure, it could slash heavy duty unnecessary avoidance at a stroke. Unfortunately the bureaucratic mind seems inclined to make things more complex instead, leaving more potential loopholes, but we shall see.

When politicians lump avoidance and evasion together, they smooth over the reality that evasion is the fault of the criminals perpetrating it. But avoidance is the fault of badly written, overly complex tax codes - and the fault for that lies squarely with the government and the civil service. Don't let them get away with blaming this on everyone else.

Murder escapes the virtual world

Some while ago I started selling Organizing a Murder as an ebook. Now it's out as a physical version too.

Organizing A Murder contains twelve different mysteries to solve with friends, family or colleagues. There's huge variety. Not all the mysteries are murders, and the events are graded on three different levels, from those suitable for children from around 9, up to complex mysteries that need all the cunning of an adult player. Settings vary too, from a traditional country house to a starship in deep space.

Unlike the boxed party kits you can buy, there's a lot more variation in the way the each mystery is played out, from a simple treasure hunt, to a complex mystery with witness statements, clues and evidence to sift through. And because the players are all detectives, as individuals or teams, it's much simpler to organize as there's no need for costumes and embarrassing role-play. This approach means that any number of players can take part in one of these events.

The new, large format paperback includes practically everything you need to run the events - copies of answer sheets for up to six teams and all the clues and evidence ready to cut out and distribute at your location. All you need to add is a pair of scissors to cut out the clues. It costs just £14.99 from Amazon for 12 mysteries (or $19.99 from Amazon.com) - not bad when you consider a murder mystery boxed set can cost more than this for a single mystery.

Alternatively, it's still just £9.99 as an ebook - buy it and download it - ideal for those last minute parties - and if you have a printer it makes a great resource because you can print off elements like answer sheets and clues straight from the 118 page ebook to set the scene for your crime.

Whether you want to spice up a dinner party, keep the kids busy over the summer, or set a challenge for your team at work, Organizing a Murder can provide the answer.

The great joke

Way back in 2009 I wrote here about a remarkable, large scale practical joke I took part in when at university. It was a made-up ancient ceremony, for which the traffic was stopped by the police, so that a large procession could go down King's Parade, through Trinity College and onto the backs by the river, where a bizarre ceremony took place. I recently received an email asking for any details I had, so dug out of the loft my original instruction sheet, which I thought would make an appropriate entry for 1 April.

Scribbled by hand on the back of the sheet was the Latin responsory, which as a member of the choir I took part in giving the responses, as well as singing Super Flumina Babylonis during the immersion. I didn't quite remember the extract I gave in my previous post correctly, so here's the first half. The early bit about the fish was when the person playing the High Professor was slapped across the face with a fish, and for the bit about him standing in his combinations, you have to remember that the label of Marks & Spencer always used to be St Michael.

V - Ecce piscis... [I didn't copy the whole line, sadly]
R - Ecce piscis qui soccorum odorem oluit
V - Nunc etiam doctoram flagellat
R - In nomine Swain Dirus [GENUFLECT] laudamus te
V - [...] Derifiamus vestimenta eius
R - Venite virgines et vestes abicite
V - Nunc inventes senesque spectaculum vident
R - Omnes in risu tripodium admirantur
V - In combinationibus candidus extat
R - Sancta Michaelis nomine designatus

And here were our instructions:

The curious case of the immortal flashbulb

Image by Zarek Tuszynski from WikipediaI seem to have seen a lot of period dramas lately with photographers using flashbulbs like the one illustrated, most recently in last night's strangely low key Maigret.

Many readers might be too old to remember these things, but when I first took photos as a boy we still used them. The bulb typically contains a magnesium filament, which burns out in a moment of glory. As it goes, it heats up the glass casing so much that it causes that familiar crunchy sound effect.

So far, so good. But romantic though these old devices seem, they had one big problem - they were one shot (apart from the short-lived flashcubes etc., which were too small to be used by anyone but amateurs). So with a pro flashgun like the one in the image, the photographer had to get a handkerchief or something similar with which to remove the red-hot bulb, put the old bulb somewhere safe and insert a new bulb - a process that inevitably took several seconds.

What I don't understand is why the TV and movie people, who put so much effort into making sure period clothes etc. look absolutely perfect, always mess up on science and technology. Take last night's Maigret. A suspect arrives at the police station, pulled through the midst of a small crowd of journalists, of whom maybe four or five are photographers. In the time the person takes to get through them - maybe three or four seconds - a battery of about 20 flashes goes off. So where are they all coming from? No one changes bulbs. No one has time to change bulbs. It's just carelessness.

Bring on the airbrush

Way back in 2012 I reviewed a product called Portrait Professional, which allowed the user to touch up a photo of a face using simple controls, rather than manually fiddling about in something like Photoshop. Now I've got my hands on its successor, PortraitPro, and it's streets ahead in both sophistication and ease of use - which can't be bad. In fact it's scary just how much it does.

Facial feature identificationGiven a photo of a person, the software analyses the face and identifies the facial features - this process is automatic, but usually needs some slight manual tweaking, for example to make sure it exactly follows the line of the teeth - but that's just a matter of dragging lines on the screen. The software immediately applies a generic improvement, but then the fun really begins as you can modify all kinds of aspects using a set of sliders.

Want to whiten the teeth? No problem. Improve skin texture and colour? Easy. Apply fake makeup? A breeze - lipstick, mascara, bronzer, the works (no I didn't). And there's some more subtle work going on here too - for example, the software can subtly change the shape of the nose or plump up the lips - and the effect is remarkably convincing.

You might think this kind of thing only applies to those who want a modelling career, but we all use pictures of ourself, for example on social media, or in my case, in book publicity. And even a face like mine (take that as you will) can benefit from a little enhancement. I used a photo I regularly employ in publicity. I wasn't looking straight at the camera, as is often the case in portraits, and my skin wasn't having one of its best days. I may be biassed, but I'm impressed by the improvement:


In case it's not obvious, the one on the left is the 'before' and the one on the right the 'after'. By default, while running the program you get this kind of before and after shot (useful to have a big screen), which makes for easy comparison.

The changes are subtle, but comprehensive. Although the most obvious difference is skin thats less red, there are at least 20 different processes that have been automatically applied, a couple of which I've tweaked slightly. But the final outcome is a photo that, while equally good in terms of quality, simply looks a lot better. (I should have taken more of the shine off my skin, but I forgot.)

Of course we have something of a backlash on the matter of airbrushed photos of celebrities and social media selfies. But this isn't a matter of drastic change, simply doing the kind of thing a makeup artist does routinely for a TV appearance - making the best of what you've got. And if a photo is to do a job, why not?

You can pay £99.95 for the full pro version of the software, but to be honest the bells and whistles this adds are only going to interest a photographer working for a glossy magazine. Unless you handle RAW image files, the standard version does everything you might need for £29.95 at the time of writing. Clearly PortraitPro is not for everyone. But if you either take a lot of pictures of people, or, like me, need to provide publicity photos for various reasons, then it's well worth considering the investment. (There's a free trial version to give it a go.)

The software is available direct from the PortraitPro website. It's available for Windows or Mac (OSX 10.6 or later).

The welfare thing

We seem to be in interesting times in British politics, with Iain Duncan Smith resigning from the government over attempts to reduce the disability welfare budget. Some suggest it's more to do with causing damage to his enemies in the in/our battle over the EU - but I tend to side with those who think that IDS was genuinely trying to do something positive for welfare, and that he genuinely cares about welfare/work.

I think that in responding to this, the left wing has to be really careful about the whole business of welfare, because from something I heard at the weekend I worry that some regard welfare, and specifically in-work benefits, as a good thing in its own right, rather than a necessary evil.

I was listening to Any Questions/Any Answers on the radio, and a caller was denouncing the government's apparent wish to reduce and/or get rid of in-work benefits. I personally think that working credits was a cack-handed way to introduce negative income tax, and it would have been much better handled as a simple tweak to the income tax system, rather than a whole separate system. But it was a noble aim, as a temporary fix. What worried me is that caller dismissed the idea of the living wage, saying 'yes, but that's just the employer paying,' or words to that effect. She saw the benefits as an inherent good, rather than a patch for an inadequate reward for employment.

I'm a realist. I know we aren't going to achieve a perfect world. But surely our goal should be to have a living wage that means most people currently receiving in-work benefits can live on their earnings and not need in-work benefits? Surely the employer paying an employee sufficient to live on if they are going to do a full time job is a good thing, not something to be dismissed in favour of eternal welfare?

Of course, some businesses will whine 'we can't afford to pay people a living wage.' Well, guess what? That means they aren't running a viable business. Simple as that.

How to deal with Bristol's past

Bristol is one of my favourite cities in the UK - small enough to be friendly, big enough to have all the benefits of city life. And this view has been reinforced by my two days a week as an RLF literary fellow at the university. However, it's pretty much impossible not to be aware that a lot of Bristol's money (and its better buildings) came from two sources that would now be regarded as unpalatable: the slave trade and the tobacco industry.

The reason this came to mind was reading Sanjida O'Connell's essay The Silence of the Slave, a fascinating account of her attempt to find the voice of slaves for her writing. It's an excellent article, but one aspect disturbed me. Sanjida uses as a hook for the piece an experience while eating in Pizza Express in Bristol and realising that the building was an old bank that was funded by the slave trade. She writes:

By the time my daughter’s ice cream and chocolate sauce arrived, I had a prickling sensation running across my shoulder blades and I couldn’t wait to get out of that tastefully decorated restaurant. I’d realised that this former bank was founded by and had housed the accumulated wealth of the city’s merchants who, almost without exception, had been involved in the slave trade.

The reason it disturbed me is not that we should simply brush the impact of slavery aside - and if you like historical fiction, I'd recommend reading Sanjida's Sugar Island, a novel that doesn't shy away from revealing the realities*. It is essential that we remember past horrors committed by human on human, whether it's slavery or the Holocaust. What I'm not totally comfortable with is the idea that we should feel guilty about, say, eating in such a building, as if somehow we, today, have a unique and terrible personal past we need to atone for.

This raises two issues for me. The first is the time/responsibility argument. The idea that we can be responsible for the sins of our forebears seems totally illogical. Apart from anything, where do we stop? Should be unhappy about eating in an Italian restaurant because the Romans invaded Britain? Or should I be unhappy about being anywhere built by an Englishman because of the way Cromwell treated my Irish ancestors?

A reinforcing argument, is universality. Practically every country has practiced slavery at some point in its past. Why pick out one historical instance? Surely it is far more important to do something about countries that still allow slavery today. Not to mention cultures with intellectual slavery, where people are punished should they dare to disagree with political or religious leaders, or where, for instance, women are not allowed to drive or get an education. Slavery is still with us today, and that truly is a horror.

* If it's not your kind of book (I confess I rarely read historical fiction), I'd recommend Sanjida's non-fiction book on sugar which includes some aspects of the slave trade, Sugar: the grass that changed the world, and, simply because it's a great read, her latest, a psychological thriller called Bone by Bone.

O Rochdale, my Rochdale

Rochdale's glorious Town Hall looking a touch
Impressionist last time I was thereI come originally from a town called Rochdale in the North of England. And it's in the news rather a lot - usually for all the wrong reasons.

In the recent list of UK towns and cities in the greatest economic decline... Rochdale came out the worst in the country. Admittedly, the council's chief executive said it was old data, and things are being transformed now - but from all I hear it has a long way to go. When I was young, Rochdale was still a mill town - now I don't think it knows what it is, and the town centre shows it, all too horribly.

Then there's the other difficulties. On a light note there was the Gillian Duffy incident that was a bit of nightmare for Gordon Brown's 2010 election campaign. But far darker is the alleged child abuse legacy of the late MP Cyril Smith and the troubles of current MP Simon Danczuk, who didn't exactly cover himself in glory by sending unwise tweets to a teenager. And then there was the 2012 trial, where Rochdale achieved the dubious first of having the first gang of of grooming sex offenders tried. And Rochdale's flooding over the winter was hardly ever covered by the media, but as bad as that suffered by several other better-publicised locations. Oh, and another top 10 puts Rochdale third in the country for asylum seekers for head of population - not in itself a bad thing, but not ideal, given the town's battered state and weak resources.

Thankfully, it's not all bad news. As a location it has a lot going for it (apart from the weather). When I first moved down south to work, I got off a train at South Ruislip, hunting somewhere to live. I went up on the railway bridge, and I all I could see in any direction was buildings. In Rochdale, you are rarely out of sight of the high moors, with around two thirds of the town surrounded by wild moorland. I was up in Rochdale in 2013 handing out prizes at Rochdale Sixth Form College - and their work is really inspiring. I'm sure there are other good things going on. Rochdale has certainly produced a few famous people, from John Bright the anti-corn law protester, through singers Gracie Fields, Lisa Stansfield, actor Anna Friel, presenters Bill Oddie, Andy and Liz Kershaw and the like. Not to mention being the founding home of the Co-op movement. But at the moment, on the rare occasions I go back, it feels a sad place.

Is this my fault (in part)? Am I like the people who bemoan the decline of the UK while living abroad? I hope not. I moved away to get a job - which would have happened just as much if I'd lived in leafy Tunbridge Wells as it would coming from Rochdale. I've now lived two thirds of my life away from Rochdale. And I don't suppose I would ever move back, because the rest of my family hasn't got that same connection. But it doesn't stop me being sad. I will always be from Rochdale, always a Lancastrian - and if the Northern Powerhouse is to achieve anything, I hope it's to give places like Rochdale, and their people, a chance of bringing back some pride.

A true gentleman

It's a shock when someone your know dies, and never more so than someone you knew very well when younger, but haven't seen for many years, and so they are still a young person in your memory.

The PAM team - (L to R) John , Anthony,
(Louis missing), me, VerityI have just heard of the death of Anthony Fennelly, a friend and colleague from my early years at British Airways. In tributes I have seen, Anthony frequently referred to using that old fashioned epithet 'a gentleman' - I think this is because he was, without doubt, a gentle man. Softly spoken, helpful and friendly, Anthony started at BA a little before me and was already established in the team I joined after my training in T108 Comet House, on the engineering base at Hatton Cross, near Heathrow Airport. From the start he helped me fit in and soon became a friend.

A common sight: Anthony smiling
(with Brian Grumbridge and me)We were a small team led by John Carney (who sadly died in a boating accident a good few years ago): Anthony, Louis Hooper, Verity Riding and me, (the PAM or Programme Analysis Model team) in a fairly compact end of a longer office. Anthony might have been soft spoken, but had a wicked sense of humour, and was inordinately fond of puns, such as his long-remembered illustration of a London station using a crab shouting 'Hurrah!' (Cheering Crustacean = Charing Cross Station) and an unstinting enthusiasm for lagomorphs.
Serious concentration
When we were both single we tended to socialise more (I remember being introduced to King Crimson round at Anthony's flat): inevitably with families and changes of team we lost contact to a degree, but over the 17 years I was at BA, any sighting of Anthony was always a delight.

The photos here are very much that young Anthony from my memory - circa 1978/9. The last time I saw him was at the Operational Research anniversary celebration in 2012. The world has lost a lovely man, and a great husband and father Such a shame.