A GAA-GAA Romance

Nope. This is most definitely not about Lady Gaga. About as far as you can get from the very urbane, very post-modern and the very emm... unique style of the New York musician. No, this about that most Irish of institutions the good ol' GAA.

Last weekend saw the Football League finals, so very shortly the serious business of the Championship will begin. In fact, the first Championship game is due to played on Saturday when Galway travel to New York. Personally though, I couldn't be more delighted that Cork lifted the League trophy yesterday though. For several reasons.

I know the league means diddly-squat, but Cork won it in convincing fashion and blooded many new players from the U-21 set-up too. Cork only lost twice in the league a 3-9 to 0-16 defeat to Tyrone (the scoreline clearly indicates that Cork lost despite dominating) and losing the Mayo two weeks before the sides met in the final, which can be discounted given the hiding given to the westerners in the match that mattered.

Personally, that final was notable for the presence of two players from my own club on the Cork team. This is remarkable as not only is it a small rural club, but until a few years ago the club's primary focus was hurling. Daniel Goulding was the club's first ever representative on the Cork football team, and now Ciarán Sheehan joined him in the full-forward line last Sunday. Ciarán chipped in with two points while Goulding proved to be Cork's most potent weapon again with a haul of 1-5. It is a bit odd watching a guy whom I played with since I was eight years old light up Croke Park, and collect all sorts of accolades at Senior Intercounty level.

Of course, it's not all about the football. Cork are also in the Hurling League final next week against Galway. Similarly to the football, Galway and Cork met in the last round of the league, with Galway taking the spoils in a meaningless match. Could this be an omen for a League double? Not really, but it does allow us Leesiders to dream of a double in September...

Nick Who?

I have a confession. Not only have I not watched any of the UK leader's debates, I have been completely negligent in following the campaign. That being said, I wasn't at all surprised the reaction to Nick Clegg's performance in the debates so far. He had no expectations. People were expecting Brown and Cameron to be the main event, duking it out like heavyweight boxers. Well, Brown would be a heavyweight (in every sense); Cameron is a lightweight (in every sense). There was absolutely no expectation on Clegg. All he had to do was stand toe to toe with the big two and he'd be getting the Lib Dems unprecedented coverage in what the media rightly or wrongly have always boiled down to a two horse race. He didn't just do that, he managed to manipulate Cameron's "change" mantra against the Tories; positioning the Lib Dems as the real route for the protest vote.

However, I can't see this situation lasting. I think the polls will keep showing string Lib Dem performances, right up to election day, but when it comes to people actually having to tick that box, the fear of a hung parliament will push people either back into Labour's bosom or the Conservatives ice-cold death grip (I never claimed I'd be impartial). The reason for this is fundamentally that the Lib Dems cannot win the election. I've been playing with the BBC's Election Seat Calculator and it seems that the Lib Dems would need at least 44% of the vote to be able to achieve an overall majority. For comparison, Labour would need a mere 34% to be in with a chance of an overall majority. Not only that, but as the Tories' and Labour's focus now also include regular attacks on the Lib Dems and scaremongering over a hung parliament, I very much think when push comes to shove people will go back to the old guard.

What this does highlight is the scale of the gerrymandering that has gone on in the UK. It has become high impossible for a third party to be able to challenge effectively. It may not be as bad the US, but it's getting there. With a PR or List system, not only would the Lib Dems be in a much stronger position, but so would a range of smaller parties. It's times like this that I'm thankful we have a system that makes slightly more sense here.

The Team that Refused to Die

The Prince and the Pauper headline is being over used in today's papers, albeit with very good reason. In a season which saw Portsmouth F.C. enter administration, aborted winding up orders, unpaid wages and on the weekend that brought confirmation of relegation, Portsmouth managed to book a date in the season's finale; the FA Cup Final. Their opponents in that final on May 15th will be Chelsea F.C, who are seemingly steamrolling their way to the Premiership title and owned by Mr. Moneybags himself, Roman Abramavich. The contrast could not possibly be starker.
This is the beauty of knock out competitions, which the GAA championships have lost a little of recently in my opinion. The idea that the little team can do it against all the odds, that David can conquer Goliath lives on. When Portsmouth went into administration, you could see the team pulling together a bit, and they began playing with heart; something that surprised this hardened cynic. Then they got thumped by 5-0 by Chelsea which effectively killed off the tiny glimmer of hope of survival in the Premiership. For this team of rejects and misfits to beat Chelsea in the final would come with a particular satisfaction after that humiliation in front of their own fans.
More than just the romance of the cup, getting the final also earned Portsmouth a place in the Europa league next year. However due to their financial difficulties, they were unable to apply for a UEFA club licence; which considering how much getting into Europe would boost their revenue, has a certain irony to it.

I'm not for any second considering that Portsmouth could actually beat Chelsea in the final. They won't. In all likelihood, they'll get trounced. The Chelsea team will have a nice kick around before they all jet off the South Africa and walk away with some extra bling to add to their collections. In their last, five meetings Chelsea have scored sixteen goals whereas Portsmouth scored one. No team has ever won the FA Cup and been relegated in the same season.

But still, there's a glint in Avram Grant's eye that says maybe, just maybe...

A Prescription for Panic

It took 12 full years, but two months ago, the Lancet finally retracted the paper of Wakefield et al. which drew a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. The damage the hysteria surrounding the paper caused can be seen in graph below that I plundered from the BBC. There was a noticeable drop in the uptake of the vaccine, which unsurprisingly lead to a spike in the cases of measles in the population.

I'm not going to go into the medical and statistical faults of the study (I'm not a medcine-type-guy and talking statistics bores normal people), but suffice to say that the link was tenuous and the science sketchy at best. The problem wasn't with the science. The Lancet always publishes controversial articles on the edges of science. In medicine in particular, it is necessary to generate debate to ensure the safety of both new and established treatments. The problem was how it was jumped upon by the press. That wasn't helped by Wakefield holding a press conference upon the paper's publication. Over 1500 articles were published on the alleged MMR-autism link over the following few years despite many large studies which proved no link.

Is it the media's fault for jumping on a story? In a word; no. Science is published in journals in a manner that is not easily accessible to the public. It takes the researchers and/or the media departments in their universities to start stirring the shit. Aside from MMR, probably the most famous example of this is Peter Duesberg. Duesberg is an expert in cancer causing genes. However, he is best known for a very public campaign decrying the link between HIV and AIDS. While some debate on the origins of AIDS was acceptable in the 80's, Duesberg still espouses his views and is considered a major influence on former South African president Thabo Mbeki. Duesberg sat on an advisory panel to Mbeki and the South African government's subsequent failure to provide antiretroviral drugs is thought to have cost thousands of lives. 

How did Duesberg get into this position? He used his right as a member of the National Academy of Sciences to publish a paper without peer review, by-passing the usual crap filter. Through this he was able to gain the credibility in the media to participate in debates on AIDS. Just as we are seeing with the global warming denialists, when there is a scientific debate of major impact going on, the media feel compelled to show all sides no matter how ridiculous they are. Then the crazy theory gets picked up by a political cause and from there it snowballs. Duesberg's theory was that AIDS was the result of environmental issues; large amounts of recreational drug use being paramount amongst them. This was desirable for those who wanted to stereotype the gay community as bringing AIDS upon themselves and also for cementing AIDS as the "gay plague". 

I for one would not expect any newspaper editor to be able to parse the science and divide the crap from the better theories. Even in the broadsheets that have specific science reporters, I wouldn't expect all of them to  be experts in immunology, general relativity, photonics, whatever the story is this week. The responsibility lies with the scientists themselves who are the best judge of the quality and validity of their own work. Unfortunately, scientific ethics is not taught to students in university. From my experience, the university is more interested in you producing something that they can release a catchy press statement about, with the university's name all over it in giant bold letters, naturally. 

Privately funded research is unsurprisingly not exempt from this either. In fact, the research that Wakefield's infamous MMR paper was based on was funded by solicitors representing parents who believed their children had been harmed by MMR. Conflict of interest much? At least he is now facing charges of professional misconduct for that (amongst other things). 

Simply, ethics needs to be highlighted much more in the training of scientists from all disciplines, not just the health sciences. Where there are the bad apples, the whole scientific community needs to come out strongly to shout them down. The Durban Declaration about AIDS in 2000 or the UN's IPCC reports on global warming are good examples of the scientific community doing what it should.