Coronavirus complacency

I am, regrettably, as readers of this blog will have realised, increasingly becoming that unattractive creature, a grumpy old man. Perhaps it's exacerbated by the frustration of lockdown added to disability. My usual sunny disposition seems to hide beneath the clouds. But I hope you'll allow me another moan.

One recent Sunday night as I brushed my teeth I heard this unpalatable interchange between Stephen Nolan and his guest on his Radio 5 Live show. It went something like this. Esther Rantzen, who was his guest, she of Childline and Silverline and That's Life had been arguing, I gather, that people over 70 whatever their state of health or fitness should confine themselves to their homes even when others were being allowed out as the epidemic eased off. She advanced good reasons for her thesis, and of course callers agreed and disagreed. Then Stephen Nolan asked:

"SN How tough are you finding it all?

"ER  Do you want the truth...? Promise you won’t tell anyone...? 

Like Michael Palin this morning, Michael Palin said. Getting up and finding you haven’t got an alarm clock waking you at 7, suddenly finding you haven’t got to get up and do this and that and the other, suddenly being able to reflect a little bit, about the crucial things in life, the most precious things in life, having an opportunity just to write things down for your grandchildren, it’s such an extraordinary opportunity. 

The Queen talked about having time to reflect, and I’m hoping we come out of this with some idea about what life is really for and about, who the people are in our lives, about what the world is for. (You know when someone quotes Michael Palin and the Queen it's a weak idea that needs propping up.)

"SN  I’ve spoken to you a number of times over the years… Here’s the truth about me. I agree with you. I’m working 7 days a week around the clock for the last 20 odd years. You know what this business is like….

I’ve seen more of my house in the last 5 or 6 weeks than in 5 or 6 years. And do you know what? I kinda enjoy it. I enjoy the simplicity of not rushing out to work, and looking up and seeing the colour of the sky, and having a bit of time for me and a bit of time to think. Now I wouldn’t want it to go on for ever, but actually it’s not that bad - for me.

"ER. And we’ve watched a beautiful spring, the sunniest April since records began. I know it’s a disaster because it’s global warming and all that, but it’s been so beautiful…. I think it’s the workaholics like you are and I used to be this is a very useful splash of cold water to make us recognise that actually we were cutting out of our lives the things that make life worth living."

Well, it was a very lovely piece of homespun philosophy - with which I partly agreed - but I'm afraid it annoyed me. It was so coy and complacent. These very well-fed broadcasters who without doubt have very nice houses (probably more than one), investments and savings, and who are continuing to earn and can look forward to triple-locked pensions as well as occupational schemes, can afford to enjoy "the extraordinary opportunity" of lockdown. But there are many more who can't. There are millions more who are struggling and will be much worse off after this whole thing is "part of history".

March saw a rise in rainforest deforestation in the Amazon of 30% in March compared to last year, while the rest of the world was distracted with COVID-19. Also contributing to the problem of climate change, large areas of blanket bog in Northern Ireland were set on fire last week. As Ms Rantzen, put it, lightly, "it’s global warming and all that". The virus will be nothing compared to the effects of global warming. That would the real "disaster".

Photo: BBC TV

And the ones who will suffer from it are not the generation of the post-war baby boomers or the preceding generation. It's the very ones who are bearing the brunt of the present enforced restrictions, and will for decades to come be paying for the necessary but seemingly unending stream of £ billions of government expenditure in the face of the virus. I can understand why the government toyed with the idea of "herd immunity" which would have at least culled many of us pensioners and perhaps shortened the pandemic's grip here. (However I'm glad they changed their tune since it seems a particularly unpleasant way to die.)  

To give him his due, before the news Stephen Nolan did give a nod to the younger generation who are hit hardest: the single parents' restricted to their urban flats, workers in the gig economy, the millions whose work had suddenly gone, those hoping to buy their first home. They can't afford to admire the spring-time; they have to work all hours merely to survive. They can't rely on foodbanks and charity for ever. Their lives will never be the same. Their personal economies will not recover. We have personal security but we have very probably impoverished the next generation and their children. The least we can do for them is to act as decisively as we have been scared by COVID-19 into doing in the face of climate change - "led by the science". We may yet be able to save them at least from climate catastrophe.

RIP Stephen Hawking

Today we had the AGM of our local MND Association and remembered Professor Stephen Hawking, the most famous man with Motor Neurone Disease and patron of the MNDA, who died this week. He’s widely considered one of our greatest scientists, the author of A Brief History of Time and the subject of the Oscar-winning The Theory of Everything. His MND was unique – or highly untypical – in that it lasted for 55 years rather than the average 14 months from diagnosis. He had a great dry sense of humour and an inextinguishable zest for life, despite the disease leaving him without a voice and without use of his limbs as it progressed. He claimed to have become a more convinced atheist over the years. Only once did I dare to disagree with him. In an interview in 2011 an interview with him was headlined, “Stephen Hawking: ‘There is no heaven; it’s a fairy story.’”  Which gives a beautiful picture which has circulated on social media by Australian artist, Mitchell Toy, particular poignancy.

The interview provoked me to suggest an alternative rational view, which was published in The Guardian, and as I recall attracted a quantity of hostile comment on line. I would like to think that my view and the vision of Mitchell Toy is nearer what Professor Hawking will experience than the bleakness of his own expectations.

Here is my article:

Like Stephen Hawking, I have been living with Motor Neurone Disease.  Like him, I’m one of the lucky few not to have died within months of diagnosis.  I’m nine years younger than him and have had the symptoms of the disease for only ten years, compared to his 49.  However for those ten years I’ve “lived with the prospect of an early death” also.  Unlike Professor Hawking I am not a superstar scientist.  I’m simply a small-time writer, who used to be a teacher and a vicar. 

It seems to me that, while some things Stephen Hawking says in the interview as it’s reported are unarguably true, some are also admitted hypothesis, and some are merely tendentious.  One of the features of MND both for him as for me is that it affects your ability to speak and hence pares down what you say to the bare bones. (That’s not of course the case when you have time to type a script.)  Hence sometimes you are frustrated by your inability to nuance your ideas.  And so it may be that his very categorical answers are the nub of his opinion, but not the full expression.

For example, there’s something of ‘nothing-buttery’ about his comments about death: “I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”  It’s unarguably true that there’s no heaven for broken down computers, as I have found to my cost when I poured fruit juice over my laptop.  The brain may be nothing but a most remarkable computer, yet there’s something generically different from a computer in a brain which, when it starts to malfunction as happens in MND, can begin to love Wagner’s music and “enjoy life more”.  That, I would say, is irrational, but not uncommon.  Human beings, it would appear, are something more than machines.  Maybe science will one day describe what the difference is.

Hawking tells us that “The universe is governed by science.”  I think I understand what he means.  It is certainly discoverable by science.  Scientific theories which don’t fit with the evidence of the universe fail.  In simple terms science is governed by the universe, not the other way round.  What’s interesting is that this is in effect what Hawking says talking about the beauty of science.  It’s “beautiful when it makes simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations”, citing the double helix and fundamental equations in physics as examples. 

I find myself admiring and agreeing with much of what Professor Hawking says, but I find his ethical deduction and his quasi-religious observation sadly lacking.  “So here we are.  What should we do?” he’s asked.  The question sounds similar to ones posed to great religious teachers of the past.  His answer is disappointing: “We should seek the greatest value of our action.”  It’s certainly thought-provoking (What exactly does that mean for this or that action?) and it is a principle which is reinforced by the experience of life-threatening illness.  One could say, “Don’t waste your life.”  Yet as a rule for life, it lacks both the impact and the practicality of the great Judaeo-Christian answer to that question, “Love God above yourself, and love your neighbour as yourself.”  Even those who are unwilling to subscribe to the first part can understand the second part and usually admit its validity.  It might conceivably be argued for on the Darwinian grounds, that those societies which have lived by altruistic principles have survived, but that very admission raises the question of the origin of that surprising pre-scientific insight.

Finally Stephen Hawking’s headlined observation about death, that an after-life “is a fairy-story for people afraid of the dark” is both sad and misinformed. His proposition that there is no heaven reminds one of Gagarin’s alleged dismissal of God because he did not see him in space.  Openness to the theoretical possibility of there being eleven dimensions and fundamental particles “as yet undiscovered” shows an intellectual humility strangely at odds with writing off the possibility of other dimensions of existence. 

For someone “facing the prospect of an early death”, with probably an unpleasant prelude, the idea of extinction holds no more fear than sleep.  It really is insulting to accuse me of believing there might be life after death because I’m afraid of the dark.  On the contrary, sad though I shall be to leave behind those I love, I suspect the end of life, whatever happens, will be a relief.  And, like Pascal making his wager, if it is dark, I really won’t mind, because, of course, there won’t be a me to mind.

Strangely enough, my theory that there is a form of life after we die is not some sort of wishful thinking.  It’s based on evidence.  If the brain is a computer, then, when I was studying where Stephen Hawking now teaches, I came on a mass of data of which the most convincing, the neatest, explanation was that death is not the end of life.  It wasn’t the most comfortable nor most obvious of conclusions, but the forensic case was forceful and beautiful, providing “simple explanations of phenomena or connections between different observations”.  The best exposition I found was by the then Director of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in London, Professor Sir Norman Anderson, in The Evidence for the Resurrection (afterwards republished as part of Jesus Christ the witness of history (IVP 1985)).  My disturbing conclusion was that, if it happened once, as seemed beyond reasonable doubt, then I needed to revise my whole world view.  What you see is not all you get.

One may wish to dismiss Jesus Christ, or Julius Caesar, as fairy stories, even as bunk, but, until one has examined the evidence in Anderson’s forensic manner, that’s a premature judgement.  I suspect many do that.  As for the idea that belief in an afterlife is a consolation, it is not just about heaven.  Most faiths in fact have a notion of judgement, which is hardly comfortable for anyone, although it does focus the motivation not to waste one’s life.  Moreover in our situation Professor Hawking surely knows better than that some notion in your head, whatever that notion might be, makes the frustrations and pains of a terminal illness somehow more bearable.  That’s the nonsense of those who’ve not been there.  I can’t prove it of course, but on good grounds I’d stake my life on it, that beyond death will be another great adventure; but first I have to get finish this one.

RIP Stephen Hawking.

Hope or nothing?

On Wednesday evening, when Sir Terry Pratchett was yet again "Facing extinction" on the BBC, I chose to read a remarkable book we'd been lent by a medical student (via her mother), called Proof of Heaven. It's written by Dr Eben Alexander, an eminent American neurosurgeon. He inexplicably contracted the vanishingly rare e coli meningitis, which rendered his neocortex effectively "dead" and sent him into deep coma from which his colleagues expected him never to emerge. Clearly he did emerge and live to tell the tale, and his story is remarkable. As a neurosurgeon he knows what he is talking about when it comes to brain function and he has seen patients in all states of consciousness. He describes himself as having been a convinced scientific sceptic about all things spiritual. However what he experienced in his coma and what he describes with as much scientific objectivity as possible completely changed his mind.

I have certainly read accounts before of near death events (NDEs), which frankly I found anecdotal and somewhat fanciful. I have heard one person talking about experiencing heaven, to whom I was inclined to give some credence in the light of the impact it made on her life, though I suppose some people might describe her as "flakey". However, I basically held the sort of view that this man of science had before his coma: "I doubted their veracity, mainly because I had not experienced them at a deep level, and because they could not be readily explained by my simplistic scientific view of the world.
"Like many other scientific skeptics, I refused to even review the data relevant to the questions concerning these phenomena. I prejudged the data, and those providing it, because my limited perspective failed to provide the foggiest notion of how such things might actually happen. Those who assert that there is no evidence for phenomena of extended consciousness in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, are wilfully ignorant. They believe they know the truth without needing to look at the facts" (p.153).

Well, in his fairly unique sort of coma (with the entire neocortex not functioning) he experienced what he could only afterwards conclude was an experience of consciousness completely independent of the brain. What's more, this experience was extremely vivid and detailed, but has none of the naïveté and self-referential aspects of other NDE survivors' accounts whose comas have been less complete. He gives an astonishingly objective account of the experience, in terms which make sense to the modern mindset, for example about the huge number of dimensions and the ability to comprehend without words. It does of course present him with a problem when he tries to describe the indescribable in language! However having made it his first priority after his medically improbable recovery to note down his memories as fully as possible, he gave himself the data to provide a coherent account. He experiences three regions or states, the muddy darkness of "the Realm of the Earthworm's View", the green brilliance of "the Gateway" and the black but holy darkness of "the Core".

At one point, he concludes, "love is, without doubt, the basis of everything. Not some abstract, hard-to-fathom kind of love but the day-to-day kind that everyone knows - the kind of love we feel when we look at our spouse and our children, or even our animals. In its purest and most powerful form, this love is not jealous or selfish, but unconditional. This is the reality of realities, the incomprehensibly glorious truth of truths that lives and breathes at the core of everything that exists or that ever will exist, and no remotely accurate understanding of who and what we are can be achieved by anyone who does not know it, and embody it in all of their actions.

"Not much of a scientific insight? Well, I beg to differ. I'm back from that place, and nothing could convince me (otherwise than) that this is not only the single most important emotional truth in the universe, but also the single most important scientific truth as well....

"It is my belief that we are now facing a crucial time in our existence. We need to recover more of that larger knowledge while living here on earth, while our brains (including the left-side analytical parts) are fully functioning. Science - the science to which I've devoted so much of my life - doesn't contradict what I learned up there. But far, far too many people believe it does, because certain members of the scientific community, who are pledged to the materialist worldview, have insisted again and again that science and spirituality cannot coexist.

"They are mistaken...." (pp. 71-73).

I can't help being struck by the contrast of the different views of reality and, therefore, meaning presented by Eben Alexander and Terry Pratchett. Strangely Alexander's seems to me to invest the present with the greater significance - it is part of a greater reality. What you see is not all you get. And the certainty that "love, unconditional love, is the basis of everything" invests existence with an unparalleled luminosity.

At this point this week it is good to have a scientist's testimony that we do not all face extinction when our brains finally pack up, but that our souls, our essential selves, will survive. As St Paul said, "If in Christ we have hope for this life only, we are of all people to be pitied. But in fact...."

PS Dear BBC, How about giving some air time to Dr Alexander's hope, instead of the diet of gloom you seem so fond of? And before you dismiss the idea, do you dare read the book with an open mind, right to the end, where the final evidential proof comes? It's available on Amazon and Kindle.

PPS Eben Alexander's version of what he experienced will not please a lot of Christians or people of other faiths, as he is not propagating a party line. He is simply trying to describe his experience and understand it in his terms. I think it's worth reading because of who he is and the profound impact his experience made on him - and because it brings the possibility of hope nearer. For me, nonetheless, the final and best proof of life after death remains what we celebrate tonight and tomorrow. "But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep."

Happy Birthday, Professor

Last Sunday, the most famous MND survivor and scientist, Professor Stephen Hawking was 70. He got MND 50 years ago. I was sent this report by a friend and fellow blogger, who commented on how inspiring his words were. "The severely disabled but always active and indomitable professor Stephen Hawking said on his 70th birthday: 'Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. ... Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don't just give up." 

"Professor Hawking reflected on his life as 'a glorious time to be alive'."

I love his sense of wonder. In one way or another, we can all share that, and the great thing is it doesn't depend on our physical (or intellectual, come to that) abilities. A child has loads of it. Somehow we lose the wonder muscle as we grow up. I suppose it's a case of atrophy from lack of exercise, but the muscle is still there and we can bring it back into use, given practice - and then what a wonderful world to be explored awaits us! 

As someone who was written off as terminal with only two years to live 50 years ago, he is eloquent evidence  as to why we should not rush to write people off as fit only for a lethal injection. "It matters that you don't just give up." And I'd add that Stephen Hawking matters, whether or not he succeeds at anything more; but he matters because there are those who care about him as a person they love - and that makes him infinitely valuable.

I don't think he's any less flawed than the rest of us. I don't think his great intellect grants him unique insight into the meaning of life, or the existence of a Creator. Cleverness has its limits. Science deduces from the physical, but some things like love and beauty aren't susceptible to that sort of investigation. We just recognise them. As we begin to deteriorate, mentally from the age of 45 we learned this week, our physical nature begins to decay. To be honest facelifts and botox only make matters worse. And yet we don't become any the less capable of loving and being loved. MND does rapidly - or gradually - ravage the body, but still one cares, is cared for and has a life to live. And, as I sit at my laptop in touch with friends on the other side of the world, I entirely concur with the professor: it is a glorious time to be alive.

The shifting sands of science

First we discovered that dinosaurs weren't all the scaly or pachyderm monsters of popular films and TV programmes, but that some had feathers "just like our pigeons in the park". I feel a tiny bit guilty that my children grew up with Usborne picture books, which have given them quite the wrong impression. Oh dear, oh dear!

However now something much more fundamentally serious has raised its fascinating head, emanating from the CERN laboratories in Geneva. That is that particles (neutrinos, I think) seem to be travelling faster than the speed of light. BUT THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE - according to Einstein's Theory of Relativity. It would mean that one could travel backwards in time - even if, so it seemed to this non-scientist, rather slowly. Well, the European scientists reckon they've checked and double-checked the improbable findings; the Americans at Fermilab in Chicago, it has to be said, are sceptical and reckon their transatlantic buddies have overlooked some tiny but significant detail and are setting out to "prove" it.

When the news broke, there was quite a bit of fluttering in the dovecotes of physics. On the World Tonight programme on Radio 4, the space scientist, Dr Maggie Aderine-Pollock, had an excited conversation with presenter, Ritulah Shah. Aren't you frightened, she was asked, that this undermines your whole scientific world? "If this experiment is correct," she replied, "it is slightly scary, because it means we’re stepping into the unknown, but at the same time there’s a real sense of excitement, because what will we find instead?"
RS: "So do you think the popular view of science in which, arguably, science provides all the answers is very misplaced?" 
MA-P: "I think we went through the same process in the 1950s in relation to medicine - doctors knew it all." Now we know they don't. "Science is an evolving process."
Then Ritulah Shah asked this very interesting question: "If the CERN experiment can be replicated, if the data can be stood up, then would it be better for the popular view of science to be one of science delivering new questions and discoveries rather than of one of it delivering the answers?" and received this equally interesting and honest answer: "Yes, because 'answer' sounds as if we have all the answers and we've got it done and dusted; and that isn't how science works. Science works... as an evolution.... We don't have answers; we have evolving questions." Now that, to me, sounds like real science - and to be true, whatever the outcome of the neutrino debate. 


And it reminds me of Socrates' wisdom, as related by Plato: "This man, on one hand, believes that he knows something, while not knowing anything. On the other hand, I - equally ignorant - do not believe that I know anything." There's a conditionality which popularisers of science seem unable to grasp, bestowing on scientists an omniscience which the best of them would not claim for themselves. Science is a voyage of discovery, not a destination.

Scientists talking

I've read a couple of articles recently about eminent scientists, who said things which interested me. Here are couple of quotes:

He (Prof John D Barrow, Professor of Geometry (and formerly of Astronomy) at Gresham College, London) says that physicists tend to study the laws of nature: 'The laws are very mathematical but very mysterious. You cannot see or touch them. There are mysterious symmetries in the universe. It is no coincidence that biologists like Dawkins feel very uncomfortable with religion and unanswered questions because they are dealing with the messy complexities of nature. Physicists are very used to laws of nature that have no explanation of the same sort. They are used to dealing with uncertainty and being undogmatic. There is a real cultural difference between biologists and physicists.' (Cam Issue 58)

Prof Michael J Reiss (Professor of Science Education, Institute of Education, London): 'I see it as the whole of creation, for all eternity, being held in God's care. The whole of this world would cease to exist if God didn't continue to maintain it.' 'An acceptance of evolutionary biology is beginning to help Christians to answer questions that have previously been theologically troubling, such as the problem of suffering. In the evolutionary view, organisms that lack the capacity to suffer lead less successful lives - they die earlier and leave fewer offspring. Creation over countless years has evolved the ability to be sensitive. Theologically it means if we want a world in which we have joy, we may also have need of a world in which there is suffering.' (Christianity 10.09)

Aspirin science

I thought I'd reproduce what John commented a couple of days ago, as I thought it was rather pithy:
"One of my favourite economists, not himself a religious man, wrote this about science and values: 'Why should one be frightened, I asked, of taking a stand on judgments which are not scientific, if they relate to matters outside the world of science? To recognise the claims of science in fields where scientific method was applicable was one thing; to attempt to claim scientific sanction for judgments of questions not capable of scientific proof was another. The one was an obligation on rational man; the other, the stratagem of spiritual uncertainty. Was it not only the timidity of an age which had lost all confidence in ultimate values which led us to attempt to claim "scientific" justifications for attitudes which in the nature of things could not be justified (or refuted) by appeal to laboratory methods?'"

We heard this morning that scientists have revised their advice about aspirin as a prophylactic against heart attacks, unless you've already had stroke or previous episodes. Not so long ago, I received advice to take half an aspirin a day from a doctor (not my GP) in the light of my chloresterol. The Drugs and Therapeutics Bulletin now reports the risk of internal bleeding offset any potential advantage. According to the BBC, 'Between 2005 and 2008, the DTB said four sets of guidelines were published recommending aspirin for the "primary prevention" of cardiovascular disease - in patients who had shown no sign of the disease.
These included people aged 50 and older with type 2 diabetes and those with high blood pressure.' Many thousands have, not unreasonably, followed the 'scientific' advice. 'But the DTB said a recent analysis of six controlled trials involving a total of 95,000 patients published in the journal the Lancet does not back up the routine use of aspirin in these patients because of the risk of serious gastrointestinal bleeds and the negligible impact it has on curbing death rates.' What do you know? The scientists have changed their minds.... Last night we heard Prof Nutt on the World Tonight pontificating on politicians' inability to grasp the difference between 'belief' and 'fact'. 'They believe it, and because they believe it, because they're politicians, they think it IS true. And that's why they think they don't need experts, because they think they know the truth, and they don't. They're confused. They think their beliefs are facts and they're not....' No doubt the advice we were given about aspirin - until this morning - was given because of 'facts'. Isn't it time for a bit of intellectual humility all round? One of my favourite quotations comes from the unlikely figure of Oliver Cromwell: 'I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken', which I think he said to his fellow Puritans.

Saints and science

One of the things I have to admit I miss about non Anglican worship now is the rhythm of the church year. So it was nice to wake up this morning to a rather good service on Radio 4 from Aberystwyth. It was marking All Saints' Day, and contained a fine explanation of saints drawn from the book of Hebrews in the Bible, as well as a good variety of music - which is sadly more than can be said 'Songs of Praise' this evening. Some dire musical performances which seemed entirely at odds with with the words and of course, by and large, the old stereotyped image of saints as specially good people. Actually they're simply ordinary believers - like the McFadyens who provided the most moving interview.

I came across this in an article today. It seems to me to be germane to what I said about Prof Nutt and the supposed absolutism of science:
'Throughout the report the authors pit the objectivity, rigour and precision of ‘science’ and psychology against the subjectivities of religion and ‘values’. In so doing the report ignores the social, philosophical and value systems that the psychological sciences themselves inhabit,.... The authors seem to believe that the ‘scientific’ evidence over which they preside allows them to police the boundaries of ‘normality’ and their apparent ability to attach values (‘positive’) to psychological observations has a degree of confidence that is breath-taking.' It was in 'Changing Sexual Orientation and Identity? The APA Report' by Andrew Goddard and Glynn Harrison, on the Fulcrum website. We need to keep insisting that even 'science' inhabits social, philosophical and value systems

Season of Nutts and mellow fruitfulness

So Professor David Nutt has been sacked as the government's chief adviser on drugs, because he criticised the home secretary and the prime minister for not following his advice that cannabis should be classified as the lowest category C drug. I don't have much sympathy for him. Not that I'm disputing the evidence of the comparative harm of different drugs, though it's a bit naïve to compare drugs which have been legally available for centuries such as alcohol and tobacco with those that are illegal (and have a vocal lobby trying to make them legal). What the professor should be able to grasp is that advisers advise but politicians decide. And, as any afficionado of West Wing will appreciate, political decisions are seldom pure and never simple. He is quoted as saying: 'I’m not prepared to mislead the public about the harmfulness of drugs like cannabis and ecstasy. I think most scientists will see this as a further example of the Luddite attitude of this government, and possible future governments, towards science.'
As I recall, at the time of the classification of cannabis as category B by Alan Johnson's unfortunate predecessor, there was no secrecy about the advisory committee's contrary recommendation: in other words, his view was already well and truly in the public domain. And as Sir David King, the former government chief scientific adviser, rightly pointed out, it's not the role of an adviser in the pay of the government to criticise ministers - any more than civil servants may.

What struck me about Prof Nutt's comments is the dangerous subtext - that science should be all-powerful. If scientists say so, it must be true. If scientists say, 'Jump!' then we all have to jump. For one thing, scientists aren't always right, and the advice they give is not always ethical. They, like the rest of us, work within their own moral framework. No one, not even scientists, works without presuppositions. The idea that science is morally neutral is a fallacy, because it's carried out by human beings. And neither is 'Science' a moral absolute. That's because science is always provisional. The boundaries of our knowledge are continually expanding and yet always finite. Don't get me wrong! Scientific study is a wonderful thing. Personally I regard the urge to explore, research and understand as God-given, even as a form of worship - and if you don't think in those terms I regard them as the most human of activities. Like everyone with 'terminal' conditions, I hope that medical research will one day crack the code of MND and discover a cure. But actually that's not what life's all about, although it would be easy to think so. Life's about how we live with each other and how we care for each other - and that's not reducible to a statistical analysis or a formula. It's far more complex than that.

I'm sitting in the conservatory at the moment. I was inspired by Virginia Woolf to turn my comfortable chair round, so that I now look out at the back garden rather than through the house. I can see the results of Jane and Bryan's recent hard work. Autumn clearance is always tough because you have to be quite ruthless with the plants which haven't QUITE finished flowering, to make room for the spring plants. Actually we've left a few for the surprisingly late butterflies that have been hanging around. We're hoping there's enough warmth in the ground still to germinate the grass seed sown where the undergrowth was cleared away. I learned this week a new meaning of 'mellow'. Colin tells me that it's what his father used to call apples which aren't crisp - and he ought to know being from one of the local farming families. Anyway, mellow apples suit me, because they're easier now for me to chew and swallow than those horrible Granny Greens. I doubt whether that was what Keats had in mind when he talked about 'mellow fruitfulness' - but you never know.