Hi Simon,

I agree with everything you've said here, and you've said so well! (Can you stand it? )

"Its about balancing that fierce and powerful desire to help suffering wherever possible, with issues around what life is, understanding the difference between what we can do and what we should do, and trying to understand why there is so much suffering in the first place."

Exactly. One of the things that irritates me no end are the non-stop daily news reports of the miracles of modern science that on every major network and cabel news show, like this sheep atrocity. To me, that is scientism at its finest, exploiting desperate people by giving them false hope.

My father died almost 25 years ago of lung cancer. As he was nearing the end, we kept hearing about Interferon -- that was the "cure" just around the corner, that would save people in his situation. So what happened? AFAIK, people are still dying from the same cancer he died from...Interferon has gone off somewhere, but there are plenty of new snake oils out there to be waved before wide-eyed and desperate. This is not science. It's not what science is supposed to be about.

IF you hold Robert Bazell and some of these other mainstream science reporters to the same standard to which skeptics hold Sylvia Browne, the science reporters surpass her every time.