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If a lateral flow test says you have COVID-19 – you almost certainly have COVID-19

Alice Howarth
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If a lateral flow test says you have COVID-19 – you almost certainly have COVID-19

Covid tests have been all over the news in the UK lately. There was the news that a private testing facility in the UK was making mistakes in how they applied PCR tests, and the announcement from the UK government that lateral flow tests for vaccinated people will release them from travel related quarantine. Plus there were concerns that PCR tests were not being as good as we previously thought, and on top of that the news that the lateral flow tests we’re routinely using – the ones I’ve written about before – are more sensitive than we previously thought.

Here’s a few of the headlines about the accuracy of lateral flow tests:

COVID-19: Lateral flow tests are more accurate than previously thought, researchers find

Sky News, 14th October 2021

Covid lateral flow tests ‘more accurate than thought’ and positives ‘should be trusted’

The Mirror, 14th October 2021

Covid: Lateral flow tests more accurate than first thought, study finds

BBC, 14th October 2021

Lateral flow test accuracy

The study cited at the heart of these articles isn’t actually based on new data – it’s based on a recalculation of the old data. When we’re testing if the lateral flow tests are any good, we’re usually comparing them against the “gold standard” of the PCR test. The problem is that the PCR test, as I’ve written before, probably shouldn’t be the “gold standard”. The PCR test catches between 71% and 98% of positive Covid cases. Those numbers will vary based on a variety of things but the bottom line is that PCR tests will miss some cases of Covid.

If you’re using an imperfect test (such as the PCR) to validate an imperfect test (like the lateral flow test), but you’re pretending one of those tests (PCR) isn’t imperfect, then your numbers will inevitably be off. The researchers behind this new study recognised that, so they did some calculations and decided on a new way of calculating the sensitivity of lateral flow tests.

A hand applies a sample from a sample tube on to a COVID-19 lateral flow cassette.

Sensitivity is essentially how many positive cases you will catch; specificity is the risk of getting false negatives. Both lateral flow tests and PCR tests are really pretty specific – if they give you a positive result you almost certainly have Covid. But they both have gaps in their sensitivity – they will both miss positive cases some of the time. The key question is how often will they miss cases of Covid? This new study suggests that calculating this isn’t as simple as comparing the two tests side by side.

Importantly, the results of the study doesn’t mean the lateral flow tests are actually spotting more Covid cases – they’re still limited by their limitations, because any scientific test we do has limitations.

Lateral flow test limitations

Lateral flow tests work by detecting the level of antigens against Sars-CoV-2 in your throat and nose. Unlike with PCR tests, there’s no amplification step, so if you have really low levels of virus in your system the test is more likely to miss it. It might show up as a very faint line on the test, or it might not show up at all.

You’re also only going to pick up a Covid case if you test on the right day. When you’re infected with a virus it takes a few days for the virus to build up in your system, and then as your body fights it off the number of viral particles goes down. So, when you’re exposed, you have low but increasing levels of the virus in the days after exposure – until you reach a peak, at which point the levels of virus start to drop again. If you test in the first twenty-four hours after exposure, you’re not going to see the virus even if it’s present in your system. If you wait until seven days later, you’re going to miss it too. We think about 3-5 days post-exposure is the testing sweet spot for a lateral flow test, though it might vary depending on what variant you’ve been exposed to, and whether or not you’re vaccinated.

Another limitation of the lateral flow test is the process itself – when you take a lateral flow test you need to prepare your surface, clean your hands and then take a swab sample of the throat and nose. Then you need to transfer the swab sample into a sample solution and then transfer that solution on to the lateral flow strip. There are multiple steps at which you can easily make a mistake. We all do it – even the trained health professionals will make mistakes from time to time. But an average person is more likely to make a mistake. According to one study – laboratory scientists might have an accuracy of 79% compared to the (not quite gold standard) PCR tests, whereas people doing the tests at home only catch 58% of Covid cases. And trained healthcare professionals are somewhere in between.

Then there’s variation across manufacturer. According to a Nature review on the topic, high viral load is fairly reliably detected across all of the different lateral flow tests that different companies make – once the viral load is a bit lower, you start to see quite a lot of variation across different tests. The department of Health and Social care are predominantly using the Innova tests, which are usually produced on behalf of Innova by a company called Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology. A recent Cochrane review found that these tests have an average sensitivity of 47-57% which means they’re missing almost half of all Covid cases that PCR tests would catch. Plus, there are some concerns that the manufacturer doesn’t have quite the quality control measures in place we would like.

But that doesn’t mean these tests are a bad thing – it just means we need to be aware of the limitations.

How to use lateral flow testing

Lateral flow tests for Covid are very similar to lateral flow tests for pregnancy, but less sensitive – we’ve been working on pregnancy tests for a long time, and the biology of how we detect it means those tests are brilliant. But if that wasn’t the case, if hypothetically we thought pregnancy tests missed a decent number of pregnancies, we wouldn’t just shrug our shoulders after a negative result. If in this hypothetical world, you thought you might be pregnant and a test said you weren’t – you’d take another test, to make sure. You’d probably take a few more, in fact. And because in this hypothetical scenario the specificity was high but the sensitivity was low, you’d assume any single positive result was true (because the tests don’t give many false positives), but you’d take any one negative result as potentially false (because the tests give lots of false negatives).

That’s how we should be using lateral flow tests. If you are symptom-free but you’re interacting with people outside of your bubble regularly, you should be taking lateral flow tests every three or four days – partly because exposure can happen at any time, and partly because regularity helps mitigate some of the other limitations. If you do find you are exposed to Covid, you should definitely follow the self-isolation guidance of your area, but I’d also suggest taking a lateral flow test daily. The more tests you take, the more likely that at least one of them will catch a positive case. If you develop symptoms, you should get a PCR test as government guidance advises.

A medical swab and sample tube

Confirmatory PCR testing

What about when your lateral flow test comes back positive – what should you do? The data suggests that the risk of a false positive from these lateral flow tests is virtually zero. The Cochrane systemic review says that these Innova test we’re using are 99.8% specific. They are just not giving false positives – so, you should definitely trust a positive result. Yet this is not the guidance from the UK government: government guidance refers to “confirmatory PCR tests”. In a press release from March this year, the government said:

Contact tracing will continue to be triggered by a positive LFD result in assisted settings, but will be stopped automatically after receipt of a negative confirmatory PCR test, if the PCR was taken within the 2 days following the positive LFD result.

Many workplaces are using “confirmatory PCR tests” in a similar way.

And this is a problem, because PCR tests aren’t perfect either. That is why we have seen a slew of news reports over the past few months talking about the “bizarre” cases where people with positive lateral flow test results have negative PCR test results. It isn’t at all bizarre, once you factor in the limitations of the PCR tests. No testing option is perfect; all of them will miss cases and both PCR and lateral flow test testing options will produce false negatives. If multiple tests produce conflicting results, we should act on the assumption that the positive result is correct.

PCR testing mistakes

When you combine this misunderstanding and, in my opinion, misguided policy around confirmatory PCR tests, with serious mistakes like those made a testing facility in Wolverhampton, we start to get real issues. Recently the lab was said to have given 43,000 people false negative results from PCR testing. As the The Guardian reported:

Dr Kit Yates, a mathematical biologist at the University of Bath, said: “We now know 43,000 people are believed to have been given false negatives, but this doesn’t even come near to the cost of the mistake. Many of these people will have been forced into school or work, potentially infecting others. This could be part of the reason behind some of the recent rises we’ve seen.

The Guardian article also says:

NHS test and trace has suspended testing operations provided by Immensa Health Clinic Ltd at its laboratory in Wolverhampton following an investigation into reports of people receiving negative PCR test results after they have previously tested positive on a lateral flow device (LFD).

If this is accurate, the issue isn’t just with mistakes being made by this laboratory – the issue is also that we are not trusting the lateral flow tests when they give a positive result, when we absolutely should be. People should not be forced into school or work if they had a positive lateral flow test result, regardless of whether they also have a negative PCR result. If you have a positive lateral flow test result, you are incredibly likely to have Covid.

The big problem is that there is a significant amount of confusion – understandable confusion, but confusion nonetheless. That’s precisely why we need reliable policy and good communication on how to handle things.

My advice

Lateral flow tests miss Covid cases, so if you have symptoms or you believe you might have been exposed to Covid, you should get a PCR test and do repeated lateral flow tests. PCR tests also miss Covid cases, so take any positive result as proof you have Covid, and don’t take any negative results as gospel. Even if you’ve had a negative PCR test, and lateral flow tests over multiple days that are also all negative, but you have symptoms – be extra cautious. Keep an extra bit of distance from people, avoid meeting anyone vulnerable, and be extra vigilant about mask wearing, ventilation and hand washing. Let the people you have plans with know ahead of time that you have symptoms and you’ve taken these steps to check if it’s Covid, and then give them the opportunity to withdraw from those plans if they choose to.

And if you don’t have symptoms but you’re out and about in the world? Keep wearing your mask indoors, keep social distancing where you can, think about ventilation and the number of people in the size of the room you’re in. And take those lateral flow tests every few days. But remember a negative test result doesn’t mean you definitely don’t have Covid.

After three decades, why do the public still see GMOs as controversial?

Elissar Gerges
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After three decades, why do the public still see GMOs as controversial?

The safety of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) is supported by international and governmental organisations such as the World Health Organization, European Commission, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Health Canada. Research studies on GMOs have not found compelling evidence to demonstrate that genetically modified food is less safe than traditional food or that it poses risks to our health or the environment. Yet, for large sections of the public, GMO foods remain steeped in unwarranted controversy.

Since their commercial introduction in the 1990s, GMOs have been one of the most debated issues in public discussions on food safety, production, and the environment. Those debates have often been initiated by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other third-party special interest groups who have actively created campaigns and media propaganda aimed at associating GMOs with multiple hazards.

These campaigns essentially make three main arguments against GMOs:

  1. GMOs are not safe for human consumption and are harmful to the environment.
  2. GMOs serve the economic interests of large corporations at the expense of consumer wellbeing.
  3. GMO research is inconclusive with regards to the long-term effects of GMOs on human health and the environment.

Contrary to those arguments, an overwhelming body of high-quality research shows that GMOs do not pose an additional risk to health or the environment when compared with traditional food technologies. In 2010, the European Union’s Research and Innovation Directorate released a lengthy report finding that the conclusion of “the efforts of more than 130 research projects, covering a period of more than 25 years of research, and involving more than 500 independent research groups, is that biotechnology, and in particular GMOs, are not per se more risky than e.g. conventional plant breeding technologies” (p. 16).

Another report by The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (2016), states that “no differences have been found that implicate a higher risk to human health safety from these GE foods than from their non-GE counterparts” (p. 10) after a detailed examination of comparisons between genetically engineered (GE) and non-genetically engineered (non-GE) foods. The report also highlights that the public lacks access to health and safety data, which generates distrust in science.

Misinformation, fear of the unknown, lack of access to credible information, confirmation bias when weighing evidence, and lack of perceived benefits are all factors that trigger people’s resistance to change. Concerns mostly arise from a lack of knowledge in the fields of genetics, biotechnology, and genetic modification. This lack of scientific knowledge creates fear, and makes people more vulnerable to believing in misconceptions about GMOs and other food production techniques, which breeds distrust in scientists and the motives of government bodies. Additionally, the agri-business companies that have supported GMOs have created suspicion of the commercial motives and the market power of the leaders of such companies.

Governments of different countries have responded to the controversy and the uncertainty around GMOs by introducing regulations regarding food labeling, in an attempt to preserve the consumer’s “right to know”. Many countries have enforced mandatory GMO labeling and voluntary non-GMO labeling standards. The NON-GMO Project monarch butterfly logo, prominently placed at the front of thousands of products, has created a fast-growing market. As a result, many consumers are more likely to choose a product that is labeled as non-GMO, even on foods where a genetically modified alternative does not even exist – such as salt, lettuce, or oranges. The non-GMO movement depends on fear-based activism and preys on people’s need to feel safe and in control of their choices, including food choices. Selling fear is a highly profitable marketing strategy.

A large red tomato

NGOs, using different media outlets, have emphasized dubious claims about the risks of GMOs without providing credible evidence to support their statements. The non-GMO campaigns have focused on the ‘natural’ and ‘moral’ aspects, diverting the discussion away from presenting a balanced account of the benefits and risks of biotechnology. Opponents argue that GMOs should be banned no matter their value or risk. For them, biotechnology seems to violate some basic moral principles; thus, it is rejected and deemed unacceptable, unnatural, and commonly labeled as “Frankenfoods”. The naturalistic logical fallacy takes over, as consumers believe that if something is ‘natural’, it must be good. Whether a substance is natural, modified, or synthetic has no bearing on its safety or ability to cause harm.

The public debate regarding the risks of GMOs has also been partially affected by how the media frames the issue thus influencing the public’s perceptions about the subject matter. While public debate on scientific issues can help people make more informed choices, the problem with the GMO debate is that it contradicts what appears to be a consensus in science regarding the safety of GM crops. Organisations such as Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, and the NON-GMO Project have fueled public mistrust of the risks of GM food by presenting GMOs as a controversial issue when, in fact, there is no legitimate scientific controversy. In an attempt to present a balanced, unbiased approach to news around GMOs, media outlets create a false dichotomy around GMOs. By adhering to the journalistic norm of balanced reporting, the media has supported the Nirvana fallacy that anti-GMO activists often employ. These factors have created a breeding ground for GMO skepticism, with a tendency to oppose GMOs until ‘the debate’ is resolved.

Although several publications have been retracted, the discourse mainly focuses on the argument that the health hazards of GMOs are not yet known. Anti-GMO groups demand long-term studies. But how long is long enough? While the vast number of research articles give reassurances as to the safety of GMOs, a small number of studies claim to show undesired differences between conventional crops and genetically modified crops. However, what matters is considering the whole body of evidence when drawing conclusions on GMO safety.

The non-GMO movement creates the impression that it represents reliable knowledge, while it denies evidence of a vast volume of research studies that have demonstrated the safety of GMOs. One common strategy is cherry-picking. Instead of evaluating the whole body of evidence before making a scientific judgment, data is cherry-picked and presented out of context to support an already determined conclusion. The movement ignores the broad body of research and draws on isolated and even methodologically flawed papers to refute consensus on the safety of GMOs.

Many research studies have provided empirical evidence that GMOs do not pose a health risk. The burden of proof now falls on the proponents of non-GMO products and opponents of GMO technology to provide evidence that these products pose a threat to our health and environment. Science does not prove that GMOs are safe for consumption. Science provides evidence that there is no significant risk.

For consumers to adopt GMOs and embrace the innovative nature of biotechnology, trust and confidence in the advances and applications of science must be established, because consumers’ fears determine their choices. Experiencing an accelerating scientific change in various areas of life might be challenging for an average consumer to accept, making it easier to succumb to heuristics or emotions to avoid the need to understand complex scientific messages. An improvement in science communication could also have a significant impact on the future of genetically modified crops and on creating an informed public perception. Skepticism in science (and GMOs) is encouraged when warranted, because science develops by being challenged, peer-reviewed, and debated.

Obituary: Lewis Jones – magician, writer, teacher, and skeptic

Mike Hutchinson
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Obituary: Lewis Jones – magician, writer, teacher, and skeptic
Lewis Jones - an older white man with a bald head and a short white beard and moustache. He is smiling at the camera.

Lewis Jones died on 9th September 2021. He would have been 97 in November. He will be best known by skeptics for writing around eighty articles for Skeptical Briefs under his column “Inklings”. 

I first met Lewis in 1980 when I represented Prometheus Books in Europe. Lewis telephoned me to order “The Psychology of the Psychic” and “ESP and Parapsychology”. In our long conversation it transpired that we had much in common, not only as skeptics but also an interest in magic. Lewis has been a prolific inventor of magic and has had many books published with his clever tricks. These include “Encyclopedia of Impromptu Card Forces”, “Ahead of the Pack”, and “Seventh Heaven”, the latter being a collection of the best effects of his first seven books. Now out of print, Seventh Heaven is still in great demand by magicians. His effects included cards, coins, business cards, and calendars. See lewisjonesmagic.co.uk for plaudits given to Lewis by magicians. Before he died Lewis had arranged for many of his books to be re-published by an American company. An announcement about this will be posted to Lewis’s website in November.

In Paul Daniels’ BBC magic show broadcast on 22nd February 1992 Paul and Debbie McGee presented a mind reading effect which Lewis had published in “Person to Person: a Book of Telephone Telepathy”. It was only when watching the show that he knew his effect was being used. Lewis’s effect “Pattern Principle” formed part of the effect that Rick Lax used to fool Penn and Teller.

Lewis had an interesting and successful life. He studied Modern Languages at Cambridge University. For a short time he was a teacher at Summerhill School which describes itself as “…the oldest children’s democracy in the world. It is probably the most famous alternative or ‘free’ school.”

After leaving Cambridge he immediately began writing radio drama and short stories for the BBC. He then spent 10 years in Singapore as a presenter, producer and news reader for national radio, and is now an honorary member of Singapore’s IBM Ring 115 – the Great Wong Ring. He was eventually thrown out of Singapore for interviewing someone disapproved of by the first Prime Minister, Lee Kwan Yew.

The good thing about his stay in Singapore is that he met his delightful wife Sush Devi who came to England with him and played lead violin for the English National Opera. Lewis too was a musician, playing piano. He arranged a selection of Beatles’ songs and other works for Sush’s string quartet which they played at many venues, including the Purcell Room on London’s South Bank.

Settling in London, Lewis initially wrote schools radio scripts for the BBC, but later became an editor for both Longman and Collins publishers.

Lewis is survived by Sush, his daughter Lynne, son Dale, three grandsons, and seven great-grandchildren.

The Ockham Awards 2021: honouring the best in skepticism, and the worst in pseudoscience

Michael Marshall
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The Ockham Awards 2021: honouring the best in skepticism, and the worst in pseudoscience

Since 2012, The Skeptic has had the pleasure of awarding the Ockham Awards – our annual awards celebrating the very best work from within the skeptical community. The awards were founded because we wanted to draw attention to those people who work hard to get a great message out. The Ockhams recognise the effort and time that have gone into the community’s favourite campaigns, activism, blogs, podcasts, and outstanding contributors to the skeptical cause.

Nominations for the 2021 Ockham Awards are now closed – winners will be announced on Thursday 9th December, at 7pm UK time, during the Skeptics in the Pub Online event.

Two Ockhams

Last year’s Ockham winner was Dr Natália Pasternak, from the Instituto Questão de Ciência, for her excellent work combating Covid misinformation in Brazil. Natália, a regular contributor to The Skeptic since its relaunch, has been inspirational in reaching the public with clear, evidence-based information in response to health pseudoscience, including giving expert testimony to the Brazilian Senate.

Alongside Dr Pasternak, a special Editors’ Choice award was given to the Skeptics in the Pub Online team, celebrating the work that representatives from dozens of skeptical groups across the UK – and beyond – in producing regular, high-quality online skeptical talks and events throughout the pandemic.

Other past Ockham winners include Professor Edzard Ernst, the European Skeptics Podcast, Say WHY To Drugs podcast, Britt Hermes, the Edinburgh Skeptics’ annual Skeptics on the Fringe event, and more.  

Rusty Razor

While we recognise the best in skepticism, our awards are also an opportunity to highlight the danger posed by promoters of pseudoscience with our Rusty Razor award. The Rusty Razor is designed to spotlight individuals or organisations who have been prominent promoters of unscientific ideas within the last year.

Last year’s Rusty Razor recipient proved a popular choice – the announcement that the award had gone to Dr Didier Raoult quickly became the most-read article on The Skeptic‘s site. Dr Raoult received the award for his continual promotion of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, including publishing a study that was littered with fatal methodological flaws. Dr Raoult’s study, despite its small sample size and lack of proper controls, was hugely influential in the push to encourage COVID-19 patients to put their faith in the drug, leading to Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Donald Trump in the US publicly endorsing and recommending people turn to hydroxychloroquine.

Other previous Rusty Razor recipients have included Andrew Wakefield for his ongoing promotion of anti-vaxx misinformation, and Gwyneth Paltrow for her pseudoscience-peddling wellness empire, Goop. 

One of the most important elements of our awards are that the nominations come from you – the skeptical community. We’d like you to tell us who you think deserves to receive the Skeptic of the Year award, and who deserves to receive the Rusty Razor. 

Nominations are now closed. Winners will be chosen by our editorial board from the nominations we receive, and they will be announced at Skeptics in the Pub Online on December 9th.

Those who define as ‘post-tribal’ forget that we all have communities – and biases

Aaron Rabinowitz
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Those who define as ‘post-tribal’ forget that we all have communities – and biases

There’s an identity-based community that has gained significant traction amongst a certain segment of online humans; a rather ironic identity that should be approached with skepticism. The core of this community identity is a feeling of social homelessness, of not holding allegiance to a community. A radically free individual. In the age of culture wars, this post-tribal identity is understandable for folks who want to reject what they see as an increase in puritanical identity politics. Nevertheless, I worry that the post-tribal identity can actually put people at higher risk of misinformation and socially pressured reasoning.

First, I want to address concerns about the term “post-tribal”. Critics have complained that the use of “tribe” in things like promotional business materials is inappropriate and could be considered offensive to indigenous peoples, because the term evokes ideas of savages stuck in the past. While I agree with these concerns, in this particular context I think they highlight why “post-tribal” is the right term to describe this identity. The modern post-tribal identity is, though not consciously for many adherents, an extension of the sort of 18th and 19th century enlightenment/early modern rationalism that consciously defined itself in contrast with the indigenous tribes that colonialists were “discovering” and exploiting during that period. From this colonial perspective, tribal communities are seen as morally and psychologically regressive, unable to grow beyond their in-group biases.

This is, of course, a terrible picture of actual tribal culture, and the attempted contrast ignores the pathological in-group racial biases that underwrote colonialism. That history needs to be emphasised while using this terminology, but I do believe the moniker captures the mindset better than “post-community” or “post-identity”. Many post-tribal individuals will likely concede they still have a community and an identity, they simply believe they either aren’t constrained by it in the way they think other people are, or that they are on a path towards liberation where others aren’t.

I genuinely understand the impulse to seek independence in this way. More and more, we’re all made painfully aware of our biases and epistemic limitations. As fields of human knowledge and content grow exponentially, the rising expectations for social and cultural literacy can feel overwhelming. Add in our highly polarised and toxic political climate, and it makes sense that many people feel compelled to aspire to greater independence.

That said, I find it implausible that post-tribal identities consistently correlate with an actual increase in social independence. There’s the basic reality that humans are heavily hardwired prosocial creatures, we form in-groups on the thinnest of pretexts and depend heavily on those groups for our mental wellbeing. While it is possible to marginally reduce in-group biases, they are generally resistant to change and there’s no evidence I’m aware of that they can be removed completely. In my experience, those expressing post-tribal identities tend to be part of a fairly well demarcated in-group. Without getting too far into the weeds of group dynamics, the post-tribal community that I frequently engage with seems to be centered around a group of commentators who’s unifying feature is the prioritising of woke overreach as the key issue in need of near constant vigilance. A major nexus in this community is the Intellectual Dark Web and the various communities that overlap with the IDW, such as the anti-woke contingent of movement atheism and the anti-woke contingent of the modern rationalist movement.

Anyone who spends time regularly interacting with self-identified post-tribal individuals online will quickly notice the content patterns, and social media recommendation algorithms have no trouble delineating the rough boundaries of these communities. As if to help me drive home this point, Bari Weiss and others have just announced the formation of what amounts to Galileo University. A place for fearless truth tellers to learn the skills they’ll need to succeed in the culture war job market:

Our project began with a small gathering of those concerned about the state of higher education—Niall Ferguson, Bari Weiss, Heather Heying, Joe Lonsdale, Arthur Brooks, and I—and we have since been joined by many others, including the brave professors mentioned above, Kathleen Stock, Dorian Abbot and Peter Boghossian.

We expect to face significant resistance to this project. There are networks of donors, foundations, and activists that uphold and promote the status quo. There are parents who expect the status quo. There are students who demand it, along with even greater restrictions on academic freedom. And there are administrators and professors who will feel threatened by any disruption to the system.

We welcome their opprobrium and will regard it as vindication.

To the rest—to those of you who share our sense that something fundamental is broken—we ask that you join us in our effort to renew higher education. We welcome all who share our mission to pursue a truly liberating education—and hope that other founders follow our example.

It is time to restore the meaning to those old school mottos. Light. Truth. The wind of freedom. You will find all three at our new university in Austin. 

One of the paragons of the post-tribal identity is Sam Harris, the New Atheist author, former card carrying IDWer, and host of the Making Sense podcast. ‘Sensemaking’ itself is a popular piece of jargon amongst the post-tribal. It signals a commitment to seek the truth through reason, often in the face of perceived social pressure to keep quiet. Harris’s post-tribal identity appears to have crystalized around pushback he received for claims about Islam and racial profiling that some believed went beyond mere atheism and crossed into islamophobia. The influence of Harris’s anti-woke post-tribal identity is evident in his treatment of Charles Murray, a libertarian writer who has also received significant criticism from folks on the left, as well as other scientists, for his views on race, IQ, and achievement. On episode 73 of Making Sense, entitled “Forbidden Knowledge”, Harris presents Murray as an unbiased researcher with views that would be uncontroversial, if not for wokeness run amok. When Ezra Klein challenged Harris on this post-tribal identity framing of Murray’s work and on Harris’s unwillingness to consider Murray’s work in the larger political context of libertarian attempts to dismantle the social safety net by arguing that racial gaps are the result of unchangeable genetic differences, Harris doubled down on the claim that he doesn’t have a blind spot for anti-woke fellow travelers. On a recent episode of Decoding the Guru’s podcast, Harris further maintained that he cannot fathom how anyone would see him as belonging to a community that constrains how he sees the world. At this point, it seems unlikely that Harris will ever acknowledge the legitimacy of these critiques or reflect on how much his identity continues to be shaped by his community of anti-woke post-tribal sense-makers. This behavior has downstream implications for the many people who admire Harris and seek to emulate his post-tribal approach.

In my experience, everyone is a member of many overlapping communities that constrain and shape our identities and behavior in ways we can’t even begin to be conscious of, much less control. Maybe if a person truly cut themselves off from everyone else they could achieve some fleeting sense of genuine independence, but nobody who spends significant amounts of time around other people, especially online, can be in any real sense post-tribal. I can easily list off my many community commitments, and I encourage readers to do the same. Just in terms of politics, I’m a devoted member of the community of progressives who are skeptical of right-wing moral panics about social justice. I accept being called “woke” and “socialist”, but I’m also frequently and correctly labeled a “liberal”. I’ve also been spending increasing amounts of time interacting with “get a grip” centrists. While I’m not a member, I try to venture as far as I can into communities who identify as right of center, but who recognize that the larger threat to our society is currently emanating from the right. I could go on across a wide range of social fields, but you get the point.

There are real implications for these community commitments. Within my communities there are experts that I trust, which means, unless there’s a glaring red flag, I’m more likely to take onboard their claims with minimal examination. This goes for straightforward factual claims, but also for some ethical considerations. If the right people told me I don’t know what I’m talking about on a given issue and I need to stop talking until I better understand, because my errors are hurting people, I would stop. I think that’s epistemically healthy, because the alternative that I see in post-tribal communities are people having real trouble assessing who to trust, and so ending up succumbing to a mix of particularly charismatic gurus and perpetual fence-sitting on serious issues.

For some folks in the post-tribal community, especially amongst the more prominent figures, this identity is something of a humblebrag. It’s often presented as a lament, where the person is sad that they were either abandoned by their former community or had to leave it for ideological reasons, but they’re thankful to be free of those social pressures and able to better access the truth. This sense of intellectual achievement is likely part of the lure of the post-tribal identity for individuals struggling to find meaning in the modern world. That, combined with the earnest aspiration to reduce one’s biases, is a powerful mix. Unfortunately, it leaves community members wanting for something that may not actually be possible or desirable. A post-tribal world.

The death of John Lawler raises serious questions about the regulation of chiropractors

Michael Marshall
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The death of John Lawler raises serious questions about the regulation of chiropractors

On the 11th of August, 2017, a 79 year old man visited a chiropractor, complaining of a stiff neck and aches in his legs. It wasn’t John Lawler’s first visit to Chiropractic 1st in York – he’d had previous consultations there, and had informed his chiropractor, Arlene Scholten, of his surgical history, including a serious procedure to treat spinal stenosis, involving metal rods being inserted into his spine.

Ms Scholten told Mr Lawler that his symptoms were caused at least in part by a vertebral subluxation complex – a pseudoscientific diagnosis which lies at the heart of chiropractic theory, even as the statutory regulator of chiropractic, the General Chiropractic Council, makes it clear that there is no place for subluxation theory in modern chiropractic care and that chiropractors should not make claims to their patients about subluxations.

During the session, as Ms Scholten performed a chiropractic intervention via a drop table (a chiropractic device a patient is told to lie on, which allows for segments of a table to lower independently while pressure is applied to their body), Mr Lawler complained that he had lost all feeling in his arms. Responding to his distress, Ms Scholten moved him, attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation (despite Mr Lawler being conscious and breathing), and phoned for an ambulance. During the call, Ms Scholten told the emergency services that she hadn’t given Mr Lawler any manual adjustments, leaving the paramedics with the impression that he had suffered a stroke – a known risk factor of chiropractic manipulation. In actuality, Ms Scholten had missed or misdiagnosed Mr Lawler’s condition, which was ankylosis or hyperostosis, which had left his spine delicate. As a result, during his treatment Mr Lawler had suffered a fractured neck, and having been given inappropriate emergency care, he died in hospital the next day.

Chiropractic 'drop table' - segments of the table can drop independently, causing a chiropractic adjustment
Chiropractic ‘drop table’ – segments of the table can drop independently, causing a chiropractic adjustment

According to a 2019 inquest, had Mr Lawler been treated as a trauma patient rather than a potential stroke patient, he would have survived. Instead, despite his fracture he had been moved by Ms Scholten into a sitting position, his neck repositioned during the misguided attempts to perform mouth-to-mouth, and as the paramedics were given misleading information about the events leading up to his injury, they were unable to properly triage the cause of his distress. On multiple occasions, Ms Scholten told the emergency call handler and the paramedics that she had not performed any manual adjustments on Mr Lawler and failed to mention the drop table intervention; the medical professionals were not aware that Ms Scholten was using a definition of “manual adjustment” that did not preclude the use of a device such as a drop table. Ms Scholten also told the paramedics, on multiple occasions, that she had been attending to Mr Lawler’s mid-back when he first started to complain of a loss of feeling – she later accepted that this was not true, and that she had misled the paramedics.

Unsurprisingly, this case became the subject of a fitness to practice hearing, and Ms Scholten’s conduct was examined. She was found to have misled the call handlers, and she was found to have misled the paramedics. The misleading reports she gave to the medical professionals directly contributed to their inability to give Mr Lawler the care that, according to the inquest, would have saved his life.

At the outcome of the hearing, Ms Scholten was cleared of unacceptable professional conduct, and it was ruled that her actions had not fallen short of the standard required of a registered chiropractor. As the Daily Mail reported, she was “free to carry on working” – indeed, there is nothing in the ruling to prevent Ms Scholten treating other elderly patients with degenerative spinal conditions.

The decision to clear Ms Scholten of unprofessional conduct was met with some understandable astonishment and outrage – after all, the harms of chiropractic don’t get any starker than the death of a patient as a result of chiropractic treatment. The outcome of the case is available to read in full, and a close reading of it reveals significant flaws that may shed some light on why further action wasn’t taken by the Professional Conduct Committee – the independent body who evaluates fitness to practice cases brought by the General Chiropractic Council.

Causation not considered

Firstly, and perhaps most crucially, while it was accepted that Mr Lawler’s death was due to “a fracture of his cervical spine (a broken neck) and catastrophic damage to his spinal cord”, what caused Mr Lawler’s fracture was never the subject of the hearing. Instead, the charges put to Ms Scholten were that she performed treatment on Mr Lawler, that he expressed discomfort during the treatment, and that she gave inaccurate and misleading reports to the call handlers, the paramedics, and in her subsequent patient records.

Essentially, the Professional Conduct Committee concerned itself with Ms Scholten’s conduct after Mr Lawler died – yet Mr Lawler’s neck fracture has to have been linked to the treatment he received in Ms Scholten’s clinic, unless anyone intends to argue that it was purely coincidental. Had Mr Lawler not visited Ms Scholten for treatment on August 11th, he would likely not have died on that day. Without looking at the cause of Mr Lawler’s fracture – and, by extent, considering that chiropractic manipulation is actively contraindicated for his condition because of the risks it posed to his weakened spine – any assessment of the responsibility of the chiropractor in question must be flawed.

At no point in the proceedings was it considered that chiropractic treatment is neither an effective nor safe treatment for the spinal condition the patient had, even though Ms Scholten had been made aware of the patient’s condition and prior medical treatment. And as such, it is unclear (because the PCC did not consider) to what degree Ms Scholten was aware of or understood the condition of the patient’s neck and spine, and the vulnerability of it, before she adjusted his spine via her drop table. These seem like fundamental questions to address, if the goal is to protect the public from misleading and potentially harmful healthcare interventions.

It is important to note that it is entirely possible to argue that Ms Scholten’s treatment caused Mr Lawler’s fracture without needing to prove that this outcome was intentional; a chiropractor could be entirely persuaded that their treatments are safe and effective, while being sincerely but fatally wrong on both counts.

Misleading the emergency responders

On a similar note, the committee found that while Ms Scholten repeatedly misled the medical teams aiming to give Mr Lawler emergency care, this did not amount to unprofessional conduct, because they could not prove that she deliberately and intentionally misled them – even though the outcome of her misleading statements was that her patient did not get the trauma care they needed, and subsequently died. According to Ms Scholten’s legal team, her misleading statements were due to a temporary dissociative amnesia brought on by an acute stress reaction to the situation.

It was not considered at any point by the PCC that, had Ms Scholten told the 999 team or the paramedics what her treatment had involved, he would likely have been treated for a spinal injury and (according to the inquest) would likely not have died on that day. This, again, sets the bar for unprofessional conduct inappropriately high. Whether Ms Scholten misled defensively and deliberately, or due to an acute stress response, or for any other entirely innocent reason, is irrelevant; you don’t have to intend to cause harm in order for cause and be responsible for causing harm.

A complaints procedure focused on protecting the public from harm has to be able to take this into account, because a complaints procedure that can only take action in cases of deliberate and intentional harm is too narrow to be of any real use in protecting the public.

Inappropriately expert witnesses

There were other concerning aspects of the hearing, too. For example, the only expert witnesses called in to assess whether what Ms Scholten did was safe and standard care were chiropractors. This is particularly problematic, given that the Professional Conduct Committee – which is independent from the General Chiropractic Council – consists of a mix of lay members and chiropractors. In this case, as in other cases where the conduct and misleading health claims of chiropractors is concerned, it was down to chiropractors to explain to a panel largely consisting of other chiropractors whether the chiropractor’s conduct was reasonable or not.

Quite aside from any potential conflict of interest or desire to defend the chiropractic profession, witnesses whose only expertise is in chiropractic practice are likely to suffer from gaps in understanding regarding the safety, efficacy and limitations of chiropractic care, and are unlikely to have the same depth of medical knowledge of qualified medical experts who specialise in a relevant field.

The case of Mr Lawler demonstrates the folly of this approach, given that chiropractic is not an effective treatment for the condition Mr Lawler had – in fact, it is likely to be contraindicated due to the risk it poses to a weakened spine. Whether Mr Lawler’s treatment was carried out to the satisfaction of a chiropractor is not the point – in this case, the treatment was unnecessary, ineffective, and caused the fracture of a patient’s spine, which then led to his death. However, because the expert witnesses were not medical experts, let alone specialists with expert knowledge of spinal care, the decision gave undue weight to an inappropriate level of expertise. For example:

130.  It is important to emphasise that this is not a case about causation. Both experts, Mr Brown and Mr Young, agree that a fractured neck was an entirely unforeseeable consequence of the treatment being provided by Mrs Scholten.

Had the committee called as experts spinal specialists with a medical background in the condition Mr Lawler had, they may perhaps have arrived at a different conclusion as to the likely causal link between the use of a drop table and the patient’s fractured neck, and how foreseeable a consequence the fracture was. In this case, it appears to have been a critical point in clearing Ms Scholten, as the written decision makes clear:

133.  The Committee considered it possible that on some sub-conscious level there may have been an element of self-preservation due to a misconceived fear that she had somehow been responsible for Patient A’s deteriorating condition, even if there was no foreseeable reason why that might be so. [my emphasis]

Is it fair to describe it a “misconceived fear” that a drop table adjustment to a patient’s weakened spine caused a fracture in the patient’s spine? And were there any foreseeable reasons why a drop table adjustment might have been responsible for the patient’s distress? These, I would argue, are questions for a healthcare practitioner who is sufficiently qualified and expert in the condition Mr Lawler had. Yet the value placed on the testimony from the two chiropractors called as experts seems to have been key:

143.  …The Committee, therefore, agreed with the GCC’s expert witness Mr Brown and did not think Mrs Scholten’s conduct fell far short of the standard required of a registered chiropractor.

This case is a clear example of the problems inherent in judging the appropriateness and safety of chiropractic manipulation based on the opinions of witnesses who are part of the chiropractic profession. Ultimately, when it comes to properly protecting the public, the issue at stake is not whether Ms Scholten carried out chiropractic treatment to the satisfaction of other chiropractors, but whether that treatment was appropriate, safe and effective.

This lack of consideration of medical expertise is an issue elsewhere in the decision, when commending Ms Scholten for taking actions to try to aid Mr Lawler once she had acknowledged his distress:

138. In the Committee’s view, Mrs Scholten did take some appropriate action in relation to Patient A, such as calling for an ambulance and providing resuscitation.

The Professional Conduct Committee considers it to Ms Scholten’s credit that she performed resuscitation on Mr Lawler – despite the fact that he was conscious, breathing and had suffered a trauma to his neck. As was made clear at the inquest, if Mr Lawler had been treated as a trauma patient, and thus kept in place until his neck could be properly secured, he may not have died that day. Sitting Mr Lawler up to administer mouth to mouth, while undoubtedly done with the best of intentions, was inappropriate, and it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that it contributed to his paralysis and death. A properly trained healthcare professional would have recognised this.

Patient testimonies and character references

Elsewhere, the Committee accepted as evidence from Ms Scholten a tranche of personal statements and customer testimonies in order to demonstrate that while she did indeed mislead the healthcare professionals over Mr Lawler’s condition, she didn’t do it deliberately. The relevance of these customer testimonials ought to have been marginal – at best, they could evidence that she’d never been known to deceive paramedics in the past. Had the Committee considered the broader question of what role Ms Scholten had in the fate of the patient who died from trauma sustained during her treatment, such testimonies would have had minimal relevance. However, it seems like the character references had a serious impact:

71.  When considering Mrs Scholten’s credibility and reliability as a witness the Committee took into account her good character and the many references and testimonials attesting to her skill as a chiropractor and her honest character. Indeed, the Committee had never before encountered such an impressive collection of character evidence, which it considered particularly noteworthy. Their authors spoke of Mrs Scholten’s high values and ideals, of her professionalism, of the gentle way in which she treats patients and about how kind and caring she is. They spoke of her integrity both as a chiropractor and as an individual.

It’s important to make clear that nothing written here is aimed at casting doubt on Ms Scholten’s integrity, because her integrity is simply not the point: from the evidence submitted to the hearing and the evidence found at inquest, Ms Scholten performed a drop table adjustment on a patient with a vulnerable spine; a contraindicated treatment that was not evidence based, had no hope of being effective, and was administered to relieve a “vertebral subluxation complex” that did not exist. The treatment caused a fracture in his spine, which led to his death. She was then found by the PCC to have given (even if unintentionally) misleading information to the 999 call handler and paramedics, which resulted in the patient failing to get the necessary trauma care that might have saved their lives. Whether Ms Scholten sincerely believed he had a vertebral subluxation, and wholeheartedly believed the drop table would ameliorate his symptoms, and whether she misled the paramedics with upmost integrity is entirely beside the point; chiropractic is not effective, was not safe, and led to the death of Mr John Lawler.

That all of this fell below the level of unprofessional conduct raises the question of how high a bar the PCC has set before a chiropractor can be found to have endangered the public. A bar set this highly clearly seems to be a problem – if the General Chiropractic Council have to prove not only that one of their registrants gave dangerously misleading information, but also that they did so knowingly and intentionally, then its ability to protect the public from harmful practices is seriously diminished.

As with all fitness to practice decisions made by registered healthcare bodies, the Professional Standards Authority has the powers to review this decision, and potentially challenge the findings – if they do so, we may see the case revisited. Given the apparent flaws in this decision, with its limited scope, its inappropriate expert witnesses, and its seeming requirement for malicious intent, I sincerely hope it does get reviewed. Ultimately, the goal has to be to prevent another patient from suffering the same fate as John Lawler.

The Lacerta Files and its reptilian hybrids show the persistence of appealing myths

Mark Horne
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The Lacerta Files and its reptilian hybrids show the persistence of appealing myths

Ideas about the existence of a hidden species of reptilian humanoids – either from outer space or from a time before humans – are commonplace in conspiracy theorist circles, in myths and legends, and in modern fantasy and science fiction. If I were to ask you to think about a secret race of reptiles who secretly either visit or are inhabiting the earth, you’d probably be thinking either about David Icke and his shape-shifting reptilian Illuminati overlords (many of whom are Jews, though Icke insists he isn’t antisemitic), or the underground Silurians from Doctor Who. 

The David Icke variety of reptilians has been well-covered in The Skeptic and elsewhere, but the supposed existence of a Silurian-style hidden race of reptilians also has a surprising persistence, especially when combined with ancient aliens theories, as exemplified in the conspiracy theorist canon by The Lacerta Files.

The Lacerta Files are condensed transcripts of two supposed interviews with a reptilian humanoid known as “Lacerta”, apparently conducted by a Swedish “skeptic” with the pseudonym Ole K. The story of how this interview happened and came to be public knowledge is impossible to properly substantiate, but goes something like this:

A friend of Ole K took him to his house to meet a reptilian woman, Lacerta, that he’d been in contact with, for an interview in December 1999, and then again in April 2000. Although not permitted to take pictures he was able to record the audio but – surprise! – there are no audio copies available, nor any full transcripts. Ole K says he was forced to edit the transcript to Lacerta’s specifications, and then shared this with friends to be translated into other languages. German UFO webzine editor Christian Pfeiler was sent a copy, which he translated into English and sent to his contact list, in which form it appeared in 2002 on Russian website Pravda. It is worth noting that at the time Christian said: 

My personal opinion (after translating this weird text for nearly one week) is that the text is a really good science-fiction story but never the truth or reality. The answers and questions are always more or less logical, but I think the whole message is too unbelievable to be true (especially the scientific things) and in my opinion, the “being” tries too often to avoid the answering of too difficult questions because the author of the whole text was not able to know an answer.

The story took off from there, with part two translated by Doug Parrish, and the whole thing finding its way across the internet, in particular via Luis Prada’s New Age Brother Veritus website, and Rico Kolodzey’s sabon.org (which in its current incarnation has metamorphosed into a rather unpleasant hard-line Christian website). 

Copper wire

What does the interview actually say? The supposed interviewee, Lacerta, describes herself – no photos allowed, of course – and apparently she resembles humans to the extent that she has breasts, hair on her head and full lips. Talk about convergent evolution! She says that her species has been around in its current form for 30 million years, descendants of dinosaurs that survived a total war between aliens that happened to take place on Earth some 65 million years ago. The cause of the war? Copper. She says that these intergalactic travellers need copper so much that they will have a massive war over securing the Earth’s share of it. Why they choose to have a war of near-annihilation over copper deposits is not explained, and particularly curious given that the element  is almost exactly as abundant in the wider universe as it is on Earth. 

This isn’t the first or last nonsensical aspect of the transcript, from mistaking Procyon for a constellation rather than a star, to completely misunderstanding how evolution works. 

Lacerta goes on to say that a further set of aliens genetically engineered humanity’s ancestors, that as a result the reptilians now mostly live in underground cave systems, but can walk on the surface by using mind control to pass as humans. (Hence: no photos allowed – which doesn’t explain how these reptilians would manage to operate in 2021, a world with more cameras than people). There’s a lot more besides, from the sources of UFOs – some are reptilian, some are secret government vehicles, and some are actual aliens – to paranormal abilities, which Lacerta says we humans could manage, too, if we weren’t “blocked”.

Twenty years later, the Lacerta interview is going stronger than it was 15 years ago. Although nowhere near as well-known as Icke’s Jewish reptilian overlords conspiracy, it has inspired artworks, YouTube videos, UFO board discussion threads and a lot of recent podcast episodes. 

This persistence is a little curious. Self-identified UFO believers dismiss it as a hoax – or in their words, “disinformation”. Podcast coverage also leans very skeptical. Original translator Pfeiler wrote about the Lacerta Files to his webzine readers back in 2000: “the “Lacerta File” is a simple hoax… don’t believe everything you can read published in the Internet and this includes the transcript itself.” Why, then, does it still attract interest?

My hunch is that the opacity of its provenance helps keep the air of mystery going, as it is surprisingly difficult to untangle this story’s origins from the relatively early days of the web. That it does not attempt to fabricate photos, audio or video may also help, as in an age of astonishing CGI and FX we are rightly weary and wary of such claims. 

Furthermore, the Lacerta Files link in with many other long-standing myths, from the serpent of Genesis, to Helena Blavatsky’s ideas about the lost continent of Lemuria (supposedly populated by serpent-men), and even more modern nonsense about ancient aliens interfering in human history. There’s also something for everyone’s unusual belief in here, whether you’re a believer in the paranormal and think that mind control and psychokinesis is real, you’re a fan of conspiracy theories and UFOs, or if you have an interest in cryptohistory. 

Finally, it is a fairly intricate tale, and Lacerta does have a consistently tetchy and condescending character, so it does feel like a fairly coherent read with a real individual, even where the science and facts don’t add up. We puny humans do love stories. 

Attempts to “bring back” the woolly mammoth distract us from vital conservationist goals

Sarah Hearne
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Attempts to “bring back” the woolly mammoth distract us from vital conservationist goals

The camera flies across a vast, barren, grassland. In the distance a group of woolly mammoths traipse across the landscape. As the camera gets closer we see the herd to be 30-40 strong, the giant tusks of the adults glinting in the low autumn sun. A calf runs playfully between their legs, its feet kicking up an early dusting of snow; trunk flailing wildly as if it still hasn’t quite learned how to control it.

This scene is one that hasn’t existed on earth in thousands of years, but it is one scientists are trying to recreate. This September the genetics company Colossal Biosciences announced that it has secured $15m in funding to create an elephant-mammoth hybrid with the aim of producing cold-resistant elephants that they say could help restore degraded habitats in the Arctic tundra, a vast area that once covered much of Eurasia.

You may notice that this description isn’t quite the same as the “bringing back the woolly mammoth” of news headlines. Colossal are using genetic engineering to create a new type of elephant that looks and maybe acts a bit like a woolly mammoth.

There are three pathways to resurrecting extinct species, and none of them will enable us to bring species already extinct “back from the dead”. Genetic engineering combines DNA from extinct species with that of living relatives to produce a hybrid that hopefully expresses more traits from the extinct species than the extant. Cloning, the only method that can truly bring back a genetic replica of an individual, requires living tissue, so is only useful for species that are going extinct, if we collect and store their tissue ahead of time. Back-breeding, the final pathway, uses selective breeding to pick out traits that match those of their ancient ancestors.

None of these methods can truly bring back species that are already extinct. The skies will never be filled again with giant flocks of passenger pigeons, the tundra will never echo with the call of woolly mammoths, and we will never have pet dodos. These animals are gone, we can and should mourn their loss, but we can never undo what has been done.

I could, and maybe should, leave things there. If we can’t actually bring species back from extinction, what more is to be said? But it seems that many people are perfectly happy at the thought of creating these facsimiles, coming up with all sorts of justifications for why we should. Do these justifications hold up to scrutiny? As someone with a background in ecology and an interest in evidence-based conservation, I don’t think they do.

These justifications can be summarised as necessity (there’s too much going extinct to save everything, this gives us a back-up plan); moral duty (we broke it, we fix it); ecological restoration (extinct species played a unique and vital role that cannot be recreated any other way); scientific and technological advances (even if it doesn’t work out we will learn a lot); and the “wow factor” (extinct animals are exciting and people want to see them). So let’s look at each of these in turn.

Necessity

The latest figures from the IUCN Red List show that we are in the midst of a biological catastrophe. Of the 2.1 million species so far described scientifically, only 7% have had their extinction risk assessed. But of those 138,374 species, over a quarter have been classified as “threatened” (either critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable).

These figures may sound like a powerful argument for increasing our efforts in de-extinction, particularly with the potential that cloning brings to species that are already in their final generations. However, as Bennett and colleagues argued,  diversion of limited resources to de-extinction efforts over those to protect threatened species could lead to a net species loss, even if those efforts were successful. Actively working on de-extinction projects feels akin to trying to relight your decorative candle while your house is on fire.

Moral Duty

This is, on the surface, a compelling argument, reminding us that we must face the consequences of our actions. But de-extinction feels like apologising without understanding what we’re apologising for.

Woolly mammoth skeleton in a museum

While extinction is a natural and necessary process, the extinction crisis we are experiencing today is unique in Earth’s history. This modern crisis has been caused not by geological activity or an asteroid impact but by the actions of a single species. Those actions have led to extraordinary changes in the chemical composition of our atmosphere, to changes in the types and extents of habitats with many experiencing huge reductions, and in changes to species composition of communities through introductions of flora and fauna as they have been transported around the globe. Many species have also experienced targeted extermination, being viewed either as a pest or a food source, or sometimes both.

Until we are willing to make the necessary changes to prevent and reverse this degradation of our planet, all de-extinction does is provide us another opportunity to drive these species to extinction.

Ecological Restoration

Ecological restoration is the primary reason given for many de-extinction projects. Colossal explain:

…if the Mammoth Steppe ecosystem could be revived, it could help in reversing the rapid warming of the climate and more pressingly, protect the arctic’s permafrost – one of the world’s largest carbon reservoirs.

To achieve this level of ecological modification you need a lot of mammoths. A small herd in Pleistocene Park won’t be enough, and as Dr Tori Herridge explained in her excellent Twitter thread on the announcement, achieving sufficient numbers would take decades with no guarantee of having any significant impact on the ecosystem.

The problem that is often missing in these discussions is that the habitats have changed significantly since these species were last alive. Mammoths are a species that lived during the Ice Age. Our planet has changed significantly since that time and there’s no guarantee that, even if we could create a simulacra of them, they would play the same role in their environment as they did historically. Even more recently-extinct species such as passenger pigeons rely on resources that simply don’t exist any more due to intentional habitat destruction. No amount of passenger pigeons are going to convert farmland back to forest.

Scientific and Technological Advances

As Aaron Rabinowitz so deftly argued in a recent article for The Skeptic, progress and scientific advancement is not as simple as “things get better”. For all the visible benefits there are often many hidden costs, and in the case of de-extinction the opportunity costs are significant.

Colossal proposes to use eggs from the endangered Asian elephant and use the endangered African elephant as surrogates. For every elephant being used to create an elephant-mammoth hybrid we lose the opportunity to increase the populations of these endangered species. The money and expertise being put into de-extinction efforts may well be better served elsewhere, and to assume that just because there will be advances does not prove that this path is the best way to make those advances.

The Wow Factor

This is, frankly, a terrible argument. And it betrays the fact that for all the talk of ecological restoration and righting wrongs, the real reason for bringing back species such as the woolly mammoth is that people would pay money to see them. These are, after all, commercial ventures, and they need to make a profit. That’s why we see projects trying to resurrect the passenger pigeon but not the Rocky Mountain locust. A paper by Douglas McCauley and colleagues worked out which species make good candidates for de-extinction on ecological grounds and found that neither the woolly mammoth nor the passenger pigeon met their criteria. Instead they proposed that focus should go to The Christmas Island pipistrelle bat (Pipistrellus murrayi), the Reunion giant tortoise (Cylindraspis indica) and the lesser stick-nest rat (Leporillus apicalis). But hardly anyone will pay money to see a rat, so it stays extinct.

Conclusions

I have barely scratched the surface of the problems facing de-extinction proponents. I can understand why de-extinction appeals to so many, but the arguments made by its supporters do not hold up to scrutiny. De-extinction is not an ecologically sound method of conservation. It ignores the real problems that our planet is currently facing – habitat destruction and climate change.

We have many amazing species going extinct before our eyes. If we truly think we have a moral duty to make amends for our actions, our priority must be on saving as many of these species as we can. Anything else is a distraction.

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