What occurs in this video and the diversity of reactions to it are both examples of confirmation bias, the brain’s tendency to pick up information that fits in with preconceptions and to throw away information that does not fit.

The helicopter pilots are trained to spot weapons, so they spot weapons wherever they look. If you are told long enough that “Everything could be a threat”, pretty soon you will start behaving as if everything is a threat.

In 21st century Western civilian life, this might be termed paranoia. In situations with high threat density (such as Iraq or the African savannah of 200,000 years ago), it functions as a positive selection influence for survival.

Confirmation bias is extremely difficult to overcome, particularly when the biases are instilled early in life. Thus the Jesuits and “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man”. This is also why good medical science requires double-blind trials.

You can see your own visual confirmation bias in action here:

Coming back to our video, then our reaction will be based on our worldview going in.

If you see the war in Iraq as a just war, and the insurgents as murderous criminals, then you will likely see the incident as a justified reaction to the presence of a potential threat to friendly units. The “cowboy” nature of the pilot and gunner is part of a necessary de-sensitisation to the suffering of victims that is an essential part of functioning as a soldier who needs to kill as part of his or her duty.

If however, you see Iraq as an unnecessary opportunistic invasion of a sovereign nation, and the insurgents as justified in resisting a foreign occupation force allied with a local puppet government, your view will likely be different. You’ll see the helicopter crew as murderers itching for an excuse to shoot up innocent civilians video-game style.

My bias has elements of both. In my opinion, the war (in Iraq & Afghanistan) is illegal, immoral and pointless, and serves to put Australians in more danger than we would be in were it not being fought. The behaviour of the pilot and particularly the gunner sickens me. That said, it’s pointless to blame the military for acting like the military. Soldiers kill people. It’s what they’re trained to do, particularly in a situation where they perceive threats to themselves or their fellow soldiers.

So string up Bush/Blair/Howard (and Obama/Brown/Rudd if you like), and bring our boys and girls home.

And challenge your biases. This flawed monkey brain of ours is more powerful than you may think.

Michael

Wikipedia on Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises (PDF)

Some practitioners claim it is a cure-all, but the research suggests chiropractic therapy has mixed results – and can even be lethal, says Simon Singh.

You might be surprised to know that the founder of chiropractic therapy, Daniel David Palmer, wrote that “99% of all diseases are caused by displaced vertebrae”. In the 1860s, Palmer began to develop his theory that the spine was involved in almost every illness because the spinal cord connects the brain to the rest of the body. Therefore any misalignment could cause a problem in distant parts of the body.

In fact, Palmer’s first chiropractic intervention supposedly cured a man who had been profoundly deaf for 17 years. His second treatment was equally strange, because he claimed that he treated a patient with heart trouble by correcting a displaced vertebra.

You might think that modern chiropractors restrict themselves to treating back problems, but in fact some still possess quite wacky ideas. The fundamentalists argue that they can cure anything, including helping treat children with colic, sleeping and feeding problems, frequent ear infections, asthma and prolonged crying – even though there is not a jot of evidence.

I can confidently label these assertions as utter nonsense because I have co-authored a book about alternative medicine with the world’s first professor of complementary medicine, Edzard Ernst. He learned chiropractic techniques himself and used them as a doctor. This is when he began to see the need for some critical evaluation. Among other projects, he examined the evidence from 70 trials exploring the benefits of chiropractic therapy in conditions unrelated to the back. He found no evidence to suggest that chiropractors could treat any such conditions.

But what about chiropractic in the context of treating back problems? Manipulating the spine can cure some problems, but results are mixed. To be fair, conventional approaches, such as physiotherapy, also struggle to treat back problems with any consistency. Nevertheless, conventional therapy is still preferable because of the serious dangers associated with chiropractic.

In 2001, a systematic review of five studies revealed that roughly half of all chiropractic patients experience temporary adverse effects, such as pain, numbness, stiffness, dizziness and headaches. These are relatively minor effects, but the frequency is very high, and this has to be weighed against the limited benefit offered by chiropractors.

More worryingly, the hallmark technique of the chiropractor, known as high-velocity, low-amplitude thrust, carries much more significant risks. This involves pushing joints beyond their natural range of motion by applying a short, sharp force. Although this is a safe procedure for most patients, others can suffer dislocations and fractures.

Worse still, manipulation of the neck can damage the vertebral arteries, which supply blood to the brain. So-called vertebral dissection can ultimately cut off the blood supply, which in turn can lead to a stroke and even death. Because there is usually a delay between the vertebral dissection and the blockage of blood to the brain, the link between chiropractic and strokes went unnoticed for many years. Recently, however, it has been possible to identify cases where spinal manipulation has certainly been the cause of vertebral dissection.

Laurie Mathiason was a 20-year-old Canadian waitress who visited a chiropractor 21 times between 1997 and 1998 to relieve her low-back pain. On her penultimate visit she complained of stiffness in her neck. That evening she began dropping plates at the restaurant, so she returned to the chiropractor. As the chiropractor manipulated her neck, Mathiason began to cry, her eyes started to roll, she foamed at the mouth and her body began to convulse. She was rushed to hospital, slipped into a coma and died three days later. At the inquest, the coroner declared:”Laurie died of a ruptured vertebral artery, which occurred in association with a chiropractic manipulation of the neck.”

This case is not unique. In Canada alone there have been several other women who have died after receiving chiropractic therapy, and Edzard Ernst has identified about 700 cases of serious complications among the medical literature. This should be a major concern for health officials, particularly as under-reporting will mean that the actual number of cases is much higher.

If spinal manipulation were a drug with such serious adverse effects and so little demonstrable benefit, then it would almost certainly have been taken off the market.

Simon Singh is a science writer in London and the co-author, with Edzard Ernst, of Trick or Treatment? Alternative Medicine on Trial. This is an edited version of an article published in The Guardian for which Singh is being personally sued for libel by the British Chiropractic Association.

• 1. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds – Mercy Seat
• John Lennon – Imagine
• 10cc – I’m not in love
• U2 – Sunday Bloody Sunday
• David Bowie – Ziggy Stardust
• Peter Gabriel – Games Without Frontiers
• Bob Marley – Redemption Song
• Rufus Wainwright – Hallelujah
• Muse – Knights of Cydonia
• XTC – Dear God
• (last song reluctantly culled) The Pixies – Monkey Gone To Heaven

I’m sure they’ll all be different in a week. I just want the tickets to Reading. Some happy but fuzzy memories of Reading 2003 with the Darkness, Blur and Metallica, all of whom just missed out on being in the list above. I’m sure they’ll be gutted.

• Abu Simbel/Lake Nasser
• A 3 dy, 2 night Felucca trip north from Aswan towards Luxor
• Seeing the Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Queens on the West bank at Luxor
• Seeing Karnak on the East Bank at Luxor

and then I’ll be getting another train up her to Cairo where I’ll be off to see some of the things I missed this week and to go back to the Museum. I don’t know what sort of internet access I’ll have while I’m away but I should be twittering away happily.

The light show however when it started was a little more impressive.

Pyramid Light Show Crowd

A pretty tough environment for photography as the lights changed pretty quickly and also the plethora of media with very bright camera lights filming the crowd to show people watching the light show before they turned the lights off for Earth Hour. My guess is that total power consumption for the evening was probably up, but that the symbolic gesture got out there.

Tri Colour Pyramids

The moon sitting directly over Khafre’s Pyramid added to the spectacle.

Sphinx Khafre Pyramid Moon

There was also a bit of story-telling with green light around the place.

Lights on Temple Khafre Pyramid and Moon

More lit pyramids

Two Pyramids Temple and Moon

And finally, this is what it looked like as we were being herded out before the lights went off for Earth Hour.

Lit Pyramids Before Earth Hour

Nothing to do after this but find and wake up the driver and doze off while he drove me back to the hotel.

Before that ripoff, we went to Memphis, once the capital of the Egyptian Empire, now a tatty museum where all the pieces not good enough to be in the British or Egyptian Museum are. Except for a huge reclining statue of Ramses II. That was ok.

Ramses II Statue from the feet

Ramses II chest and head

I’m being too cruel, they also had a decomposing Sphinx

Memphis 30 ton Sphinx

Where I wanted to go and where I will go before I leave is to see Sneferu‘s Bent and Red pyramids at Dahshur. But alas the driver had no means to extort money from me there so it wasn’t on the menu.

After I had run the gauntlet of the souvenir sellers at Memphis and the uninspired kebab, we made our way back to the stables at Giza. There were still a couple of hours of daylight left before the light show so I took myself to the roof of the stables where I had a very good view of the pyramid complex, ordered some tea and read my book for a couple of hours. I took a few photos from up here, but without filters everything was too washed out. Even after the sun was down it was still very bright.

Awesome Bloke nearly outshines sun and pyramids

Having stayed outside at Giza, I was keen to crawl around inside the odd pyramid, and Saqqara offered a great chance to do this. I started off being accosted by an “Egyptologist” who wanted to show me around inside a couple of tombs. I took him up on his offer as he seemed quite knowledgable, unlike my horse guide at Giza who told me that the Great Pyramid was 500 metres tall.

So we wandered off and round a corner to this locked mastaba. A very desert looking guy shuffled up, produced a key and let us in. Turns out this was the tomb of twin noblemen, who’s high status was ensured because they were the King’s manicurists, as well as scribes and some other stuff, but the drawings and hieroglyphics on the wall were dominated by hands with neatly trimmed fingernails.

They must have gotten on ok as they were buried next to each other. You’re not meant to take photos but I grabbed a couple anyway since I knew I’d be paying for it in tips anyway.

Egyptian Nobles Tomb Painting

The guide was well informed and happy to give me time to look at stuff so I was happy wandering around. He took me to another tomb which had a bunch of statues carved in it, some unfinished which was good as it showed you exactly how they made them.

After this it was back outside into the blazing sun and a look at Zoser’s Step Pyramid, the first pyramid known to have been built nearly 5000 years ago. It started as a Mastaba (rectangular tomb building, but Imhotep the architect just went crazy with a second storey. Once the king saw it he said, I like where you’re going with this, how about we strengthen the base and put anothger 4 levels on. The result:

Zosers Step Pyramid

And this guy turned up again

Awesome Bloke in front of Zosers Step Pyramid

Next to the step pyramid is a remarkably well preserved temple, although many pieces have been removed to the Egyptian Museum where I saw them later. Some columns from the temple can be seen here

Columns in Step Pyramid Temple

Once I finished the Step Pyramid complex, and to my driver’s great annoyance (becase I woke him up for 500 metre drive, I finished off the trip to Saqqara with a visit to Ti’s Mastaba, another interesting tomb. Nothing to see at the surface and fairly poorly lit inside. It was however a very interesting tomb with lots of hieroglyphics and wall paintings. A statue of Ti inside a niche had been saved from the museum people and is below:

Ti Statue in Mastaba

From there it was off to Memphis which I will cover in my next post.

Awesome Bloke in front of Sphinx

This post occurs directly after the last pyramid shot but that post was getting long and I was getting sloppy since I’d had 5 cans of Heineken from the off-license I found just down the road. Yesterday’s exploration was good and I have much better bearings for where I am.

Anyway, back to my good friend Hozza. I don’t have a lot of photos because I don’t really like other tourists in my photos and the Sphinx is somewhat popular. And as you can see above, that great looking bloke keeps turning up in front of the camera. Anyway, here’s the Sphinx in front of a Pyramid.

Sphinx in front of Cheops Pyramid

And here he is again from behind his shoulder

Sphinx side with legs

In general he looks a lot more fragile than the pyramids and I reckon had he not been buried for most of the intervening centuries he’d probably be gone. Still, n impressive sight, and worth the very annoying hassle to get anywhere near it.

I want what he’s having! Egypt hasn’t quite grabbed me like that yet, though I’ve only been here a few days so maybe it creeps up on you. Anyway boys and girls, I’ve finally made it to the pyramid post.

Against my better judgement, and it seems the advice of the Rough Guide, I booked a tour through the Mayfair Hotel. As the Rough Guide says (paraphrased): Great place to stay, don’t book a tour there. In my defence, I’d just landed and had just been driven through Cairo traffic for nearly two hours.

And anyway, it wasn’t quite as dire as I was dreading so no harm done really. Up early to head off at about 8am, I arrived in the foyer to find my driver asleep, a state he was in for most of the remainder of the day.

He woke up long enough to rive me down to Giza. We hadn’t gone far when I got my first glimpse of pyramids in the distance. When we got a bit closer I stopped the driver so I could take this shot:

Giza Pyramids from road

Then the driver took me to some stables near the pyrmiofds here the hard sell was put on for a camel or horse trip. I started with a camel…

Awesome Bloke on Camel

but I wasn’t really up for all the bouncing so I switched to a horse. Go on with your wisecracks, the horse was plenty big enough to carry me. A wild stallion it was! Well she’d go a bit beyond walking pace if you kicked her real hard anyway.

Awesome Bloke on Horse in front of Khafres Pyramid

The first thing we did was ride up a hill where we could look over all the pyramids. Once I saw the view from up there I forgave both the hotel and the horse blokes for all their scheming. I wouldn’t have seen this view otherwise, and as the only person “stupid” enough that morning to be on horseback, I had it to myself as you can see.

All Nine Giza Pyramids

From there we rode down to Menkaure’s Pyramid. A note here. I’m mxing my spelling and terminology between what I heard on the day and what I found later on the net. Apologies to any Egyptologists professional and amateur for butchering your chosen field. His is the smallest of the three but it has loads of granite so it might just outlive the other two. Here’s a photo of me after a quick jog to the top:

Awesome Bloke climbing back down from Menkaures Pyramid

and here’s another one which I think shows just how solidly and accurately it is put together. The modest size of Menkaures Tomb and its longevity got me wondering whether one couldn’t try and sell pyramids to the ludicrously wealthy as a way of achieving eartly immortality.

Menkaures Pyramid

Ladies and Gentlemen, the large pyramid in the foreground with the round ball at the apex is the PoshnBecks Pyramid, built here on the outskirts of Las Vegas in the early 21st century…

Menkaures Pyramid from Khafres Pyramid

Menkaure’s Pyramid was probably my favourite, probably due to the lack of attention by other tourists. But, bigger is better they say, so off we rode to Khafre’s Pyramid, which had a few more people wandering around but was still mostly quiet. I climbed up a few steps and took this shot up the East face:

Looking up the East Face of Khafres Pyramid

Limestone Hood of Khafres Pyramid

It’s really hard to get a sense of scale without being there. For those of you in Adelaide, Khufu’s pyramid is 12 metres taller than Westpac House (the old State Bank Building for Luddites like me). The next picture is of some buses in front of Khafre’s Pyramid, which at 144m is only 8 metres taller.

Buses in front of Khafres Pyramid

And finally you get to the big one.. It rises at a gentler angle so despite only being a few metres taller, it’s significantly bigger than Khafre’s

Cheops Pyramid and box and bus

There’s a boat in that box by the way. The big one also has loads of minor tombs and stuff around that are worth a look. Unfortunately, they’re not much good for photos as they are full of people. So this is the last Giza pyramid photo.

Columns in front of Cheops Pyramid

Still to come, the Sphinx, Memphis, the Light ansd Soundd show and the Egyptian Museum.

Most of them were terrible, a few were ok./ They need better framing which I can’t be bothered doing. Here they are:

UPS Jumbo

Emirates Jet

Big Russian Plane