Scientists believe some people have a gene that hard-wires them for binge drinking by boosting levels of a happy brain chemical triggered by alcohol.
That explains everything, doesn’t it? And if you think that the BBC blindly repeating this rubbish is the limit, what about this one:
When it comes to happiness, it seems that the young and the old have the secret. And it turns out what’s true for humans is also true for our primate cousins, explains neuroscientist Tali Sharot.
So far, so good, but wait, keep on reading:
My colleagues and I have found that people tend to discount the relevance of undesirable information to themselves (such as news that alcohol is bad for your liver) but readily adopt good news (being told that red wine is good for the heart). So when smokers see warning signs on cigarette packets they think: “Yes, smoking kills – but mostly it kills the other guy.”
They just can’t help themselves – the temperance puritans will shoehorn their agenda into any unrelated article that they can and the Beeb, accommodating as ever, just lets them, uncritically, unthinking and picking our pockets while it does it.
Why aren’t we calling “time” on these bastards?
I don’t “tend to discount the relevance” of the fact that drinking can be bad for me, I know that it can and I don’t effing care. The way that these people talk about ‘avoidable deaths’, you would be forgiven for assuming that if we only followed their sage advice in choosing our lifestyle, we would be immortal. Even if they could offer immortality, I think that living in the grey, joyless world that they are proposing would be too high a price to pay. What they would be offering would not be living forever, but ‘not living’ forever.
Well, the alternative to drinking and smoking too much is to get old enough to be tormented to death for free on the NHS.
There is a sinister side to this. If the government collects everyone’s DNA, and if they identify the booze gene, the gay gene, the smoker gene, the large-waist gene, then it will be easy to round up and dispose of those elements of the population that don’t fit the eugenics agenda.
What they aren’t intelligent enough to realise is that it’s not all about genes. You can be a boozer without the booze gene and a non-smoker with the smoker gene. People are far more complex than computer simulations.
Also, when you eradicate the heavy smokers who are resistant to cancer and the boozers who never have liver problems, you eradicate some highly desirable genetics without even bothering to study it.
If the eugenicists succeed, they will breed a phenomenally weak race that will be wiped out by one bout of the flu.
Sinister ? Perhaps. I think it’s probably far simpler than that though.
Taking away an individual’s Personal Responsibility for anything creates employment for Somebody Else.
“Incapacity” is good for the economy, innit. 😐
XX My colleagues and I have found that people tend to discount the relevance of undesirable information to themselves XX
Aye. People like YOU, for instance?
“Kettle, a, black, pot, calling, a.
Re-arange these words to make a well known phrase or saying!
However, large numbers of other scientists think that going for a pint is a really good idea ……
Greg, so do I.
It’s just that I don’t think that going for 17 pints every night is a really good idea.
Well, not since I hit the age of 40, anyway.
Any article which starts with the words “Scientists believe…” immediately sets alarm bells ringing.
The scientific method relies on empirical evidence gathering rather than belief systems and the vast majority of people working in scientific fields would not/do not refer to themselves as ‘scientists’ as it’s about as specific as urethritis. What’s wrong with physicists, chemists etc…?
“Any article which starts with the words “Scientists believe…” immediately sets alarm bells ringing.”
Actually, any article or broadcast which starts with the words “The BBC has learnt . . ” should set alarm bells ringing.
Experience has shown that the BBC is not capable of learning anything.
I’m a binge chocolater – does that count on the list of addictions?