About
The Milligan – Who is S/He?
Well, first off “s/he” is a “he”. I’m a working scientist, a lecturer at a large college in the south east of the UK. I’m a biologist by training, with a research background in behavioural ecology (focusing on large carnivores such as wolves and bears – in the wild and in captivity).
I have a passion for the scientific method – unbiased, peer-reviewed, analysis of life. As a result, I find that, I’ve got less and less patience for the pseudoscientific, spiritual garbage that we seem to be increasingly inundated with every day.
Why “The Milligan”?
Why have I kept this blog anonymous? Because the sad truth is, atheists and rational thinkers are the last minority group that it’s OK to be prejudiced against.
My work involves faith-based education centres (schools and colleges from highschool to university), and it’s simply easier to do it this way.
I jumped over here from Bad Science, which I got to from the Spectator. (Melanie Phillips – had done a bit there about an alleged witch hunt against Andrew Wakefield.) That a respected journalist would be defending this character made me wonder if I had been asleep regarding recent developments in the debate.
I live in Cincinnati and have young children and occasionally come across parents who mutter darkly about the effects of vaccines. I remembered that this line of thinking was a load of rubbish but is kept in the public eye via a couple of b-list celebs. To total non-scientists like me they can sometimes sound reasonable – who isn’t anti-toxins for babies? And if they have pictures of ex playmate Jenny McCarthy then you are always going to click on the link.
Luckily there are informed level heads around. I readily subscribe to your world view and like the clean no-nonsense style of your blog. Esp. the category heading “Complete Bollocks.” I will bookmark the site.
Keep up the good work.
Thanks for that Tony.
I’ve been reading Melanie Phillips’ stuff and, from what I’ve seen, on most topics I’d be agreeing with the “respected journalist” tag. But here, I can’t help but feel that she has “painted herself into a corner” and just refuses to recognise that the evidence has moved beyond her arguments.
She has simply been proven wrong, the overwhelming weight of evidence points to Wakefield being a total charlatan, unbelievable incompetent or both – and Phillips is not admitting that (to unashamedly mix my metaphors) “she backed the wrong pony”.