Enhancement Horror in Germany? Not Quite.

Pharmacology reports in its current issue the results of a survey of about 2600 German university students. The study's objective was to find out to what extent German students use cognitive-enhancing drugs. Turns out, German students find themselves in good company. A survey [doi:10.1038/452674a] of readers of Nature reported that about 20% of readers of that journal take performance enhancing drugs. German students come in at roughly that level. Compare that to office workers (5%). Makes you wonder whether the scientist readers of Nature know something that the rest of us don't know - after all, one reason for people arguing against the use of cognitive-enhancing drugs is that 'we dunno whether they actually work.' It seems those in the know are voting with their feet on this little detail. 

The survey (anonymous as it was) was cristal clear with regard to what it was that they were after. Here's their definition of brain doping, as they call it, 'Substances for brain doping are pharmaceuticals or illegal drugs that you cannot buy in a drugstore and that were not prescribed to you to treat a disease. The only reason why you use this substance is to improve cognitive performance, such as attention, alertness, and mood. Examples are stimulant drugs (amphetamines), caffeine tablets, cocaine, methylphenidate, and mephedrone.' That excluded then academia's traditional brain doping means, caffeine from the coffee maker, those revolting energy drinks and other above-the-counter stuff like that. It also excluded students who would be taking ADHD medication because of a clinical condition they were suffering from. One oddity perhaps, caffeine tables were included in their list, because they're only available in limited quantities in pharmacies in Germany, while here in Northamerica we can, of course, get em at the local 7/11. Of course, the articles also offers standard ruminations about caffein tablets being 'may be' gateway drugs. Bit like the good ol marijuana wars. Oh, did I mention that this research was partially funded by the World Anti-Doping Agency? So, naturally it's all really terrible. Really!

The survey team had a very high response rate (German students, ha!), 2834 surveys were distributed, 2569 were returned. That's a >90% rate of return. The sex distribution was roughly 60% female to 40% male. Here's what the survey unearthed with regard to illicit drug taking for the purpose of cognition enhancement. Of all students about 23% took such drugs. By field of study it looks like this:

• Economics or law  25.0%
• Languages or education 17.6%
• Culture sciences 27.8%
• Sports science 31.6%
• Medicine, psychology,
• or natural sciences 23.9%

By sex it looks like this:

• Female 20.4%
• Male 27.9%

In terms of semester distribution, it seems first semester students are the most likely takers. 

First 28.6%
Other 20.0% 

The main conclusion of the study: 'Drug prevention models need to be established.' Amen to that! - Just kidding. Presumably the same drug prevention models that have been such overwhelming failures on all other fronts are being recycled here. 

Like many other bioethicists I am - in principle - in favour of permitting students (and others) to take cognition enhancing drugs, provided certain conditions of voluntariness are met, and provided the students are informed about the known risks and benefits. However, there are drugs and drugs, of course. Some cognition enhancing medicines are addictive, others are not. I would be worried about folks taking addictive enhancing drugs, because I have some doubts about the cost-benefit ratio here. However, in case of cognition enhancing drugs that have no significant harmful side-effects and that are not addictive, it is arguably time to change regulations prohibiting the use of such drugs. Just going by the numbers cited above, it is clear that draconian measures are bound to fail, just like any drugs related prohibition has failed. It is equally clear that many medical professionals are happily prescribing cognition enhancing drugs to their 'patients', given that this is currently the only legal way of obtaining them. Assuming that their 'patients' quality of life improves as a result of their willingness to prescribe these drugs, all the - ethical - power to them. Universities also need to decide how to handle this. One would really want to see research testing whether those students who take such drugs actually perform better (I suspect they would), and whether that is a result of their drug taking. If it turned out to be the case that they had an advantage over students not taking such drugs, there would have to be institutional responses ensuring a kind of a level playing field in terms of exams, grades and such matters. 

Ps: cannot vouch for the veracity of the image used in the top left-hand corner... :).

The German political system's bizarre state of affairs on offended Muslims

A remarkable article in the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL reports an incident in the German state of North Rhine Westfalia. A bunch of radical rightwingers and a bunch of fundamentalist Muslims ran into each other during a demonstration. The rightwingers clearly intended to provoke the Muslims by showing a Danish cartoon depicting the religious figurehead of Islam in a not particularly favorable pose. As you might recall, when a conservative Danish broadsheet published said cartoon there was a big outcry amongst Muslims (they don't like any depictions of their prophet, neither positive nor negative ones). A lot of people were duly killed by enraged Muslims (including, not unexpectedly, many Muslims). So, when in Germany the rightwing activist group Pro-NRW announced its demonstration and its intention to display the Danish cartoon it knew that its favoured enemy, enraged Muslims, would show up and make complete and militant fools of themselves. and so they did. - Between the two of us, without the help of radical Muslims and anti-Islamophobia leftist counter demonstrators, nobody would have taken notice of the 30 or so pro-NRW demonstrators. But hey, like bulls don't take lightly to red sheets of cloth neither do Muslims or leftists in Germany take kindly to a tiny rightwing group trying to look like they actually have the people on the ground to organise a serious demonstration. Fun was had by all involved: The end result, a whole bunch of seriously injured people, including police officers trying to keep the peace between the two sides.

None of this is terribly newsworthy, of course. Rightwingers (especially rightwing Christians) and fundamentalist Muslims love having goes at each other in Western societies, because the rightwing Christians mistakenly believe they own these places and need to defend them against Muslims wanting to establish Sharia law. It's of course a good idea to defend the secular state against any kind of religiously motivated legislation (lest you want to live in failing states like Iran or pseudo-outfits like the Vatican).

Here's the odd bit. The interior minister of the state where said demonstration took place wants to place restrictions on future demonstrations by the extreme rightwing group. A prohibition on showing the offending Danish cartoon during public demonstrations is in the making. Here is the tortured logic: The Islamic fundamentalists count about 1500 members according to the German security services. There is about 4 million Muslims in Germany that want to have little, if anything, to do with their violence. In order to protect German police officers from their violence it is necessary to prevent the extreme rightwingers from showing the cartoon during their demonstrations.

I have no sympathies for the rightwingers here, but it seems to me as if the German state is caving in to Muslim fundamentalists.  German citizens would - in future - be prohibited from doing things that could offend members of a Muslim fundamentalist sect in the country, lest the Muslims would otherwise go on a rampage injuring police officers and other demonstrators. Freedom of speech is subjugated to concerns about security of the security forces (whose job, among many other obligations, ironically, is to uphold German citizens rights to express even harsh criticism of religious ideologies). I can't wait to hear how the German courts will respond to this interior ministerial edict.

Interesting parallel:  in Jamaica, a Caribbean island state known for its large number of militantly anti-gay Christian citizens, we see the police routinely prohibiting demonstration by gay civil rights groups. Their logic also is that there are so many enraged Christians out there that they couldn't guarantee the safety of the demonstrators (at least - unlike in Germany - they're not concerned about the security of the security forces). Another example of a democratic society caving in to religiously motivated militancy.

The trouble with religious freedom is that it is all too frequently misunderstood as the unrestricted freedom of the religious to run roughshot over everyone else.

Weird stuff - academic appointments German style

University of Cologne

As you might know, I have worked in a whole bunch of places during my academic career, including Germany, Australia, England, South Africa, Scotland, and now Canada. In all of these places bar the first one (Germany) a clear ritual is followed. You are invited to a job interview, you got to do some loop and hoop jumping activities (give a lecture, meet students etc) and after a day or two you fly home. Everywhere (including South Africa) the institution that short-listed you will cover your airfare (sometimes covering a business fare, usually though sticking to economy - we're humanities based cheapskates after all), your hotel and usually your meals. Not so in Germany, universities that shortlist you expect you to pay your own way; if you're lucky they might pay for your meal and/or a night in a B&B. Worse, while in the other  countries, once a job offer has been extended to you, you will get a reasonably generous allowance to help with your international removal expenses, in Germany usually you're expected to pay for your own removal expenses. From my own experience, the older you get the more of your life you carry on your back with you, so it gets consecutively more expensive. So, all of this makes me wonder: why is Germany so determined to stay non-competitive when it comes to trying to attract top scholars of international standing? Clearly, how the process is being handled suggests that the country's universities don't care too much about who accepts their offer eventually, as long as whoever ends up there comes free of charge.

And before you ask, no, I did not recently apply for a job in Germany, a German friend of mine did.

OMG it's Easter again

... and there's no end in terms of speeches by Catholic Church senior management folks that would fairly qualify as evil propaganda. Augsburg's Bishop Dr Walter Mixa (he's the bloke wearing the colourful dress in the picture) declared that without God there's no end to what people would likely do to each other. He used in his Easter 'sermon' (in his particular case hate speech given on Church property to Church members) the examples of atheist nationalsocialism and atheist communism and the murders these regimes committed against millions of humans as examples of what happens when God's law isn't obeyed.

Well, fair enough, the good German bishop is paid to run propaganda campaigns against non-believers [in Germant only about 22% of the population believe unequivocally that God exists, while 23% do not (the rest is sitting on the philosophical fence)], but still. He chose to ignore that it wasn't atheism that motivated the Nazis or the Soviet style communists but Nazi ideology and Soviet style communist ideology. So, both with respect to the Nazi crimes and to the Soviety style communist crimes atheism did not trigger the horrendous crimes committed.

The same, of course, cannot be said for the crimes Christians and Muslims committed in the name of their respective Gods. The Christian crusades and the massmurders they resulted into were motivated entirely by religious belief. Similar stories can be told with regard to most monotheistic religious ideologies. Will any German authority go after the good bishop and charge him for hate speech related crimes? Of course not! Once you're a dress wearing middle-aged to very-aged man who represents an organisation that routinely is embroiled in child sex abuse cases, it seems you can say whatever you like.

Talking about double-standards! Indeed, I wonder whether my truthful description of the bishop (as dress-wearing etc) above would qualify by UN standards as a human rights violation, given that it could be read as mocking the representative of a major religion. According to the UN Human Rights Council that qualifies squarely as a human rights violation... -

In fairness to the Catholic Church, however, it tries to make up on the odd occasion for its all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good God's failings! The Vatican sent this Easter 500 Easter eggs to the victims of the earthquake in Italy. Neat gesture by one of the richest organisations on earth!

Doitschland, Doitschland - East German's police fails victims of racist attacks

There's something truly strange about this. East Germany, especially under the iron rule of the former Communist Party, went out of its way to welcome foreigners and celebrated international solidarity. And yet, we (well, we in the West) always kind of knew, that the average East German was substantially more conservative (a Spiessbuerger) than the average West German citizen. It didn't come as a great surprise then that after the fall of the wall and the purchase of East Germany with the West German mark (aka the 'unification') xenophobia and racist attacks would be much worse in the East than they were in the West.

Things have deteriorated ever since. During the recent soccer world cup leading politicians of the Labor Party (a party represented in the federal government) warned people belonging to visible ethnic minorities not to venture too far into the East because their safety could not be guaranteed. For German government politicians to acknowledge that law and order could not be guaranteed everywhere in the country was a colossal kind of some sort of defeat for the liberal democracy that Germany undoubtedly is these days.

Since then incredibly so, things have got worse. Reports suggest that police officers fail in their duties toward victims of racially motivated attacks and other forms of violence. For instance, recently a Vietnamese family was attacked by several adult males from the neighbouring flat, they gained entry by kicking the door in. Eventually the vandals left and the Vietnamese family called the police in. Officers duly showed up, interviewed the attackers and left. Wisely the Vietnamese family left their home and slept elsewhere. The Neonazis returned that very same night and vandalised the family home. Police was nowhere to be seen.