Thursday, 15 March 2018

Never argue with a chemist about conspiracy theories


Nothing to do with BBC bias, but here's a fascinating Twitter exchange between a former research chemist and a former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan. The former UK ambassador to to Uzbekistan loses and then vanishes in a cloud of nitrogen triiodide. 

Its startling point is a Craig Murray post in which my conspiratorially-minded former-ambassadorial near namesake argues that "The Novichok Story Is Indeed Another Iraqi WMD Scam". Former research chemist Clyde Davies read it and thought it didn't exactly hold up to scrutiny.

Here's what happened next....


  1. 15 hours ago
    The Novichok Story Is Indeed Another Iraqi WMD Scam: - via:
    5 replies17 retweets17 likes




  2. 13 hours ago
    "Yet now, the British Government is claiming to be able instantly to identify a substance which its only biological weapons research centre has never seen before and was unsure of its existence. " You wouldn't recognise a mass spectrometer if it hit you smack in your stupid gob.
    5 replies22 retweets67 likes




  3. 13 hours ago
    And how does the mass spectrometer tell you the sample was made in Russia if you don't have an example of a Russian made one to compare? I shall listen to your reply with genuine interest, despite your completely unprovoked aggression.
    4 replies3 retweets6 likes




Replying to  
So now you're going to lecture me on chemistry? This ought to be interesting. Let me give you some background to all of this. When I heard who the victim was, and that it was a nerve agent, I immediately suspected what the chemical formula was likely to be 1/
11:32 PM - 14 Mar 2018
18 replies63 retweets123 likes



Craig ByersTweet text

    1. New conversation
    1. 4 hours ago
      Replying to   
      This is because I knew about the 'novichok' agents. They were developed in the 70s and 80s by Vil Mirzayanov among others, who now lives as an exile in the US. He was so horrified that he went public an eventually to jail in Russia 2/
      1 reply8 retweets43 likes




    2. 4 hours ago
      'Novichok' however is a generic term given to a family of organophosphorus acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. They look like this. The structure on the right is A-232 3/
      1 reply4 retweets35 likes




    3. 4 hours ago
      VX in comparison looks like this. It has a different chemical structure. Just by looking at the structure, a chemist can tell you what the mass, infrared, NMR, UV and other spectra are likely to look like with a high degree of confidence 4/
      3 replies4 retweets31 likes




    4. 4 hours ago
      This is because chemistry is a *science*, and sciences differentiate themselves from other kinds of discipline by allowing people to make *testable predictions*. It's a branch of *inductive reasoning*. 5/
      2 replies8 retweets73 likes




    5. 4 hours ago
      These look like simple chemical compounds but in reality they are difficult to make *safely*. One tiny drop, about the size of a pinhead, of VX is enough to kill a healthy adult. These compounds are reputedly ten times more deadly 6/
      6 replies5 retweets26 likes




    6. 4 hours ago
      Therefore anybody undertaking to make them has to take extreme precautions. If you just wanted to *kill* someone because you wanted them out of the way, why not shoot them? 7/
      1 reply4 retweets26 likes




    7. 4 hours ago
      And unless you were a state, with the access to the kind of facilities this kind of chemistry would demand, why would you want to take the risks associated? Unless of course you wanted to leave an unmistakable and brutal calling card 8/
      2 replies5 retweets37 likes




    8. 4 hours ago
      The Russians have proven past form with these compounds. Then we can triangulate the motive and opportunity against the means. The motive was to send a clear message to Russians at home that opposing Putin was high risk 9/
      3 replies10 retweets37 likes




    9. 4 hours ago
      And to the UK that this little country, with post-imperial delusions of adequacy, was increasingly isolating itself globally by leaving the EU and could likely not call on the US for any meaningful help 10/
      3 replies8 retweets37 likes




    10. 4 hours ago
      Your entire article is riddled with ridiculous claims. One of the most egregious is 'It is a scientific impossibility for Porton Down to have been able to test for Russian novichoks if they have never possessed a Russian sample to compare them to.' 11/
      2 replies5 retweets44 likes




    11. 4 hours ago
      This is plainly *bollocks*. *All* molecules with the same formula have *exactly* the same properties and will exhibit the same characteristics as any other. Motive, opportunity and the particularly brutal and calculated means all point to Russia. 12/
      5 replies6 retweets59 likes




    12. 4 hours ago
      And this other statement "If they exist at all, Novichoks were allegedly designed to be able to be made at bench level in any commercial chemical facility." Really? *All* of them? *Some* might have binary precursors, but even those are pretty vile in their own right 13/
      1 reply2 retweets20 likes




    13. 4 hours ago
      Take sarin for example, which uses methyl phosphonyl difluoride as a binary precursor. This is an extremely unpleasant chemical and the reaction produces HF, which is a dangerous and corrosive byproduct 14/
      3 replies2 retweets20 likes




    14. 4 hours ago
      Both those novichok structures would use very similar precursors and produce the *same* byproducts. The idea of some foreign assassin mixing up the ingredients in a hotel bedroom is risible 15/
      1 reply3 retweets24 likes




    15. 4 hours ago
      Motive, means, opportunity: the essential components of any murder case. I've explained the means *ad nauseam* by now. The motive - especially given the victims - and opportunity, triangulate very well to the Russians 16/
      1 reply4 retweets25 likes




    16. 4 hours ago
      In my book, if something looks like a duck, swims and flies like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a bloody duck. Why in God's name some people have to argue the essential duckiness of a duck is utterly baffling 17/.
      11 replies17 retweets127 likes



      17. New conversation
    17. 3 hours ago
      Would't the world be a lovely place if everyone just fell in with your right wing world view. And for somebody who lectures so insistently on scientific logic, you are peculiarly unaware of Karl Popper's swans.
      16 replies1 like




    18. 3 hours ago
      I'm not right-wing, you fool. I've voted Labour for the past thirty five years of my life, well before Corbyn arrived on the scene and hopefully well after he's gone. Now, if you wish to play the ball instead of the man, I'd like to hear your counter arguments
      5 replies4 retweets118 likes




    19. 3 hours ago
      I'll *see* your Popper's Swan and *raise* you a Russell's Teapot. Your call.
      3 replies1 retweet35 likes




    20. 2 hours ago
      Occam's Razor helps alleviate the mental gymnastics too!
      1 reply1 retweet12 likes




    21. 2 hours ago
      Not the only razor that comes to mind when reading this kind of garbage. There's Hitchens's Razor too. And when that one fails...

    23. Former Ambassador Murray has not yet responded - and it's looks as if he's not going too either.
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