August 21, 2008

Environmentalism Can’t Replace Religion: A Note from Ian Plimer

Despite our comfortable materialistic lives, there are many who ask: Is that all? They want a meaning for life and yearn for a spiritual life. Some follow the traditional religions, others embrace paranormal beliefs and many follow a variety of spiritual paths.

A new religion has been invented: Environmentalism. The rise of environmentalism parallels in time and place the decline of Christianity and socialism. This environmental religion is terrified of doubt, scepticism and uncertainty yet claims to be underpinned by science. It is a fundamentalist religion with a fear of nature. It has its own high priests such as Al Gore and a holy writ, such as the IPCC reports. Like many religious followers, few have ever read and understood the holy books from cover to cover.

Like many fundamentalist religions, it attracts believers by announcing apocalyptic calamities unless we change our ways. Its credo is repeated endlessly and a new language has been invented. Logic, contrary data or questioning are not permitted. Heretics are inquisitorially destroyed.

It states that now is the most important time in history and people are told that humanity is facing the greatest crisis in the history of time. We must make great sacrifices. Now. This religion uses thinking out of the Judeo-Christian tradition: If the world has been destroyed, then we humans are to blame.

This new age religion tries to re-mystify the world, a world that its adherents neither experience nor try to understand. The apocalyptic doomsayers promote their new religion with seven second television grabs. A disunity between religion and science is created. The science that derived from the Enlightenment and which bathes in doubt, scepticism and uncertainty is willingly thrown overboard.

Contrary facts are just ignored. Enthusiastic reporting by non-scientists is undertaken. They report new science with alarmist implications yet there is no reporting of contrary information. Non-scientific journalists and public celebrities write polemics that encourage public alarm.

The environmental religion produces widespread fear and a longing for simple all encompassing narratives. It offers an alternative account of a natural world with which adherents have little contact.

Environmentalism embraces a myth of the Fall: the loss of harmony between man and nature caused by our materialistic society. It searches for the lost Eden, which probably never existed. In the ‘good old days’ there was only struggle, starvation and unemployment, not harmony with nature. Environmental evangelism has ritual and language that have substituted substance.

Over historical, archaeological and geological time, there have been thousands of global coolings and global warmings. Global coolings have always depopulated the Earth. We are the first humans ever to fear a warm climate.

Environmentalism exacerbates disease and food shortages and destroys economies. It is a highly flawed religion. Its morality and ethics are questionable.

When the environmentalists recognise the religious aspects of their stance, then real discussion with other scientists becomes possible. Until then, they are just like the creationists who claim that their stance is scientific when their very foundations are religious and dogmatic.

The contradictory religion of environmentalism has given people a purpose in life and, despite ignoring all the contrary science, this religion provides some of the stitches that hold the fabric of society together.

Traditional religious life and practice is experience. Traditional religion tries to make sense of what’s happening to us now and gives us the mechanisms whereby we can have hope for a meaningful life, in spite of its disappointments. Religion gives us the mechanism to cope with failure.

Environmentalism cannot provide for these needs.

This is an edited version of a speech given by Ian Plimer at the IQsquared debate ‘We'd be better off without religion’ on Sydney on August 20, 2008. Ian Plimer is Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at The University of Melbourne and Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide.

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August 18, 2008

Socratic Irony

Socratic Irony: A pose of ignorance assumed in order to entice others into making statements that can then be challenged. [The Oxford Dictionary.]

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August 06, 2008

Nigel Lawson on Global Warming as "A Grain of Truth and a Mountain of Nonsense"

"So the new religion of global warming, however convenient it may be to politicians, is not as harmless as it may appear at first sight. Indeed, the more one examines it, the more it resembles a Da Vinci Code of environmentalism. It is a great story, and a phenomenal best-seller. It contains a grain of truth - and a mountain of nonsense. And that nonsense could be very damaging indeed. We appear to have entered a new age of unreason, which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting. It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet."

from Nigel Lawson's book 'An Appeal to Reason'

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July 29, 2008

Scientific Controversy Between Freedom of Expression and Censorship: Some Quotes via Benny Peiser

We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure, stifling it would be an evil still.
--John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859

We have a natural right to make use of our pens as of our e-mails, at our peril, risk and hazard.
--Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique, 1764

Perhaps there is a case for making climate change denial an offence. It is a crime against humanity, after all.
--Margo Kingston, 21 November 2005

We value freedom of expression precisely because it provides a forum for the new, the provocative, the disturbing, and the unorthodox. Free speech is a barrier to the tyranny of authoritarian or even majority opinion as to the rightness or wrongness of particular doctrines or thoughts.
--Yale University, Freedom of Expression Report, 1975

The primary function of a university is to discover and disseminate knowledge by means of research and teaching. To fulfill this function a free interchange of ideas is necessary not only within its walls but with the world beyond as well. It follows that the university must do everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of intellectual freedom. The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views.
--Yale University, Freedom of Expression Report, 1975

By broadcasting programmes that appear to manipulate and even fabricate evidence, Channel 4 has impeded efforts to forestall the 21st century's greatest threat. For how much longer will this be allowed to continue?
--George Monbiot, The Guardian, 21 July 2008

It is arguable that it is not the Great Global Warming Swindle that has bred public scepticism, but the desire of some environmentalists – evidenced by the identikit complaints orchestrated against the film – to stamp out dissenting voices. This intolerance undermines confidence in the rightness of the cause. As does Monbiot's selective reporting of Ofcom's ruling.
--Hamish Mykura, Channel 4's head of documentaries, 22 July 2008

TV companies occasionally commission programmes just to court controversy, but to misrepresent the evidence on an issue as important as global warming was surely irresponsible. 'The Great Global Warming Swindle' was itself a swindle.
--Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, 22 July 2008

As for the factual inaccuracies not causing offence, well, I get hopping mad when I see a pack of lies presented as the truth. Does that kind of offence not count? Clearly not. What's more, with its advertising revenues falling, Channel 4 is currently campaigning to get its hands on part of the BBC's licence fees. What a horrifying prospect. In my opinion, if Channel 4 carries on producing programmes like The Great Global Warming Swindle, the sooner it goes bust the better off Britain and the world will be.
--Michael Le Page, New Scientist, 22 July 2008

I do feel strongly that the current wave of climate blasphemy that seems to be popular among prominent scientists involved in the climate issue is one day going to be looked back upon as a low point in this debate. Climate change is important, but so too are other values, and freedom of expression is among them.
--Roger Pielke, Jr., Prometheus, 22 July 2008

There are no perfect human institutions, but some of us continually strive to make them as fair as possible. If Wikipedia can't reform itself, then the first social networking model that achieves significantly improved fairness will eventually sweep Wikipedia into deserved obsolescence.
--Tom Van Flandern, CCNet, 23 July 2008

Wikipedia had my birthdate in 1944. I corrected it to 1950. That stood for one day and then it was turned back. John Christy has told me he simply stopped putting in corrections because they were overwritten or disregarded.
--Pat Michaels, CCNet, 23 July 2008

The diverse groups of critical analysts and researchers will need to develop alternative infrastructures and media outlets if they wish to provide open-minded science writers and policy-makers with judicious evaluations of disaster predictions and a genuinely impartial assessment of evidence. Given the evident biases of the mainstream science media and environmental journalism, there is growing demand for more balanced and even-handed coverage of climate science and debates. Scientists and science writers who are concerned about the integrity and openness of the scientific process should turn the current crisis of science communication into an opportunity by setting up more critical, even-handed and reliable science media.
--Benny Peiser, European Parliament, Brussels, 18 April 2007

The above quotes were first published by Benny Peiser in CCNet 118/2008 - 23 July 2008.
Thanks Benny.

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July 27, 2008

Ecology and Ethics (Part 2)

When a man says "this is good in itself," he seems to be making a statement, just as much as if he had said "this is square" or "this is sweet." I believe this to be a mistake. I think that what the man really means is: "I wish everybody to desire this," or rather "Would that everybody desired this." If what he ways is interpreted as a statement , it is merely an affirmation of his own personal wish; if, on the other hand, it is interpreted in a general way, it states nothing, but merely desires something. The wish, as an occurrence, is personal, but what it desires is universal. It is, I think, this curious interlocking of the particular and the universal which has caused so much confusion in ethics.

The matter may perhaps become clearer by contrasting an ethical sentence with one which makes a statement. If I say "all Chinese are Buddhists," I can be refuted by the production of a Chinese Christian or Mohammedan. If I say "I believe that all Chinese are Buddhists," I cannot be refuted by any evidence from China, but only by evidence that I do not believe what I say; for what I am asserting is only something about my own state of mind. If, now, a philosopher says "Beauty is good," I may interpret him as meaning either "Would that everybody loved the beautiful" (which corresponds to "all Chinese are Buddhists") or "I wish that everybody loved the beautiful" (which corresponds to "I believe that all Chinese are Buddhists"). The first of these makes no assertion, but expresses a wish; since it affirms nothing, it is logically impossible that there should be evidence for or against it, or for it to possess either truth or falsehood. The second sentence, instead of being merely optative, does make a statement, but it is one about the philosopher's state of mind, and it could only be refuted by evidence that he does not have the wish that he says he has. This second sentence does not belong to ethics, but to psychology or biography. The first sentence, which does belong to ethics, expresses a desire for something, but asserts nothing.

Ethics, if the above analysis is correct, contains no statements, whether true or false, but consists of desires of a certain general kind, namely such as are concerned with the desires of mankind in general - and of gods, angels, and devils, if they exist. Science can discuss the causes of desires, and the means for realizing them, but it cannot contain any genuinely ethical sentences, because it is concerned with what is true or false.

From Science and Ethics By Bertrand Russell, In Religion and Science (Oxford University Press, 1961)
see http://www.solstice.us/russell/science-ethics.html

Via a comment and link from Wes George at 'Ecology and Ethics (Part 1)'
see http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003277.html#comments

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Ecology and Ethics (Part 1)

"The study of economics and ecology without an ethical objective, in my mind, is akin to studying medicine not to relieve suffering, but simply for something to do to."

Tor Hundloe, In From Buddha to Bono, On pg 12.

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July 15, 2008

Has Lord Peter Lost His Tools: A Note from Davey

England has produced a number of outstanding detective story writers. Agatha Christie comes to mind with her character Hercule Poirot. Another is Dorothy L. Sayers, with her diffident, yet steely-minded toff, Lord Peter Wimsey.

There were also other sides to Dorothy. She was a moderate feminist, and one of the first women to graduate from Oxford University. She was a reputable medieval scholar.

In 1947 she delivered a talk at Oxford University called ‘The Lost Tools of Learning’, in which she suggested that western education has lost its way, by trying to cram in facts, rather than first developing skills. She pointed to the medieval trivium as a good way of giving students the ‘tools of learning’, namely logic (to think clearly), grammar (to write and speak clearly), and rhetoric (to mount a persuasive argument).

We see plenty of environmental rhetoric on this blog site, but is it all logical? Is there too much quoting of ‘facts’ (some might say ‘factoids’), and not enough sound argument? Is the use of scientific jargon and acronyms intended to obfuscate or impress, rather than to seek the truth? Should not all ‘models’ be accompanied by a clearly written statement of their assumptions?

In my view Dorothy’s argument was valid in 1947, and is even more valid now. She also wrote it up as an essay, which is available at several websites. Search on (sayers tools trivium). Have a read – it’s only a few pages.

Dr. David Naugle (search on naugle trivium sayers) has reviewed her essay, and the benefits of the trivium have been discussed elsewhere, for example in the book ‘Chaucer and the Trivium:The Mindsong of the Canterbury Tales’, by J. Stephen Russell.

I suggest that the humanities, and the medieval trivium, have a great deal to offer in current political and environmental debate. It might help people to cope with the torrent of ‘news’, advertising, and ‘spin doctoring’. Any comments?

Green and Medieval Davey Gam Esq.
Perth, Western Australia

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July 04, 2008

The Truth is Out There: Graham Young responds to Clive Hamilton

Earlier this week, Clive Hamilton, Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, threatened to boycott Australian e-journal On Line Opinion because it publishes article by so-called 'climate change denialists'. Today, the journal's Chief Editor, Graham Young, responds:

“The idea that truth is relative has taken over some areas of the humanities through postmodernism, theory and forms of Marxist analysis. That's the school that Clive Hamilton's argument on global warming comes from… We instinctively know that things do have objective reality and are not power constructs. That it doesn't matter how many people say it is true if it isn't."

In today's article Graham Young emphasises the importance of trying to understand the facts-of-the matter rather than as Clive Hamilton does, deferring to authority.

While Clive Hamilton has decided that "there was no way I could pretend to have a comprehensive grasp of climate science … [so] I had to decide not what to believe but whom to believe."

Graham responds, “How do you decide who to believe if you have abdicated your right to analyse the arguments?”

Again on the subject of the truth Graham writes: “We believe that there is such a thing as the truth, and that it is out there, even if none of us will ever perceive it more than dimly.”

According to Graham one way of discovering the truth is to “welcome lobbyists as well as academics, politicians, activists and citizens. We want to put citizens in touch with decision makers and those with influence, and we don't differentiate between them because they might have a particular point of view, or draw their paycheck from a particular source.

“Our fundamental tenet is that while there is such a thing as the truth it demands constant mining and refining for it to be discerned, and that it is not our place to tell others what to think. Consenting adults can come to this site [On Line Opinion] and see opposing arguments laid out before them and make-up their own minds. Clive is under-estimating the ability of our average reader.

“An ethical approach to argument avoids ad hominem attacks and concentrates on facts and arguments. It treats its opponent's arguments with respect, and doesn't misrepresent them, and it researches its own arguments thoroughly and presents them honestly.”

------------
Silencing dissent
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7596&page=1

The Sad Demise of On Line Opinion
http://onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7580

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July 02, 2008

Clive Hamilton Boycotts e-Journal for Publishing 'Climate Change Denialists'

Clive Hamilton, Professor of public ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, is leading an attack by left-leaning Australian academics on Graham Young and his e-journal On Line Opinion because it publishes article by so-called 'climate change denialists' including Tom Harris and John McLean.

Now is your opportunity to support Graham Young and On Line Opinion by making a donation here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/membership/

You can read Prof Hamilton here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7580

And then perhaps leave a comment here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7580

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June 14, 2008

Why are so Many TV Meteorologists and Weathercasters Climate Skeptics?

All three staff meteorologists at [American] KLTV, the ABC affiliate broadcasting to the Tyler-Longview-Jacksonville area of Northeast Texas, joined forces last November to deliver an on-air rebuttal of the idea that humans are changing the earth's climate.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, representing the work of hundreds of scientists from 130 countries, had declared eight months earlier that warming of the atmosphere was "unequivocal" and that greenhouse gases from human activities were "very likely" the cause of most of the warming since the mid-20th century.

The three KLTV weathercasters - appearing in a Nov. 8 story by a station news reporter - let it be known, however, that they were unconvinced.

Meteorologist Grant Dade: "Is the Earth warming? Yes, I think it is. But is man causing that? No. It's a simple climate cycle our climate goes through over thousands of years."

Read more of the story by Bill Dawson at 'The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media' by clicking here: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/features/0608_tv.htm

Further in the article there is also comment that:

The disagreements between television weathercasters and climate scientists involve "a jurisdictional war," and "there's nobody free of sin in this matter," Knight said. "I'm seeing a row here, but it's not a bad row."

On one side, there seems to be "a disdain in the orthodox scientific research community for those who are not smart enough to get a Ph.D. or do research, and instead go into the fluff of television and just forecast the weather," he said.

On the other side, "there's a certain amount of disdain from television meteorologists who are predicting the weather for those who pontificate about what their [climate] models show," he added.

Knight summed up his own view of climate change this way: "There's no question that warming is going on. To say it's a hoax is to deny the data. To say it's all human-caused is foolish, too."

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June 11, 2008

Economist Ross Garnaut Confuses 'Skepticism' and 'Dissent'

Australian economist Ross Garnaut has been commissioned by Australia's Commonwealth, state and territory governments to examine the impacts, challenges and opportunities of climate change for Australia. There will be a final report by 30 September 2008.

Peter Gallager attended a recent lecture by this well known economist who is likely to significantly shape Australian government policy, he commented:

"I hoped to find that Prof. Garnaut would use his Heinz Arndt Lecture to describe the balance he intended to strike in his recommendations between evidence for risky climate change and a growing body of evidence that the risks are low to moderate (at most). Given his well-known views, I expected to find the balance tilted in favor of the former but I hoped to find that it would be moderated by recognition of the latter. Unfortunately, Prof. Garnaut paid no attention to any scientific facts and made no attempt to strike a balanced risk assessment...

"Ross Garnaut seems to believe that 'scepticism' about climate change is analogous to... or is, 'dissent'. That is, he prefers to describe critics of his views using a term drawn from religious history, identifying someone who rejects a dogma. My reaction on first reading was surprise at the use of a term that implies acceptance of man-made global warming is really a faith from which critics may 'dissent'. Did Ross Garnaut understand that (obvious) implication, I wondered? ...

"Answering the question whether it is possible for 'dissenters' can be scientists, Ross Garnaut invokes Gallileo, whom he wrongly describes as a 'dissenter'—Gallileo was no such thing; Gallileo's conflict with the Church was about the appropriate role of empricism and contained no basic doctrinal dissent—as an exception that proves his rule...

"When Prof. Garnaut concludes 'the Dissenters are possibly right, and probably wrong', what evidence does he adduce? None. Not a shred. This is depressingly consistent with the approach taken in his Interim Report. He does not consider that the science offered in contradiction of the IPPCC pronouncements (the hypotheses of 'those who are best placed to know'—see p. 5 of his address) calls anything into question because it is 'dissent' and not science.

"So much for name-calling. What positive reason does Prof. Garnaut offer for accepting the 'uncertainties' of the IPCC as reasonably indicative of a probability? No scientific reason, as it turns out."

These excerpts are from 'Science, dogma and dissent: Ross Garnaut’s Heinz Arndt lecture', by Peter Gallagher. You can read the complete article here:
http://www.petergallagher.com.au/index.php/site/article/science-dogma-and-dissent-ross-garnauts-heinz-arndt-lecture/

The lecure by Professor Garnaut was entitled 'Measuring the Immeasurable: The Costs and Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation' and given on June 5, 2008, at the Australian National University. You can read the complete lecture here:
http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/WebObj/MeasuringtheImmeasurable-TheCostsandBenefitsofClimateChangeMitigation,ProfessorRossGarnaut/$File/Measuring%20the%20Immeasurable-%20The%20Costs%20and%20Benefits%20of%20Climate%20Change%20Mitigation,%20Professor%20Ross%20Garnaut.pdf

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May 29, 2008

What is Wilderness? (Part 6)

"At its heart 'wilderness' is a value judgement.

"As poor old Hawking had to concede nothing is destroyed, it just changes appearance.

"Wilderness is an appearance which is judged by some to have a superior aesthetic to the appearance of things which have had the human hand upon them. In this respect the 'wilderness' issue is a small but still substantial element of the global warming debate, which has its essence in an assumption of natural superiority.

Beyond Port Lincoln, South Australia, May 12, 2007. Photographed by Jennifer Marohasy. Guided by Phil Sawyer.

"But 'wilderness' is more than saying that nature is superior to humanity; it is also saying only a superior human can appreciate that nature is superior. That is, no matter what sophistic context you place on the meaning of 'wilderness' you can never get away from the fact that an aesthetic of 'wilderness', and indeed nature as a whole, can only be realised from the disconnected reality of a civilised vantage point which has kept 'wilderness' and nature at arm's length.

"Humans who live according to the survival dictates of 'wilderness' have no time for generating an aesthetic about it beyond paganest invocations. For the primitive, 'wilderness' would be designated out of fear rather than decadence."

Posted by: cohenite at May 28, 2008 01:51 PM

--------------------------
part 1 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000797.html
part 2 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003015.html
part 3 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003044.html
part 4 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003104.html
part 5 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003112.html

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May 27, 2008

What is Wilderness? (Part 5)

"Absolute wilderness is those boundless places in the eye of the mind of the beholder where no human footprints can be found and for which all those enter there and become lost have no hope of rescue. Only the most reckless trapper or sibylline shaman venture into the wilderness, as a pebble falls to the bottom of the deepest pool, in the hope of returning to civilization with a fortune in furs or a secret wisdom or allegory thereof. Long before crass and foppish adventurers claimed the wilderness it had already fallen to a more mythopoeia mob for which survival was merely one of many options.

"Wilderness exists today, as always, mainly in the mind’s eye. Once long ago it was always just out there beyond the last black stump. Actually, it still is.

"Today it is called Mars or the mid-ocean ridges.

"And, humankind, as always, has little stomach for it."

Wes George

Beyond Darwin, Northern Australia, Photographed October 3, 2005

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part 1 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/000797.html
part 2 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003015.html
part 3 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003044.html
part 4 http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/003104.html

Posted by jennifer at 09:29 PM | Comments (18)

May 09, 2008

Belief in the Truth of a Theory (Again)

I wrote these two laws down on a scrap of paper years ago. I still have the scrap of paper but not the original reference.

Harris's First Law:
Belief in the truth of a theory is inversely proportional to the precision of the science.

Harris's Second Law:
The creativity of a scientist is directly proportional to how much he knows, and inversely proportional to how much he believes.

----------------
first posted August 04, 2005
Belief in the Truth of a Theory
Posted by jennifer, at 11:11 AM

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February 10, 2008

Why I am a Dynamist

In 1960 famous Austrian economist and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek wrote an essay entitled ‘Why I Am Not a Conservative’ explaining that a fundamental trait of the conservative attitude is a fear of change while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course.

In the same essay he wrote that conservatives are inclined to use the powers of government to prevent change or to limit its rate. Of course the Left also known as the Social Liberal, or simply Liberal in the US, is also inclined to use the powers of government, but to instigate change. An obvious manifestation of this today is the various rules, regulations and regulated trading systems being imposed by governments across the world with the aim of stopping climate change – something any empiricists (but particularly evolutionary biologists) recognise as impossible.

In the essay Hayek went on to explain that the correct name for his ideas was Whiggism, because it was the ideas of the seventeenth century English Whigs that inspired what later came to be known as the liberal movement in Europe that provided the conceptions that the American colonists took with them but which was later altered by the French Revolution, with its “totalitarian democracy and socialist leanings”. Hayek ends his essay by coming to an unsatisfactory conclusion as to what any new movement based on his political philosophy might be best called, but this has not stopped many labelling him, incorrectly a Libertarian.

Libertarians believe in freedom as long as the person and property of others is not harmed and that a combination of personal and economic freedom will inevitably produce creativity, abundance and peace.

But in a world of increasingly rapid technological change and increasing concern about the impact of development on the state of the world’s environment and increasing competition for limited resources (including water) there will always be impacts on person and property (particularly if you live downstream). Change brings winners and losers and Libertarianism is not a realistic or sophisticated enough political philosophy to deal with this.

In 1998 Virginia Postrel, the editor of Reason magazine, introduced a new label for a new political philosophy, a philosophy that she explained has given us greater wealth, opportunity and choice than at any time in history. In 'The Future and Its Enemies - The Growing Conflict over Creativity, Enterprise and Progress' Postrel suggests, like Hayek, that conservatives and social liberals have much in common and as a consequence the terms ‘left’ and ‘right’ are of little relevance. Instead she suggests we use the terms ‘stasis’ versus ‘dynamism’ to describe the chasm between those who want to control the future (conservatives and social liberals) and those who believe in the capacity of human beings to improve their lives through trial and error, spontaneous adjustment, adaptation and evolution (dynamists).

Postrel explains that dynamists keep the underlying rules neutral and transparent – a flat tax, for instance – and they stigmatize changes designed to favour particular groups. They believe in free markets but they are not just libertarians with a new name, as they include people with a more expansive view of public goods. So some dynamists support forms of paternalism including seat belt laws, antismoking regulations and a safety net for the poor. But instead of grand plans or ad hoc solutions they have the patience to let trial and error work within well-established and understood rules.

In short, the dynamist recognises that change is real and that our values are not things that have always existed, and will always exist. The future will be a consequence of the legacy of past generations and our own activities and should not be left to chance but neither should we seek to specify in advance exactly what the future will look like.

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December 09, 2007

Reading the Play - by Roger Underwood

The ability to “read the play” is a quality often ascribed to successful politicians, businessmen and sportsmen. The term refers to the ability to predict events and then to take an advantageous position in expectation of the prediction coming to fruition. In the sporting arena it is best seen in champion tennis players like Lew Hoad whose anticipation allowed him simply to “materialise behind an opponent’s ball” (Underwood, 2007), and modern Aboriginal footballers with their uncanny foreknowledge of the way an oblong ball is about to bounce.

I was thinking about prescience recently when reading a wonderful Russian memoir Last Boat to Astrakhan (Haupt, 1998). Robert Haupt was an Australian writer and traveller (he died just before this book was published) who spent five years in Russia between 1990 and 1996. Towards the end of this time he took a boat trip down the Volga River from Moscow to the ancient trading city of Astrakhan, where the Volga flows into the Caspian Sea. The boat trip provides the backdrop to the book’s observations on Russia and Russians.

I found it especially interesting because I have always been fascinated by Russian history, especially the history of the 20th century. The years covered by Haupt’s book coincided with the demise of the Soviet empire and the start of Russia’s troubled journey towards democracy. ‘The barriers to progress,’ Haupt observed, ‘were as they were when Gogol named them: roads and idiots’. Nikolai Gogol, the 19th century Russian novelist had asked “why does a people so blessed with intelligence remain in thrall to fools? Why has a country that spans one-sixth of the world’s land surface remained so short of roads? Do the idiots rule because the roads aren’t there, or is it the want of roads that put idiots in charge?”

Russian history (not unlike history elsewhere) is replete with examples of fools in charge, but in Russia the fools very often seemed to be notably dangerous and ruthless. Haupt touches on the failures of the Romanovs (who for almost 300 years presided over a country in which the bulk of the population were either serfs or Counts), but provides his best insights into the Bolshevik and Communist eras, as well as the tragic consequences for ordinary Russians of the collapse of the USSR.

Haupt is also wryly humorous. For example he notes that the ugliness of Stalinist architecture is fortuitously counterbalanced by the inferiority of Stalinist concrete.

There is also a superb example of “reading the play”. Haupt recounts a conversation between the writer Andrei Sinyavski and a colleague at the Institute for World Literature in Moscow, some time in the early 1960s. Sinyavski believed his colleague was something of a liberal, and this encouraged him to speak freely. In Sinyavski’s words:

…one day I told him how hard I found it to live without freedom, and what a bad effect the lack of freedom had on Russia and Soviet culture. I argued that the Soviet State would not necessarily collapse if it lifted certain restrictions in the cultural sphere. If it allowed abstract art, if it published Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, and Anna Akhmatova’s Requiem, and so on. If anything a slight thaw would benefit Russian culture and the Soviet State!

‘Of course the State won’t founder because of such trifles’ said my colleague. ‘But you are forgetting the effect all this would have on Poland’.

‘What does Poland have to do with it,’ I asked, perplexed, ‘when the point is they should publish Pasternak in Moscow’.

‘If we ourselves, at the centre, allow a relaxation in the cultural sphere, then in Poland, where it’s freer than here, there will be an even greater drift towards freedom. If a thaw starts in Moscow, Poland will secede from the Eastern Bloc, from the Soviet Union.’

“So let Poland secede!” I said flippantly, “Let it live the way it wants!”

‘But after Poland, Czechoslovakia would secede, and after Czechoslovakia, the entire east bloc would break up.’

“So let it break up,” I said “Russia would be only better off”.

But my interlocutor saw further. “After the East Bloc, the Baltics would go – Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia!”

‘So let them, what do we need these forcible annexations for anyway?’

“But after the Baltics, the Caucasus and the Ukraine would go! What do you want? An end to Russian power? For your Pasternak you would let all of Russia crumble, Russia which is now the greatest empire on earth?”

Thirty years before it occurred, Sinyavski’s colleague had read the fall of the dominos (the play) with uncanny accuracy, and he foretold the way in which the ultimate play (the collapse of the USSR) would unfold.

Haupt refers to the Soviet philosophy of cultural and intellectual repression as “the iron logic of empire”, and recounts how Sinyavski himself suffered from it, being sentenced in 1966 to seven years hard labour for publishing anti-Soviet writings abroad. Times had changed however. In the 1930s, the Communists would have got away with this, and no-one would have heard of Sinyavski ever again. In the 1970s Sinyavski became an international emblem of Breshnevian repression following the Krushchevian relaxation. To acute observers this reinforced the famous line of de Tocqueville that ‘there is no more dangerous moment for a repressive regime than the one at which it begins to reform itself’.

In Haupt’s view, and looking at it from the Soviet perspective, the most significant “error” made by the USSR was in not sending armoured divisions storming into Poland and crushing Solidarity as once they had stormed into Hungary and Czechoslovakia and crushed the embryo nationalist and socialist movements in those countries. Once Poland had been “allowed to get away with it” the house of cards started its inevitable collapse.

To me, one of the saddest stories in the book is about the Volga River itself. Once one of the world’s greatest and busiest commercial and domestic waterways, its management was progressively abandoned during the last years of the USSR. It has now become so silted up that ferries like the one on which Haupt travelled can no longer navigate its shallows, and the system of lights and markers has been allowed to decay beyond the point at which they are fixable.

Returning from Astrakhan on the voyage described in this book, the ferry finds itself on a stretch of river at night and with the navigation lights turned off. It takes the wrong channel and runs aground. The next day a tug is called to tow it off, but fails and the passengers are offloaded. Haupt sees this as a parable for the new Russian State: freed from communism, Russia has taken a dark stream, and has run aground. Tugs struggle to redress the calamity, while the Volga flows on……

Haupt is more of a historian and an observer than a “reader of the play” and he does not go on to predict the advent of the new Russia, with the ex-KGB Chief Vladimir Putin firmly in control of the government, the Mafia in control of commerce and the Chechins in revolt. But he does foreshadow the problems with environmental degradation, and the failure of the environmental managers, which may well turn out to be one of the greatest legacies of the Soviet era.

References:

Haupt, R (1998). Last Boat to Astakhan. Random House

Underwood P (2007) The Pros. (Manuscript)

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October 04, 2007

The Differential Value of Heritage

Natural and cultural heritage has differential value; what is priceless and irreplaceable to some is disposable to others. This differentiation is cause for many conflicts and manifests anywhere from highly localised disputes to the very core of sovereign sensitivity.

In an ABC News article Vandal attack on treasured cave, heavy cutting equipment was allegedly used to break into the Kubla Khan cave, regarded as one of Australia's most pristine underground formations. Within the cave is a huge chamber called Xanadu, containing an 18m high stalagmite known as the Khan. The cave is not open to the general public and permits are restricted to only 12 tour groups each year.

Exclusivity of access to public reserves is contentious. The relationship between the permit-issuing authority and the permit holder is exclusionary to fair trade. Inhabitants local to the area may well perceive their exclusion from their cultural heritage as usurpatory, especially if permit-holders derive income privilege from restricted entry.

When I read the article I was reminded of the seemingly senseless destruction of the Dig Tree, made famous through the ill-fated 1860 Burke & Wills expedition. I must confess that when I heard of this incident of alleged vandalism, Innaminka sprang to mind and the beauty of the approach through the Strezlecki Desert. Nevertheless, there are those amongst us, thankfully small in number, who deliberately damage or destroy heritage as an expression of will.

I have previously written about the Disposal of Our Heritage, but much of my concern reflects the likelihood of collateral damage inflicted against the state and its Parks and Wildlife Service in particular.

It is very frustrating that the environmental mandates and functions of government land management agencies are not considered business activites, as they are relieved of the need to conform with competitive neutrality and fair trade. A national overhaul of environmental compliance is urgently required to protect our heritage from these aggravating practices. Our greatest defense, in the meantime, is the residential vigilance of local people and the importance of protecting that which sustains them, now and hopefully into the future.

Posted by neil at 08:57 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

September 02, 2007

Postmodern Science - A Contradiction in Terms: A Note from Walter Starck

The ideal of scientific objectivity has been subverted — even in the world's most prestigious universities — by the pernicious and pervasive influence of postmodernism, laments scientist Dr Walter Starck.

Over recent decades a few widely publicised instances of scientific misconduct have occasioned much concern. All have involved fabrication or misrepresentation of data in the highly competitive big budget area of biomedical research.

Remarkably, however, in some other areas of research, similar and often even more egregious breaches of scientific ethics have become such common practice as to pass without comment. In such areas the ideal of scientific objectivity has been abandoned for overt advocacy, with cherry-picking, misrepresentation and suppression of data becoming near normal.

Moreover, any attempt to question such claims is met not with reasoned argument but appeals to authority, claims of expert consensus and personal denigration. How this gross departure from what were once core scientific values deserves consideration.

The scientific method has been the most effective means yet developed to understand our world. It has resulted in longer, healthier, safer, more interesting and comfortable human lives than ever before. Essential to this success has been a philosophical approach in which understanding is evidence-based, logically consistent and subject to revision in the light of new evidence or more comprehensive explanation.

In science the highest goal has been a pursuit of truth as determined by reason and empirical evidence. Disregard for truth and false evidence are unacceptable for any reason.

The history of science has been an ongoing account of the discovery of previously unthinkable new under-standings of the world and the abandonment of previously accepted ones. A heliocentric solar system, a multimillion-year-old Earth, evolution, continental drift, relativity, quantum theory — every new perception that challenges established belief always meets strong resistance regardless of the weight of reason and evidence to support it. The core strength of science is that it fosters such challenges and demands their acceptance if they cannot be refuted.

Whether or not one approves of all its findings, the success and authority of science are difficult to deny. Attempts to adopt its methodology and lay some claim to its authority have been made with varying success in other fields of study. In the humanities and so-called social sciences the result has been decidedly mixed. Part of the difficulty has been the inherent complexity of the subject matter, but the conflict between unavoidable conclusions from evidence-based analysis and deeply held beliefs has also been a major obstacle. Too much in careers, reputations and convictions rests on foundations inconsistent with empirical evidence to permit easy acceptance of fundamentally different ideas.

Increasingly, however, the findings of science have begun to impinge upon the established order in the humanities. Postmodernism has been in large part a response to this challenge. It ignores the irrefutable success of science in permitting us to better understand our world; it rejects its authority as being simply a cultural artefact, no more or less valid than any other belief. Truth, facts, reason and objectivity are rejected because in practice the aim does not fully achieve the ideal.

Uncomfortable scientific findings are then "deconstructed" so as to dismiss or reinterpret them as desired. Into the vacuum of ethics and meaning it seeks to fill, this nihilistic pseudo-philosophy then inserts its own agenda, a new edition of the old leftist catechism re-branded as a form of moral righteousness we recognise as political correctness.

Postmodernism is now as predominant in academia as the socialism it has replaced. Although the latter attracted many scientists, their professional activity had limited relevance to social concerns and there was little direct influence on the practice of science itself.

Postmodernism, however, recognises the increasing influence of science on social issues and has attacked, co-opted and subverted it with considerable success. This has been made easier by the absence of any formal study of logic or the philosophy of science as a part of scientific training.

Awareness of the philosophy and ethics of science is something scientists are simply assumed to absorb from their environment, although these are matters which seldom arise in the normal course of events. Although a PhD purports to be a doctor of philosophy, most holders of the degree are in fact advanced technicians with highly specialised training, and with neither the breadth of scientific understanding nor philosophical knowledge the degree implies.

On the other hand, various issues of political correctness are virtually daily fare in the broader academic environment of which scientists are a part. Although few scientists might consider themselves as politically correct or (heaven forbid!) postmodern-ists, many, perhaps most, do subscribe to the prevailing attitudes of an academic community heavily influenced by this view.

Postmodernism has focused its concern and had its greatest effect on those areas of science which bear most strongly on societal matters. Behavioural and environmental studies have been notably influenced.

Such influence has taken manifold forms. A common one has seen many scientists abandon any attempt at an objective search for truth in favour of outright advocacy, in which evidence is misrepresented, ignored and suppressed to accord with some objective deemed to be socially or environmentally correct.

Regardless of the fact that dishonest scientific claims are often the basis for laws and restrictions that wreak havoc on people's lives, or even criminalise otherwise harmless activity, perpetrators of such dishonesty are seldom held responsible for any harm they cause. Ironically, incorporating similar misinformation in support of a public share offering would make one subject to criminal prosecution.

In environmental matters, dishonest scientific claims have become so widely practised and accepted that questioning or exposing them is the only thing now treated as a breach of ethics!

The penalties start with personal attack and denigration. For those in business it often includes severe legal and regulatory harassment. For researchers it can entail withdrawal of research support, publishing rejections, shunning by peers and even dismissal from employment. Such threats are very real and examples are common enough to deter all but the most determined or reckless.

Lawrence Summers after Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences passed a no-confidence vote against him.

Two examples — one specific, the other general — clearly illustrate the pernicious and pervasive influence of postmodernism on science. Harvard University is one of the world's most prestigious academic and research institutions. Last year its president, economist Lawrence ("Larry") Summers, gave a conference address entitled "Diversifying the science and engineering workforce: women, underrepresented minorities, and their S&E careers in Massachusetts".

In it he considered that social attitudes and discrimination might not be the sole reason for under-representation but that family vs. career choices and innate aptitudes might also be involved. He referred to indicative evidence and suggested that further research and a more objective approach could be useful.

His overall tone was moderate, unassertive and reasonable. By any normal standards of discourse he offered only a modest suggestion. However, the mere suggestion of any possibility of innate differences in aptitude between genders provoked a storm of protest. Those from aggressive women's activists groups might not be too surprising, but a threatened vote of no confidence by Harvard's powerful Faculty of Arts and Sciences led to his forced resignation.

Although he retained the support of many faculty students — with even an apparent majority among other faculties — it seems ironic it was the science community that demanded his head. In subscribing to irrational belief it seems that recent converts must always compete to demonstrate their commitment. As to the outcome, one can reasonably assume his replacement will not be likely to again suggest a rational scientific approach to such issues.

At the time of this writing, a brilliant young theoretical physicist at Harvard, Lubos Motl, has reportedly had his position terminated as a consequence of his outspoken support for Larry Summers and for his criticism of discrepancies between the claims of global-warming alarmists and the fundamental radiative physics involved. With this happening to the brightest at the best institutions, one can hardly expect better elsewhere.

A more general and closer-to-home example of postmodernist thinking involves the management of Australian fisheries. Australia has the largest fishery-zone per capita, yet the lowest harvest-rate in the world. The latter is only 1/30 of the average rate. The total catch is only half that of New Zealand and very close to that of PNG, Italy, Poland and Portugal.

Much of our fishery zone is in fact not fished at all. Despite this indisputable reality, our resource managers claim our fisheries are widely threatened with over-fishing and the world's most restrictive and costly management has been imposed. For the Commonwealth-licensed fishing fleet, annual management costs are in excess of $100,000 per vessel.

The result of such (mis)manage-ment is a rapidly declining industry and rising imports. Seventy per cent of domestic seafood consumption now comes from imports. All these come from areas much more heavily fished than our own. Thailand is the largest supplier. It produces 11 times our total catch and from a fishing zone only 1/20 as large.

The cost of seafood imports is currently $1.8 billion annually, and a CSIRO study projects a 400 per cent increase in consumption by 2020. To make matters worse, prices are increasing steeply with Asia's growing wealth and demand.

In effect, we are selling off non-renewable mineral resources to buy a renewable resource we have in abundance but which, thanks to mismanagement, we cannot harvest. In a superb example of bureau-speak, this is then touted as "sustainable management". To top it off, those responsible for this travesty of management have proclaimed the result to be the "best-managed fisheries in the world".

Bureaucratic empire-building, research promotion, media sensationalism, environmentalist ideology and political pandering have all played a role in this situation, but postmodern thinking has greatly facilitated it by sanctioning the abandonment of truth and evidence in favour of advocacy for the higher purpose of protecting our precious environment.

Although the bureaucrats, researchers, journalists, activists and politicians involved all have their own agendas, they share a common tertiary academic background wherein postmodern ethical influence prevails. This makes advocacy in accord with perceived political correctness a virtue, and disagreement politically incorrect. The more irrefutable any conflicting evidence presented, the greater the righteousness in its rejection.

With the collapse of socialism, disapproval of existing society has regrouped around the environment, but the agenda of restructuring society by coercion remains the same. The purported concern has simply shifted from downtrodden workers to the birds and bees. This accords well with the neo-pagan romanticism of nature popular among an overwhelmingly urbanised middle-class disconnected from the realities of the productive activity which supports them.

Societal disconnection from reality is a recurrent theme in human history. It may be imposed or may emerge when good fortune lasts long enough for people to begin to accept it as a given and even their just due.

Such delusions may sometimes be corrected if a leader is daring enough to state the obvious, and or may be abandoned en masse, as happened with the collapse of communism.

More often they self-correct by consequences resulting in disaster. With a chronic trade deficit, foreign debt growing at twice the rate of the economy, declining manufacturing and a looming global fuel shortage, Australia appears headed for a severe economic readjustment, but our delusions prevent us from doing anything or even recognising the situation.

A new, more holistic and realistic view of human ecology is overdue. Also needed is a leader who will dare to challenge the orthodoxy of environmental correctness. Hopefully, this will occur before the consequences of self-inflicted economic, energy and environmental impediments impose their own harsh corrections.

Dr Walter Starck is a marine scientist with 50 years' worldwide experience in reef biology.

--------------
First published in News Weekly and reproduced here with permission from the author.

Posted by jennifer at 05:22 AM | Comments (21) | TrackBack

December 30, 2006

The Discoveries of Science: Comment from Steven Pinker

David Tribe sent me a link to a piece by Steven Pinker titled 'Less Faith, More Reason'. Here's an extract:

"Missing from the report is a sensitivity to the ennobling nature of knowledge: to the inherent value, with consequences too far-reaching to enumerate, of understanding how the world works. For one thing, it is a remarkable fact that we have come to understand as much as we do about the natural world: the history of the universe and our planet, the forces that make it tick, the stuff we’re made of, the origin of living things, and the machinery of life, including our own mental life.

I believe we have a responsibility to nurture and perpetuate this knowledge for the same reason that we have a responsibility to perpetuate an appreciation of great accomplishments in the arts. A failure to do so would be a display of disrespect for our ancestors and heirs, and a philistine indifference to the magnificent achievements that the human mind is capable of.

Also, the picture of humanity’s place in nature that has emerged from scientific inquiry has profound consequences for people’s understanding of the human condition. The discoveries of science have cascading effects, many unforeseeable, on how we view ourselves and the world in which we live: for example, that our planet is an undistinguished speck in an inconceivably vast cosmos; that all the hope and ingenuity in the world can’t create energy or use it without loss; that our species has existed for a tiny fraction of the history of the earth; that humans are primates; that the mind is the activity of an organ that runs by physiological processes; that there are methods for ascertaining the truth that can force us to conclusions which violate common sense, sometimes radically so at scales very large and very small; that precious and widely held beliefs, when subjected to empirical tests, are often cruelly falsified.

I believe that a person for whom this understanding is not second-nature cannot be said to be educated. And I think that some acknowledgment of the intrinsic value of scientific knowledge should be a goal of the general education requirement and a stated value of a university."

You can read the complete article here: http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=515314 .

Posted by jennifer at 10:13 PM | Comments (35) | TrackBack

December 26, 2006

The Concept of 'Passionate Agnosticism' on Boxing Day 2006

I was at church yesterday on Christmas Day, and I was also at church on Christmas Eve. I am a protestant by upbringing and tribal affiliation, but like Richard Dawkins, an atheist by conviction. But unlike Dawkins I am not against religion.

Richard Dawkins has just written a new book 'The God Delusion' and it has been described as:

"A hard-hitting, impassioned rebuttal of religion of all types and does so in the lucid, witty and powerful language for which he [Dawkins] is renowned. It is a brilliantly argued, fascinating polemic that will be required reading for anyone interested in this most emotional and important subject."

But according to Michael Fitzpatrick writing for Spiked Online in a piece entitled'The Dawkins Delusion', Dawkins fails to recognize environmentalism as the new religion of choice for urban atheists:

"The most curious feature of Dawkins’ crusade against religion is that it is mounted at a time when the social influence of religion is at a low ebb. In the USA, Dawkins follows liberals in grossly exaggerating the influence of the religious right as a way of avoiding any reflection on the lack of popular appeal of their own agenda. In the UK, Dawkins concentrates his fire on one school in Gateshead where creationism has crept on to the curriculum (allowing him to sneer at Peter Vardy, the vulgar ‘car salesman’ millionaire who has bankrolled the school). Yet, while he happily tilts at windmills, Dawkins ignores much more influential currents of irrationality – such as the cult of environmentalism – which has a far greater influence on the national curriculum than notions of ‘intelligent design’.

While Dawkins can readily identify common features between South Pacific cargo cults and the Christian churches, he seems oblivious to the religious themes of the environmental movement. Just like evangelical Christians, environmentalists preach a ‘repent, the end is nigh’ message. The movement has its own John the Baptist – George Monbiot – who has come out of the desert (well, Oxfordshire) to warn us of the imminent danger of hellfire (in the form of global warming) if we do not repent and embrace his doctrines of austerity and restraint (3). Beware – the rough beast of the apocalypse is slouching towards Bethlehem to be born! "

I don't have any real difficulty with the religous themes within environmentalism and I don't particularly have a problem with the doctrine of austerity and restraint, but I do have a real problem with the way in which many environmentalists wrongly appeal to 'science' to support these themes.

Many environmental organisations have professors of science in key leadership positions and often these same people confuse 'the scientific evidence' with their misguided belief that everywhere the natural environment is in crisis.

For me evidence and faith are two very different things.

Sitting in church on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day I was reminded again about the importance of faith to the Christian and also the importance of 'helping' in particular the needy.

Many environmentalists want to believe the environment is being harmed by people and they want to help the environment, but they often lack an understanding of science. So their approach to 'helping the environment' is often confused and in some instances is harmful.

In Science, Religion and the Meaning of Life, Mark Vernon, "confronts the lust for certainty found in the dogmatism of conservative religion and militant science. He believes that a committed even passionate agnosticism is vital for the future of our planet and our souls."

As a committed environmentalist and atheist, who is often accused of being an extreme skeptic, I find the concept of 'passionate agnosticism' appealing.

Posted by jennifer at 04:23 PM | Comments (29) | TrackBack

September 26, 2006

Mine Your Own Business: Anti-Activist Film

Jennifer,

The readers of your blog may be interested in the new anti-activist movie, 'Mine Your Own Business'. The page loads slowly, but patience will be rewarded with the film trailer: http://www.mineyourownbusiness.org/index.htm .

Schiller.

And this is what the Director of the movie had to say:

"I remember a time, not so long ago, when the man with the sandwich board warning the world that the end is nigh was a comic figure. He appeared in cartoons and comedy sketch shows as the clownish, nerdish figure that others made jokes about.

Similarly it is not long ago that the bearded man, with the religious collar and evangelical zeal, warned us to change our ways or we would be visited by plagues and pestilence was viewed as a throwback to a conservative, less sophisticated past.

Most educated westerners feel that no longer believing these spreaders of doom and apocalypse is a sign of progress and how our society has matured.

But remove the glasses and the grubby raincoat from the man with the sandwich board and replace it with an ethnic shirt, maybe a pair of sandals and write on the sandwich board that we are all going to be damned because the oil will run out, Or maybe the message is that we are all going to be doomed because we have cut down the forests or because of global warming and suddenly we take the man with the sandwich board very seriously indeed.

Similarly remove the collar from the man with the evangelical zeal and make him a member of an environmental organisation and suddenly we start paying serious attention to these modern day prophets of doom.

Once, according to our religious leaders, it was our sins that were leading us to damnation. Now, according to our environmental leaders, it is polluting actions of man that will lead to our damnation.

How little we have all progressed and how we still love to listen to harbingers of doom would be mildly amusing if it were not for the pernicious effects of such beliefs on the poorest people in some of the poorest countries in the world.

Hundreds of years after we have become rich and comfortable by removing our forests and exploiting our natural resources such as coal, oil, and gold we are now going to the poorest countries on the planet to prevent them from doing what we did and having what we have. We want them to stay as 'traditional peasants' forgetting all the while that the poor people desperately want progress and desperately want to enjoy the good, healthy and long life we in the west take for granted.

'Mine Your Own Business' will make a lot of comfortable western people very uncomfortable indeed. It will show them the consequences of their blind faith in our new religion-the religion of environmentalism.

Phelim McAleer
July 2006"

Posted by jennifer at 06:18 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack

August 28, 2006

Rats Destroyed the Forests on Easter Island: Terry Hunt

Easter Island has been described by Jared Diamond as the "clearest example of a society that destroyed itself by overexploiting its own resources".

Prof Diamond has told and retold the story and drawn a parallel between the ecological disaster he says befell Easter Island and our likely fate because we are cutting down too many trees and consuming too much energy.

In the September-October issue of American Scientist Online Terry Hunt details findings from his work on Easter Island.

It is an interesting read in which Hunt concludes that rats introduced by the Polynesians negatively impacted on recruitment in Jubaea palms resulting in forest decline. In contrast, Jared Diamond says the Polynesians simply cut down all the trees.

Furthermore Hunt suggests that the downfall of the original Polynesian civilization resulted not from internal strife associated with ecological disaster following destruction of the forest, but rather from contact with Europeans.

I read a lot of James Michener books when I was a bit younger. Civilizations destroyed by new arrivals is a consistent theme in Michener's stories.

Posted by jennifer at 06:41 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack

August 18, 2006

Ecology is Not a Branch of Biology: Davey

"Human Ecology is the study of interactions between human society and nature. Despite a rocky start in the 1920s, when it got muddled up with some dodgy sociology, it now enjoys a common syllabus at a network of universities in Europe, Scandinavia and USA.

Even Australia has, at last, come on board, with the Australian National University offering a course in Human Ecology.

Trying to 'save nature' by ignoring human needs is plain silly, and won't work. Humans are at the core of the problem, and are also the solution.

Despite pretentious claims by some biologists, hoping to be eco-gurus, ecology is not a branch of biology. Biology is a root discipline of ecology, together with meteorology, climatology, chemistry, mathematics, sociology, politics, law, psychology, history etc.

How about calling those who want to find real solutions, involving both nature and society, Human Ecologists? I think H.G. Wells made that suggestion many years ago.

I would vote for a political party which made Human Ecology a main plank in its policy."

This comment was made by a regular commentator at this blog who uses the pen name 'Davey Gam Esq'. I think it is correct to note that he is an ecologist from WA? The comment was originally made at the long thread following my recent blog post titled 'Join the Revolution' which is about the first Australian Environment Foundation Conference in Brisbane on 23rd September.

Posted by jennifer at 11:45 AM | Comments (31) | TrackBack

June 28, 2006

Climate Consensus & The End of Science: Terence Corcoran versus Thomas Kuhn

I grew up in a family where we would sometimes take a vote, and then Dad would decide. Dad had some respect for the idea of a 'majority' or a 'consensus', but I can't remember ever worrying too much about trying to convince my siblings to vote with me.

As a scientist working for government, and later in a management position with the Queensland sugar industry, my colleagues used to try and impress upon me the importance of "having the numbers" and what the “consensus” position was.

But I’ve always been less interested in who has the numbers at any particular point in time, and more interested in the argument. I’ve always believed that a solid logical argument should eventually win the day.

The other day I was sent a link to a piece by Terence Corcoran from the Financial Post in Canada titled 'Climate Consensus and the End of Science'. It began with comment that:

"It is now firmly established, repeated ad nauseam in the media and elsewhere, that the debate over global warming has been settled by scientific consensus. The subject is closed. It seems unnecessary to labour the point, but here are a couple of typical statements: "The scientific consensus is clear: human-caused climate change is happening" (David Suzuki Foundation); "There is overwhelming scientific consensus" that greenhouse gases emitted by man cause global temperatures to rise (Mother Jones).

Back when modern science was born, the battle between consensus and new science worked the other way around. More often than not, the consensus of the time -- dictated by religion, prejudice, mysticism and wild speculation, false premises -- was wrong. The role of science, from Galileo to Newton and through the centuries, has been to debunk the consensus and move us forward. But now science has been stripped of its basis in experiment, knowledge, reason and the scientific method and made subject to the consensus created by politics and bureaucrats."

The piece is interesting, it does correctly emphasis the extent to which the word 'consensus' is repeated invoked with the word 'science' and 'climate change' to justify support for the concept of anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

Terence Corcoran's piece might have been improved with some reference to two well know philosophers of science, Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.

Popper had no time for consensus, for him science was advanced through 'falsification':

"Logically, no number of positive outcomes at the level of experimental testing can confirm a scientific theory, but a single genuine counter-instance is logically decisive: it shows the theory, from which the implication is derived, to be false. Popper's account of the logical asymmetry between verification and falsification lies at the heart of his philosophy of science. It also inspired him to take falsifiability as his criterion of demarcation between what is and is not genuinely scientific: a theory should be considered scientific if and only if it is falsifiable."

[from Wikipedia, click here].

Yet so many 'global warming believer' complain when 'skeptics' present bits of information that don't necessarily accord with the rhetoric. They might accuse the skeptic of 'cherry picking'. But if you believe in Popper and falsification, what’s wrong with cherry picking to disprove the general applicability of a theory?

In contrast, Thomas Kuhn would perhaps see the current preoccupation with having a scientific consensus as normal:

"Thomas Kuhn ... argued instead that experimental data always provide some data which cannot fit completely into a theory, and that falsification alone did not result in scientific change or an undermining of scientific consensus. He proposed that scientific consensus worked in the form of "paradigms", which were interconnected theories and underlying assumptions about the nature of the theory itself which connected various researchers in a given field. Kuhn argued that only after the accumulation of many "significant" anomalies would scientific consensus enter a period of "crisis". At this point, new theories would be sought out, and eventually one paradigm would triumph over the old one — a cycle of paradigm shifts rather than a linear progression towards truth. Kuhn's model also emphasized more clearly the social and personal aspects of theory change, demonstrating through historical examples that scientific consensus was never truly a matter of pure logic or pure facts."

[from Wikipedia, click here]

So according to Kuhn the current preoccupation with a 'scientific consensus' on climate change is not necessarily novel and contrary to Terence Corcoran's ascertains it doesn’t necessarily mean "the end of science".

Posted by jennifer at 10:59 AM | Comments (41) | TrackBack

June 27, 2006

Being a 'Chooser', Not a 'Changer' (More on Peer Review)

There have been several instances where commentators at this blog have criticised others for publishing their information on websites rather in peer reviewed journals. The inference being that if its not in a peer reviewed journal, the idea has little merit.

Interestingly, there's a new medical journal to be published by Elsevier called 'Medical Hypotheses' and it plans to take a deliberately different approach to peer review:

"Most contemporary practice tends to discriminate against radical ideas that conflict with current theory and practice. Medical Hypotheses will publish radical ideas, so long as they are coherent and clearly expressed. Furthermore, traditional peer review can oblige authors to distort their true views to satisfy referees, and so diminish authorial responsibility and accountability. In Medical Hypotheses, the authors' responsibility for the integrity, precision and accuracy of their work is paramount. The editor sees his role as a 'chooser', not a 'changer': choosing to publish what are judged to be the best papers from those submitted.

Papers in Medical Hypotheses take a standard scientific form in terms of style, structure and referencing. The journal therefore constitutes a bridge between cutting-edge theory and the mainstream of medical and scientific communication, which ideas must eventually enter if they are to be critiqued and tested against observations."

What a great idea! And doesn't the new journal neatly articulate the problems with peer review for those working outside of established paradigms.

The quote was sent to me with a link to a blog piece by Andrew Leigh in which he suggests the concept has application to economics.

Posted by jennifer at 11:27 AM | Comments (33) | TrackBack

June 06, 2006

Why are The Opinionators also 'Environmentalists'?

Sydney-based think tank the Centre for Independent Studies puts out a quarterly magazine called Policy. The latest issue features a piece titled 'The Rise of the Opinionators' by Peter Saunders which suggests that:

"In the last 50 years, people’s socio-economic characteristics have become much less significant indicators of how they will vote: many working class voters support parties of the right, and large swathes of the middle class vote Labor.

Labor’s strongest support on a two-party preferred basis is not now among manual workers. It is among education, arts and social professionals, people Peter Saunders dubs the ‘opinionators’ for their role in developing, processing, interpreting and transmitting ideas, values and opininons.

The opinionators hold many views at significant variance from the general population. Compared to other voters, for example, the opinonators are less likely to support reducing tax and more likely to favour higher government spending, and they are much more in favour of asylum seekers and much less supportive of defence spending."

Saunders also suggests that Opinionators stand out from other voters in their strong support for the Greens and their support for, what he calls, "high-visibility election issues like logging, or on touchstone issues like GM crops".

The article concludes with the comment, "In terms of their wider ideological importance, however, the opinionators occupy many of the key positions within our core educational and cultural institutions. Their political significance should not be measured in votes."

What has always struck me most about this group is that, yes, they have very definite and strongly held opinions on a range of environmental issues. I have also observed that they are mostly incredibly ignorant on the very same issues for which they hold such definate views. As a consequence I see them as a real threat to the environment. I wrote sometime ago for Policy magazine on this on this issue, the piece was titled Environmental Fundamentalism.

I have also been rather taken-aback when more than once 'an opinionator' has declined to discuss an environmental issue with me on the basis that, in their opinion, I knew too much about the particular subject! Most ordinary folk like talking to people who know something about a subject?

What is it about environmental issue and this group, a group that has so much political and cultural clout?

Posted by jennifer at 09:35 AM | Comments (39)

May 12, 2006

Against Wearing & Eating Animal Products

The Weekly Times, a rural Victorian newspaper, had a feature this week on animal rights. It reports on a group called Voiceless that plans to work with school children against the eating and wearing of animal products.

Interestingly Voiceless already have a program with Griffith University for the development of a school curriculum.

While the Weekly Times article suggests Voiceless are also against the harvesting of kangaroos, their website focuses on intensive farming of animals, particularly pigs.

Not so long ago I spoke with farmers at Cowra about what groups like Voiceless and PETA represent. Here's an extract:

"There has been much written about how Australia’s national character emerged from a bush ethos: the idea that a specifically Australian outlook emerged first amongst workers in the Australian pastoral industry. The recent, big environmental and animal liberation campaigns, however, challenge key assumptions from this history. They portray Australian agriculture as harmful to the environment, and the animal liberationists suggest that our farmers are inhumane.

Banjo Paterson, perhaps more than any other writer, created and defined our cultural heritage. His story about the shearer and his jumbuck in outback Queensland remains our most popular national song.

Renditions of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ dominate when Australians gather at major international sporting events, including the Olympic Games and Rugby Union matches.

But People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are campaigning against the wool industry. They are against live export and they are against mulesing. As part of the campaign against wool products focused on US consumers, PETA campaigners have also suggested that the Australian climate is too hot for sheep.

‘The Man from Snowy River’, also by Paterson, is about bushmen and their horses in the High Country. The man from Snowy River chased the brumbies ‘down the mountain like a torrent down its bed’ through open country and mountain scrub before ‘turning their heads for home’ with his pony covered in ‘blood from hip to shoulder from the spur’.

Now the NSW and Victorian Governments are intent on banning grazing and brumbies from the High Country on the basis that they have an adverse impact on the natural heritage of the Alpine region.

The Victorian mountain cattlemen sought an emergency cultural and historic heritage listing with the Federal Environment Minister to counter the Victorian Government’s proposed ban on grazing. But lost.

No-one has a monopoly on the future. Perhaps it is time that Australians moved beyond ‘Waltzing Matilda’ and ‘The Man from Snowy River’? The PETA Website explains that there are alternatives to wool, including:
“polyester fleece, synthetic shearling, and other cruelty-free fibres. Tencel -- breathable, durable, and biodegradable -- is one of the newest cruelty free wool substitutes…. Choosing to buy these non-wool products not only helps the animals, but can also reduce or eliminate many of the consumer problems and inconveniences that go along with wearing or using wool. “

But what about a replacement for lamb chops? While the animal liberationists are against the farming of exotic animals, like sheep, they are also intent on preventing the development of any industry based on the farming of Australian native animals, including kangaroos. PETA is even against the drinking of milk."

Perhaps we will one day all eat tofu and wear polyester fleece jumpers?

Posted by jennifer at 08:11 PM | Comments (19) | TrackBack

Environmentalism & Politics: A Question

I am a student studying Australian Politics as a course at University, and I have an environmental question to give a presentation on:

"How does environmentalism challenge how we think about Australian Politics?"

I'm at a bit of a loss, can anyone help me on this?

Shannon Tonkin

Posted by jennifer at 08:10 AM | Comments (7)

May 08, 2006

On Absurd Opinions

There is no opinion, however absurd, which men [and women] will not readily embrace as soon as they can be brought to the conviction that it is generally adopted.

Arthur Schopenauer (1788-1860)

Posted by jennifer at 01:19 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack

May 06, 2006

Archibishop Comments on "Hysterical" Global Warming Claims

According to yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald, Australia's most influential catholic, Archibiship George Pell, in a speech to US Catholic business leaders, said Western democracy was ... suffering a crisis of confidence as evidenced by the decline in fertility rates and that:

"Pagan emptiness" and Western fears of the uncontrollable forces of nature had contributed to "hysteric and extreme claims" about global warming.

"In the past, pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions."

Posted by jennifer at 09:45 AM | Comments (17)

April 13, 2006

First Birthday & Going Fishing

This blog is a year old tomorrow, the 14th April.

Interestingly there are comments at that first post from Walter Starck, Tim Lambert and Michael Duffy.

I have learnt a lot over the last year, especially about people and how they view different issues, and the knowledge and prejudices they often bring to a discussion.

I have been amazed at the web traffic this blog has generated. My Alexa rating is now 91,696. If this is any reflection of comparative traffic, my blog is now one of the most popular political blogs in Australia according to analyses in January by Tim Blair and Tim Lambert, click here. In fact, while my Alexa rating has improved dramatically over the last few months moving from 482,108 to 91,696, the other blogs mentioned at that post have not moved much with Tim Blair now on 42,756 (was 50,087), Catallaxy now on 238,196 (was 225,665) and Gravatt.org on 482,108 (was 488,606).

I would like to thank National Forum for hosting this site and advertising the blog at The Domain.

I am going to start using the subscribe facility at this website to send out a monthly email. I will perhaps include links to a few of the best blog posts for that month and information about what's happening and where I might be speaking. So please log on, and register your email address by clicking here.

The blog costs me time and money and I am considering placing some advertisements at the site or asking for sponsorship.

The blog and website might be useful for advertising upcoming conferences in environment and related areas - doesn't anybody know anybody who organises lots of conferences who might be interested?

The blog Larvatus Prodeo has a paypay for donations, maybe I could also add something like that?

There have been some comments, particularly at the global warming threads, suggesting I am pushing a particular perspective in my posts while others claim that I am too negative and always questioning rather than providing answers.

In response:

1. I repeat my offer to post essays at this blog from those with a very different perspective. I have posted different perspectives on whaling (including from Greenpeace and Libby Eyre) and I am more than happy to do the same on global warming.

2. According to Wikipedia: The Socratic method is a negative method of hypothesis elimination, in that better hypotheses are found by steadily identifying and eliminating those which lead to contradictions. It was designed to force one to examine his own beliefs and the validity of such beliefs. In fact, Socrates once said, "I know you won't believe me, but the highest form of Human Excellence is to question oneself and others."

Anyway, thanks for sharing your prejudices, evidence, insights, and stories with me over the last year - and may the reef be as beautiful, and autumn as warm, in April next year.

I leave tomorrow for a few days of camping on the New South Wales mid-north coast. But I will be back.