Morning of 6 June 1968 in Australia, and the news was filtering in, few details, that Robert Kennedy had been shot while campaigning in California for the nomination as Democratic candidate for President (in one of those lovely historical quirks to face off, as it would transpire, against Richard Nixon, just as his brother had done 8 years earlier). So there we were having morning coffee in the tearoom at the university feeling sombre about the news, when in bounced my American academic room mate happily singing the words “Bobby Kennedy’s a vegetable, Bobby Kennedy’s a vegetable”. So demonstrating that (1) even California girls can be conservative (2) that university students can be conservative and (3) that there was a strain of Kennedy family hatred running deep among many Americans in 1968.

I always liked Bobby Kennedy. Saw him, I suppose, as a chance to restart the JFK promise cut short by that bastard in Dallas. And even more so. RFK seemed brighter than his brother and in the 5 years since his loss had come a long way on civil rights and the war. But the right were having none of that, and another bastard shot him, and then it was back to the mediocrity of Humphrey versus Nixon, the old firm back in town.

Said some good things, RFK, in those few brief years. One of the best known was “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” This was a paraphrased (and improved) quote from GB Shaw Back to Methuselah “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say, ‘Why not?’” It’s one of those “two kinds of people in the world” dichotomies, and when I was thinking about the difference between conservatives and progressives it came back to me. Kennedy and Shaw are not quite right for this use for modern times, in fact have almost reversed in meaning.

Progressives look at the world, get the facts on how it is, and ask “Why is that the situation?”, “What do we do about that?”, “How do we solve that?” They live in a fact-based world where problems are identified, analysed, responded to in a real way. Conservatives have no interest in the actual world. One will say “I want to do that” and the other will say “Why not?” and that will settle the issue. Or to put it another way, conservatives have a rigid ideology to which they are determined to make the world conform. With violence if necessary. Or even if not necessary – to hell with it, good money to be made out of wars. They have no interest in looking around and finding out what the world is actually like, they know what it is like, exactly, none of that wishy washy progressive doubt sort of stuff. No need for any of that scientific research and analysis crap either. Just decision-making, that’s all that’s needed. If someone says can we clear this forest for development a conservative says “why not?” Conservatives can have a forest cleared while an ecologist is still putting on his work trousers. A factory owner asks “hey, is it really safe to keep pumping all this CO2 into the air?” A conservative says “why not? who’s ever going to notice?” A businessman says “Hey, why not cut my taxes even more?” A conservative says “why not indeed? Best if you paid no tax really. After all your wealth will trickle down to the undeserving poor eventually”. A billionaire says “Health care? For the poor? Why if you have to ask how much it is you can’t afford it.” A Libertarian says “Why not get rid of all regulation now?” A conservative says “D’Oh!”

And meanwhile the progressives are asking “Why is the planet warming? Why is the wealth gap increasing? Why are poor people still starving? Why are species rapidly going extinct? Why are buildings collapsing? Why are children still dying?” Trying to find out. Trying to do something about it.

Thing is, just between you and me, the answers to the Progressive’s questions are the results of the answers to the Conservative’s questions. Been the case since Methuselah’s time.

You know why.

I’m thinking it wouldn’t have been so important for the battles between more or less equal armies, but for the invasions and occupations of countries by superior forces. For two reasons, so that those being invaded could tell each other what the hell was going on instead of being overwhelmed unawares, and so they could tell rest of the world what was happening and arouse sympathy and help.

Picture the Romans entering Britain, Spaniards into Central America, British into Australia and India, Greeks into Middle East. Imagine what the French resistance could have done as the Germans occupied, what the people of south east Asia could have reported about the Japanese. Imagine indeed what the Jewish people, and the German resistance, could have revealed about conditions in Germany in the 1930s and in the war. The British in China, the Japanese in China, the Portugese and Dutch in Africa, the Russians in eastern Europe, the Vikings in Britain, the Turks in Austria, Genghis Khan everywhere. If all the countries invaded could have quickly communicated with each other (The Eora and Dharug for example letting others know outside Sydney Cove what these Redcoats and convicts were up to; letting the world know they were being invaded, shot, land taken, dying of smallpox) invasions would have been harder, occupations perhaps shorter and less brutal.

And the world’s tyrants would have had a more difficult time – Caligula and Bloody Mary, Hitler and Stalin, Egyptian and Aztec rulers, Chinese emperors, South American generals. All would have had problems keeping brutality going, maintaining their power, faced with a flood of information to the world via the internet.

And yet. We have those tools today. Brave people getting stories, photos, film out from Syria most recently. And every report is prefaced by disclaimers from mainstream media – this may not be true, can’t verify, it is said that, purports to show, apparently results from. Every piece of footage, photo, recording, secret interview, is prefaced by disclaimers so as to make it impossible to know the truth. So that viewers, listeners, treat all this material as rumours of no more credibility than any other rumours. And we have to be very careful about terminology like “invasion” “occupation” “freedom fighter” “rebel” “terrorist”, have to be careful not to offend dictators who are on our side or are good trading partners. Have to present news about such events as “he said-she said”.

Internet technology make a difference in the past? I doubt it. Video footage of Nero with box of matches setting fire to Rome? Couldn’t be verified.

So I prefer eating at home usually, but this is no longer the certainty it once was. Nothing to do with the cooking of course, he adds hastily, avoiding repercussions, but more to do with ingredients.

Don’t know if you have seen a television program called “Jimmy’s Food Factory”. The chap tries to recreate the processes by which food is converted from what occurs naturally on the farm to what you find packaged for sale in shops and supermarkets.

It is one of those programs that tell you far more than you wanted to know for your own peace of mind. He minces things up, steams them, reduces to grey sludge, adds chemicals for colour and taste, reconstitutes in new form, dries, freezes, fires out of cannon, packages, adds a misleading name (a “custard” biscuit for example having no custard of any kind), finished.

The result bears little resemblance to the original but is in a convenient shape and form that can be shipped readily, and will last for a thousand years on a shelf. There are “foods” that you can never look at the same way again after seeing this program – I was floored by a lot of it. If you haven’t seen it I’m afraid it’s not a case of what you don’t know won’t hurt you.

On top of that is the way that there is increasing misleading labelling, of the origin of foods from, say, China or South America, shipped to New Zealand and relabelled, or with labels here that confuse with misdirections involved in various permutations of “Australian made”. Before you know where you are, like watching a magician with hat and rabbit, you have little idea about where the food came from, how old it is, what additives it may have, and so on.

What can we do about it? Not much, probably, we are locked in to factory farming, factory food processing, mass transport over long distances, factory selling in the supermarkets. The people along the chain, after the stuff leaves the farm gate, all make more money the cheaper the food can be processed and the longer it can be sold for. We gain in the convenience of marching into a supermarket, at any time of day, any time of year, and reaching for a packet of something or other which is invariably there.

But having your stomach process factory food probably isn’t the best for you. Increasingly we try to grow some of our own foods, shop at farmer’s markets. Maybe if enough of us do that the stuff we eat won’t turn our stomachs quite so much.

Worth a try.

Possibly true, possibly not. It was a thousand years ago, if it happened, and our media finds it impossible to recount accurately something that happened 1000 minutes ago. But if it wasn’t then it should have been. Should have been read out to every subsequent king and baron. Oh not the god nonsense of course, they did enough of that for themselves, but the idea that the most powerful person had no control over the natural world and its “laws”.

Certainly should be read out to Ms Gina Rinehart, richest woman in the universe, well, Australia anyway, and probably the one with the greatest hubris, now that Maggie Thatcher and Sarah Palin have left politics.

She was fairly private and low key until a couple of years ago. Then she emerged in the front of a crowd of well-dressed protesters, with professionally printed signs, bused in from a nearby office to stand at attention on astroturf. It was a very small crowd, but with the use of a camera carefully focussed just on the front row, managed to give the most inaccurate record of an event since US soldiers pulled down the statue of Saddam Hussein in a pretence it was a sign of popular support for the invasion.

But I digress. There was Gina (was she holding a sign? I forget) chanting with the others “Whaddawe want? No taxes for billionaires. Whendowe want it? Now”. No, I made that up a little bit, a rough translation but capturing the essence of the event.

Made so much noise that day and other days through the media they won the debate, tax essentially dropped, prime minister dumped from office partly as a result. Power, sure, but not much different to the power the very rich have been exerting in this egalitarian society for 200 years.

And then I read this and suddenly we were into much more sinister doings. Into the American world of the Koch Brothers, and PACs, corporations as people, and the Heritage Foundation.

So it has gone ahead. Last few days have seen Rinehart taking the major shareholding in Fairfax, Plimer appointed to her boards. And the IPA, apparently also supported by her financially has, over the last few years, become ubiquitous almost daily across all the media of the ABC. Some of the details about this are available here and here and here.

So we are reaching a situation where Murdoch controls 70% of the Australian commercial media, Rinehart in effect will control much of the rest, and the IPA is ensuring that the ABC takes a strongly right wing view of every issue and climate change is scarcely ever mentioned.

So expect over the next decades, that these powerful people will ensure the election of an ultra conservative Coalition government, the media will release only information it wants released and will tell you what to think about it, that no action witll be taken on climate change in any way, and environmental protection and regulation will be smashed. I can see no way of stopping this no matter how many of us blog away in our small corners of this brown land. Twenty billion dollars versus twenty million people in a democracy? No contest.

But then in ten years time I have a picture of this lonely woman sitting on a throne on a beach. Behind her a gaggle of shock jocks and climate change deniers and mining CEOs and conservative politicians. One of them is saying “Give the order, O great Queen, and it will obey”. She is holding out her hand to the sea and commanding “climate stop changing”, but then she gets drowned by the rising water levels and I can see her no more.

Every day I ask myself questions like: How does that work? Why did that happen? Who was responsible for that? What was the purpose of that? Where did that come from? Constantly, one or more of the interrogatives – Who? What? Why? Where? When? – applied to the natural, political, built, mechanical, social worlds.

Can never remember a time when I wasn’t curious, puzzled, interested about the world around me. All children are I thought. But it seems many adults lose the curiosity. Seem to settle for a quiet intellectual life in which people they believe are authority figures tell them how things are, the way they are going to be, and they accept the propositions as given.

How else can you explain the willingness of the 99% to vote, in spite of conservative failures over 50 years or more, against their interests and elect neoconservative governments? How else can you explain the lack of action on climate change? How else explain the successful campaigns by rich miners (originally a typo almost had them as rich moners), by alcohol sellers, poker machine makers and clubs, developers, fishermen.

How else too can you explain the following of fundamentalist religions, of fake medical “cures” like homeopathy and naturopathy, of faith healers and “psychics”, of get rich quick schemes, of populist politicians.

And how else explain why we, the people, accept incuriously what the mainstream media tells us, asking no questions so told all lies. No one it seems is puzzled when they are told one thing one day, the opposite thing the next day; or when told about two identical actions by two political leaders, one of which is great the other abhorrent.

No one is puzzled when the ‘reasons’ given for starting a war turn out to be completely spurious; when behaviour said to be perfectly safe turns out disastrous; no one is puzzled that “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia”; no one thinks it odd that “The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation”.

Oh yes, quoting Orwell is so 1980s isn’t it? But it seems increasingly that not only are political parties and whole countries using it as a manual for controlling and manipulating the public, but so are the media. Think of just three aspects. Winston Smith’s job involves dealing with “unpersons”, people now deemed politically embarrassing, so he alters records, changes photographs, to ensure that the person has not just disappeared from modern awareness, but from history as well. Then, to fill a gap where the unperson once appeared he invents “Comrade Ogilvy, a fictional party member, who displayed great heroism by leaping into the sea from a helicopter so that the dispatches he was carrying would not fall into enemy hands”.

Finally of course the idea of our tv screens watching us hasn’t happened (although …), but the tabloid press tapping phones, going through rubbish bins, and governments using spy satellites and getting internet records means the sense of privacy, lost in “1984″, is rapidly being lost here.

Inner Party member O’Brien says that in the future “There will be no curiosity”. And he is right. The public it seems now have no curiosity. And therefore the media can create a fictional narrative, an alternative to reality, that people will simply accept as truth. And in that reality they will also accept what conservative political leaders tell them.

So, I hear you ask, what is the answer?

Well, you don’t need me to tell you, the answer is “education” of course, teach kids to question, not rote learn, to be curious … oh, sorry, no, can’t keep that up.

Do you think the Inner Party doesn’t know that? Why else have preschools been privatised, religious and other private schools been massively funded, public schools and teachers constantly attacked, demands always made for more “3 Rs” (plus trade courses) to be taught and none of this “contentious” stuff about climate change or politics, ethics classes attacked and religious ones (with “chaplains”) encouraged, all attempts to encourage thinking slammed as being brain washing by the Left? Why the call for kids to leave school early and get jobs? Why the determined defunding of universities, the encouragement to teach more business courses and less “Arts”, the push for private paying students, the defunding of student unions, the constant attacks on any political involvement by students, the constant attacks on university lecturers for being Left Wing?

The 1960s and 70s gave the Inner Party a big shock. This is what happens when children are taught to think in school and university and they were having no more of that. So they have thrashed the curiosity out of education (with the willing acquiescence of the Labor Party, also not keen to see too much curiosity about its own policies and behaviour).

So no, I don’t have an answer. Anyone for a job in the Ministry of Truth? Plenty available.

I don’t know if you are interested in your family history, but let’s assume you are. And let’s assume that you know all your ancestors, way way back (will come to how way back soon). And let’s imagine that not only do you have photographs of your ancestors going back 150 years (when the camera was actually invented) but there was a previously unknown mechanism which enabled photos of all your ancestors going way way back.

So you start to arrange the photos on your table. Parents first, then grandparents, great grandparents and so on, back through the generations. And let’s assume (last assumption, promise) that you have not only told your immediate family what you are doing, but have told your more distant family of cousins etc, your community, and, through the internet, the whole world.

OK, with me? Right. You are putting your great grandparent’s photos on the table, your children remarking how much you look like them and you not being sure if it is a compliment, when in walks your second cousin and says, hey, they are my great grandparents. You chat for a while and keep working. Down go the photos generation after generation.

Back to six generations and a previously unknown cousin from Germany drops in and points out you share a great great great great great grandparent. He still lives in the same village your ancestors migrated to America from (I have a real example of that, a sixth cousin living just a few miles from the village in England my six times removed grandparents lived in).

I don’t really know your background so I will switch to me now. I keep adding more and more generations (roughly 4 per hundred years). Back a thousand years. All those people, all 45 generations look much like me – variation in hair colour here, different height there, shorter nose over this way – all residents of the English Midlands.

About a thousand years ago a bit of a change – more men and women seem to be of strapping solid build with red or yellow hair. Just as I am putting their photos out, trying to keep track of which generations I am up to, there is a knock at the door and a couple of strapping red haired gentlemen tell me that I have just identified some common ancestors of their’s which means I now have Danish and Saxon distant cousins.

Another 500 years back and a knock at the door tells me those dark haired olive skin ancestors are the reason I have Italian cousins. And so on, back thousands of years. Little differences between generations, but all recognisably the same group. Tens of thousands of years, still the same, and if you put any of them in modern clothes they could drink in my local bar unnoticed.

Oh there are changes, as you [that is me, "I" became awkward!] realise when you look back to your recent ancestors, and when you hear knocks on the door from people from Germany, Hungary, Turkey. But still, generation to generation, no obvious change. And then as more tens of thousands of years tick over you get vists from Australian Aborigines, Asians, South Americans, and finally Africans. Still no obvious change from generation to generation, but your ancestors are now recognisably different – shorter in stature, with curly hair and darker skin – from those ten or twenty thousand years later or those today. You realise if you put the photos in a bundle and flicked them like those old children’s moving picture books, you would see a gradual change over time to the present day.

And still you go back, ancestor after ancestor. You’ve lost all sense of time. What is it, a million years maybe, gosh, that’s, um, 2500 generations. Curious, you hadn’t noticed change, but these G G G G …. Grandfathers of yours are much heavier built, more muscly, bigger jaws, bigger brow ridges. Other cousins drop by from Indonesia, far east Russia. Similar but a bit different again.

And still we go on, another 2500 generations and another. Is it your imagination or do these ancestors seem shorter, darker, more, well, hairy? No it’s not. You look along the table, can’t see the change, until you jump forward a couple of million years (big table this) and compare. And then you get a phone call from zoo, chimpanzee there wants to tell you that you and he are 10,000th cousins, sharing a 9999 great grandparent. Seems odd, he looks quite different to you when you arrive at the zoo, but on a table he has arranged all his ancesors going back same number of generations as yours. You look at his photos and notice the same pattern. The later ones all look just like him, “typical chimpanzees”, but as you get further back you notice small changes – slightly shorter arms perhaps, jaws a little larger, hair colour a little different, slightly more upright. He points at another slightly different looking chimpanzee, and you discover that when your friend got back to about a million years ago he got a visit from a Bonobo chimp who said he was his long lost cousin, just like the calls you had along the way. By the time you look at his ancestors and yours from about, say, 9000 generations ago, there’s not much difference at all, and when you get back to the shared ancestor they are of course identical.

Seeing that you are a bit puzzled your Chimpanzee cousin points at you and points at the ground, then points at himself and then at a tree outside. Light dawns – your common 9999 great grandparents were mainly ground dwellers, but around 4 million years ago his direct ancestors were in a group that became separated from yours, and while your ancestors adapted more and more strongly to ground living, his were in an area where tree living was all the go. Adaptation proceeded in the two directions in different parts of Africa, and by the time conditions changed and the two groups were in contact again they had become different enough not to interbreed.

You go home, pleased to have discovered more long lost cousins, and keep working through your photos. Back to 7 million years, 17500 generations and another zoo call, this time the gorilla wants to say hullo to his cousin. Same thing. A line of photos on a table, call from a distant gorilla cousin (separated in east Africa), not much change from one photo to next, but change over longer time. Seems quite different to Humans and Chimps initially, but doesn’t look that much different to the common human-chimp grandparent perhaps 5 million years ago, and as you get further and further back they converge in appearance (and genetics of course) until they look more and more like a kind of generalised ape – Australopithecus (again with various cousins).

And… Well, you get the idea. You can continue generation after generation through the other apes, then back through the early mammals, the reptiles, the amphibians and so on. Not much evident change from one generation to next but over immense time substantial change. No modern species the direct ancestor of any other modern species, just like your cousins are not your grandparents, but all are cousins to some degree.

There you are Eric, evolution over four billion years in a short post – gradual adaptive change, and equally importantly, geographic separation of different populations forming new species. What a wonderful world that has such potential in it.

* I’d love to claim the credit for this idea of how to present evolutionary change, but saw it (in the marvelous illustrations by Dave McKean) and read it originally in Richard Dawkins 2011 “The Magic of Reality” Random House, London. However I have added the calls from cousins, and the zoo, as my own piece of originality.

In 1381 the so-called “Peasant’s Revolt” led by Wat Tyler massed tens of thousands of poor people protesting the new “Poll Tax” which, like our GST, made poor people pay as much tax as rich people. And against the essentially slavery conditions many of them worked under.

Richard II, then just a teenager, agreed in one meeting to a number of things the protesters wanted. Then in a second meeting the Mayor of London treacherously stabbed Wat Tyler during further negotiations. Tyler rode off, the king led the others into a trap and they were then dispersed. Tyler was dragged out of hospital and beheaded.

Then as Peter Ackroyd* recounts “A few days later Richard revoked the charter of emancipation [freedom of slaves, fair rent for land, punishment of the poll tax gatherers] he had granted to the crowd at Mile End, on the ground that it had been extorted from him by violence. He travelled to Essex in order to observe the aftermath of the now extinguished revolt. A group of villagers there asked him to remain faithful to the pledges he had made them a few days before.

His reply was:

“You wretches are detestable both on land and on sea. You seek equality with the lords, but you are unworthy to live. Give this message to your fellows: rustics you are, and rustics you will always be. You will remain in bondage, not as before, but incomparably harsher. For as long as we live we will strive to suppress you, and your misery will be an example to prosperity.”

A few months later “A parliament was called … where it was proposed that the state of bondage known as villeinage should be abolished.The Lords and Commons, their vital interests as landlords at stake, unanimously voted against any such action.” The leaders of the rebels were rounded up and beheaded (John Ball, as a major leader with Tyler, being hung drawn and quartered).

So a sad story. Just one of many attempts all over the world, through the centuries, to improve the lot of ordinary people, which has been met with brutal repression. And what struck me, reading the king’s words again, was that they could be used, unchanged, by billionaires and corporate leaders around the world today. And by their political front men (and women – not hard to imagine Thatcher making such a speech to the coal miners for example). The power relationships, and attitudes, in spite of centuries of “democratic advance”, remain unchanged in 2012, as seen in the Republican front-runners, the Cameron UK Government, the Australian Opposition.

* Peter Ackroyd 2011 “The History of England vol 1 Foundation” Macmillan, London

The answer of course is “no”, but why? Remember Carl Sagan’s comment that “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs”? Which is why there was such interest in the “faster than light neutrinos” the other day. That claim illustrated the Sagan idea – it has to be checked and rechecked, duplicated and reduplicated (and hasn’t yet been, so it is not an extraordinary proof and is probably wrong).

Which brings me back to the question of “balance” in a story in the media. An “ordinary” claim doesn’t require balance. Earth is round, species evolve, there is no imaginary friend, the planet is warming as a result of human activity, Elvis Presley is dead, chocolate and red wine are good for you? Go for it, make your program, I’ll watch it, no problems.

But if your schtick is that vaccination is bad for you, cigarettes good for you, the moon landings were fake, a picture of Jesus has appeared on a piece of toast, there is no global warming, cattle are good for the alpine environment, etc, etc, etc, then you had damn well better present the other side of the argument or at least indicate its existence, or I’ll be down on you before you can say “Media Watch”.

To paraphrase Sagan, extraordinary claims require a balanced tv program. Which brings me to the second part of a modern recipe for accurate television – we need to be told the affiliations of the person making the program, or speaking during a segment, or writing a newspaper column, or a blog.

Affiliations that have no bearing on an argument in hand are irrelevant. Someone who is a member of a football club, and who comments on, say, environmental issues, has no obligation to reveal that they are a Collingwood supporter. Nor would someone who went to a particular church, had a hobby involving antique furniture, or whose place of work was a hospital.

On the other hand if the topic being addressed was poker machines or liquor licences then football club membership would almost certainly be relevant. As would the other interests be if the topics were private school subsidy, import duties, or health funding.

We live in times where people go to great lengths to hide affiliations that are relevant. Hence the rise and rise of right wing think tanks with bland titles and hidden funding sources. Hence the rise of “astro turf” protest groups, apparent movements arising spontaneously as a result of public anger or concern, in reality carefully created by billionaires, or conservative politicians, or media shock jocks. Hence the rise of commentators with, like the think tanks, bland meaningless names like “social commentator”. Hence the rise of political parties with apparently meaningful names “People for the Forest” say, or “Responsible Climate Change Action” which will turn out to be parties started by forestry and coal companies respectively, with a policy of cutting down trees and burning coal.

So I am very careful to look at the affiliations of people I am seeing and hearing these days, want to know if their background is ordinary or extraordinary in some way. But does it matter, won’t their arguments, if valid, stand alone, fail if not? Well, yes, it does.

Physics has to be time and geography independent. That is, whenever and wherever you perform an experiment the results should be potentially the same. This is also true of other sciences, with obvious variations in biological science. What should also be true is that science is ideology independent. That is, if you read, or hear, a paper by a scientist, whatever their background, it will be the results that count (while recognising that interpretations can vary in all kinds of ways).

But outside of science it matters greatly. If I read something by, for the sake of argument, George Pell, I am reading something by someone who is not merely a Catholic but who has so much absorbed and accepted Catholic teachings as to be Cardinal and head of church in Australia. When he pontificates then, on issues such as gay marriage, contraception, abortion, church school funding, religion in the classroom, I don’t read his words as being the result of independent research and analysis to reach a carefully considered position, but as simply a statement of church dogma.

Similarly if I read, hear, material on the economy from a libertarian free market think tank funded by big business, I am quite sure I won’t be reading any Keynesian economics, or support for socialism, or for action on environmental issues. In addition, on more particular issues, where the tank has funding from, say, energy companies or tobacco companies, I know I won’t be reading research supporting climate change action or reduction in cigarette promotion.

I really don’t want to know what clubs think about problem gamblers, foresters about tree felling, pubs about alcohol, evangelicals about evolution, psychics about the supernatural, irrigators about water, nuclear spokespeople about nuclear safety, billionaires about taxation, shooters about gun safety, libertarians about public service, warmongers about war. So when people appear, right there on my tv, making statements about such things, I really do want to know where they are coming from. If someone with no axe to grind has done independent research which shows that more forest can be cut down, fine, I’ll listen to your arguments, examine your data. But if you are an employee of a pulp mill forget it.

A scientist approaches a question in the spirit of the old legal oath – “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” – following the data to see where it leads, what the answer to the question is, however it might conflict with, contradict, the hypothesis the scientist began with. An ideologue (of whatever kind), or someone paid by ideologues or interest groups, does the opposite of this, they start with the answer, the truth as revealed by, say, Hayek or Benedict, and they set about investigating the data in order to obtain that answer. What else could it do, it is the truth, the whole truth, and there is nothing else but that truth? Whether they know it or not, people who start with an answer instead of a question are driven by their ideology.

Look this is not to say there are not scientists with ideology that warps their science. Most notoriously in evolution and climate change. It is usually easy to recognise because of their strong links with religious groups or libertarian think tanks (climate change being the biggest challenge ever posed to the mad-brained libertarian ideology). In some it can be more subtle though, representing political mind-sets more inclined to accept one analysis than another (an example in my own field of research being the role of fire in Australian ecosystems). With so much money around these days for those willing to argue against climate change, or gambling reform, or plain packaging of cigarettes, it is not surprising that a scientist of a certain ideological tendency can be tempted to turn a blind eye to some results, or present other results in the way most favourable to his or her employers. Or even without money, argue strongly for something which forms a fundamental part of their political or religious world view.

Obviously we all approach issues with predispositions influenced in some way by our family background, schooling, personal circumstances and so on. We are all ideological creatures to some extent. Me no less than others. In the ordinary scheme of things this doesn’t matter. I may want some research outcome to match my own belief about, say education strategies, but if it doesn’t I would shrug and say well, isn’t that interesting. My “ideology”, such as it is, doesn’t tell you much about what I write except in a negative sense – I am an atheist, I am vaguely left of political centre with an interest in the environment, I belong to no political party, I am not employed by any think tank, I have no financial vested interest in political outcomes. Judge what I say, the logic of my arguments, the quality of my data. I guess my outlook is coloured by my background, but good luck working out how. And that would be true of a very big proportion of ordinary people writing, blogging, appearing on tv, voting in elections.

But where it is not true I bloody well want to know before I invite you into my living room or on to my computer screen. Okay? That’s not so extraordinary is it?

But the unknown part of the equation was the number of stars which had planets. Then, recently, we began finding planets around other stars, but they were all uninhabitable gas giants, like our Jupiter and Saturn. Then smaller planets began to be seen as observations improved. Then smaller planets at right distance (the Goldilocks Zone – not too hot, not too cold) from stars. Now calculations show that on average every star has one or more planets. Billions of billions of stars – billions of billions of planets.

So now, almost overnight it seems, we know there are essentially infinite numbers of planets. What percentage could life have evolved on? Half? Quarter? Even if only 1% had the kinds of conditions that enabled life to emerge here we are still talking billions of occupied planets. And once you have life the Darwinian equations – variation + selection = adaptation; adaptation + isolation = evolution – mean that all kinds of interesting organisms are out there. Chances of high intelligence evolving? Very good, it has evolved many different times here.

It’s all just a matter of very high numbers and chance. Always was, but we didn’t know how high the numbers were before. Now we do there is no question but that there is a lot of life out there, and a lot of intelligent beings.

So, where are they? Well, a long way away. And unless physics is a lot odder than we think there aren’t going to be student exchanges or tourism between here and there and right over there. Certainly not before the dominant intelligent people here wreck this habitable planet (a long long way from the next one) by being unable to control their own CO2 emissions. I’m guessing there are other beings in the universe (Dolphin beings, or Octopus beings, or Crow beings, or Pig beings) who consider getting CO2 levels down as a definition of intelligence.

But hey – looking up at all the stars and thinking it’s a big lonely universe? So 2011. Now look up and picture all shapes and sizes of intelligent beings looking back at you from all directions. There, that feels better doesn’t it? But I wish there was more intelligence here too.

The program was almost identical to one made in similar (though with the opposite politics in state and federal levels) political circumstances, and by the same reporter, then working for the main rival commercial tv network. The only differences were that on this occasion most filming was done at a country show, and was done before the political protest rather than during.

I was so outraged by the latest version that I put in a formal protest:

“Reporter Nic MacCallum presented a report on cattle  in high country. The report purely presented, in the most emotive and political terms, the views of “mountain cattlemen” with the obligatory film clip from “Man from Snowy River”. Ecological claims, political statements, were made absolutely unexamined, no contrary view of any kind presented. MacCallum ended with the cattlemen making threats of political action against “Canberra”. They then came back to the studio where presenters made statements about the ecology and how harmless cattle were, and how bad it was Canberra didn’t understand the real world, how it was “red tape” stopping this perfectly rational action of putting cattle back into national parks.

Not a single dissenting view was presented during this propaganda piece. Not a single ecologist was interviewed , the federal minister was uninterviewed, no historical background was presented, the issue was completely unexamined other than as pushing the cattlemen’s position.

This is the worst piece of unbalanced tv I think I have ever seen.”

The question, or a question, is why did both tv networks present this story in the same way? Are they idiots? Exercising power – doing it because they could? Did they think the bulk of their audience, primed by years of such reporting would approve the message. Were they ingratiating themselves with conservative politicians and bushies? Were they looking forward to the excellent televisuals of a protest? Were they showing a left wing minister who really has the power? Were they flattered to be seen as onside with these rugged sons of the earth? Are they idiots? I report, you decide.

To show how  little had changed from 2005-2012, here is the email I sent following the coverage of the ‘cattle in the high country’ political battle between Victorian and Federal governments in 2005 by Channel 9′s Today Show. It is as relevant now as it was then. Over and over again the commercial media, and now also the ABC, choose the first narrative model when it comes to environmental stories, and they are helping kill the planet. I received no reply from Channel Nine. 

From: David Horton
Subject: to Jebby Phillips
Date: 9 June 2005 10:52:52 AM
To: todayshow@nine.com.au

To follow up on my earlier email complaining about the Man from Snowy River segment. I am currently working on my new book. Here is the part I have written about the Today story this morning. You will see why I am angry. I am a little puzzled as to why you never allow, or require, Nic McCallum to do the second story. I have my own guess as to why you don’t (and I can’t believe it is because you think you don’t have an audience for the second story) but I would be interested in your explanation. You are not alone of course, all the media outlets follow the first script. 

“It is a story that has been repeated often over recent years, and the narrative is clear. The ‘Man from Snowy River’ is an icon. He is an icon because he was the subject of a poem which every schoolchild learns and then of a film and a television series based on the poem. So he is a fictional construct, unlike say Ned Kelly, Phar Lap, Don Bradman or Simpson and his donkey. Even though he is a fictional character though, the existence of a movie with a star means that the actor can become the icon made flesh, and indeed in the recent protests the star of the film was the star of the protest, and in turn of the breakfast television segment. 

The segment, as always, was pure propaganda of a Leni Riefenstahl kind. This is an Australian icon here, so there are images of campfires roaring in the mountain, riders on horses, magnificent cattle, whip cracking displays. Interspersed are images from the film with notes that some of the real cattlemen took part in the film, and music from the film soundtrack. Images and the media and reality blur. No need to say anything really, powerful images conspire to stimulate powerful emotions, and here we are aiming to stir the emotions both of the commuter and office worker with dreams of open spaces, and of ‘trail bike riders. hunters, four wheel drive owners, farmers’ all of whom were also taking part in the protest. We have our desired audience of red blooded men and wannabe redblooded men onside with barely a need for any script. 

But a final touch is needed and the narrative allows for it. ‘What was your reaction when you heard the news that cattle were to be excluded from the National Park’ asks the reporter of the protest organiser, as rugged a redblooded cattleman as you could ask for in the casting department. ‘I cried’ says this tough man and the propaganda is complete. 

Nothing can defeat the rugged Australian cattleman icon of course. Bushfires, drought, steep terrain, wild horses, fierce cattle. Only one thing can do it, the unfeeling bureaucrats in the city. The effeminate city men and their co-conspirators the whacky greenies. This brutal combination may bring our icon down, and he knows that at last the odds are stacked against him and he cries. For him to cry means that the cause must be just, the odds immense, and his tears, not wasted, appeal to the camera for help and through the camera to the real men of Australia who will come to the rescue, shoulder to shoulder. 

We see the enemy briefly, very briefly, in this segment. In a brief nod to ‘balance’ we see the minister concerned, typical city man in his grey suit hiding his grey soul. He is seen at a press conference explaining the reason for the decision, but the narrative doesn’t allow for more than a fragment of that, the minister commenting that cattle cause damage, and the reporter sneering that ‘they say it will mean more wildflowers’. Wildflowers! Namby pamby stuff when there is an Australian icon at stake here and a tough man has been reduced to tears by these flower loving whackos. 

Back to the icon, asked to comment on the damage ‘claim’, ‘no, no, we have been managing this country for 170 years’ says the icon. In an earlier interview the film star pseudo icon is asked the same question about damage and is allowed to say that ‘opinion is evenly divided’ on that. There is no follow up question as to what he means, but it is clear from the context. Cattlemen don’t think, or don’t care, that the cattle cause damage, or don’t think that it is damage (wildflowers indeed). On the other hand all scientists in Australia know that there has been extensive damage which is continuing and is now exacerbated by the after effects of fire and drought. Whether or not ‘opinion’ is divided between cattlemen and scientists, there is no division between scientists on the facts. 

The story could have been presented from the totally opposite point of view. The reporter could have found an iconic and photogenic ecologist who has worked in the high country. The ecologist could have introduced the reporter to the masses of scientific study showing the conservation problems in the high country, how little wilderness is left and the implications of that, and specific studies on the effects of cattle on this fragile ecosystem. The animals and plants under threat or near extinction could be listed and their importance in maintaining ecological balance in this country, particularly as global warming gathers pace. 

Then the ecologist, together with a number of other ecologists expert in different aspects of the high country – vegetation, marsupials, birds, frogs, insects say – could have taken the reporter for a trip. The camera could have lovingly lingered over areas where cattle have been excluded, with soothing music and the occasional sunset, while rugged and down to earth ecologists in moleskins and jumpers, ruddy faced from years or decades of being out in the bush studying ecology, could have explained what the camera was seeing, how complex it was, how long it had taken to evolve, why it was important, and why they are so passionate about trying to save it at the eleventh hour. This high country is unique to Australia, they could explain to the camera, an Australian icon that has taken millions of years to evolve, and it is close to being lost forever. 

Then they could take the cameras to see the damage that cattle have caused to grasslands, trees, shrubs, the impact of their hooves on ponds and swamps and riverbanks. There will be tears shed here by these tough ecologists, but the reporter may want to keep those for later. Tears are rarely shed by tough pragmatic ecologists, trying to do a hard job for Australia’s future. Difficult to defeat them because of their hard work and dedication. The only thing that can beat them is the powerful media coming in on the side of the cattlemen and forcing a government backdown. The final scene could be a roaring campfire in the mountains, the reporter sitting around it with these dedicated people. ‘What did you think when you heard that the federal government might intervene to keep cattle in the National Park?’ he could ask. ‘I cried’ would say the leading ecologist. Fade away to a sunset with perhaps the Pastoral Symphony in the background.