Tag Archives: creationism

To be hanged with the bible

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by Atheism, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When the bible was written humans* didn’t know:
About bacteria and viruses and parasites
Blood circulation
Earth going around sun
More than 5 planets
About galaxies
There was a southern hemisphere
Earth round
What lightning is
That whales aren’t fish
What mental illness involves
About genes and inheritance
About Chinese, Aztecs, Zulus, Aborigines, Navaho, Japanese, Papuans, Bushmen, Mayans, Eskimo, Indonesians, West Africans, Britons
Composition of matter
Any history
Composition of moon
About fossils
There was a western hemisphere
The age of the Earth
About the great apes
About continental drift
About kangaroos, lemurs, opossums, emus, iguanas, alpacas, platypus, kiwi, gila lizards, sloths, tree frogs, humming birds, horseshoe crabs, peripatus, tasmanian tigers, rhinoceros

When bible written humans had never:
Flown
Travelled faster than a horse can run
Communicated except by speaking directly
Elected a government
Swum under the ocean
Read books
Looked through a telescope
Looked through a microscope
Warmed themselves by anything except wood fires
Been cured by antibiotics
Had a surgical operation
Seen a hospital, school or factory
Seen a town of more than few thousand people

When bible written humans were happy about:
Slavery
Women as chattels
Divine kings
Child marriage
War
Destruction of environment
Gods living on mountains
Child labour
Torture
Human sacrifice
Ghosts
Magic

And yet there are people in 2012 who believe everything written in the bible. There are people who use it to determine who to vote for, where to send their children to school, how they feel about burning environmental and social and economic and cultural issues. And if that wasn’t bad enough, incredible enough, we can’t just smile wisely and say “there there, one day you will grow up” as we might to a child who tries to live their life by, say, the Harry Potter books, because there are people who want to insist that the rest of the world obey these silly old books as well. There are people making all kinds of pronouncements about the environment, about bringing up children, about justice, about science, about art and literature, based not on some independent and rational analysis of an issue, but on what they think is said in the bible about it. And in turn appearing in the media, influencing politicians about it, indeed running for political office themselves. Some countries, notably Iran, Saudi Arabia, and America, are now theocracies run by people who know nothing except what someone has told them an old book says.

Angry? You betcha. The modern world is difficult enough, will become more difficult in the future, without the drag on political life from people living in the past. Can’t laugh at these people any more, this is serious.

*By “humans” in what follows I sometimes mean “the whole human race” and sometimes “the humans who wrote the bits and pieces of old manuscript that got collected together and called ‘the bible’”, which is which will be obvious and not of much importance anyway.

Ignorance is strength

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by Education, Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

How can every human being on the planet not spend their days being puzzled about pretty much everything?

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.

Kissing Cousins

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by Evolution • Tags: , , , ,

[Note this was written to follow on from discussions which began in comments on post "When you wish" below and continued into those of "Extraordinary". One of my most regular commenters on this blog, Eric, is trying to understand evolution. I, we, are trying to help him. This post arose from Eric's comment that "I don’t get the 'every generation' being a transition between the species at all." So, Eric, let's try it like this.*]

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.

Extraordinary

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by Atheism, Climate Change, Media, politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When I put in a complaint the other day regarding an extraordinarily biased tv report about cattle in national parks a twitter follower asked if I would have complained if the bias had been the other way. Made me consider the question for a moment.

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?

When you wish

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by Climate Change • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Once upon a time the question about life elsewhere in the universe was complicated by lack of basic information. From the time we knew that we lived in a galaxy and there were 400 billion stars in our galaxy, and that there were 200 billion other galaxies (so that’s, um, 80,000 billion billion stars as far as the telescope eye can see), it seemed likely that there would be many possibilities of life elsewhere.

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.

Sure and certain knowledge

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by Atheism, Climate Change, Environment, Evolution • Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

It’s an odd little misunderstanding, just a minor difference in the way of looking at the world, but it has played a disproportionately huge part in making seven billion people content to allow a few energy companies turn off the world’s support systems and let them all die.

So, what is it, this misunderstanding that has the people who know what’s happening talking past the people who need to know what’s happening? Well it is just a different use of words like certainty and probability – a scientific use and a common use.

The general public thinks that things for which they have little or no evidence, just anecdote or faith, are certainties. Scientists think that nothing is certain, that all we have is the probability that something is true based on amount of evidence.

The public will use all kinds of language based on nothing but gut feeling and personal ideology to express their belief that something is true “exactly right” “certainly true” “absolutely no doubt” “no doubt” “probably” “possibly” “don’t think so” “nah, don’t believe that” “c’mon, pull the other one, that one has bells on it”.

Scientists, recognising that the presence or absence of bells is a bit hard to define precisely have by contrast developed an exact measurement for the likelihood of truth based on assessment of number of observations. It is a mathematical concept in which you can approach (by repeating an experiment over and over) more and more closely to 100% certainty but never quite reach it. For practical purposes though a probability somewhere in the 90% plus level is thought of as being a pretty sure thing (although it depends on the discipline and particular kind of experiment, physics for example demands much higher certainty than, say, the social sciences).

As well as the mathematical component though, the idea of scientific probability represents the scientific mindset – no result can be certain because the very next experiment may overturn it in whole or in part. If a writer is only as good as his last novel, then a scientific theory is, in a sense, only as good as its last experiment.

For the public though lots of things are certain, have to be otherwise you wouldn’t get up in the morning. These certainties are based on religion, ideology, common sense, authority, repetitive observations. Sun rises in East, there is a “god” or two, capitalism is the end of history, some people have psychic powers, the Liberal Party is there for the battlers, vitamin C cures colds. Then there are uncertainties where the outcome is merely probable – will my football team win next week, am I having a drink with friends on Friday night, are UFOs real, can acupuncture cure cancer, is Kevin Rudd challenging for leadership or is it a media invention.

So, the stage is set. When scientists are asked about climate change in general or particular aspects of it, they reply, as good scientists do “well there is a high probability that X is the case”. When asked “are you certain?” they reply “well, no nothing in science is ‘certain’”. They mean by this that certainty can never, mathematically, reach 100%, and they are obliged to repeat this fundamental tenet of science endlessly, thinking to themselves “well, of course there is no such thing as 100% certainty in science, don’t these idiots know anything?” Or they formalise this the way the IPCC does, saying that the chances of Y event happening in Z time have a probability of “90%” or “95%”.

Now in both cases the scientists are also thinking, and assuming the listeners are familiar with the concept, that for all practical purposes the projected outcome is certain. Will almost certainly in fact (because the scientists are sick of being called alarmist) be much more likely than the probability being quoted which will have been deliberately set on the low side.

The scientist leans back and relaxes at this point, happy in the conviction that he has merely restated the bleeding obvious about the scientific method and that everyone will totally understand what he means – and get on with saving the planet which he knows with absolute certainty is under its greatest threat in millions of years.

The listener or reader however, Joe Public, hears something quite different. They hear that things aren’t certain, just probable, and they interpret the “probable” as their own version of that prediction. Climate change becomes, in their own minds, no more likely than, say, the reality of UFOs. And you wouldn’t want to spend billions of dollars defending against UFOs now, would you.

This continues on to the details. Is this particular massive storm; record-breaking drought; record high temperature; record flood, the result of climate change? “Oh, we couldn’t say that with certainty”, says the scientist. Joe Public hears this as “No”.

Now while the scientists are maintaining scientific purity on the questions of certainty and probability, there are people, with vested interests in the short-term outcome (we all have a vested interest in the long term outcome, but most of us don’t know that), who have absolutely no scruples in pretending that scientific “uncertainty” is real uncertainty and therefore no one would want to do anything when everything is uncertain. So they add in bits and pieces of questions and comments on the siting of thermometers, melting of glaciers, troposphere temperatures, mediaeval warming periods, the north west passage, deep sea temperatures, climate sensitivity, snowfall in Chicago, cosmic rays and the like. None of them mean anything much in themselves, none of them have the slightest relevance in general to the overall pattern of rising CO2 levels causing global warming and consequent climate change.

The scientific community, realising (in some cases very belatedly) the con trick being played on them and on the community at large, and seeing the consequent failure of politicians to take any meaningful action to pull back on CO2 production, have at last begun to fight back a little. Oh they still talk about uncertainty and probability, but a few brave souls have begun to say “the science is settled”.

To see what they mean by this it is worth exploring an analogy. The theory that explains how evolution occurs (involving variation, natural selection, and geographic isolation) was extensively debated in the years after 1859 (when it had been simultaneously proposed by Darwin and Wallace after they arrived at it from different data). Some scientists (like Thomas Huxley “why didn’t I think of that”) instantly recognised its validity. Others were more cautious, looking for contradictions, wondering about mechanisms for the variation (in the years before either genes or DNA were discovered), debating the religious implications and so on. But over the next few decades the science became settled. That is the truth of the theory was clear, and now research was mopping up the details (again genes and DNA in particular) relating to the exact mechanisms. And also investigating both the comparisons and relationships between living species and their fossil records with new eyes that greatly fleshed out the actual path that the evolution of living organisms had taken on this planet.

The science of evolution is settled. There remain arguments over details of particular evolutionary sequences, whether there are other speciation mechanisms apart from the dominant allopatric one, exactly how genes interact during development and so on. But the science is settled and forms the basis, directly or indirectly, of all the sciences to do with life on the planet, and conversely is supported by all the other sciences (notably geology, chemistry, physics). Oh there are one or two scientists, brains addled by religion, who purport to believe that there is evidence for god in bacterial flagellae. But their argument (that some feature is too complex to have evolved) was one that Darwin was familiar with, and has been demolished thousands of times in the subsequent 150 years. It is amazing how otherwise apparently smart people can have their brains addled by religion.

In exactly the same way the science of climate change is settled. The fundamental elements (Milankovitch cycles, greenhouse gases, sun activity, geography) have been known for decades (in the case of greenhouse gas not much less than evolution). The science forms the basis for all the other sciences to do with the surface and atmosphere of this planet, and in turn is supported by all the other relevant sciences. Scientists argue over details of exact time frames, precisely how some mechanisms interact, likely impacts on ecology, historical sequences, and so on, but none of that has any effect on the fundamental science. Oh there are one or two scientists, brains addled by libertarian and neocon ideology, who purport to believe that climate sensitivity is a bit lower, or that clouds are going to roll in to our rescue, or that there is nothing new in the astonishing warming of the planet over the last 3 decades, but their arguments have been demolished thousands of times. Amazing how otherwise apparently smart people can have their brains addled by libertarian and neoconservative nonsense.

Look I am a scientist, OK? I understand the need to maintain the fundamental core of the scientific process, that nothing is ever 100% certain. I get that, ok? And I know that scientists are naturally shy and reticent (me too) and reluctant to involve themselves in public slanging matches and political debates, wanting to remain pure and above all that. But listen, this is the time for all good men and women to come to the aid of the planet. Cast aside your Clark Kent clothes in a handy phone box. Start speaking out. There will be death threats. The last thing the ideologues and the energy companies want is for scientists to discover they have a voice – they have already been trying to discredit science as a whole in case you ever did start to speak out, but you are still just in time if you hurry. Make it clear that the science is, sadly, settled, the data in, the planet in really big trouble. You wouldn’t say “oh, nothing certain about evolution” so don’t do it about climate change. Whatever the fine details that remain to be sorted it is absolutely irrefutable that adding more and more CO to the atmosphere is warming the planet rapidly, changing the climate, buggering up the ecology, causing damaging weather events, and it is going to get so bad that we are, not to put too fine a point on it, stuffed as a species. Nothing more certain.

Say so.

Let us all rejoice, rejoice

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by Atheism • Tags: , , , , ,

Did you see that some Christian school in Australia had rewritten the second verse of the national anthem to include a whole lot of stuff about some god or other? Look I know national anthems are crap. “our home is girt by sea”? Sounds like something Monty Python might write. And grown up people singing about a “gracious queen”. Dunno about America. They seem to have several different national anthems all of which have to be sung while clutching heart. Can’t remember anything about 183 of the other 184 anthems – they all appear to be identical. No, the only decent one is that of France (of course) – perhaps we could all take turns borrowing it.

Still, humble as it may be, our anthem, though a poor thing, is our own, and I don’t want christians messing with it as part of their brain washing (sorry, schooling, don’t know what got into me there) program. A thin edge of the wedge if ever I saw one.

Consider America. One day a sane, rational sort of country, civilised, creative, making movies, going to moon, that sort of thing. Then some idiot decided to add “in god we trust” to the coinage (rather like Germans adding “god with us” to army belt buckles). Next thing you know you have prayers in schools, ten commandments in courthouses, presidential candidates outdoing each other in carrying the biggest bible, evangelists taking over the armed forces, 99% of the people believing the world is 10,000 years old, and Rick Perry.

But I have a solution. The British have a law that no one can sing any verse about the gracious queen except the first (the rest consisting of all kinds of embarrassing rubbish about the sun never setting on lesser breeds without the law). So, we just pass the same law. No one can remember our second verse anyway (god knows where the christians found it), and blocking it would save all those excruciating scenes of footballers opening and closing mouths silently looking like those clown heads in a sideshow.

There, problem solved. If they complain threaten to change our anthem to the one about sheep stealing. Bit hard to get god into that one. Unless it’s the holy ghost who may be heard down by the billabong …

I really don’t want Jim Wallace as PM. Or some failed seminary student.

Downhill Racers

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by politics • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Well, the presidential race is on again in America (astonishing that it takes well over a year to find out which of the few people rich enough to try is going to be “elected” to serve the corporations) and the Republicans have once again scraped together a motley crew of nutters, ideologues and religious maniacs from whom to choose their candidate.

The whole process of course is utterly alien to those of us in this simple bucolic political world of Australia with its primitive and platonic ideas of democracy. The candidates seem like creatures from another planet, or an alien society in which chanting shamans analyse the entrails of goats to decide their leader and policies. So let me translate what the race is currently about.

Imaginary being’s preferences
Candidate 1 – “god likes me more than he does you”; C2 “oh no he doesn’t he likes me best”; C3 “no, he wants ME to win, told me”; C4 “he was talking to me you moron, I am god’s chosen president”.

Living in shoebox
C1- All children will live in poverty in shoeboxes by 2013. Not rich children, obviously; C2 All children living in poverty and parents sold into slavery; C3 All children in poverty, slave parents, grandparents allowed to starve to death; C4 All children in poverty, slave parents, starving grandparents, no medical care for anyone. Except the rich, obviously.

Furriners (1)
C1 – I will build a brick wall 1000km long and 20m high along Mexican border to stop asylum seekers; C2 Build a wall, patrol with helicopters with machine guns with orders to kill; C3 Wall, helicopters, drones on Mexican side to shoot rockets at anyone walking towards wall; C4 Wall, helicopters, drones, and scorched earth for 100km on Mexican side of border.

Furriners (2)
C1 – Will bomb any country that has any terrorists; C2 Bomb any country with terrorists and who won’t sell resources to America; C3 Bomb any country with terrorists that won’t give resources to America; C4 Bomb any country with or without terrorists that won’t give resources to America.

This land is our land
C1 – More oil wells – offshore, onshore, north, south, national parks, everywhere; C2 More oil wells and remove all environmental protection laws; C3 More oil, no laws, ensure cheap disposal of toxic wastes in rivers, oceans, air; C4 more oil, no laws, toxic disposal, compulsory increase of CO2 production from all sources.

Guns
C1 – More guns; C2 A lot more guns; C3 Compulsory guns for every adult; C4 compulsory multiple guns for every citizen from birth.

Schools
C1 – No teaching evolution in schools; C2 No teaching evolution or environment; C3 No teaching evolution environment ethnic studies; C4 No evolution, environment, ethnics – only classes in religion permitted

Unions
C1 – All union leaders arrested and sent to Guantanamo Bay; C2 Ditto; C3 Ditto; C4 Ditto.

Hmm, on second thoughts, is this really that much different to the process by which we got Tony Abbott as future Prime Minister?

Never on a Sunday

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by Atheism • Tags: , , , , , , ,

The big advantage of having an atheist prime minister is that she can give the country seven days a week hard work instead of spending Sundays in the company of imaginary beings and people who believe in imaginary beings. You get 14% more work out of an atheist prime minister than a god-botherer.

But in recent times the Prime Minister has made it more and more clear that her atheism is only skin deep. In an interview the other day she suggested that many great literary works owed their existence to the Bible. She is following a well-worn path of religious apologists here. Whenever the chant of “God. What is he good for?” rises skyward yet again, religious apologists will pour out of the woodwork to suggest all kinds of benefits that religion has brought to the human race. They will talk about art works, and cathedrals, and music (and now our PM adds “literary works” to the list), and suggest that the world would be a much poorer place in the absence of the inspiration that religion has bought to artists and musicians and architects. Poppycock.

Economists talk about “opportunity costs”, that is the cost not only of taking the actual course decided upon, but the cost of not taking a different course. Religion has been the ultimate opportunity cost for the human race over thousands of years, perhaps only approached in its negative effects, its lost opportunities, by wars (many also the result of religion). An obvious case is in schools. Picture a fundamentalist religious school of any flavour, picture the children rote learning scriptures – in some cases that is all they learn, in others they spend considerable time on religious “studies”. But even where they only have limited religion activities, any at all is taking time away from productive educational activities, the kind that, as a society, we profess to want children undertaking. If a parent was to demand that a child spend several school hours a week watching cartoons, or playing video games, or chatting on facebook, or engaging in some hobby, would we be happy with that as a useful way to enhance education? Yet we turn a blind eye to the hobby of religion.

On a larger scale whole societies have sacrificed considerable opportunity costs as huge proportions of their population, often over generations, laboured to build christian cathedrals and monasteries, or stonehenge, or giant buddhist statues and temples, or Easter Island statues, or large numbers of mosques in a town, or the Egyptian pyramids; and then staffed many of these structures with people who could also have been gainfully employed in the economic, cultural or social activities of their society. Huge amounts of money have also been withdrawn from the labour of the population and frozen beyond recovery in such religious architectural assets, as well as the accumulated wealth in gold and other art objects held by religious hierarchies. Just think what the genius of the Egyptians could have achieved if not dragged down by the pyramid building cancer.

But did not the demand for religious art and music and architecture drive artistic development, produce works of great beauty and inspiration? Well, perhaps it did, but they are no more substantial than sand castles, or ice sculptures, or decorations on coffee foam – it is endeavour based on an imaginary being with imaginary characteristics and imaginary activities. Oh I guess there can be beauty in mythology, in fairy stories, in tall tales, but we generally think of them as being for children, thinking as children. Its existence as apparently being for adults again imposes an opportunity cost, replacing the potential of works related to real human beings and their aspirations,  their triumphs and tragedies, hopes and fears, loves and hates; the beauties of the natural world; the wonders of the universe.

But, oh, wait, we have been getting those works, haven’t we, since the churches lost much of their power over human minds, at least in the West, and artists and musicians, yes, and writers, started celebrating real beings instead of imaginary ones. So using art production as an excuse for literature is no more valid than suggesting we need religion to produce values. I will set my literary endeavours, and values, against those of the religiously inspired any day of the week. Including Sunday.

I can see clearly now

by Uncategorized • Tags: , , , , ,

Sad to see the last shuttle flight recently. Seems to have been around forever, though it was only 30 years. But over those years it had begun to look increasingly dated, more like a Model T Ford than a Prius, and the time had obviously come to retire it. Space exploration will continue, and indeed the shuttle was increasingly irrelevant to that. The Hubble telescope (which the shuttle did launch and repair) continues its amazing work in mapping the universe, and is soon to be replaced (hopefully) by the even more astonishing James Webb telescope. Small unmanned space ships continue their work of exploring the inner parts of the solar system (Mercury currently) and the outer (Pluto next) and even way beyond to the beginnings of far outer space. More exploring vehicles will land on Mars and continue mapping and analysing that planet, others may soon reach the moons of Jupiter and Saturn.

What’s it all about? Is it of any interest at all as we struggle to pay the rent, raise children, care for parents? Once upon a time, and not that long ago really, people in the small farming and mining villages of England and Australia rarely strayed outside the village boundaries. May never have seen the next town. Married others they had grown up with, their children likewise. No awareness of what was going on in other parts of the country. No sense of a larger society of which they were also a part. No sense of the wider environment. Still something we see even today in Australia, where people will say “Oh, plenty of trees around here” and assume that means plenty everywhere, or “plenty of water here” and assume this means that people downstream can look after themselves. We need a wider perspective. Aborigines in the past, by the way, got this from the big ceremonial meetings where many tribes would gather to compare notes on climate and animal numbers (oh and have a good time and find a wife) across whole regions.

Once upon a time people thought Earth was the centre of the universe, and the sky at night was a roof with holes through which lights shone. That distorted view of the universe and our place in it has gradually given way, through hundreds of years of observation, and decades of space exploration, to a realistic one of where we are and how it all came about and evolved. Knowing the reality of what is out there may well have some direct benefits, as we better understand how the Sun behaves, how the Earth is constructed, what dangers we may face from asteroids; but more important is just a sense of the reality of the size and structure of the universe as we stare up into the clear night skies of the Yass Valley and see the billions of stars and galaxies spread out before us.

So, goodbye Shuttle, well done.Thank you to the brave people who flew on it and the 14 poor astronauts who lost their lives to let us see the world more clearly.

But the journey to knowledge will continue – down here and up there.

Photograph shows the Necklace Nebula, located 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagitta (the Arrow). In this composite image, taken on July 2, 2011, Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 captured the glow of hydrogen (blue), oxygen (green), and nitrogen (red). (Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA))