tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2009-11-12:/Tired of holding the ring between her squabbling sisters, the impulsive Melinda and indecisive Belinda, the rational intellectual Cassandra has decided to create her own blog. Here she can explain her ideas and analysis of life, the universe, her own psyche and the future of humanity, safe in the knowledge that no one is listening, because no bugger ever does.MokoFeed2009-11-12T01:28:11+01:00tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-07-05:/2008/07/05/processes-more-about-scientific-debate-4408003/CassandraofTroy2008-07-05T19:20:03+02:002008-07-05T19:20:03+02:00 <p>Something else that occurred to me this afternoon is the importance of processes. Species variation through genetic selection is a process, which has been known about for centuries, because it is used in selective breeding. Darwin’s (and Wallace’s) insight was to see how this could happen naturally through competition for resources. The greenhouse effect is a recognised process, the physical relationships by which the concentration of some gases in the atmosphere keeps the sun’s heat around the planet are also well understood. Once we understand the processes, we can make predictions which can be tested by observation. </p> <p>There is a tendency among those trying to discredit scientific theories to start from observations and try to find alternative explanations for them. But if the processes which generate those observations are already understood, it is perverse to try to ignore those processes, unless there are very sound reasons to do so. Given that we know that inbreeding within groups will generate different characteristics when it comes to breeding dogs, why should we assume that this would not apply to the development of different characteristics in populations of finches on different islands? Given that we understand the greenhouse effect, why should we assume that the warming which has been predicted for decades and is now being observed has another explanation?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/07/05/processes-more-about-scientific-debate-4408003/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-06-28:/2008/06/28/scientific-and-political-debates-4375387/CassandraofTroy2008-06-28T12:23:38+02:002008-06-28T12:23:38+02:00 <p>I said I would post something about scientific debate vs political debate. These are some very ill-formed ideas which fit into a wider complex of ideas which I’ve been thinking about for a long time, well, more or less since I did my PhD. Maybe if I pull them all together they’ll make a book, who knows?<br> I’ve been inspired by recent debates round here (among other things) to think about the differences, and similarities, between these two modes of discourse – sorry, a bit of sociologese there, make that ‘ways of discussing the world’ – and how they overlap. Maybe there’s a spectrum, with at one end the classic scientific method, and at the other, oh, I don’t know, voting on the latest Big Brother, maybe. No, scrub that, I’m getting distracted.<br> Recent work that I’ve done – going back a couple of years now, because basically I haven’t done ANYTHING intellectual since last summer – has focused on analysing contributions to the public debate on GM, looking at what people base their ideas on, where they come from, and what are recognised as legitimate truth claims. In this work, I have used concepts developed by Geoffrey Vickers, a particular guru of mine. He talks about statements of fact and statements of value, and the differences between the two. Statements of fact are independently verifiable – so, ‘this box is red’ is a statement of fact (if we leave aside philosophical discussions about the definitions of ‘this’, ‘box’, ‘is’ and ‘red’), while ‘This box is beautiful’ is a statement of value. Statements of value are inherently subjective – they require an observer – although they can acquire a form of ‘objectivity’ if enough people agree with them – thus the statement ‘The Mona Lisa is beautiful’ is widely considered an objective statement, although it is not equivalent in its objectivity to a statement like: ‘the Mona Lisa is a painting in oils on canvas’.<br> Oh, sorry, now I’ve really got down into the nit-picking, and I can feel myself being drawn into discussions about objectivity and subjectivity and facts and values… and something someone said a few months back about beliefs and opinions… I love this stuff, I know, I’m a sick, sick woman…<br> But to get back to my original debate – because to be honest it’s time to get back to work and stop scribbling in cafes [Ed’s note: this was written on Wednesday, it’s just that I’m only typing it up now, on Saturday morning] – the distinction I wanted to make is that scientific debates ultimately rest on judgements of fact, not value. It is possible to settle a scientific debate by an appeal to the evidence – indeed, this is the only legitimate way of doing so. This is not to say that this is easy, far from it, for all sorts of reasons, which I will expand on if I ever get round to writing that book (or even any more papers). But the point I was trying to make is that political debates – at the opposite end of the spectrum – are entirely based on judgements of value. It is not philosophically possible to say that one argument is ‘better’ than another purely on the basis of its content. I can argue with you forever over whether Warhol’s Marilyn is more beautiful than the Mona Lisa, but we cannot settle this by an appeal to judgements of fact, only perhaps by canvassing the opinions of others and seeing where the balance of preference lies - a democratic approach, if you like. Damn, I seem to have wandered away into aesthetic rather than political debates, that gives me another category.<br> Political debates can, of course, be settled by an appeal to ethics, but this is also inherently subjective.<br> What I wanted to say was this (and I really DO have to get back to work now) is that with factual/scientific debates, it is possible to reach some kind of resolution in terms of an appeal to an external standard. Different arguments can be shown to have a stronger basis than others. They are not all of equal value, different opinions which should all be accorded equal respect. Thus, it is wrong to say that Creationism is equal in value to evolution because they are alternative ‘theories’. There exists an external standard against which they can both be compared – and one, evolution, has a huge body of objective evidence to support it, while belief in creationism rests only on faith.<br> And now I have spent long enough in this café and sadly I really have to get home and get some work done.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/06/28/scientific-and-political-debates-4375387/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-06-23:/2008/06/23/more-spam-4351366/CassandraofTroy2008-06-23T12:07:25+02:002008-06-23T12:07:25+02:00 <p>I just got an email with the message line: ‘If you can read this, email marketing works’.<br> Well, I COULD have read it. But I didn’t bother.<br> I couldn’t even tell you what it was ad-ver-tising.<br> So, it didn’t work THAT well.<br> PS But interestingly enough, when I just tried to post this, BCUK refused to accept it because of the word adv...</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/06/23/more-spam-4351366/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-06-01:/2008/06/01/quotation-form-the-guru-of-gurus-or-the--4253758/CassandraofTroy2008-06-01T10:44:08+02:002008-06-01T10:44:08+02:00 <p>'As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.' Albert Einstein </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/06/01/quotation-form-the-guru-of-gurus-or-the--4253758/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-05-24:/2008/05/24/evolution-in-action-4214693/CassandraofTroy2008-05-24T07:15:55+02:002008-05-24T07:15:55+02:00 <p>My pet bugbear is the highly processed ‘civilised western’ diet which has taken hold in the US and UK, particularly over the last 50 years or so. Our bodies have over millennia evolved to consume certain types of foods. The evolutionary aspects of this can be seen to some extent in different reactions to certain foods within different cultures. For example, Western Europeans (and by extension North Americans of Western European extraction) have, over many generations, eaten and drunk dairy products. This is not the case in the Far East, with the observable result that the proportion of Asians who suffer from lactose intolerance is far higher than in Europe. The reason for this is obvious – the lactose-intolerant portion of the gene pool in our society is more likely to have died in childhood in previous generations, and not left any genetic offspring to come down to the present. Hence, lactose tolerance has been selected for in those populations which have a history of dairy consumption.<br> Now we turn to the issue of the western diet more generally – particularly aspects such as the widespread availability and relative cheapness (compared with previous generations) of meat and saturated fats, refined sugars, refined carbohydrates, etc etc, which characterise a ‘modern’ diet – not to mention ‘artificial’ and highly processed additives. Many of these foods, when introduced to ‘indigenous’ populations, prove highly toxic.<br> But the point I want to make is, that they are not exactly healthy for indigenous Western Europeans/North Americans either. What are the greatest killers in these countries? Diseases of affluence, such as heart disease and cancers, which can be directly linked to this kind of diet. (Of course, this effect is partly due to the reduction in deaths from infectious diseases etc, because, after all, everyone has to die of something).<br> Within the population, there are naturally variations in predisposition to these diseases, and also there are other lifestyle factors which also can have an impact. But can we say there has been, or will be, any evolutionary adaptation towards this kind of diet? Well, for a start, it hasn’t really been round for long enough for truly evolutionary effects to appear – a couple of generations, at most. The second point is that the impact of this kind of diet on morbidity tends to come in middle age or later life, after the subjects have already passed on their genetic material to the next generation.<br> But what is happening now – and this is what I find really interesting - is the rise in diet-linked diseases at a younger age, particularly type 2 diabetes among children and young adults – before they have had a chance to breed.<br> So, my suspicion is that this is an area where evolution can be seen in action – in that those with a genetic adaptation to toleration of this kind of diet have a genetic advantage – quite a depressing thought, really.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/05/24/evolution-in-action-4214693/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-05-19:/2008/05/19/evolution-by-natural-selectoin-4192440/CassandraofTroy2008-05-19T07:47:19+02:002008-05-19T07:47:19+02:00 <p>According to Darwin, there are two pre-conditions for evolution by natural selection to work. One is that parents have more offspring than are needed to replace themselves, and that there is genetic variation between the young – which occurs through sexual mixing. The second is that those genetic variations affect individuals’ ability to cope with the conditions in their environment, most specifically, to find food and to breed. If an individual’s genetic suitability is so poor that it dies before it is able to reproduce, its particular genetic configuration is removed from the gene pool, it leaves behind no offspring with that configuration. This is the meaning of ‘survival of the fittest’, - simply that those genetic traits which pass to the next generation tend to be those which have the closest ‘fit’ to the conditions of the environment – not necessarily the strongest, or the biggest, maybe the smallest, or the best camouflaged – and, although ‘the struggle for survival’ is often conceptualised as a competition between individuals, it is more accurately dependent on the way in which the individual reacts with its environment.<br> Among people with a partial understanding , there is often an assumption that evolution is teleological and progressive, ie) that it leads towards a specific goal which is in some way an ‘improvement’ on what went before. But this is to superimpose an artificial evaluation onto an objective situation. And anyway, the adaptation is to a specific set of environmental conditions. If that environment changes, for whatever reason, whether initiated by the organism or due to external circumstances, the species (and note that here we are talking about species, not individuals) no longer necessarily has the combination of genetic traits which will allow it to be successful with respect to the changed environmental factors.<br> OK, so there is a widespread assumption that humanity is the ‘pinnacle of creation’, possibly inherited from the judeo-Christian tradition, possibly just a natural species-centrism – just as each of us as individuals consider ourselves to be the centre of our own universe. But homo sapiens as a species has been around a very short span of evolutionary time, and ‘civilisation’ for practically no time at all.<br> So, why should we assume that evolution has in some way come to a halt? It seems that way because we only see an infinitesimally short time scale. It would be like, say, a mayfly which hatches in the morning and dies before sunset believing (assuming it had the mental capacity to do such a thing) that daylight is the eternal state of the world – or the people in Asimov’s short story ‘Nightfall’.<br> But I digress. So, if we think about the mechanisms of evolution, how are they likely to impact on humanity in the future? I have some thoughts about that – but you’ll have to wait until the future (probably tomorrow) to find out what they are.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/05/19/evolution-by-natural-selectoin-4192440/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-05-18:/2008/05/18/phew-wot-a-4188292/CassandraofTroy2008-05-18T07:45:51+02:002008-05-18T07:45:51+02:00 <p>Quite a fun article on how the media operate.<br> from (of course, where else?) the media.<br> <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/200805150018">http://www.newstatesman.com/200805150018</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/05/18/phew-wot-a-4188292/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-05-15:/2008/05/15/experts-4175975/CassandraofTroy2008-05-15T07:25:10+02:002008-05-15T07:25:10+02:00 <p>‘Experts’ tend to get a bad press these days. Never a day goes by without someone pontificating about some topic about which we’re all sure we’re better informed than they are. It’s easy to get a cheap laugh out of pointing out the idiocies espoused by some so-called, possibly self-appointed or media-nominated ‘expert’.<br> But let’s think about this for a while - yes, I know that’s a challenge, why should we bother to think about anything when we can just have a laugh and go back to whatever it was we were doing before, which almost certainly didn’t involve thinking?<br> What are we saying here? That we shouldn’t believe, trust or give any attention to anyone who claims to know more than we do about a subject? Even if they have spent their whole careers studying it?<br> There are experts and experts, after all. The first question is – who claims this person is an ‘expert’? Are they putting themselves forward, or is it someone else citing them, possibly with the purpose of making fun of them, of causing a sensation, or just to create a ‘good story’? Second, what did they actually say, what are the grounds on which they’re making whatever statement it is that they’re making, what qualifications did they make? Particularly if we’re talking about scientists, there is a often such a high degree of uncertainty and unknowns in what they’re saying, no good scientist will come straight out and make an unqualified, unequivocal statement without explaining his or her reasons. The people who quote them, however, will very often miss out those qualifications.<br> It’s important to ask these questions, before we decide whether to either accept or reject any advice or information we are given. But unthinking scepticism is as bad as unthinking gullibility. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/05/15/experts-4175975/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-05-01:/2008/05/01/grayling-on-happiness-4117097/CassandraofTroy2008-05-01T07:28:54+02:002008-05-01T07:28:54+02:00 <p>'... a state of happiness - of contentment or satisfaction - merely by itself is a negative state, a passive condition, which undermines things we value more: our striving and yearning, our improving and growing, our inventing and discovering. Of course, some of what goes under these adventurous names is apt to rebound on us, and often has in the past; but not as often as it has moved us forward as a species, bringing the intrinsic goods of knowledge and progress, despite the prices that have sometimes been paid for both.<br> It is true that happiness frequently, although not invariably, accompanies these endeavours, as smoke does fire; and when it does, it enhances them. But it is knowledge and progress which are primary, causing happiness as a side-effect; they are the goal, and the attendant happiness, when it comes, is a sign that they are being reached.'</p> <p class="right">AC Grayling, 'The Meaning of Things', p 72</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/05/01/grayling-on-happiness-4117097/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-28:/2008/04/28/knowing-acting-feeling-4104157/CassandraofTroy2008-04-28T09:03:56+02:002008-04-28T09:03:56+02:00 <p>After reading AC Grayling on fidelity yesterday evening (which I’ve blogged about on HorC), when I couldn't sleep last night I was reading a back issue of the New Statesman and came across an article by Jonathan Beckman. He was writing about citizenship, and the idea that it can be taught: ‘...unlike physics or history, citizenship is not a body of knowledge. It involves both a civic participation and an interior disposition: it is a combination of activity and feeling’.<br> I liked what he said about Aristotle:<br> ‘Establishing… virtues is not simply a question of education. One does not become virtuous by knowing that stealing is wrong. Virtue is maintained by constantly doing virtuous acts. These are not done reluctantly, but are accompanied by appropriate feelings of harmony and satisfaction. Indeed, should you suffer a dark night of the soul, Aristotle would claim that you are not truly virtuous’.<br> As with fidelity, so with Aristotle’s virtues: it is not enough simply to know, or to do, what you should do, in order to be virtuous - it must also be what you truly want to do.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/28/knowing-acting-feeling-4104157/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-27:/2008/04/27/trust-and-mistrust-proof-and-disproof-4099944/CassandraofTroy2008-04-27T07:43:48+02:002008-04-27T07:43:48+02:00 <p>Trust is a reciprocal relationship. We believe things said by people we trust – but we trust people who say things we already agree with. So it becomes self-reinforcing. Given that, how can we manipulate trust? Should we be manipulating trust? What are the grounds, the basis on which we evaluate truth? We take things on board to the extent that they correspond with the way we think things are already. But if what is said does not correspond to our pre-existing beliefs or experience, we are more inclined to reject it.<br> That I guess is it in a nutshell, and put like that it all seems a bit self-evident – well, to me it does. But is that actually the way people see the world more generally? Ah, but who are these ‘people’?<br> The point, I think, is that no individual’s responses are predictable in that way. Or maybe they are to some extent. This is always the way, isn’t it, you can go by what the probabilities tell you is most likely to happen, but it doesn’t mean that that is what actually will happen.<br> In any particular case, circumstances lead to a particular resolution. Which does not disprove the rule for all other cases, just says that this is what happened in this case, because of this.<br> Yet if we look at the classical scientific method, one instance of disproof should lead to the rejection of the general rule. Except that, it doesn’t. Within normal science, we look for the reason which caused the rule to be broken in this instance, and are quite likely to assume that something went wrong in that particular instance, that the sample was contaminated, or there are some circumstances that we are not aware of, and that that extreme example should be rejected and omitted from the findings. That is how science works. Or a new explanation is found for that particular case. We still work on probabilities – most cases indicate this, so we can ignore the one which indicates that.<br> Where is all this leading me? I don’t know. To the profound, or the banal? Or maybe a bit of both. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/27/trust-and-mistrust-proof-and-disproof-4099944/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-27:/2008/04/27/freedom-of-choice-4099921/CassandraofTroy2008-04-27T07:34:50+02:002008-04-27T07:34:50+02:00 <p>How ‘free’ are our choices?</p> <p>Even if we have freedom of choice, we do not have freedom from the consequences.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/27/freedom-of-choice-4099921/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-27:/2008/04/27/jenray-s-challenge-4099875/CassandraofTroy2008-04-27T07:18:53+02:002008-04-27T07:20:25+02:00 <p>Jenray tagged me with this ages and ages ago - so long I can't find it now <img src="/img/smilies/icon_sad.gif" alt=":(" class="middle" border="0"></p> <p>Here are my 7 quirks - hope they're quirky enough:<br> 1. I’d rather eat cheese and crackers or French bread (especially with red wine) than any ‘proper’ meal I can think of.<br> 2. I failed the finals for my first degree (too interested in chasing boys rather than studying), but 20 years later I got a PhD (even though I still hadn’t grown out of chasing boys).<br> 3. I wear toe socks, because I find them much more comfortable than having my toes all squashed together.<br> 4. I can bend forward far enough to lay the backs of my hands on the floor and stand on my palms, and still straighten my legs.<br> 5. I live in a listed Georgian vicarage, but I’m an atheist.<br> 6. My secret vice is eating salty, buttery popcorn (yum!) but I hate the sweet stuff (yuk!)<br> 7. My favourite songs are ‘While you see a chance’ by Steve Winwood, and the choral movement of Beethoven’s 9th symphony (‘O Freude’)</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/27/jenray-s-challenge-4099875/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-20:/2008/04/20/a-good-day-4068267/CassandraofTroy2008-04-20T08:00:54+02:002008-04-20T08:00:54+02:00 <p>Yesterday I shook the hand of a Tory MP. Not something I could ever have imagined myself doing, not an experience I’m in a hurry to repeat. And I agreed with almost everything he said, though most of his party would not.<br> My talk went well, only a couple of times when I was completely struck dumb, one being when I was introduced to Ken Clarke and had to try and explain to him what I was going to talk about. Well, I should have been prepared, but I wasn’t.<br> The technology let me down, of course. I took my daughter’s laptop, and one of the organisers brought a projector and laptop which she knew would work together. We couldn’t get the projector to recognise my laptop, so we thought, that’s OK, use the other one. But I’d taken the DVD of the project, thinking I could show them that, then do my 20 minutes PowerPoint. But when we put the DVD in, nothing happened. There was no software on the laptop to play the DVD – there was Windows media player, but when we opened it, it was a version which would only play audio CDs, it didn’t recognise DVDs.<br> So, after several attempts to get my laptop to talk to the projector, I gave up and went with just the powerpoint, But it was OK. I wasn’t checking the time, but I obviously stretched it out quite a lot because there wasn’t much time for questions at the end (though obviously we were late starting because of the technology troubles). I was just my usual self-deprecating self. It was OK, when I get started I’m nearly always OK, it’s just the apprehension beforehand which gives me problems. I got some good feedback, people were very kind. One lady I know was there when I gave a previous version of the talk in Cambridge last year, and she said to me beforehand, ‘I’m looking forward to hearing your talk again’, which was nice of her.<br> The last speaker was much more appealing than Ken Clarke, and also very good – a prospective lib dem MEP candidate. I really warmed to him and we had a good chat afterwards. I’d vote for him, if he was standing in this constituency, which he isn’t. He made some nice references to my talk during his, though I mentioned this to Hubby and he said ‘Oh that’s always a good ploy, to refer to the previous speaker, just shows you’ve been listening’ which deflated me a bit.<br> One of the things he said linked up with something which came from my Crosby Stills and Nash-fest which I’ve been indulging in. On Friday night and in the car on the way to Nottingham I was playing ‘Teach your children’ and thinking about the lines: ‘You of tender years/Can’t know the fears/That your elders grew by’. And I was thinking about the fears which my generation grew by, which I would say was mainly that of nuclear war, and how everything changed with the ending of the cold war (not that the risk has completely gone away, of course, but it has changed).<br> Anyway, this guy was talking about the expansion of the EU, and was talking about the bringing down of the Berlin wall in 1989, and saying that a few years ago, teaching political science students, that was the most significant political event of their lifetimes, but when he speaks to first year undergraduates now, that means nothing to them because they weren’t even born then, or only just.<br> It was a good day. People said to me that they enjoyed my bit because the two politicians were talking about how the EU operates at a very high level, but that I was talking about practical things being done on the ground, and real citizens getting involved and engaged, which made it more real. But it was all good. Even Ken Clarke.<br> And on the way home, I drove down the country roads, as the crow flies, through lovely little Leicestershire villages, not a way I would normally have cause to go, and very pretty it was too. It was 80 miles there up the motorway, and 65 miles coming back, though it took longer coming back because I got snarled up in Kettering and ended up driving round for half an hour, naively I thought it would be easy because all I needed to do was find the A6, but for some reason all the signposts were for the A43 or the A14.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/20/a-good-day-4068267/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-08:/2008/04/08/well-well-who-d-ve-thought-it-4014572/CassandraofTroy2008-04-08T09:43:10+02:002008-04-08T09:43:10+02:00 <p>Apparently, Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed were unlawfully killed due to extreme negligence on the part of their drunken chauffeur.<br> I'm amazed. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/08/well-well-who-d-ve-thought-it-4014572/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-07:/2008/04/07/beautiful-spring-afternoon-4009334/CassandraofTroy2008-04-07T11:30:20+02:002008-04-07T11:30:20+02:00 <p>Taken yesterday afternoon</p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/dsc02584/2455095" title="DSC02584"><img src="http://data3.blog.de/media/095/2455095_4bbb488977_m.jpeg" alt="DSC02584" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p><a href="http://www.blog.co.uk/media/photo/dsc02583/2455096"><img src="http://data3.blog.de/media/096/2455096_d4e49ab768_m.jpeg" alt="DSC02583" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a></p> <p>Hard to believe it was all covered with snow a few hours earlier, isn't it <img src="/img/smilies/graylaugh.gif" alt=":))" class="middle" border="0"><br> (bit chilly to sit out there with my campari and soda, though!) </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/07/beautiful-spring-afternoon-4009334/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-07:/2008/04/07/britain-in-europe-4009006/CassandraofTroy2008-04-07T10:03:17+02:002008-04-07T10:04:56+02:00 <p>We Brits (or more specifically, we English), like to see ourselves as special and distinct from those pesky 'Europeans', and pride ourselves on our historical independence.<br> But don't forget:<br> The current British Royal Family are of German descent.<br> The ones prior to them were Dutch.<br> Before that, Scottish,<br> Before that, Welsh. (The Spanish tried to move in around this time, but were sent back).<br> Before that, French (for 400 years).<br> Before that, Danish.<br> Before that, German (again).<br> Before that, Italian.<br> That gets us back 2000 years.<br> <img src="/img/smilies/graylaugh.gif" alt=":))" class="middle" border="0"> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/07/britain-in-europe-4009006/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-01:/2008/04/01/does-history-repeat-itself-3979076/CassandraofTroy2008-04-01T07:54:38+02:002008-04-01T07:54:38+02:00 <p>History doesn’t repeat itself, only in the patterns we impose on it. Nothing is fixed, but everything is predictable to some extent. We look at the world using patterns we have observed before, some things stay the same, maybe human nature stays the same, but different humans apply it in different ways. So no two sets of circumstances are ever exactly the same, and the template we have derived from observing the past may have some application to the future, but there is always the possibility of difference, of something which comes out of left field, which leaves us puzzled and scratching our heads and thinking, ‘well, I didn’t see THAT coming!’ </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/01/does-history-repeat-itself-3979076/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-04-01:/2008/04/01/does-history-repeat-itself-3979064/CassandraofTroy2008-04-01T07:53:03+02:002008-04-01T07:53:03+02:00<p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/04/01/does-history-repeat-itself-3979064/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-03-18:/2008/03/18/toilet-seats-3898390/CassandraofTroy2008-03-18T08:18:27+01:002008-03-18T08:18:27+01:00 <p>Where I go for my writing classes on Mondays, there is one set of toilets which everybody shares. Sometimes when you go into the cubicle you find that the seat has been left up, and guess what? I put it down and get on with it.<br> But yesterday I went in and the seat was down but it had been sprayed on. Now, THAT I do find objectionable.<br> <img src="/img/smilies/icon_evil.gif" alt=">:-[" class="middle" border="0"> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/03/18/toilet-seats-3898390/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-03-17:/2008/03/17/tax-disc-challenge-3896667/CassandraofTroy2008-03-17T20:36:14+01:002008-03-17T20:36:14+01:00 <p>I got round to changing the tax disc in my car today.<br> I noticed the only difference between the old one and the new one was that two of the digits were transposed.<br> How long will it be before that happens again? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/03/17/tax-disc-challenge-3896667/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-03-02:/2008/03/02/thought-for-the-day-3807989/CassandraofTroy2008-03-02T23:12:18+01:002008-03-02T23:12:18+01:00 <p>'Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are to women? A very curious fact it seemed, and my mind wandered to picture the lives of men who spend their time in writing books about women; whether they were old or young, married or unmarried, red-nosed or hump-backed - anyhow, it was flattering, vaguely, to feel oneself the object of such attention, provided that it was not entirely bestowed by the crippled and the infirm.' Virginia Woolf </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/03/02/thought-for-the-day-3807989/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-03-02:/2008/03/02/thought-for-the-day-3807958/CassandraofTroy2008-03-02T23:07:54+01:002008-03-02T23:07:54+01:00 <p>'Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.' Dr Johnson. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/03/02/thought-for-the-day-3807958/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-02-24:/2008/02/24/the_delusion_of_control~3772198/CassandraofTroy2008-02-24T11:15:22+01:002008-02-24T11:15:22+01:00 <p>The truly major things that go wrong in the world – climate change, financial crises, terrorism, social meltdown, to name but a few off the top of my head – are the emergent outcomes of millions of individual decisions/choices/actions.<br> Governments are charged with controlling these outcomes at the macro level. However, in order to do that, as they cannot control the law of cause and effect, they need to be able to control at the micro level of the ultimate causes.<br> But this presupposes two conditions: that these causes are known and thoroughly understood; and that they are susceptible to control. Make that three conditions – that the outcomes of our attempts at control are predictable and controllable in themselves.<br> Quite a big ask, what with one thing and another. This is the paradox at the heart of human governance, and the reason why we stumble from one cock-up to the next.</p> <p>And I heard a definition of karma the other day which I can relate to. It’s about recognising that all our actions have consequences, and that those consequences may have consequences which will come back and affect us in unanticipated ways.</p> <p>Mostly what I write at 3 o’clock in the morning is poetry, but not necessarily.</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/02/24/the_delusion_of_control~3772198/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-02-10:/2008/02/10/hey_ho~3706047/CassandraofTroy2008-02-10T12:52:18+01:002008-02-10T12:52:18+01:00 <p>Had another email from the Aussie woman whose thesis I didn't get to examine.<br> She says '...don't think I ever told you how frankly awesome I found your work. Such a powerful technique and so beautifully and relevantly applied...'<br> That'd be the work I haven't touched since the Royal Geographical Society conference last August, the stuff I've more or less given up on because life gets in the way... </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/02/10/hey_ho~3706047/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-02-03:/2008/02/03/who_are_we_really~3672555/CassandraofTroy2008-02-03T11:49:45+01:002008-02-03T11:49:45+01:00 <p>I found this article really interesting:<br> <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/200801310022">http://www.newstatesman.com/200801310022</a><br> To précis, what she is saying is that all of us, not just celebrities like Britney Spears, are being encouraged by the self-help/life coaching industry to consciously create the image which we wish to project, and she includes social networking sites (and by extension blog communities such as this one) as a means by which we create identities and hide our ‘true’ selves.<br> Personally (and I’ve said this before), I would say that the multi-faceted (and yes, I admit it, often contradictory) woman who appears on these pages (and to a lesser extent in Facebook), the woman who writes exactly what she thinks, is closer to my authentic self than the one I present to colleagues, acquaintances, friends, even my family (especially my husband).<br> The question is, though, how can you, who have never met me (excluding you Trolly, if you read this!), know whether that is true? And, even more interestingly, how can I know that I’m not deceiving myself?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/02/03/who_are_we_really~3672555/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-01-27:/2008/01/27/sounds_challenging~3638566/CassandraofTroy2008-01-27T11:42:27+01:002008-01-27T11:42:27+01:00 <p>I've just received an email with the subject line referring to: 'How to archive a 7-inchlongPenis' (sic)<br> I didn't bother reading more. but I can forward it if anyone's interested. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/01/27/sounds_challenging~3638566/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-01-22:/2008/01/22/twisted_personae~3613920/CassandraofTroy2008-01-22T10:15:30+01:002008-01-22T10:15:30+01:00 <p>Belinda is howling at the moon.<br> Melinda is clutching her pillow and pouting sulkily.<br> Me, I'm tearing my hair out. and trying to scrape the barrel for a little confidence to get on with some work. somebody has to.<br> and listening to Steve Winwood:<br> 'when some cold tomorrow finds you,<br> when some sad old dream reminds you,<br> how the endless road unwinds you.<br> while you see a chance, take it,<br> find romance, fake it,<br> Because it's all on you'.<br> <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uVKJ_uQbcNM">http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uVKJ_uQbcNM</a><br> crap video, but it's my favourite song </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/01/22/twisted_personae~3613920/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2008-01-19:/2008/01/19/about_science~3602121/CassandraofTroy2008-01-19T21:07:49+01:002008-01-19T21:07:49+01:00 <p>A couple of weeks ago, i had the following exchange with Ranfuchs on his blog:<br> R: Pope Benedict XVI warned scientists to beware of making alarming predictions about Global Warming without having the proper science to back them up.<br> Me: the science on climate change is just about as 'proper' as it gets.<br> R: The fact that science is as 'proper' as it gets still doesn't mean it's true, but only that it's the best understanding we have currently.</p> <p>This is the reply I wrote at the time, but never got round to posting:</p> <p>"By definition, ‘the best understanding we have currently’ is all we have to go on. And, logically, the fact that thousands of scientists who have specialised in this area over several decades and analysed the underlying physical processes and accumulated empirical evidence about the outcomes of those processes agree on the fundamental thrust of what is happening, does not necessarily make it true. Just because an equivalent evidence base suggests that smoking causes lung cancer, or that drinking excess alcohol can lead to traffic accidents, does not make it ‘true’ in this sense. But if my doctor tells me that if I don’t give up smoking, within five years I will almost certainly be dead, I should at least give some credence to what he is saying.<br> At some point society must start to trust the people who have seriously studied this issue, and listen to their advice, or what is the point of science at all?<br> But then, people believe what they want to believe, and dismiss evidence that doesn’t confirm what they want to hear. After all, large numbers of Americans (and others) are still able to believe that God created the universe in 6 days."</p> <p>Later that morning, I heard on 'Start the Week', Damian Thompson talking about his book 'Counterknowledge'<br> <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Counterknowledge-Surrendered-Conspiracy-Theories-Medicine/dp/1843546752/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1200772332&sr=8-1">http://www.amazon.co.uk/Counterknowledge-Surrendered-Conspiracy-Theories-Medicine/dp/1843546752/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=gateway&qid=1200772332&sr=8-1</a><br> about how we are facing a pandemic of 'Counterknowledge': conspiracy theories, charlatanism, and unsubstantiated claims about the world, which nevertheless gain credence and a self-reinforcing claim to 'truth' - simultaneously with a widespread distrust of legitimate science.</p> <p>It is the case that scientific hypotheses can never be proved with 'certainty'. But how can we rebalance the scales of trust so that we can move forward with a clearer understanding of what is and is not the best available 'truth' we have?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2008/01/19/about_science~3602121/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tag:cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk,2007-08-14:/2007/08/14/frustration~2804703/CassandraofTroy2007-08-14T07:11:21+02:002007-08-14T07:11:21+02:00 <p>The network response is diabolical this morning. It has been getting progressively worse recently, which may be something to do with what my son is doing on his computer, in which case it will be resolved in three weeks when he goes back to uni, but then again it may not.<br> I had a sort out the other day and got the email notifications on comments on this blog sent to an address I actually check, and put in a folder marked 'blog'. by the time I'd ploughed through the spam-washer this morning and waited for Outlook to check all accounts, the only new email was in the blog folder, so I came on to see what it was, took for ages to load the first page, then more ages to get into my blog, then more to show the posts and then... it was a spam. I had one yesterday without realising what it was and stupidly went to the webpage, so now I guess I will be inundated with them.<br> Crap.<br> And it's really, really dark this morning. Bad sign. Autumn's on its way. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://cassandra-of-troy.blog.co.uk/2007/08/14/frustration~2804703/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>