A voice crying in the wilderness

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 21:56:34 +0100

Christmas Greetings to you and yours all the way from New Zealand.

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 14:13:59 +0200

I'm sure you're right about the technology, if there was the will to apply it properly, and also the commitment to behavioural change to make sure we don't just keep finding other ways to screw up.
It's age and cycnicism that makes me so suspicious I'm afraid.
I keep hoping that somehow we will pull back from the brink - but right now, I can't see how.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 13:55:46 +0200

Oh, I DO like the photo :yes:
A Foxy Whiskered Gentleman!
Filing, sadly, can be done perfectly comfortably standing up :roll:
My higher senses are in dire need of stimulation...

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 12:09:10 +0200

I can see your predicament.

(I can. Really. My eyesight is phenomenal).

Writing standing up will be difficult, however scribbling in an elevated position should stimulate the higher senses.

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:53:22 +0200

Yeah, it's quite sickening the way that oil companies act in such a parasitic way.
Perhaps it's because i'm an engineer that i put faith in technology but I truly believe that were it applied correctly and soon that we have the resources and knowledge available now, to make a change starting now.. it's just the beaurocracy which halts the process..
all very depressing, whichever way you look at it!

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:30:42 +0200

Slipped on the stairs and went straight down :(
A fortnight ago now.
Guess the only way to get it to heal is not to sit on it -
:roll:
Tricky :yes:

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:24:02 +0200

A concussed coccyx?

Ouch!

Sympathy duly awarded and soothing cream dispatched.

How on earth did you do that?

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:06:35 +0200

But there is so much disinformation around these days – and so little trust – that the majority of people just refuse to accept the magnitude of the problem. Any tentative measures suggested by politicians are see as some kind of dodge to raise taxes, and the more forcefully the message is put, the more it is distrusted and resisted.

http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2008/07/global-warming-lynas-climate

Discussions I’ve been involved in both on BCUK and with people in the Real World have convinced me that it is pointless trying to explain to people who just don’t want to hear.

http://askoranswer.blog.co.uk/2008/06/09/green-agenda-a-con-4293094

http://joebangles.blog.co.uk/2008/06/19/a-return-to-global-warming-4336795

I don’t put much faith in technological fixes either. They tend to replace one problem with another, and we have pushed most of the natural systems of the planet to the limit already, there is really nowhere else to turn.
I read in the Independent the other day that the melting of the Arctic ice is being seen as an opportunity by the energy companies, because it makes the oil and gas reserves under the pole much more easily accessible.
You couldn’t make it up.

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:54:30 +0200

There is so much evidence to show that the greenhouse effect is a present and real symptom of our way of life, it really annoys me that there are still so many people who try to discredit it or bury their heads in the sand. The main difficulty with introducing technical solutions to such a problem is a) trying to convince politicians to implement the technology and b) making sure it's applied enough to actually make a difference.
Take CCS (carbon capture and storage) for example, it's a perfect solution if used now- retrofitted to old plants and to large steel and concrete works and made compulsory to be part of new plants etc.. It was brought up in the European parliament to see if it should indeed be compulsory to be fitted to new plants. The minister who'd considered the proposal had not looked into it properly, she kept saying that such 'new' technology was too expensive to fund research into. It's not that new and it's ready to be implemented now- it's no longer in the research stage.
I just wish politicians would catch up with technology and not be so science-phobic. It's only when we have people who actualyl understand the implications of continuing to live as we do in terms of processes and causality that any sort of change can occur.
Anyway.. it's a sore topic for everyone I suppose. More so for the scientists and engineers frustrated by the apathy of the world!

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:04:21 +0200

In that case, a decent sized plot of land on Crete and a book on subsistence farming will be what I need...

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 20:30:32 +0200

I don't have a lot of faith in technical fixes - historically, they have tended to create as many problems as they solve.
And behavioural change, if it ever happens, will be too little, too late.
So, taking into account the available evidence, and having spoken to people far more knowledgeable than I, my considered opinion is...
We're screwed. :(

In response to:Processes (more about scientific debate)

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:54:33 +0200

Also, given that we know it is a bit of a problem, when will we get round to looking for a technological fix? Because, just setting quotas and targets is not going to solve anything...

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 17:35:02 +0200

Bruised tail bone (ouch) :(
A pathetic and transparent appeal for sympathy.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 15:00:45 +0200

Sore heads or rears?

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:41:57 +0200

Thanks :)
But it's easier to think up those kind of arguments when you're not actually trying to parry somebody else's points in a debate.
That's why I gave up on one debate I was involved in recently, and tried going back to first principles - the result being this original post.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 10:24:35 +0200

Excellent bit of writing, and I love the hypersonic concrete god! What you explained there is exactly what I couldn't get across to someone in a debate recently about evidence for god and how that compares to scientific evidence.

Tom.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:13:15 +0200

Appreciation of an attractive rear-end is not confined to either gender in particular. ;)
Newton, however, was more renowned for his head - and who knows which gender he would have preferred anyway? (though Neal Stephenson expounds an interesting theory in 'The Baroque Cycle').
However, speaking of Newton's head, do you not think perhaps that the apple in fact took one look at it and felt an irresistible urge to propel itself towards said mighty appendage, thus ensuring its own place in history?
It's a thought.

PS What about sore ones?

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:10:20 +0200

You are quite right, nobody likes a smartarse.

But, and speaking strictly as a man, if we are talking about a smart arse.....;)

And, although Newton had the right idea, he did not consider the possibility that the apple, growing tired of the restriction imposed by a tyrannical tree, wrenched free and hurled itself to destruction.

And gravity got the blame.

Which was a shame.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:59:46 +0200

When I first started studying the nature of scientific debate, and understanding about unscientific uncertainty, conflicting theories etc etc, I felt a terrible sense of vertigo, and fell into a horrible post-modern, relativistic mire for a while...
Till I realised, that, of course, there IS a physical world with physical realtionships which exists externally to our understanding of it, and that even though our understandings can never be perfect, there ARE standards by which different explanations can be judged and compared.
This is how I expressed it in a conference paper I wrote in 2004:

'Discourse analysis is based on a ‘social constructionist’ approach to the social world, which understands the external world in which we live as being crucially determined by our beliefs and perceptions (Berger & Luckman, 1971). This is not to say that ‘the real world’ does not exist, or can be constructed in any way that we choose. This would clearly be absurd; if we hold a glass vase at a height of two metres above a concrete floor, and then let go, we cannot, merely through our own desires and beliefs, cause the vase to hover above the ground, or rise, or, on contact with the concrete, to bounce or retain its structural integrity. The physical properties of glass vases, concrete floors and the force we know as ‘gravity’ have an existence independent of our knowledge systems, and these have been established and tested empirically. However, the fact that we understand the force which draws the vase to the ground as ‘gravity’, as identified and codified by Isaac Newton in the 17th century, rather than the siren call of the concrete god luring the vase to its doom, is due to our position within a specific belief system.
In this admittedly rather ludicrous example, the superiority of the discourse of Newtonian physics over a belief in the mystical powers of the hypersonic concrete god has been confirmed through centuries of empirical confirmation and application of the procedures known as ‘the scientific method’. Nevertheless, Newton’s ‘laws’, indeed the ‘scientific method' itself, are the products of human thought and investigation, while our own acceptance, questioning or understanding of them is for each of us a social product of our education, mental capacities and personal experience.'

I know nobody likes a smart arse, but I'm rather proud of the 'mystical powers of the hypersonic concrete god' :)
Shades of Pastafarianism!

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:28:20 +0200

Right, I'm with you.

That book is a new one on me - I'll look it up.

Tom.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:00:40 +0200

Well said! :)
sorry, just playing devil's advocate on my own argument there.
But, in practice, a lot of arguments which are put forward as being scientific do have ideological elements. The physical world exists, and science can aspire to perfectly objective knowledge, but insofar as scientists are people, they can never be sure they've achieved it.
Which is why observance of method and peer review are so vital. And 'good' scientists acknowledge that.
What I'm trying to argue against is the tendency to assume that because scientific knowledge is not perfect, it is just one 'opinion' among many.
Have you ever read 'What is this thing called science?' by Alan Chalmers?

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:35:13 +0200

No, I don't. In this context, "good" just means done accurately and without bias, a genuine seeking of the truth.

Tom.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:29:29 +0200

But don't you think 'good science' in itself is an ideologically loaded term?

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:49:50 +0200

Belief and ideology have no part in "good" science, and there's nothing disingenuous about saying that.

This is an interesting subject and I'll be keen to read anything else you choose to post on it.

Tom.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 12:45:08 +0200

Hmmm, maybe I need to clarify my terms a bit more.
'Political' was just a handy label that I grabbed. As I said, there is also aesthetic. And you're correct to point out that empirical evidence can also be used in political debates, that had also occurred to me. I did say it was a spectrum.
But 'belief' and 'ideology' are rather general and don't really capture what I was trying to express. Besides, it would be disingenuous to claim that they don't have any role to play in science.
Thanks for your input. I'll give it all some more thought when I have more time.

In response to:Scientific and political debates

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 11:35:55 +0200

I don't entirely agree with you. There is a lot of overlap between the two modes of discourse. Political arguments have statistics as evidence: unemployment and inflation are both lower with my party than yours, child poverty is lower, standard of living is higher and so on.

I think it's belief and ideology that are the opposite of scientific debate, not politics.

Tom.

In response to:Quotation form the guru of gurus (or the guru of geeks, anyway)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:54:59 +0200

Can't comment on the rest, but on this I'm with Albert (obviously, that's why I posted it), and I don't think he was being mischievous.
Maths works beautifully in its own pure world - but wehn applied to the physical world, let alone the biological or social, it is subject to all kinds of messiness. Or is that just down to our inability to measure/estimate the numbers with sufficient accuracy?
PS BTW, are you stalking me??? |-|

In response to:Quotation form the guru of gurus (or the guru of geeks, anyway)

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 09:06:45 +0200

That's just his opinion. (And he may have been being mischievous that day.) I'm being serious.. he certainly advanced ideas in physics... but he carried a lot of idealogical baggage around with him. Those who want to use Einstein for their own agenda will no doubt say his achievements in science were because of these extras... I think it was despite these extras. But that's just my opinion.

In response to:Evolution by natural selectoin

Thu, 22 May 2008 07:11:08 +0200

overtaken by events.
Never saw the meteor coming.

In response to:Evolution by natural selectoin

Wed, 21 May 2008 11:34:39 +0200

I see your ideas about the environment did not make it to the page when you thought it might. Did your idea fail to survive by adapting, or adapting to, its environment?