Year: 2012

I’m often mentioning “theologians talking sense”, but Sentamu is not one of them. Totally incoherent in his response to questions on the Today programme this morning – just denial.

Nice, but Airbus and the US Army have been doing this for decades.

The side-kick to Robert Pirsig on the 1968 road trip that was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Quite a character by all accounts; I met him just once in 2008 at the old Pirsig house in St.Paul where he regaled us with stories of bike rides and musical parties in the 60’s. Sad to hear of his passing Sunday 18th November 2012 after failing to recover from an earlier stroke. A character undoubtedly missed, but immortalized for many in ZMM.

Example story:

The Pirsig’s were the first people in the neighbourhood to get a copy of the Beatle’s White album, and also had a serious HiFi sound system, enough to broadcast into the street, so their parties were a frequent and popular focal point for local musos and artists^(*).

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Post Notes in 2024:

There are three recorded interviews with John Sutherland

This one by film-maker Lee Glover in 2008 on YouTube.

Another by Pirsig enthusiast Henry Gurr in 2003 (currently available as DVD and local MP4 copy – will be made accessible through the Robert Pirsig Association in due course.)

And interviews with John are included in Dr McWatt’s 3rd Pirsig documentary “On the Road with John Sutherland” (~2010) (currently available as DVD and local MP4 copy – will be made accessible through the Robert Pirsig Association in due course.)

(*) The artistic thread is carried by the DeWeese family to this day in Bozeman and Montana State University. Bob and Gennie both characters found in ZMM.

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Great collection from Buzzfeed via BifRiv.
I like this one, but they’re all good.

The Karakoram Highway has been on my wish list for some time – mentioned earlier. Here it’s No.1 on a list of 5 of the world’s most extreme highways.

A recurring theme that wise consideration of governance often turns to catholicism. Here business and policy management looking for social ethical rules in catholic teachings; referencing Aristotle, Aquinas, etc, but it’s more than that I believe. Just a holding post for the story reference.

I see the side-bar archive links have all failed … no plug-in update seems to fix it, been unable to find alternative plug-in which gives me both the yearly and monthly collapsability with individual posts visible at the monthly level. Still can’t. Also need to sort out recent post / recent comment links. Still Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn integration via dlvr.it all seem to work fine, and Clicky seems to be a success, so I’ll drop the failed SiteMeter I guess – still counts, but no longer gives reports.

Ho hum. I guess I need to find a new all-singing all-dancing theme with all the necessary widgets built-in. That’ll be a weekend to set aside one day soon.

Interesting link from Sam (at Elizaphanian) by Judith Curry “Climate Change – no consensus on consensus“.

The issue is to escape the denial, and simply recognize the big science decisions – to agree or criticize with “findings” are not scientific, they are political, tactical, strategic, etc … value-based.

The key IPCC consensus finding from its latest assessment report is this statement:

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

The IPCC consensus findings on attribution have been echoed in position statements made by many scientific organizations. The IPCC consensus is portrayed as nearly total among scientists with expertise and prominence in the field of climate science. The idea of a scientific consensus surrounding climate change attribution has been questioned by a number of people, including scientists and politicians. Much effort has been undertaken by those that support the IPCC consensus to discredit skeptical voices, essentially dismissing them as cranks or at best rebels, or even politically motivated ‘deniers’.

That is, both sides need to recognize that they are politically motivated. It discredits science when scientists claim to be being scientific when they are clearly (and quite rightly) not.

How to reason about uncertainties in the complex climate system and its computer simulations is neither simple nor obvious. Scientific debates involve controversies over the value and importance of particular classes of evidence as well as disagreement about the appropriate logical framework for linking and assessing the evidence. The IPCC faces a daunting challenge with regards to characterizing and reasoning about uncertainty, assessing the quality of evidence, linking the evidence into arguments, identifying areas of ignorance and assessing confidence levels.  An overarching concern is how the issue of climate change is framed scientifically and how judgements about confidence in complex scientific arguments are made in view of the cascade of uncertainties.

Given the complexity of the climate problem, ‘expert judgements’ about uncertainty and confidence levels are made by the IPCC on issues that are dominated by unquantifiable uncertainties. It is difficult to avoid concluding that the IPCC consensus is manufactured and that the existence of this consensus does not lend intellectual substance to their conclusions.

No, but it’s practically useful trust and authority they are meant to create, not “intellectual substance”.

So, ultimately, I don’t actually agree with the conclusions of the paper, that somehow because the IPCC consensus on climate change was “manufactured” and had unintended “denial” consequences, the consensus creation was therefore wrong. No, what is wrong is the expectation that consensus (on “wicked” as opposed to “linear” or “tame” questions) is anything other than manufactured. It is always about establishing some political authority on practical decision-making. Only the weak-minded confuse that with imposing “dogma” on science. The science goes on.

As with any politics its about trusting those you entrust with authority and the checks and balances your system has. There is no “solid evidence” to back judgements, however much the scientistic fundamentalists demand evidence-based policy.

That’s some hiatus, due mainly to travel and work pressures. New York, San Diego, Washington, now Brisbane and next Perth … Out on the streets, in a bar, seeing a band on only one night in the whole – PiL at the Hammerstein NYC.

Been reading a lot in travel time – though not as much as usual.

Finished Salman Rushdie’s autobiography Joseph Anton. Actually did blog a mention earlier, but no detailed review so far. See Nigella Lawson in a different light.

Since reading Kauffman (previous post) I have read Stanley Hauerwas Hannah’s Child – A Theologian’s Memoir. Fascinating. Big fan of Wittgenstein and MacIntyre, even Zizek – wow. Sophisticated theologians and sophisticated atheists are not far apart. Detailed review needed. (I came across a review of this book a couple of years ago, and blogged a reference or two – pre-ordered but forgot to actually buy it until recently. Theologians talking sense, here and here.)