What, Why & How do we Know ?
There are some Proof-of-ID trials happening in the upcoming local elections in the UK. Naturally the system is “flawed”. All the usual responses of course, to the infringement if individual freedoms aspects. If freedom is worth anything, it’s worth protecting IMHO. But I say: Cock-ups like Windrush happen because of a public attitude to (things … Continue reading “ID Cards & Voting – Enlighten Me Someone?”
R.E.S.P.E.C.T is the only rule – Good Faith and Honest Intentions. (Once again for the hard of hearing, the ONLY RULE of engagement is good faith and respect for the engagement.) Rule #1 RESPECT – Understand & Question before Disagree & Criticize. Rule #2 RESPECT – No ad hominem attacks on the Individual or their Tribe. Rule … Continue reading “Rules of Rhetorical Engagement”
Heard Ed Atkinson of Citizens’ Climate Lobby UK speak last night at Teesside “Skeptics in the Pub”. Although they’re already a decade old, and I have long-standing interests in the energy business and in climate change science and policy, it was the first time I had really been aware of CCL and their very specific climate … Continue reading ““Fee and Dividend” Carbon Tax”
Vive La Différance – or a white swan in the hand is worth more than risking a few black feathers in the bush. I’ve regularly used the Derridan version of difference (différance) ironically and usually when talking about gender differences. That minefield of: what differences there really are between men and women (specifically archetypically, but … Continue reading “Vive La Différance, Again.”
Frankie Boyle sums it up nicely most recently here, most magnificently here: “it’s difficult to explain why an ingrained assumption is wrong in a soundbite” Contrasted with Margaret Beckett patiently explaining the labour party review of its post-Ed-defeat policy problems on BBC R4 Today – resisting the demand for a single “thing” to “blame”. The point … Continue reading “Memetics – the real bogeyman?”
By a strange coincidence, after the facebook exchanges yesterday, on the anti-Copernican indications of the Cosmic Microwave Background being mysteriously air-brushed from the record (*1), I find myself reading Arthur Koestler’s “The Sleepwalkers“. Coincidence because I just happened to pick it up randomly off the ex-library second-hand book cart at Conway Hall last night. I’d heard … Continue reading “The Devious Ways of Science”
The evolutionary scientists and philosophers (say, Dawkins & Dennett) seem to be predicting religion is steadily on its way out, quite independently of any immediate ills and conflicts laid at its door, people are finding less reason to believe. Actually I think they may be wrong, but let’s hold off thinking about what might be meant … Continue reading “The Future of Religion – a Rose By Any Other Name?”
An agenda of mine that how funds get allocated to big science projects needs to be set by social values, not by science itself. “Research councils often back big science out of ignorance ….” “pathways to impact … a charter to support bullshitters.” “…. perhaps it’s time to open up the debate to the public … Continue reading “Big Bucks Science Needs Reining In”