Category Archives: current affairs

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, science, thoughts

Seven Reasons Why People Hate Reason

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The current issue of New Scientist has a 13-page series of items on “Reason” with the title “Seven Reasons Why People Hate Reason” from authors as diverse as the Archbishop of Canterbury, mathematician Roger Penrose and linguist Noam Chomsky. Taken as a whole – indeed even taken individually – the short articles are philosphically incredibly deep and quite difficult. They bear reading and I think probably re-reading. As New Scientist doesn’t make its full material; available online except to subscribers, what follows is a cherry-picked selection of what are (for me) soem of the highlights and insights. I offer them without commentary, and without the attribution to their specific authors, as food for thought.

From the 16th century, reason came to be seen as opposed to tradition and authority. Faced with the expectation of believing something just because a particular sort of person said so, the reasonable person was now the one who asked: “What are the arguments for this?”

This focus on rationality doesn’t speak to how people usually understand their lives and so they reject it for homeopathy, diet pills and […] stories about planes on Mars. People understand the world in stories, not dry rationality.

Do we know for certain that 2 plus 2 equals 4? Of course we don’t. Maybe every time everybody in the whole world has ever done that calculation and reasoned it through, they’ve made a mistake. Maybe it isn’t 4, it’s really 5. There is a very, very small chance that this has happened.

[There are] people saying we shouldn’t turn on the Large Hadron Collider experiment because a small probability exists that it might create black holes that would annihilate Earth. Sensible scientists say that this is ridiculous, there’s no chance. On the other hand, there’s a small chance that accepted theory is wrong, so there is a chance!

The central question here is about trust. What do you put your faith in? The kind of faith that Nehru expresses in science is absolute. It is not at all the qualified, provisional acceptance that might suit actual scientific findings. It claims to answer not just factual questions but every kind of social and moral dilemma. It offers general salvation. This sort of unconditional, general reliance on a single authority is never sensible, whatever god it may invoke. No system provides an infallible oracle; different problems need different ways of thinking.

Reason is “dangerous” because it leads you to question faith, not just faith that the world was created 6000 years ago but faith in the secular religions that lead to state power.

[…] governments and big corporations have hijacked the language and methods of reason and science in their PR and advertising to subvert the ability of people to judge for themselves – an end directly opposed to the Enlightenment values we supposedly hold dear.

[…] the concern that science and reason are increasingly seen as providing not just scientific, technical and military fixes, but answers to everything that matters in the world. This alienates people […] because it leaves no room for morality, art, imperfection and all of the things that make us human. Is it really surprising that so many turn to pseudoscience?

[…] even when we think we are being reasonable, we aren’t. Our decisions are based on gut instinct, then justified post hoc – and they are made better when we don’t consciously think about them. Researchers are also starting to realise that individual judgements they had long categorised as emotional and irrational may actually be beneficial when seen in the context of a group.

beliefs, current affairs, freedom of speech, thoughts, topographical

On the Extinction of the Knife

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So, our beloved Prime Minister, and his hench-chav-girlie Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, have decreed that carrying a knife (no qualifications; no excuses) is a criminal act. So it must be. Any knife, including the old blunt dinner knife I use in the garden or my 1″ long Swiss Army knife, is now illegal in a public place. Mere possession is a criminal offence. The result is to have my life ruined with a criminal record and go straight to jail. (Can’t have community service ‘cos the tabloids sez “nah”!) 🙁

What a complete load of ancient cobblers! Bollox to the fact that the PM’s whim does not make law — in the UK that is the prerogative of Parliament. Nor does the PM absolutely decree how the law determines any miscreant has to be treated — it is determined by the law itself, by case law and by things such as sentencing guidelines. So much for our new-found love of eating outside the bistro, continental-style — Heaven forbid, we might use our fish-knife to skewer some feral yoof. And bollox to commonsense … for if I dispose of an old, blunt, useless knife in my dustbin then it is still a knife and the Recycling Manager (aka. the binman) who takes my garbage sack bag to the dustcart is guilty of an offence for he is momentarily in possession of a knife in a public place.

Scalpellum vulgaris, the knife, that first tool made by man many millennia since, is now spiralling down the steep slope to extinction. All knives are now isolated populations in the properties they inhabit. We have no legal means of moving them from A to B or of acquiring new blood (ouch!) as it has just become impossible to purchase a knife as it cannot be transported, nohow!

These ID10Ts — politicians, the media and the plod — have absolutely no clue. The loonies really have taken over the nut house. (How long before nutcrackers are outlawed?) Last one out turn off their food and water supply?! 🙁

current affairs, thoughts

Management Fun

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Jilly over at jillysheep is having a little local difficulty with management. Her manager keeps changing: “Who’s our manager this week?”. I’ve had some fun of my own this week …

Anyone who works in a large organisation will likely understand the following (paraphrased) conversation with a senior manager:

“We’ve got an interesting challenge with project X and I need someone strong to sort it out. Would you like to do it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“No, not really.”

So you end up clearing your desk, handing off everything you’re currently doing — in mid-project; very unsatisfying! — to people who already have too much to do, ready to start on the new project “tomorrow”.

“What’s in it for me?”
“You get to do what you’re good at: be a PITA to Z!”

Oh gee thanks. The words “frying pan”, “fire” and “jump” come to mind.

What has been really touching tho’ is that a number of my colleagues — including several I would never have expected — have not just wished me well but said how sorry they are to see me move on and how much I’ll be missed. It’s almost enough to make me feel quite emotional.

amusements, current affairs, thoughts, topographical

Great British Duck Race 2008

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Sponsor a duck and raise money for charity – that’s what the Great British Duck Race 2008 is asking us to do. It’s British, it’s wacky, it raises money for all sorts of charities and it might get in the Guinness Book of Records.

In 2007 GBDR smashed Singapore’s world record by racing 165,000 yellow plastic ducks down the River Thames and in the process raised over £100,000 UK charities.

This year the aim is to go even bigger and better by attempting to race a quarter of a million little yellow plastic ducks down the 1 kilometre race course. If successful this will break the record GBDR set last year.

When is it? Sunday 31 August.
Where is it? The ducks take to the water at Moseley Lock, near Hampton Court Palace.
Can I go and watch? Yes, absolutely you can. It looks like a fun family day out.

How much is it? It’s just £2 to adopt a duck and this includes a donation to GBDR’s three nominated charities. Added to which you can choose to make additional donations to any of over 500 participating charities. And there are 30 prizes for the winning ducks with a first prize of a “whopping” £10,000.

It’s just a shame the course isn’t the length of the Thames from Hampton Court to (say) Tower Bridge. Now that would be fun!

Adopt a duck now!
Only in England would we do anything quite so mad!
beliefs, current affairs, medical, science, sexuality, thoughts

Sex Education

There’s an interesting article in last week’s issue of New Scientist in which Hazel Muir questions why it is that governments (indeed whole societies) ignore scientific evidence when making policy. Of particular interest to me was the comments on federal funding of sex education programmes for teenagers. As the full article isn’t available to non-subscribers, I give you a couple of telling paragraphs …

Among other requirements, the [abstinence-only sex education] programmes must teach “that sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects”. A 2004 report commissioned by a Democratic congressman concluded that four-fifths of the curricula contained false or misleading information, such as hugely exaggerating the risk of pregnancy or HIV transmission when condoms are used.

“The origin of this programme was not in science or research by any means, but in an ultra-conservative, ultra-religious ideology,” says James Wagoner, president of Advocates for Youth, a non-profit organisation in Washington DC that champions informed decision-making about sexual behaviour. “You could almost see the abstinence-only movement as the sexual health equivalent of creationism.”

Several studies, including a Congress-funded randomised controlled trial involving more than 2000 teenagers, showed the abstinence-only programmes were no more likely than conventional sex education to prevent or delay teenagers having sex, or reduce their number of sexual partners. Yet Congress continues to fund the programmes. Peer-reviewed studies of more than a dozen well-considered programmes for scientific sex education show these programmes can both make teenagers delay having sex and increase contraceptive use if they do have sex: “But how many of these would be eligible for federal funding? Zero,” Wagoner says.

Now why does the US have the highest rate of unplanned teenage pregnancy in the western world? Makes you think, doesn’t it!?

beliefs, current affairs, environment, food+drink, memes, science, thoughts

Agriculture Policy

I’ve posted before about the need for a paradigm shift in agriculture policy (see here and here). There is an article by Jeffrey D Sachs in the June 2008 issue of Scientific American which picks up on this theme – although to my mind he doesn’t go far enough. As the article isn’t (yet) online, here is an edited version:

Surging Food Prices and Global Stability
Misguided policies favor biofuels and animal feed over grain for hungry people

The recent surge in world food prices is already creating havoc in poor countries, and worse is to come. Food riots are spreading across Africa, although many have gone unreported in the international press. Moreover, the surge in wheat, maize and rice prices … has not yet fully percolated into the shops and … the budgets of relief organizations … In early 2006 a metric ton of wheat cost around $375 on the commodity exchanges. In March 2008 it stood at more than $900 …

Several factors are at play in the skyrocketing prices … World incomes have been growing at around 5% annually in recent years … leading to an increased global demand for food … The rising demand for meat exacerbates the pressures on grain and oilseed prices because several kilograms of animal feed are required to produce each kilogram of meat. The grain supply has also been disrupted by climate shocks …

An even bigger blow has been the US decision to subsidize the conversion of maize into ethanol to blend with gasoline. This wrongheaded policy … gives a 51% tax credit for each gallon of ethanol blended into gasoline. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates a minimum of 7.5 billion gallons of domestic renewable-fuel production … overwhelmingly … corn-based ethanol, by 2012. Consequently, up to a third of the US’s Midwestern maize crop this year will be converted to ethanol, causing a cascade of price increases … (Worse still, use of ethanol instead of gasoline does little to reduce net carbon emissions once the energy-intensive full cycle of ethanol production is taken into account.)

The food price increases are pummelling poor food-importing regions … Several countries … have cut off their rice exports in response to high prices at home … Even small changes in food prices can push the poor into hunger and destitution … some of the greatest famines in history were caused not by massive declines in grain production but rather by losses in the purchasing power of the poor.

… measures should be taken in response to the food price crisis. First, the world should … fund a massive increase in Africa’s food production. The needed technologies are available – high-yield seeds, fertilizer, small-scale irrigation – but the financing is not. The new African green revolution would initially subsidize peasant farmers’ access to better technologies [… and …] help farm communities establish long-term microfinance institutions …

Second, the US should end its misguided corn-to-ethanol subsidies … Third, the world should support longer-term research into higher agricultural production. Shockingly, the Bush administration is proposing to sharply cut the US funding for tropical agriculture studies … just when that work is most urgently needed …

beliefs, current affairs, environment, medical, pleasures, science, thoughts

Stress

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Jane Matera is a counsellor with Diabetes UK and she writes an interesting article in the charity’s latest magazine about her theory that type 2 Diabetes is often triggered by people not dealing sufficiently well with the stresses of life.

I’m not going to delve into that subject here – I’m hardly qualified to do so, except by having type 2 Diabetes myself. What interested me as much in Matera’s article is that she actually spells out the stresses we face in modern life compared with earlier generations. Not a surprising list but interesting to see it gathered together in one place.

Humans have always had stress. The hormones involved in the fight or flight response protected early humans from the dangers of the prehistoric world. Some degree of stress is creative, stimulating and necessary to a life fully lived. But […] our bodies are only equipped to cope with short bursts during periods of acute danger.

In our society, I feel there are many everyday stresses that might have been unthinkable 50 – or even 10 or 20 – years ago. They are accepted as immutable facts of life [and] not challenged or much discussed.

This normalisation means we maybe living for long periods […] at a level of stress […] considerably too high for our minds and bodies to safely cope with. And this is at a time when the traditional human support structures – such as the community, work security, the extended family, stable relationships and religious faith – have changed, been depleted or are not available to us.

Common modem stresses that have been normalised include:

  • long-distance commutes, either through heavy traffic or at the mercy of public transport when we are most tired and vulnerable, either at the too – early start or exhausted end of the day
  • the working world of short-term contracts, constant appraisal and machine-led environments may seem practical and economical but can take a human toll
  • the pressure on mothers of even young children to work outside the home to meet the demands of an inflated mortgage
  • mechanisation, which means humans are forced to adopt methods of communication and behaviour dictated by the machine rather than those that are innate
  • mobile phones, iPods, ATMs, etc., disconnect the individual from human contact
  • the fear of a terrorist attack – not a new phenomenon, but one that seems intensified of late in urban areas
  • the completely rational fear of air travel, which is seen as neurotic because of its ubiquity.

How do we fix it? Unless there is a paradigm shift in society and the way our economy works sadly I suspect all we can do is to mitigate these stresses in ways which work for us individually. And hope this is enough to keep Diabetes – and depression – at bay. I see no magic panacea.

Food for thought.