“My business is to each my aspirations to conform themselves to fact, not to try and make facts harmonise with my aspirations.
Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian concept of entire surrender to the will of God.
Sit down before each fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only began to learn content and piece of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”
Thomas Huxley, 1860
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
Jennifer, A desperate discipline dodge? How about facts sometimes generating an aspiration.?I loved most of the Huxleys and so one challenge for us all could be ( New Rule?)- “My business is to each my aspirations to conform themselves to fact” Indeed surely we are not blogging about misleading crumbs thrown to chummy chooks with less, or worse simply selective and fixed/convenient aspirations. Your newspaper article ( The Land) says “Indeed we are all now expected to do something about climate change, but not expected to make up our own minds on the issue. One of my concerns with the blind focus on carbon dioxide as a cause of global warming is that it ignores the many other factors which may be contributing to changed weather patterns. ” Good point. Indeed your mind should now be aspired up on your concerns, as I now expect it is( very exciting for me to get from you, please even a feel for how you killed uncertainty, it is clearly the enemy, but then again maybe you were generating it , spinning a tangled web by diverting to minor issues) so then what is your attribution table/ranking for the influence of all our current changed weather patterns,perhaps in % terms compared with demon CO2 of the blind focus. (And there are lots of ways to go blind.) So failing that, I have a fact to support my humble aspiration that your clever and contrived blog actually generates more uncertainty than it removes. What a wonderful world that wouldn’t be.
Jennifer you’re not doing field research, you’re dismissing the work of those that do. You write politically motivated opinion pieces and promote your public profile. You downplay your long-running industry funded biases as you sit behind a desk and dismiss the science of established and respected field researchers. I treat you more kindly than you treat them.
You make claim to noble standards but don’t apply them with rigour or intellectual honesty. Pity Thomas Huxley whose words get abused so. In politically charged posts you claim to have evidence when you can’t draw the connection between the opinion and the cherry-picked data. Given your repeated claims to represent evidence-based science it’s reasonable to expect that you have a considered position on this and you accept requests for the evidence underlying your claims with defensive denial. Evidence is not something you selectively isolate to support a pre-decided opinion.
It’s concerning that you claim to represent objective science when scientific findings that contradict your opinions are put before you and you refuse to even acknowledge them. This happened in the polar bear thread. Who is fooled? As a biologist you must know to consider the broader ecological system influences that instead you choose to ignore.
Bazza, I answered your questions at the early thread where you initially posted this text.
Pinxi, You continue to misrepresent me and my position.
“Sit down before each fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion,”
Jennifer you’ve made clear your preconcieved notion that most uni research, govt employees, the CSIRO, BOM, IPCC, UNFCCC, and NGO’s are victims of ‘dumb greenie’ left-leaning politics. Which ‘facts’ make it past that filter for you to sit before like a little child? Those shovelled to you by the IPA and supporters?
T Huxley also said “It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.”
One example: No logical justification was supplied for claims that polar bear populations will be fine, don’t need ice, can readily adapt to shrinking ice. So, you shall learn nothing.
Pinxi,
” No logical justification was supplied for claims that polar bear populations will be fine, don’t need ice, can readily adapt to shrinking ice. So, you shall learn nothing. ”
If you are referring to my posts, ( polar bears ) you should read them again ;p
Utimately though, its adapt or die( out )for all organisms
no george I wasn’t referring to your posts.
I read quite a bit of research. A couple of us commenters mentioned various bits from scientific articles, including the importance of ice to bear survival, to Jennifer but she declined to consider them. Didnt’ fit preconcieved notions.
It never ceases to amaze me how a good piece of practical advice can make people angry. That’s probably because my aspirations for the human race persistently exceed the facts of human nature.
(Sigh)
Well it’s been a hard night hasn’t it – I just whipped up a batch of vanilla cupcakes for the poor little children who are currently with me. All while pooning a few dweebs with one hand.
And the urge to say something really intelligent and incisive is hanging but it’s fading away.
So I reckon to defuse tensions what the blog needs is a jokes section – e.g. “How many IPA staff does it take to change a compact fluorescent bulb”, or “what’s the difference between Greepeace and a bunch of idiots” or “Did you hear the one about the property rights activist, the greenie and the priest”.
And a recipe section – I need some info on Moroccan cuisine. Or perhaps whale dumplings. Poached rhino horn with albatross tongue in aspic?
A fashion section by George. How to look hot and colour coordinated while seal cub harvesting. New season fashion for apres whaling.
And a caring human letters section with counselling by Rog. e.g. “Dear Rog I’m having problem with my girlfriend who is obsessed by blogging and we never do anything anymore as a couple. Does she still love me. Louis H. from Fremantle”
Lukey baby
I´m heading to Marrakesh sometime this month ;p
It´s fate young skytalker. …
Here´s my contribution to the joke, whats the difference between Lukey, Pwinxy and travisty? … ummm none really – all would accept sustainable whaling if they could decide what it is ;p
I have often wondered about the level of maturity of people who have to make fun of other’s names when they have never even met them. It usually hides a deep sense of insecurity about themselves and what they stand for.
Pinxi,
What exactly is it about the IPA that riles you so?
Serious question.
Jim
( Luke , do I need a translator now?)
Listening to Schiller’s good advice:
we know what whaling is George
Dear Travis
If you are offended by me referring to you as ” Travisty ” then my Apologies …
Lukey & Pwinxy, if You find Travis´s sense of humor on your travels, please post it back to him toot sweet …..
Jim public positions carry public responsibilities. I dislike the lack of transparency and self-serving (confessed public choice theory) secret agenda behind their active public involvement. Private money chasing self-serving industrial agendas that DOES influence matters of public policy that should instead be openly democratic processes where interests should be openly admitted, their concerted efforts to undermine NGOs (which then wastes NGOs resources and hampers avenues for public involvement), the backwards-looking us-v’s-them fragmentation of issues when instead expansive leadership is needed to move forwards, greasing govt wheels between elections and throwing red herrings into public discussions, the channelling of business funds to deny science and sway matters that should be influenced by valid and appropriate evidence-based science not politically swayed by secret processes and narrowly focused profit motives, the clever use of framing tactics and passing off the IPA as representing good science when we’ve seen the tenuous connections and lightweight concept of ‘evidence’ to make strawman arguments, the strategic layering of public messages to build bases for secret policy agendas and deceptive marketing eg ‘institute’ to sound official to prey on the unthinking acceptance of the average person interprets its policies as authoritative and well-considered, particularly Jennifer’s ambition and the hypocrisy of her position when she criticises the science that goes against her agenda while passing off shit for sugar, quotes dead people who can’t defend themselves without showing the kind of intellectual rigour they’d expect, and refuses to admit her own (funded) bias.
Pinxi continues to miss represent me and the IPA. she continues to post misinformation and outright lies while hiding behind a pen name. when I delete extremely nasty posts she waits up all night to repost them. if she doesn’t like the answer to a question at one thread, she often continues to badger and/or moves the question to another thread and starts all over again. Pinxi is perhaps an example of a really angry and tormented mind. perhaps I should restate the Huxley quote here specifically for Pinxi:
“Sit down before each fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion [even about people who work for the IPA], follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature [or Jennifer’s writing] leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only began to learn content and piece of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”
Short snippet from:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=386
Andy Revkin, who’s one of the best journalists on the climate beat, wrote a curious piece in the NY Times discussing the ‘middle stance’ of the climate debate. It’s nice to see news pieces on climate that aren’t breathless accounts of a new breakthough and that take the time to point out that the vast majority of relevant scientists take climate change extremely seriously. To that extent, the message of this piece was a welcome one. The curious part, however, was the thread running through the piece that this middle ground is only now emerging, and even curiouser, that this middle ground can be characterized as representing some sort of ‘heresy’.
Heresy, is commonly defined as ‘an opinion or doctrine at variance with the official or orthodox position’. So where does this idea come from, and why is it now ’emerging’?
It has often been remarked upon that scientists and academics make their reputations by breaking down orthodoxies and by challenging previously widespread assumptions (but it will only work out well if they’re right of course!). Nobody makes much of a name for themselves by agreeing with all previous thinking. Indeed, to be thought of as a radical new thinker, one must assume the role of the heretic, challenging the stale orthodoxies of the past. And given the role of scientific iconoclasts in our pantheon (Galileo, Einstein, Wegner etc.), we see this as a completely natural state of affairs.
However, there is a big difference between really challenging the majority opinion and simply stating that you are.
Continues .. .. .. .. and worth reading the whole.
concludes .. .. .. ..
Perhaps the real background to Revkin’s piece simply is that some like to use the age-old debating tactic of labelling other views as “extreme” in order to position themselves in the “middle”. If you divide the world into ‘alarmists’ and ‘deniers’, you can then nicely present yourself as the ‘heretic’ who wants to break the mold. But this is a false distinction.
The plain fact is that the vast majority of scientific judgement on this issue – as outlined in the IPCC documents including the AR4 coming up in February- does indeed cover the ‘middle stance’, which we would state as being in agreement with the statement of the National Academies of the G8 last year that ‘the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action’. As Jim Hansen states in his quote – it’s still surprising that there are some people who don’t know this yet.
Can you lead by example Jen? Revisit the polar bear science.
piece of mind?
T Huxley also said “It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.”
I don’t lie. I tried to retire but you deleted my polite retirement post, so I reposted then you started rewriting my posts without declaring that you’d changed them. You wrote as Pinxi. When I posted that you were editing under my name you deleted. I tried to sidestep the defensive nastiness by changing identity for a fresh start but used the same email address. It couldn’t have been plainer but you wanted to make a big deal out of it. So you didn’t want Pinxi to disappear. Is she a big biller for you?
>If you are offended by me referring to you as ” >Travisty ” then my Apologies …
George, I have a fine sense of humour, but having my name made fun of all my life wears thin after a while. You and David also made good fun on another post, which served to show you have nothing to say except childish word games.
Re: the RC piece, this effect is stronger under conservative rule and nationalistic focus. Lobby groups are getting very professional at framing the issues in clever ways to thwart balanced science. They even run focus groups to test different approaches, choose labels, and track the results of efforts to sway public perception. They use psychological techniques to create associations with pre-existing public concerns.
la Panter, An interesting youtube link . Did you notice that a percentage of the the animal population believed the “giant storm” fear campaign. fortunately for those animals the PP remained calm and collected and obtained results.
Jen, sometimes we need the extreme views to put rational ones into perspective.
I was hoping someone would appreciate the PP fun. I thought the 1st pinkwashing link provided great innuendo too, something to laugh at but not get panties in a knot over. Unfortunately the Pink P is on the red list. 😛