Seems to me that, at least sometimes, a good PR firm might advise a client to conceal the fact they’d hired a PR firm. A good PR firm might also do their clients a favor by not mention they were hired to deal with the more covert operations. For example: I think UEA is going to regret the fact that people now know they hired Outside Organization to deal with flak during climategate.
The fact that the project seems to have been headed by the now arrested Neils Wallis may make the revelation UEA hired spin doctors a bit embarrassing.
Of course, I’m way behind everyone on this story.
Still, I still can’t help wondering how much that might have cost UEA; I didnt find any clues in comments. I googled around I found how much Wallis charges other clients:
But Wallis also maintained his own PR company, Chamy Media, which was retained by the Metropolitan Police from October 2009 until September 2010 to “provide strategic communication advice and support.” He was paid £24,000 for two days work a month, equivalent to £1,000 a day.
That’s pricey.
Of course I still don’t know exactly what UEA paid their PR consultants, what advice the PR guys gave UEA nor whether UEA ultimately thought they got their money’s worth. Has anyone found out more?
Perhaps the question should be: why would UEA hire a PR firm in this situation. I am thinking that apparently a number of climate scientists think the lack of success of their advocacy arguments stem from poor PR and not the lack of the science or the uncertainty of the evidence that the science reveals.
Would that stance translate to an academic institution that in this case involves climate scientists? I do not know, but I would think that if an institution thought it and its members had done no wrong (or at least that the means justified the ends) they might well be able to rationalize hiring a PR firm since their only acknowledged problem is poor PR.
Perhaps your question is whether hiring a PR firm is good (or bad) PR?
Kenneth–
I understand why UEA would want to hire a PR firm. They wanted to spin the story.
Hiring a PR firm is often just fine. Businesses, movie stars and others hire PR firms, press agents and all sorts of other publicity managers in situations when they have done no wrong. But in those cases, we know the purpose of the public relations. It’s generating positive spin which in some industries is important. It can help movie sales for actors, or help companies who want to persuade Congressman to enact pork barrel legislation or stave off unwanted regulations etc.
But the climategate/UEA PR hiring appears to be motivated by the perception of the need to clean up a mess. I suspect in those cases, the client is sometimes better off not trying to keep the involvement of the PR agency under wraps. I admit I only suspect this. So, I don’t really blame UEA for hiring a PR firm– but I think they are going to find it embarrassing that people know they did it. Also, I suspect someone somewhere is going to file FOI to learn more. UEA isn’t going to like that!
hacked, they were hacked, not only were they hacked, but only some parts of the stolen hacked emails have been published by the hackers, the hackers were funded by the big oil/coal deniers and this illegal hack shows that deniers are criminal hackers.
This was the message.
The real question: Were the people in the “investigations” given free spa holidays like the Police Commissioner?
I think the most important question is: why did they hired Wallis and who advised them to hire him of all people?
Lucia asks:
Don’t know what UEA might have paid The Outside Organization (OO) for Wallis’s services (or those of his “heavyweight contacts”). But it is somewhat curious that OO has – at some point during the last few days – “disappeared” Wallis from the digital version of their management team’s stellar stable.
[See The curious case of the missing “Outside Organizerâ€: prince of spinners, Neil Wallis
Outside Organization: Would you hire them?
The unmentionable person is now quite mentionable. And why is that?
Do you all really think it unreasonable to hire “flap” experts when you find yourself in an international level “flap” and have no experience with one? Their choice of firm and the course of action taken do seem ill, or unadvised.
It always seems that just telling the truth doesn’t require assistance, but maybe no one (except the perp and his/her friends) knew the truth?
bugs–
Please mention the now-mentionable person’s name so we know who you are talking about?
I already answered this rhetorical question. I said it’s reasonable. Were you directing this question at someone else.
What I have said is that although it’s reasonable, I think UEA is now in a different embarrassing position because people are going to be wondering about certain details and asking about them.
Sure, sub-contract it. What kind of entity would take protecting its name and reputation as a core business?
==============
Now we need to get two bins. One marked “PR”, and the other marked “Science”, and have some official from UEA take everything that has emanated from UEA, and sort them into the correct bin.
Andrew
Nothing wrong with an organization spending money to improve its image. The issue in these kinds of projects is whether the organization is (a) asking outside experts what they should do to address the problem or (b) paying someone to re-sell a bogus narrative they were unable to sell on their own.
There is a big difference between clients who listen to their high-priced talent and those who think they already know and just want a bigger megaphone.
Given UEA’s past wagon-circling and apparent general contempt for any and all outside the self-defined elite circle, I don’t expect this money to be well spent. I do not begrudge a PR or lobbying firm for billing the hell out of clients who don’t listen.
There is now a connection between Wallis and the MET Police re hacking etc. Its curious that the NORFOLK police have had nothing to say re climategate. The whole thing stinks. I think we will find that UEA climate will be eventually prosecuted for Fraud. You can throw away all your charts etc. AS Singer implied most of the “warming” data since 1979 has probably been made up.
Annabelle–
I think you are getting carried away.
“I suspect in those cases, the client is sometimes better off not trying to keep the involvement of the PR agency under wraps.”
Lucia, I would whole heartedly agree with your comment here. Would a client hire a PR firm and then ask of the firm whether to reveal the hiring? To be frank, I would have to say that when I see an entity hire a PR firm in cases like UEA with climategate that it indicates acknowledgment of damage being done and that merely revealing facts (good or bad) will not stem the flow of blood. I also suspect that PR firms are called in as a measure of CYA within the organization and even perhaps an opportunity to transfer some blame in case the situation gets worse.
Lucia,
A little; about 15% over a consulting engineer. 😉
SteveF–
Sure. But I can’t help wondering how many hours got charged. If it’s very many, UEA must have piles of discretionary money just sitting around.
These scientists should never have needed any PR help. If they had conducted themselves competently and openly (as publicly funded scientists should), from the beginning they’d have been fine. But they didn’t. And after creating bigger and bigger messes, they needed PR spin to try to contain the splat.
The PR just came at the end of the tangled web they had created. Their deceptions reached critical mass and they needed professional liars to help them out.
Lucia #79321,
Maybe not ‘piles’ of money, but it is clear they were (and are!) a generously funded organization. One doesn’t buy and run a supercomputer, pay support staff for that computer, and pay a bunch of folks like Jones, Briffa, et al, including benefits and business (or first class!) travel to exotic destinations all over the world for peanuts. I understand that much money comes from research grants, but if the setup is anything like what I am used to, a piece of all grant money goes toward ‘administrative costs’. I would guess that in the grand scheme of things the PR spin was pretty cheap… value for the money? No, probably not well spent.
Still got their jobs haven’t they?Obviously the price was worth it to them.What do they care about reputation?What does most of the climate fraternity care about reputation?I’m not seeing any decency in the climate community,just hearing loud voices shouting at each other.
I say we estimate temperatures this way
No you’re wrong.paper,paper,paper.
No I’m not.paper,paper,paper.
Sea levels are rising at a rate of(insert your guess)
No they’re not.paper,paper,paper.
Yes they are,paper,paper,paper.
And the people pay for the priviledge of listening to these voices.
All those papers contradicting each other costing the taxpayer billions,which will turn into trillions by the time sanity is restored.
Noelene,
Maybe your energy would be well spent communicating your position on this subject with politicians in Washington. I don’t think anybody here can help you.
SteverF
Sure. Ordinarily, wouldn’t responding to FOI’s come out of overhead? After we learn how much they spent on the PR firm, someone can estimate how FOI’s UEA could respond to for price they paid the PR firm. 🙂
“After we learn how much they spent on the PR firm, someone can estimate how FOI’s UEA could respond to for price they paid the PR firm.”
Best point made on this thread, IMO.
“Still got their jobs haven’t they?”
We have a winner.
Lucia
Wallis was advising Scotland Yard at the same time he/OO were pulled in to manage the CRU/UEA’s “counter-Climategate” PR effort. [The hours billed to the Scotland Yard are immaterial]
A couple of things are of interest in this context: a] early email traffic with OO makes mention of “leaked” data. The subsequent media spin blared only about “hacked” data. b] After Climategate broke, the Northfolk police made efforts to appear to be doing something meaningful. It has subsequently become clear that they were in fact just “churning”. A couple of phone calls from London, perhaps. c] The PR spin following Climategate [and duly propagated by alarmists around the globe] made much ado about this being an “international conspiracy” aimed at discrediting climate science, spin based on the fact that the zip file originated from a Russian site. d] Key recipients of the original zip file were subsequently contacted by UK anti-terrorist/counter intelligence, which is interesting given that one of the good folks Wallis was advising at Scotland Yard was its No2 man [who also resigned over the week-end] who was responsible for Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist section and who it turns out sat on years of complaints about the telephone hacking, and who by all accounts abused his position to secure a job for Wallis’ daughter.
Given the broad ramifications we learn about as more stones are turned over, it seems to me that it would be interesting to find out whether or not OO/Wallis were somehow involved in “managing” the PR aspects of the three Climategate whitewashes that followed. That all is not above board and lilly white in that context either is also becoming clear. Have a look at some of things that turn up at Bishop Hill on that theme.
While we wait for possible other shoes to drop, we should be getting a look at the -by now infamous- CRU data that will shortly be released following the FOIA order a few weeks ago.
Noelene
I agree with SteveF. Some $100 billion worth of public funds worth of papers over the past 20 years, and counting. Next to the International Space Station -also approx 100 billion- the most irresponsible waste of public money on purported science in modern history.
Politicians got the message on the space project and are shutting it down. Shuttles grounded and the ISS will be de-orbited in a few years. If the disappearance of AGW ACC file from the political agenda not just in the US but everwhere in the developed economies is any indicator, the same unwinding will happen for the bulk of climate science funding. It is already happening in e.g. Canada, the Netherlands and France.
Only those with something to hide would resort to employing a PR firm.
The true test of scientific integrity is making your methods and data open and transparent for replication purposes.
The ball is in the court of the UEA and my advice to them is to stop repeatedly kicking own goals.
tetris (Comment #79337)
“I agree with SteveF. Some $100 billion worth of public funds worth of papers over the past 20 years, and counting. Next to the International Space Station -also approx 100 billion- the most irresponsible waste of public money on purported science in modern history.”
—————————————–
So SteveF has said as much? Climate science is an irresponsible waste of money? And is only a purported science to boot?
Owen
SteveF never mentioned any numbers. I did. My point was that I agree with his advice to Noelene.
And yes, spending obscene amounts of taxpayer money on purportedly scientific projects like the ISS is irresponsible.
Spending public money in the roughly the same amounts on climate science, a good portion of which has been shown up as no more than astrology or other pseudo “science”, in the process coming up short on meaningful asnwers upon which to based considered policy decisions, is likewise completely irresponsible.
tetris (Comment #79340)
“Spending public money in the roughly the same amounts on climate science, a good portion of which has been shown up as no more than astrology or other pseudo “scienceâ€, in the process coming up short on meaningful asnwers upon which to based considered policy decisions, is likewise completely irresponsible.”
——————————————————-
I could not disagree more. I don’t know where you come up with the notion of pseudo science (I assume you are a scientist of some type), but there are very fine scientists working in that field (I would be surprised if you would measure up in comparison). I think that climate science is well worth the public money and I think it would be a short-sighted to de-fund it.
When I said billions,I was not referring to the cost of funding scientific papers.To fund science is to provide employment.That’s all being a scientist is,a person who has a job.
Somehow the scientists have taken on the mantle of being more than that.They are people that speak for the welfare of mankind(yeah right).
Governments must waste billions on building windmills and solar panels,on funding anything green,because these ordinary workers(who have shown by their actions that they are the same as any other workers,desperate to keep their jobs)say so.
Sold their souls for sixpence,no different to anybody else,but keep on pretending Owen.
Steve F
I am not an American citizen,I wouldn’t presume,but I was part of the campaign that ousted the opposition leader when he supported an ETS here in Australia,people power managed to delay an ETS in Australia,but Gillard lied to the people,some believed her,and we are now facing a carbon tax,nothing I can do,until it comes time to vote again.
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2008/s2759114.htm
Noelene,
If you explain to a few US Senators just how pissed off your are about Gillard’s deception (and how you plan to throw her out of office) they might be more interested than you think. There are 6 or 7 vulnerable Democrats in the US Senate up for reelection in 2012; I am sure they would pay attention to what happens (or what will happen) with Ms. Gillard. We are talking about politicians after all. They don’t know any more about climate change than they know about abdominal surgery, but they sure know they want to stay in office.
Owen,
No, for sure I did not say those things. For the record, IMO funding climate science (as science) is prudent. Funding political advocacy masquerading as science is not prudent. Climate science is for sure science. But it has serious problems which need to be resolved, and which I suspect will only be resolved when the public starts withdrawing financial support. There are lots of honest and smart people who work as scientists in the field, but they seem politically naive, or perhaps politically unaware. There are also a lot of political hacks involved, and an unholy alliance between rather extreme green and left wing political groups and those green/left wing political hacks who work in climate science.
People who take every opportunity to push their left wing/green agenda and who tilt/skew/distort /exaggerate science to force drastic changes in energy use (that the public clearly does not want) ought not be publicly funded… and I suspect soon will not be. Advocacy funded by the public boarders on corruption; it must end.
“stan (Comment #79322)
July 19th, 2011 at 11:02 am
These scientists should never have needed any PR help. If they had conducted themselves competently and openly (as publicly funded scientists should), from the beginning they’d have been fine.”
Yeah, no one accuses James Hansen of anything, right?
Boris,
I accuse James Hansen of nothing except advocacy on the public’s dime. But he is so nutty that even the extreme left seems to believe that he has become a political liability. I expect he will soon be mostly irrelevant, scientifically (which already happened) and then politically. At 70+, it would seem a good time for him to retire.
Noelene,
“Governments must waste billions on building windmills and solar panels,on funding anything green…….”
——————————————————-
When peak oil is here with a vengeance, and the market price of oil (rather than environmental concerns) dictates what energy you will or will not be able to afford to use, you may be grateful that your government made early investments in alternative energies – that is if you live in Denmark, or Germany, or Spain, or South Korea, or China.
Enlightened governments prepare for the future. The alternative is to be bounced around by the vagaries of resource availability and market forces.
PS – the Bakken Reserves in North Dakota, among the world’s largest, are now being drilled in earnest. According to Forbes (http://blogs.forbes.com/christopherhelman/2011/06/27/tycoon-says-north-dakota-oil-field-will-yield-24-billion-barrels-among-worlds-biggest/), Bakken is thought to contain 24 billion barrels of available oil – enough to supply total US needs for 3 (!) years.
“…to be bounced around by the vagaries of resource availability and market forces.”
Owen,
This is what we want, FYI.
Andrew
Spain will be going bankrupt soon.
Germany has shut down nukes in order to build more coal power and buy more coal power from its neighbors.
“Denmark (population 5.3 million) has over 6,000 turbines that produced electricity equal to 19% of what the country used in 2002. Yet no conventional power plant has been shut down. Because of the intermittency and variability of the wind, conventional power plants must be kept running at full capacity to meet the actual demand for electricity. Most cannot simply be turned on and off as the wind dies and rises, and the quick ramping up and down of those that can be would actually increase their output of pollution and carbon dioxide (the primary “greenhouse” gas). So when the wind is blowing just right for the turbines, the power they generate is usually a surplus and sold to other countries at an extremely discounted price, or the turbines are simply shut off.”
Andrew_KY
We want this to some extent. To show that there are at least some circumstances where we want to mitigate vagaries of resource availability: we would not want to be bounced around by the vagaries of widespread food shortages leading to massive starvation. Since I know religious arguments tend to sway you: like the Pharaoh who listened to Joseph’s interpretation that of a dream that revealed there would be 7 fat years followed by 7 lean years, and decided to build granaries on that basis, we do sometimes want collective action by governments to smooth out the vagaries of resource availability.
On the other hand, full government control tends not to work well. This is partly because Pharaoh’s sometimes don’t dream and those interpreting the dreams are often wrong. But still, sometimes, we would like some collective action.
Unfortunately, it’s not just the shuttle and possibly the ISS that will get scrapped, they’re also going to pull the plug on the James Webb Space Telescope. Like the Hubble, that’s real science, not an engineering exercise like the ISS. Babies and bathwater come to mind.
Bruce (Comment #79350)
July 20th, 2011 at 8:39 am
——————————
Bruce, what are you trying to say? It sounds like you are saying that fossil fuels, finite in amount as they are, are our future and that it is folly to start preparing now for the depletion of natural resources. You are filled with reasons why this or that will not work, even though our country and other countries are making them work. See for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_photovoltaic_power_stations
Such PV stations, as well as delocalized rooftop installations will only increase as we move forward – but not if you have anything to say about it.
DeWitt Payne (Comment #79354),
I agree it is real science, as opposed to the ISS boondoggle.
.
Still, whatever benefits will come from the Webb telescope (and I think a legitimate argument can be made against it on a cost/benefit basis), they will be a benefit to all of humanity. IMO, this kind of science should be funded about in proportion to GDP worldwide, and not loaded up on the backs of the US taxpayer (and to a much lesser extent a few other countries). Where is the UN when funding of this kind of globally relevant science is needed? My guess is that there is NO support for this kind of science outside of a few industrial countries, and the support there is not solid; essentially zero support in the UN. If it dies, it dies.
SteveF (Comment #79347)
“I accuse James Hansen of nothing except advocacy on the public’s dime.”
————————————————
In the case of CFC’s, should the scientists have published just the data indicating a possible chemical mechanism for stratospheric ozone depletion, or just the data indicating the presence of an ozone hole, without any comment on the potential danger of such a depletion? How are the roles of scientist and advocate balanced? Should scientists respond to allegations of poor or inconclusive science made by companies involved financially? (not rhetorical questions)
Lucia, I think the religious argument of that story is that its God who has the answer to men’s dreams. Humans left to their own interpretations of things tend to fail. -Andrew
Owen,
Ozone depletion by CFC’s should (of course) have been reported accurately and completely. The potential biological danger of such depletion should also be reported in scientifically accurate and reasoned ways (not wild speculations full of words like ‘may’, ‘might’ and ‘could possibly’).
.
The role of a publicly funded scientist as advocate for policy should be zero. Public funding comes with strings attached… the public pays for ‘honest brokers’ not advocates for public policy. If climate scientists want to be advocates, then they should find other funding.
.
Sure, absolutely, no matter where those allegations come from. But more importantly, they should not DO and publish that kind of science, and most importantly, should be directly and openly critical of that kind of science done by others in their field (and IMO there is plenty of poor and inconclusive science published in climate science, like for example, Steig et al (2009) on the cover of Nature). That so many climate scientists continue to defend the “hockey stick” reconstruction as ‘correct’ about temperatures 1000 years ago when the methodology has many serious technical issues, and at a minimum, a vast underestimate of uncertainty, is diagnostic of the general problem I see in climate science…. a problem that stems from practicing advocacy instead of science. Advocates can never acknowledge being wrong or uncertain, or they fail as advocates. Perhaps you have noted the ‘we are never wrong’ behavior among well known climate scientists? Perhaps you have noticed the ‘circle the wagons, it’s us versus them’ mentality? Perhaps you have noted the attempts to block publication of papers which do not agree with the consensus IPCC position? (Not rhetorical questions.)
.
IMO, climate science simply needs to get it’s act together and clean house. They are funded by the public to do science, not advocate policy.
Andrew_KY–
Is it? God didn’t build the granaries.
lucia (Comment #79366),
No, but maybe he “softened the Pharaoh’s heart” so that the granaries were built… 😉
Re: SteveF (Jul 20 09:53),
You’re right on the edge of Jeremy Rifkin “Small is Beautiful” land. We do things like the Hubble because we can. When we stop doing them, we might as well bend over and kiss ourselves goodbye. The NSF, NASA and other US government agencies funding scientific research are bad enough. The UN has demonstrated incompetence in nearly everything it touches. Since the vast majority of any UN funding would come from us anyway, better we control it rather than them.
“God didn’t build the granaries.” Lucia, no, not as such. But Joseph did give God credit for interpreting Pharoah’s dream. Without God’s interpretation, maybe the granaries don’t get built.
Andrew
Re: SteveF (Jul 20 09:53),
Lord, save us from the bean counters! When the bean counters take over management in a private company, you can kiss R&D spending (and the future of the company) goodbye. I also don’t believe that the benefits from fundamental scientific research can be quantified with any accuracy. Cost/benefit analysis will then always be a strictly political decision. Politics favored the ISS over the SSC. That the decision to defund the Webb came from a Republican controlled House of Representatives committee only lends credence to the meme that Republicans are anti-science.
Andrew_KY-
In any interpretation of the story, whether or not God’s interpretation was required by the Pharaoh in making his decision, without the Pharoah action, the granaries would not have been built.
This is the relevant point with respect to your response to Owen which was:
God’s whims (in creating weather, dreams, endowing Joseph with abilities etc.) would be “the vagaries”, the Pharoah would be government action to reduce the impact of these vagaries.
Lucia, I’m philosophically opposed to govenment eliminating “the vagaries of resource availability and market forces”. Taking a story from the Old Testament and implying it is a “religious” argument (while simultaneously dismissing God as an important part of the story) for contemporary government intervention is kind of stretching it.
Andrew
DeWitt Payne (Comment #79383)
“Lord, save us from the bean counters! When the bean counters take over management in a private company, you can kiss R&D spending (and the future of the company) goodbye. I also don’t believe that the benefits from fundamental scientific research can be quantified with any accuracy. Cost/benefit analysis will then always be a strictly political decision. Politics favored the ISS over the SSC. That the decision to defund the Webb came from a Republican controlled House of Representatives committee only lends credence to the meme that Republicans are anti-science.”
————————————————-
Amen on all counts.
Andrew_KY–
I have not “dismissed” that within the story narrative God matters nor am I dismissing that within the story narrative he/she/it is important. I am merely pointing out that the Pharaoh was the government. Inside that story narrative, starvation was only avoided through action of the government.
This is true whether you think God matters or not and whether you, Andrew_KY are philosophically opposed to government ‘eliminating “the vagaries of resource availability and market forcesâ€. ‘
The Bible contains things like tithing, incomplete harvesting– with the obligation to let people like Ruth and Naomi harvest the leavings — etc. You can consider it “stretching it” for me to observe these things are actually in the Bible, but the fact is, they are there.
DeWitt Payne
Yes, it is unfortunate indeed that there are instances where the [sometimes very important] baby gets thrown out with the bathwater. Happens both in science and in business.
My earlier comment had more to do with something which applies in particular to the area of climate science and the clearly and openly stated policy objectives driven by AGW/ACC proponents. It is the second warning contained in Eisenhower’s farewell address to Congress, one which many people have either forgotten about or have chosen to ignore. The first warning, about the dangers associated with the rise of a “military industrial complex”, rings a bell with most of us. The second one, in which Eisenhower warns of “the danger that public policy could become the captive of a [publicly funded] scientific technological elite” is at the heart of the AGW/ACC science and policy issue set.
My contention is that spending -over a realtively short 20-25 year period an obscene amount of taxpayer money [like the ISS, approx $100 billion] on publicly funded climate science across the developed economies, has resulted in precisely the thing Eisenhower warned about: public policy captive of a scientific technological elite. A by now very large, deeply conflicted, self-serving, self-perpetuating and mednacious scientific elite that as we know all too well by know, will go to great lengths to block any science or findings other than what feeds its own matras and thus represents a danger to their funding gravy train. Given the policies it is advocating, continuing to feed this “beast” -as we have done so far- with public funds is both dangerous and irresponsible.
tetris (Comment #79398)
————————————
Thoughtful comments. As a scientist, I’d like to believe that public funding of research eventually pays off for a country. The bulk of public research money in the US goes to bio-medical research, and what incredible advances have come forth in that area. But even research in physics and computer science has led to things like NMR based imaging in medicine. The space program gave us a whole host of satellite-based technologies, many in the military. Some basic research pays off years later, so its hard to do an exact accounting. But public research in the US is made available to the whole world via open publication, not just to US companies, so we may be underwriting other countries. Our availability of research funding in the US, however, has (heretofore) attracted the best and brightest from many countries world-wide, and these scientists settled in the US and helped to drive innovation. I believe that aggressive public support to science research has been good for American competitiveness and innovation. You can be sure that a new emerging China will not back off the support of scientific research.
“You can consider it “stretching it†for me to observe these things are actually in the Bible, but the fact is, they are there.” It’s a stretch to use them to justify Lucia’s Unrelated Atheist Liberal Political Preferences. But, if you are paying more attention to the Bible these days, I’m happy for that, 🙂
Andrew
DeWitt,
Kiss ourselves goodbye? I do not understand what you mean. If the Webb telescope is delayed (more likely) or even never built (less likely) I don’t see how that is the end of the world. There is a lot of good science to be done that does not involve mega-projects like the Webb telescope.
.
I was joking about the UN… of course they would never fund anything remotely like the Webb telescope; no political gain there. They are inherently incompetent in all manner of science… including the IPCC.
This is just another small bit of the largesse the AGW promotion industry spread around to those willing to carry water for it.
AGW has been a very rich gig for those willing to play it.
The only mildly surprising bit has been that it filtered down so far.
It is in a way a manifestation of the sleazy believer idea that skeptics should not be taken seriously or ignored when possible.
Ignoring something like cliamtegate did not just happen. It took professionals working hard to suppress and control the story.
In the context of what is becoming evidence of massive media corruption, a far minded person might ask how much misleading and deceptive information in the big media outlets have we been exposed to and for how long regarding climate? And what other areas as well?
This should also make it perfectly clear that the AGW movement has not ever sought a full fair or well informed discussion of the issue.
Andrew_KY,
“Lucia’s Unrelated Atheist Liberal Political Preferences. ”
I’m an atheist, but very few people think my politics are liberal– particularly not my outlook on taxes, government size and operation. But even at that, there are plenty of socialist and socialist leaning Catholics.
FWIW: I’m not spending time reading the Bible. As you are well aware, I went to a Catholic highschool, and had to go to mass every Sunday when I was a kid. Plus, I’ve watched “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” (along with numerous classics like “The 10 Commandments”). So, like many people I’m familiar with the whole “Pharaoh” story.
I’m also familiar with some stories from Greek and Norse mythology. Doesn’t mean I think they were inspired by who or whatever God is supposed to be.
The fact still remains: If you are drawing your notions from the Bible, there is plenty of evidence that at least some government activity to deal with the vagaries of nature is supported by bible stories. OTOH, if you are filtering the meaning to re-inforce those notions you have created independent of the Bible, I guess you’ll just overlook those bits. The latter seems common enough to me.
You never know about the early in, early out, successful PR interventions. (They are much more frequent than the failures to be sure; or so they claim they are.) When it’s too late to do anything, or you need to spread the blame, or gain a little time to put your story together, or shred some files, or cook your books, or mesh alabi lies, or all of these, you must hire an outside advisor to give you cover; no other way. Time is money! Money talks! Nobody walks!
Lucia, I can accept that there are governments/rulers acting (good and bad) in Bible stories. The Bible is the story of salvation in human history(which happens to have rulers in it). It doesn’t advocate particular political philosophies, like “government should be responsible for regulating natural resources and market activity”. It advocates that people should follow God’s instructions.
Andrew
Andrew_KY–
Whatever those might be….
During CCD and school, I developed the impression that except under unusual circumstances, God (and even the Virgin Mary) did not communicate all that clearly to people. That is: It’s unusual for God to appear as a burning bush, send dreams and interpreters to the Pharaoh, or speak through sheep. So, instead, people turned to the various stories to get an idea of the sorts of guidance God was likely go give if he/she/it were to happen to communicate. And so…. God happened to give a certain sort of guidance to the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh happened to make a certain sort of decision.
You can call this example not advocating any particular political philosophy or not. I guess that all depends what you call “political”. But the specific activity— which is generally seen as a good decision was– the government (i.e. pharaoh) took the information provided, and enacted a public work to build and stock granaries. Thus buffering his people against the vagaries of nature.
Some might see this as advocating a political philosopy, others just advocating that a particular person (who happened to be the head of state) engage in some sort of activity– which happens to be taking government action to protect against the vagaries of nature. And which happened to benefit the local population. And maybe he only did it because God said.
But the fact is, if you look at it as just “The pharaoh should follow the specific instructions sent to him personally in a dream”, then the story really has very little utility for guiding any other person’s life. In which case, the Bible should be a pretty pitiful useless document. It would be no better than Nancy Drew mysteries for guiding life.
Oddly, even though I don’t believe in God, I tend to think the stories can have useful guidance. But I wouldn’t if I read them the way you read them since your interpretation would mean they can provide no guidance whatsoever.
Have to admit that whether one believes it’s full of mombo-jumbo or not, that old book and the new part too, has a lot of practical, time-tested wisdom in it. Even has some pretty good fairy tales, diatary advice, and social and sexual do’s and don’ts that can make life a little less trying on the mind, the body, and the soul. Some consider it religion. Some philosophy. Some psychology. Some political. Most just history. Some think it’s all of these. Some think it’s none of these, just a bunch of “Harry Potter”. Whatever it ’tis, or ain’t, one has to admit it a pretty good book. If I were going to take a trip on a Time Machine and I could take only one thing –be it a book or an artifact– with me, I think I could do a lot worse by not taking that old dog-eared book with me. (I think it also has some mumbo-jumbo about climate and floods too.)
Pascvacks,
The book contains some good stories interlaced with quite a bit of utterly boring stuff. I particularly do like the story of Judith.
SteveF (Comment #79365)
July 20th, 2011 at 10:58 am
“Perhaps you have noted the ‘we are never wrong’ behavior among well known climate scientists?”
I’ve noticed that attitude in many sorts of people, and with no higher frequency in climate scientists. I’ve seen that attitude in many comments from skeptics, for example.
“Perhaps you have noticed the ‘circle the wagons, it’s us versus them’ mentality?”
I have noticed this – IMO it drove the email fiasco. Like many other people, some of the scientists buckled under the intense external pressures and did circle the wagons. I don’t see it as a fatal flaw, however.
“Perhaps you have noted the attempts to block publication of papers which do not agree with the consensus IPCC position? ”
I have seen some evidence of this, but I would be surprised if it were pervasive.
I’ve also seen chemists and bio-scientists behaving badly,even letting their own pet theories drive them to reject publications that do not agree with those theories (they must be wrong!). Scientists are people. But few scientists have been subject to the intense pressure brought to bear on climate scientists, and under that pressure a few climate scientists did not behave as we might have hoped they would. But many did comport themselves well. And the bulk of the science completed, IMO, has involved sophisticated approaches to extremely complex problems.
“It advocates that people should follow God’s instructions.
Whatever those might be….”
Lucia, a good place to start is the Ten Commandments.
Andrew
(SarcOn)There’s just TOO, TOO MANY educated people on this planet. It was easier to intimidate folks when most of them were ignorant savages, stupid farmers, illiterate slaves, uneducated peasents, cowboys, shepherds, dairymen, scullery maids, cooks, dishwashers, teamsters, street sweepers, chimney sweeps, and young children working in coal mines or thread mills and cloth factories. This higher education kick has just got to stop. Besides it’s a real waste of money. It’s refreshing to see that the NEA , the DNC, and the ACLU are dumbing down everything to the lowest IQ, I thought we were in BIG trouble back in 1970, but things have definitely taken a change for the better. Still too many MD’s and Hard Science PhD’s though. But, thank you-know-who and Greyhound we’re winning again at last. Long live the Revolution!(SarcOff)
I tend to agree with Owen that the (less than good) behavior of some climate scientists is certainly not unique in the science world, but that only begs the question. That climate science and, better to the point, climate scientists are more heavily involved with advocacy than other sciences and scientists is more the crux of the issue here. To that point I think that UEA’s reaction to climategate and CRU’s FOI problems and additionally the reaction of other prominent consensus scientists and their defenders was based on the assumption that the major part of the problem could be handled with better spin, i.e. PR. The pure-at-heart scientist would merely have drudged on with the science, but the advocate part of the scientist/advocate would much more likely see the issue and its importance as one of PR.
My impression and skepticism about parts of climate science has always been that advocacy could well be influencing scientific papers on AGW related subjects -and that is something that climategate and the response to it reinforced in my mind. The correct response, in my view, for the thinking observers of the world would be for scientists/advocates to emphasize the science and relent on the advocacy.
That reemphasizing the science and deemphasizing the advocacy is to happen any time soon in climate science is wishful thinking in my judgment. Therefore, it is important for the thinking observers of climate science to understand the science/advocacy issues and be capable of untangling the advocacy from the science – and here I am referring to untangling the science, not the advocacy.
@Lucia
Why are we the only species on earth to ponder our own existence? Why aren’t dolphins building crosses or other shrines in the ocean? I find it hysterical you’re an atheist but believe in global warming.
Andrew #79422 “a good place to start is the Ten Commandments”. Andrew, what’s so wrong with making the odd graven image (not that I’ve ever done one). On the other hand I do agree that having to do Sunday Working is quite iniquitous. So I’m not quite sure where I stand on your “good place to start”. (I have to confess that I am a bit of a closet coveter sometimes).
Simon, as I am limited by comment restrictions, and am not degreed in theology, but am just a follower, I give you this workaround: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s2c1a1.htm
Andrew
#79430 Andrew, thanks. All quite overpoweringly daunting really. Makes my feelings about condoms in Africa pretty small beer.
simon
I think the original sabbath is mostly Saturday. More precisely, sunset Friday to sunset Saturday.
lucia (Comment #79432)-There is some interesting history behind how that shifted:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14335a.htm
Re: Dr. Jay Cadbury, phd. (Jul 21 10:50),
why are we the only species to ponder our existence?
First, I would have to accept that we are the only species that ponders this. I’m not so convinced that other species don’t or haven’t. I can well imagine an early species of man that had such a mental virus and perished accordingly. But accepting that we are the only species with such an infection, I would hazard we “ponder” and ask ‘why’ because we have the word ‘why’ in the language. And we think that all ‘why’ questions are sensible and useful. So, we find that the ‘why’ word works pretty well when it comes to certain things.
‘why’ does the sun come up, ends up being a useful question and a good use of the word ‘why’. Then we try to use the word ‘why’ all over the place. 2 year olds do this, when they discover the power of the word why. So naturally, some one asked the silly question ‘why are we here?” why is there something rather than nothing? I see that as a misuse of the word why. I avoid engaging in such locutions. Such questions, experience shows, leads to no useful or practical consequence for me. I know people who do think this question makes sense. They tend to argue with other people who ask the same kind of silly questions. Sometimes they kill each other. other people who ask this why question are kind . I don’t mind that they ask the silly question. It makes them nicer people. Which I like and is useful. From my standpoint ‘why’ is not a very useful question. I’m happy not asking the question. i think its non sensical. I’m happy when other people dont badger me with their answer to the silly question. Maybe someday those in our species who ask that question will die out. Maybe those who say there is no reason, will die out. i’m not sure about the adaptive value of the question or the answer. I know that I dont ask why. You can, the language surely allows it. maybe we are different species.
“How?” is a much more useful word than “Why?”. (And not just for scientists.
Lucia asks us: “Outside Organization: Would you hire them?”
= = = = = = = =
Lucia,
Premise #1 – A wise man knows his limitations.
Premise #2 – “Nosce temet,†in latin; in Ancient Greek “gnÅthi sauton”; Modern english it is “Know Thyself” from the temple of Apollo at Delphi.
The self-knowledge and intellectual stature of UEA CRU was revealed as pitiable and extremely wanting per the climategate emails and docs. Their capability to be open enough to handle simple FOI requests and simple public criticism from auditors and skeptical scientists was extremely poor and led inevitably to the devastating effects of climategate.
They did resort to PR from what appears to be a questionable PR firm and their operators. Whoever recommended OO to UEA CRU, that person was in the know about OO’s past performances and capabilities in dealing with the media and the police. I call them experts in maneuvering the media and probably the police in a confidential process.
UEA CRU’s judgment in seeking PR help appears just a poor (or worse) than their judgment in dealing with the original issues that caused climategate to be so devastating; and which subsequently led to them having to consult a PR firm.
My Conclusion: The is no positive picture of UEA CRU that can be taken from the above.
John
No, the language serves only to communicate the question to others. Curiosity exists independently of language, like everything else that is worth having.
Sure it is, for people who are content to avoid consideration of root causes.
not sure that I covet my neighbour’s livestock…then fact that he has none does not mean that this precept is less than useful for a lot of people today. Some commandments retain power…but worshipping graven images…can that really be as bad as killing people?
Graeme–
Seems to me lots of Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches contain graven images– that is statues, paintings and artistic renderings of Jesus, God, saints and apostles. We can debate whether these are “worshiped”. But then we’d have to debate what it means to worship a graven image and likely discover that the definition that says Christians don’t worship graven images ends up meaning no religion really worships graven images.
Why do you ask?
Is it unfair that someone who loses awareness for a moment and slams into a tree can end up just as dead as a drunk driver who takes 3 people out with him?
Not if you’re an atheist, you can’t – or at least not intelligently, because you can’t understand what is wrong about idol worship unless you understand what is right about God worship.
I’m not aware of such a definition, but the fact that nominal Christians often act contrarily to their stated beliefs isn’t news.
yguy–
Debating whether idol worship is wrong is different from debating whether or not it is done. I am simply trying to identify whether it is done.
Well… we haven’t said what the definition of worshiping graven idols is.
I’m simply observing that — not withstanding the 10 commandments– things that certainly resemble graven images appear in many churches associated with Christian denominations. This includes the denomination that Andrew_KY happens to be associated with. He’s the one who suggested “Lucia, a good place to start is the Ten Commandments.” and my impression is he thought pointing to that would help clarify what it is God tells people to do.
But it doesn’t seem to clarify because many who say they believe and try to follow the Ten Commandments seem to at least make graven images and display them in places of worship.
I know, but you can’t. You might as well try to measure the output of a microwave source with a microphone, because there is what might be called a penumbra that attends idol worship that is not present otherwise; and there is no set of physical criteria you can apply that will tell you whether someone kneeling before a statue of Mary is worshiping a graven image in the sense contemplated by the scripture.
The 10 C’s were delivered to the Israelites not because they didn’t know not to murder and steal and so forth, but because they had fallen into licentiousness, and needed a stern reminder; i.e., that was God’s way of telling them to knock it the Hell off.
As for what God tells people to do, that’s what consicence is for; and while none of those commandments, properly understood, is dissonant with conscience, they are by no means a substitute for it.
God actually commanded cherubims of gold to be made for the Ark of the Covenant, so I don’t think the second commandment was meant to be an absolute prohibition against graven images.
#79437 yguy ““How?†is a much more useful word than “Why?†Sure it is, for people who are content to avoid consideration of root causes.”
The “root cause”. Such an interesting idea. Do you have a definition?
yguy, I don’t think any Devoutly Committed Atheists are going to acknowledge ideas that point to or were revealed by God. That would be a Miracle, and in that world such things cannot exist.
Andrew
yguy
I agree. 🙂
That’s what makes the 2nd commandment so puzzling. But I think there similar legal concepts. (Mens rea?)
Andrew–
Atheists can:
* acknowledge or discuss any idea on its merit as an idea.
* read the story as a story and discuss what it seems to say.
* recognize and acknowledge that, according to the story, God sent the idea to people.
Simon/Yguy–
I think “How” and “Why” are equally interesting questions. Sometimes one is more interesting; sometimes the other is more interesting.
yguy–
BTW: What you write better matches interpretations and guidance I was exposed to in CCD, Catholic school and discussions with clergy than the way Andrew_KY tends to word things. Interesting that.
On idolatry:
“the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: ‘Idolatry not only refers to false pagan worship…Man commits idolatry whenever he honours and reveres a creature in place of God, whether this be gods or demons (for example satanism), power, pleasure, race, ancestors, the state, money etc.'”
This helps to illuminate the problem that Protestants have with Catholic saints. When one prays to a saint or the Virgin Mary, that seems to put someone else in God’s place.
The “graven image” bit would not have presented an interpretation problem to the Israelites, just having come from Egypt which is wall-to-wall graven images/idols.
One may find “graven images” of Jesus in church, but not one single graven image of God the Father. I would say that an image of Jesus does not constitute idolatry, since he is not worshipped in God’s place. On the other hand, the graven images of Horace, Isis and all the others were worshipped directly as deities. But that’s just my interpretation.
#79450 Lucia “I think “How†and “Why†are equally interesting questions.” How the natural world works we can investigate. Why the natural world works, who knows?
Opus Dei?
Simon–
Why my cat has fur is just as interesting as how it grows.
Tamara–
I think in Catholicism, the concept of the Trinity makes Jesus =God. God the Father =God and The Holy Spirit=God. I’m not going to even attempt to try to distinguish between how or what ancient Egyptians thought they were doing when they made a statue of Horace or Isis and prayed in its presence or direction and what Catholics or Protestants of various stripes think they are doing when they create a statue of Jesus and pray or worship in its presence or direction. There may be some important difference or distinction, but I suspect we would need to interview ancient Egyptians to know for sure.
lucia,
Yes, the trinity presents a problem. In Judaism (the founders of the 2nd commandment, if you like), God is only spirit. So it diminishes him to try to represent him as a corporeal being.
I found this article very interesting.
http://www.umass.edu/judaic/anniversaryvolume/articles/18-D1-CEhrlich.pdf
There is one scholar referenced who agrees with my interpretation that the prohibition against idolatry was a reaction to Egyptian practices. But that is only one part of a complex story. It is interesting that there has never been a consistent interpretation of what constitutes idolatry. There does seem to be a consensus that it is when an image is used to channel worship or is worshipped in the place of or instead of God.
Of course, I nearly forgot that there is one notable depiction of God the Father in the Sistine Chapel.
I wonder how a pious person would interpret that?
#79460 Lucia So, why does your cat have fur? While you might reply with a simple “to keep warm”, I think it much more likely that you would begin explaining (in evolutionary terms perhaps) how your cat came to have fur. Answers to why questions don’t generally seem to take us very far forward: answers to how questions are often much more promising.
Simon–
I don’t know. I also don’t know how his fur grows. But I find both questions interesting and would be interested in learning the answers to both. (Not interested enough to make it a project, but interested nonetheless.)
I disagree. Both are equally likely to take us forward. Who, what, when, and where questions also often take us forward. Some questions are a waste of time but I don’t think you can diagnose which take us forward by categorizing the question a “how” or “why” question.
Tamara
I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Even if the reaction was not to Egyption worship, there were other local groups who practiced whatever ‘idolatry’ is. (Features it must have: graven images, people’s worship involving the graven images. Precisely what was going on in the minds of individual worshipers? Speculation.)
On the former: Agreed. Interesting. On the latter: I think it’s agreed the latter is idolatry. But some go further and would prohibit mere painting of God the Father, Jesus on the Cross etc. Some prohibit things in between.
“the problem that Protestants have with Catholic saints” Tamara, Catholics do not worship saints, but often appeal to them to intercede on their behalf. We believe that this communion of saints (living and deceased) has a special relationship with God, which is comforting/helpful when we approach God with petitions.
Andrew
Andrew,
I didn’t say they were right, I said they had a problem with it.
🙂
#79465 Lucia, I’m not unhappy that you disagreed with me. Perhaps my assertion presented itself at an inaccurate angle. I had in mind the difference between “Why did World War I start” (the Archduke was shot) and “How did World War I start” (the history leading up to it). It was a feeling that Why is usually about immediate causes whereas How invites a more thoroughgoing account of the underlying events. But I’m sure I’m wrong in trying to make it a generalisation. BTW (and I am being serious) despite being acquainted with Hume’s writings I’ve never found a convincing definition of “cause” in the sense of it being the “agency” in a correlation of events. (The day doesn’t cause the night for example). Perhaps you can help.
Simon–
Oddly, I would swapped your answers to the how and why quesiton.
I would suggest “The Archduke” was shot falls under the answer to “how” WWII started since it did set of a sequence of events. Generally, in history, I would consider the sequence of events to describe the “how” not the “why”.
As for why: I think the assassination of a archduke of Serbia isn’t all particularly important in answering why France, Germany, England etc. all ended up in a major war. VIP’s of various small countries get assassinated all the time. That doesn’t trigger a major war among entirely different countries unless other factors are in place. From my POV, the “why” involves economic interests, territorial disputes (sometimes having to do with economic interest), religious dispute, cultural disputes etc. The ‘how’ gets involved– but the why is broader.
Nevertheless, I think the start of WWII is a situation where the how and why question are both interesting. The answers are also interlaced (as they often are.)
Agency? You mean whether a person or spirit caused it? I don’t think the archduke’s assassin is the “cause” in the sense of “why”. He was involved in “how”.
#79468 Andrew KY
Andrew, very interesting happening upon religious believers unexpectedly on a science blog. I find the complexity of beliefs that you manage fascinating.
My own humble belief is quite simple by comparison. It’s that when you breathe your last you cease to exist, restoring the status quo ante of the 13.7 billion years before you were born. (Not much to worry about in that).
I’ve never really found religion’s promise of immortality a very inviting prospect. As Woody Allen has said “[even in heaven] eternity’s going to seem like an awfully long time, especially towards the endâ€.
“When peak oil is here with a vengeance, and the market price of oil (rather than environmental concerns) dictates what energy you will or will not be able to afford to use, you may be grateful that your government made early investments in alternative energies – that is if you live in Denmark, or Germany, or Spain, or South Korea, or China.
Enlightened governments prepare for the future. The alternative is to be bounced around by the vagaries of resource availability and market forces.”
I’ll go with market forces in interpreting resource availability and forego the political whims of government allocations. Markets are not infallible but when mistakes occur corrections can occur much more rapidly than when government programs fail. A recent prime example is the Head Start program that many defenders of government programs point to when under fire from critics of these programs. A study showed that Head Start makes no difference when all factors are accounted for in young children’s learning. That study was held under wraps for a long time and I doubt that we will hear a concession from its defenders any time soon that moneys were wasted on this program.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2081778,00.html
All modern and “enlightened” governments have major problems with the unfunded liabilities attached to future government payouts and funding for government run pensions and healthcare programs and to which are ignored or paid lip service. Governments waste huge amounts of money that they cannot afford on military actions and facilities. In face of the countervailing evidence how do we put, or continue to put our faith in government to do what many of its defenders want us to believe we cannot do for ourselves and without government compulsion.
I am frustrated by this thread turning into a discussion of religion that evidently was broached through some comment about the vagaries of the market and scarce resources. I am not religious, but I would think that a religion without man’s free will would say nothing about man’s morality or good. That puts us right back to a rational approach to the economics of the market and allowing man to exert his free will without coercing others.
#79473 Lucia “You mean whether a person or spirit caused it?” No, I think we’re at cross-purposes. The mantra “correlation is not (evidence of) causation” has become a cliche. It suggests that while two series are correlated, neither need be the “cause” of the other, while still implying (I think) that somewhere there is indeed an “agency” (an underlying “cause”) which accounts for the observation of correlation. I use the word “agency” meaning “agency causing” as a synonym for “cause” and it’s the concept of a “cause” that I can’t conceive a satisfactory definition for, despite Hume.
simon abingdon
“How” is a far more useful word than why.
Agreed, on many levels
yguy:
“No, the language serves only to communicate the question to others. Curiosity exists independently of language, like everything else that is worth having.
“How?†is a much more useful word than “Why?â€
Sure it is, for people who are content to avoid consideration of root causes.”
it looks like I took your name in vain.
Curiosity is not perfectly adaptive behavior. Last week 3 christian hikers got curious and went over the water fall in yosemeti. And curiosity killed the cat. I am explaining that use of the word ‘why” in certain contexts is pathological. In any case, i’ll say that my experience shows me that “how” is a better question to ask than ‘why’. Unless you have a better understanding of my experience, i’ll stick with that. All good why questions can be formed as ‘how’ questions, ‘why are we here?” It is better for me to know how I am here. I am here now, in the here now, and it’s heavenly.
I think it’s self-evident.
Yeah, I think that’s in the ballpark. Intent would have been a lot more obvious in that cultural context.
You frame the question so broadly as to make it intractable. Narrowing it down to a question like “If the apple falls, why doesn’t the Moon fall?” is more instructive, when one stops to reflect that one could answer the question of how the Moon orbits the Earth without knowing anything about gravity.
Lucia. think about aristotle’s categrization of causes and you will see what I am talking about when I argue that certain why questions ( teleological ones) are a pathology. How did the universe come to be is not pathological. Why is the universe here, in so far as it asks for first or final causes, … bad grammar.
Basically, I’m arguing that some philosophical or ‘religious’ questions are artefacts of language. always liked ludwig. you dont need to answer these questions. you need to be CURED of asking them.
#79484 steven mosher “always liked ludwig” Bit of a fruitloop though
Climategate cost UEA money, time and reputation. A lot of all. But why hire an PR firm when you have been the “victim” of an illegal hack? When you have been “cleared” (or know you will be cleared) by two investigations into your actions? Is not the truth the greatest source of comfort and reputation? And why the PR action – for what reason does a high public reputation matter?
Regardless of my above sarcasm, all attempts, weak or not, to FIND the hacker failed, were aborted or were not allowed. Principally, I’d say, the last: the culprit/culprits were allowed to stay hidden. Despite the hacking not of a “server” but a COMPUTER SYSTEM, no agency found it necessary to locate the infiltrators, despite the UEA assertion that RUSSIANS were involved. Really. Internationally conspiring computer hackers making merry with computers involved in governmental research projects cooperating with American universities and agencies, all of whom are probably receiving Defense funds from their own governments, and nobody is concerned enough to rout them out. Cyber-terrorists trying to sabotage international policies and programs involving billions of dollars and large political careers, and nobody in power demands that their heads should be brought to the marketplace on poles. Swift-fingered geeks who might have had so much fun that they want to find out what Hansen-Paucauri-Gore said digitally, but no power-broker with personal millions at stake in climate change policies is concerned about finding out if the dudes are Russian, Chinese or anarchist moles. Nope.
The UEA doesn’t insist of uncovering and revealing the treachery played upon them, but pays big bucks to defend Jones et al and rebuild its “reputation”. Why? Could large corporate/governmental funding be at stake? Could the flow of “green” money be threatened?
Film noirs were always more interesting when you had to look for “la femme”. Passion is interesting as well as understandable when human egos and sexuality are involved. When you are looking for “le buck”, the passion seems more like the wheezing of wizened old men over pots of money while smoking foul-smelling cigars.
1) The UEA is hiding both the source and reason for their e-mails being hacked, and
2) the UEA is desperately clutching at a retreating pool of sweet-smelling but corruptive government coffers.
I hope one day I read a report made from The University-Formerly-Known-As-East-Anglia.
simon.
Hehe. ya he was that. However, i think the basic insight is usually fruitful to explore. In what way is this problem an artifact of the tool we are using to solve the problem. Dissolving problems is sometimes a useful approach.
However true that may be, it’s also irrelevant in the present context, since curiosity is an indispensable component of a scientific mindset.
Obviously that’s your view; but since that all hinges on your operating definition of “good”, which may well be egocentric and thus errant, it doesn’t mean a whole lot by itself.
Since I find the question “How am I here?” utterly incomprehensible, that strikes me as a really crappy example.
“I’ve never really found religion’s promise of immortality a very inviting prospect. As Woody Allen has said “[even in heaven] eternity’s going to seem like an awfully long time, especially towards the endâ€.”
Yes,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus
Simon, the difficult part really isn’t intellectual management of beliefs (we have brains made for that), but living them when the easier choice is to not live them. Choosing good means choosing God is it in a nutshell. Which is what my commentary is confined to these days. 😉
Andrew
Ever think with all those Moonies, Jehovah’s Witness’s, Mormon Missionaries, Hari Krishnas, Scientologists etc, that Heaven might be a really annoying place?
Andrew says:
Choosing good means choosing God is it in a nutshell
I think your assertion is a bit on the simplistic side. God said to Abraham, “sacrifice me your son”. Are you arguing that cold blooded murder is suddenly good ? For someone without situational ethics, I would think the correct answer would be “I defy you God, that is wrong”
#79492 Andrew “Choosing good means choosing God”. Sorry Andrew, “Choosing good” means choosing to be honourable, truthful, honest, trustworthy, compassionate, considerate, humane, kind, sympathetic, thoughtful, reliable, joyful, … What does God add?
steven mosher (Comment #79484)
Certain why questions isn’t the same as all why questions. But I’ve never suggested otherwise.
I thought we were debating whether “how” questions are fundamentally more interesting than “why” questions. That certain why questions don’t work or might be uninteresting doesn’t dictate “how” questions being fundamentally more interesting than “why” questions. Sometimes how questions are more interesting; sometimes why questions are more interesting.
Simon–
Are you saying you can never under any circumstance conceive of a cause and effect relationship? Sorry, but if someone asked me: Why did you buy that dress? I can give answers for why I bought the dress. It might even be very long. I needed something sexy to wear to X, I looked at 10, this one was cutest and in my price range. Etc. I don’t know if this would be “interesting information” or not. But I don’t see how the answer to “how” is more interesting. (The answer to “how”, might be “Drove to the store. Tried on 10 dresses. Carried this one to the cash register. Used plastic. etc.)
I suspect I agree with you. But, to the extent that I understand it, I think the answer to “How am I here” is, limiting it to short term is: I finished washing the dishes, walked to the chair, and sat down. Now I am here. That’s how I got here.
I don’t think neither the answer nor the question are interesting. I suspect more people would be interested in “why am I here”. This holds true even if we mean something much more abstract than “Why or how did I come to be ensconced in my chair.
In fact, I think the only way “How am I here” becomes interesting is if we understand it to mean “How and why did I come to be here.” In which case there is no distinction between it being a “how” or “why” question.
#79500 Lucia “Are you saying you can never under any circumstance conceive of a cause and effect relationship?”
Of course I can. “The cricket ball caused the window to break”.
What I can’t do is come up with a definition that defines the characteristics of an event which makes it unarguably a cause.
Hume said (something like) “if B is observed to follow A for a sufficient number of times (like always) then we can say that A causes B” and that seems a reasonable definition of cause and effect.
But night always follows day and night is not the cause of day, so Hume’s definition is clearly deficient.
We all know cause and effect when we see them. But how do we define them universally? That’s what I struggle with. That’s why I hoped you might be able to help.
(Perhaps it’s to do with the second law).
#79490 yguy “Since I find the question “How am I here?†utterly incomprehensible, that strikes me as a really crappy example.” If you didn’t understand the question, it would, wouldn’t it?
Yguy
“Since I find the question “How am I here?†utterly incomprehensible, that strikes me as a really crappy example.”
I picked that example for a reason..
How am I here? of course the answer would start with a biography and then more generally a history of our species.
instead of asking why..
chop wood. carry water.
Steve–
The answer to why would explain the reasons for the how. They are both interesting.
What good is the history if it doesn’t tell us why the vast majority of our species have lived under despotism of one form or another?
Why? So I can contribute to the maintenance of the status quo?
It’s also worth noting that the reverse is not true.
#79505 yguy “the vast majority of our species have lived under despotism”. Despotism is where the ruler holds absolute power over the people. Not something the tiger or hippopotamus would even notice, I venture.
I guess I don;t know precisely what Hume said. But if he said something that suggested night must cause day (and day night), then he must have been a poor philosopher!
But even if Hume was wrong: I don’t see how this gets to the notion that “why” questions are less interesting than “how”.
How this thread got into religion is beyond me.
Then again, maybe it is because of the UEA hiring an outfit run by a bunch of the Devil’s second cousins to manage their post-Climategate PR work for them.
“Sorry Andrew, “Choosing good†means choosing to be honourable, truthful, honest, trustworthy, compassionate, considerate, humane, kind, sympathetic, thoughtful, reliable, joyful, … What does God add?”
Simon, He is the originator of these things and He is the reason you choose to do them.
Andrew
Re: Andrew_KY (Jul 22 19:35),
We choose these things because we are brought up to choose them. It’s called enculturation. Cultures evolve over time too. Successful ones survive. I give you the counter example of feral children. The Natural Law concept is a bad joke. I never made it past the first chapter of Mere Christianity because it was so obviously wrong.
Roman’s method
http://stevemosher.wordpress.com/2011/07/23/romanms-method/
DWP, there is a reason people bring up their children a certain way. Because they think its ‘good’. And I love C.S. Lewis, but judging God/Christianity solely by one of his books is a bit intellectually lazy. -Andrew
Re: Andrew_KY (Jul 23 07:06),
Actually, the Catholic Church doesn’t think much of C.S.Lewis either. I was just talking about Natural Law, the subject of Mere Christianity, not Christianity in general. Original Sin is yet another flawed concept, but let’s not go even further off topic.
The concept of goodness or the good does not require belief in a divinity of any sort. Socrates was an atheist, or at least didn’t believe in the local religion of the time.
So all those children of the 60’s chose sex, drugs and rock & roll because that’s what they were brought up to choose?
Palestinian children have a more toxic upbringing than any feral child ever did, yet a few of those manage to break free of that conditioning. How is that possible if choice is determined by upbringing?
Then so is humanity.
Who said it does?
Lucia,
I reluctantly dip into the waters of religion here. : ) Here I go starting with a personal observation.
From my face to face meetings with human beings during my whole life I have observed the following.
>99% are fundamentally religious beings, whether they consistently apply it across to any of their scientific or financial thoughts or not. I consider religion to be supernaturalism/superstitionism.
<<<<<<<<<1% are completely 'nature/reality' centered beings without religion.
I have learned to cherish the later more than anything else in this world; although I have many fond friends who are religious.
John
After “climategate”\ “swifthack” the some UAE staff became of immense interest to the tabloid media of the UK
Here is a glimpse into what was unleashed on that orginisation and its staff
Murders, planting drugs, paedophiles. These are the kind of people the UK tabloids hire to dig dirt on those they are keen to get a story on.
They will access the phones of murdered children and delete messages to make space for more. They will out pIRA deep cover infromants (i.e undermine the UKs war on terror), they will access personal information of victims of terrorism.
But McKintyre and his pack think that hiring specialists to advise people on how to deal with this scum chasing you is in some way ‘bad’.
You have to have a poisened mind to think an orginisation is not duty bound to hire a specialist when the tabloids unleash the hounds.
lucia. what hume said (basically) is that we never observe a cause. we observe a ‘constant conjunction’ of A with B and that fundamentally “cause’ is a mental construct. To which Kant answered: “precisely” That the notion of ‘causality’ ( along with other categories of perception) is built into ( prior to) perception. so that one cant help but think causally. So in a way the advice to stick with “how” questions is a suggestion to be more radically empirical. But we’ve gotten WAY off topic. That topic was the question “why are we here” a question which I suggest people should be cured of asking. other ‘why’ questions may not be so unsuitable.
Kant?
Good old Kant. I remember one of his neo-Platonist like statements went something like this: If something is real then you cannot know it and if you know something then it cannot be based on anything real.
Does that sound like the basis of objective science? Sounds like defending religious beliefs . . . . and it is because Kant even admits he is trying to save faith from the enlightenment (mid to late 1800th century).
John
Mosher–
No. The “why” vs “how” issue began with bald claim that how questions are more useful than why. Period. See:
July 21st, 2011 at 3:47 pm Edit This
“How?†is a much more useful word than “Why?â€. (And not just for scientists.
I dispute this claim.
Some people who seem to favor “how” generally seem to be trying to support it by coming up with some specific examples where “why” might not be interesting etc.
Oh? Well, “cause” may be a mental construct. But sometimes, I do things because I was inclined to. That is: a mental construct can motivate me to do something. So…. one can ask: Why did you do that? This is just as interesting or useful a question as “How did you do that.”
That you, Kant, Hume or Simon can come up with cases where “why” seems imponderable etc is irrelevant. Why questions are often just as useful and interesting as how ones.
Lucia:
I started this in the following context: responding to Dr. S:
##############
“why are we the only species to ponder our existence?
First, I would have to accept that we are the only species that ponders this. I’m not so convinced that other species don’t or haven’t. I can well imagine an early species of man that had such a mental virus and perished accordingly. But accepting that we are the only species with such an infection, I would hazard we “ponder†and ask ‘why’ because we have the word ‘why’ in the language. And we think that all ‘why’ questions are sensible and useful. So, we find that the ‘why’ word works pretty well when it comes to certain things.
‘why’ does the sun come up, ends up being a useful question and a good use of the word ‘why’. Then we try to use the word ‘why’ all over the place. 2 year olds do this, when they discover the power of the word why. So naturally, some one asked the silly question ‘why are we here?†why is there something rather than nothing? I see that as a misuse of the word why. I avoid engaging in such locutions. Such questions, experience shows, leads to no useful or practical consequence for me. I know people who do think this question makes sense. They tend to argue with other people who ask the same kind of silly questions. Sometimes they kill each other. other people who ask this why question are kind . I don’t mind that they ask the silly question. It makes them nicer people. Which I like and is useful. From my standpoint ‘why’ is not a very useful question. I’m happy not asking the question. i think its non sensical. I’m happy when other people dont badger me with their answer to the silly question. Maybe someday those in our species who ask that question will die out. Maybe those who say there is no reason, will die out. i’m not sure about the adaptive value of the question or the answer. I know that I dont ask why. You can, the language surely allows it. maybe we are different species.
######
you should clearly see me say that some why questions are useful.
Next:
““How?†is a much more useful word than “Why?â€.
The general position that simon and I are laying out is that ‘how’ questions are generally more useful than why questions. One simple way to look at this is this.
1. why questions ( with one big exception) can be reframed as how questions.
2. that one big why question .. why are we here.. seems to cause a lot of futile discussion.
3. asking “how are we here” should indicate to you that its really hard to misuse how in the same way why gets misused in this context.
Since how questions can generally replace why questions, lets say that your position ( how and why are equal) has some merit.
but “how” wins the day and the contest because .. “how are we here” ends up being a question that nobody asks.. cause it doesnt make much sense. ( funny nobody got this, one has to stretch to the limits of zen for it to make sense)
another way to look at it as I suggested is with aritotles 4 causes:
“Aristotle’s word for “cause” is the Greek αἴτιον, aition.[5] He uses this word in the sense meaning, an explanation for how a thing came about;[6] in this context, “x is the aition of y” means “x makes a y”.”
the final cause of an object is it’s aim or purpose.
#79533 steven mosher ““how are we here†ends up being a question that nobody asks”. Did not Darwin ask himself such a question?
#79525 (gradually working back) steven mosher “fundamentally “cause’ is a mental construct”. (So is consciousness BTW). Saying that “cause” is a mental construct doesn’t make progress towards saying what the defining characteristic of a cause is (the idea that it is an agency that produces an outcome, an effect). We all know a cause when we see it. We can’t convincingly construct the idea that the window caused the cricket ball to hit it. But defining what we actually mean by the simple word “cause” defeats me. It should be easy (easier than explaining consciousness) but just isn’t. As I said, maybe it’s to do with the Second Law.
#79533 (again) steven mosher “why is there something rather than nothing? I see that as a misuse of the word why”. Maybe so, OTOH “how is there something rather than nothing?” seems rather a good question to me, however difficult it might be to answer. BTW I dislike having to put acronyms in capitals – they shout so. Perhaps a movement could be started to spell them in lower case; shouldn’t normally cause any confusion.
@steven mosher (Comment #79533)
.
It’s a mental virus for a person to ponder his existence, you say. You call it an infection.
Yet, most people (the overwhelming majority) has this ‘virus’, suffer from this ‘infection’. Not you. You are sane.
.
But that may change in the future, according to you:
“Maybe someday those in our species who ask that question will die out. Maybe those who say there is no reason, will die out. i’m not sure about the adaptive value of the question or the answer. I know that I dont ask why”
.
Rather strange that you chose to introduce evolutionary selection of _people_ here. You have just explained that you have arrived at your position by rational means (The ‘why am I here?’ question is silly, non-sensical etc).
.
You should be able to convince us, no? Do you think other people are too stupid to be able to arrive at the same conclusion as you have?
.
Maybe I misinterpret you but if on the other hand you do not think your position is really arrived at rationally after all but is _merely_ a subjective decision, a choice, what are we to make of your “mental virus” or “infection” methaphor?
Neils.
It’s very simple. I did an experiment. I spent time asking that question and noted the results in my life. Then I spent time treating the question as a misuse of language ( a virus if you like) and noted the results. Treating it as the latter made me a better person, happier, more peaceful. Should I be able to convince you? Convince you of what? That my experience was what it was? I think that too is a silly question. How could you argue that my experience wasnt what is was. And how do I owe you an argument? And here is the really beautiful thing. I don’t think that I have any obligation to convince you that you should try my experiment. I will not knock on your door and tell you to try it. i will not call you evil for not trying it. If you want to persist in a practice that did not work for me, have at it. If that makes you happy, then understand. It makes you happy. If believing that the moon is made of green cheese makes you a more peaceful person, then by all means, believe that. I might think that is silly, but i’d not argue you out of being a peaceful creature. That would be silly.
There ya go. Just think of all the physical maladies that could be cured with a simple cardiectomy. 🙂
I suppose from a certain perspective it’s a damn shame that grand experiment in the middle of the last century was so rudely interrupted – otherwise we might know the “adaptive value” of eugenics.
steven mosher (Comment #79539) July 24th, 2011 at 3:35 pm
“language, it’s a virus” is in a tune by . . . Rats, can’t pull her name out right now.
Mosher, you did this existential “experiment” and noted the results in your life. You think it is very simple. I may be simple-minded but I have no idea how you, a living, existing person can perform this “experiment” and evaluate its outcome in terms of how good a person that made you. But that’s another matter, I guess.
.
You were a better person when treating the question as a misuse of language…and then you stuck with that because you like to be a better person, I guess. So, when you say that the why-question is silly and non-sensical it is not a judgement – it is means for self-improvement. I’m trying to understand what you are saying but I have to admit that my head still spins.
.
“If believing that the moon is made of green cheese makes you a more peaceful person, then by all means, believe that.”
I understand (or try to) that you evaluate your postions that way. I don’t. I’m not able to. I suspect few people are.
.
Maybe your statement was just a subtle insult. Then I apologise for not getting it. I’m not a native English-speaker.
Niels A Nielsen (Comment #79537)
July 24th, 2011 at 5:41 am
“â€â€â€â€Maybe I misinterpret you but if on the other hand you do not think your position is really arrived at rationally after all but is _merely_ a subjective decision, a choice, what are we to make of your “mental virus†or “infection†methaphor?â€â€â€â€
——————–
Niels A Nielsen,
You have focused on the inherent fallacy of the philosophical subjectivist and also those who claim to know that man cannot know objectively; they self-refute by their own claims. Mosher self-refutes his own ability to claim what he says is objective knowledge.
Subjectivists tend to devolve inevitably into solipsism. Here are some quotes on solipsism:
Solipsist Quote #1 – “We are justified in asserting that the whole of the objective world, so boundless in space, so infinite in time, so unfathomable in its perfection, is really only a certain movement of affection of the pulpy mass in the skull.” – Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, 1819
Solipsist Quote #2 – “Everything is illusion: family, office, friends, the street, woman, all illusion, drawing nearer and further away; but the nearest truth is merely that I push my head against the wall of a cell without doors or windows.” – Franz Kafka, Complete Works
Niels, I think you have some philosophical training. Right?
John