In the Oz of all places, a demolition of Ian Plimer so scathing, and so convincing, that it’s hard to imagine how he can salvage any kind of academic reputation, other than by a full retraction (which would be a pretty impressive move, admittedly).
It starts hardhitting
ONE of the peculiar things about being an astronomer is that you receive, from time to time, monographs on topics such as “a new theory of the electric universe”, or “Einstein was wrong”, or “the moon landings were a hoax”.
The writings are always earnest, often involve conspiracy theories and are scientifically worthless.
One such document that arrived last week was Ian Plimer’s Heaven and Earth. What makes this case unusual is that Plimer is a professor — of mining geology — at the University of Adelaide. If the subject were anything less serious than the future habitability of the planet Earth, I wouldn’t go to the trouble of writing this review.
and ends the same way:
Plimer probably didn’t expect an astronomer to review his book. I couldn’t help noticing on page120 an almost word-for-word reproduction of the abstract from a well-known loony paper entitled “The Sun is a plasma diffuser that sorts atoms by mass”. This paper argues that the sun isn’t composed of 98 per cent hydrogen and helium, as astronomers have confirmed through a century of observation and theory, but is instead similar in composition to a meteorite.
It is hard to understate the depth of scientific ignorance that the inclusion of this information demonstrates. It is comparable to a biologist claiming that plants obtain energy from magnetism rather than photosynthesis.
Plimer has done an enormous disservice to science, and the dedicated scientists who are trying to understand climate and the influence of humans, by publishing this book. It is not “merely” atmospheric scientists that would have to be wrong for Plimer to be right. It would require a rewriting of biology, geology, physics, oceanography, astronomy and statistics. Plimer’s book deserves to languish on the shelves along with similar pseudo-science such as the writings of Immanuel Velikovsky and Erich von Daniken.
If there are any genuine sceptics left among those who doubt the findings of mainstream science, this piece ought to convince them that Plimer’s work offers them no support, and should lead them to also to dismiss, as unable to tell science from nonsense, the many peddlers of delusion who have promoted this work, such as William Kininmonth. But, at this point, I can confidently predict that nothing will shift the remaining delusionists.
(Hat-tip: Tim Lambert, who notes that this is the latest in a string of pro-science pieces published by the Oz . Perhaps increasingly vocal attacks on the paper’s credibility by scientists and others have been taken to heart.)
John Quiggin 
Waste of time John. People like Ron Boswell will just give another fruity chuckle about the way these darn scientists keep arguing and how impossible it is for a good honest policy-maker to know who’s telling the truth.
Plimer has made a fool of himself; he is in very poor company. Future ages will marvel that greedy buffoons like this could hold such sway.
They will be all the more infamous because they have achieved their objective. It is too late to avert a seriously degraded global ecology.
Plimer, Bush, Howard. Names that will echo through history.
Don’t just snipe from the sidelines…. set up a debate. With your superior knowledge of science you are sure to win. And you could do it all from your own lounge room via video conferencing. Win win.
The review in the Canberra Times is not very friendly either. I wonder whether any one has given it a positive reception?
Sadly the SMH gave it a welcome some weeks ago.
[…] John Quiggin notes that it is in itself remarkable that this review appeared in the Oz of all papers, a paper bery much leaning to the right that has from time to time come quite close […]
“The Sun is a plasma diffuser that sorts atoms by mass”. This paper argues that the sun isn’t composed of 98 per cent hydrogen and helium, as astronomers have confirmed through a century of observation and theory, but is instead similar in composition to a meteorite.It is hard to understate the depth of scientific ignorance that the inclusion of this information demonstrates. It is comparable to a biologist claiming that plants obtain energy from magnetism rather than photosynthesis.”
No idea and ignorant on the substance of this particular debate but for how long did concensual science propose that the sun was primarily iron before it was shown to be otherwise? Unusually at the time by a woman I believe?
Scientifically in the rather recent past and I believe she was not just excluded but reputationally destroyed by the scientific boys club for her efforts?
“as astronomers have confirmed through a century of observation and theory”
P.S. This claim also like Plimers claimed errors would appear to be wrong as the work of Cecilia Payne on the composition of the Sun would appear to fall within something less than the claimed century?
I dont understand why anyone would accept as scientifically realisable as truth any comment about an author, in a critique in the flagship of Rupert Murdoch.Anyone who has seen the damage that paper and its reports have done to a large number of Australians would then want the Professor from the N.S.W. Univ.in Sydney investigated for various types of frauds.If the claims of non-scientific endeavour by Plimer are seen also in the conformist nature of that Professor at that Univ. in Sydney…we need a shake down of everyone in any teaching and researching process across Australia,if, they continue to use a Murdoch newspaper to accuse anyone of anything.And heed my warning.Murdoch does not rule the roost!
It is significant that Michael Ashley’s demolition of Plimer was published in the weekend Review section, an excellent publication (streets ahead of the Fairfax equivalents) edited by the talented Deborah Hope. It would never have made it into the Oz’s regular opinion pages. I suggest that the first thing the Oz’s editor, Chris Mitchell, knew about this piece was when he opened the paper this morning.
#3 Thanks, chrisl, you didn’t disappoint.
Still, I’d be interested to know, if there’s anyone out there who has an honestly sceptical attitude and isn’t yet convinced that the delusionist side of this debate is a pack of lies, how they reacted to this particular piece of evidence.
Murdoch newspapers are dying, starving for declining advertisers revenues because of the internet. As their advertising revenues shrink their journalism trolls in the gutter for increasinglyb efficient (cheap) journalism – and as it gets cheaper the quality recedes……gasp… “cheyne stoking”. We all suspected it but dont act surprised as to why.
I was unaware of Cecilia Payne, ks, but Wikipedia fills in the details as usual. An impressive story. As regards the dating, you could, if you wanted to, go back to the discovery of helium via solar spectroscopy in the 19th century. But, as you point out, Payne’s big discovery was a little short of a century ago.
Wikipedia in fact curiously does not fill in the details JQ. Payne was destroyed by the scientific establishment for her efforts. You won’t find it on Wikipedia?
P.S. Payne was born in 1900 so your “sjust hort of a century” defence as “only just” is looking a bit sick already from someone you have acclaimed as all but unassaillable in their already demonstrably flawed ideological assault on Plimer?
I have no position, i confess to being confused and you don’t help!
Hear surf’s up on Triton; great climate, great waves, green and purple polka dot mangoes…
KitchenSlut, the date issue is a quibble, and certainly doesn’t help Plimer or cast any doubt on the accuracy of Ashley’s characterization of his work. I’m genuinely confused as to whether you are seeking to advance the discussion with a useful reference to the work of Cecilia Payne or to derail it with pointscoring about trivial side issues.
As regards Payne, I’d be interested in a link/reference more useful than Wikipedia.
KitchenSlut @14, to relieve the agony of being confused, you may wish to use the Dice Man solution method. Assign Yes to 3 sides of the dice and make a decision on what Yes stands for (you may use a dice to make this decision). Then role the dice and you have peace of mind without having to become knowledgeable in any subject.
Perhaps The Australian’s change of heart has more to do with the fact that Rupert’s mother is trying to get women leaders to campaign for action on global warming.
JQ
Your response would appear to indicate that compliance is someting worthy of itself? Odd been there done that in a corporate sense ,,,,,
Pointscoreing? Sideissues?
Please explain?
http://www.carleton.edu/departments/PHAS/Astro/pages/marga_michele/Cecilia_Payne.html
You won’t find it in her autobiography, either.
The glass half full case from PrQ:
The glass half empty case from Uncle Milton:
And it’s in the Oz’s (and News’ and Fairfax’s) regular opinion pages, where the climate change denialists still run free, driving (and poisoning) the public debate.
I expect that the conservative commentariat will completely ignore Michael Ashley’s piece, operating on the principle that if they don’t acknowledge it, they won’t have to account for their rapturous barracking of ‘Heaven and Earth.’
KS’s link to a bio of Payne says:
However, another bio from the American Museum of Natural History says:
At least one of these accounts is clearly wrong, and if I had to take a guess at which one is more likely to be correct, I’d take the Museum’s version.
I think we’re done with KS here.
Oh what sycophancy SJ!
My reference is ‘Great Feuds in Science’ published by Wiley.
However again, the replies are just lamentable?!
What on Earth is this rubbish about Cecilia Payne? What does she have to do with Ian Plimer’s dodgy book? Sheesh.
Transgressing the boundaries…Alan Sokal
The hand that signed the paper…Helen Demidenko
And I am soon to possess Heaven and Earth…Ian Plimer
Two were hoaxes of the first order, sucking in the experts as well as the layperson. The third one is, I hope, a hoax (what are the odds of it being genuine 🙂 I mean really what are the odds), sucking in the newspaper journalists of Australia. Unfortunately though, whether a hoax or not, it may do great damage on a serious environmental issue. How ironic it would be if Plimer is eventually sued for the same reasons that he took on the guy over Noah’s ark?
gianni,
How can denialists be poisoning debate? Shouldn’t their presence be there so a debate could be had?
I would be interested to see plimer’s rebuttal… if he could find one. I think he would argue that it was a few mistakes that should not be used to rubbish the entire book. But I wait with interest.
I had a minor nit with Ashley’s review, regarding putting Plimer on the shelves with Velikovsky and von Daniken.
Pseudo-science and anti-science are actually somewhat different, and from the various reviews of Plimer’s book, it seemed to belong in the latter category, for which the *lowest* shelf should be reserved.
For detail see Deltoid.
KitchenSlut:
I’d hardly think describing 84 years as a century when talking about a loony paper on the Sun amounts to “a demonstrably flawed ideological assault on Plimer”. At worst it’s simply not very accurate compared with the senseless paper that Plimer is citing.
It’s also rather ironic that someone who recognizes the absolute brilliance of Cecilia Payne ignores a loony paper that contradicts Payne and tries to makes an argument out of a language shortcut used by someone pointing out this loony paper.
Whatever happened to a sense of perspective?
DONALD SAID:-
“The hand that signed the paper” was a novel. I’m not sure a novel can be a hoax. The author used the name Helen Demidenko as a pseudonym and did hoax some people into believing that Helen Demidenko was a real person. Which was clever marketing but obviously it upset those that got sucked in.
Helen (the real one) runs a blog for those that don’t know.
JQ SAID:-
Do you actually think Plimer set out to deceive?
I have not read his book. However when I read Tim Flannery’s book “The Weathermakers” I was struck by his willingness to introduce quite speculative theories about things. I didn’t discard everything he had to say on that basis.
The AGW theory is a solid enough theory in so far as theories go. I’m still a skeptic when it comes to signing up to the whole associated agenda.
#28 John M, actually I think the odd man out here is von Daniken. His stuff is purely pseudoscience with no acknowledgement that there is any real science relevant to his topic. By contrast, while Velikovsky may have started out in this vein, the adverse reaction he got from scientists turned him into a full-scale anti-science warrior.
Tracing the evolution of the right wing parallel universe from Velikovsky, through the creation science/ID crowd to its present fully evolved state would be a great project. Here’s a bit of a start
https://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2003/06/10/heroes-and-heretics/
Terje, I am indeed puzzled by the state of mind of the delusionists. Some are indeed paid deceivers, but only a minority now, I think, as companies like Exxon have cut off the money spigot.
The great bulk are rightwingers or anti-environmentalists who support the party line out of loyalty, tribal hostility to the other side or similar.
Then there’s a small group (mostly old, male and educated) who have, in the rather cruel saying inside academia, “gone emeritus”. These are people who are skilled enough in argument to maintain a weak position, and successful enough in their own field (usually tangentially relevant to the issue at hand) to have an inflated view of their own intelligence. Having taken a view of an issue on the basis of very limited consideration, they remain dogmatically attached to it until the end of their days. I’d put Plimer in this class, maybe with some tribal hostility to environmentalists added in.
Looking at the description, I’m obviously a high-risk candidate for going emeritus myself. Running a blog is one way of reminding myself that plenty of people know more about lots of things than I do.
What evidence is there that Plimer is right wing? I’m not saying that he isn’t, I just wonder whether it is a well founded assertion.
These are people who are skilled enough in argument to maintain a weak position, and successful enough in their own field (usually tangentially relevant to the issue at hand) to have an inflated view of their own intelligence.
WOW!
Physician heal thyself.
It is like JQ writing a book on economic theory and getting Ian Plimer to review it.
And then calling you names like delusionist and denialist because he doesn’t agree with your theory.
WOW!
Re Terje #30: I had my tongue in cheek when I wrote that Ian Plimer’s book might be a hoax like the other two books I mentioned; I’m reasonably confident that he wrote the book seriously believing that it is correct. Until I’ve read it though I can only go on his own comments in the media to date. I’m genuinely interested in seeing what he feels is substantial enough to treat AGW as best an irrelevance, and at worst an entirely incorrect theory.
As for Helen Demidenko, I would regard it as a hoax in the sense that she played the role of a descendant of Ukrainian parents, and as someone immersed in the Ukraine culture. My understanding is that she presented herself quite deliberately in this manner – of course, I may have fallen for the trap of believing the media on this. [I personally thought it was a good novel.]
JQ’s expression of “gone emeritus” reminds me of the old saying:
“Professors don’t retire, they just lose their faculties!” Booom, Booom!
SeanG @ 27
Sean, debates are fine, but they should be good faith debates.
The denialist supporters in the media poison the debate because they totally dominate the opinion pages of our papers and they use that narrative power to lie, obfuscate, distort and do everything they can to stop a societal consensus forming that would change the way we use or produce energy. A societal consensus needed in a democracy to effectively mitigate or address a problem. The science is telling is we have an enormous problem regarding CO2 emissions.
Perhaps I’m naive, but I expect the newspaper I purchase to employ people who do not set out to deliberately misinform me. And they do so in the name of ideology, because in a choice between a reality that conflicts with their ideological view of the way the world should be, and the way they world actually is, they’ll pick the former every time.
They lob in dispatches from their parallel universe, but our papers don’t carry disclaimers warning readers that their columns haven’t been produced under the editorial norms that govern material produced here in the real world.
Their coordinated proselyting of Plimer’s book is a case in point. I’d bet they hadn’t actually read the book. They certainly weren’t capable of assessing the validity of what had been written. Yet, the conservative commentariat to a man and woman wrote rapturous reviews of the book, trumpeting its veracity and sagacity. And that’s been the dominant meme one has read in the media for weeks. Their purpose has been to establish ‘Heaven and Earth’ as a legitimate information for the public. And if you’re a member of the public, with limited time and limited science background, who assumes the media is there to provide you with reliable information, gathered according to what you understood are the norms of news gathering, why wouldn’t you consider it so?
The same people relentlessly ridiculing climate science and anyone else worried about the effects of releasing, in the space of two centuries, billions of tonnes of CO2 sequestered hundreds of millions of years ago, used to mock teh left for its refusal to face reality. Well, teh left pretty much disappeared from the public discourse and picked up its hammers and sickles and went home after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But their ideological polar opposites roll on, now equating science to marxism, and treating it as just another ideology to defeat. That their interests correlate exactly with the major CO2 polluting interests is just a lucrative bonus for them.
ProfQ has written numerous posts describing their behaviour. Chris Moody has written ‘The Republican War on Science’ (or in Australian English, ‘The Conservative War on Science’). The few remaining sane non-movement conservatives, like Harry Clarke, have written aghast at what’s being done.
On page 1 of “Fashionable Nonsense. Postmodern Intellectuals’ Abuse of Science” by Alan Sokal and Jean Bricmont, there is a passage that if tweaked slightly, perfectly captures the sneeringly mean spirited and disdainful essence of the movement conservative editors and columnists that dominate our media’s coverage of climate change:
* The clause is “the humanities and social sciences” in the original.
#35 Donald….very shaggy dog joke but I like it!
#28 JQ on Velikovsky, van Daniken, Plimer (V, vD, P)
Who’s the odd man out?
BACKGROUND
Rational people can disagree on categorization of people in an ill-defined multidimensional space, as mathematical cluster analysis doesn’t work.
Ashley offered 1 extra-science categories, pseudo-science, occupied by V, vD, and P. I’ve usually found enough differences to use at least 2:
pseudo-science
anti-science
and sometimes one more, non-science.
One can of course go much deeper, as in Martin Gardner’s fine old Science, Good, Bad, and Bogus (1981).
I won’t repeat here comments at Deltoid and maybe further comments.
I’ve read JQ’s heroes and heretics, and for various reasons, I think Lomborg much better fits the anti-science category, but is far more sophisticated and effective, and more often underestimated. I.e., the scientific silliness causes people to miss the political cleverness.
CATEGORY PROBLEM
Assuming there are 2 extra-science categories, here is my reasoning for placing V and vD together. As noted, rational people can disagree.
V certainly got into anti-science, but without studying that whole mess too much, I’d suggest that he certainly started with pseudo-science, and his thrust was still to get his ideas accepted, more than to obscure mainstream science.
1. PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH
V was primarily a psychiatrist, and if he ever did real physical sciences research, it wasn’t obvious. vD has always gloried in being a self-taught outsider.
On the other hand, Plimer has actually done some reasonable science, and seems very different. While geologists often have problems with AGW, I certainly know geoscientists who would be quite capable of writing credibly about AGW. He just didn’t.
Q: I’ve been gathering cases of scientists who seem to “go off” into anti-science. I haven’t backtracked P much, can anyone suggest how and when this happened?
Anyway, here {V +vD}, {P}
2. TESTABILITY
Both V and P make testable assertions about the world, many of which are easily proved wrong. Much of vonDaniken’s material is not very testable.
Can anyone *prove* aliens didn’t land and talk to the Mayas?
Can anyone *prove* that Ezekiel didn’t meet aliens? A NASA engineer produced a serious design for their spaceship. Alas, NASA hasn’t chosen to build it.
Here: {V, P}, {vD}
3. ACTIONABILITY, ACTION, INACTION, IMPACT
To me, though, this is the big one. Some pseudo-science invites little or no action, other than turning one’s own brains to mush or spending money on more books.
If one accepts vD, what important actions can one take? Look around the Yucatan for spaceship designs? Buy more books? Put a sign on one’s house inviting aliens to land? Not much there.
If one accepts V, and perhaps if one is already into creationism, it reinforces it, but further action is not obvious. Other than getting confused about orbital dynamics, it’s not clear what one does about all those explanations. About the most actionable thing in the whole thing is that in the face of Peak Oil, one could send spaceships to Venus to harvest the vast amount of petroleum in the atmosphere there.
If one accepts P, is there clear and important action (or inaction)? I think so.
here: {vD, V}, {P}
I’d claim that real anti-science is most commonly about obfuscating inconvenient science in order to prevent actions deriving from that science. it may well use pseudo-science to help.
Reasonable people may argue about the nature of the actions.
Considering the history of the George C. Marshall Institute, it is clear that AGW anti-science didn’t really get going until certain people started worrying that someone might actually *do something* about it. [Naomi Oreskes is working on a dandy book about this.]
SUMMARY
I still think that if it’s just pseudo-science vs anti-science categories, that it’s {V, vD}, {P}.
Oops!
That should have been:
Time for a coffee I think.
re: #32 JQ
Note: ExxonMobil has been visible, but as best as I can tell (it’s not easy), at least in the US, *much* more funding for the thinktanks has come from:
Family foundations, like Scaife, Koch, etc.
and maybe coal companies.
See Sourcewatch on Heartland, for example. Go down the foundation list.
ExxonMolbil could supply $0, and it wouldn’t make much difference … so it ends up being the wrong target.
This even makes some sense, as gas companies love coal getting whacked, and oil companies will likely sell all they can find, sooner or later.
Pr Q says:
I have been wondering how long the Oz will hold out in its untenable position on Climate Change. Only last month I gave them a maximum of three years for a total about-face. On April 30th, 2009 at 6:12 pm I predicted that
But it looks like they are starting to cave-in as we speak. That, together with the Rudd’s swing to the Left on emissions cuts (which I also predicted), implies that the intellectual and ideological tide is more or less fully turned on CC.
Credit for hammering the Oz on this to Pr Q and Dr L (who is reliable enough on science until he wanders off the ecological reservation onto the psephological bad-lands.)
# 1 Ken Lovell Says: May 9th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Contra Ken Lovell I do not think the L/NP will be a safe harbour for delusionists for too much longer. On July 5th, 2008 at 9:38 am I predicted that the L/NP will eventually support some form of effective CRPS:
The L/NP will have no alternative but to fall into some sort of line with the ALP or face electoral oblivion. My guess is that they will try to save face by scoring some big concessions-hand-outs to King Coal and Big Oil. But Rudd seems to have stolen their clothes their too.
To be honest I am clueless about the L/NP’s short-terminternal political machinations on this issue. But they would be mad to fight an election against it. (Just as the ALP would be mad to call a double dissolution in order to ram it through.)
No doubt the more realistic business bosses are sick and tired of being stuffed around and just wants someone in govt to make a decision instead of just kicking the problem down the road with endless reviews, revisions and re-tries. The SMH lays out the political options:
Climate change is not an issue central to the personal success of Rudd or Turnbull. Or the political bases of their respective parties. In truth it is a pain-in-the-ar*e to both sides of politics.
But the major parties cannot afford to ignore it as a huge swathe of middle AUS (and most young, future voters) think it is critical. So Turnbull will continue to put his shoulder to the boulder.
My reading is that Turnbull on CC will drag the delusionist rump of the L/NP kicking and screaming into the 20thC, just as he did on IR. He deserves a bit of credit for having a go. It would be nice if Left-wing intellectuals acknowledged his national-historic contribution.
The whole episode illustrates the fundamental health of AUS’s populist democracy. We have a fairly homogenous, well-educated and state-broken polity. CC is now a practical reality that all countries have to deal with. Neither major party cannot afford to be too far out of step with mainstream pragmatist views on fundamental issues of public policy.
That, at any rate, is a view directly implied by my Great Convergence theory.
Their work (the credibility devoid Murdoch shills) is done and they are laughing at us. They still ensure that they “own the debate”, so we are allowed to debate away merrily while action gets pushed further and further away. Classic “deny and delay”.
jquiggin at 6:34am says: “I’m obviously a high-risk candidate for going emeritus myself. Running a blog is one way of reminding myself that plenty of people know more about lots of things than I do”
Two comments later, chrisl at 8:59am says: “… WOW!
Physician heal thyself.
It is like JQ writing a book on economic theory and getting Ian Plimer to review it.
And then calling you names like delusionist and denialist because he doesn’t agree with your theory.
WOW!”
frankis at sometimelater says: “And for biggest loser of the month so far … yyyessss chrisl … we have a Winner!”
If you go “emeritus” Prof – dont worry – you have a huge following of “meritus” and “emeritus” supporters in here. We will cover for you. This blog is way better than Oz newspapers. You would have to fall a long way to be as bad as that. Absolument impossible..Ils sont les pires pathologiques menteurs. La nouvelle est un cirque.
This is not a defence of Plimer – far from it – but perhaps an attempt at explanation.
Geologists and earth scientists in general are used (among other things) to examining the events of long epochs and great geological events with attendant atmospheric implications. Some examples of these dramatic events might be major meteor strikes (Yucatan), supervolcanos and flood basalt events like those which created the Deccan and the Siberian traps.
“Several kinds of environmental effects have been suggested, including climatic cooling from sulphuric acid aerosols, greenhouse warming from CO2 and SO2 gases, and acid rain. Basaltic magmas are often very rich in dissolved sulphur, and sulphuric acid aerosols formed from sulphur volatiles (largely SO2) are injected into the stratosphere by convective plumes rising above volcanic vents and fissures.” – geolsoc.org.uk.
From this perspective, man’s efforts at atmospheric pollution might look relatively puny. I suspect this leads thinkers like Plimer to argue from incredulity. They can’t really believe that “puny humanity” can have an impact on climate compared to such events.
They may even have a notion that the atmosphere and associated systems like oceans, carbon sinks etc are robustly self-correcting. They might even be right about this on a geological time scale.
However, the relevant issues are that;
1. the atmosphere alone is indeed relatively fragile;
2. the totality of man’s activities are releasing globally signficant amounts of free CO2 with documented and predicted effects already showing at least a 90% correlation; and
3. geological spans don’t mean much to human civilization which depends very much on the relative benigness of climate of the holocene epoch (which commenced about 11,000 years ago).
Point 3 has relevance in the sense that if we stuff up the atmosphere for 10,000 yrs (a mere geological blink) it will be enough to destroy civiliation. Indeed, the first century or two of adverse conditions will probably suffice. A long term self-correction of climate, completed in say 100,000 years, will hardly help us.
Where Plimer fails imaginatively (and I imagine he is proud of having a large purview and an imaginative grasp of enormous epochs) is that he fails to see that one must imagine minutely as well as largely.
I think such imaginative failings can lead to failure of scientific vision.
Except that should read “les journaux australiens sont un cirque.” Time for a coffee..
Footnote: Oh, and the other problem is ignoring evidence. Have a nice day, Prof. Plimer. 🙂
# 32 jquiggin Says: May 10th, 2009 at 6:34 am says:
Its a relief to infer that “running a blog” is not the only way Pr Q has of “reminding myself that plenty of people know more about lots of things than I do”. I guess the lurking assumption of omniscience comes with the territory of being the smartest guy in most class rooms. A good reason to get out more.
Going from the grand thing to a petty thing, for me having a bunch of savvy, blokey mates provides a blunt corrective to my nascent, latent pretentions to wisdom font-ness. The good old Aussie “tall poppy” syndrome is always at hand to cut the high-falutin’ down to size when holding forth at the BBQ. (“Get yer hand of it, ya wanker!”)
And then theres my ever-practical wife…
More generally, the tendency to “go emeritus” seems to be hard-wired into the brain of every conceited, big-mouthed, middle-aged male intellectual. Particularly when re-inforced by a clique or cadre of like-minded folk.
To be honest we are not hard-wired for truth-seeking. We are hard-wired for status-seeking, attention-getting and skirt-chasing though. Peacocks tails and all that.
A certain Puritanical temperament is therefore desirable in good scientists. Sort of hair-shirtiness.
Of course all science-minded people need pay attention to one thing, and one alone, in order to bring them back down to Earth. And that is the evidence.
At the end of the science cycle one can either claim bragging rights (“I was right”) or bear bagging duties (“I was wrong”).
There is just no point in making a point unless its probably truer, or at least closer to the truth, than the counter-pointer.
“Nature cannot be fooled.”
Fenyman
“What on Earth is this rubbish about Cecilia Payne?”
Well it’s an attempt to derail the discussion of course; the hyper-inflation of a trivial matter to try and make people talk about something other than the topic at hand. It’s a time-honoured rhetorical device used by those who know they have a weak case when it comes to the substantive issue. The amazing thing is that is successful so often in blog comment threads.