Deluge of Dershowitz

John Quiggin7 Comments

For some reason, Alan Dershowitz has been everywhere I’ve turned lately. Until a few years ago, I knew of him, very vaguely, as a celebrity defence lawyer (OJ Simpsons, IIRC) with the civil libertarian views that generally go with this role. Then after 9/11 he apparently underwent a massive change in views, emerging as a supporter of torture, detention without trial and so on. I remember reviewing a book refuting his (very weak) case for torture. But shmibertarians of this kind are so common I didn’t pay him much mind.

Right now, though, it seems as if I can’t get away from him.
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BrisScience does comets, Stern does climate

John Quiggin4 Comments

I have to admit that comets have been mostly a source of disappointment to me. After waiting thirty-odd years for Halley’s comet and driving far out of town to look for it, I thought I saw a faint smudge on the horizon. Apart from that, there’s been Kohoutek and Hale-Bopp, both more notable for failed apocalyptic prophecies than for lighting up the sky. The lesson, I guess is that if you want to find out about comets, you should find an astronomer who has the proper equipment.

BrisScience is giving you the chance, this Monday 25 June at City Hall, with a lecture by Dr Paul Francis entitled WHAT WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT COMETS (ALMOST ANYTHING!) (details over the fold

For the net couch potatoes among us, Sir Nicholas Stern and other eminent figures (Christian Azar,Bert Bolin, Carl Folke,Karl-Goran Maler, Martin Weitzman, Barbara Wohlfarth) will be discussing climate change, live on the Web if you can work out time difference (it’s form 9am to 12 noon in Stockholm) (via Terry Hughes).
See the lecture on Friday 15th June. (Windows Media Player) mms ://wmedia.it.su.se/Nicholas_Stern

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Congratulations!

John Quiggin31 Comments
.!.

To Al Gore and the Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change for the award of the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the second time the Nobel prizes have honored work on climate change, the first being the award of the 1995 Chemistry Prize to Crutzen, Molina and Sherwood for their discovery of the chemical reactions that led CFCs to deplete the ozone layer.

That award came at an opportune time. Although the world had agreed under the Montreal protocol to phase out CFCs, US Republicans working through the aptly-named DeLay-Doolittle committee were working to undermine it, attacking the science and so on, with the support of a number ofleading delusionists (Sallie Baliunas, Pat Michaels, Fred Singer and others). The Nobel award took the wind out of their sails and most of the “skeptical scientists” involved went very quiet on the issue thereafter. That didn’t stop them using the same tactics and arguments regarding CO2 and global warming.

I hope the 2007 Peace Prize award will have a similar impact. While it’s not a science prize, it would certainly not have been awarded if there was any serious doubt about (rather than politically motivated opposition to) the science of climate change. And it rightly honors Gore’s role in solidifying public opinion on the issue.

Of course, for those inside the Republican bubble of delusion, it will have the opposite impact (since they are opposed to both peace and science, it could hardly do otherwise). But it will certainly have an impact in Australia, leaving those who have been scathing about Gore and the IPCC with (yet more) egg on their faces. Of course, that group includes John Howard who refused to meet Gore last year. Since he seems to be in the mood for changing his tune, he would be well advised to take this opportunity to ratify Kyoto.
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Where does academic freedom end?

John Quiggin11 Comments

This story about the suspension of two QUT academics is very worrying. I haven’t got full details yet, but the story so far is that a graduate student in the QUT Creative Industries faculty* produced, as part of his PhD work, a film entitled Laughing at the Disabled which was supported by some groups advocating for disabled people and criticised others. The two academics. John Hookham and Gary McLennan criticised the film in a confirmation hearing, then in correspondence with the Vice-Chancellor and finally in an article in The Australian, which also made more general criticisms of postmodernism, relativism and so on, including specific criticism of the dominant views at QUT (it seems to be behind the paywall now).The only result was that the title of the film was changed to “Laughing with the Disabled” and the academics were charged with ethics violations, though details don’t appear to be public.

The two have now been suspended without pay for six months, which is virtually dismissal.

This case raises concerns both in relation to academic freedom and as regards the implications for whistleblowing more generally.

update There’s lots of comment on this story all around Ozplogistan, including Andrew Bartlett and Kim at LP. Peter Black gives an excellent summary
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Those bloggers can be so mean!

John Quiggin5 Comments

Following the conviction of Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby for perjury in relation to the Plame case, pleas for clemency have been pouring into the courts from the great and good, including Bolton, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz. But the great and good have become a little shy lately, and its all because of those beastly bloggers. According to the New York Times, Libby’s lawyers argued against the release of the letters to the media on the grounds that

the real possibility that these letters, once released, would be published on the Internet and their authors discussed, even mocked, by bloggers

Judge Reggie B. Walton appears to be well aware of the fun bloggers can have when high-powered advocates of the unfettered power of the executive turn out to be soft on crime. He refused the application. Then he granted the petition of twelve leading lights of the legal profession to submit an amicus curiae brief, noting, in a footnote

It is an impressive show of public service when twelve prominent and distinguished current and former law professors of well-respected schools are able to amass their collective wisdom in the course of only several days to provide their legal expertise to the Court on behalf of a criminal defendant. The Court trusts that this is a reflection of these eminent academics’ willingness in the future to step to the plate and provide like assistance in cases involving any of the numerous litigants, both in this Court and throughout the courts of our nation, who lack the financial means to fully and properly articulate the merits of their legal positions even in instances where failure to do so could result in monetary penalties, incarceration, or worse. The Court will certainly not hesitate to call for such assistance from these luminaries, as necessary in the interests of justice and equity, whenever similar questions arise in the cases that come before it.

Somehow I think Judge Walton thought bloggers might want to quote that statement, and I’m not going to disappoint him (via a comment in Unfogged, via BitchPhD).
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What I’m reading

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Sophie’s World which my son received as a present and enjoyed (I read it when it came out a few years back and thought it might be good to refresh my memory). An introduction to philosophy (roughly along the lines of Russell’s History of Western Philosophy) presented as a story in which a young girl receives a series of mysterious messages.

Higher Ground – an analysis of the Project Hope scheme run in Wisconsin with the aim of improving outcomes for the working poor there. I’ll be writing a review some time.

Happiness, income and status

John Quiggin8 Comments

Lots of people (including Kevin Drum, Brad DeLong and Tyler Cowen have jumped in on this post by Will Wilkinson about this NBER study of habituation to changes in income and status. Wilkinson and most commentators focus on the findings regarding the subgroups on the right and left of the political spectrum, which I’ll come to, but it’s worth mentioning the general findings first.

Most people (in the German sample population) initially react more, as regards self-reported happiness, to a change in income than to a change in occupational status, but gradually get habituated to changes in income. This is consistent with the standard view of the happiness literature, that income changes don’t have a big effect on happiness, so that people in rich countries aren’t on average much happier than those in poor countries. Moreover, by looking at the same people over relatively short periods of time the analysis overcomes, to a significant extent, the objection I’ve made previously, that the scale on which happiness is measured is inherently relative to some notion of what is reasonable to expect.
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