Carl Sagan, Part I: Climate Pseudo-Science

Climate “scientists” are not involved in science. They are peddling pseudo-science, and allowing others to use it to grind the rest of us into the dust. Incidentally that means they get their next grant approved, and have articles published not in journals but in well-known newspapers, as they get paid large sums for speaking engagements.

For several years I have believed that the idea of catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is unscientific. I have described the Royal Society as anti-scientific for its official stance. However I am one person, a graduate in Earth Sciences and so more qualified to comment than most but with no reputation.

Carl Sagan, on the hand, was a revered and internationally-renowned astrophysicist and science communicator. Unfortunately he died before CAGW became such a huge issue, in fact around the time it should have died, when it was proved there was no warming in the upper troposphere at low latitudes. Let’s see what he has to say about pseudo-science in his book The Demon-Haunted World.

Pseudoscience differs from erroneous science. Science thrives on errors, cutting them away one by one. False conclusions are drawn all the time, but they are drawn tentatively. Hypotheses are framed so they are capable of being disproved. A succession of alternative hypotheses is confronted by experiment and observation. Science gropes and staggers toward improved understanding. Proprietary feelings are of course offended when a scientific hypothesis is disproved, but such disproofs are recognized as central to the scientific enterprise.

Well we could say that climate “scientists” thrive on errors; the problem is that they don’t recognise that they are capable of making errors. They think that admitting errors is a sign of weakness. Science’s great strength, as Sagan implies, is to admit to making errors – this means errors can be corrected.

Climate “scientists” don’t make tentative conclusions. They declaim, they make wild assertions. And they never cut away their errors. They hide them in the dark, they refuse to let anyone find those errors by conspiring to keep information secret, like a cabal.

Pseudoscience is just the opposite. Hypotheses are often framed precisely so they are invulnerable to any experiment that offers a prospect of disproof, so even in principle they cannot be invalidated. Practitioners are defensive and wary. Sceptical scrutiny is opposed.

Does this remind you of anything?

Sagan carries on:

When the pseudoscientific hypothesis fails to catch fire with scientists, conspiracies to suppress it are deduced.

Even though so many scientists (possibly even a majority) accept the idea of CAGW the proponents still whine about conspiracies for which they have no evidence, while completely ignoring and even denying the conspiracies to push poor science which have sound, even irrefutable, evidence. You know, emails between conspirators discussing details of a conspiracy, which they admit are genuine.

Finally on pseudo-science, Sagan says

Perhaps the sharpest distinction between science and pseudo-science is that science has a far keener appreciation of human imperfections and fallibility than does pseudoscience … If we resolutely refuse to acknowledge where we are liable to fall into error, then we can confidently expect that error - even serious error, profound mistakes - will be our companion forever.

Indeed.

Human Rights We Should Recognise

The recent riots have brought up a lot of commentary about the Human Rights Act, and Call Me Dave’s attack on the Act as contributing to the unrest. All this commentary seems to be from the point of view of the rioters, and the rights given under the act encouraging criminality and violence.

I want to look at the other side, my big gripe with European human-rights legislation. What I object to is not just the rights given that should not be rights, but also the fundamental rights that are not given; these also affected the course of the riots. Of course once the Human Rights Act was made law, it is often assumed that anything not included is not a human right.

The example here is the right to self-defence, including the right to keep and bear arms for this purpose.

For years the right of an Englishman to defend himself, his family and his property have been eroded. The change in this is discussed in an article on Powerline. The claimed reason, that we should rely on the police to protect us, has never been very sound. The police could never claim to be available at every time a man might need to defend himself, so the idea of abdicating this responsibility to the sanctioned authority was always ridiculous. The allegation that police are being told in cases of violent disorder to avoid arresting people and simply try to contain the situation makes it farcical.

Like any well-read lad I enjoyed reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle as a boy; most people have seen Sherlock Holmes on film and television. Does it not strike people that Watson frequently carried a revolver, as occasionally did Holmes? It was clearly unremarkable to Conan Doyle, and of course it was an assumption at that time that a man might carry a weapon, and defend himself with it. Crime was a lot lower then, around a tenth for more than half the population, for a crime rate of around 1/6 to 1/7 today’s.

In 1964 advice to police was that self defence was not a reason to allow a fire-arms certificate to hold a handgun. Between 1997 and 1998 handguns were banned altogether (high-calibre in 1997, .22 in 1998). Now we are not allowed to carry any weapon at all for self defence. There is no requirement for the police to even suggest that the person was a threat to anyone else. If a person carries a weapon, or anything that can be used as a weapon, without a good excuse he or she can be prosecuted.

Since then there have been increasing cases of police persecuting and prosecuting people who defend themselves. There are cases that should never have come to court, there are cases of arrests that never resulted in charges but still cause distress to people who have already suffered the trauma of attacks on themselves or their homes and businesses.

So where is the human-rights legislation to protect rights of crime victims from the Police, when the criminals receive so much protection?

Of course there are many other rights that are being stripped by the government and the EU, or rights one of us might argue for, but because they are not coded into the European Convention on Human Rights there is almost no chance that they will be recognised as human rights.

Recently there was a television programme about fake Euro notes. It is a strict-liability offense in the Euro-zone to even own fake Euro notes, and also to try to spend them. Yet there are millions of fake notes in circulation. Many people might have them completely innocently. At least one British person, unfamiliar in any case with Euros, tried to spend a single fake note in a large bundle he had directly from a travel agent, yet had he been charged his lawyers had said he was best to plead guilty, as he had no defence. That the Austrian police did not charge him was good sense from them, to his fortune. Not everyone has been so lucky, and a law that relies on luck and the good sense of officers is a poor law.

Where is the protection of our human rights to carry currency without worrying that we might inadvertently commit a serious criminal offence?

What about the one right on which all others, and our freedom and political rights depend, the the protection of our right to free speech? It is protected under article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, with a few exceptions. One of which is protection of morals, another is maintaining the authority of the judiciary. Both of these exceptions are incompatible with what I would see as the human right to free expression.

Of course the UK libel laws are not compatible with natural rights to free speech, nor are the reporting restrictions on family courts, for example. So even our most fundamental right is not protected.

I could go on. Rights to privacy that Americans recognise in the fourth amendment to their constitution, right to free assembly, right to silence under police questioning (broken in the UK; if you disagree with my objection to the current British police caution of rights, I recommend this video "Don't talk to the police", advice from an American lawyer), rights to due process of law and against double jeopardy, rights to speedy trial.

All of these are rights recognised in the constitution of the USA, you will notice; the USA so criticised by sophisticated Europeans as the barbaric outpost of rednecks.

I would argue for other rights: the right to self determination, taken as far as euthanasia, the right to a proportional tax rebate if you choose supply from a third party of services currently offered by government, the right to freedom of choice to the degree that government cannot place extra taxes on products politicians feel we should use less (petrol, home energy and alcohol affect me, but tobacco is unfairly taxed too), and a few more radical libertarian positions. I am even willing to give credence to arguments in favour of right to use certain drugs that are currently illicit, although I am not a libertine and feel that more information is needed to decide on some of those issues.

There is even one right of criminals, to blind justice without considerations of motive (such as “hate crime”) or the victim’s wishes in sentencing. Both of these allow or encourage revenge, not justice.

So, not only does human rights legislation allow rights that are not natural human rights, especially to criminals and those who are not legally resident in this country, but by not mentioning certain rights, or by curtailing them in exceptions, it restricts the rights of the majority. This happens because when the British common law assumption that we have all rights that are not removed whether by historical precedent or by legislation has been supplanted by the European Convention on Human Rights.

Finally I believe that supplanting is unconstitutional. It is entirely at odds with British legal tradition, and if there is any one thing at the heart of the British constitution, tying together the various threads of our written constitution, it is legal tradition.

Les Misérables

[WARNING: minor spoilers; go to the last line if you want to see the musical fresh]

Sometimes we get so used to circumstances that it takes a sudden insight from the distant past to remind us what we enjoy or what we suffer daily.

The state of the entertainment industry, in Britain and America is such a case. The system is so shot through with politics that certain very normal, realistic events and characters are simply unthinkable.

I went with my wife to see Les Misérables recently, and some of the value of the play is the almost unthinkable behaviour of the characters.

When the main character, Jean Valjean, steals from the Catholic Priest and is caught, we assume that a Priest is going to be a terrible man who wants him hanged. Instead the priest claims to have given Jean the things he stole, even claiming he left more silverware behind and giving him the candlesticks. He had seen Jean as a desperate man who needed help and compassion, even if he did not deserve either.

When Valjean becomes a wealthy, powerful man, he is an important local employer. Much to our surprise he is shown as caring about his workers, but also satisfied that his enterprise is employing others; when he fears he will be returned to prison for breaking parole, one of his main concerns is for the people who would then lose their livelihoods.

Both of these characters are so surprising to us, not because they are abnormal. Many Catholic Priests are very generous, patient, kind and understanding. Many wealthy employers take great satisfaction in employing people and making a close community. What surprises us is that such characters are portrayed on stage. We are used to evil, small-minded or bigoted Priests and grasping, self-serving employers.

The musical is of course based on a book written long before such portrayals became ubiquitous. It is not politically biased, but does also touch other ideas that seem odd to the modern filmgoer or television viewer. The anti-royalist student radicals are naïve, well-meaning and courageous, but also their leader is shown to be uncaring of an individual, interested in the people but seemingly only as an ideal. That seems a very perceptively-written character. There are themes throughout of personal responsibility and the evils of an uncaring, impersonal government in the person of the police officer Javert, who is not a bad man but is the antagonist of the piece through just following his perceived duty as an officer of the law.

Oh, it’s a great musical by the way, I thoroughly recommend it. Matt Lucas (of Little  Britain fame) made a fantastic innkeeper.

Napoleon and the French Revolution

A bit of an odd monologue today, but it has a point.

I heard some time ago of the Khan Academy, a great resource for autodidacts. At the time the only history available there was the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, so I watched the whole lot; what a horrifying series that was. What a barbaric forerunner of the 20th-century communist revolutions, what terrible conflicts for the grandiose ambitions of one man.

What is more worrying, and certainly more current, is the French attitude to both the Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte. They are both openly revered. The French motto is the motto of the Revolution; the French National Anthem is the Anthem of the Revolution, schools are named after its violent leaders (I went on exchange to École Robbespierre). Although the French are a little more ambivalent towards him, Napoleon Bonaparte is still widely considered a French hero, or else considered to have helped France or Europe in some ways; Metro stops are still named for his generals. The pupil I exchanged with at École Robbespierre was utterly adamant that Napoleon had ended his wars victorious; he would not believe otherwise.

Violence of the French Revolution: this time, ironically, the execution of Robbespierre

Why do I consider these things today, and why are they important?

Here I have a confession: I was reading the Daily Mail. I usually refuse, for personal reasons, but I was in a coffee shop awaiting my wife, and that was all that was available. In it A.N. Wilson has an article on the bicentenary of the battle of Waterloo (for those educated in Britain, that will be in 2015) and the lack of official plans for celebrations.

Yet this was a victory every bit as important for modern Europe as the victory over Nazism and Fascism and the victory over Communism. We celebrate these victories in some official way. We honour the great figures in these victories, with a statue to Ronald Reagan having been unveiled today, Independence Day.

The Communist Parties and Nazi Parties are widely reviled today, most importantly in their own countries (with the possible exception of Russia). People recognise that these were evil regimes. People would not wish to be associated with the political ideals of these regimes (even when their views happen to coincide).

Yet in France it is not so, and it is just accepted that victory over Napoleon and post-Revolutionary France are something to keep quiet about, not to be triumphalist, as if the violent, repressive, French dominance of Europe was something that could have been allowed to remain, the victory in these terrible wars something to be ashamed of as we are now allied to France.

Napoleon Bonaparte was an egotistical bastard. He set a continent ablaze, killed on a scale never seen before, not to be seen again for a century. He did so for his own personal satisfaction.

A.N. Wilson puts it well, in comparing the two opposing commanders that day.

When told he risked his life by riding to and fro on his horse, [Wellington]replied: 'The battle's won. My life's of no consequence now.'

Napoleon would never have said that. To such a megalomaniac, his own life was all-important; those of the people he killed and enslaved were of no consequence whatever.

It is about time France recognised the horrors of the Revolution and the subsequent wars, as the Germans did with the Nazi regime, and that French honour for the Revolution and Bonaparte is challenged. This attitude is at the core of an unhealthy French nationalism, that leads directly to some of the most damaging aspects of the EU and of French dealings with the world.

On a final note – what do the three evil regimes compared here have in common? The French Revolutionaries, the Communists and the Nazis all started out as socialists.

Edit: just to add a comment to any that seriously doubt that the French revere the monstrous post-revolutionary regime. 25 years ago I was on a school exchange in southern France, to a modern secondary school. It's name? Ecole Robespierre.. Named after Maximilien Robbespierre. I doubt the name has been changed.

Happy Independence Day

With all that an independent USA has done for the world, we should celebrate this one. Yes, I know that the words are anti-British, but they had a point. May today’s Tea Party lead to as much freedom as did the original!

As usual, click the pic for music.

Hollywood Was Not Always Socialist

That Hollywood is, despite itself consisting of businesses that aim to make a profit, a part of the socialist anti-business movement is beyond reasonable argument. Pointing to the numerous films where absurd plots make businesses and their senior executives the antagonist is a fairly weak argument, albeit true, but there is now a book detailing evidence, Primetime Propaganda and of course a whole website of news about Big Hollywood from right-wing commentators which documents left-wing foolishness.

I am a great fan of Audrey Hepburn, so am watching Sabrina, where Hepburn plays the eponymous heroine, and her (eventual) love interest, played by Humphrey Bogart is a senior executive of a large, family-run conglomerate. At one point his wastrel, playboy brother he asks what his “urge to go into plastics” will prove. His answer is something a socialist could never write

“Prove? Nothing much.

A new product has been found, something of use to the world, so a new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines are brought in, a harbor is dug and you're in business.

It’s purely coincidental of course that people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar, and bare-footed kids wear shoes and have their teeth fixed and their faces washed.

What’s wrong with the kind of an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds and uh, movies on a Saturday night?”

This is one of the best rebuttals I have ever heard of socialism, a succinct explanation of why business should be encouraged, and not opposed.

That was a Long Interruption

Two years ago I was unemployed. Long and unpleasant story that cannot be told truthfully without risk of a case for libel. Hence I had plenty of time to pontificate and pronounce on matters political.

I stopped blogging when I suddenly got work, and had little time for it. Since then I have married and become involved in my wife’s business, which has been hard work at times but interesting.

Now my life is now less insane, and the world more so. We have a Conservative-lead coalition sacrificing our economy to appease radical environmentalists (for no conceivable environmental benefit); the EU snatching ever more power and money, in denial about the imminent collapse of its currency and the damage done by the bailouts in the interim; Barack Obama worse than even his critics anticipated, "Hope" now being a hope that he is no worse than Jimmy Carter; the BBC, our state broadcaster, supporting everything that is wrong.

Thus I find myself wanting some outlet for a frustrated cry at the stupidity of the world, and the lack of voice for us, who are called libertarian, who just want to be able to live our lives without anyone else screwing it up claiming to help.

I might not blog frequently, but I hope to do so several times each week.

ACORN – The Final Nail

When the ACORN scandal hit the ‘community organisation’ had one excuse. They claimed that the undercover couple had visited many offices and been turned away, and only in a handful were they offered advice on how to cheat the taxes on money they earned from underage sex slaves.

In particular ACORN claimed Giles and O’Keefe were turned away from New York and San Diego offices (video evidence has already been shown that they were actually helped there). Most importantly they were not only refused advice in Philadelphia, but were told to leave the office and the police were called.

Errrrrrmmmmm, or not, as the case might be.

Incidentally the ACORN employee’s voice is muted, for legal reasons.

How can anyone who knows about this now fail to utterly condemn ACORN? How can ACORN continue to function, when they don’t know what else Andrew Breitbart has to release? How can they have any credibility when everything they have said has turned out to be a lie, because Breitbart really, really knows his business, knew exactly how ACORN would react and had the evidence to respond to everything, so ACORN’s defence only made things worse at every stage?

Arrogance of Authority

A great case of someone who let his own arrogance overcome any doubts he might have had. A Justice of the Peace in Louisiana has decided not to sign a marriage license because the couple are of mixed race.

Now I happen to accept his claim that he is not racist, and that he simply believes the marriage is less likely to last. This does not necessarily show racism. What it does show is that he thinks his views are more important than this couple’s decision about their own life, and that he thinks that statistical norms should determine an individual case.

Another time where someone should have more doubts.

Hat tip Instapundit.

Why Are You So Greedy?

The most stupid question I have ever heard on national television. It simply indicates that the BBC have no idea of the concept of the market, and of choice and freedom.

Anne Robinson was talking to the Marketing Director of Centre Parks holiday park company on Watchdog, the consumer-affairs programme on BBC1. She was trying to claim that it was some sort of dreadful offence that Centre Parks charge people far more in the school holidays than outside. She was livid, and went through a whole host of random complaints. She showed no hint of understanding when the Marketing Director pointed out that they were full at that time, so people must feel that it is value for money, and she went on at him about the additional charges they make for their activities.

The funniest part was failing to see the irony when people started saying that they had gone or would go elsewhere due to the price at Centre Parks. That is their choice – they are not forced to go to Centre Parks, or to indulge in extra activities when they are there. It is their choice to pay what Centre Parks’s choose to charge.

This shows the core problem with the BBC. They are an insular organisation, where charges and pay are not related to choice or to freedom but to some arbitrary concept of “fairness”. Oh, and that they think that paying Jonathan Woss £6 million a year has any relation to fairness.

Update: this self-righteous piece of ignorance is online now.