Tuesday
Oct162012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Joke of the week
Oct 16, 2012 Energy: other Quotes I did really hear the story that a Minister, when told that the 'renewable energy facility' he was inspecting was limited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics, suggested that an Act of Parliament could be introduced into The House to remedy the situation?
Oct 16, 2012 at 8:44 AM | Robert Christopher Bishop Hill blog
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Reader Comments (43)
. . . limited by the Second Law of Thermodynamics
I recall a physicist recounting on TV of how, when seeking to persuade a US Congressional Committee of the futility of Ronald Reagan's StarWars program, he patiently explained that the requisite energy levels would be in the region of 10 to the power of 42 of whatever unit he was using but that the maximum possible with even the most optimistic forecasts of technical progress was ten to the power of 21.
"What!" shouts a Committee member, "We're half-way there already?"
Nothing about the level of scientific ignorance of our current crop of Arts/Humanities/PPE graduate Ministers would surprise me.
I seem to recall this joke being something along the lines of the Minister being told that the output of the offshore wind farm couldn't be delivered and it was all because of Ohm's Law. To which the Minister said "no problem", he'd soon get an amendment passed.
You didn't give the name of the minister, hence I'm still waiting for the joke.
Philip Bratby
The problem is that either joke is believable and could apply to 95% of the cabinet and the same percentage of Ed Millibands lot.
Reminds me of a personal experience. I was attending a meeting in Winnipeg Canada in the early to mid 90's when the federal government was opening discussions with the energy industry and research centers on possible policy responses to "global warming".
The meeting was sponsored and attended by a senior cabinet minister. In a one on one discussion over a coffee break he pointed at a hand sketched curve of the rising atmospheric CO2 and said, "It's simple really, all we have to do is bend this curve down instead of up".
Don Keiller
Ed Davey has first class BA degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics.
Had 2 years as a "management consultant" before being snapped up by the Lib Dims.
No actual "job". No Science, Maths or Engineering expertise.
Ideally suited to be Energy Minister then..................../sarc off
Old Mike
I thought that's what they were all doing anyway.
Or up instead of down.
Or left instead of right.
Or something.
Whatever you fancy, minister.
There was a hospital meeting about a persistent outbreak. The director was an economist or something. When told the outbreak was caused by Candida, he asked who she was, that he would sack her right away. True.
You don't have to be a scientist to be stoopid.
My wife was records manager for one of the "top" departments (I won't name the department) of the New Zealand Reserve Bank (which is based on the Terrace in Wellington) which is the equivalent, but much smaller, of the Bank of England.
All of the "senior" staff were multi degreed, minimum of 3 degrees.
One day, one of these geniuses came into my wife's office and handed her an envelope with the word "Freepost" on it and he asked her what that meant. She explained what it meant and he walked off only to go into the next door office where my wife's 2nd in charge was located. My wife clearly heard the same question being asked of her assistant!
At this stage I think the penny dropped...to coin (another bloody pun!) a phrase.
PW
I wish more journalists would nobble politicos that they are interviewing with the occasional simple question, such as: what does a loaf of bread cost, or much useful power does a windmill produce, or how much of the atmosphere is CO2? The trouble, I suspect, is that they don't know either.
Ed Davy I assume being a LudDim.
I remember Nicol Stephen, on a a BBC "debate" on Scotland's Energy Future (2 teams - one for more windmills and the other for noting byt windmills). He said he was against nuclear because the scientists could only get 40% efficiency out of the boilers. He would have been inn favour if they could get 100%!
Jazznick "No actual job" is a real problem.
We should insist that all potential MPs had experience in successfully running the proverbial "whelk-stall" (successfully) before being eligible to stand.
Ed Davey: Apparently he worked at Pork Farms factory as a teenager - so he should have a some expertise in pork suasages and pork pies :-)
Oct 16, 2012 at 3:32 PM | Phillip Bratby
You may well be correct (Ohm's Law), but I still think that Thermodynamics was mentioned, as it is a subject with which I am not so familiar.
Still, it feels good to be famous!
JOIN REPEAL THE ACT! DEMO
GREEN ISN'T WORKING
Thursday 10AM 18 October 2012 in London
HM Treasury 1 Horse Guards Road,
London SW1A 2HQ
Rally outside HM Treasury at 10 am
for video messages, photos, talk to the press and media
Deliver our postcards to Chancellor George Osborne
Contact: fay@repealtheact.org.uk
WE NEED 5 - 10 PEOPLE FOR OUR SMALL SCALE DEMO
(We have informed the Wesminster police of our plans and that it will be small max 10 and static outside the Treasury from 10am -11.30am)
SAY NO TO THE SOCK PUPPET GREEN NGOs
Come and join our Green isn't working small scale demo and oppose the Stop Climate Chaos Coallitions PR photo stunt Green is working. The coalition of Green NGOs are again pretending to represent civil society in support of the Climate Change Act. This group will wear a uniform of black coats, green ties and green hard hats - "Green workers". They intend to march down the street in front of the Treasury waving NGO flags in the style of Green Nazi storm troopers at 10.30am! (Honestly, you couldn't make it up!)
These professional 'Sock Puppet' Green NGOs do not represent civil society and increase the democratic deficite.
Read the IEA report on the 'Sock Puppet' NGOs "How the government lobbies itself and why."
MEET THE PRESS
We expect this to be a small scale demonstration of 5-10 people to meet the press. This is also our opportunity to let the government, NGOs and the press know how we feel about windfarms, green taxes on our energy bills, the destruction of our countryside and increasing fuel poverty.
TIME TABLE:
10 am meet outside HM Treasury. Deliver our two postcards to the Chancellor George Osborne, 'Green isn't working' and 'Axe CO2 super tax'.
10.15 am video speeches/messages on why you feel Green isn't working (let me know if you wish to say a few words on camera. This video will be on Youtube and our repealtheact website and emailed to MPs.
10.30 am Let the green NGO know why green isn't working.
10.45 am Walk to Parliament Square - Take more photos video protest messages for youtube.
11 am Following our Green isn't working demo we will go to Parliament Square to take photos and from 11.30am meet press and media around Old Palace Yard SW1P 3JY.
11.45 am Go to St Stephen's Tavern pub for a pint/ tea, a chat and lunch - (at 10 Bridge Street, Westminster).
Please register here
http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4586616694/efblike
ALL WELCOME
Oh How I love those words!
Superb Robert.
At least he did not ask for a non-executive board position (with very reasonable fees) in return for promoting the bill.
We have a Minister in Parliament who's job is to change the global climate. So the joke is on us.
Sadly, this is no more humorous than my discovery (while teaching in outer London) that apparently no member of the DFES or MP responsible (however temporarily) for education understood that half of any pupil/student group must be, by definition, below average in their performance by any measure. Nor did they understand that the other half of those groups must, by definition, be above average by any measure.
I once caused a brief flurry of concern by telling the members of a hospital management board that half the doctors in the hospital were below average ability!
A Ukrainian political committee when recommended that a 2-stroke engine would solve the overweight problem of the currently tasked 4-stroke decided that a 3-stroke engine should be developed to reduce the risk inherent in the change.
Politics and engineering don't mix. Next they will be approving intermittent power generation as the replacement for constant power generation:-(
16 Oct: Cambridge City News: Chris Havergal: Global warming ‘may not exist’ says council leader
Cllr Nick Clarke said on his blog climate change science was “not backed up with facts” after Met Office figures showed there had been no discernible rise in global temperatures in the last 16 years…
The Conservative’s views were condemned as an “embarrassment” by opposition councillors, and the Met Office said climate change could only be detected over many decades.
But Cllr Clarke, who represents Fulbourn and has overseen cuts to the council’s climate change activities, attacked the “bullying tactics” of “bourgeois left-wing academics” on the issue…
Cllr Clarke wrote that the Earth warmed up and cooled down on a fairly regular basis, and it was a “bit arrogant” to claim humans’ ability to affect things was “more significant than nature itself”.
He said it was “sad” that anyone who questioned the “alarmist doomsday scenario” was “automatically labelled someone who threatens the future of humanity”.
Cllr Sarah Whitebread, Lib Dem environment spokeswoman, said: “As a former member of UKIP, Cllr Clarke’s unscientific views on climate change are hardly surprising.
“But that he has deleted the council’s entire climate change function and is publicly peddling this nonsense is still an embarrassment in one of the UK’s most successful centres of knowledge and research.”…
http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Cambridge/Global-warming-a-theory-by-bourgeois-left-wingers-16102012.htm
Bizarre indeed. Let's try and help the politician out.
In the vernacular:
1st Law = "You cannot win."
2nd Law = "You cannot even draw [tie]."
3rd Law = "This is the only game in town."
A "lawyer's" way around the 2nd Law is to argue that it would not hold at absolute zero [0 Kelvin].
But, the 3rd Law says that you cannot reach absolute zero in a finite number of steps. Therefore the 2nd Law must hold until The Restaurant at The End of The Universe. This is why the 2nd Law is sometimes described as "a pessimist's charter".
Alexander K,
I calculate the average of, say, the four numbers: 1, 2, 3, and 10, to be 16/4, which is 4. Three quarters of the numbers are below average, unless I have misunderstood you?
can the minister amend the law of gravity please? Would be greatly appreciated.
Alexander K and munroad
You actual meant to say median as that is the point in a distribution with 50% above and 50% below - not the mean or average as michael hart has pointed out. Doesn't sound as good though
On the subject of averages, please remember that the vast majority of people have more than the average number of arms and legs. And I include myself in that population.
now, now, michael never use sum/n as the simple mean when you have non-normal data or you will look like a politician, for non-normal data the median is correct. For normal data about half will be above and about half below and the mean and the median will be much the same
AndrewKennet:
;-)
'Ohms Law' they can't scrap that, it's the peoples resistance law to stop them currently in power coming into my house and turning my amp down.
I'll get my coat.
> Nor did they understand that the other half of those groups must, by
> definition, be above average by any measure.
It's like the current definition of child 'poverty', which AIUI is defined as 60% of the median income.
Ie you'll always have a fairly large proportion of families in this bracket.
Alan, AndrewKennett, SimonJ et al
All true. The word 'average' can, as I understand it mean median, mode or mean.
All of the above examples serve to remind us of the 'Flaw of Averages'.
There was a documentary on BBC4 last night about the 2nd Law and how it eventually did for poor old Ludwig Boltzmann, it ( amongst other things) so depressed him that he hanged himself.
The 2nd Law always reminds me of that episode in Dr Who where the lovely Mary Tamm (RIP) first appeared and the Doctor meets the White Guardian, who makes him an offer he can't refuse :
Doctor: And what happens to me if I refuse ?
Guardian : Nothing, Doctor.
Doctor: Nothing ?
Guardian : Nothing... ever.
p.s. Re: DaveB's first comment. The funny thing about Reagan's Star Wars was how the scientific community simply misunderstood what it was about. I remember a Tomorrow's World programme on the BBC that was dedicated to debunking the science behind it. I was only 16 or so at the time, but I saw through Star Wars immediately. It was designed to push the Soviets into an unwinnable arms race and thus break them. It was 100% successful.
Well,
in the hospital example and with the example of results of 1, 3, 4 and 10 we can say that currently only one in four of our staff is above average. However, if we sack that best person we can have 2/3 of our staff above average.
John Barrett: after the pretend collapse of the Soviet Union [it morphed into the EUSSR and the green movement], i worked in Russia quarantining key technologies they developed to make their beam weapons, amongst other uses. They were 15 years ahead of the West with tonnage scale production of nano particles, metals and ceramics.
Here in the US, we also have politicians that are intellectually challenged. Witness Nancy Pelosi, at the time Speaker of the US House of Representatives:
On NBC’s “Meet the Press” in August of 2008, the speaker twice seemed to suggest that natural gas – an energy source she favors – is not a fossil fuel.
“I believe in natural gas as a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels,” she said at one point. Natural gas “is cheap, abundant and clean compared to fossil fuels,” she said at another.
Need I say more?
Link==> http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2008/08/24/pelosi-on-natural-gas-fossil-fuel-or-not/
"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics!"
Homer Simpson
I've just looked up what I believed tops the lot, but sadly, it's not true
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/805/did-a-state-legislature-once-pass-a-law-saying-pi-equals-3
Statisticians use the average to mean the only mean. It is social scientists who talk about the median and the mode being different sorts of average. This is confusing and regarded as incorrect in the world of mathematical statistics. The BBC is particularly ignorant where means and medians are concerned. Important as pverty is defined relative to the median household income.
Has anyone actually considered that the politician concerned might actually have been joking?
Easy as it is to debunk a politician, I do find it difficult that any of them could be so dense as to truly consider a paper law could overturn a physical law.
As for the Cambridge councillor (Nick Clarke), the retorts from his colleagues are, sadly, the same as usual: “…Cllr Clarke’s unscientific views are hardly surprising.” Apparently, this – using the obviously scientific logic of the lady in question – is because he once was a member of UKIP. Just another attack on the person, not the scientific argument.
Jonathan careful now or some of us might go all statty on your rear-end or send you over to Lucia's Blackboard to learn yourself some stats. Mean, Median and Mode are all measures of Central Tendency or Typical Value and each has the right time for its use and statisticians know when to use one and when to use the other. Politicians and journos --- not so much
Well that's not so bad - he's still got philosophy to fall back on.
I heard that the same minister had decided to recycle urine as part of his renewable energy campaign, but this was rejected as "taking the piss" by the same back benchers who rejected his idea to run the lights off the hot air generated during parliamentary sessions.
Robert