Bishop Hill Climate incentive, climate invective
Oct 6, 2013 Climate: Sceptics Climate: other 
Clive James has made another of his intermittent forays into the climate debate. In the course of a review of Brian Cox's Science Britannica programme he had this to say:
Fronting Science Britannica on BBC Two, Professor Cox visited the Royal Society and Bletchley Park in his quest for examples of the scientific method. Finally he dropped in on the Royal Institution, where he and the editor of Nature puzzled together, but not very hard, over how there has come to be an “overwhelming scientific consensus” favouring the concept of dangerous man-made global warming.
Neither of them asked what kind of scientific consensus it was if, say, Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies declined to join it. Isn’t the overwhelming scientific consensus really just a consensus between climate scientists, and therefore no more impressive than the undoubted fact that one hundred percent of gymnasium attendants believe that regular exercise is vital to longevity?
I think James is mistaken actually. The overwhelming scientific consensus is, as shown by Cook et al, nothing more noteworthy than the everyday observations that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that increasing concentrations will make the planet warmer; the "dangerous" bit is unwarranted extrapolation. And as readers at BH are aware, the Royal Society heard a vigorous debate last week over the strength of aerosols' influence on the climate, something that is critical to determining to what extent global warming is "dangerous".
Nevertheless James' remarks seem to have provoked the ire of the usual suspects:
Simon Singh: Sad to see Clive James buying into climate contrarians' propaganda
Jim Al-Khalili: Shame his clever prose wasted on drivel
Tamsin (who I would not classify as a suspect, usual or otherwise) meanwhile seems to have done a bit of a reanalysis of the article and concluded that James has decided that climate scientists have ulterior motives. This looks as though it's going to result in a letter of protest direct to James and possibly an open letter too.
It's all a bit absurd if you ask me. James has observed, not unreasonably, that there are eminent people who think that the global warming thing is overdone. In similarly uncontroversial terms he has drawn attention to the fact that people, including even scientists, respond to economic incentives. That scientists have an economic incentive to find evidence in favour of global warming being a problem is undeniable. Every single man jack of the climatological community is engaged in that field because they have weighed the financial and non-financial benefits against alternative employments and have decided that climate science is what they want to do. While Tamsin says that climate scientists could get better-paid employment elsewhere, we know in fact that every climate scientist thinks the non-financial benefits of their field outweigh the financial disadvantages.
This doesn't mean that global warming is a scam or that climatologists are all crooks; just that they do have an incentive. This is why Clive James is right to apply at least some kind of a discount to their opinions and to take heed, at least to some extent, of the "contrarian voices"; the ones at which the Simon Singhs of this world hurl their invective and which others strive so hard to silence.
Reader Comments (101)
kellydown : "I'm disappointed in the reactions of Simon Singh and Jim al-Khalili, broadcasters who I admired."
There are many people who generally portray themselves as sceptics, (Goldacre, Randi and Richard Wise spring to mind but there are many others) who are depressingly unsceptical about CAGW.
It occurs to me that their scepticism was less a questioning of scientific orthodoxy as of applying orthodox science to subjects like the paranormal, the more obviously rubbish alternative medicines and Big Pharma-funded studies.
Rarely, if ever, had they looked at a scientific "consensus" and questioned that. That would take real guts and they would have to forgo the back-slapping of their science mates.
I am sure that more than a few of them have a blind spot because they are aware of the possibility of science and peer review being skewed by big business (most of Goldacre's work is based on that) but less conscious of science being skewed by other factors including world-view, grant farming and saving the world egotism.
Their enemy is what they perceive to be the anti-scientific, but in the case of CAGW they have been duped into pinning that label onto the wrong party. Because of that they don't even bother examining the claims of climate sceptics from the sceptics point of view, only from the point of view of the orthodoxy.
@Simon Hopkinson and LevelGaze
In that case you would be surprised at just how many priests and pastors believe, as many ordinary folk do, that God was made entirely in Man's image and by Man at that!
At least 50 Anglican priests are reportedly of that belief, and for a priest to openly admit to such suggests it may be the thin end of a very large wedge, and even as long ago as 1999 the Synod of the CoE was debating whether there was need to re-introduce heresy tribunals.
Certainly when I was growing up in the 60s it was generally thought that a very large number of Anglican priests had no intrinsic belief in God although they thought the associated ethics were both good and important. Hhhmmm, might be some interesting parallels there.
Dodgy Geezer (1:54 PM)
The Le Fanu article which you cite, mentions Aaron Wildavsky's book "But is it true?" I highly recommend that book for its objective discussion of several areas in which science and public policy have overlapped. Unfortunately, the discussion on global warming is somewhat out-of-date now; one can only imagine his comments on more recent hype.
eSmiff (3:41 PM) -
I find such posts in extremely poor taste. There's no call for a personal attack on Dr Edwards. Let's try to keep things above the belt, and concentrate on facts and not personalities.
I think this may be quite an important development, at least within the luvvie culture in the UK. My supposition is that Clive James in his heyday was a much admired member of the chatterati/media regulars. He struck me, and still does, as a very sharp and bright man, and one who can be extremely entertaining as well as perceptive. If this impression is widely shared in the media, and I suspect it is, then Clive James poking a sardonic stick at such as Brian Cox is quite a big deal in that sub-culture. Unless he is no longer in the in-crowd.
Well that was a bit of a gobsmacker.
I'm quite encouraged though.
Tamsin has traveled so far in our direction since then - I think she should be awarded the rank of "Honorary Denier Third Class".
If she can sort out Loopy Lew down the corridor - I'd even make it First Class.
"Jim Al-Khalili: Shame his clever prose wasted on drivel"
Surely Jim was referring to the programme.
Re: Oct 6, 2013 at 6:16 PM | Foxgoose
Oh, I think it would be interesting to know how much of that presentation she would now refute before we start awarding any 'honoraries' !!!
Clive James writes:
"Neither of them asked what kind of scientific consensus it was if, say, Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute of Advanced Studies declined to join it."
Obviously, James draws our attention to the fact that, when the topic is the consensus, these "scientists" employ no critical intelligence whatsoever. This fact is evident to every grocery clerk at Safeway (US). The fact that it is not evident to the scientists is an embarrassment from which they will never recover.
Got a reply from , Oxford PPE graduate, Camilla Cavendish.
You'll all be relieved to to know that her considered opinion is;
"uncertainty over extreme weather do not to my mind negate the overall probability it assigns to climate change being anthropogenic"
So that's settled then.
See her reply and my response, below.
From: cavendish, Camilla
Sent: Sunday, October 6, 2013 1:29 PM
To: Don & Selina
Subject: Re: Greenpeace protesters
Thanks for this. As I said in the piece, a big issue is the hiatus in air temperature rise over 15 years, but there has not been a similar hiatus for the oceans. Parts of the ipcc report which point to uncertainty over extreme weather do not to my mind negate the overall probability it assigns to climate change being anthropogenic. Al best
Dear Ms. Cavendish, many thanks for your prompt reply. Whilst you are correct in saying that there “has not been a similar hiatus in ocean temperatures”, this paper “World Ocean Heat Content and Thermosteric Sea Level Change (0–2000 m), 1955–2010)” by Leviticus et al (2012)*, report conclusively demonstrates that any warming that has occurred at the very limit of measurability and is most likely not significant.
Here is the abstract:
We provide updated estimates of the change of ocean heat content and the thermosteric component of sea level change of the 0–700 and 0–2000 m layers of the World Ocean for 1955–2010. Our estimates are based on historical data not previously available, additional modern data, and bathythermograph data corrected for instrumental biases. We have also used Argo data corrected by the Argo DAC if available and used uncorrected Argo data if no corrections were available at the time we downloaded the Argo data. The heat content of the World Ocean for the 0–2000 m layer increased by 24.0 ± 1.9 × 1022 J (±2S.E.) corresponding to a rate of 0.39 W m−2 (per unit area of the World Ocean) and a volume mean warming of 0.09°C.
That last number (0.09 degrees) is the “money shot”. What they are saying is that in the last 55 years the oceans have warmed by less than one tenth of 1 degree. Put like this it is not very scary is it?
So once again- I ask you to think very carefully about the information you have been provided with.
Just because it is “climate change” and all about “saving the planet”, should not give breathless headlines from the IPCC and other pressure groups a “free pass”, rather they should be subject to the same objective scrutiny as any other story.
Regards,
Don Keiller.
*Geophysical Research Letters
Volume 39, Issue 10, May 2012
doi:10.1029/2012GL051106
According to that twitter link (in the original post above) the person who suggested to Tamsin that she should write an open letter to Clive James, is Robin Ince - the comedian who used to live with Ricky Gervais.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDltFnXkttk
Geldof, Ince - they're bringing out the big guns.
Bad Andrew: "I'm sorry, I missed when this was demonstrated. And by who, with what process."
Exactly!
BH: "(...) the everyday observations that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and that increasing concentrations will make the planet warmer (...)"
Really? What 'everyday observations' show us that increasing atmospheric concentrations of CO2 will make the planet warmer?
Ince and Cox present that R4 programme 'The Infinite Monkey Cage'. I keep meaning to write in and correct the error in the premise of that programme which they explained in the first episode. They stated that the name came from the experiment whereby if you had a cage with an infinite number of monkeys with typewriters they would eventually produce the complete works of Shakespeare. Obviously, if you had an infinite number of monkeys they would instantaneously produce the complete works as soon as they started timing. Ince I can forgive for that error but Britain's greatest TV physicist?
Sorry, I digress.
P.S.
If only we could get the Chuckle Brothers and the Krankies on our side. Then we might stand a chance.
(Sorry if double post.)
ESmiff,
There is no value in such nastypersonal attacks upon Tamsin Edwards, who has been civil, reasonable, and engaging in discussions with a great many people of varied backgrounds. I know you seem to enjoy such bilious effusions, but Tamsin deserves much better from anyone.
HaroldW and Skiphil
I didn't attack Tamsin Edwards and I have nothing against her or BrianCox. The information about her came from a personal reply to me (from her). I didn't ask her for the information. I am too polite ! She seems like a VERY nice person, but she is obviously trying for a position as a BBC science interviewee or more. She won't be able to do that unless she is prepared to lie about global warming.
Here is the problem. There are large number of people out there who will have to decide whether to stay warm or to eat this winter. All because of an army of 'scientists' who are too frightened or too greedy to tell the truth. The truth is that human beings do not understand how the climate works in any detail, never mind have models that can predict its future state.
They aren't wrong, they aren't misguided, they are lying and everyone here knows it. Ask Freeman Dyson. Once someone starts using their personal qualities or position to amplify their mendacity, they are fair game to me .
James Lovelock on scientists
Sometimes their view might be quite right, but it might also be pure propaganda. This is wrong. They should ask the scientists, but the problem is scientists won't speak. If we had some really good scientists it wouldn't be a problem, but we've got so many dumbos who just can't say anything, or who are afraid to say anything. They're not free agents.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock?
Q. What was the air temperature of the mid Atlantic in 1234 ?
Is this Simon Singh the same Simon Singh who has been taken to court for libel after contesting the claims of an alternative medical process (full details elude me)?
What sweet, sweet irony if that is the case!
'He might care to remember, though, that two of his predecessors in the Top Beeb Boffin role – Nigel Calder and David Bellamy – have never been allowed back on the air since they failed to join the chorus about the dangers of global warming.'
And not forgetting the Late Sir Patrick Moore:- perhaps the BBC's most revered and respected scientific personality ever, with not only the longest running BBC science programme in television history-'The Sky At Night', but also the longest-running programme with the same presenter in television history. But his thoughts on global warming were never aired.
'Now for global warming. Of course we are going through a period of warming, but so far as human culpability is concerned I am a total sceptic and I fear we are dealing with political manoeuvring. There was, for example, much greater marked warming at the end of the Maunder Minimum; what about the Mediaeval Maximum, when Britain was hotter than it is now? No doubt, the present period of warming will be followed by a period of cooling, as has happened in the past time and time again. After all, the Sun is to a mild extent a variable star and we cannot control it –'
(The Late) Sir Patrick Moore
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wea.38/pdf
yes, Radical, it is that very same Simon Singh. One can say Singh being forced to defend global warming orthodoxy after so valiantly battling homeopathy is the revenge of Asclepius
[Snip - raise the tone please]
Blimey. It's worse than I thought.
The Guardian now has comedian Stewart Lee commenting on climate change.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/06/news-dad-communist-stewart-lee
The Chuckle Brothers and the Krankies aren't going to be enough to combat this. We'll need backup. Anyone know how the Cheeky Girls stand on this issue?
"Increasing concentrations 'will' make the planet warmer" ?? No.
So many other things can happen:
A string of volcanic eruptions.
Heat disappearing into the ocean.
Cloud cover doing it's own thing.
Unexpected changes in ocean circulation.
Meteorite impacts
& god knows what else.
I wonder if part of the problem is that Brian Cox and crew are physicists and so tend to deal in not very 'complex' things.
i.e they can model particles/ rocks moving in a vacuum perfectly and so come to beleive that the real world is also dead simple and straightforward?
James Evans
Try this
http://www.beourguests.co.uk/news/2008/07/page/2/
Pharos.
That's it then. We're toast.
James Evans: thank you for ruining my evening. I saw the name Stewart Lee, and another face reared surfaced in my mind, so I had a look at the Guardian.
Perhaps he thinks he is being very witty, insightful and funny; perhaps other people tell him that he is so. Whoever is to blame should have to face court proceedings for crimes against humanity.
Funding the IPCC and its scientific support is clearly a waste of money. Booker points out to day that the scientific reports are doctored to suit the summary for policy makers which was modified by the poiticos to suit their agenda. So why bother with funding the science as 95% of scientists are supposed to agree. Stop the gravy train.
When being away from the net for a day or so I now realise I do tend to check my twitter feed first for a reality hit when I get back - which is probably wrong ;)
When I reconnected today I saw much flutter about Clive James writing an article in which he apparently committed some level of climate faux pas that even seemed to get Tamsin Edwards disapproval.
That got me interested...
I did two things immediately.
Read Clive James article.
Then watched the show he criticized on iPlayer.
(EDIT: Third Then saw this excellent BH thread with comments saying exactly my immediate observation about touchiness; especially about money.)
Now note; Clive James is one of the best TV critics of the last 40 years Stop your internal dialogue, he is...
But this doesn't mean he may not have gone emeritus and said something crazy bastard thing based on his rabid innate prejudice.
After my biased investigation this boils down to James observations that natural science dialogue has a different face now. I.e. Nigel Calder and David Bellamy have now been replace by the gurning Brian Cox.
Clive James is probably one of the last people who can notice this and still write about it.
Obviously this may upset some people.
Or maybe this is where the pain lies?, my emphasis:
I love the "puzzled together, but not very hard" I think this is what get the "scientists" goat. Clive James notices the media pretense and posturing because he has a lifetime observing it.
Clive James has never claimed to know more than any scientist but he knows what he sees and as I said at the beginning he saw a couple of media gobshites bullshitting us.
Let us not forget that when talking about climate to Phil Campbell of Nature we need to remember:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3420e1d0-17d8-11df-a74d-00144feab49a.html#axzz2gxvOpr4U
Campbell is the same smirking asshole whose self-interest had to need such an overt faux pas to get him thrown off the Muir Russel panel. The rest is history of is it the Hockey Stick Illusion?
I really think Clive James didn't even know that ;)
Jim Al-Khalili finds Clive James' comments "drivel", in other words he says Clive was speaking foolishly like a drooling idiot. Well, while he is entitled to disagree with Clive's good humouredly made point, it is ungentlemanly of Jim to use insult to rebut it.
I would not trouble to comment except that Jim Al-Khalili is professor of Public Engagement In Science. It seems professor's idea of engagement doesn't run to debate, evidence, or persuasion. Perhaps it is not surprising as he stands on the shoulders of that other scientist who previously held a similar position, Richard Dawkins.
It's very unfortunate that both professors have abused their position to slap-down oppositon rather than bring Enlightenment.
Both these scientists have allowed their materialist world view to obscure reason. Both are engaged on proselytizing for scientism not science.
Many 'climate scientists' defend their belief in AGW just as Ed Miliband defends his father.
One thing is clear. The AGW catastrophists are in deep trouble. In mainstream climate science their research models predicting severe warming, with supposed dire consequences for not just humanity, but, even more fancifully, for anything and everything in general, has signally failed to materialise, and their political masters are uneasy.
As an explorationist I call it the dry hole baptism. Its much like a long drawn out embarassing realisation similar to any young geologist when his first glowing prospect, replete with structural trap integrity, sourcing and reservoir facies model, earnestly evaluated and finally accepted by management and partners to invest £12 million in drilling up, has finally spudded in and reached the prognosed target depth and them some, finding nothing but another comprehensively dry hole. In industry, he then learns early in his career that humility and respect for the immense challenge of unpredictable natural variability, and moves on, older and wiser.
In climate science that indoctrinal initiation of the first failed prognosis is painfully long drawn out, and the failure potentially exposed to devastating public ridicule and political blame.
I say again, the AGW catastrophists are in deep trouble.
"Tamsin's rare lapse of judgement may be explained by the fact that most of the article is poking fun at her PhD supervisor Brian Cox"
he does come across as a bit of a airy/fairy nob with little substance, what does he do science wise, who pays him ?
link I found - he works on the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider
nice work if you can find it - play around at CERN & BBC & get paid from both.
ps. don't get me started on the particle physics bandwagon which has been going on at least as long as the climate one.
Wow yeah..
Eddie Murphy voice: Get the f*ck out here..! really?
BTW my last - 'plosive question was to
6, 2013 at 2:01 PM | Registered CommenterPaul Matthews
One of the problems is precisely that Tamsin Edwards is on a short term contract outside her own field. That has been my view from the beginning. This scam is being run by fear. Employees can't speak out against their employees nowadays.
Dr Edwards is exactly the type of individual the science community needs. What she needs is a proper job that can offer her a reasonably secure future.
Employees can't speak out against their employers nowadays.
Hey,
Imagine that both Tamsin Edwards and her mentor Brian Cox could silence the stupid poet and aged colonial Aussie science transgressing fuckwit Clive James?
Would that not make such a wonderful world?
Does that hope bring a tear to your fascist eye?
- Incredible James points out Cox 1.shows the rules for science, then 2. exempts climate science from science rules
So in 2013 we have :
Greens are not Green,
Science Skeptics are not Skeptical
and Scientists are not scientific
(* apply the word most/many in front of each category)
- seems "fear goggles" cause them to think too fast and rush to conclusions
- I think eSmiff is entitled to be firm about Tamsin ..all too often we let the warmists do all the shouting when actually it is important for us to express anger ..it matters !
The ironic thing is the Cox episode after the one James reviewed (and which I watched by accident looking for this one) is one of the most egregious bullshit arguments for basic science I think anyone could make ever make.
Pielke Jr spotted Cox doing this before
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/faith-based-science-policy.html
but this episode is most clear by his disingenuousness
The Cox moron (Yes I'm sure he's clever) says about modern UK pharma :
“Providing cures for previously untreatable diseases”
Eh!? does it treat or cure?
...
In that statement he signs off a whole paradigm of pharma ... as if targeted deliberate health design is good and implies it works.
Later, however, Cox then actually claims that 19th C targeted health design that looked for Quinine fails and finds a stupid colour is proof of serendipity in public funding.
One of the poorest arguments committed to BBC film.
This should be recognized as a clear cognitive f*ck up that Baron-Cohen could correct but - hey he doesn't because he's on telly too so forget about autism and just laughs like an idiot ;)
The overwhelming consensus prior to the global warming consensus was that the sun ruled the climate. I'd say 95% of all scientists probably agreed with that one. There were not as many climatologists then though. And there it is - without the dubious manmade warming notion the majority of the new consensus would not even be in their current jobs. Just how many departments of universities, quangos and entire institutions would be irrelevant? So they are institutionally biased whether they believe it or not, just as Clive noted. As such their collective belief, more of a gut feeling in fact since the actual facts refute it, is too biased to be useful. The sheer number of scientists lying in public about the actual science is enough to make all independent thinkers barf.
The IPCC has effectively said though that while manmade warming has happened, it hasn't had any actual effect yet, beyond making life a little easier for those living in the Arctic. They even admitted they don't know why it has paused. If the pause was caused by aerosols then we are faced with the fact that manmade warming and manmade cooling effectively cancel each other out - something that was also concluded when the global cooling scare was in fashion in the mid 70's. And if the alternative guess where 'missing heat' goes in the deep sea is to be entertained then that means mother nature has managed to cope with manmade warming after all. There is no way to get from either of these scenarios to alarm unless we are all supposed to believe an extremely unlikely worst case of hidden heat suddenly exploding from the sea all at once, presumably again bypassing the surface by that selfsame unknown, unphysical mechanism,
Now we need the media to get through their thick skulls a) that such moderate observed warming is universally known to be beneficial whether manmade or not, b) that all alarm comes from utterly inadequate models that are refuted by observations and c) that there is nothing at all ethical about increasing the cost of energy based on the slim possibility that a sudden rapid warming spell will appear out of nowhere. The latter notion apparently being based on nothing more than the biased gut-feeling of researchers (not experts by any stretch) who are fully confident about the correlation/causation of CO2 when temperature increases but who haven't a clue how to explain cooling periods.
I think insights from other disciplines can be very helpful. Last year Judith Curry posted an article from the journal Radiology titled "Education and the Art of Uncertainty." I expressed an opinion similar to the one you give here.
Oh BTW the description of the discovery of Quinine accident to purple dye was done far better by James Burke in about 1978 in Connections. Burke also went on to inform us at the time how Germany far out stripped us and later became masters of organic chemistry.
Cox deliberate focus on British hegemony in his version is shite.
Cox is a huge fan of the talented but nuclear winter delusional Carl Sagan.
Sagan came after James Burke in the documentary world.
Cox is pretending to be Sagan. Says it all.
"This is why Clive James is right to apply at least some kind of a discount to their opinions and to take heed, at least to some extent, of the "contrarian voices"; the ones at which the Simon Singhs of this world hurl their invective and which others strive so hard to silence."
Silence Clive James? Hah! A Clive James whisper is audible around the world. The Singhs et al, not so much. Maybe to the end of their cul-de-sac on a bright sunny day with a following wind.
How many astrologists subscribe to the mainstream view that astrology is a pseudo-science?
If scientists are wholly objective, are double blind trials an unnecessary expense?
Oct 6, 2013 at 3:08 PM | chris y
excellent comment chris y
If Tamsin has time to spare, perhaps she could return to the Report from the Royal thread where there are a few unanswered questions which refer to her field. A report of the meeting from her POV would I suppose be time-consuming, much as I'd like to see it.
(I do not much like to see these doyens of climate piling on to the likes of Clive James while they leave RGB at Duke unanswered. Clive James is not a player. He is watching from the sidelines. Why not tackle the players who are actually on the pitch?)
From who would you take advice on what drug to take to cure your ills, your GP or drug company bio-chemists? I'm betting most would answer the former, so much for argumentum ad auctoritatem
Anybody who is interested in the climate debate (and that includes the much-admired Tamsin) will benefit from reading another Clive James gem at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8408386.stm
Cox is basically a cut price Sagan, without the intellectual core. As for being a prof he has written only a few papers and those in conjunction with dozens of other authors. His being given the title of prof angered a lot of us in Manchester as it was given not for doing science but for being on TV. I first saw him give a lecture at the Inst of Phys in 2006 giving a lecture on communicating science. It was straight out of the pages of Sagan's books. The others giving lectures, including a well known science journalist, wiped the floor with him.
I think he has a whinging voice and often talks drivel, but it's the BBC's constant promotion of him that annoys me. Is there any program they won't get him on. It will be ready steady cook next! Either that or there will be Brian Cox bogpaper in the loos at the BBC or a Brian Cox doll in the BBC shop that says "AAAMAAAZZZINGGG" when you pull a piece of string.
Coldish
And this...
Link
Which also questions the null hypothesis conveniently ignored by Cox and Alkhalili. I sometimes wonder if Alkhalili is something you should take for indigestion, but in my case, it seems to have caused it...
Latimer Adler: "I doubt that there is a single climo below the age of 45 who joined the field and didn't realise that (C)AGW is the Great Provider of income, jobs and careers."
Not only that, but career scientists are inducted via undergraduate degrees where they learn the current orthodoxy from the establishment; few will go on to challenge it, even in postgraduate studies. In science, as in all other human activities, there are many followers and only a few leaders.