Quote of the day

"There is a tightly knit group of individuals who passionately believe in their thesis. However, our perception is that this group has a self-reinforcing feedback mechanism and, moreover, the work has been sufficiently politicized that they can hardly reassess their public positions without losing credibility."

Statistician Edward Wegman on climate scientists in a report to the US House of Representatives.

H/T Climate Audit 

US Gun Laws

A federal appeals court has come down on the side of an individual right to bear arms and ruled that Washington DC's gun control law is unconstitutional.

Most commentators seem to think this is a big deal. DC is has some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the US together with very high crime levels. No doubt the crime figures for the capital will be watched extremely closely in coming months. 

Update:

The Cato Institute are saying that it is likely that a stay will be put in place, so it may still be years before there is any impact on the man in the street. 

A lie flies half way round the world....

....before the truth has got its underpants on. Or something like that.

The Great Global Warming Swindle appears to be issue du jour on many blogs today, and there have been a lot of interesting contributions on both sides. Unoftunately a fairly blatant attempt to discredit some of the contributors has been wending its way round the LibDem blogs, and I have done what I can to nip it in the bud, but it may be too late now.

In a comment on Liberal Polemic, Thomas Papworth stated that some of the contributors to the programme were "not what they seemed". This appeared to be based on this comment at a blog called Ballots Balls & Bikes made by another LibDem blogger called Joe Otten.

Apparently they had fake academics from non-existent departments in that programme.

I left a comment at Joe's blog, asking where this had come from. The source was this thread at Bad Science. Comment 43 stated:

What I found most infuriating however, was the use of so-called experts with non-existing university affiliations. For example, Philip Stott is not a professor at the “Department of Biogeography ” at the “University of London”. No such department exists. He used to be a professor at the Geography Department at SOAS (an institution better know for its cultural studies than climate change research).

Equally, Tim Bell can’t be affiliated with the “Department of Climatology” at the University of Winnipeg, because this department does not exist, nor does he work at the University of Winnipeg. Apparently, he left in 1996 to become a consultant.

As far as Philip Stott goes, I knew this to be absolute nonsense. Professor Stott is well known to anyone who follows science in the UK, particularly bloggers, and he is a regular commenter on BBC programmes about science. To suggest that he is a "fake" in this way strikes me as potentially libellous. I would have thought BB&B would want to consider removing the comment. Philip Stott's Wikipedia page is here.Can anyone really suggest that labelling him as Professor in the Department of Biogeography is a misrepresentation?

Tim Ball (not Bell), I hadn't come across before, but he also has a Wikipedia page which is here. There seems to be some doubt as to whether he was the first Canadian PhD in climatology but it is undisputed that he was a professor at the University of Winnipeg and did research into the historic climate. He is clearly qualified to speak with some authoritaty on the subject of climate change. Again, calling him a fake appears somewhat risky, particularly as he appears to know his neighbourhood libel lawyer's telephone number.

This all looks to me like an attempt to play the man rather than the ball. Given that one of the central claims of the programme was that climate heretics were persecuted, this rather proves the point, doesn't it?

Quote of the day

In the light of the Patrick Mercer affair, this is worth revisiting. 

Our merely social intolerance [of dissentient opinion], kills no one, roots out no opinions, but induces men to disguise them, or to abstain from any active effort for their diffusion. With us, heretical opinions do not perceptibly gain or even lose, ground in each decade or generation; they never blaze out far and wide, but continue to smoulder in the narrow circles of thinking and studious persons among whom they originate, without ever lighting up the general affairs of mankind with either a true or a deceptive light. And thus is kept up a state of things very satisfactory to some minds, because, without the unpleasant process of fining or imprisoning anybody, it maintains all prevailing opinions outwardly undisturbed, while it does not absolutely interdict the exercise of reason by dissentients afflicted with the malady of thought. A convenient plan for having peace in the intellectual world, and keeping all things going on therein very much as they do already. But the price paid for this sort of intellectual pacification, is the sacrifice of the entire moral courage of the human mind. A state of things in which a large portion of the most active and inquiring intellects find it advisable to keep the genuine principles and grounds of their convictions within their own breasts, and attempt, in what they address to the public, to fit as much as they can of their own conclusions to premises which they have internally renounced, cannot send forth the open, fearless characters, and logical, consistent intellects who once adorned the thinking world. The sort of men who can be looked for under it, are either mere conformers to commonplace, or time-servers for truth whose arguments on all great subjects are meant for their hearers, and are not those which have convinced themselves. Those who avoid this alternative, do so by narrowing their thoughts and interests to things which can be spoken of without venturing within the region of principles, that is, to small practical matters, which would come right of themselves, if but the minds of mankind were strengthened and enlarged, and which will never be made effectually right until then; while that which would strengthen and enlarge men's minds, free and daring speculation on the highest subjects, is abandoned.

John Stuart Mill On Liberty 

Equation blogging

I've never blogged about Maths before - my reader numbers are quite small enough already. But I came across this today, and it is pretty amazing. If you take the following equation

(where mod and x are particular mathematical functions) and you plot a graph of it you get this:

Which you have to admit is pretty amazing. The equation, which is called Tupper's Self-Referential Equation is from here. 

Patrick Mercer

I find the whole farrago over Patrick Mercer completely unedifying. We can't go on having people like Mercer and Bob Piper driven out of their jobs because they touch on race in some unapproved way. It's stifling any sensible debate, and the only winners will be the BNP.

Fact of the day

According to a survey conducted by Harvard economists Michael Kremer and Karthik Muralidharan, 80% of Indian government school teachers send their children to private schools.

The state is not your friend. 

H/T Mercatus

Office of National Lies & Distortion

Back in 2005 I noted Labour's declaration that they would legislate for the operational independence of the Office of National Statistics. The ONS would be run by an independent board of governors Gordon said. It would have a similar degree of independence as the Bank of England we were told.

At the time I pointed out that it was unlikely ever to happen, which is why I was thrilled to read in the Times this week that I was largely correct. The bill has now almost completed its progress through Parliament and the Economist has reported its key features.

• A new National Statistics Board will be set up. This body will be responsible for preparing lies on behalf of the government and can take the blame if they get found out.
  
• Its remit will not cover all statistics - only "national" ones, thereby avoiding any unpleasantness over say, crime figures or other politically risky lies.
• It will not be allowed to collect any figures that ministers find inconvenient. The ONS is to concentrate on lying in non-critical areas.
  
• It will not be allowed to dictate the timing of the release of figures - the correct timing of a lie is often crucial in ensuring it goes unnoticed ("burying bad lies").
  
• Ministers will continue to see figures before release in case the ONS try to sneak anything truthful out.
  
• Explanation of the figures is not to be prepared by the board in case they try to explain what the figures actually would have shown if the government weren't lying about them.
  

Really though, this has been a masterful piece of politics. Announce a policy to take the sting out of the opposition, then delay and obfusc like your life depended on it before producing an emasculated shred of legislative nothing. Then just keep on lying.

Voices from Blair's Britain

We are supposed to be a 'free country' yet it's always like we have to answer to 'Big Brother' I'm really sick of it! I'm sick of being petrified of my postman, sick of being 'scared' to answer my phone! Sick of being answerable to anyone and everyone about what I choose is best for my own child! When will people realise that when you have a child, you have the right, as the parent, to choose what is best for your child, and your decisions should not be questionable?!

A home educator, writing on a private online forum.

There are now apparently between 100,000 and 200,000 home educating families in the UK, most of whom have a healthy scepticism of the good intentions of the state, and particularly of the current incumbents. That could easily be 100,000 votes for any political party which says it will make it easier to home educate and will prevent local authorities from oppressing those who choose to educate "otherwise".

Why don't you stick that in your manifesto DK? 

E-petition

There is an e-petition up on the Downing Street site calling for the NHS to be scrapped. The authors want it replaced with private health insurance. While I think a Singapore-style individual provident fund would be better, the point that the NHS must go has to be made and made loudly.

I've signed it. I think you should too. 

Recess Monkey & the wisdom of crowds

Amidst all the hilarity over Recess Monkey's "Maggie Dead" post, the question was put of whether this discredited bloggers. Certainly Iain Dale commenting on the Blogger TV show on 18 Doughty Street thought so.

I must say that anyone who thinks this is missing the fundamental point about the blogosphere. Wisdom is found in the crowd as a whole, not in any particular member of it. For every sloppy blogger claiming that Margaret Thatcher is dead, there is another fool saying that she will live for ever. Both are wrong but their errors cancel each other out. The crowd as a whole moves quickly to the more accurate position that she is alive, but she's getting on a bit. 

So as I commented on Blogger TV, the blogosphere did exactly what it is supposed to do. We shouldn't expect any more from it. 

Labour's a barrier to growth

The Small Business Research Trust has issued the results of its regular survey of small businesses. The results are a pretty damning indictment of the cul-de-sac where Labour has parked the UK economy.

Taxation (including National Insurance) was selected by 63% of owner-managers as a barrier to growth, followed by employment regulations (58%) and business rates (49%).

[...] 

Around one-quarter of smaller businesses see recent increases in the National Minimum Wage and holiday entitlement as a disincentive to employing more people, typically 1-2 extra employees in the last 12 months. 

This could have cost the UK economy 300,000 jobs. Of course this is something which doesn't bother Gordon in the slightest because that's 300,000 more people who depend on him for their daily bread. What's 300,000 people on the scrapheap when you've got elections to worry about?

Quote of the day

In the UK we have 8,300 pages of primary tax law, second only to India with 9,000. Even the US - thought by many to have one of the most complex tax regimes - has only 5,100.

Andrew Green, of accountancy firm Mizars. 

Thanks Gordon. 

3rd March 2007. A good day.

Trip to the seaside with the family today. Lots of bracing East Neuk fresh air in glorious sunshine while the baby Bishops exhausted themselves in running amok and disturbing the peace.

The news is looking good too.

The faeces are bespattering the air conditioning in the cash for honours department. Blair can surely not last much longer. If, as seems to be the general conclusion among the blogosphere, this is an attempt by the government to deliberately prejudice a trial and so get themselves off the hook, then Yates of the yard has done a fantastic job to keep the lid on it. It also suggests that Blairistas are very desperate indeed.

Iceland has a flat tax - the first developed country to adopt one. This could be the start of a revolution.

Spring is in the air and the government are in retreat. More wine please missus. 

Random thoughts on education

I've had another post on education floating round inside my head for a week or so now, and it just doesn't seem to want to form itself into a coherent whole. So I'm just going to write it down as a list of points and see what happens. Either it will start to make some sense or it will remain as random thoughts. You should be able to work out which it was.

• Education should be tailored to the consumer. This isn't really a requirement for the 21st century so much as what a good education should be. Everyone is different and will get something different out of the education process.
• Why do children (or adults, for that matter) need to go and listen to someone talking in order to get an education? Does education need to be formal in the age of Google? How much can you teach yourself? If, as Oakeshott said, education is a conversation, then isn't the internet just a ruddy great school?
  
• When you think about it, how much do you actually learn from sitting listening to someone anyway? If it's in any way a difficult subject, a momentary lapse in concentration can lead to you losing the thread and the whole thing becomes a waste of time.
• What should we teach everyone? I would argue literacy and numeracy and nothing much else. The rest depends on the child's interests and abilities. The brightest will need a grounding in the "best of all that has been known" (or whatever the saying is). Many others would be better off out of the school environment learning a trade.
  
• We are probably still going to need schools, if only because of their childcare role. Parents are all out working and either don't want to or can't educate their children themselves. So if someone else is doing the education how do we ensure that they provide a learning experience that is tailored to the child? Can they actually acheive this though?
  
• If schools can provide a tailored education, doesn't that take some of the heat out of the debate over selective schools? 
  
• Brian Micklethwait posted a link to a debate about the speed of change in the modern world and how this affects education. I think we can overdo this. Much of what we want to impart in schools is stuff that doesn't change quickly. History, mathematics, geography, amd critical thought for example. Techies get hung up on the pace of change, but this is something that is mainly relevant to their subject. Not all jobs in the future will be tech jobs. Not all will change quickly.
• Knowledge is not linear. It's more like a network. There are lots of different routes to explore, lots of tangents to go off at.That's what makes learning fun, and it's why the linear approach of traditional schooling turns so many children off.
  
• Could e-learning be a way forward? Wouldn't it be better for child a to watch an online lecture about quadratic equations, while child B did an online assessment about erosion in the Gobi desert (or whatever interested either of them), rather than having them both sleep through a French class? What then, is the role of the teacher? Childminder?
  

It's all very confusing, but the education system is in such a state, I'm sure something dramatic will happen in the next ten years. One to watch.