The School of Mere Description

Dumbed down Australia

2012-02-06T17:53:00.000-08:00

Julia is concerned about "education" . Joe Hockey is preoccupied with "productivity" and Penny Wong likes, this week at least , the word "resilience" .(ABCqanda 6 Feb 2012) Pack of dummies the lot of them .
Just throwing these words around, as carelessly as they do, shows they can't be trusted to unpick the processes that would cause them to cut deeply on these subjects .
Some may argue that they are appealing to the ignorant, or some bottom line in the audience understanding of issues . Q&;A format doesn't help; just like it doesn't answer questions (but speculates on motivation )but allows Jones to dumb down any deep issue. Judith Sloan at least got a few words in edgeways (explaining them) .
I say , don't do it too often or you'll only reinforce the view amongst thinking Australians that this tribe of wannabes don't think ; by treating us as dummies - becoming dummies yourself
Everyone must unpick the word or kill the spirit of the idea:
Otherwise the idea that they don't know what they are talking about will dominate: as it does amongst children trying to watch Q&A

Nothing in recent days proves the dumbing down than the silly and simple consensus that a piece of paper and a particular word ( W1, W2 or W3) should identify the scapegoats for the OLD floods (Blame is never allowed to be a poly) - the flood managers of Wivenhoe dam. (I know the media think W1 is a process but that's still the sort of stupid limits we put on ideas these days .

Let the pedants rule and we spend our last dollar fighting each other in the courts

Scientists shouldn't be judged on compliance with guidelines they draft , but on decisions they make. Q&A and pollies are not credible when they speak for scientists but don't LET them speak for themselves.
An all party problem - that's how deep the dumbing down is going

Fighting off disaster

2012-02-05T18:02:00.000-08:00

Nothing breaks up the parties of wannabes and their worrier friends than a real environmental event. The chooks are all amok because of floods. Rural people are used to wavering fear dread and disaster talk from the left field . What Australia, that country of innovators and planners don't seem to see is that while the wooriers are in charge noone is safe .
If the worriers are not looking in the right places (eg science in practice focus) , so the tax effort and all the bells and whistles are all wasted.
The key clue to the disaster in crude old Canberra is that, like Captain Bligh the latter , they think that good decisions come from a piece of paper, not a person . Personal responsibility is the be all , end all of Western politics and many of our pollies don't even know it .
We need not fear being physically overtaken by the east , we are already been overtaken by it by the way we think /don't think .

Marriage, democracy and other sacred objects

2012-01-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

The above 2 words are losing their value . Being treated as sacred isn't helping revive interest in the best way to keep their original meanings alive in our culture and keeping sense of their importance as ideals .
The hypocrisy of not allowing a discussion is more obvious, it seems to me , if we observe the phenomenon in another culture.
Why for example are PapuaNG ( esp this week )leaders both keen to look like they are running a democracy, when one or many parties don't respect the spirit of it . ( NEWS ALSO /Syria/ Iraq/ Thailand) Truthfulness about " a no talk situation "would help us see the truth and how to keep the spirit alive . No talk prevents discussion and allows abuse by religious isolation and veneration.

Is the hypocrisy evident in current PNG politics ( 2 leaders claiming to represent the people ) something we TOO could be excused of .
Marriage is observed (Both leaders claim parliamentary support ) but family breakdown is obvious. These dumb observances, mere description and talk of mere numbers fail to deal with the hypocrisy and key disease of "allowing everybody to do your own thing as morally right" .Good governance becomes by default bad governanace if you don't define governance better that the rule of the majority ( The Greeks knew this, why don't we?The Greeks knew that information is power (Aristocracy) why don't we? The real status of any marriage amongst political leaders is obviuos -often only just a piece of paper .Worse, it can be plain hypocrisy on the part of parties; less than worthless, plain distracting .
Marriage and democracy isn't a problem to those who know what it really means . Refusing to discuss what it means can mean that a new generation won't know what it really means !
In our own culture, Marriage equality is made out to be a big ambition that we must and haven't achieved to date. Surely such an ambition, if achieved ,will be a hollow one because redefinition will kill the spirit of the word just as technofix over it now ,when marraige no longer works for most people, has killed the interest . My point is , the spirit is more easily lost by seeking to shore up some silly sacred view of it .

Finding Happiness

2012-01-22T18:26:00.000-08:00

If we knew , we could be millionaires; so why aren't I ? I won't go there just yet but , in truth I have "moved on" far enough to know its not about money .
So there goes the value of a democratic survey - most people are not "there yet" so you can't trust them to know about being millionaires .The majority may also still believing the TV or the group , the talk or whatever ; unlikely to say No to status they haven't yet got ; an exoperinece they haven't had .
BUT It must be something else . You only have to ask for money from the rich to know that the mathematics of happiness does not include the joy of giving for most of them (statistically poor people do enjoy giving more (so put that in your excel chart and smoke it )

The Australia Institute are on a search for happiness sources ( Well being survey ). If its as fruitful as the search for comedy at the moment,, they might have to think a bit more laterally to actually ask for the right descriptors " .
me thinks AI's ambition is infact a sign of the disease in our society - most people aren't prepared to look widely enough to answer this question .
The answer is clearly that it's a bit spiritual- and spiritual doesn't sit well with many .The herd is not a good modelling agent AI
Jesus is quoted as saying Happiness is actually to do with NOT having things .( Matthew 5:3) He's a bit weird; right out there even.
But is He right? He claims to be God and if he's right this might be the big picture universe picture.

The poor PLANS , PEOPLE and PAPER balance

2011-12-01T15:42:00.000-08:00

Nobody who works in public life is against Plans, but power desperate Polys (and those who follow their lead ) produce far too many of them . Presumably its often a sense of powerlessness and remoteness (CEO's now often do not KNOW the organisations they run ) that drives this new wave of snowing .

How does Green labor come to think that Canberra can coordinate the States action in the Murray Darling Plan. The Carbon tax too, is ambitious beyond its means. How long will Labor's new love affair with the market last ? Not long , because its a pretence - a pretence that says price will avoid paper . The politics of paper and plans seems to move in extremes . Too often people who act professionally but are treated poorly by the powerful are casualities

Bland Curriculum constrictions

2011-11-20T12:17:00.000-08:00

James Paterson (IPA) in The Australian ( nov 11) and in Quadrant makes a strong point about the reasons why Australians are now faced with more pedantic and overly bureaucratic education review . In presuming to tell teachers how to teach, and what they are doing wrong ( perhaps rather than tell the parents ) our political parties are doing our best teachers and our educations system great wrong . If only pollies wouldn't meddle or think they know things in other people's area of expertise.I must stop dreaming

....And get back to a memorable lesson and how it happened . A good teacher has a rather special way of approaching any subject , and its not helped by trying to define "The lesson" too closely in phrases and words that everyone ( esp a non teacher ) understands. That is to bring boring forward and leave basic excitement outside the room . That is to make the teacher the educator of the bureau and as everyone knows on that subject -most of our best teachers don't want to go back to kindergarten .
The lesson is a whole and , like a good meal , is best enjoyed and approved as a complete thing .
I would argue the case that it's "the extras"and the links to them ( the "externalities" in ecosystem or economics, if you like ) that often make a subject interesting eg a powerful discussion on renewable energy links maths, physics and plant biochemistry or fun food learning needs a bit of secondary level chemistry to make fun with food technology more than a mere list of checkboxes .Kids learn, and learn how to learn by glimpsing process in nature , not nature in isolation - in categories . You will reduce boring if you have the right links. Kids, like us, learn more by linking subjects than we do by studying them in isolation. Its part of what we say when we say "learning best by doing" too.
Just listing the components is just making a very, very long list, which no teacher has time to check list ( even though bureau persons in Canberra and Spring street might )
There is a lot to be said for the old system in Victoria where non core subject matter is categorized generally so that only the final product is approved ( rather than try and talk to the parts as they do in curriculum review)
For example learning about responsible use of alcohol is not a matter of telling kids how many stubbies is good for your health . Good education is a matter of TRUST which means the pollies are probably undermining it by trying to take full control of it.
With alcohol and good health lessons you either
-leave it to their parents,
-have a clear approved lesson of what is to be taught in a form parents can clearly understand ,( Vic system)
--or use only people the parents trust to teach the sensitive non core subjects ( has to be clear that they do ) .
Politicians meddling in the categories and undermining the trust and technical soveriegnty of a "good lesson " undermines, like a good meal, the right combination of ingredients that make them both interesting , tasty and memorable .Education should be edgy and the curriculum approach is anything but edgy.

Any more ideas on how we can avoid the ongoing dumbing down of education in Australia?
The stream of parents choosing private schools says something about more interesting combinations of subjects and values than the plain flour meals offered as gospel in too many public schools

Original ideas - rarer than we all think

2011-10-18T05:16:00.000-07:00

While Australia's media elite fail to recognize their old childish chorus of delight in all things reactionary (wars on everything old explains their venerability to new things technical ) they will continue to drag their audiences into the predictable reactionary dullness that has dogged the ABC for the last 30years .Greers constant reappearance on the ABCTV clearly illustrates that the ABC is stuck in the past.
As the eternal appeal of Shakespeare, and Williamson show ,some recipes don't need to change,but can benefit from the new medium .

Clearly ncp (Trioli 's forum tonight) are confused enough to not recognize that more technology won't help when more honest talk may.
ABC success is dependant on allowing objective outsiders scripts to air ( the slap ,no1 detective ) NOT the tribe of commentators waiting in the wings for another contract.

The perfect subject for a discussion --Hot Air

2011-07-15T19:15:00.000-07:00

Our PM and her mates somehow developed the view that hot air concerns were something simple that she could discuss with the public- how could she get it so wrong ? It seemed to them last week that it was pretty simple ---so that maybe is where the problem still lies.
To have a good discussion you have to limit the points to something that's simple. Something that has clear boundaries and is easy to visualize.
POLITICS
"Air is really pretty simple" ( only largely N,C O H Ar ) Tick that
" Warming is pretty simple " ( we all experience that every day ) Tick that
"Global warming is pretty simple" tick that "Fossil fuels heat up our our homes and engines so why not our atmosphere" It all makes sense , simple sense to most people. Tick
Check. Best of all there will be no unexpected arguments against what we say because you can't see any of the things we are talking about . Perfect
"Not only is radiation invisible its divisible and so is air . Even if we are wrong ,its going to be very hard to prove us wrong . Our bloke knows more air than their bloke and no one in the media wants a long debate nbout things they can't see . It''ll be fun and , no way we can lose - we have picked something too deep for us and too deep for them ---- to top it off " it looks simple "---- if you want to see it that way " Big tick
REALITY
Real Science stuff on the atmosphere is awe fully boring because anything to do with organic chemistry , fluid dynamics and radiation is really complex let alone together .
Lucky for polys the key elements are invisible and highly divisible
---AIR Look at the forces acting on it ; downward there is weight , and horizontally drag at the lower boundary and inertia right through to the top ; Turbulence throughout creating layers and eddies. Mountains push it up and carry water with it in all sorts of forms that drastically change the radiation and reflection patterns over every square inch of earth.

HEAT energy from the sun manages to heat up one edge of this turbulent flow in a way which is greatly influenced by the amount and height of water in the atmosphere directly above it .Meanwhile, the wind blows and carries the complexity all ways
ALL TOGETHER -lots and lots of different types of radiation running largely through the air and in changing ways each day and season .
- and every day and in every place the effect of water from the surface has an impact on whose talking to who
- on one boundary users of NCOHAr are acting against the laws of physics by using up some of the air contents in a way that is mind bogglingly complex.
I am not confused or committed to reducing Co2 . The greenhouse effect has never been properly demonstrated and most long wave radiation we produce is most likely being lost to space. Doesn't stop people thinking otherwise.
Not easy to see whose bumping into whom and what they are saying when they do . More here Copyright riskwithin reason@gmail.com

Changing the categories

2011-07-01T17:24:00.000-07:00

Being completely rational has its down side - Too much information and too many categories AND too many categories that keep changing .The Greeks knew that , but somehow thousands of years later we are more than happy to wander around in a fog of changing word meanings -, unable at many levels to go back and find out ---what went wrong ? This confusion at coping level can't last and threatens our civilness via our ability to agree on consensus and settled logic stuff.

A rock was once a rock - now its a bit of silica and a lot of oxygen but if it were just those 2 , we still wouldn't know what it was . How it came about is critical to whatever it is - the story is important and critical .Something similiar seems to be helpful for corroborating categories
The problem of changing names for things is not such a big issue for settled science which is very helpful because we can get on with our jobs eg . We know an neutron is not a neutron but who cares - "we know where it is and where it fits"

BUT its a big problem with big picture stuff - values and the value we put into words ( or take away from them eg changing meaning of "wicked") . Good intentions abound , but any thinking person knows that "good intentions" create the greatest evil when the application does not cut it where it counts on the ground , when we don't look at the truth because we don't like it ( in ourselves for example) or when we deny things ( like evil when we in the West dispose of the word " wicked:")

We don't need rulings ( the law ) as much as we need something to measure things with - that's good science and good faith and good relations (way back to some consensus about what to call things of importance). Otherwise the law and mere words may just be a very course imposition by those with the power or the loudest voices .

Too much Information

2011-07-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

No more common expression of our day symbolises the problem of our day . "Keep it simple stupid" : is not only right today, but it was always right . How did we ever get it so bad with TMI ? Maths teachers I know admit "we just do too much maths ".
How then did the founders of our modern civilisation get it so right when they met in Nicene 17 centuries ago and said "enough is enough ". . "We don't object to more books in Alexandrian libraries , but we reject the Greek inheritance when it crowds out and doesn't identify the essentials . " Infact ,we reject the idea that all the rules and rulings need to be there - men are born free with a will to live free so most of the things you need to order your life are not in there - you have a mind and a will to do good -- use it "
We can all sit around here for another thousands years and still be no better off than Socrates as far as putting the pieces together .
How come they knew that the jig saw pieces would keep changing ........and we don't?
"There are 66 books that talk to walking the walk and that's enough to get all the basics right ". It doesn't mean there are other stories, and most importantly, it doesn't claim to tell you how to live ( except who to talk to about that) . Who needs that????? Too much information and No freedom ( like we are supposed to have been born with - our inheritance !) Copyright Emperors Academy July 1st 2011
Being completely rational has its down side - TMI

Why is a crooked letter and can't be straightened

2011-06-22T20:12:00.000-07:00

Our forebears are not as silly as we are often tempted to think . My mother in law 's old saying is right on the ball .
Sometimes you and I need to be perfectly honest and accurate about talking science - we need to say, like her, that "we haven't got time to discuss it properly right now". For those who don't know the expression . My wife would ask the good question as a child "why? " and "why mum why? " of her mother and get the above answer .Lateral thinking - gloriously non greek stuff
The point is , I don't mind why and where you have to go to get there ...with such questions - the reality is that lots of people ( most) are not prepared to take the journey , so their jumping ship is plain annoying and time wasting for us scientists ( honest engagement is the key).
Take the way journos as a whole fail to recognise like psychologists do that we all have a religious bent ( may not talk about it but ) Thoughtful reactionaries TR's and Aethists are right to be concerned about the dangerousness of religion - They are, like us, impatient with where our society is heading but TR's don't analyse the context well enough to recognise whats good and bad ( that it motivates people and that's needed) about what we both rightly see as "explosive stuff." Reactionaries miss the whole point of course because they dismiss their own history -they don't see that freedom of religion out of the Bible is freedom to think for yourself . many of course can't see that but the image of God portrayed there is clear in setting those boundaries and maintaining them right through.
Jon Feine and Tony Jones will pretend they have time sometime to talk through things , but I try to avoid listening because like most scientists and geo scientists like myself, they only allow a limited conversation to occur on their favourite controversial subject and solution - and one which may well just suits their prejudice as non scientists quoting select science ( mere description ) .As presenters they jump ship when it suits them - not the audience ( any objective survey would pick this up ) They call the move - "moving on!:"
Point is , only scientists these days seem have time to discuss science .
If only the long suffering public would switch off too when the investigating jounalist has only 6 / minutes of problem solving time in his consultation .
What these dummy gurus don't know yet is like my mother in law wisely recognised - it probably wouldn't have mattered how good her explanation was if she gave one - the child looking for incharge wouldn't be getting what they wanted out of the story sharing exercise anyway - she saved time . How wise can you be --. saving time.
What the dummy advisory panels in the ABC and the political heavies have yet to realise is that talk is fine-- if you have time to waste . The shit will really hit the fan when the patient tries to implement the idea (MPCCC) You heard it first on blogger on 23rd June 2011

We know

2011-06-15T15:04:00.000-07:00

Remember that great moment on Fawlty Towers when Sybil is saying to her friend on the phone while both are propped up in bed " I know . I know , I know " . Your listening but you are not really listening . Too much

Loved Red's reflection today on 774 on lack of humility by the 2 who "knew all about the moon "-

A constant driver for a very high view of one's own knowledge ( and the pedantry that is part theme here ) has been the very human tendency to presume on one's own knowledge .

I have come to believe that God gives us children to remind us just how bad that disease can really be ----quite close to home.
:"I know ": they say : "Do you have to go on ": "oh Dad .....not again " . I mean the only reason you keep annoying them ( is not because you enjoy being a pain to your children ) but simply because you care that they don't stumble ......the truth clearly hasn't sunken in yet ...going on the rhetoric .
And it doesn't go away - "to tell you the truth" ( how do we treat all the've said before )....." how do know a man is lying.... his lips are moving" .
In the face of all the things we don't know and that stumbling stupidity we all seem to have , Truth is often out the door . How come Jesus could make that most amazing claim that He was" the way, The Truth and the Life "- he would have to be a megloomaniac or addressing one of the biggest diseases and maladaptive drivers of mankind ..head on - OUR pretence about what we know and what we think we know.

Is Education a purely secular thing?

2011-05-17T19:35:00.000-07:00

Recent major political campaigns to try and kick religious teaching out of State schools in Australia is misconcieved; to limit the possible contribution of "metaphysics" is to constrain and limit a child's education. (The words are full of controversy - I will use them this way -Secular is established and accepted , whereas Religious is more broad but also much more controversial.)
I think we should continue to agree to disagree ( rather than suffer Too Much I or all starting up our own schools ) by deciding our children's involvement by means of agreed extra -curricula teaching in secular schools.

But is it really necessary to offer "religious education "?- many outsiders will ask. The well respected professional scientist and educationalist Whitehead went so far as to say that "the essence of education should be religious ". I think he really means its always bigger and better to include it where you can . While most of that sort of teaching should happen at home, but having some of it,( like the stories and sayings of Jesus) at school is clearly stimulating for many students .Jesus stories and actions deal with everyday tensions that kids feel deeply ( forgiveness, acceptance) so its no surprise that kids attend and welcome these tough practical social engagement examples . The teaching is still controversial with some suggesting the simply rational idea that revenge is natural and turn the other cheek is irrational or unproductive (impossible some would say ) - the fact that :not taking revenge "is part of our cultural training means that its good that its taught .
Because the content is controversial though , individual parents and teachers must know what the content is ( they work from agreed content and have some a classroom teacher supervise as well ) and be able to veto access of their children . Going to " the boundaries of knowledge for stimulation " must be a process that is subject to considerable scrutiny by parents in particular .
There is a lot to learn and lots of ways to learn . Good to have parent and other teacher input . Classic divisions are "work " and "play ". I like having a distinction between secular and religious in common conversation amongst us because it helps separates the world of facts and process ( world of work? ) from discussions about purpose and values ( The 2 words are only approximations anyway ) I like the stimulation that comes from having a distinction between practice work ( not much exploration ) and practice play.( more exploration ) A stated secular / non secular boundary( agreed /not necessarily agreed ; explored / unexplored ) helps ensures that parents can check that important purpose and value conversations are taken by teachers whom they trust ( as they would do with sex education or psychological matters )

Clearly parents need to agree that that some controversial areas of teaching are being taught in a way which they would approve , just as they would if sex education or Islam was being taught . Education is no more a purely secular thing any more that sex education can be treated as a purely animal or technical thing .

While it is clear there are secular and "bookish "'components to education , the occasional broadening beyond mere categories too allows for the "vision of greatness" that Whitehead so well described as necessary for a good education; Whitehead punched pretty hard on second rate options - attacks which even today might help liven up the dull category only conversations that can force us to never talk about certain categories (religion and politics). We all like neat categories, but its not entirely good for our appreciation of knowledge to limit ourselves to them. You don't grow physics it seems , without allowing for meta-physics .

Whitehead was very clear too , as psychologists mostly are , about matters of faith ( even though he didn't believe in a personal God ) - its part of us and we best accept that for our own mental heath and not deny it .
Whitehead was also clear about the danger of the temptation to limit discussion to things our minds can understand , talking about" the trenchant judgements of those who will not give the time to think out a complex question " ( surely a growing risk in the over -information age ) .
It needs to be said that , just because you are a scientist ( includes myself) doesn't mean your grasp of the breadth of knowledge is relatively any better than anyone else's .

Most importantly, Whitehead could see , even decades ago, how science education in particular could be limited by such a process, and prophetically, with the likes of A Huxley and others ,anticipated the shallow millpond in which we find ourselves when we argue using mere facts and phrases; This limiting process has been growing in our era ; a process he called : "misplaced concreteness".

Protestants ( like John Fairfax) , in particular, have been keen to support access of all children in Australia to a free, but vice limited , and professionally trained view of public education ( A curriculum review means some things are not on offer and some things are taught a certain way-- Its a good thing to try to confine what we don't know, even if we don't know quite what we are confining .If nothing else it moves the boundaries of the purely secular forward) .
I for one don't want churches to start schools in my area if , like doctors , we can't get one professional trained operator to work in our community.I want the teacher of physics or chemistry to be as a good teacher as possible because I believe the subject is never exhausted: to see it that way is to encourage discovery.
For the first time in modern Australian history we can't even get one chemistry teacher to teach in our public local high school at higher levels.

Both christians and nonchristains are leaving State schools because something about the education process in state schools is failing .

Not only are State schools failing to reinforce values. ( its not neccesarily the teachers fault - the parents and education innovatives are probably more to blame ). We have been allowing a degree of vice to waste away their ability to train and direct. Without value boundaries , as the Greeks found , wider discussions ( eg" why do we have to learn this boring stuff" ) in class can become vicious circles in which all we get for our trouble is a headache .Can you teach something as boring as maths without a leap of faith - that it is important.
It's the headache image that best pictures the dilemma that is created in our minds when we do not have a big picture to help order all the small pictures . None of us are welcome to discuss politics or religion at a nice gathering where people are all suffering from a headache - that reality doesn't mean such a discussion wouldn't help individuals avoid more of them. If TMI is the problem --you still need a way of sorting it ( secular- religious distinctions are a start - a start with a proven record of reasonable success across the West .
Alternatively tell us --why aren't kids excited by science ( take a look at what excites scientists!) ?

Australians ( including the non religious) are increasingly choosing to go/send their children where secular and religious are accepted as important categories of curriculum. Why risk trying to make schools totally secular, as if those proposing to do what Emperor Julian tried some years ago have actually been there and done that. .

Why our science education system is failing

2010-11-09T14:51:00.000-08:00

Some suggestions for starters Here

The city- she worry too mucha

2010-09-05T22:25:00.000-07:00

August is the normal month for runoff in SE Australia, but you wouldn't think so listening to the news broadcasts . The science is not new, but the panic is --which means instead of science we are living with something less.
Why did we ever build desalination plants when the Avoca river , which rarely gets to the Murray , is back in flood?
The answer is that we don't have people who can read the earth running the country. We ecological geomorphs can read the signs in the sands and the shapes of trees .We can tell from the soils and the land and ecosystem shapes when and where water and soil react - when runoff is likely to happen --but we have been largely dismissed from the advisory system. While we like a bit of computer processing , we don't need a whole lot of expensive inconclusive speculative scenarios based on hot air from the new age model manic climatologists to lead us into even more of that myopic driven gravy train .
We study the record of eons in the soils and shapes of river channels and plants to tell us whats likely and whats happened as far back as you like to name . The rivers down the west of the State of Victoria seldom get to the big river, let alone to the sea. and its clearly been that way for eons ! The writing is on the ground so to speak

Soon we will have all manner of worriers and pedantic word and phrase specialists running their pedantic little games running the country .Take ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS(EF's ) the phrase has been in the games rhetoric for 20 years, but no one has dared to ask the nature worshipers what they mean by it .
ENVIRONMENTAL FLOWS-- WMCCMA made a few meager attempts in the Wimmera river ( the Avoca rivers neighbour) - what does it all mean ?
Take the phrase "environmental flow" - what is it? DSE won't be able to tell you because they haven't unhitched the idea from the tree of sacred knowedge yet .
I know "Its a flow that makes Lake Alexandrina go" . But there are lots of ways that can happen
OK so "What is an EF in the headwaters then? ". Something we stop by having water tanks perhaps ?
Or, in a period of dry years, " is it good for the ecology of the estuarine and the riverine for the eggs to lie dormant on the dry bandbanks of the channel like say the Darling ?". Of course it is - so it is good for channels to go dry sometime !
And how do the Greens propose to create floods now we are faced with AGW? -
I know ? Blowing up dams - but only at the right time and once the water was heated up by solar panels or flood wave hydropower.
The Greens know what they are doing -- or are they just the lead chicken littles of the world ?

Independent research on our Population limits

2010-08-12T15:38:00.000-07:00

Flannerys and Brown 's idea of another body to study population has a lot of superficial appeal. Says a lot about their impractical approach to things though ,that they would institute yet another bureau to drive some more "brilliance" in this country .
Independent applied science on the environment is my theme and work . The real safety of our world is out there in advice these dummies never take - where 1000 flowers bloom ( not the terrible 2 twins) and the information and the balance between the facts is there . Well done Lea Sales on lateline afterwards on info age
What's very disturbing is the panels proposal to put a limit ( like a bomb on the curve - where would it be be; who would place it?) control over the agenda of research into the facts . The objective is not objective research about population drivers but research directed to a political objective - where to interfere in the growth curves !
We have the population facts and forecasts already , but what we impose on the discussion is paranoia and politics - that we did I say loudly enough WE need to limit whatever the study shows is happening to population . The qandarers want to influence what is happening in the bedrooms of the world . The best way to stimey objective independent research is to state it politically and prejudiced way as they did on Qandary last night .
The water and infrastructure limits are known - you just have to get over the hurdle and brick wall of blindness that guilt, projection and prejudice put in front of it. That's where the limits are - not with mere facts !

Catchall phrases

2010-03-30T17:32:00.001-07:00

Wait for it--- this will be good !

Category control errors in education policy

2010-03-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

Victoria's Robert Hulls seems to think that " To be a good scientist you have to be a complete materialist ".

Perhaps He thinks religious type ideas are like a virus - to be dealt with by antibiotics ,weedicide or levicide ( after Robin William's recent statement ? ).
Hulls favourite pesticide seems to be to use our courts to weed out extremists from our schools. While the threat of Islamic extremists on camera seems to have given " this religion is a virus" view a lot of popular airing, The evidence from scientists is against such a restricted view ( "Bios, Logos Theos" for eg) .Even pschycologists generally accept the need for humans to have"a religion of sorts" . Deny yourself one and you may be suffereing from "a virus" yourself ?

Before parliament this week is a bill to insist teachers and schools go through a reality check .Hulls idea of a reality check - just a little constrained however .

So how right are these old lefties-- about a subject they mostly haven't specialized in ?
These monists think subject categories should be checked and double checked for absolute truth , heresy and doctrinal purity when no complete categorization is acceptable to any reasonable scientist .
Amazing you say? do your own homework I say - don't just listen to the wandering media.
They worry too much too about things they clearly don't understand. In that way they are bit like the public mind they appeal to .

For example , As I have said elsewhere I think kids at secondary school are smarter than they think They need exposure to all sorts of ideas and subject declassification and good schools ( a more acceptable focus?) accept that . I don't like the noise and confusion and deafness created by the dull witted censorship and fixed subject classifications they are promoting . I don't want my daughter's biology teacher ( at any school) to go beyond the subject of DNA and adaption by natural selection, to saying its "the theory of everything" -a view common enough on the ABC but not in many schools - but it may happen .What polys can do to stop abuse, I don't know . Its not their job anyway - its the schools job . I don't want my daughter (IDWMD) to fail to make the distinction between science and the philosophy of science. IDWMD to only hear that meterology is the only way we learn about climate, history, cosmological history , physics and predictive earth sciences . IDWMD to constantly hear from her english teacher that "Lady's Chatterley's Lover" is the best guide to sexual relationships ever .Discuss it yes- thats the point ; Choice . Deal with the wolf Maybe my daughter can cope with knowing thats what the teacher really thinks anyway? Its the noise and deafness controls that need some attention --not the subjects .
Its not what goes into a man that ruins him mate -If the prophet was right , Mr Hulls is busy at the wrong end of the stick .

Science Ed in trouble -Forget blue skies, we're under a cloud right now

2010-03-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

Everybody is talking about it (ABC lateline this week ) but few seem to know how we got here .
The glass ceiling of business models is what Whitehead anticipated nearly 100years ago
He wouldn't have anticipated the form it might take in Australian politics

-Symbol man of science ( Mr Jones) whose forte is facts, not how to put them together .

Humpty Dumpty ?
How the ABC have let this childish stuff go on for so long is beyond many of us .
He's fine entertainment on the Einstein factor, don't get me wrong

- and the misplaced concreteness in subdividing the issue into lots on little parts .
I can remember having lunch with one very clever professor who was about to become a CRC guru advising him that even if he spent the earth on having a research division on surface water modelling and another group on subsurface , there was every chance they would not meet in the middle ,,where it mattered . Proved to be true .
The advice given to government on issue on water conservation over the last ten years has been a dogs breakfast .
The school concept is all wrong . More here later