Too much Information

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

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

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?

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

Some suggestions for starters Here 

The city- she worry too mucha

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

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 !