The more I observe people's keenness to believe patent nonsense, the more I realise that the nonsense is less the problem than the desire to be lied to. Whence comes this desire? What could be its roots?
It is noticeable that certain beliefs seem to "go together" in the same individual. By "belief" I mean the act of accepting some idea as entirely true without sufficient evidence to support it. I would add to that the reluctance, or even active resistance, to research the question at all. The sort of alliance of weird beliefs would typically include the following: fringe medicine, conspiracy theories, cryptozoology (it's never cryptobotany, is it?), alien-operated UFOs and alien-created crop circles, psychic powers, ghosts and life after death generally, political movements which are new and sometimes extreme, cult and other whacky beliefs. Oh, and let's not forget Atlantis!
This list is not exhaustive. And many perfectly rational people embrace at least one of them, or find them credible to some degree. But there are many who buy into the whole lot - or most of it. They seem to have a certain "mindset" which is nourished by outlandish concepts. Why? They frequently harbour a deep mistrust of science and conventional medicine (that is, medicine that works).
The question is, what is so appealing about the weird beliefs? Why are they embraced when science and logic are rejected with a sort of visceral spasm? And does it matter?
It seems to me that common threads which run through the whacky are "total answers", certainty and, ironically, the illusory empowerment of those who embrace whatever weird idea is being proposed. It is the promise of certainty which is the most seductive, I think. Being certain removes a deep anxiety in the psyche and history shows that people can place certainty above everything, including morality and even their own survival.
In contrast, what can skepticism offer? Hard work, thoroughness, self-criticism, vigilance, and, of course, uncertainty! Skeptics live in a mental world of questioning and enquiry where there are few simple answers and no total answers. Skeptics enjoy this. However, for those who crave the comfort of certainty, and easy, if ridiculous, answers, this is hardly attractive. Possibly the reason they often react to skeptical challenges with such vituperative fury is that they feel such challenges are fundamental personal attacks, which in a very real sense to them, they are. They feel afraid because the foundation of their mental life is being undermined and the deep anxiety which comes from uncertainty awaits them. Their very world is threatened with destruction. No wonder they get so angry and reject all reason. No wonder they resort to vicious personal attacks on the skeptic.
No wonder they want to be lied to.
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Thursday, 24 May 2012
On Wasting Time
On Tuesday, I did nothing useful. In other words I wasted a whole day. Do I regret it? Yes, a little bit. Why do I regret it? Because I am bothered by all the things I could have done, but didn't.
So what did I do exactly? I went to Kensington Gardens, and in particular, Kensington Palace. I was there early, and it was overcast and chilly, but the forecast was "fine and hot". Indeed one could see signs that the sun was doing its best to burn off the cloud layer. Sitting on a bench, I watched idly as the tourists strolled and the joggers jogged. It was nice just sitting there. The palace itself opens its doors at ten. Folks waited, checked their cameras and consulted maps. Cable guys were working steadily away in the grounds, quietly exchanging banter and carefully avoiding bad language. Everyone seemed in a nice mood. It's a pretty place, good to be in.
Ten o'clock was fast approaching and about a dozen tourists gathered at the front door. I intended to go in myself, but sat for a little while longer. I know from experience that it's wise to sit down every possible minute if you want to avoid "tourist's feet"!
When they had disappeared inside, I wandered over and entered the palace. The staff there are good at welcoming people and suggesting what to see, but I knew what I wanted to see, and where it was.
After an hour or so inside, I returned to the garden and sat in the shade, as by now it was getting hot.
The rest of the day was passed in this lazy and quite pointless manner. In and out the palace, sitting outside under a tree on a hot day. Watching other people. Sitting under a tree. Eating a little. Sitting under a tree.
There must be something truly human about sitting under a tree, so, on balance, I'm rather glad I did.
So what did I do exactly? I went to Kensington Gardens, and in particular, Kensington Palace. I was there early, and it was overcast and chilly, but the forecast was "fine and hot". Indeed one could see signs that the sun was doing its best to burn off the cloud layer. Sitting on a bench, I watched idly as the tourists strolled and the joggers jogged. It was nice just sitting there. The palace itself opens its doors at ten. Folks waited, checked their cameras and consulted maps. Cable guys were working steadily away in the grounds, quietly exchanging banter and carefully avoiding bad language. Everyone seemed in a nice mood. It's a pretty place, good to be in.
Ten o'clock was fast approaching and about a dozen tourists gathered at the front door. I intended to go in myself, but sat for a little while longer. I know from experience that it's wise to sit down every possible minute if you want to avoid "tourist's feet"!
When they had disappeared inside, I wandered over and entered the palace. The staff there are good at welcoming people and suggesting what to see, but I knew what I wanted to see, and where it was.
After an hour or so inside, I returned to the garden and sat in the shade, as by now it was getting hot.
The rest of the day was passed in this lazy and quite pointless manner. In and out the palace, sitting outside under a tree on a hot day. Watching other people. Sitting under a tree. Eating a little. Sitting under a tree.
There must be something truly human about sitting under a tree, so, on balance, I'm rather glad I did.
Saturday, 19 May 2012
Little Things Mean a Lot
Sometimes there's so much to write about one doesn't know where to begin. These are news-heavy days indeed. Greece, G8, a new French president, and, of course, the Olympic Torch Relay(!)
But let us rather ponder on our prime minister's alleged predilection for playing games on his iPad. According to The Telegraph this week, he spends scary amounts of time playing something called "Fruit Ninja", having apparently exhausted the possibilities of Angry Birds.
Now although I would be disturbed if someone in charge of a country were to spend a lot of their day playing on an iPad, a little downtime devoted to this is okay. But then Angry Birds has a little wit about it. Its premise is deliciously absurd, its physics feasible, its innate humour beyond question. (You can guess, perhaps, I play it myself from time to time.)
You can also guess I tried this Fruit Ninja thingy. You wait for fruit to appear and then slice it with a screen swipe. You get a point. You need to leave the bombs alone, or it's "Game Over". That, as far as I can see, is it. Does our prime minister really spend "scary amounts of time" doing this?!
I thought I had reached the limits of my dislike of this man. But no. This latest revelation has taken these limits to fresh zones and boundaries. Sometimes it's the little things that mean the most.
But let us rather ponder on our prime minister's alleged predilection for playing games on his iPad. According to The Telegraph this week, he spends scary amounts of time playing something called "Fruit Ninja", having apparently exhausted the possibilities of Angry Birds.
Now although I would be disturbed if someone in charge of a country were to spend a lot of their day playing on an iPad, a little downtime devoted to this is okay. But then Angry Birds has a little wit about it. Its premise is deliciously absurd, its physics feasible, its innate humour beyond question. (You can guess, perhaps, I play it myself from time to time.)
You can also guess I tried this Fruit Ninja thingy. You wait for fruit to appear and then slice it with a screen swipe. You get a point. You need to leave the bombs alone, or it's "Game Over". That, as far as I can see, is it. Does our prime minister really spend "scary amounts of time" doing this?!
I thought I had reached the limits of my dislike of this man. But no. This latest revelation has taken these limits to fresh zones and boundaries. Sometimes it's the little things that mean the most.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
With sincere apologies to Geoffrey Chaucer
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When scholars seek the truth by questions bright
And on some thorny problems shine some light,
Then trolls and quacks in misspelled missives try
The honest scholar's labours to decry.
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When scholars seek the truth by questions bright
And on some thorny problems shine some light,
Then trolls and quacks in misspelled missives try
The honest scholar's labours to decry.
Thursday, 26 April 2012
"Liam Burns says the law should require academics to be qualified"
Was interested to note that the president of the UK National Union of Students, Liam Burns, is calling for university lecturers to have teaching qualifications, as reported in last Sunday's Observer. On the face of it, this seems perfectly reasonable, especially in the light of the new undergraduate fee structure. Surely for £9,000 per annum, students should expect certain standards?
Here are my thoughts:
I predicted some time back that one of the more serious and corrosive results of the hike in student fees would be that undergraduates would demand better "customer service" for their money, and would in some cases initiate legal action against universities who do not award them the degree class they think they deserve, citing such "failings" as "inadequate teaching".
It's time we got back to embracing the concept that a university's first objective should be to advance knowledge and understanding through high-quality, scholarly research and discourse. Some would argue that should be its only objective. I am not sure I would go quite that far, but almost that far perhaps.
Universities, like all seats of learning from the kindergarten upwards, benefit from teaching and stimulating their pupils, as of course do the pupils themselves. But the balance from what might call "total teaching" to "acting as a mature sounding-board for a new researcher" should change steadily through time. I work with PhD students. They often tell me that this transition to their being required to take significant responsibility for their research and output, compared to undergraduate and master's studies, can be tough, though they find this stimulating and exciting.
Similar is the transition from the A-Level student in their last two years at school to the undergraduate. This transition is, or should be, due to the marked difference between the objectives of the school to the objectives of the good university. The undergraduate finds himself in an environment where his seniors are principally engaged in research in their fields, and their teaching activities are in second place, even if a close second. This, I believe, is as it should and must be. This means that it becomes the undergraduate's responsibility to actively learn, to actively seek scholarly discourse with lecturers, to take responsibility for her, the undergraduate's, timely output of good quality work.
On the point of "teaching qualifications". I have largely been taught by people, both at school and university, who had no teaching qualifications. I went to grammar schools. Teachers there had to be graduates, but were not required to have teaching qualifications in those days. Most were good, some outstanding, a few were hopeless. Teaching qualifications in themselves will never ensure good teaching, by which we mean teaching which not only informs effectively, but inspires and promotes scholarly and critical thinking - and this can start in nursery school!
As an undergraduate geologist, I was privileged to be taught by the great Jake Hancock (then at King's College London). He many years later was my PhD supervisor at Imperial. He had no teaching qualifications. I recall one undergraduate palaeontology practical class led by him. We entered the lab expecting to see the usual fossils-laid-out-on-benches. Instead there was a table strewn with fundamentalist Christian pamphlets. He asked us what we thought of these. We responded with one voice that they were all complete rubbish. I shall never forget his next words, "But why are they rubbish? You must be able to argue why they are rubbish or your objections have no value!" That's what I mean by education.
If Liam Burns wants great researchers such as Jake Hancock was to take time from their research to get virtually useless "teaching qualifications" then he does not understand higher education, nor his growing responsibilities as a student.
Here are my thoughts:
I predicted some time back that one of the more serious and corrosive results of the hike in student fees would be that undergraduates would demand better "customer service" for their money, and would in some cases initiate legal action against universities who do not award them the degree class they think they deserve, citing such "failings" as "inadequate teaching".
It's time we got back to embracing the concept that a university's first objective should be to advance knowledge and understanding through high-quality, scholarly research and discourse. Some would argue that should be its only objective. I am not sure I would go quite that far, but almost that far perhaps.
Universities, like all seats of learning from the kindergarten upwards, benefit from teaching and stimulating their pupils, as of course do the pupils themselves. But the balance from what might call "total teaching" to "acting as a mature sounding-board for a new researcher" should change steadily through time. I work with PhD students. They often tell me that this transition to their being required to take significant responsibility for their research and output, compared to undergraduate and master's studies, can be tough, though they find this stimulating and exciting.
Similar is the transition from the A-Level student in their last two years at school to the undergraduate. This transition is, or should be, due to the marked difference between the objectives of the school to the objectives of the good university. The undergraduate finds himself in an environment where his seniors are principally engaged in research in their fields, and their teaching activities are in second place, even if a close second. This, I believe, is as it should and must be. This means that it becomes the undergraduate's responsibility to actively learn, to actively seek scholarly discourse with lecturers, to take responsibility for her, the undergraduate's, timely output of good quality work.
On the point of "teaching qualifications". I have largely been taught by people, both at school and university, who had no teaching qualifications. I went to grammar schools. Teachers there had to be graduates, but were not required to have teaching qualifications in those days. Most were good, some outstanding, a few were hopeless. Teaching qualifications in themselves will never ensure good teaching, by which we mean teaching which not only informs effectively, but inspires and promotes scholarly and critical thinking - and this can start in nursery school!
As an undergraduate geologist, I was privileged to be taught by the great Jake Hancock (then at King's College London). He many years later was my PhD supervisor at Imperial. He had no teaching qualifications. I recall one undergraduate palaeontology practical class led by him. We entered the lab expecting to see the usual fossils-laid-out-on-benches. Instead there was a table strewn with fundamentalist Christian pamphlets. He asked us what we thought of these. We responded with one voice that they were all complete rubbish. I shall never forget his next words, "But why are they rubbish? You must be able to argue why they are rubbish or your objections have no value!" That's what I mean by education.
If Liam Burns wants great researchers such as Jake Hancock was to take time from their research to get virtually useless "teaching qualifications" then he does not understand higher education, nor his growing responsibilities as a student.
Monday, 23 April 2012
HM The Solar Queen
I can't believe just how very close I came to buying one of these today!
Sure to be a smash hit item of tat in this jubilee year - in fact in any year. The version with the crown is about £2 more than the "standard" varieties, which nonetheless come in a range of tasteless colours.
The choice is yours!
Sure to be a smash hit item of tat in this jubilee year - in fact in any year. The version with the crown is about £2 more than the "standard" varieties, which nonetheless come in a range of tasteless colours.
The choice is yours!
Wartime memories podcast
Quite a while back I converted a pretty rough old cassette tape recording of my father in conversation with his brother, George, and sister-in-law, Margaret. The sound quality is quite a challenge to listen to, but it's still worth the effort.
I have taken the time to check out the facts related in the conversation, and they all seem to be correct, so I conclude that my father's recollections are by and large reliable.
There is much of interest here, including my father's recollection of the dock strikes in Malta. One thing I never knew was that he was involved in the clear-up of the Coventry raids. The recording ends too soon for me, as I would love to know "what happened next", in his own words.
Still, the recording is a treasure to me. This is the link.
I have taken the time to check out the facts related in the conversation, and they all seem to be correct, so I conclude that my father's recollections are by and large reliable.
There is much of interest here, including my father's recollection of the dock strikes in Malta. One thing I never knew was that he was involved in the clear-up of the Coventry raids. The recording ends too soon for me, as I would love to know "what happened next", in his own words.
Still, the recording is a treasure to me. This is the link.
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