Where to Invest in Science ?

RE  A first for Q&A   ABCTV --a  panel of scientists

Result : a great and stimulating education session - real Q&A
Response : must have more of them !

The short version for the political process
Same as always ;

• PCM ( Physics , Chemistry and Maths )

Finally Q&A have done what they should have done years ago -
Proper respect for authority : Let scientists speak --instead of letting  non-scientists speak for them.
Corollary : Be suspicious of researchers responding to recent problems ,Side products of the above pure sciences ( PCM remain the essential building blocks  -  Doherty !)Accept that the  key to sound investment in science is NOT in picking winners or suddenly answering often intractable problems . Dohery's point about "duty of care" rather than "chasing the hare" must be observed . Real progress is slower than many want to know 

We have lots of shells....... but maybe no wheels

Qualification: Considering that way Q&A commonly confuses , it would have been great if the scientists on the panel got together before the Q&A session so they could make a more unified case for a way forward on what to do to sell science. we scientists can be longwinded when audience should get it SIMPLE.

Surprisingly none of thepanel mentioned  the fact that the amount of research money being dissipated in the name of science is now a huge problem . Its so bad that the anathema of "recent" as adjective to research reports  on media is NOT as as it should be---- a reason to suspect it .

After all ,All on panel KNOW good research is built in/from a big stable building . The results are not to the credit of a bright appendage but the stale old insitution .( even robot classes in high school)
The one thing they agreed on ( Physics, Chemistry Maths and Stable research/teaching  houses )  is he thing that Polys too must insist on .
Environmental research has been dissipated by polys giving them constant name changes and them stupidly trying to pick a better boundary than they do for theory and applied - Its parliaments problem.  
 People doing Stats on the latest theory of disadvantage and social science cause and effect need the discipline of tough maths and a history of study in the organisation .
My questions .
1, Why did we miss opportunity to hit hard and cleanly .Why didn't Chubb call for  a consensus on this before the meeting, he knows the problem but did not insist on the first element of a solution ( as much agreement about it as is human possible) Gong on the decades its taken to get such a productive and stimulating debate by real scientists this could be ( we hope not )  be a preliminary to a good conference of this the  rarest of opportunities in Monday nights entertainment.
2 The opportunity to promote the positives lost,The concept of vision well put by a few . An example : We have had for thirty years the chance to sell sound development and environment policy to the world - but its being eroded by a whole of careless bickering by a whole range of people who only know enough science to be dangerous . If that's YOU take scientists who know their stuff seriously and mind your own business and theirs!
Other questions
These subjects were always hard so what's changed since these people were inspired to do pure science?

1. Science talk has become so popular that people who don't actually practice try to do it . Doherty was very clear and correct on these basic principles which means basic science must be supported at the expense of many of the namers and gamers ( Biology , sports) . The experts were agreed - if we have the choice,  leave the science rewards and winner pickers  to someone else .
2. We should be proud of the narrow and prime  focus given to Physics  Chemistry and Maths in The 1970's and 1980's .(the people on stage were only a few of many AUSSIES  who have built well on PCM base insisted on before we let science go feral
3. No use blaming the polys altogether. IF scientists sang with the same tune today the politicians might follow . The tragedy is--- if the trumpet is not sounded clearly - neither the audience or the polys get the real message . KISS stupid 

What do polys really know about solving another countries problems

Maybe the World Wars mightn't have started or lasted as long  if armies and polys weren't driven  to  jump in with solutions to another countries problems at a moments notice .
What is that moment ? That moment is the moment we hoped would never happen. When governments leave it till its too late to do anything else . Clearly prevention and understanding would help as would early intervention based on that knowledge ,

Does that knowledge exist ? PROBABLY somewhere. 

Do polys know it? . Not according to their inaction before the moment or there lack of logic at the moment .  

lets go to Today.
Iraq intervention crisis     The Code words are bolded but are they magic or what?
 Hon Julie Bishop  (Australia) thinks we can educate young people to not be radicalised , the presumption is that the young people are dumb and easily led . Well maybe a few  but you only have hope for changing their minds if you really understand what is on their minds and don't treat them as dumb . Poly 1 lost the point. 

Secretary of State for the USA( America)  says he looking for best practice as if the only way to solve problems is with some sort of sacred process ( modelled by industrywe presume but definitely as technological fix  ) . People are not machines my friend . Go back and talk to each other and people on the ground or observers before you offend thinking people  with a label -- like Julie's  Poly 2 lost the point

The family at war with itself needs more than anything else--- understanding from outsiders . Their home is being wrecked and they probably really don't know why . Australia and America   at least have some idea of where of home might be in the future because they have people who understand about sheep, cropping and retailing. Never is  a better time for objectivity,,  but who is helping our polys ACT early on this ?

Some say  wars would never trouble the West if the determinists had  there way . I say its them that prevent early intervention , so their simple ideas are more of a problem than they or those hiding in closets like to think.

1. The determinists amongst us hope that if the fight is about too many people trying to live on the one patch,  the problem would go away if they just killed each other .
2. the determinists would have it that if we can stay away , the problem will go away . The Germans nearly had their way because the determinists  nearly got their way in the good old USA in the 1940's 
3. the determinists treat people as expendable . Most countries can be fun to live in if they respect every one in them and use them to do something. Which side are the ideologues of the West on?  

No such blinkered faith is  for us - we have a tradition of trying to talk things through out of respect for people made in the image of God . That works .
OK so if we accept as the USA are NOW saying that its not about military intervention--- what is about ?
The advantage we have for a warring country/ countries is we can be a bit objective about what they are fighting over ; yet the dumb idea of the democrats is to pretend that if we give them elections they will suddenly stop fighting and they will have a wonderful thing called a democracy . Culture control is such a poor substitute for real respect ( which we need to model better)  .
So don't ever run that quick fix crap again.
 Are the fighters who come from Australia being radicalised? 
No it is  not just simply that  ; Julia's false assumption is that religions create a haze ( thats 'easily removed ) when it in reality the framework in a world view is impossible to easily shift - it often creates clarity in confusion ( it still may not work but it is attractive when people are desperate for answers )  The young people on SBS last night  have their minds switched on and until you talk about the realities of arguments in their own country,  they are not going to listen.like the determinists is ignoring the critical role that worldview can and must play .Talk of " values ' just doesn't cut it when war is on - infact why talk at all ? Listening works better .
Our boys went to war when there was nothing better to do back home . They are doing the  same,

 What we can do to help them  is to help  find an economy ( not a political system ) that works . They don't know it but their commitment to the land issue  is not helping them  find new homes. The fact that the West can't see that means both Outsiders and  Insiders are in a fog over what is happening and what to do about it !      The  West has lost its zest for intervention and dumb determinism must share some blame


The problem is as big in the West as it is in the east .
If you are wise you stay out ; If you are really wise,  you watch closely . If you are really really wise you wait ; , If you are really really really really wise you wait and act in the moment you choose - not the one the world chooses for you .

What starts wrong goes wrong quicker  The problem is perspective and the solution is perspective ; Neither side have any but one side SHOULD HAVE it  .



 I have clearly not considered all the matters - hardly one.

An inconvenient moment

The Tony and Clive Show on ABC's Lateline program  25 June 2014
For a change Tony Jones seemed lost,  and like the audience there was this sense that nothing was making sense. Tony ,as usual,  was asking a lot of questions and the one he wanted answered , even though he said it directly , wasn't really answered.
Is Tony dumb or has the value of asking a dumb question diminished?
No , dumb questions are always fine,  though they risk wasting time and making the author look dumb- its fine because,  like democracy we learn by waiting and being interrupted by the inefficiencies of weird interactions of faith, reason and approaching dead ends.  I like taking such risks with Q's which is one reason i doubt like a scientist before I get on my horse and or speculate wildly like those three horse and destiny bound amigos on the screen last night .
So are we the long suffering audience to understand another beating over the head - one so repetitive and dumb,  retorting of "confidence" between the three hot air merchants .( who don't trust each other - why trust them?)
The dummies have forgotten something .They have their own denial problems and typically project them onto others.
The thing they have in common is  that they all see themselves as powerful.
If we are to believe someone who actually knows something , we would have greater certainty about what the show meant last night . Power corrupts and talking about the invisible corrupts easily and most assuredly . They should all shut up and we should all switch them off ( as we are) Where are the scientists and technology experts on the ABC when you really need them?

Another sobering thought comes too from history. "The greatest evil is done in the name of the best intention" . That doesn't worry Tony Jones,  but being in denial about it may mean he is most vulnerable to it - just as all of us are.
So what do make of last night ? An inconvenient moment of truth projection and denial -- nothing superficial like the hot air merchants want us to believe was the issue  ?



Nothing wrong with dumb questions but Q&A control of questions means the ABC must stop running this pretence of feeding the right ( and conservative s and those who are not mere reactionaries) to the lions on Monday night . Its getting more desperate and less watchable  each week

Here 's proof.  Ask this question yourself Tony to whoever comes on .

"If we (ABC and associated wannabes) haven't been able to convince the public about the dangers of CC after 10 years banging on about  it , why would be bother again tonight? "

Beyond a mere god

Heidigger said only a god could change the world . Chesterton said that if you abolish God the government becomes god . If only we listened to one or both of these old blokes we might not have wasted billions trying to fight the unseen enemy CC  .  If only the Roman emperors could see the foolishness of their worries about the people worshipping an unseen God .
Modern progressives are living in a dream and have proven that despite spending billions { of money that was not their own) to try to force the public to lower carbon emissions ; the strategy they chose (carbon tax and market mechanisms)

They should have listened to and studied sociology so they knew how difficult it really is to change behaviour ( at what tax percentage markup do you stop smoking ?) A great student of the subject like Ellul.



The individual who burns with desire for action but does not know what to do is a common type in our society. He wants to act for the sake of justice, peace, progress, but does not know how. If propaganda can show him this 'how' then it has won the game; action will surely follow".<sup>[33]:209

Beyond  a mere god - and god worship 

When ABCTV put a panel together of scientists and let them talk we will ignore their selective editing  and 
restrictive solution exploration: we know they have walked out of church in disgust</sup> 

More religious than we think

Current contenders for PRIME MINISTER in AUSTRALIA could be considered "Pious".

You 'll note that I am using the word  in both the common "religious" sense and the more profound 'Cultural "sense in which Chesterton used it against "the First Fabian". Noone but noone,  including me likes to be called pious in the common understanding of the word . Sort of implies " other worldliness " , out of touch with reality -,
Its confronting nature is why we need to take it serioulsy . Just to repeat myself Chesterton had in his Biography of his friend Shaw seen his very popular ideas work through a war and was not about to allow another; by careless reaction against the culture that bore HIM and US into freedom and dignity . 

Grab yourself a copy of "Eternity Magazine " or Roy Williams book "In God they Trust " for more about our pious leaders:  very interesting as both have widely differing drawing patterns to their clear commitments there. The idea is important because many of Australians intelligensia think that religion is not only not necessary but dangerous . Dangerous it certainly is which is all the more reason to take it seriously .The fear of the average non commited aussie of religion needs to be addressed too with facts,  as freedom of speech could be removed simply because the wannabes want to restrict the amount of " heat" in debates about " what is right " and "what is correct to believe" . Such a freedom was hard fought for but easily lost in the same it was lost before ? 

Psychologists tell us we all " have  religion " so denial of the need too,  is not helpful.
 A culture which teaches forgiveness and acceptance of political diversity is however a little different to one which supports revenge and  political control . 

The "Muslim protest in support of Egypt's leader in Sydney yesterday , it seems to me , is not about race but about proclaiming the superiority of one cultural idea ( one pietas ) over another . Many Christians would agree with the thinking Muslim that western culture has lost its way and is MOST vulnerable because it has a faith that is failing to deliver .
The problem then is not the religiuos,  but those who say faith systems don't matter . Its th e deniers  who need to change their minds and engage with the cultural ideas that motivate men. 

Rudd Rhetoric - Same old same old , revolutionary reformer

We used to just say - "keeps on going around in circles"  Circle work CW
Maybe its not content , but attitude that matters . Mr Rudd is relentlessly positive while Mr Abbott is "Mr Negative" . The parent,  at least , can be trusted .
If you were a pedant you would tell yourself that CW is both revolutionary , reactionary and reformist .Wonderful comforting words.Perfectly logical -- if you are a pedant .
... and don't want to see the world as an outsider might see it

Playing the air game , and being light on your feet can  be very useful with a weary public - got to pick your time and moment . Labor can jump ahead and call the opposition "full of negativity" . " "no new ideas " party . Life is too short to be always chasing new ideas and much shorter and less satisfying if you don't really reform the good old ones .Rudd has at least hit the nerve there this week .
You  can as a pedant  have it all ways with the words but still not be moving in practice - just treading air and hoping that noone would notice that its recycled air , not "fresh air " you were ingesting( today he announced the most momentous  featureless large democratization ritual ever undertaken  by the Labor party ) .
Feeble spirits use all the right words and right words of passage ( " history long time hard work") from the past but because they do not really  study the past,  they repeat past mistakes ( more Pacific solutions )

Mouths are aghast that Kevin Rudd can be King again by playing the chameleon . He's always moving on and zipping the opposition before they have time to form a question.  Port Moresby or the Highlands absolutely no one understands how we got there - clearly he got there on the universe explorer Politicaceleste.- a featureless place to most Aussies ; perfect place for a landing

Like Julia he's just got away today with finding a real solution to the refugee problem - by naming a new ( always that way ) country . PNG .
No one with half a brain can fathom the acceptance of this zipped brain scheme.
Its not a joke and its not a good look for the media too ,, who are mesmerized by change. The faith of our society is complete in theory ( evolutionary is how good things happen ) but devolutionary and destructive in practice ( just uses up resources saved to enable future investment) 

Even the word reform can have a new meaning each week - "we have thought long and hard about this" suggests anything but  .

Noone in their right mind can digest the idea that what was announced today in regard to democratization of Labor " is the most significant , the most important  change ". ( words often chanted by preachers from the pulpit) The acceptance of this nonsense is due to the widespread false faith in progress - that what comes tomorrow is better,  more evolved than what was here yesterday

All Fabians have used the "change is good card" since Chesterton wrote about Shaws addiction to it . Its hard to ask a good question about the future.
"All feeble spirits naturally live in the future,"  We don't need to look far to see the faith in the future merchants as they dance around responses with the "moving on" imperative that fixes them in the old church from which they come .
Some would say this "god of the gap flller " works,  but it only works as a daily and costly fix.  It only survives as a weekly meal because its powered by the public purse and .. perhaps only in areas of church  where they too do not accept the public curse of faith in mere progress.

If you don't know which church YOU belong to ,
ask yourself the question .
Are conservative people just full of negative ideas ( implies that only one direction is positive )
The air may appear fresh,  but true movers use a car that has wheels ( real history of ideas) and doesn't reinvent them every time it wants to go somewhere .( Rudd calls for new ideas today showing what a shallow showman he is !)
"Feeble spirits live in the future because it is featureless"  It can look big and its up there 

Labors iron fist

The ongoing deceptive projection of either Gillard or Rudd as fronts for Labor says something terrible about Labor - we don't know what they stand for and its not clear they know either. Moving so easily from left to right suggests, not that they are a broad church , but that  there is nothing in between the images. No doubt they will be busy pre election trying to talk broadchurch and stability of policy .
Let's assume, as is our bent here,   that the issue is not issues ( the substance thereof  --as the desperate reactionary rhetoricians would have it ) but impressions. Clearly just  toughness imaging  is not the issue, but toughness undermined by substituting left for right is the credibility cruncher for thinking people - terrible twin concatenation  to many.
None of us like the hidden extremes in Labor ( glove and fist ) but we MUST always be aware of them - such extremes suggest a vacuum in between. Their ongoing attempts to use the glove is a hypocrisy and thinly veiled tragedy of emptiness we best reject forever.
The mass exodus of Julia's operatives ( 1/3 of cabinet have just quit) suggest this overblown balloon of rhetoric about "world shattering" has no real their commitment to being implemented ; belated arguing for world changing policy --eggshell thin excuses and "I, me and my exit speeches " . Watch Rudd soften the hard edge of this shallowness and lack of substance!  Is winning everything ?- watch the threatened throw up survival changes to policy that was once said to be sacrosanct .
Is it only an impression that Gillard's cabinet were never as convincing as Rudd's - 2 years of birdbath depth defences for heavenly policies that we will see washed clean or even empty  over the next few months?
If anyone gets the prize for lightweight and narrow focused, it is this natural association between the left and the greens. 
Julia may have labelled herself and the party "as god like" but she surely she went down because she has not performed like god -let alone sound like.
So how deep does the god like imagery in Rudd run?  Clearly Rudd's alternative humility cop will be attractive to many.
Before anyone else gets carried away,  all parties ( including the most pretentious godlike Greens ) will be judged , not on the power they presume, but there respect for their limited power .
Rudd clearly has an advantage over some in the Liberal party who have never doubted they are infact godlike and always were.
The big question is : Will we be fooled to accept for a second time that Rudd is the kid glove type  covering an iron fist of  a few fanatics in behind him  . Labor's  hold on the intellect and internal substance is as shaky as their long term reliance  on Barry Jones as a symbol of it . Behind Labors policy is not substance of the many but interest of the few. Totally ineffective industry and employment development policy and a clever country policy as shallow and shaky as the walls of their hypocritical building education buildings policy .
Abbott would do well to focus on the facade.