get it right: it's not the planet that needs saving

such big hands, such a wee planet - this kind of message is everywhere

I know that 'save the planet' is a simple-to-understand slogan, but it really gives me the irrits, as I've written before, because it massively distorts the issue, and over-emphasises, as usual, the influence of our own humble species. As if we could be capable of destroying the whole planet. Then again, give us time...
I've quoted before, somewhere, a New Scientist article which sums up my position, but I'm too disorganised to find it and quote it again, or to find the blog post I wrote about it. The point, briefly, is that our planet is not in danger from AGW. We are, of course, and many other species are, but certainly not the whole planet. Climate change is after all, the norm when we look at the long history of Earth, and climate change has been the main factor, most likely, in the extinction of most of the 99.9%  or so of species that are extinct, just as it has been a major factor in the mass speciations that have occurred following mass extinctions. Most species don't last too long, having sprung up and died out under particular, peculiar climatic conditions. This shouldn't be too difficult a concept to get our heads around, so why the 'save the planet' blather?
My current irritation is triggered by a couple of observations. Yesterday, a news item highlighted the fact that a certain brand of disposable bags advertised as biodegradable haven't been breaking down as they should. The bags have 'save the planet' written on them, as if to underline the absurdity of it all. It's common enough, as you can see. Also yesterday I bought a copy of The Monthly for the first time in - well, months - and Robert Manne had a little piece excoriating Tony Abbott. It's generally a worthwhile piece, but on Abbott's AGW denialism, Manne scratches his head and writes this:

... Abbott must know that if the climate scientists are right, there is a chance that the very future of the Earth is in peril.

Yes, I know, we must make allowances for hyperbole, and we should be kind and take 'the Earth' to mean 'the biosphere', but this sort of stuff has a kind of alarmist populism about it that really grates with me. Particularly because so many kids are parroting it. Sure it gets them in, but it also scares them needlessly. Let's get the message in proportion. The truth is alarming enough as it is, and of course a much more useful guide to action.

random thoughts on science

Trying not to get too distracted after reading this [I'm such an emotional cuss], I'll focus instead on scientism, so-called, and the problematics of a dialogue between science and faith.
The difficulties and pitfalls of such a dialogue are certainly highlighted by the discussions at the Biologos site. In fact the Benner article isn't representative of Biologos, which has a specific and quite narrow agenda, clearly stated in its mission statement:

The BioLogos Foundation explores, promotes and celebrates the integration of science and Christian faith.

So, it has no interest in any other faith, and it has no interest in a dialogue with those who can't clearly see any positive value in Christian faith. So it's not about promoting dialogue between religion and science generally [that was my mistake], and it would naturally tend to take the view, not only that science can't explain everything, but that science can't explain anything really important, because Christianity covers all the really important stuff.
So it's hardly surprising that the concept of scientism is highlighted at such a site, for the purpose of condemnation. Scientism, a term I've only recently encountered, is, as its name suggests, the belief that science rules, ok? Of course it is defined negatively as hubristic, shallow, positivist, rationalist, ideological and so forth. These claims are countered, I think rather effectively, by pointing out that the methods of science are multiform and open-ended, with an emphasis on skepticism, on evidence, on testability and reproducibility, and that the scientific approach has changed our world for the better. Another development that has changed the western world for the better is the secularisation of our political system. This is not directly attributable to science, but both science and secularisation have been helped along by the values of the Enlightenment, and as such I think they are quite close relatives.
I could say a lot more about this, but I think it's an old argument. Those non-believers who have taken the 'new atheists' to task for rudeness, aggressiveness and so forth have tended to defend the smaller, more 'harmless' religions rather than the ones politically powerful enough to purvey their own brand of 'truth'. I'm sympathetic to the point that many people, or peoples, seem to need religion, at least in the short term. And that they derive a strong sense of identity and integrity and purpose from those beliefs. We've all come across people with whom it would be useless to argue on religious matters, so ingrained and irreplaceable is their faith to them, people who are yet very humane and worthy individuals. The question of whether their worthiness is a result of their faith, or something that shines through in spite of it, is an almost impossible-to-answer question, but nevertheless one always worth asking.
Science helps us to better understand humans as social animals, and so it helps us in our ethics and our politics. In fact there is no area of life, I feel, to which a scientific approach can't contribute. Science is by no means narrow, it's as broad as can be - it's often a matter of basic astuteness or acuteness, formalized. At our best, we all practice it, to some degree.

on the endless struggle to make decision-makers accountable

On bringing heads of state to justice, on amnesties and immunities and the like, I must repeat that I'm on the side of getting stuck into political leaders, making them suffer for how they've made their people suffer. It's a slow process, but it should always be remembered that a century ago, the idea of bringing heads of state to account was virtually inconceivable.
So commendation is due to Charlotte Dennett and her ilk, for having the guts to at least try to stick it to George Bush and his henchmen, for flouting the law and common decency in bringing war to a people who did nothing to deserve it, as well as imposing it upon the military of their own country, with devastating consequences for so many ordinary front-liners. While I'm interested in the current pressure on the Pope and the Vatican, there's no doubt in my mind that particular members of the Bush administration are the greater criminals.
Via three quarks daily

we can't help but advocate, let's be honest

Jasen Rosenhouse has a piece here about advocacy in science, and, more or less as usual, I'm in agreement. Of course, I'm not a scientist, and I get overwhelmed sometimes by the detail in some fields - in climate change for example - but you don't have to be absolutely certain about your own position to know that at least some other positions are crap, or baseless. So you advocate for not having a baseless position. You advocate for evidence, and fruitful methodology.
Of course, in the science versus religion debate, there's just so much going on it's hard to know where to start, re advocacy, but clearly if a person claims that evolution by natural selection is false because it contradicts the Bible account of creation, then those with knowledge about natural selection have every reason to advocate for its soundness, and the real question is whether or not it should be seen as a duty. The same, of course, goes for geologists and cosmologists when faced with the arguments or dismissals of young earth creationists.
Rosenhouse takes issue with Steven Benner who has warned of the dangers of advocacy in science on a site called Biologos, which seeks to promote a dialogue between science and faith, it seems. I might have more to say on that, generally, later, but for now let's look at what Benner says:

... it is important... for scientists to emphasize that uncertainty is central to science, and advocacy is disruptive of it. When a scientist becomes an advocate, he loses for himself the power to use scientific discipline to discern reality.

Reading this makes me think of the process of philosophical discourse, as it has occurred through the ages. Some of this discourse has been about the nature of reality, and this is largely the province of science today. There has also been much discourse about how we should live - the fields of moral and political philosophy. Philosophers, or thinkers generally, have proposed different ethical approaches, consequentialist or deontological or whatever, and defended their position against critiques. Often they strengthen their argument though critical conversation. Are they not advocates? Many people - Robert Hughes being one I remember -have said that arguing is the best way to learn, to develop your ideas. Scientists argue vehemently and healthily, for the most part, about their interpretations of reality - string theory, the multiverse, the nature of time even. Some are fierce advocates for particular positions, but are guided by the results nonetheless. Science can and does help us with developing ethical systems by contributing to the ongoing understanding of what we are, and how we best thrive as highly socialized but individual creatures. The idea that you can't derive an ought from an is has always struck me as false - we do it all the time.
Besides, I'm not sure that uncertainty is central to science. Skepticism, yes, but uncertainty? Would science ever get off the ground if uncertainty ruled always? Science owes much of its success to transformational positive findings or theories that have stood up against all testing and have opened up fruitful avenues. The developers of those theories weren't driven by uncertainty - which doesn't really drive anything. They were driven rather by skepticism or dissatisfaction with existing accounts.
 This is an important issue - scientists are the last people who should shy away from advocating in the fields in which they are experts. As Nick Matzke says in his comments on Benner, there are levels of uncertainty, and these are often exploited, for example when politicians such as Tony Abbott claim that AGW is not 'settled science'. When this sort of distortion is promoted, it's time for scientists not only to advocate, but to unite in advocating.
Having read all the comments on this Benner piece, many of them by people apparently sympathetic to ID, I feel confirmed in my view that scientists should advocate for evidence-based thinking, reproducible results and so on at every opportunity. Which I suppose brings me to the issue of 'scientism', which I might write about soon.

questions and issues

maybe we should read this book

Canto: For your thoughts?
Jacinta: Rehashing old arguments against Gray, hardly worth it but it does get the critical juices flowing.
Canto: There's something to be said for reading writers you don't like, I find myself resisting them, once I feel I've cottoned on to their view, and yet when I do read them, as for example regular columnists in the newspapers, or regular bloggers, whatever, I keep finding new arguments to refute them, which is fun, until I find they're just variations of the old arguments.
Jacinta: Which isn't so bad - you have a consistent position, with lots of arguments to back it up, even ones you have yet to to discover.
Canto: Then you always wonder if you're being really rational, or endlessly rationalizing.
Jacinta: Are you happy with your way of seeing the world?
Canto: Yes, happy enough.
Jacinta: So why worry?
Canto: I'm not so much worried - I'm happy because I think I've thought through the issues, but there's always this nagging doubt, have I really thought through them? Do I even understand them?
Jacinta: What issues are you talking about?
Canto: That's the thing, there are so many of them. For example, is our world really the world? That's a really big one. Another one is, can every individual redefine, in his or her small way, what it is to be human? And then there are the innumerable smaller issues, like how to run a government, how to bring up your children [even if you don't have any], with what mixture of discipline and liberality...
Jacinta: For yourself and for your kids. There are of course those who say the questions that most exercise us are those that don't have an answer, such as - why are we here?
Canto, Yes, the being question, the question that so exercised Heidegger I believe, with his idea of 'thrownness into the world', or some such thing. On the one hand a man can put his life's intellectual energy into such a question, while on the other hand you get commentators on blogs [and probably also full-time philosophers] who feel that such questions are meaningless and a waste of time. They even get quite pissed off at the 'dumbness' of the question. There's no ultimate meaning, and don't let it spoil your lunch.
Jacinta: The this-worlders, some of them, seem to want to discourage the question because it leads to other-worldly speculations which get nowhere, being unverifiable, untestable, undecidable.
Canto: Seems reasonable to me.
Jacinta: And yet, while it lets all this in, most people aren't happy with 'this is just the way it is' - I mean, how can it just be that we're the only beings apparently 'privileged' enough to know, to have discovered, that our universe is 13.8 billion years old, and that our planet may well be the only one in this extraordinary universe to sustain what we call 'life', a self-sustaining, self-replicating, entropy-busting local system of so far just about unfathomable complexity? How can it be that we, and no others, are on the verge of recreating the conditions that pertained at the time of the big bang that gave birth to ourselves and everything else knowable to us? Does the so-called anthropic principle really explain this or does it explain it away?
Canto: Well, I'll leave all that with you.

 

getting all riled up

if this guy's a philosopher, I'm a dung-beetle

Just been revisiting the risible John Gray via this Pharyngula piece, and the links connected with it, that's to say, a review by Gray of a book by A C Grayling [which turns out not to be a book review but an attempt to belittle everything Grayling stands for, without of course being particularly specific about the variety of Grayling's views on a variety of subjects], together with Grayling's brief and, I think, devastating response, which then links to an earlier critique of Gray which, at moments reads uncannily like my own critique [since lost with the loss of my laptop, damn it]. This also led me to Ophelia Benson, and her followers. A delightful discovery, and her blog is now on my roll.

What to say about Gray? Grayling has already said it - as have I, I now recall, but Grayling is more succinct. One of the main points he makes is that he's a meliorist and not a 'perfectibilist' [Grayling that is]. He also points out [and this I think is key], that he has made this point before, but Gray keeps on with the same error [remind you of any creationist writers?], and the same old anti-progress rhetoric, in spite of the masses of evidence around him. This was a point I hammered ad nauseum in my own piece, focusing on the social treatment of black people, women and homosexuals 150 years ago and today, in the west. As Grayling puts it, if you don't call it progress, what do you call it, regress? And if you're not a meliorist, if you don't want to improve things, to be a faster runner [for an athlete], to be more tolerant and accepting [for a mother], to be more cognisant of your subject [for a scientist], to leave the world a better place [for a politician, and everyone else], then why go on? Gray seems to have real trouble with this, imagining that we're living in a world of false myths by wanting to better ourselves and our world. Can he really believe this? What alternative does he have to offer?

Gray tries to mock Grayling's prolific output, his interest in such a variety of subjects and issues. Gray's own work is contemptuously abstract and lacking in detail. It's not just lacking in specific human interests, it's also lacking in analysis. It's essentially rhetoric rather than philosophy. One of the many points in which Grayling's critique uncannily reflects my own is in Gray's use of the term 'religion', generally as a term of abuse. We have terms such as 'secular religion' and 'scientific religion' and 'humanist religion' dotted throughout his work, like so many sneers in lieu of argument. It rather reminds me of adolescents sneering at the adults. Then, after all this, Gray attempts, albeit half-heartedly, to defend religion, in such vague, non-committal terms as to be meaningless.

In short, Gray has so little positive to say that he seems condemned to a repetition of adolescent sneers and lugubrious prognostications. However, I have to thank Straw Dogs for helping me to focus more clearly on what is to be valued in human life, and human striving. On that basis, I recommend the writings of A C Grayling, Simon Blackburn and other Gray critics, meliorists all, unreservedly.

a controversial historical matter

a monument to the Armenian genocide in Bikfaya, Lebanon

Canto: You've been talking about how human society rights itself, or fights its way back to health, by facing its invaders, its peculiarities, and defeating them, or assimilating them in a more benign form maybe...
Jacinta: Like with endosymbiosis...
Canto: Yet often there's a struggle to face the past, and a wholesale denialism, as with holocaust denialism, but that's just a loopy fringe thing. In other cases the denialism is more 'mainstream' if you like, as with Japan and its 'war heroes', and Turkey and the Armenian genocide. What do you think of this last example - there was an article in this weekend's Australian about it.
Jacinta: I tried to emphasize last time that though it's 'natural' that we move towards health after troubled times, that shouldn't diminish our respect our respect for those who put themselves about, and even sacrifice their lives, for the sake of a healthier, fairer, more balanced system. Also, people disagree, often violently, over what such a system should be like. Some people feel it should be based on suppression of the 'wrong attitudes', and some of those people really believe, in the case of the Armenian genocide - well, first of all they reject the term 'genocide' as a gross exaggeration, or even a complete lie - that it's an anti-Turkish conspiracy.
Canto: Designed to destabilize Turkey - there we are with health and balance again.
Jacinta: The second secretary to the Turkish embassy in Canberra described the claims as  'a systematic  campaign of defamation carried out by Armenian lobby groups living in various countries all over the world. Any recognition or any resolution accusing the Turkish nation of a crime that it has not committed is unacceptable. The allegations are totally groundless and baseless.' A pretty unequivocal response. However, Australian politicians Maxine McKew and Joe Hockey have both made speeches acknowledging the Armenian genocide. McKew is the member for Bennelong, which has a large Armenian population...
Canto: Ah yes, those Armenian lobby groups...
Jacinta: And Hockey has an Armenian grandfather. So we have contradictory claims, and what do we do? We look at the evidence.
Canto: Only twenty countries have so far recognized the Armenian genocide [among them Britain, France and  Switzerland], but Australia isn't one of them. I would imagine that for many nations, recognition would depend on issues of diplomacy and trade rather than truth or falsity.
Jacinta: The Wikipedia article on the subject, while anonymous as usual...
Canto: Obviously written by an Armenian lobbyist..
Jacinta: It seems to be well-documented and footnoted, with photos of the forced marches, of the bones of massacred Armenians, and descriptions from observers at the time, such as ambassador Henry Morgenthau, of the US, who reported that what was happening to the Armenians was public knowledge, freely admitted by many Turks. The famous historian Arnold Toynbee published a book about the treatment of the Armenians under the Ottoman Empire in 1916, including much eyewitness testimony. It seems to have held up well, in spite of claims at the time that it was just anti-Turkish wartime propaganda. In short, while the extent of the extermination will always be arguable [Wiki puts the numbers at one to one and half million], the claim that it didn't happen at all seems absurd. The treatment of Armenians by the Turks became increasingly Draconian towards the end of the nineteenth century, leading to the Hamidian massacres [under Sultan Hamid II] in 1895-6, and various other pogroms and massacres up to the 'official' genocide of 1915-22.
Canto: So there appears to be plentiful evidence. And this diplomat's comments suggest that there's still quite a bit of anti-Armenian bigotry in that part of the world. Does he claim that there was no killing at all, or is he quibbling about the term 'genocide'?
Jacinta: Yes, it isn't clear, but there appears to be a wealth of info about it online. Just reading some of the comments on different articles, though, tells me how emotive and polarizing the subject is.
Canto: Well, I've found this well-written, and thoroughly footnoted, piece which discusses the event or events as a 'disputed genocide'. It ends on a reasoned note, I think, with these remarks:

Some Turkish and Armenian historians have suggested recently that it is time to "step back from the was-it-genocide-or-not dialogue of the deaf, which only leads to mutual recrimination" and instead concentrate on empirically grounded historical research that seeks a common pool of firm knowledge.[56] Time will tell whether it will be possible to rescue history from nationalists who have plundered history to serve their own political ends.

Jacinta: Sounds sensible. So we, who are new to the subject, must reserve our judgment, not having fully analysed the evidence. Clearly the Armenians became a target because of their siding with Russia during the Great War...
Canto: Not surprising, then, that Russia is one of the countries that has officially recognized the genocide.
Jacinta: But whether there was an intention to exterminate the Armenians in Turkey, that's the big genocide question. Not that this matters much to the victims.