Eon announces demolition of Sheffield’s Cooling Towers. Go press release:
Unless you do something big and bold soon in the regeneration of Sheffield, no-one will care. Literally, no-one outside the city will care. No-one will care about a city with the same shops as everywhere else, the same flats as everywhere else, the same cafes as everywhere else, but slightly uglier buildings.
Full text here if the hyperlink works
In the pub on friday night Dan showed me his boids – virtual creatures that evolve in a virtual world according to a genetic algorithm (yes, these are the sorts of friends I have!). He told me that when he made mistakes in the code, the boids seems to evolve to take advantage of it. So there was a bug that meant that predator boids moved quicker when they were with other predator boids. What happened was that the boids exploited this bug and learnt to hunt in packs.
What I found was interesting was my reaction to this – “Cripes!” I thought “How the hell did they work out how to do that?!”. Even though, as a programmer, I knew exactly how much intelligence and autonomy these boids had (none). Even though, as a dyed-in-the-wool evolutionist, I could understand the directionless-logic of a genetic algorithm, some part of me leaped at the chance to ascribe intention to those little coloured triangles as they floated around the screen. Despite years of thinking about evolution, despite knowing that an evolutionary algorithm was an undirected process, that no boid made any decisions, that all that happened was that those boids which had some simple rule that made them associate with other boids moved faster and this made them more likely to be reproduced in the next ‘generation’ and that this meant that pack-like behaviour became more prevalent – despite all this, my instinct was still to ask “Why did they decide to hunt in packs and how did they see it would work”.
It made me realise just how alien the logic of evolution is, that someone like me who is theologically and intellectually predisposed to want to understand it still fails to grasp it instinctively.
“Reed Elsevier announced today that it is to exit the defence exhibitions sector. This portfolio of five shows is part of Reed Elsevier’s global Business division and represents around 0.5% of group annual turnover. ”
aka. We won!
Update Reed press release
Reed Elsevier CEO Crispin Davis:
“Our defence shows are quality businesses which have performed well in recent years. Nonetheless, it has become increasingly clear that growing numbers of important customers and authors have very real concerns about our involvement in the defence exhibitions business.
“We have listened closely to these concerns and this has led us to conclude that the defence shows are no longer compatible with Reed Elsevier’s position as a leading publisher of scientific, medical, legal and business content.”
Update 2: Lancet editorial on this
Update 3: Coverage in the Times and the Guardian
People think of good and bad teachers as engaged in the same activity, as if education was a substance, and that bad teachers supply a little of the substance, and good teachers supply a lot. This makes it difficult to understand that education can be a destructive process, and that bad teachers are wrecking talent, and that good and bad teachers are engaged in opposite activities.
Keith Johnstone, in Impro
Hey, are you a dreamer? I haven’t seen too many around lately. Things have been tough lately for dreamers. They say dreaming is dead, no one does it anymore. It’s not dead it’s just that it’s been forgotten, removed from our language. Nobody teaches it so nobody knows it exists. The dreamer is banished to obscurity. Well, I’m trying to change all that, and I hope you are too. By dreaming, every day. Dreaming with our hands and dreaming with our minds. Our planet is facing the greatest problems it’s ever faced, ever. So whatever you do, don’t be bored, this is absolutely the most exciting time we could have possibly hoped to be alive. And things are just starting
‘Man on Train’ in Waking Life
An open letter to Elsevier and all those involved in the IEHG from geographer Keith Halfacree, 10 April 2007:
I am respectfully informing you of my decision to follow my fellow human geography academics at Newcastle University and elsewhere and am suspending work on my three contributions to Elsevier’s International Encyclopaedia of Human Geography. This is in protest at Reed Elsevier’s ongoing role as organiser of weapons fairs such as the Defence Systems & Equipment International (DSEI) exhibitions in London.
This has been a difficult decision for me to make as it pits the total repugnance with which I view the arms industry against a strong personal ethic of staying true to commitments I make to others. However, having been wrestling with these issues for quite some time now, and I especially thank Dave (Featherstone) and Paul (Routledge) for this, I feel that there is only one course I can take now that a greater formalisation of our protest has emerged and has been discussed most thoughtfully across the Critical Geography Forum.
I would like to add, though, that I have found past dealings with Elsevier themselves via seeking reprint permissions, dealing with the mechanics of publishing journal articles, etc. to be excellent and supportive of the promotion of knowledge. Thus, again following the Newcastle lead, my action initially only targets the high-profile IEHG and I shall not be boycotting contributions towards other Elsevier publications. However, I do of course reserve the right to revisit this decision.
Again lifting often directly from the Newcastle statement, in greater detail, I do not wish my labour to contribute to the profits of an industry that is not regulated and policed sufficiently to prevent sales of weapons to known abusers of human rights. Reports on the 2005 DSEI fair highlighted serious shortcomings of this nature – see also the excellent Mark Thomas’s (2006) As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela (Ebury). More generally, echoing calls in Elsevier journals such as The Lancet, The British Medical Journal, and Political Geography, as a critical scholar committed to a culture of life I have profound concerns about the incorporation of my labour into an enterprise that profits from the production of the means of killing. Okay, so I am a small small cog and with politics like mine my labour is compromised everyday (!) but just sometimes one has to ‘scream’ (John Holloway 2002 Change the World without taking Power, Pluto) ‘enough’! After all, doesn’t ‘every little count’ (sic.)…
Finally, as those of you know me will appreciate, I find this kind of public statement attention seeking and hence embarrassing, but I do it as part of the call on colleagues elsewhere to join the boycott, and to urge those working in an editorial capacity on the IEHG to reconsider their involvement.
Yours sincerely,
Dr Keith Halfacree (Geography, Swansea University)
Reed Elsevier’s AGM in London on Tuesday was dominated by questions over their involvement in the international arms and torture trade. The protest outside the AGM and questions within were accompanied by newspaper reports of the discovery of the promotion of landmine sales at one recent Reed Elsevier arms fair, and reports that delegates from Iran, which is subject to a UN ban on arms exports, were invited to another Elsevier arms fair which is currently happening in Brazil
Report on the protest, from the Independent
Report on the protest from Indymedia
The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.
Carl Jung
Cf. Probably the best robot in the world? http://www.libertygames.co.uk/videos/robobar.wmv
If you read about Taoist alchemy [1] then, apparently, there is an interesting feature of the teaching. This is that it has a common standard intepretation – an ‘outer teaching’, which is about materials; which substances to add to which substances to get what potions, etc – and a deeper, hidden intrepretation – an ‘innner teaching’ which is about spirituals, what the written lore is really about, and which concerns various tantric practices (i.e. mystical activities, some of which involve putting your genitals into various places). By the by, you get the same theme in western alchemy, the idea that the outer teaching – about turning lead into gold and all that – is really a distraction, or veil, for the inner teaching – which is about (perhaps!?) immortality, perfect knowledge, etc.
There is inner and outer teaching in Christianity as well. The standard intreptation (read: common depiction) of the christian metaphysic is cartoonish: a hell of burning fire, a heaven of clouds and angels with harps, a perverse God who puts apples on trees just so innocents will eat them. Alongside/within this there is a more sophisticated reading of christian theory with all its great themes of sin, forgiveness and justice and wotnot [2]. What interests me is that, here, the inner and outer teachings have conicident implications. Although they differ in their semantic content (and level of sophistication) the implications are the same: go to church, live a pious life according to the teachings of jesus, etc
Here’s a third example, in a different arena, in which I believe there are inner and outer teachings: the justification of the invasion of iraq. Now it is obvious that the outer or popular justifications for the invasion are lies. We obviously didn’t invade because of Saddam’s Links to al-Qaeda, nor was it about WMD, nor was it about Saddam being an evil tyrant. Although they were believed by many misinformed people, these things appear insufficient as causes for our invasion of Iraq in 2003. So, some of us wonder, what is the real reason, the true justification? What, in other words, is the inner teaching that those in power of the Western armies must believe? As with Christianity there is this coincidence of consequences between inner and outer teachings. The misinformed public can believe that Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and want vengence, the White House can believe that we need the oil (or want to make a statement of brute force on the world stage to shore up US hegemony, or want to stop Iraq trading oil in euros, or whatever you believe the real reason was for our invasion) – but the effect is the same: invade Iraq.
So I’ve been thinking about this business of inner and outer teachings, in a kind of undirected way; does the categorisation make sense? Is it as common in theologies as it seems from these three examples? Most importantly, is it functional? What social, institutional or psychological work does it do?
This occured to me, and you can tell me if it is convincing – the point of an inner and outer teaching is where there is no true centre to a set of beliefs. The appearence of hidden meaning is really a function of a set of symbols of such fecundity that they yield an intepretation as rich as the mind that decides to interrogate them. One meaning for a superficial reading, another for a deeper reading. And another for a still deeper reading, or for a deep reading which brings with it a different set of biases or assumptions. The existence of inner and outer teachings are the resolution of two dynamics. One made of institutional forces which promote consistency of actions (also known as compliance in some circumstances!), the second a more personal drive to remove inconsistency in beliefs. The different levels of teaching allow everyone to pick a symbol intepretation which they are comfortable with, without needing to feel like they are contradicting those who use another level of intepretation. The belief (meta-belief) in a higher level of meaning – the inner teaching – allows everyone to happily follow the same behavioural path without having to challenge each other over inconsistencies in their symbol intepretations.
Footnotes:
[1] Not something I regularly do, admittedly, but I do have this book ‘The Secret and Sublime:Taoist Mysteries and Magic: Taoist Mysteries and Magic’, John Blofeld (1973)
[2] There are parallel inner and outer teachings for different aspects of Christian theology. Witness the recent discussion on whether the standard story of Jesus dying for our sins indicates that god is ‘perverse’ (not that I follow Christian theology, but it was on radio 4 at about 7 yesterday morning)
For many years I was known as a Monk. I shaved my head and wore robes and got up very early. I hated everyone and no one found me out. My reputation as a Ladies’ Man was a joke. It caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone.
Leonard Cohen, from the poem ‘Titles’, from The Book of Longing (damningly reviewed here)
Reed Elsevier are mostly a publishing company, but they also own Reed Exhibitions. Reed Exhibitions put on trade fairs and the like, including arms fairs around the world where the rampantly uncontrolled arms industry arranges to sell guns, bombs, torture equipment and delivery vehicles to those who will use them on people around the world who need to be gunned, bombed and tortured.
There’s a list of Reed Elsevier’s upcoming trade fairs here. You can see the famous DSEi (‘The World’s Most Prestigious Defence Exhibition’) in London, this September, at the same time as the Cannes International Boat Show in France. More immediately, the Latin America Aero & Defence – LAAD 07 – is happening in Rio De Janeiro 17 April 2007 – 20 April 2007, at the same time as The Lancet Asia Medical Forum 2007 in Singapore. I wonder how the Linux and Comic communities (New York Comic Con, February 2008; LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in Sao Paulo, May 2007) feel about Reed Elsevier’s involvement with the arms and torture industries?
The wikipedia article on Criticisms of Wikipedia
The comparison to the Encyclopædia Britannica runs throughout, and the issue of authority/reliability:
The main problem is the lack of authority. With printed publications, the publishers have to ensure that their data is reliable, as their livelihood depends on it. But with something like this, all that goes out the window. (Philip Bradley)
Now I don’t believe that printed publications are all that reliable, having read a bunch myself and even written a few, but it seems that there is another important difference between Wikipedia and Encyclopædia Britannica. This is not a difference concerning the writing and writers, but a difference in the readers, or at least a difference in the tacit view of the readers the two encyclopaedia’s have. From the Wikipedia Criticisms article:
to the ordinary user, the turmoil and uncertainty that may lurk beneath the surface of a Wikipedia article are invisible. He or she arrives at a Wikipedia article via Google, perhaps, and sees that it is part of what claims to be an “encyclopedia”. This is a word that carries a powerful connotation of reliability. The typical user doesn’t know how conventional encyclopedias achieve reliability, only that they do. (Robert McHenry, former editor in chief EB)
Wikipedia’s detractors imply that readers are defenceless, passive – I imagine them arriving in the shining halls of Wikipedia like wide-eyed children stumbling first time into some emporer’s Palace. Like children they are easy prey for the court tricksters and schemers with their silver tongues, beautiful clothes and easy, cosmopolitan ways.
The view of the readers is made more explicit in this quote from the former editor in chief of EB:
The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him.
Again passivity, but the second theme here is clear – infection. Innocent children’s mind, polluted by wikipedia’s unsanitised intellectual bugs.
Do we believe that people are that stupid, that they are this weak? With the EB model where a cannon of knowledge is prepared centrally and distributed to a passive audience this model of the reader is appropriate. For Wikipedia, based on the idea of a community of dual writers-readers, it is not so clear that it is.
In 3 pages of letters in today’s Lancet the medical community slammed Elsevier for its involvement in the arms and torture industry. Letters from the Royal College of Physicians, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Doctors for Human Rights, People’s Health Movement, Medsin, Doctors for Iraq said that there is a basic contradiction betwen Reed Elsevier’s commercial interest in death and torture and the values of the Lancet, and medical publishing in general.
The Guardian: Doctors attack Lancet owner’s arms fair links
Across three pages of today’s edition the medical journal publishes letters from top doctors, led by the Royal College of Physicians, who say that Reed Elsevier’s commercial interest in the arms trade undermines the journal’s efforts to improve health worldwide.
The editors of the journal also call on their proprietor to drop its work with the defence industry, claiming that the association is damaging The Lancet’s reputation. The Lancet’s international advisory board is now considering an “organised campaign” against its own publisher.
via ScienceDirect, Lancet table of contents
From the reply by the Lancet editors:
On the question of arms exhibitions, we have found that a growing number of our Elsevier colleagues, who have long standing relationships with scientifi c societies and authors, are questioning Reed Elsevier’s decision to continue in this business. At a time of fi erce debate over author-pays open access journals and open archiving, Reed Elsevier, many of them say, needs to be making strong alliances, not creating new enemies.
Update: PDF of letters and editors response here
In an editorial from the 17 march, ‘Scientific communities must work together to prevent the sale of arms’:
The scientific and health communities with which Reed Elsevier is linked in a symbiotic relationship have a clear opportunity to exert their influence. As a group, these communities have the power to influence corporate strategy. They must sign petitions such as the one identified here, the societies for which Reed Elsevier publishes journals must look for alternative publishers, and editors of journals must express their disgust at the company’s arms trade activities through collectives such as the World Association of Medical Editors (http://www.wame.org/). Furthermore, academic and industry funded researchers should now agree not to submit their high profile randomised control trials to Reed Elsevier journals until links with the arms trade are ended. They should make these decisions public, thus ending their tacit support for the company’s links with the arms trade. Direct loss of revenue in this way would quickly identify to Reed Elsevier that the scientific world will no longer tolerate its warmongering and health damaging business activities.
British medical journal has an extended debate on the ethics of Reed Elsevier’s involvement in the arms trade, here.
Over 1000 people have now signed the petition asking Reed Elsevier and subsidaries to stop organising arms fairs! Hurrah! I don’t know where the sudden surge in activity has come from (over 100 in the last two days), but well done to all those who are passing the message on.
Update: Suddenly the reason for all the activity is clear
Lucky’s speech from Waiting for Godot:
LUCKY: Given the existence as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmann of a personal God quaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short that man in brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecation wastes and pines wastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and then the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis the facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull fading fading fading and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labors abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard (mêlée, final vociferations)
. . . tennis . . . the stones . . . so calm . . . Cunard . . . unfinished . . .POZZO: His hat!
Vladimir seizes Lucky’s hat. Silence of Lucky. He falls. Silence. Panting of the victors.
James suggests removing all the side-notes and distractions, leaving the raw heart of the monologue exposed
Given the existence
as uttered forth in the public works of Puncher and Wattmannof a personal Godquaquaquaqua with white beard quaquaquaqua outside time without extension who from the heights of divine apathia divine athambia divine aphasia loves us dearly with some exceptions for reasons unknown but time will tell and suffers like the divine Miranda with those who for reasons unknown but time will tell are plunged in torment plunged in fire whose fire flames if that continues and who can doubt it will fire the firmament that is to say blast hell to heaven so blue still and calm so calm with a calm which even though intermittent is better than nothing but not so fast and considering what is more that as a result of the labors left unfinished crowned by the Acacacacademy of Anthropopopometry of Essy-in-Possy of Testew and Cunard it is established beyond all doubt all other doubt than that which clings to the labors of men that as a result of the labors unfinished of Testew and Cunnard it is established as hereinafter but not so fast for reasons unknown that as a result of the public works of Puncher and Wattmann it is established beyond all doubt that in view of the labors of Fartov and Belcher left unfinished for reasons unknown of Testew and Cunard left unfinished it is established what many deny that man in Possy of Testew and Cunard that man in Essy that man in short thatmanin brief in spite of the strides of alimentation and defecationwastes and pineswastes and pines and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the strides of physical culture the practice of sports such as tennis football running cycling swimming flying floating riding gliding conating camogie skating tennis of all kinds dying flying sports of all sorts autumn summer winter winter tennis of all kinds hockey of all sorts penicillin and succedanea in a word I resume flying gliding golf over nine and eighteen holes tennis of all sorts in a word for reasons unknown in Feckham Peckham Fulham Clapham namely concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown but time will tell fades away I resume Fulham Clapham in a word the dead loss per head since the death of Bishop Berkeley being to the tune of one inch four ounce per head approximately by and large more or less to the nearest decimal good measure round figures stark naked in the stockinged feet in Connemara in a word for reasons unknown no matter what matter the facts are there and considering what is more much more grave that in the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman it appears what is more much more grave that in the light the light the light of the labors lost of Steinweg and Peterman that in the plains in the mountains by the seas by the rivers running water running fire the air is the same and then the earth namely the air and then the earth in the great cold the great dark the air and the earth abode of stones in the great cold alas alas in the year of their Lord six hundred and something the air the earth the sea the earth abode of stones in the great deeps the great cold on sea on land and in the air I resume for reasons unknownin spite of the tennisthe facts are there but time will tell I resume alas alas on on in short in fine on on abode of stones who can doubt it I resume but not so fast I resume the skull fading fading fading and concurrently simultaneously what is more for reasons unknown in spite of the tennis on on the beard the flames the tears the stones so blue so calm alas alas on on the skull the skull the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the labors abandoned left unfinished graver still abode of stones in a word I resume alas alas abandoned unfinished the skull the skull in Connemara in spite of the tennis the skull alas the stones Cunard (mêlée, final vociferations)
. . . tennis . . . the stones . . . so calm . . . Cunard . . . unfinished . . .
I could have done a lot worst than sit
In Skid Row drinkin wineTo know that nothing really matters after all
To know there’s no real difference
Between the rich and the poor
To know that eternity is neither drunk
nor sober, to know it young
and to be a poetCoulda gone into business and ranted
And believed that God was concernedInstead I squatted in lonesome alleys
And nobody saw me, just my bottle
And what they saw of it was emptyAnd I did it in cornfields & graveyards
To know that the dead don’t make noise
To know that the cornstalks talk (among
One another with raspy old arms)Sitting in alleys diggin the neons
And watching cathedral custodians
Wring out their rags neath the church stepsSitting and drinking wine
And in railyards being divineTo be a millionaire & yet prefer
Curlin up with a poorboy of tokay
In a warehouse door, facing long sunsets
On railroad fields of grassTo know that the sleepers in the river
Are dreaming vain dreams, to squat
In the night and know it wellTo be dark solitary eye-nerve watcher
Of the world’s whirling diamond
Jack Kerouac
Every one understands how praiseworthy it is in a Prince to keep faith, and to live uprightly and not craftily. Nevertheless, we see from what has taken place in our own days that Princes who have set little store by their word, but have known how to overreach men by their cunning, have accomplished great things, and in the end got the better of those who trusted to honest dealing.
Be it known, then, that there are two ways of contending, one in accordance with the laws, the other by force; the first of which is proper to men, the second to beasts. But since the first method is often ineffectual, it becomes necessary to resort to the second. A Prince should, therefore, understand how to use well both the man and the beast. And this lesson has been covertly taught by the ancient writers, who relate how Achilles and many others of these old Princes were given over to be brought up and trained by Chiron the Centaur; since the only meaning of their having for instructor one who was half man and half beast is, that it is necessary for a Prince to know how to use both natures, and that the one without the other has no stability.
Nicolo Machiavelli, The Prince, Chapter XVIII
To unfairly pick on a casual remark from the Guardian comment pages
These weren’t just people who were the right age to be South Park fans, but people who were liberal about social matters and in favour of things like Fair Trade and whatnot, and who approached the excesses of both the left and the right with a healthy degree of cynicism
Also known as:
If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything
Our open letter (full text, including list of signatories) has been published in the Times Higher Education Supplement. You can see exactly what it looked like here.
In other news, the online petition – which is still open – is getting closer to 1000 signatories. Noam Chomsky (petition signatory 870) recently joined the international list of those against Reed Elsevier’s involvement in the arms and torture industry – academics, medics, publishers and students from five continents. If you know someone who works at the Antarctic Survey please ask them to sign so we can make it six!
Reed Elsevier, the publisher of The Lancet, has today been condemned by a former editor of the British Medical Journal for its involvement in the promotion of arms sales.
Writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Richard Smith urges scientists and academics to publish their research and findings elsewhere.
Full story here
Original article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine: ‘Reed-Elsevier’s hypocrisy in selling arms and health’
Question: if you want to falsify a theory, do you need a plausible alternative theory?
Toy-examples of falsification suggest not, but I think they mislead. For example: my theory is “there is a fairy in my cupboard”. Potentially falsificatory test of this theory: open cupboard – is there a fairy there? Ignoring for the moment the problem of the impossibility of hard falsification, it looks fairly straight forward. That was the theory, there was the test.
However, this toy example is so simple it allows us to leave implicit the plausible alternative, namely there is no fairy in the cupboard. If no plausible alternative is to hand, I don’t think identifying a potentially falsifying test is so straightforward.
I arrived at this train of thought via a discussion last night about vegetarianism. I was trying to convince people that we have have an evolved disposition to obsess about and ritualise our food behaviours, so that any food habit, however arbitrary or initially unideologically – for example not eating meat just because you happen to live with vegetarians – can quickly and easily embed itself in our psychological preferences and become the subject of purity rituals and taboos (“Don’t cook my vegeburger in your bacon fat!” sort of thing).
I’ve been trying to think of a way to test/falsify this theory and can’t. This either means that the information content of the theory is actually minimal – i.e. it isn’t actually saying anything – or it means (my best guess for the truth) that my scientific imagination isn’t very good. And I think the missing link in my chain of thought it the lack of any apparent plausible alternative. Simple negating the theory (“food behaviours are not subject to purity obsessive behaviour”) doesn’t produce an interesting theory, and the tests that it suggests would, i feel, be passed without actually providing evidence that my theory is any good at all, just better than nothing. In other words, I think I would find people are obsessive about food behaviours, some of which are pretty arbitrary, but I don’t think this would allow me to convince anyone that what I am saying is true.
The problem may be with the nature of the theory (an evolutionary ‘just so’ story?) rather than with falsficiation.
2. Freepress Recent Comments plugin
And, how to make the time of posting appear on the frontpage: modify the time tag in index.php
Two old-guard revolutionaries, old comrades in the war too, sit either sit of a desk. It is an interrogation, and their positions could easy have been reversed. Rubashov is the prisoner, Ivanov the warden of the prison. Rubashov is accused of conspiracy, of failing to maintain the strict ideological discipline demanded of party members.
“Apage Satanas!” repeated Ivanov and poured himself out another glass. “In old days, temptation was of carnal nature. Now it takes the form of pure reason. The values change. I would like to write a Passion play in which God and the Devil dispute for the soul of Saint Rubashov. After a life of sin, he has turned to God—to a God with the double chin of industrial liberalism and the charity of the Salvation Army soups. Satan, on the contrary, is thin, ascetic and a fanatical devotee of logic. He reads Machiavelli, Ignatius of Loyola, Marx and Hegel; he is cold and unmerciful to mankind, out of a kind of mathematical mercifulness. He is damned always to do that which is most repugnant to him: to become a slaughterer, in order to abolish slaughtering, to sacrifice lambs so that no more lambs may be slaughtered, to whip people with knouts so that they may learn not to let themselves be whipped, to strip himself of every scruple in the name of a higher scrupulousness, and to challenge the hatred of mankind because of his love for it—an abstract and geometric love. Apage Satanas! Comrade Rubashov prefers to become a martyr. The columnists of the liberal Press, who hated him during his lifetime, will sanctify him after his death. He has discovered a conscience, and a conscience renders one as unfit for the revolution as a double chin. Conscience eats through the brain like a cancer, until the whole of the grey matter is devoured. Satan is beaten and withdraws—but don’t imagine that he grinds his teeth and spits fire in his fury. He shrugs his shoulders; he is thin and ascetic; he has seen many weaken and creep out of his ranks with pompous pretexts …”
Arthur Koestler, ‘Darkness at Noon‘ (1940, tr. Daphne Hardy)
