Near the beginning, Thompson states his thesis:

For if what is presented bears too much resemblance to the content of populist atheistic publications of the last decade, not much will be said which will threaten to get to the heart of the matter. There is a risk that the lectures and addresses will largely be a preaching to the diverted. Why the diverted? Because “religion” is a convenient distraction from the difficult business of life together, even for the anti-religious.

It would be helpful if Craig Thompson had actually read the “populist atheistic publications” he’s referring to. Even a cursory reading of any of these apparently elusive tomes would reveal that active atheists don’t simply blame religion for society’s ills. We “populist atheists” instead blame the thinking behind religious convictions: the certainty, the arrogance, the superstition, the fear and the self-righteousness. Atheists today oppose such depredations upon reason wherever they manifest: at nationalist rallies, at meetings where children are indoctrinated with absurdities or in the brain of someone piloting a jet full of families into a New York skyscraper.

It’s easy to go to Friedrich Nietzsche as the prototypical atheist philosopher. Thompson doesn’t do that, exactly, but he does invoke that notorious passage from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science, of what the author had put in the mouth of his madman in Thus Spoke Zarathustra:

God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

Following his shallow reading of Nietzsche, Thompson argues that without a great unifier – tacitly God – humanity would have no choice in a godless world but to take up the responsibilities of said unifier. Thompson believes this long-overdue acceptance of reality to be a terrifying prospect; terrifying enough to argue for the persistence of the deity charade.

(An aside: Nietzsche considered Christianity to be nihilistic and the passage in question was intended to challenge atheistic moral philosophers. I’m no defender of Nietzsche’s philosophy generally, but you have to give him credit for that.)

Here is Thompson again:

Do we actually have it in ourselves to become as gods? Unless this is the question, then anything which seeks to be atheism is simply a diversion – a self-congratulatory mocking which misplaces the problem and imagines that if only God would go away we’d get along with each other just fine. Yet while it might seem that we can think ourselves out of God, we can’t think ourselves out of ourselves. The absence of God will not bring with it the presence of human harmony because we will still have to deal with our fear of each other, or our frailty in the face of nature, or our deluded sense of self-importance. It is in relation to these things, after all, that the gods are of most use to us.

As an atheist and a humanist, I find this outlook abhorrent. This is exactly the kind of hopelessness apparent in claims that we can do nothing about global warming. It assumes that we are incapable of growing up. What good can come of deference of responsibility to the gilded dictates of a vague, nebulous and (as a Uniting Church minister should know) conveniently malleable superstition? No great work of theology has contributed to modern medicine. Jesus did not descend from the heavens bearing the equations that describe spacetime. We can live without god, and I argue that we already do.

It is vexing to read a religious man decrying humanity’s deluded sense of self-importance, for what can be more self-aggrandising than holding the belief that we are God’s chosen species, the very centre of His vast creation? That He made us in His image?

Thinking of gods as normalising forces in the face of modern issues is asinine and naïve at best. Religion has been the single greatest and most consistent divisive force in all of human history. But, it should be acknowledged, Thompson is not arguing for his religion. He vaguely evokes the spectre of “togetherness” that faith itself, rather than his conception of Jesus, ostensibly imbues. Clearly, then, this is no argument for the truth-claims of his religion, but an appeal to what philosopher Dan Dennett terms “belief in belief.”

I take serious issue with faith, and as I’ve articulated elsewhere: it comes down to my concern with the credulity and incuriousness required to hold faith in supernatural deities in this century. Those of us who lack the intellectual honesty and are content to huddle under pacifying delusions are certainly not up to facing the challenge posed by the ravings of Nietzsche’s madman.

Moreover, the veracity of metaphysical claims cannot be measured empirically, and therefore all of them must be invalid, or non-statements about nothing. Certain metaphysical postulations might be correlated with more ethical behaviours and healthier states of mental wellbeing in adherents; but we should remember that ethical behaviour must occur in physical reality, and that brains are physical organs with no detectable otherworldly privileges.

There are serious philosophical problems that must be overcome in order to argue convincingly that goodness comes from a belief in gods. In Plato’s dialogue Euthyphro, Socrates asks the eponymous victim: ”Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?” As one might expect, theologians have been battling with this challenge this since it was first uttered. If the gods, or God, dictate goodness, then the gods are tyrants and we are forced to accept that goodness is arbitrary. This can only mean that humanity is subject to the whims of a sadistic monster. In this case, we might defer to Epicurus, another Greek philosopher. (24 seconds on YouTube:)

But, if the gods, or God, entreat humanity to be good for goodness’ own sake, then we must accept that goodness exists separately from the gods. And since evolution has wired us with an innate moral compass – which as of writing, has been borne out time and again by numerous psychological and neuroscientific experiments – the gods themselves are arbitrary in the moral sphere.

Humans evolved as a cooperative species with a strong sense of justice, so it is no surprise that some moral assumptions we regard as “good” – along with some godly justifications for evil that privileges certain tribes over others – can be found in religious literature. It is no mistake that, as Anne Lamott wrote: ”…you can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

A “goodness” independent of a deity would be defined by activity in the physical world, and as such it becomes an issue for philosophers, not priests. Despite Thompson’s undeniably eloquent insistence: the gods definitely do not hold moral sway over anyone any more.

Thompson carries his argument further:

What Nietzsche declares lies before us is starkly confronting: to be alone with each other, not just with the people who think and want like us, but everyone. For this is to have to take social, political and moral responsibility. It is to have to adjudicate, to balance, to include and to exclude. It is, in the end, to have to resort to violence, and all without any real common ground, any “god” to which we can appeal for justification – not even “reason”.

I find this very interesting. Thompson’s byline states that he is “…a Uniting Church minister in Melbourne” and that “[his] research interests include the relationships between different spheres of philosophical and religious discourse, and the theological dimensions of political life and thought.”

The Uniting Church came to be in Australia in 1977, when a few different congregations (Methodist, Presbyterian, and Congregational Union) merged. The Uniting Church is a progressive institution, going so far as to ordain openly homosexual ministers and, if my memory serves, to consider performing gay marriages. In order to sincerely believe in the God of Abraham, Moses and Jesus while supporting 21st century secular progressive values would require an almost inhuman tolerance for cognitive dissonance. One can’t help but wonder why someone as educated as Craig Thompson would bother. The ethics claimed by him and his congregationalists are plainly more cogently and comfortably expressed by secular humanists.

Modern tolerance arose in spite of religious values; their justification was not derived from God, but reason. Craig Thompson’s church has appropriated modern values, but nonetheless clings to the religious baggage. It’s interesting that he can refer to atheists as “diverted” without noticing the irony.

He closes thus:

Whether believers and non-believers like it or not, we have a common problem. What ails us as human beings is not “God” as such, but the absence of a common story which both calls us to live together in peace and takes seriously that, in the end, we cannot do just that. Any conception of reason which could help us to live with this contradiction, without reducing us to all kinds of quasi-religious justifications of violence by the state or by individuals, would indeed be a thing to celebrate. Let us hope that what is proffered the weekend after next will do more than divert attention from this hard work. It is too easy to imagine that overcoming all that ails us is a matter of dealing with “them” and the problems they seem to present, rather than dealing with our own fears and failings.

How can we expect to deal with our own fears and failings, and how they impinge upon human flourishing in the real world, while we remain too immature to drop the ideological refuse of our distant ancestors? Why must we answer today’s problems with yesterday’s distractions? And if Thompson simply wishes to use belief as a clarion call for us taking care of one another, is this not self-defeating? A “common story” does not require the suspension of critical thinking, and you would have to be an incorrigible pessimist to think it does.

As I’ve said, metaphysical claims cannot be empirically probed. Claims that cannot be tested are unnecessary, and therefore worthless claims. Any tangible benefits – such as reduced anxiety over death – come with the baggage of an invitation to childish credulity. A social acceptance of faith sets a precedent saying that it’s OK to believe things for which there is no evidence because it makes us feel better. Better about what? Better about the idea that our prejudices regarding life and death are being tended to by some supernatural agent?

Atheism is not so hubristic. Atheism is humble because it embraces doubt and it acknowledges human fallibility. Thompson might argue that he is doing just that by entrusting God with the hard questions. To an atheist who regards gods as mere inventions, this position is incoherent. The notion of human fallibility rests on our well-known biases and blind-spots. Fallibility distrusts mere perception by definition. So while Thompson might backtrack from the Bible when its verses contradict his values, perhaps saying “the Bible was written by men, and men are fallible,” he must also strive to address that ineffable sense of God’s presence with the same scepticism.

In contrast, atheism embraces fallibility. Humans are wired to believe in gods, dualism and the supernatural, and the atheist questions those innate assumptions. The atheist makes it her prerogative to defer to science, the ultimate bias-detection mechanism. In order to do good science, one first must profess fallibility and ignorance. This allows us to confront reality as it really is, uncoloured by the beliefs Thompson would have us rally under, and far better equipped to face our challenges as a species. Not incidentally, those “populist” atheist publications Thompson glances over in his opening paragraph all hedge atheism on science.

Reason has been the engine that has driven humanity’s progress. Throughout history, religion alone has impinged upon reason. Since we have reasoned that we want to thrive as a species, why would an intelligent man like Craig Thompson insist on dragging religion back to the fore? It’s rather like pining for a lost childhood instead of facing “the difficult business of life.”

One can’t practise atheism just as one can’t practise baldness. Religious belief, on the other hand, takes up time. In the real world, religion is a diversion suffered only by the religious. The atheist speaking out against religion is actively trying to address the issues in the real world; for as long as people remain credulous, stultified, dogmatic and afraid: pessimistic assumptions about the future of humanity are justified.

This fine apparel manifests in standard t-shirts, in a v-neck style, as long sleeve t-shirts, as “girly” fitted t-shirts or as hoodies.

The following designs are currently available:

• “Aussie liberals for a liberal Liberal Party” + anti-conservative John Stuart Mill quote. (Two versions.)
• “Not boring.” (White on dark.)
• “There is no God.” (Black on light.)
• “ANTITHEIST” (White on dark.)
• “nuclear energy is green energy” + green atom. (Light+green on dark.)
• “neurogeek” + resting potential neuron diagram. (Two versions.)
• Dopamine molecule. (Black on light)
• Norepinephrine molecule. (Black on light)
• “green energy” + atom (Black+green on light.)
• “your god not mine” + various cult symbols (two versions)
• “It only took 13.7 billion years to make this.” (two versions)
• DEAD THINKERS 1: Erwin Schrödinger’s head + “Erwin Schrödinger” (only available in black).
• “FREETHINKER” (white on dark)
• DEAD THINKERS 2: Charles Darwin
• DEAD THINKERS 3: Wilhelm Wundt (possibly the only Wilhelm Wundt clothing item in existence).
• “godless liberal” (two versions)

More on the way! Check it out!

His policies are a mess. He frequently contradicts himself, on carbon taxes and on emissions targets. It is abundantly clear that he will say literally anything to separate himself from his arch nemesis Julia Gillard – regardless of the cost of party’s dignity, and his own coherency.

Abbott’s new strategy is vaguely reminiscent of the crux of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” brouhaha in the United States – that is, to say nothing, apparently so he can continue to allow his role as the opposition to Gillard dictate his shambolic campaign. (It’s easier than constructing and running on your own platform, I guess.) Abbott is messy and not surprisingly, his supporters are too.

Truth be told, I’m not being entirely fair to Abbott; he does have some convictions. Not liberal convictions, but convictions nonetheless. For example:

I recently found myself in an online tussle with a staunch Coalition voter who declared my criticisms of Mr Abbott null and void because I haven’t matched Abbott on the volunteer community work front. (Note: I refuse to refer to supporters of Tony Abbott as ‘Liberals’, because I think that the English language has suffered enough.)

I won’t bother addressing this asinine attempt to personalise rather than to engage the issue at hand in any detail. Instead I will just say: yes, that’s a snapshot of the reasoning behind the conviction that Tony Abbott is fit to run this country.

I had drawn attention to the fact that there’s literally a $70 billion black hole in Abbott’s proposed budget. It’s OK though, because he plans on delegating the task of covering his own arse to a committee, once he’s been elected, of course. One thing is for sure: my Coalition compatriot doesn’t think me or Brown, or Gillard, should be allowed to raise the requisite revenue by increasing taxes on the wealthy. I guess that he, along with his comrades, will find a way to confabulate a perfectly plausible, cognitively comfortable explanation for such a backflip, should this one occur under Abbott; a bit like what happened with monkey-man Johnny Howard’s GST fiasco. Moreover, if Australian Coalition supporters think “cutting public service jobs” is a valid way to pay for things, I only hope for their sake that they never end up needing the safety net those jobs service.

Of course, if Tony “Shit Happens” Abbott wanted to cover his costs without introducing additional taxes (on the rich, or more likely, the poor), he could start his expenditure trimming by bringing the troops home. But, in this crazy age, we clearly don’t have time for rational solutions.

I proposed stem cell research as a sound national investment. My pal begged to differ. Apparently it’s OK for Abbott to piss $70 billion up the wall, but paying for a smart, qualified and otherwise capable person like my father – a victim of chronic spinal cord injury – to re-enter the workforce as a taxpayer (and to get his dignity back) is a waste of money. So establishing Australia as a major exporter of cutting-edge medical biotechnology is a waste of money. Hell, as far as Abbott and his herd are concerned, if it’s modern and productive, it’s a waste of fucking money.

This “dude” once called Kevin Rudd’s successful $42 billion stimulus package a reckless waste of money. Is my math bad, or is $42 billion not less than $70 billion?

But since I’m just someone who just posts things on the internet, rather than someone who “walks the walk” like Mr Abbott, my opinions are vacuous. I know, right?

I was also told that, since I’m actually unsure of who I’ll be voting for in the next election – to the point where I might not be comfortable voting for anyone – apparently I have relinquished my right to hold an opinion about how the country should be run. Never mind the fact that, as a radical social liberal (in the dictionary sense), I’d be sort of comfortable with voting for Malcolm Turnbull. I’ll probably settle with the Greens (I was considering the Democrats, but really, I can’t tell the difference between Democrat policies and those of the Greens). But no vote is simply a vote of no confidence.

Support for Abbott is a remarkable manifestation of the distorted thinking around politics that grips our country.  It’s fascinating, but it’s corrosive.

I get it though: they hate Julia. Well, guess what? Leftists and centrists hate Julia just as much as fiscal conservatives do – we’re just not willing to jump into bed with a mindless shark to prove a point. I don’t think I’m asking too much of anybody when I ask for reasoning to take precedence over knee-jerking or blind group loyalties and associated prejudices.

I don’t mean to pick on one person. (Though, should that person read this, I would like to point out to him the right of reply I’ve implicitly extended to all of my “victims”.) Aside from this, I can honestly say he’s a great guy. I’m only posting this because I’m certain that this attitude is a national epidemic.

After all, I was facetiously told, in the same discussion, that I should expect my blogging to change the world. But again, the issue isn’t me (as much as I’d like it to be), the issue is Tony Abbott.

But yeah, all I want for Christmas is a Liberal Party with a responsible, honest, liberal Opposition Leader.

By definition, faith entails what the late Christopher Hitchens termed “the surrender of the mind”. If I might be more prosaic: he’s right, and it’s a shitty thing too. The cost of faith is usually reason. Surrendering one’s reason to the dictates of a higher authority is not only stupefying, it also sets a dangerous social precedent.

For this reason, hating religion is not just OK, it is practically a moral imperative.

But my argument isn’t a Kantian one, rather a consequentialist one. When polite society is conditioned to extend “politeness” to deluded assumptions about the nature of reality, the venom of epistemic relativism has been injected.

In response to one of my democratic critiques, I was recently told something to the effect of “but that’s just your opinion, and you will respect mine.”

Why should I? And why should anyone? That wisp of wisdom emanated from someone who believes that holding off her child’s vaccinations is a just and socially responsible thing to do, which it isn’t. Perhaps such a potentially infanticidal sentiment is not quite as extreme as those motivating acts of faith-based terrorism, but it does certainly resonate with Voltaire’s timeless dictum:

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

As I’ve written elsewhere, opinions that are not informed by evidence are worthless opinions. Religious convictions eschew evidence entirely; they write any empirical evidence that doesn’t gel out of consideration.

Occasionally, in the “pluralistic” media, we are forced to endure the cognitive putrification of some disingenuous religious figure distorting science to justify his brand of faith-based garbage; but we should always consider the myriad things this professional post hoc rationaliser is not saying.

Religion is based on faith, and for that reason, it’s OK to hate religion. This contempt should extend to more liberal interpretations of the various religions too, because such prescriptive worldviews remain grounded in faith. The theocrat is right to assert that her faith should be afforded respect when the faith of the liberal theist is impervious to scrutiny.

If we wish to distinguish between “acceptable” and “unacceptable” religious dogmas, which criteria should we employ? Almost without exception, the various holy books of the world claim that the normative delusions they describe are absolute truths. Their doctrines are not mutually inclusive. Individual theists may hold beliefs that roughly align with liberal democratic values, but their motivations are still delusional.

Of course, religiosity should not rob anyone of the right to vote or to contribute to our discourse; but a person’s faith, like their politics, should not be exempt from scrutiny. Asking Mitt Romney whether or not he adheres to some of his church’s more contemptible doctrines should be a necessity, not a taboo.

Scientific knowledge, and the scientific approach to knowledge, on the other hand, is truly democratic. String theorists and other quantum gravity theorists do not engage in holy wars.

When made acceptable, the faith precedent rears its ugly head elsewhere in society.

I spend a lot of time arguing with global warming deniers, and ultimately their arguments will come down to “I have a right to my opinion”. Yes, they sure do, and I’d hate to disabuse them of their rights, no matter how much and in what manner those rights are abused. But I don’t think their opinions deserve undue respect.

The precedent that everyone’s assumptions should be exempt from criticism in public space runs counter to free speech. Free speech is supposed to be a social mechanism for the self-correction intrinsic to modern liberal democracy.

The public have a right to know the truth, so it follows that the merchants of comfortable delusions deserve to be ridiculed and alienated. Free speech thus provides the rope for the Chris Moncktons and Rush Limbaughs of the world to publicly hang themselves with.

The reason we should not disabuse people of their faith, so we’re told, is that faith brings people comfort. Comfortable delusions are virulent infectious memes, and they do harm.

Religion is like junk food. As psychiatrist Andy Thomson has pointed out, the evolutionary psychology of religion is almost analogous to the evolutionary psychology of junk food. The reason we modern humans like junk food, despite the fact that it’s so bad for us, is an evolutionary one. Sugars, salt and saturated fats were hard to come by in prehistoric times, but they provided fast energy and nutrients, so our taste buds evolved to seek them out.

Humans have succeeded as a species because we also evolved to spot patterns, and this trait has allowed us to refine our resource-gathering skills. Today, junk foods are available in quantities sufficient to clog our arteries; we eat them because we can reach them, just as our ancestors would have done.

As with junk food, humans are apt to become pattern-greedy. Religion provides humans with the comforting illusion of an invisible intentional stance to attribute to the random events that make up our lives.

Clinging to religion also gives us a sense of relief from the knowledge of our impending death, which seems to be an unfortunate consequence of our evolved conscious self-awareness. But if we really get to live forever in some magical hereafter, why bother taking responsibility for the future and improving life here, on this planet?

Finally, it gives us the illusion of a kind of moral safety net; we know that we are in the Higher Order’s hands, and that’s why we don’t have to take responsibility for our prejudices. Southern Baptists don’t hate gay people, God does.

And global warming denial, like religious faith, brings people mental (and often material) comfort. It is predicated on the faith that the resources on our planet are inexhaustible, designated as ours for the taking, and that our use of them must be inconsequential.

These delusions are again rooted in our evolutionary history: the smaller tribes of our Pleistocene ancestors could not possibly exhaust all of the resources available to them. Greed was indeed good.

The Higher Order, or the conveniently simplistic Greater Good that buttresses the faith underlying global warming denialism can be religious or political, but usually both. In any case, it is a comfortable delusion based on the denial of evidence. The precedent for such harmful denialism was set by our cultural respect for religion.

I submit that respecting religion does not respect the religious individual. The health department has no right to ban junk food, but it does have a right to circulate evidence-based dietary recommendations.

Secularists should not make the condescending and paternalistic assumption that religious people cannot live without their comfortable delusions. Everyone has a right to the best truth the evidence provides, and everyone who participates in a modern democracy has an obligation to the rest of society to at least be familiar with what constitutes our best guess at truth.

Faith therefore surrenders the modern mind to seductive delusions, to evolutionary hyper-stimuli. It is a fearful retreat to the terrified infancy of our species. The comparatively limited life spans of our ancestors have written a dangerous myopia into our genes; a disabling affliction that we must overcome.

Atavistic convictions only serve to placate yesterday’s evolutionary needs, they are not sufficient to address today’s problems. Evolution, with its blind brutality, does not intentionally furnish its products with the predispositions necessary for science or philosophy.

Those things are side-effects, perhaps glitches, emerging from our pattern-seeking minds. We can therefore ratiocinate, and today, we must ratiocinate if we want to overcome our evolutionary baggage. The ability to think is a happy accident, and we need to seize upon it to survive.

We should not respect comfortable delusions aired in public space. We should be allowed to express hatred towards the idea of religion, and the notion of faith generally. For if we care about democracy, we should detest the precedent that such “toleration” sets. And we should respect our religious peers enough to tell them that their faith-based assertions poison our discourse.

In today’s episode of my quotidian procrastinations, I was going through my family tree, which was prepared by my cousin Michael Bailey. Because there’s some 142 generations, I decided to start from my name and trace up to my maternal grandmother, and then to follow the her direct paternal line as far back as I could.

My grandmother is a bit of a proto-hippy (in a good way); a semi-lapsed Catholic who believes in God, ghosts and reincarnation; she’s also fun, genuinely open-minded, and very witty; and she is practically responsible for raising me when I was going to kindergarten. (So naturally, I mean no disrespect.) She has often said that I should look into her family tree because my “great, great, great, great granddad” is where my “genes must come from.” (She used the term ‘reincarnation’ before that, but curiously changed it once I told her I was an atheist.)

So I did, and I found this ‘memoir’, written by my third great-uncle about my fourth great-grandfather Dr William Murdoch, who, if there’s anything to be said for genetic homeopathy, I’m flattered to think she was talking about this guy.

Dr Murdoch was a polymath, a polyglot, a public advocate for liberal values, and other things. That’s pretty awesome, and I’m humbled to know that four of the 128 genes in my genome – about 3.1% or so – come from him, so my grandmother deserves credit for being partially correct. I’m just hoping those genes weren’t the ones that contributed to the hemorrhagic stroke that killed him at 61.

A cleaned up version of the briefish memoir is reproduced under the fold below (simply because there’s no real reason that you should be forced to sit through something as potentially self-centred as a relatively unimportant fact about my genealogy), but I’ve endeavoured to clean it up – though I tried to leave the grammar and punctuation intact – because it looks like the product of an OCR scan of a PDF document that was scanned from really old paper. You can find the original here and elsewhere. (Naturally, the page for my name and all of my living relatives is password protected.) My immediate and extended family, as well as my Google-armed distant cousins, might find this interesting.

Before we continue, I should add that Adam and Eve would be my 106th great-grandparents; and Dr Murdoch’s sins were two generations away from being visited upon me. Which is good I suppose, because from this, I gather that he wasn’t a particularly religious man.

___

WILLIAM MURDOCH, whose parents were of Gaelic origin, and had passed their earlier years in the Highlands of Scotland, was born in 1805. At the age of 13, he was sent to the College d’Ecossais, Paris, and afterwards to the College d’Henri IV., where he remained some years, and obtained several prizes in classics during his course of study. Later, he selected the profession of Medicine, and enrolled himself as a student in the University of Paris. In 1826 he took the degree of Bachelier es Lettres, and a few months afterwards that of Bachelier es Sciences. In 1827 he attended M. Lefranc’s course on Surgical Operations. In the year 1828 he was appointed Interne to the Hopital des Enfans malades. From ’29 to ’30he held a similar office at the Hospice de la Vieillesse (hommes) at Bicetres. In 1831 he was Interne to the Hopital du Midi (veneriens) under M. Cullerier, and in 1832 to the Hopital de la Pitie under M. Velpeau.

The following are specimens of the, certificates awarded to him :

‘Hopital de la Pitie.’
Je soussigne, chirurgien en chef du dit etablissement, membre del’Academie de Medicine, agrege a la Faculte de Medicine, operatoire et de Clinquechirurgicale, chevalier de l’Ordre Royal de la Legion d’Honneur, certifie que Mons. Murdoch, natif de Londres a suivi avec zele mes lecons de medicine operatoire pendanttoute la duree de l’annee 1827, qu’il a pratique plusieurs fois sur le cadavredevant moi touter les operations chirurgicales et qu’il a dirige d’autres elevesdans leurs etudes de la pratique des operations.
Ce ter Jan. 1827.

(signed) ‘ LISFRANC.’

‘ Hospice de la Vieillesse, (hommes)’
‘ Je soussigne, docteur es Medicine de l’etablissement, chevalier de l’Ordre royal de la Legion d’Honneur, membre de l’Ac-ademie de Medicine,ex-chirurgien en chef de la garde imperial, certifie que Mons. Murdoch ne a Londres a eteinterne dans mon service depuis ter Jan.1829,jusqu’ en 1 er Jan.1830, qu’il a suivipen-dant ce temps mes visites et lecons medicates, et qu’il a etudie avec assiduite sousmoi la pratique medicate et l’Anatomie pathologique et qu’ it a fait desrecherches special sur l’alienation mentale.
Ce ter Jan. 1830.

(signed) ‘ FIRBUS.’

The reader will bear in mind that in 1832 this country and France were simultaneously visited by that fearful epidemic of Cholera, which after having prevailed for some time in Asia on the borders of the Black and Caspian Seas, rapidly advanced into the centre of Russia, and devastated in succession all the countries of Europe. The mortality in London in 1832 was estimated at 5,000, whilst that in Paris is said to have exceeded 18,000, The hospitals were crowded to excess with, patients, whose treatment sorely taxed the physical powers of the medical attendants. We have satisfactory proof that William Murdoch did his duty at la Pitie, for we find a certificate with the celebrated Velpeau’s signature appended, stating:

‘que toute la duree de l’epidemique qu’ it a rempli ses penibles fonctions avec zele intelligence et assiduite.’

[My rough translation: 'he worked for whole duration of the epidemic and he fulfilled his strenuous duties with zeal, intelligence and assiduity.' -Ed]

M. Velpeau in a treatise on Cholera, describes the diligence of his interne as above all praise (au dessus de tout eloge). While William Murdoch prosecuted with vigour the more practical departments of his profession, he continued to devote considerable time to the collateral sciences, such as Botany and Zoology, and also to linguistic studies. He frequently listened to the Lectures on the ancient languages, delivered in the University, was a constant attendant at the discourses of the illustrious Cuvier, and paid almost daily visits to the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes.

In 1832 he obtained the degree of Docteur es Medicine, and returned to England in 1833, after paying a brief visit to Germany and Italy. He then studied for a year or two at Guy’s Hospital, in London, and obtained the diplomas of the College of Surgeons and Apothecaries’ Hall.

He commenced his career in Rotherhithe as a general practitioner, and soon met with considerable success. In 1839 he married Miss Harriet, daughter of Mr. David Beatson, who belonged to a distinguished Scotch family. He held for some years the appointment of Surgeon to the Thames Tunnel Works, the Royal Humane Society, and the Poor Law Board ; but as his private practice increased he was compelled to resign the last-mentioned, to the regret of the poorer inhabitants. In time he became Medical Officer of Health, and held that post till his death.

The illness which led to his untimely end came upon him very suddenly.On the morning of Sept. 3rd, 1866, he was apparently hale and robust; in the evening of the same day, he lay pale and powerless, on a sick bed from which he never arose. For a time he went through the routine of his duties without betraying a symptom of the approach of the terrible malady which was to befall him, in the course of a few hours. Later in the day his patients noticed his staggering gait, and death-like pallor, which formed a marked contrast with his usually ruddy complexion. Several became alarmed at the Doctor’s altered appearance, and enquired anxiously concerning his health. Bearing up with becoming resolution, he gave to each enquirer a cheering answer. To the oft repeated question, there was as often an encouraging reply. That high sense of duty, which characterised him through the whole of his career was never more strikingly manifest than in this hour of acute suffering. His duty was to attend the sick ; and this fatal illness overtook him in the very act of doing his duty. While he was tottering from house to house with a throbbing pain in the head, which he could only compare to frequent blows from a mallet, and with the merciless paralysis stealthily overpowering his limbs, one might have aptly said, ‘Physician cure thyself.’

Sic vita erat ; facile omnes perferre ac pati: Cum quibus erat cunqueuna his sese dedere; Eorum obsequi studiis; adversus nemini, Nunquam preponens se aliis.

(Such was his life ; ready to bear and comply with all ; with whomsoever he was in company, to them to resign himself ; to devote himself to their pursuits ; at variance with no one, and never preferring himself to others.)

Soon after he had seen the last patient on his sick list he was forced to succumb ; he reeled backwards and fell in the street, near a house which he had just visited.

On being brought home, the assistance of several local practitioners was summoned, when it was discovered that he was suffering from hemiplegia, or paralysis of one half of the body. The advice of some eminent physicians was also consulted ; but notwithstanding their skilful treatment and unflagging attention, he gradually sank and died, after lingering about a fortnight.

Im gefiihl der Nicht zu fallen,
Himmel, welch ein schner Tod.

(To fall with the sentiment of doing one’s duty,
Heavens, what a beautiful death.)

During the interval between his seizure ‘and death he amused himself with quoting from classical and foreign authors, and though ordered to keep his mind at rest, he persisted in entering into discussions upon philosophical questions, scientific discoveries, derivations of words and other abstruse topics. His intellect seemed to be unimpaired, and he met death with the same decorous fortitude which he had opposed to all the trials of his life.

He was interred at Nunhead Cemetery. Those who had been so long associated with him in parochial work, paid him by their presence at his funeral, a last tribute of respect ; whilst a large number of mourners, unbidden, but unforgetful, followed his re-mains to their resting place. Dr. Murdoch’s tall, stalwart frame and stern thoughtful countenance, are so familiar to the people of Rotherhithe, that we can dispense with a delineation of his features. In his early life he was rather thin, but muscular ; at the age of 34 or 35 he began to get corpulent, and from that period his bulk gradually increased when it reached its maximum, he weighed no less than 16 or 17 stone.

Notwithstanding his great weight he was quick and active, and capable of sustaining the fatigue of long journeys even when he had well-nigh attained three score years. In his student days he was addicted to, and excelled in, fencing and other manly exercises. Two or three of his old fellow students of Paris, who occasionally visited him in London, used to relate how he doffed his coat one fine morning near the Jardin des Plantes and undertook to walk seven miles in an hour which was considered a very fair performance in the olden time. He is said to have accomplished the task with ease, and to have won his little wager from a fellow-student who backed ‘Time.’

The extent of his mind seemed to correspond in some degree with the size of his body. To his powerful physique he united a singularly nimble spirit and an abundance of life which promised a far longer course of years than his allotted span. With a mind richly stored with solid literature and general information of every description, with powers of conversation of peculiar compass and capacity, his presence was always acceptable; his society was edifying; a pleasantry and humour enlivened the domestic and the social circle. He had a natural inclination for raillery and occasionally indulged in satire. One of his intimate friends has not unjustly remarked, ‘ he sometimes wounded more than his good nature intended.’ His conversation was so free from affectation, that his candour was sometimes carried to bluntness of speech ; he scorned to appear, in fact, he could not appear, that which he was not. He would have said with Moliere’s Misanthrope :

Je veux que I’on soit homme et en toute rencontre.
Le fond de notre cceur dans nos discours se montre,
Que ce soit lui qui parte, et que nos sentiments
Ne se masquent jamais sous de vains compliments.

(I would have every one acquit himself like a man ; and under every circumstance to speak his mind freely, and never allow his real feelings to disguise themselves under vain compliments.)

Though somewhat brusque in manners, he was highly susceptible to the emotion of natural tenderness ; his kind and feeling heart was soon affected at the sight of human suffering, and prompted him to afford all the relief in his power. He was naturally vif in temper, but his irascibility was atoned for by a thoroughly cordial and forgiving disposition.

He took great interest in all social questions, whether sanitary or political ; in fact, in every movement that offered an increase of happiness to all classes. It was this desire to elevate the condition of the poorer people, which induced him to give gratuitous lectures to the working classes at various local institutions. He might have appropriated the oft quoted words of Terence :

Homo sum : humanum nihil a me alienum puto.

(I am a man, and nothing that concerns a man do I deem a matter of  indifference to me.)

Perhaps the most striking trait of his character was his insatiable thirst for knowledge, or as a Roman writer would have expressed it, Cupidissimus literarum full [roughly: 'very fond of learning' -Ed]. He found time to study, even when his daily labour had encroached upon his hours of rest to an extent that would have been incompatible with health in a body of weaker constitution. In later’ life he contracted a habit of associating reading
with his lighter duties. When he shaved, he placed an open book on the drawer of his looking-glass ; and while going his visiting rounds he got through a ‘deal of reading in a peripatetic manner. Amidst all the arduous duties of his professional life, he continued his devotion to Philology ; his talents as a linguist were extraordinary ; he could read the literature of most European and some Oriental languages. He was fond of classical learning; was fairly conversant with Greek literature, and was a perfect master of many of the Latin Authors especially the poets, few, if any, of the finer passages of Virgil, Juvenal or Horace, had escaped his notice so thoroughly did he appreciate the beauties of the latter, that he translated several odes into English verse. His Greek reading chiefly comprised Homer and Aristotle, with an occasional glance at one of the dramatic writers. In regard to modern languages, French was to him as his mother tongue ; he was fluent in Italian, and was thoroughly conversant with the German language ; he could make himself understood in, and could read the literature of several other tongues, such as Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and Norwegian. He habituated himself to the pronunciation of Ancient Greek according to the rules of the Modern tongue, and delighted to exercise his knowledge of the colloquial language whenever he came into contact with Greeks.

Sic enim Graece loquebater.

['Thus spoke for Greece' -Ed]

From time to time he received lessons in Russian and Polish from native teachers, and considering the difficulty that inhabitants of Western Europ experience in mastering the numerous inflections and consonantal combinations of those languages, he possessed as good a practical knowledge as one could hope to acquire without living in a Slavonic country. Of Oriental languages, he could read Hebrew well, and had overcome the elements of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit, and had dabbled in Hindoostanee, Hindi and other Indian dialects. And lastly, there is along list of languages, such as Anglo-Saxon, Welsh, Scotch and Irish Gaelic,Icelandic, Bohemian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Chinese,  et cetera, of which he possessed a superficial knowledge, or sufficient to enable him to prosecute his studies in Philology and Comparative Grammar.

Though his genius chiefly impelled him to the study of languages, he was almost equally profound in Natural Science nor is this surprising, if we bear in mind the fact that he enjoyed the advantage of living in Paris at a time when that city teemed with illustrious naturalists, whose names it is hardly necessary to mention : for such as Cuvier, Magendie, Geolfry, SI. Hilaire, and others, are as familiar to the English ear as household words. Dr. Murdoch was just the man to reap the fruits of such advantages. He was well read in Astronomy and Geology, as well as in those sciences which have a near connection with his profession, such as Botany and Zoology. To Zoology and Comparative Anatomy he was particularly devoted ; his great love for this branch of Natural Science he probably imbibed from the noble eloquence of his great preceptor Cuvier, whose lectures he had attended regularly in Paris, and whose ‘Regne Animal,’ he had studied most diligently.

To pass from his private to what might be called his public life ; though Dr. Murdoch had but few opportunities of exercising his faculties as a speaker,y et all who have heard him, admit that he was possessed of no mean ability. He rather excelled in extempore oratory ; he had a remarkable power of adapting his expressions to the sentiments of his audience, be it that he was addressing a sedate assembly at a literary institution, or an uproarious mob gathered round a tavern on the eve of an election. In his political speeches he always advocated civil liberty and religious equality.

Ever willing to communicate his knowledge and share with others the pleasure of his own intellectual enjoyment, he delivered from time to time lectures to Local Institutions and Young Men’s Societies. Many years ago he delivered a course on Botany and Zoology at the Working Men’s Institute of Greenwich. His lectures were interesting and instructive, and he never allowed the attention of his hearers to flag for one moment. After giving a minute description of some scientific details, he would introduce a humorous anecdote to excite a little mirth, and then would burst forth into a peroration upon the sublime in Nature.

To his professional skill I need hardly refer, for doubtless the inhabitants of Rotherhithe are fully competent to form their own estimate ; and the same high opinion of his sound and practical medical knowledge is entertained by several physicians and consulting surgeons, whom he had occasion to meet in consultation, as well as by those who have been under his care as patients. Several eminent medical men have remarked that had he attached himself to one of the London medical schools, instead of engaging in general practice, there is little doubt but that his public fame would have equalled his private reputation. His long experience in the French Hospitals was ably seconded by the natural endowments of coolness and precision ; his penetration was quick and his attention constant and unabated ; he took very great care in the investigation of symptoms ; hence his diagnoses were generally accurate.

In his treatment he avoided both of the extremes which, prevailed in his day: the antiphlogistic and the overstimulating. While in Paris he had opportunities of performing most of the greater and more dangerous surgical operations. The Revolution of July, (1830.) though of short duration, was sufficient to direct his attention to the importance of the study of military surgery. He was a good obstetrician, had devoted considerable attention to the diseases of women and children, and was fond of the study of medical psychology ; but practical surgery was his forte. During the construction of the Thames Tunnel, accidents were frequent, and sometimes appalling.

Dr. Murdoch was often called upon to treat cases of compound and comminuted fracture, to apply ligatures to deep arteries, amputate limbs, and perform other operations, which are very trying to the skill of a general practitioner.

He wrote several papers, which were published in Lte.. journal Ilebelornadaire [I can't find anything on this journal, and I doubt the rendition is correct. -Ed], and La Clinique Medicale: the most important of which were, Recherches surl’epanchement du sang ;’ Obser-vations de fistule sus-laryngienne aerienne etalimentaire ;’ and ‘Considerations sur les retractions musculaires spasmodiques ‘Many years ago he contributed to one of the English medical journals, ‘ Remarks on Tubercle of the Brain,’ and wrote a pamphlet on ‘Epilepsy.’

I deeply regret that the task of tracing this brief biographical sketch has not been allotted to an abler writer than myself, for I feel incompetent to dojustice to the memory of one who was so deservedly esteemed. I do not pretend that Dr. Murdoch’s history will be of any interest to the outside world, beyond his own and the adjacent parishes; but even those who were not personally acquainted with him will admit that his career was not an ordinary one, and that his devotion to duty and diligence were exemplary. Many of his friends seem to think that he might have attained to great distinction in his profession, or as a naturalist or a linguist, had a life of leisure been allotted to him, instead of the laborious calling of a general practitioner of medicine..I will not lay too much stress on such opinions :

The world which credits what is done,
Is cold to all that might have been.

However, without overrating his abilities in the least degree, it may be said, that he was endowed with a divergence of faculties which would have fitted him for almost any calling. His mind readily appreciated scientific facts and problems ; and in addition to this he was gifted with a wonderful Verbal Retentiveness, which enabled him to quote at pleasure, long passages from the original text of nearly all the great European writers:  Shakespeare; Milton; Pope; Byron; Moliere; Fénelon,Voltaire, Schiller, Goethe, Dante, Tasso, Cervantes, de Camões, and others were ever at his elbow. It was characteristic of the man to put the whole of himself into whatever he undertook, and whether he was commencing a new study, or entering upon a movement that offered an increased happiness to the poorer classes, he threw himself into it with all his force. The mere acquirement of so many languages involved a concentration which would have sorely taxed ordinary intellects. From the Norsk and Lapp of the North, to the Graeco-Latin of the South : from the Scotch and Irish Gaelic of the West, to the Indian and Mongolian languages of the further East, there are but few known tongues to which he had not devoted himself. The literature of every civilized country was open to him, and every language is said to reveal a new sphere of ideas.

Huic versatile ingenium sic pariter ad omnia fuit, natum ut ad id unumdiceres quod cunque ageret.

(This man’s genius was so versatile, so equally adapted to every pursuit, that in whatever he engaged, you would pronounce him to have been born for that very thing alone.)

His laborious habits ruled him even in his holiday ; a few hours snatched at haphazard from the stirring turmoil of business, were spent within the silent walls of a museum, where he delighted to penetrate into ages past, and contemplate the broken monuments of antiquity. An occasional visit to the sea side offered him still wider scope for enlarging his mind. The earth, the air, the water, all contributed to his intellectual enjoyment. He was now exploring the hedges for ferns and flowers now searching the cliffs and caves for relics of pre-historic life, now visiting the homes of the Mollusca and Actinice in the deep recesses of the rocks. He would fain know how the hills and rocks were formed, how ridge and valley came into existence ; the sea-cliff, the mountain glen, the quarry by the way side, the pebble in the path, each had to yield up to him its story.

But while paying this tribute to his versatile talents, and untiring industry, we must not neglect to notice those higher qualities which endeared him to his fellow man. Too much could not be said in praise of his sound humanitarian principles. His sense of duty induced him to remain in harness at a time when he might have retired from his labours and devoted the remainder of his days to his favourite pursuits or have adopted the less toilsome calling of a consulting practitioner ; but he was unambitious, so disinterested, so perfectly content to remain in the same circle in which he had worked so many years, that he preferred to go on plodding his daily rounds, year after year, till Death summoned him from his toil. Many of the inhabitants of Rotherhide regarded him as a friend, whose willing counsel was never refused and whose vast stories of information and intellectual riches were freely and generously conferred on all who sought them. Free from ostentation, plain speaking and affable, he was at home with the poor, whose anxious enquiries during his illness, and grief at his funeral, bear honourable testimony to their esteem.

Generous to a high degree, undeviating in friendship, charitable to all in need ; in short, when we contemplate the various qualities of his character we are at a loss, whether to admire most his indefatigable diligence and steadfast application as a student ; his fluency and extensive learning as a linguist ; his sound knowledge as a medical practitioner ; his cheerfulness of manners and sprightly humour ; his plain habits and unaffected simplicity ; or his disinterestness [sic] of character and spotless probity.

The eulogy bestowed upon a celebrated English Author by his biographer, is well applicable to Dr William Murdoch.

He admires with all his heart good and virtuous men, stoops to flattery, bears no rancor, does his public duty uprightly,  is findly loved by his family, and dies at his work.

Lysenko took his cues from the ideas of Ivan Vladimirovich Michurin (1855-1935), an honourable member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. In a characteristically extensive academic propaganda campaign, the Soviet regime sold Michurin as the father of so-called Soviet biology, which was considered superior to the ‘capitalist’ (and accurate) theory of Mendelian genetics.

The Soviets believed that adopting Lysenko’s agricultural practices, they would be able to fight off famine and demonstrate the greatness of the Soviet social model to the world. Questioning Lysenko’s theories was seen as an act of sedition; sceptics were smeared as bourgeois fascists. This is not to say that the people behind the Soviet propaganda machine didn’t believe in Lysenkoism – most of them probably did. Today, most of Lysenko’s research is rightly considered fraudulent; junk science manufactured to support unstable and paranoid politics.

Lysenko and his Soviet comrades frequently publicly decried proponents of evidence-based biology as ‘fly-lovers’, ‘people haters’, and ‘wreckers’. Mendelian genetics was seen as an impediment to communist productivity and national progress; a pitiful manifestation of Malthusian capitalist nay-saying.

Now, the term ‘Lysenkoism‘ is used to refer to the distortion of science to support a particular political ideology.

Yesterday’s leak of thoroughly incriminating internal documents from the Heartland Institute (check out the source) got me thinking – I mean about more than the fact that nine documents contained a hell of a lot to worry about compared to the tepid contents of the thousands of emails and hundreds of documents that made up the entire ‘climategate’ package. (But that is worth pointing out.) We also already knew that climate denialism was little more than a racket.

It actually reminded me of a point that had always seemed so obvious to me, but that I rarely see discussed. It stems from the fact that anthropogenic global warming deniers will often call mainstream climate science ‘Lysenkoism’ in the media. The obvious question to ask is: who are the ones skewing science for politics? Certainly Al Gore is no central-planning socialist.

What do almost all of the AGW deniers and lukewarmists have in common? Let us list some names, and we’ll see if we can isolate a common variable:

Penn Jilette; Matt Stone; Trey Parker; Alex Jones; Alan Jones; Christopher Monckton; Andrew Bolt; S.E. Cupp; Anthony Watts; Glenn Beck; Ron Paul; Matt Ridley; Bjørn Lomborg; the staff of (the unfortunately named) media outlet Reason TV; the signatories of this letter…

The answer? An infatuation with the so-called free market. Really, check Google; or better yet, read some of their books.

Even die-hard fans of the free market know that if scientists are right about anthropogenic global warming, effective solutions will necessarily begin with top-down market intervention. Moreover, the fact of global warming also contradicts the ideal that free trade, unfettered by oversights, can only be a good thing for humanity. People who are committed to ideas – especially utopian political ideas – tend to get a bit clingy.

Former doubter Michael Shermer explicated this sentiment when he came out as accepting climate science. To wit:

Nevertheless, data trump politics, and a convergence of evidence from numerous sources has led me to make a cognitive switch on the subject of anthropogenic global warming.

Though, later on he did add some free market caveats.

Let’s watch Chris Monckton push for an Australian Fox News:

His talk of discrediting climate science is firmly within the context of promoting the free market. Interesting, no?

And this can be found on the Heartland Institute’s About page:

Mission: Its mission is to discover, develop, and promote free-market solutions to social and economic problems.

We can easily note a clear trend of one of humanity’s greatest achievements in science (ie, figuring out what could kill most of us before it happens) being subverted, corrupted and bastardized for political purposes. So, apparently, for many, data does not trump politics. To disseminate global warming denialism, whether knowingly or unknowingly, is the praxis of free market Lysenkoism.

Practically every single prolific climate change sceptic utilizes propaganda originating from someone who has some connection the Heartland Institute. The kind of media manipulation for dissemination of discredited theories, paying off scientists and, the cherry atop this outrageously pernicious pie, promotion of the indoctrination of school children in the discipline of junk science, all expressly advocated in the Heartland Institute’s documents, leave me wondering why anyone in their right mind could continue to take the global warming denial/dilution project seriously.

I do mean to write up my developed take on the free market in the near future, but I’m a little busy for the moment. In the meantime, I’d like to urge the free market cadre who are responsible for most of my hate mail, and the more well-spoken and intelligent free market advocates who have raised the issue of my blog in real life, to do something to quell the disturbing trend of Lysenkoism flourishing among their colleagues. It’s making you all look ridiculous.

You can read more about the Heartland leaks themselves here, here and here (especially for Australians). Nothing on any of the Australian Murdoch newspaper websites, though.

Now, I don’t claim to be smarter than Claude Allegre, J. Scott Armstrong, Jan Breslow, Roger Cohen, Edward David, William Happer, Michael Kelly, William Kininmonth, Richard Lindzen, James McGrath, Rodney Nichols, Burt Rutan, Harrison H. Schmitt, Nir Shaviv, Henk Tennekes, or Antonio Zichichi. But it seems like I know more about climate science than they do. Which is sad, because I really don’t know a hell of a lot. I’m more of a neuroscience kind of guy, and I don’t even have an undergraduate degree yet.

I think it’s important that knowledgeable people correct the misinformation on global warming percolates into the wider public consciousness. So I’m now going to wipe the floor with each of the fatuous and demonstrably false points that apparently substantiate this affront to human progress. I’ll try to quote sparingly, so if you’re interested in following along, refer to the link provided above.

This mediocre diatribe begins with an invocation of Nobel laureate Ivar Giaever’s resignation from the American Physical Society because he doesn’t accept the evidence of anthropogenic global warming. This is just an appeal to authority – in this case, a solid-state physicist who won a Nobel Prize in 1973. Beginning a serious contrarian letter on such a dire issue with fallacious reasoning is not a great way to establish credibility.

Still, it’s worth pointing out that there are roughly 50,000 members of the American Physical Society, making it the world’s second largest organization of physicists. Also, I assure you, Ivar Giaever wasn’t the only Nobel laureate in the club. So who cares if he walked out over the word ‘incontrovertible’? And on that note, who cares if the number of so-called ‘heretics’ is growing? The number of scientists who accept global warming is too. Taking sides on a politicized topic like this one is a byproduct of what’s called ‘general awareness’. Not worth a mention, ladies and gentlemen?

The second claim is just embarrassing. Pathetic, even. Here’s a slice:

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact is the lack of global warming for well over 10 years now. This is known to the warming establishment, as one can see from the 2009 “Climategate” email of climate scientist Kevin Trenberth: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

Perhaps the most inconvenient fact here is that Kevin Trenberth was talking about modelling the climate’s short term energy budget, not a simple ‘lack of warming’, and energy budget modelling is a mite more complicated than Trenberth’s critics were prepared to even consider. The fact is that we did observe a long-term trend in warming and the hottest decade on record. (See also: my own post on the basics of global warming if this is new to you, otherwise read Tamino on the 2011 temperature data and how it fits the AGW signal.)

Next, they take aim at the predictions made by the IPCC over the last 22 years. I don’t know why they’d even bother. This is kind of like trying to construct a smart phone based on patents registered in the ’60s. The 2007 report is much better and it draws on a great deal more research. The predictions made most recently in IPCC reports have – for the most part – held up.

The next claim is that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. In itself, CO₂ is not a pollutant. CO₂ molecules don’t literally suck up heat (which is energetic molecular motion for those of us who slept through physics, and this is roughly what Trenberth was referring to), but rather they capture and radiate heat. CO₂ isn’t a pollutant, but it is a greenhouse gas. That’s the important bit.

The atoms that make up CO₂ molecules are readily excited by energy in the form of thermal radiation from the sun. Excited molecules are highly mobile. This sets off a chain reaction; excited molecules excite other excitable molecules by colliding with them. Because energy is conserved, elevated levels of greenhouse gases diffuse more heat through the totality of molecules that make up the atmosphere. Basically: the more greenhouse gas molecules there are in the atmosphere, the more solar energy goes into the planet’s climate energy budget (the aforementioned subject of Trenberth’s study); ergo, high atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will cause the atmosphere to retain more heat than it would otherwise. By far the biggest source of greenhouse gas emissions since the Industrial Revolution has been human activity.

Any scientist – or any high school student – should know that without the greenhouse effect, the Earth’s effective temperature would be too low to support an ecosystem like our own.

Our special sixteen then raise the point that CO₂ is exhaled by humans. Here we have lame spin, the implication being that if those Green socialists are to be believed, breathing is bad for the environment, man! Humans do exhale CO₂, but by doing so we do not increase the concentration of CO₂ on the planet. The CO₂ that humans exhale is converted from the oxygen we inhale. Oxygen is ‘exhaled” by plants, because plants ‘inhale’ carbon dioxide. This is a facet of that all-important planetary carbon cycle. We simply don’t add anything by breathing.

In the same paragraph, we find this:

Plants do so much better with more CO₂ that greenhouse operators often increase the CO₂ concentrations by factors of three or four to get better growth. This is no surprise since plants and animals evolved when CO₂ concentrations were about 10 times larger than they are today.

This is true, but again, misleading. During the late Ordovician period, roughly 450 million years ago, the Earth’s atmospheric CO₂ concentration was around 5,600 parts per million (ppm) – but some how, glaciers managed to form during that time. This is probably the most seductive myth spread by the better read deniers, but it illustrates that they really should know better. As the title I’ve given this post might suggest, I think it’s plausible to assume that they do know better and they don’t care.

What isn’t mentioned above, or anywhere in the article, is that the output of the sun also significantly drives the climate. Without the energy from a star, the greenhouse effect cannot heat a planet. During the Ordovician period, the sun put out about 4% less energy than it does now. In order for glaciers to form on the planet during that time, CO₂ levels would need to drop below 3,000 ppm.

(For perspective: with the sun’s current energy output, CO₂ levels need to stay below 500 ppm in order for our planet to have glaciers.)

The main sources of the ridiculously high levels of CO₂ present in the atmosphere during the Ordovician were a lot of very active volcanoes. Major warming produced by volcanoes is mildly self-mitigating, because volcanoes also give off sulfate aerosols which have a mild, transient cooling effect on the climate by scattering incoming solar energy in the upper atmosphere (while wreaking havoc on the ozone layer, but that’s another story). This fact alone is not sufficient to explain how glaciers managed to form during the late Ordovician.

We know that when CO₂ reacts with water molecules, it converts them into carbonic acid. This process plays a part in producing deadly acid rain (sulfur dioxide, also spewed out by volcanoes and today, coal plants, makes acid rain much more corrosive than it would be if carbon dioxide were the only gas in the picture – thanks to yikess for pointing this out) and this process is also behind the acidification of the ocean. Calcium carbonate, or limestone, reacts to carbonic acid molecules in rain to produce yet another chemical: calcium bicarbonate, which isn’t a greenhouse gas. This is known as rock weathering – and as any architect can tell you, it can have a pretty dramatic effects even over a few decades without full-blown acid rain. So, over long periods of time, on a planet with a lot of limestone, a steady high level of CO₂ in the atmosphere, acid rain will slowly but effectively ‘react’ carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

446 million years ago, volcanic activity went into a lull, but acid rain continued to fall, and the ocean remained acidic, which weathered rocks. This lead to CO₂ concentrations dropping below 3,000 ppm long enough for glaciers to form. I know that’s not a very simple or elegant explanation, but this isn’t a simple subject. I think my explanation is well-complemented here. (This entry owes a lot to the good people at Skeptical Science.)

It should go without saying that the plants that evolved from green algae during the Ordovician period were the very different ancestors of today’s plants, and were adapted to the harsher environment of the era. Today’s plants are evolved for the modern ecosystem. And while a comfortable concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide molecules does indeed help plants grow, any more simply destroys their environment through climate destabilization via global warming. This occurs most obviously through drought, and less obviously through stronger storms (fuelled by extra energy retained by greenhouse gases) and other phenomena, like acid rain.

By the very late Ordovician period, greenhouse gas levels had dropped far below the levels necessary for glaciation, and this caused the unstable icy mass-extinction events that ended the era. In the hotter Silurian period that followed the Ordovician with the return of greenhouse gases, flora did diversify – the first vascular plants emerged – but during the Silurian period atmospheric oxygen levels were much lower and the ocean was sporadically anoxic. High levels of oxygen stresses plants. So again, the plants that were adapted to that environment would not thrive today.

The next point I’d like to undermine is this one:

In 2003, Dr. Chris de Freitas, the editor of the journal Climate Research, dared to publish a peer-reviewed article with the politically incorrect (but factually correct) conclusion that the recent warming is not unusual in the context of climate changes over the past thousand years.

In 2003, Chris de Freitas did allow a paper that said as much to be published in Climate Research. A shitstorm did indeed ensue, and half of de Freitas’ colleagues on the editorial team promptly resigned. The paper in question was by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. Review by the wider scientific community has shown to us civilians that this paper does not qualify as worthy research. And once again, perspective tells us that we’re talking about a diminutive minority. If you’re interested in the supposed case against anthropogenic global warming in the peer-reviewed literature and how it weighs up against the immense bulk of the data, I recommend starting here (then going here, then here).

Then we come to some misdirection framed by the story of an infamous insane Soviet pseudoscientist. I’ll deal with the misdirection, and then like the article, I’ll return to the Lysenko fallacy. Here’s the misdirection:

Why is there so much passion about global warming, and why has the issue become so vexing that the American Physical Society, from which Dr. Giaever resigned a few months ago, refused the seemingly reasonable request by many of its members to remove the word “incontrovertible” from its description of a scientific issue? There are several reasons, but a good place to start is the old question “cui bono?” Or the modern update, “Follow the money.”

Indeed. The trouble is that our sixteen sellouts (either money or politics) have to contend with the fact that tracing a credible conspiracy amongst cadres of ‘sceptics’ to distort the facts for financial gain is trivial compared to trying to implicate almost every climate scientist on the planet in one. I’m enjoying my summer break right now, so I’m on a break from journalism. I’ll leave the job of following these particular cases up to others. Further:

Alarmism over climate is of great benefit to many, providing government funding for academic research and a reason for government bureaucracies to grow. Alarmism also offers an excuse for governments to raise taxes, taxpayer-funded subsidies for businesses that understand how to work the political system, and a lure for big donations to charitable foundations promising to save the planet. Lysenko and his team lived very well, and they fiercely defended their dogma and the privileges it brought them.

Clearly the letter gets a bit vague at this point. Trofim Lysenko is invoked to contribute to the emotional, rather than the logical flow of the argument.

Lysenko was a key figure of the Soviet revolutionary religion, and a symbol of the wish for the strength of the totalitarian ideology of Stalinism alone to rewrite the laws of nature. (Funny, that.) Lysenko rejected Mendel’s gene theory and claimed to have developed agrarian praxes that would quadruple crop yields for good Soviet workers. Lysenkoism was the epitome of junk science, and implying even a spurious or figurative link between modern climate science to Lysenkoism is both cretinous and disingenuous; it’s also a bit like comparing Peter Higgs with Pope John Paul II. I’m guessing that their point here is to conjure up the ghosts of the Red Menace in the minds of the American taxhaters who didn’t mind a bit of Cold War demagogy.

It isn’t surprising that no attempt to elucidate the structure of the ostensible commie conspiracy has been made. We only get the accusation, with its nature surreptitiously alluded to and left to percolate through the grey matter of any old-school Republicans who might actually be reading. Classic propaganda, in other words.

It then goes off on a tangent, which insinuates that those dreaded ‘Keynesian’ top-down efforts to de-carbonize the economy will somehow destroy society; courtesy of the projections of an economist who failed to predict the global financial crisis (unlike, say, Steve Keen). At this point, they have no credibility, so it isn’t surprising I have the distinct feeling of being fed half-truths here too, so I’m a bit reluctant to slam William Nordhaus based on what this article says about him.

It’s such a shame, really. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t wish that the world wasn’t warming. But it is, and that makes examining these bullshit articles that much more depressing.

Free reign to control every last newspaper, TV and radio station in Australia – Rupert Murdoch’s fantasy could become a frightening reality unless we stand in his way right now.

Everyone, Australians especially, should sign this Avaaz petition ASAP.

Don’t use the stock message (it sucks). You should write your own. Here’s mine:

Dear Convergence Review,

I’m a journalism student, and your recent recommendation to eliminate media ownership limits really bothers me.

Our media doesn’t stay independent when well-financed individuals with special interests – selfish or political – are allowed to annex the entire industry. Real democracy is very difficult to maintain when the noxious choirs of demonstrable propagandists are ubiquitous.

I thought our economy was capitalist, so it confuses and concerns me when this review recommends establishing an economic environment closer to social darwinism. Buying in to the deregulation pipe dream doesn’t help our economy. It ignores the fact that space – you know what I mean in this context – in Australia, and indeed the planet, is finite.

We can only have sustainable prosperity in our economy if room for prosperity is preserved. Allowing monopolies and unethical practices to flourish unchecked anywhere – in the media, resource or the financial sectors – sends the message to the Australian public that the government simply doesn’t care about workers or emerging entrepreneurs, only plutocrats.

A free media does not mean that it’s up for grabs. If it did, then what would be the point of having one? Why not just hand over the reins to the plutocrats and drop the notion of ‘freedom’ from our discourse? The point of a free media is to preserve the freedom of the people to contribute to democracy. Allowing monopolies to own virtually all the free-to-air channels and other established media distribution chains undermines the very foundation of a functioning democracy.

Such a slackening of economic standards flies in the face of that quintessential, inarguable Australian value: the “fair go”. For the sake of our democracy, economy, and the freedom of our media, the people of our nation cannot allow these recommendations to take effect.

Respectfully,
Matt Bush
Australia

Isn’t it ironic that people who don’t understand irony often labour under the delusion that ironists are merely victims prone to gratuitous exhibitions of childish ignorance?

Do you know anyone who has trouble comprehending irony? I think most people I know do.

It gets tedious to constantly hear myself ‘corrected’ – by otherwise reasonable people – whenever I’ve absurdly illustrated some point that obviously contradicts my oft-affirmed values; or worse, being ‘schooled’ when I’m obviously feigning ignorance for comic effect. (I have to wonder what goes on in the heads who don’t get it. Do they think the sarcastic tone is just a cover for ignorance or something? I have no idea.) Too often I often find myself murmuring “yeah, that’s the point I was trying to make…” into my palm. Don’t get me started on my habitual misadventures in Socratic irony.

What’s even more irritating is trying to explain to outraged (or otherwise affected) people that there’s irony afoot, and they have missed it. Once the message is communicated, then, like clockwork, I will then have to endure an exasperated “WHY IS THAT FUNNY?!” (I don’t know? Why do some people laugh at some jokes, but not others?) And if I’m lucky, “THAT’S SO OFFENSIVE!” (I’ll get to that.)

I do ‘deadpan’ as well, but that doesn’t get me in as much trouble, beyond some very confused girlfriends when it shows up at family dinners. I’d retire the irony if I could, but it’s automatic. I can’t help it. Funny or not, ironic humour is so integrated into my personality that removing it would probably require radical brain surgery and aggressive gene therapy.

I’m naturally well-versed in sarcasm. I see sarcasm as irony’s most obvious delivery system. I think of sarcasm as the dialogue, and irony as the script, speaker, the costumes, the stage and the audience. It is possible (often preferable) to be verbally ironic without using sarcasm, but we’ll take baby steps here.

Because irony-blindness is so widespread among my milieu, the subject hasn’t ever been totally absent from my mind. A perusal of various op-eds on irony (mostly revolving around Ricky Gervais’ sardonic brand) have lead me to believe that irony-blindness may very well be a distinctly American import. (Hint.)

One needs only to spend a few minutes on Fox News or MSNBC websites to get a feel for how blind much of the American electorate is to irony. The culture that spawns the archetypal hipster who describes every facet of his interactions with others as ‘ironic’ in a Los Angeles accent is – ahem – telling.

Beyond my own numbing quotidian interpersonal exposures to irony blindness, it became painfully clear to me that I was noticing a wider issue when an exceptionally simple-minded retelling of The Chaser‘s “Make a Realistic Wish Foundation” stunt dominated the news for a few weeks. Almost everybody was hysterically pissed off. It was like Michael Richards dropped the n-bomb all over again (which, by the way, wasn’t ironic of him – it was a stupid unfunny attempt at shock humour).

This being Australia, the then-Prime Minister even missed the point of the exercise, and he wasn’t shy about sharing. The segment in question wasn’t even funny by the Chaser’s low standards. The point they made wasn’t unique, either. It was reasonably nuanced (I won’t say ‘sophisticated’) and it did present a relevant commentary of Australian consumerist culture, but otherwise it wasn’t worthy of further comment. This being Australia, though, the Chaser boys went on to ruin an important lesson for the Australian public and discredit themselves in one fell swoop by issuing an apology.

I’d argue that the stunt itself wasn’t especially ironic, the (dramatic) irony manifested itself in the length and intensity of the media’s mindless responses to what was plainly satire. Some people I knew did actually get the point of the stunt, and thought the media coverage was as absurd as I did. But then, I’ve observed those same people frequently finding themselves baited into pointless battles from every direction.

I’ve wised up and I know not to mention certain things around those people, because I know I’ll inadvertently offend their sensibilities. As I said, they’re good, smart people – just not in on irony.

(An aside: Political talking heads blind to irony are a priori blind to the irony of ‘political correctness’. That is, they don’t realize that by tiptoeing around some minority’s designated sore spots, they are communicating a total lack of awareness  of how incredibly condescending they are being. This works both ways – the liberals who hold it as sacrosanct are just as ridiculous as the conservatives who complain of it being prone to madness. If I may: ‘political correctness’ an intellectually bankrupt concept. Far better to treat all people the same to begin with and then as individuals on their own terms – not least because some of individuals are indeed prone to irony, and we know the PC crowd might miss that.)

Irony isn’t the secret handshake of some elite club, it’s just a style of humour; a subtle one I assume certain people immersed in certain cultures miss when they haven’t been exposed to it very frequently or in a wide enough range of contexts.

I say ‘contexts’ because I have some friends who have gotten used to my habitual, almost unconscious use of irony as a rhetorical device, but will totally miss it when someone else indulges. The same can be said for American Liberal reactionaries who find themselves offended by virtually all satire that isn’t delivered by Stephen Colbert. (See above.)

So what makes me, a self-described consummate ironist (cough), separate from a hefty chunk of my compatriots? Briefly: I was raised by a Brit with a British sense of humour, and with a deadpan British extended family with a working class background. The need to make light of pretty much everything was reinforced into my cortex from as soon as I could point at the moon and say “curtains!”, then giggle. British humour is typically on the dark side and irony-laden (genetic, apparently). Here’s an outline of what underlies generic British humour (courtesy of Theo Tebbe paper The funny side of the United Kingdom):

[T]he British sense of black humour seems to be even darker. It generally juxtaposes cruel and or awful elements with comical ones that underscore the senselessness or futility of life. The Britons often use low comedy to make clear that individuals are helpless victims of fate and character. Using black humour and irony is a good way to escape serious social forces … [t]herefore irony became popular in Britain since the 18th century and was used to decentre their life and thus to start an inner distancing process.

See also:

Thank God that Ricky Gervais is an atheist. I mentioned him before – he’s very, very popular in Britain. Jeremy Clarkson is quite popular too. Clarkson is currently in hot water among middle class leftists for making an unfunny joke about strikers that from Stephen Colbert wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow.

To those cursed with purely literal minds, Clarkson is a noisy simpleton (he describes himself as ‘big and bombastic’) worth more scorn than critical thought. But to the majority of Brits, he’s either funny or he’s not, but in either case, it’s painfully obvious that he’s not serious. Was he being insensitive? Not really. The strikers have more to worry about than what a professional adolescent says on a television show about toys.

How far are the pushers of any cause going to get if they’re twitchy about what an entertainer says? What disarms a verbal sparring partner more than genuine indifference? My dictionary assures me that ‘iron’ and ‘irony’ have distinct roots (‘irony’ from Greek and Latin, ‘iron’ from Middle English), but I think there is something to be said for their similarity.

The ironist’s attitude to life would be self-defeating if the ironist can dish out but can’t take in turn. Well, we can take it. We positively eat it up. A deep desire for an acutely aware, relaxed world populated by self-secure people is probably the subconscious source of the ironist’s sense of humour. I immediately recognize someone capable of apology when they think they have managed to offend me as someone I need to tread lightly around.

A joke that communicates something incongruent with the speaker’s attitudes is simply not offensive. Actions are offensive, and indeed certain asocial attitudes can be offensive, but words are not. I’ve heard before the worry expressed that a comment like Jeremy’s might galvanize the hatred of some genuinely offensive specimens. But so what? Is that really worth the costs of free expression and the erection of some new cultural idol for worship? Does Jeremy Clarkson‘s caricature of hate really empower the hateful, or does it simply draw a certain kind of attention to them?

I don’t expect this entry to make much of a difference in my personal life. I’m certainly not looking for sympathy. It would be fun, though, to live in a world full of people cognizant of speakers rather than mere words. I’d also argue that nobody unmasks hatred as brazenly or efficiently as the professional ironist. If you’re old enough to remember LSD, recall Bill Hicks’ ‘lesbians are cool, gays are vile’ routine. Ultimately, I think an awareness of irony forces us to recognize that people do more than just excrete packages of verbs and nouns for the insensate and unimaginative to pick at.

It’s just more fun when everyone gets ‘it’.

Anyway, I’m supposed to be working on a book about science and philosophy. No, that’s not –

EDIT: This.

Format: Amazon Kindle
Release Date: Febuary 2012

In an age retarded by the fundamentally anti-intellectual and multifarious scourge of cognitive relativism, Why Science Matters draws on the rich literature of classical and contemporary philosophy (including Plato, Russell, Kuhn, Wittgenstein, Popper, Lakatos and Gödel, among others) to make a stand for the primacy of science. I argue in Why Science Matters that an adherence to science’s underlying ethos (moreso than any particular method) uniquely furnishes humanity with the powerful ability to generate accurate and reliable knowledge about life, the universe and everything.

-

Apologies for the lack of posts this month; as you may have surmised, I’ve been busy.