Friday
Apr202012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Strange fellows
Apr 20, 2012 Royal Society Via Leo Hickman I note a list of new fellows of the Royal Society. Familiar names are:
- Paul Ehrlich, best known for his hopelessly incorrect predictions of famine
- Steve Jones, familiar to readers here for writing an integrity-free report about science at the BBC
- Ralph Cicerone, also familiar from his role in trying to save the Hockey Stick for the IPCC.
It really confirms the case I made in my GWPF report on the Society's decline into a rather grubby advocacy outfit.
Update on Apr 20, 2012 by
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill
Brian Micklethwait thinks we should take away the "Royal" bit in the society's name. They would just be the "The Society".
It bears thinking about :-)
Reader Comments (72)
All this hatred towards Newton is what is indeed ghastly. Are really the netizens so clueless to the godlike achievements of that otherwise crazy strage man?
Apr 20, 2012 at 7:03 PM Luis Dias
Newton and Harrison. Two people who lived at the same time. One has been falsely made into a god, the other who gave us the modern world and who I presume the RS they still owe money to has been shunned.
It's about time Harrison was recognised: the Harrison Meridian and Harrison Mean Time would be a very appropriate recognition .
The Wiki introductory precis for Paul R. Ehrlich reads
'Paul Ralph Ehrlich (born 29 May 1932) is an American biologist and educator who is the Bing Professor of Population Studies in the department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University and president of Stanford's Center for Conservation Biology.[1][2] By training he is an entomologist specializing in Lepidoptera (butterflies), but he also a prominent ecologist[1] and demographer. Ehrlich is best known for his incorrect predictions about population growth[3] and limited resources. He is also known for the famous Simon–Ehrlich wager, a bet about the trend of prices for certain metals that he made in 1980 with, and lost to, economist Julian Simon.'
Population growth. Butterflies.
Sir John Beddington. Chief Scientific Advisor. FRS. Wiki excerpt
He joined Imperial in 1984, was promoted to Reader in Applied Population Biology in 1987[2] and was appointed Professor of Applied Population Biology there in 1991.[3]
'Beddington has been a specialist in the economics and biology of sustainable management of renewable resources, and has previously advised UK ministers on scientific and environmental issues. He has chaired the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ science advisory panel and the Defence Scientific Advisory Committee, and is a member of the Natural Environmental Research Council.[4] He has also advised the European Commission and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.'
Population Biology.
Prof Steve Jones
'Jones was rejected from all the Welsh universities, so he applied to the University of Edinburgh, which had a closing date seven days later and he was accepted onto a zoology undergraduate course.[6] He developed an interest in snails from Bryan Clarke, one of his teachers at university, who is now a professor at the University of Nottingham.[6] However, Jones also decided to study the genetics of drosophila at the University of Chicago to widen his scope.[6] Much of Jones' research has been concerned with snails and the light their anatomy can shed on biodiversity and genetics...Jones' view that in humans "Natural selection has to some extent been repealed" [10] dates back at least to 1991 and has been the focus of a number of newspaper reports and radio interviews.[11][12][13] His views are largely based on his claim that reduced juvenile mortality, decreasing age of fathers, and greater interconnectedness of populations in Western societies reduce evolution. Both the data supporting these assertions and his views of the way these factors influence evolution in populations have been extensively criticised by other academics.'
Lets forget snails and butterflies. Looks a bit like population again, Doesnt it ?
Ralph Cicerone?
Pure enviro-politicking
I started reading The Population Bomb some decades ago. Early on, when Ehrlich started on about the destruction of human society by population density, he quoted as evidence the effects on deer (or elk, or whatever) on an overpopulated island. Seems the stags had short, intensely stressful lives, incessantly fighting over the does till the dominant male dies of exhaustion and adrenal overload and he next one takes up the burden.
At that point I gave up on the book in disgust. I frankly don't believe that that this is analogous to what would happen to humans, who have entirely different social and sexual behaviours. As far as I know male humans, (except in EastEnders), are not, in general, in continuous combat with other males so they can accumulate a dozen or so submissive females to impregnate. And a biologist would know this: so I can only assume he was deliberately making false analogies to support a fake argument.
And for other studies he quoted on rats: human beings don't breed like rats, either.
The books of Paul Colinvaux are far more reasonable and less filled with hate for humanity. And probably don't sell so well as a result.
Newton did a good job at the Royal Mint though, maybe the RS leadership are following the coins :-)
ps. he was always fighting fraud when there, makes you wonder...
Steve Jones is a plagiarist (which is a symptom of being free from the tedious constraints of integrity):
http://climatologyplagiarism.blogspot.com/2011/07/steve-jones-borrowing-friedman-on.html
http://climatologyplagiarism.blogspot.com/2011/08/steve-jones-ice-cores-and-what-they.html
http://climatologyplagiarism.blogspot.com/2011/08/steve-jones-and-jean-richer-and-his.html
Malcolm, yet if Ehrlich would talk in the same way about the welfare state, he'd be quite useful. The demographic timebomb from overtaxing the middle earners who elect to have children only when they believe it's the right time to do so, versus far too many children now being born into households where nobody works, helped (nay encouraged) by the welfare state. Reverse eugenics.
Mike, I'm lost @ words. Harrison does in fact seem like having been a marvelous genious. To denigrate Newton will make you lose 20000 points.
'It really confirms the case I made in my GWPF report on the Society's decline into a rather grubby advocacy outfit.'
I don't think there has been a peep of defensive challenge for this conclusion, even after a full 2 months or more, with the possible exception of today's Bob Ward tweet. In fact, it all rather lends further credence. They have made their bed, so lay in it they do.
I thin the Royal Society has jumped the shark by electing Ehrlich to a fellowship.
Note his commitment to the Enlightenment values of the Royal Society:
‘Rational scholarly discourse is all very well,but it does not hold sway where controversies affecting public policies are concerned’ (Ehrlich and Ehrlich,1996,p. 104).
Note the quality of his scholarship (from my Science and Public Policy):
'The criticism ofLomborg’s references was all the more remarkable when
we compare it with Ehrlich’s most notable book, The Population Bomb.
This entire book, co-published by the environmental interest group, the
Sierra Club,contains but 55 footnotes,six of which contain interpretative
discussion, four are self-referential, eight are to literature which does not
appear to be peer-reviewed,one is to the work ofa politician,and four are
to speeches. One speech, the authority for a view on the fertility practices
of Colombian women, was delivered by a colleague to Ehrlich’s local
Kiwanis Club at Palo Alto.'
Just consider the accuracy of his various predictions:
The battle to feed humanity is over. In the 1970s, the world will undergo famines. Hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. Population control is the only answer.
—Paul Ehrlich, in The Population Bomb (1968)
I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.
—Paul Ehrlich in (1969)
In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish.
—Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)
Before 1985, mankind will enter a genuine age of scarcity…in which the accessible supplies of many key minerals will be facing depletion.
—Paul Ehrlich in (1976)
Ehrlich's closest associate at the Royal Society is probably Lord May. But he has many friends and associates in the ec-alarm sector, going all the way back to nuclear winter and beyond. This one is interesting:
Ehrlich, Paul R. (1998), ‘Foreword’, in Peter H. Gleick (ed.), The World’s
Water–The Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources, Washington, DC:
Island Press.
NB: Anne Ehrlich was on the board of Ehrlich's Pacific Institute.
As someone who has followed the development of sustainable development since and before Brundtland (one of my students, Phil Lawn, wrote a good thesis which became one of the best books on the economics of sustainability), I can also say that they have got his contribution to economics in this area 180 degrees wrong! Ehrlich's writings frightened the bejesus out of the developing countries; SD was a response to assuages their concerns, and owes its origins more to Herman Daly's stable state economy (and therefore, ultimately J.S. Mill's stable state - much more respectable than Malthus).
Bernie Lewin's posts on the Royal Society are interesting, of course, but readers might be interested in another of his long, well researched posts, just up, on the attribution issue at the IPCC in 1995. Very interesting:
http://enthusiasmscepticismscience.wordpress.com/
@The Leopard In The Basement Apr 20, 2012 at 12:24 PM
"The RS is a political post-normal "science" body now"
There, fixed it for ya :-)
@Aynsley Kellow Apr 20, 2012 at 11:46 PM
Just finished reading Bernie's latest ... and I heartily agree that it is definitely well worth reading. As a relative "newbie" to the climate wars, I am still catching up on the history. Bernie's perspective is always enlightening, I find.
I remember the days when the Bruntlandt commission first reported. I wonder if anyone at the time realized just how insidious and destructive were the seeds that were planted therein. I know that I certainly didn't. In fact, if my memory serves me correctly, I was so impressed that a woman had been highly influential on the world stage, that I gave scant attention to the actual details of the report ... because (in those days when I was young and foolish!) I just knew that whatever she was urging must be the right thing to do ;-)
These seeds gave us Agenda 21 twenty years ago - and the new, improved "Future We Want" in advance of June's Rio+20 (towards which the recent Planet Under Pressure conference seemed designed to be hurtling)
Even in the late 80's when I first heard the term "sustainable development", it just seemed so innocuous and such a "good thing", at least to me!
As the saying goes ... if only I knew then, what I know now!
I understand (but am open to the better informed) that Newton pretty well destroyed the reputation of Liebniz even though Liebniz produced his differential equations three years before Newton produced his opus magnum.
Hilary,
It goes back beyond Brundtland to the IUCN's 'environmental development' c1980 — a political attempt to moderate the conflict between the neo-Malthusianism of the Ehrlich types in the North (which included me at that time!) and the development aspirations of the global South who, understandably, baulked at 'Lifeboat Ethics' and Triage when they were applied to them.
On Brundtland: let's not forget she reportedly banned mobile phones in her presence while heading WHO!
For a gender perspective, Germain Greer once wrote a damning essay on Ehrlich, noting that his concern with overpopulation commenced while sitting in a taxi in India surrounded by a sea of (brown) humanity. I have a copy somewhere - but that was a move of offices ago!
"Brian Micklethwait thinks we should take away the "Royal" bit in the society's name. They would just be the "The Society"."
Good idea, but I think a few societies may be offended by the comparison. They are less a society than a rabble loyally adopting false causes. The other way to rebel would be to create a competing society with this new name.
I think a more limited descriptive change would get the message across even better. How about renaming it as "The Loyal Society". Doesn't that reflect what they do much better and indicate their origin?
21 April: Canberra Times: Rosslyn Beeby: Top honour for dumped researcher
Australian oceanographer Trevor McDougall has received one of the world's top science honours, just four months after being told by CSIRO his research had no role in the science agency's future.
Professor McDougall, one of Australia's most-awarded scientists for his work on ocean physics and climate change, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London...
He was made redundant by CSIRO late last year, less than six months after he became the first Australian to receive the peer-nominated Prince Albert medal for ocean research...
In a written statement acknowledging his appointment, Professor McDougall said fundamental research into ocean physics ''is recognised as a crucial missing link'' in the ability to improve the accuracy of climate modelling.
Earlier this year, more than 160 of the world's top oceans and climate scientists signed a letter emailed to CSIRO chief executive Megan Clark, protesting against Professor McDougall's dismissal.
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/national/top-honour-for-dumped-researcher-20120420-1xcug.html
don't have a date for this:
Position vacant: A PhD project to improve the accuracy
of climate models
“I like the mathematical beauty of this method,” Dr.Trevor McDougall, CSIRO.
What is the key to being a good oceanographer?
The key to being a good oceanographer is to think differently from everyone else.
If you think the same as everyone else, you can get papers published and you can
have a reasonable career. But to think differently means that you may come up
with quite original ideas that may change oceanographic practice forever
http://www.imas.utas.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/88116/Trevor_article.pdf
The RS's history is not one of perpetual glory and probity, as the Newton-Leibniz calculus dispute showed:
"The prevailing opinion in the 18th century was against Leibniz (in Britain, not in the German-speaking world). Today the consensus is that Leibniz and Newton independently invented and described the calculus in Europe in the 17th century.
It was certainly Isaac Newton who first devised a new infinitesimal calculus and elaborated it into a widely extensible algorithm, whose potentialities he fully understood; of equal certainty, the differential and integral calculus, the fount of great developments flowing continuously from 1684 to the present day, was created independently by Gottfried Leibniz. (Hall 1980: 1)" (Wikipedia)
Unfortunately this episode was an example of a streak of bigotry prevailing virtually unchecked in English polity from 1688 almost until the rise of Wellington, when it was recognized during the Peninsular War that there were some good "dagoes" after all. The Highland clearances and long repression of the Irish should not be forgotten either, as an example of how an intolerant ascendancy (e.g. climate alarmist policies) can gravely harm ordinary people "for their own good".
Paul Ehlich FFS! That does it. The Royal Society is officially cactus. How sad.
"The Society" makes it sound rather too important. How about "A Society"?
Anyone interested in a very fictionalised account of the birth of the Royal Society and the lives of Hooke, Newton, Leibnitz et al could read Neal Stephensons Baroque Cycle trilogy (Quicksilver, The Confusion and System of the World). It covers the history of the era in 'excessive' detail. You can award yourself a prize when you finish them.
A postscript to my mention of the book The Dig Tree and the Royal Society of Melbourne (or rather, of Victoria).
After the disaster of the Burke and Wills expedition, the government ordered an inquiry into the Royal Society's role in it. The governor of Victoria, Sir Henry Barkly, announced there would be a "full and independent" inquiry. [Where have I heard those words before?]
It was Barklay who appointed the inquiry's board's five commissioners,- despite the fact that he was also president of the Royal Society.
Surprise, surprise....
Instead of "The Society", how about "The Broken Society"?
In Australian slang "RS" means broken. I have heard this explained as "rat shit" or as "ar sole". I'm unsure of its derivation but it certainly means broken. I'm surprised that our official climate change commissar, Tim Flannery, who was lately made a member of the Australian Academy of Science, was not also awarded a member of RS. Do old official scientists become senile early - as opposed to those who vigorously inhabit these blogs?
The Royal Society is strangely but not surprisingly doubling down.