Snide Masters

The piece in the Australian this morning by Tim Barton, a person who gets a mention in Chris Masters' work of pseudo-freudian journalism on Alan Jones, is worth reading. This section sums up the case against Masters perfectly:

Masters justifies his exploration of Jones's sexuality on the basis that he couldn't ignore the elephant in the room, that "the masking" of Jones's "apparent homosexuality is a defining feature of the Jones persona" and that Jones's "concealment of his sexuality" preserves "a dishonest power base".

I suppose any proponent of this apparently Freudian approach to journalism could argue that a person's sexuality is a defining feature of persona. Perhaps Masters's own sexuality or sex life, whatever that may be, along with his relationship with his mother and his feelings towards his father, are relevant to his persona, including his public role as a journalist.

But even if drawing such a long bow made sense, does that legitimise the dumping of conventions of privacy and fairness? I don't think so. On Masters's analysis, any person with a power base who chooses not to talk about their sex life is somehow dishonest and therefore fair game. Forget that no wrongdoing is involved and forget that the allegations are speculative.

What's also amusing is how Masters snidely draws Tim Barton into the picture he wants to paint of Jones.

Even I am caught in the crossfire of Masters's calculated and facile innuendo. Jonestown's first reference to me describes a "slim, artistic youth". Good gracious, I wondered, was my persona about to be deconstructed or did Masters simply think the shirt I wore on the only occasion we have met was particularly snazzy? Who knows what constitutes his definition of artistic? But, arguably, Masters's curious adjectives are sufficiently charged to send certain readers' minds in particular directions.

Thanks, Chris. Not.

More seriously, Barton then cites a clear factual matter where Masters is wrong in the book, and despite Barton having clearly told him the correct version.

I wonder if Masters if feeling the pressure about all this, or is he just laughing all the way to the bank? His credibility is suffering.

The "one planet" lifestyle

The Guardian also notes this from the World Wildlife Fund:

The world's ecosystems are being degraded at an unprecedented rate, and by 2050 humans will need at least two planets' worth of natural resources to live as they do now, the conservation group WWF warned today.

If everyone lived as Britons did, three planets would be needed to sustain the world's population, the group said....

"A commitment to one-planet living must include a commitment by the UK government to adopt ecological footprint as a sustainable development indicator and set targets for year-on-year reduction.

"Otherwise, one-planet living is at risk of becoming just another overused soundbite with no teeth."

Hey, who said we could never use other planets' resources? Start with putting an big sail on an asteroid and bring it to near earth permanent orbit. Go to the moon and see how humans like it there. (Would at least be a great sports venue.) Try terraforming Venus, no one else is using it. (Probably won't work for a million years, but will be fun watching what happens.)

Not enough imagination at the WWF.

New male contraceptive

The Guardian reports on early research linking excessive mobile phone use to lower sperm counts and quality in men. Someone should now do an international comparison between mobile phone use and infertility in different countries. Would be interesting, even if completely inconclusive.

The balanced ABC

Phillip Adams does the predictable and hyperventilates today about a renewed attempt to make the ABC more politically balanced:

Focusing on perhaps 5 per cent of its output, critics will conduct frenzied attacks on the organisation and a handful of individuals within it, demanding balance and accountability.

I am curious as to where he gets the 5% figure from.

I've said before that local ABC radio (at least the Brisbane version of it) displays little in the way of political bias. In other States it is different: Sydney has Richard Glover, used to have John Doyle (I think), and Melbourne still has Jon Faine: all broadcasters with clear Labor leaning sympathies. But Radio National, Phillip's own treasured turf, displays balance by this line up of presenters:

Phillip Adams: I understand he made his riches via the most readily criticise-able aspect of modern capitalism (advertising). Now devotes much of his 4 hours of radio each week to left-ish commentators who are critical of capitalism. Also gets to recycle his views in the feverishly unbalanced News Limited media. Like much of Radio National, also has an international audience via Radio Australia and the WWW. (Some voice in the wilderness, hey). Often tells us lately how successful his podcasting is going. Doesn't write books about how stupid belief in God is, just brings it up directly or indirectly in his newspaper columns about once a month. (Hey, it's a guess, but maybe as accurate as his 5% figure.)

Terry Lane: seems to have had an hour a week forever to spout his Phillip Adams-esque views on life. Also a strident atheist who writes books about how silly belief in God is. Also is straining to be heard because of a weekly newspaper column in The Age.

Robyn Williams: 20 year fixture as host of The Science Show. Athiest. Writes books showing why religion is stupid.

Stephen Crittenden: runs the Religion Report, and seems to have spent an inordinate amount of time on the issue of gays in the church. Googling him tonight seems to have confirmed that he is openly gay. (Not that there is anything wrong with that, at least if you are a political conservative.)

Geraldine Doogue: been a floating fixture around the ABC on TV and radio forever and a day. A Catholic, but, I suspect, one with very liberal leanings. Can't find much to confirm that yet, but I am sure the evidence is out there!

Paul Collins: frequent commentator on religion. Ex Catholic priest who now worries a lot about ecology.

Fran Kelly: adequate enough host of morning show, but not as good at keeping bias in check as previous host Peter Thompson.

Radio National identities in whom I have not really identified anything clearly indicating a left wing bias: Norman Swan and Alan Saunders.

Radio National presenters with clear conservative-ish reputation: Michael Duffy. (Maybe he is just more of a general contrarian.) Has one hour a week. The show has been on for about a year.

Get the picture here?

A Lefty can still be a good broadcaster; and clearly it doesn't stop me listening to their shows. But there is nothing evenly vaguely resembling a fair range of political and social opinion in the staff of taxpayer funded Radio National, and further moves to balance this up can only be good.

Oh no

ABC broadcaster Maxine McKew won't be with the ABC much longer. I've always liked her as an interviewer and current affairs host. Despite the fact that she's been living with (now married to, apparently) senior Labor figure Bob Hogg, she has always seemed to me to be a more balanced interviewer than Kerry O'Brien or Tony Jones.

I am surprised that she is 53. She wears it well. Here's a photo of her from 2003:

The SMH profile of her from which that photo is taken was very interesting. In fact, I was only telling someone last week how this snippet from that story had stuck in my mind:

During the hungry years of her early career, McKew's private life was not good "There were a lot of Heathcliffs. A lot of 'bad, mad and dangerous to know'.' Hogg was a revelation. He was "a lovely grown-up".

"I had never met a man who had milk in the fridge that hadn't passed the use-by date, or a clean bathroom or fresh flowers on the mantelpiece. It was the way he looked after himself. It was grown-up."

I remembered this because I found it hard to imagine her going out with "bad men". (It also makes Bob Hogg sound like a big girl, which is kind of funny too.)

I hope I remember to watch her last Lateline, whenever that may be.

Appleyard blogs

I discovered over the weekend that Bryan Appleyard has a blog.

He is a bit of an odd character, and can come across as fairly pompous, but his 1992 book "Understanding the Present" impressed me, even though it suffered by a sudden infusion of Wittgenstein at the end.

Anyway, his views seem never to be entirely predictable, which makes him an interesting read.

The problem with stem cells

Nature has a story that explains the problems with attempted stem cell treatment of Parkinson's Disease, which always seems to be the disease most mentioned as being potentially curable by such treatment.

The problem is cancer caused as a side effect.

I also saw most of an SBS Insight program about therapeutic cloning and stem cell research a few weeks ago. It was interesting to see at least some medical experts expressing scepticism of stem cell treatment:

JENNY BROCKIE: Jack Martin, you're former director of St Vincent's Institute of Medical Research. Do you share this optimism about stem cell research?

JACK MARTIN, FMR. PROF. OF MEDICINE, MELBOURNE UNIVERSITY: No, I have to say I don't. And I would take issue with quite a number of things that Elizabeth Finkel has just said. She's implied that there has been proof of concept of efficacy of embryonic stem cell therapy in a number of diseases and mentioned Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injury and diabetes, and that is absolutely untrue. There are temporary and partial improvements in chemically induced Parkinson's disease in rodents and in a couple of monkey studies, and in no case has this been prolonged and in no case has it been a long enough.. It's either been associated with a serious complication of cancer teratoma formation or it's not been carried out for long enough to determine whether that's been avoided or not.

Of course, there were others present who were much more optimistic than this.

Not a happy picture

This lengthy essay on the recent history of the Middle East in the Economist is pretty good reading. The article argues that all of the "threats to global order" that have come from there in the last 60 years have one thing in common:

They have all been, in essence, resistance movements, inspired by a seemingly unquenchable popular urge to challenge the dominant perceived injustice of the day, whether it be European colonialism, Zionism, American hegemonism or the grip of local governments charged with selling out to the West.

The most reliable populist cry today remains “resistance”. Sudan's strongman, Omar al-Bashir, blasts the proposed deployment of UN troops in Darfur as the spearhead of a new Western crusade. The Shias and Sunnis in Iraq may be fighting each other for dominance, but the call to “resist” the American occupiers and the weak (though elected) government they sponsor wins passionate followers to both camps. Hizbullah rouses region-wide cheers for bloodying Israel's nose. Clearly, although times have changed, this dynamic has not.

What has changed is that the call to resist now inspires unprecedented enthusiasm, galvanising many disparate political streams at once, secular and nationalist as well as Islamist. The religious element, boosted by the great revival that has swept Muslim societies across the globe, adds a scriptural drumbeat to the call. And lately the impulse to resist has also been strengthened by the failing prestige of traditional countervailing forces—America, the moderate governments in the region and the liberal-minded minority of their citizens.

Generally, my feeling is that the essay is too fast to point the finger at the USA and Israel, at the expense of any substantial mention of the social and political dynamic within the countries that has resulted in a group of nations with vast material resources having such unhappy citizens. Still, worth reading.

Dill

Serial sleeping driver George Michael sings the praises of marijuana. Problem solved for the advertising executives trying to come up with the next anti-drugs campaign.

In space, no one can hear you scream...(except for fellow astronauts)

An interesting article in New Scientist about "etiquette" recommendations to future space tourists. Much of it is obvious (be tidy to help prevent tensions with the other astronauts), but this risk of motion sickness drugs I had not heard before:

Space sickness will likely be a big issue for novice space flyers – even highly trained test pilots still get queasy in the new environment of microgravity. Buckey says medication will probably be part of the solution.

When NASA scientists started giving anti-motion sickness drugs to students who flew experiments on the C-9 aircraft that simulates weightlessness, they noticed a much lower rate of motion sickness than in students who had not taken the drug.

But the drug they inject to quell space sickness, promethazine – sold under the brand name Phenergan, has its own set of problems. In space, Phenergan has been linked to urinary retention. Four crew members have had to have catheters inserted into their bladders during spaceflights.

On the odd medical front

Slate's Human Nature column has two surprising stories in it at the moment:

1. A medical journal article cited refers to the complications of tongue piercing as having included brain abscess, heart infection, tetanus, dental damage. OK, so I knew about the dental damage before, but brain abscess and heart infection!

2. There are some cases of pre-schoolers hitting puberty. As Slate summarises it:

Suspected factors: 1) Adult use of Andro, testosterone skin creams, and "prohormone" sprays that are passed to kids by contact; 2) estrogen in cosmetics; 3) shampoos with estrogen or placental extract; 4) industrial byproducts in food made from contaminated animals. Internet sales pitch: Buy our cream, and we'll guarantee your erections. Fine print: And we'll throw in a few more for your first-grader.

Hey, I wonder if Zoe Brain has ruled out a change in shampoo as being the cause for her transformation. :)

Pressure in the biosphere

Wired has a short interview with Jane Poynter, who was one of the 7 people who locked themselves up in Biosphere 2 in the 1990's.

Apparently they stayed there for nearly 2 years, which is longer than I recall. I don't remember this aspect of the experiment getting much publicity:

Throughout their stay, short tempers, depression and even the specter of insanity kept life interesting for the "biospherians." In her new book, The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2, Poynter gives an insider's view of the famous experiment.

It might be a fun read, just to hear about the psychological effects.

Daniel Pipes on modern war

Daniel Pipes' column here is quite interesting about how the world has changed. An extract:

....the solidarity and consensus of old have unraveled. This process has been underway for just over a century now (starting with the British side of the Boer War in 1899-1902). As I wrote in 2005: "The notion of loyalty has fundamentally changed. Traditionally, a person was assumed faithful to his natal community. A Spaniard or Swede was loyal to his monarch, a Frenchman to his republic, an American to his constitution. That assumption is now obsolete, replaced by a loyalty to one's political community - socialism, liberalism, conservatism, or Islamism, to name some options. Geographical and social ties matter much less than of old."

Sounds about right to me.

Mysterious weapons still around?

The Guardian revives the issue of whether some new weapon is being used by Israel on Palestinians in Gaza. I posted about this some months ago, expressing considerable scepticism at the time.

This new article adds a little:

"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs."

It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), an experimental weapon.

Aljazeera.net has a version of the story too.

Both articles say that a Dime is in fact intended to have a small blast area, thereby reducing the collateral (human) damage. If it does in fact do that, it's a good thing, isn't it?

Anyway, the Guardian quotes some Israeli figures as denying that there is any new weapon at all. Some Italian journalists are sending off some material from wounds for testing. I guess we should know sooner or later if there is any hard evidence about this one way or another.

Hold the caffeine, mother to be

A surprising finding reported in Nature, that even low doses of caffeine taken by pregnant mothers seem to have a developmental effect on their kids, at least in rats:

To see how the cellular changes were affecting behaviour, the Michigan team took baby rats whose mothers had been caffeined-up and ran them through a series of behavioural tests. Nunez says that the animals showed no cognitive defects, but were more active and less inhibited than those whose mothers had not received caffeine.

The rats were more willing to explore new environments, for example. When placed in a small dark space with an opening into a larger lit area, it took control animals around 4 minutes on average to emerge. But the caffeine rats left after an average of just 25 seconds.

Other tests showed similar, if less pronounced, changes. The rats were more likely to explore exposed environments, and spent more time interacting with other animals.

"You have an animal that doesn't know when to stop," says Nunez.

Anyone thinking ADHD in human kids?

Is it politics or theology - or both

A pretty pessimistic article from TCS Daily argues that Islamic fueled terrorism is both politically and theologically motivated, and that means there is not that much the West can do to settle down the troubles any time soon. It's a good review of the different sides of this debate, anyway.

Adams lies

Of course Phillip Adams could be expected to be all giddy over the Lancet's highly disputed estimate of fatalities in Iraq. However, what doubt can there be that he is an outright liar when it comes to repeating this line:

Three thousand Americans die on 9/11 and an incoherent Bush blames Baghdad.

This is complete and utter dishonesty.

Why Richard Dawkins is no fun

Recently, Richard Dawkins was interviewed in Salon, promoting his new anti-religion book.

There is nothing terribly surprising in it, but this section is intriguing:

[Salon]: But it seems to me the big "why" questions are, why are we here? And what is our purpose in life?

[Dawkins]: It's not a question that deserves an answer.

Well, I think most people would say those questions are central to the way we think about our lives. Those are the big existential questions, but they are also questions that go beyond science.

If you mean, what is the purpose of the existence of the universe, then I'm saying that is quite simply begging the question. If you happen to be religious, you think that's a meaningful question. But the mere fact that you can phrase it as an English sentence doesn't mean it deserves an answer. Those of us who don't believe in a god will say that is as illegitimate as the question, why are unicorns hollow? It just shouldn't be put. It's not a proper question to put. It doesn't deserve an answer.

I don't understand that. Doesn't every person wonder about that? Isn't that a core question, what are we doing in this world? Doesn't everyone struggle with that?

There are core questions like, how did the universe begin? Where do the laws of physics come from? Where does life come from? Why, after billions of years, did life originate on this planet and then start evolving? Those are all perfectly legitimate questions to which science can give answers, if not now, then we hope in the future. There may be some very, very deep questions, perhaps even where do the laws of physics come from, that science will never answer. That is perfectly possible. I am hopeful, along with some physicists, that science will one day answer that question. But even if it doesn't -- even if there are some supremely deep questions to which science can never answer -- what on earth makes you think that religion can answer those questions?

On reflection, this is probably just a statement of some version of positivist philosophy, which is nothing new. However, hearing it stated this way seems to unintentionally make it sound like, at best, a terribly dull philosophy, and at worst, a heartless and almost dehumanising one.

Actually, reading the sequence of questions makes me think that maybe Dawkins has oversimplified the question (when he says "if you mean, what is the purpose for the existence of the universe..") into such a form that he can claim it to be a nonsense question. But in doing so he seems have dismissed a personal concern for purpose in one's own life as being just as illegitimate as demanding that the universe as a whole have a purpose.

Does he really believe that? If he does, the interviewer was right to express some astonishment.

Anyway, even if he is not as dry a positivist as this interview makes him sound and he allows some legitimacy to the question of how people may find purpose in their life, his dismissal of the relevance of purpose to the universe does not sit well with modern discussion of the anthropic principle in cosmology. It is the apparent co-incidences of the physical constants of our universe that lead to such speculation. Yet Dawkin's attitude would seem to deny that this is a fair question to even ask. At the very least, thinking about ideas like the anthropic principle and the possible multiverse strikes me as intellectual fun, yet it would seem Dawkins attitude seems rather a wet blanket on the issue.


Maybe it would just annoy Dawkins too much if it turned out that the religious impulse had intuited a truth about the universe that science took a few thousand years to confirm, so he just dismisses that as a possibility out of hand.


For the record: I am actually only lukewarm on the anthropic principle and have not really followed the intelligent design argument with much care. I don't think ID in terms of biological evolution is a valid science topic in a school science curriculum, but am happy for the anthropic principle to be covered if any high school science spends much time on cosmology now.


I also know how atheists go on about not needing God to have a sense or awe and wonder from the scientific understanding and observation of the universe. No one need point out to me that Dawkins would say this. Being thrilled by nature is probably a natural impulse that is shared by everyone. The issue of how humans are valued and treated within nature is the more interesting point where materialists and the religious can start to wildly diverge.

Getting off drugs

Theodore Dalrymple has been going on about his quite contrarian views about illicit drugs for a few months now; I think I have not previously mentioned it.

This article gives a summary of his idea: that addiction to drugs (heroin in particular) has been long romanticised, and that the modern assumption that it can only be overcome with medical treatment is wrong:

When, unbeknown to them, I have observed addicts before they entered my office, they were cheerful; in my office, they doubled up in pain and claimed never to have experienced suffering like it, threatening suicide unless I gave them what they wanted. When refused, they often turned abusive, but a few laughed and confessed that it had been worth a try. Somehow, doctors—most of whom have had similar experiences— never draw the appropriate conclusion from all of this. Insofar as there is a causative relation between criminality and opiate addiction, it is more likely that a criminal tendency causes addiction than that addiction causes criminality.

Furthermore, I discovered in the prison in which I worked that 67% of heroin addicts had been imprisoned before they ever took heroin. Since only one in 20 crimes in Britain leads to a conviction, and since most first-time prisoners have been convicted 10 times before they are ever imprisoned, it is safe to assume that most heroin addicts were confirmed and habitual criminals before they ever took heroin. In other words, whatever caused them to commit crimes in all probability caused them also to take heroin: perhaps an adversarial stance to the world caused by the emotional, spiritual, cultural and intellectual vacuity of their lives.

He goes on to defend his position in this article.

It is certainly a controversial view, and an interesting one from someone who seems so conservative on this point but who is not personally religious. He was interviewed by The Brussels Journal recently, and it is well worth reading.

Moving up in life

Why should only Islam be getting all the bad publicity? It's good to see some attention being given to this aspect of Hinduism:

Like tens of thousands of other untouchables — or dalits — across India yesterday, Mr Cherlaguda ritually converted to Buddhism to escape his low-caste status....

"Untouchability" was abolished under India's constitution in 1950, but the practice remains a degrading part of everyday life in villages.

Dalits in rural areas are often bullied and assigned menial jobs such as removing human waste and dead animals.

The sometimes intense violence against them has led to a migration to the cities, where caste is easier to submerge.

At yesterday's mass conversion of dalits — almost 200,000 changed religion — they all repeated 22 oaths, including never worshipping Hindu gods and never drinking alcohol.

So, you have to give up alcohol to get out of being on the bottom of the social scale. Must be a hard choice for some.

This was from The Age, taken from The Guardian.