First Drafts
Science
Duncan Brown —
11th March 2010
Broken, like its namesake. But is it worth mending?
Andrew Montford’s “The Hockey Stick Illusion,” reviewed for Prospect by Matt Ridley, tells a story that will undoubtedly worry those who believe that our climate is warming—and infuriate critics (who are legion) of the book’s protagonist, Steve McIntyre.
If you haven’t come across him before, McIntyre was, in 2003, the first to publish a critique of the “hockey stick” temperature graph: the classic piece of evidence for man-made global warming used since 1998. McIntyre argued that the graph was fundamentally unsound by demonstrating, for example, that the model produced a “hockey stick” shape even when random data was put into it. There followed Montford’s story, of articles suppressed, data sets withheld and “warmist” malfeasance.
Since 2005 McIntyre has edited climateaudit.com, where he and a multitude of commenters dig for assumptions and oversights in every piece of climate science from a position of sceptical empiricism. His chief adversary is the Nasa climatologist Gavin Schmidt and his group of climate scientists at realclimate.org. (McIntyre has a maths degree, but no background in applied science.)
Read more »
Tom Chatfield —
1st March 2010
The grand regency chamber at the heart of Bath’s Guildhall is an incongruous place to be talking about search algorithms and digital privacy. Courtesy of the rather excellent Bath Literature Festival, however, that was exactly where I found myself this Sunday, debating whether Google is good for you in the company of Tim Kelsey, Heather Brooke and our chair, Tiffany Jenkins. I kept expecting to see a bonnet or two nodding in the audience, but no such Austenesque accoutrements were to be found. In fact, there was little technophobia of any kind, with the debate leaning strongly towards the opinion that governments and states were the people you really wanted to worry about—and that the great task is to lobby and scrutinise them mercilessly in the hope that they’ll hold private companies to account in turn.
There was, though, an interesting moment of silence on our part when we were asked what might or can be done to curb Google’s dominance of the search and online advertising industries. In honesty, nothing much at present was about the sum of my answer, although Tim and I agreed that quasi-monopolies have a habit of not lasting. More transparency all round was the battling cry, with the added injunction on Tim’s part that citizens have to realise that their contracts with the welfare state must trump many “privacy” concerns if they wish standards to be upheld and scandals avoided. Heather did not entirely agree on this point: indeed, her next book, The Silent State, will examine the question of just how far the state has encroached on citizens’ privacy and rights in Britain.
I finished off with a meditation on the unintended consequences of one company having so much power—and, as it sometimes seems, so little appreciation of the value and values of the older media whose business models it’s hollowing out. And then I was off for a cup of tea and a blessed afternoon away from the terrors of my inbox…
The Bath literature festival continues until Sunday 7th March, with daily debates sponsored by Prospect exploring everything from high culture to whether the French really are best at everything.
Philip Hunter —
2nd February 2010
Under fire: a periodic attack from within
The peer review process, by which scientific research is accepted or rejected by leading journals such as Nature and Science, has come under one of its periodic attacks from within. This might seem an arcane matter to the general public, but it does matter to us all because peer review governs the quality of medical research that leads to the development of new treatments. The drugs we are prescribed a decade from now for a range of conditions—from cancer or heart disease to allergies—may hinge on peer review today. It can also influence the scientific advice ultimately determining major policy decisions—for example, about climate change.
The problem is that cutting edge research can only be properly assessed by specialists in the field who are, to some extent, rivals and may be subliminally at least motivated to produce slightly negative comments. In many fields there is just a handful of leading specialists around the world who both produce original work themselves and also peer review each other’s work.Such an arrangement may be the only one to ensure suitably expert assessment, but does inevitably elicit bouts of paranoia among scientists when their research submissions are either rejected as a result of negative comments from reviewers, or bogged down with requests for extensive further experiments that may take several years.
The latest complaint seems more than paranoia, however, since it came from 14 leading stem cell researchers in an open letter to all the major journals—journals in which scientists must publish if they want be taken seriously in their field and have their work funded. The accusation is essentially that self interest governs some of the peer review comments and therefore decides which research is published and ultimately taken further.
Read more »
Tom Chatfield —
7th January 2010
Coming soon, to the brain of a child near you…
I was lucky enough to spend four minutes on Radio 4’s Today progamme this morning talking about whether videogames affect how children communicate (the implicit question being that they do, and that the effect is a negative one), in connection with the publication of my book on games, Fun Inc, which is out next Thursday. I was debating the point with the education consultant Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood. My lack of ferocity may have disappointed the editors, but it’s fair to say that I don’t really disagree with her argument that it’s a Bad Thing for young children to spend all their time staring at screens instead playing outside, socialising and other such activities. Then again, I can’t think of many people who would argue that young children should spend all their time staring at screens.
As Palmer undoubtedly knows, many children end up doing an excessive amount of screen-staring not because their parents honestly believe that everything of value in life can be imbibed through a monitor, but because it’s much easier to plonk children down in front of the telly/Wii than it is to give them your full attention. Now, I’d far rather plonk down any children I end up having in front of a games console than in front of a television. But I hope dearly also to introduce them to the joys of reading, sports, music, and conversation, in addition to the joys of both “real” and electronic games. As one gaming expert (and devout Catholic) put it to me while I was writing my book, when it comes to integrating new technologies into society, strategy number one has nothing to do with technology itself. It’s about “healthy family formation, early childhood development and an absolutely unequivocal commitment of human beings to the children that they bring into the world. If we could do this I don’t think any technology could harm us.” I find that argument pretty hard to fault.
Read more »
Philip Hunter —
5th January 2010
Frosty the Snowman: nothing to do with global warming. Or cooling.
I am sure Prospect readers are intelligent enough to appreciate the current cold snap says nothing about the state of global climate, even though the chill is far from confined to Britain. It does, however, highlight the poor quality of argument used by advocates both for and against the idea that our climate is already warmer than it would be in the absence of human-caused increases in greenhouse gases.
The fact that there is a “for and against” is itself somewhat ludicrous and says more about the tribal nature of human debates over ideas than the actual science. In any case, the problem is that activists on both sides tend to recruit any notable transient weather events for their running commentary on the state of the earth’s climate, adopting favourable events as evidence for their cause while dismissing opposite events as being mere day-to-day fluctuations.
Read more »
Damian Kahya —
24th December 2009
China's leader arrived in Copenhagen less ready to wreck than we now think
With Christmas upon us, the dust has settled on Copenhagen. And as Prospect editor David Goodhart posted yesterday, the settled view is becoming: blame China. Mark Lynas wrote an especially coruscating piece about it in the Guardian yesterday—a piece with which their editor agreed so strongly that he used his twitter guise of @alanrushbridger to say yesterday “if you read one piece on Copenhagen, read this.”
But in all this we are losing track of what actually happened, in which impact of the Chinese was more muddled and complex than the deliberate attack now gaining popularity. So Lets go back to Copenhagen to try and get it right.
With the talks about to veer into complete breakdown the US president hurried towards Air Force One. Like a sulky husband rushing to leave his awkward in-laws he explained he would love to stay but couldn’t – the weather demanded he go now. The deal he left behind was a conjuring trick of such audacity that it threw the slow thinking delegates and their press counterparts into a state of befuddled confusion.
Read more »
David Goodhart —
23rd December 2009
The misguided conventional copenhagen wisdom
Copenhagen is being called a failure, with various candidates blamed. Naomi Klein says it was Obama’s fault. Mark Lynas today is blaming the Chinese. But the conference wasn’t a failure. Or it was only so when measured against unrealistic expectations.
As Tony Brenton pointed out in the FT (letters, December 22nd, registration required), what matters here is power politics not consensus among all the world’s nations. There are about 20 nations that matter in climate change politics, and the core of the deal that was agreed came from five of them—the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. (And in what previous global deal could you have seen those five names lined up together?) The US and China have both committed themselves to a deal, indeed all the countries that matter have agreed, in public, that the rise in global temperature must be kept to under 2C. That in itself is a huge advance on just a couple of years ago.
Read more »
Damian Kahya —
18th December 2009
Any deal will be born out of lack of sleep as much as the imperative to save the planet
It’s the last day on the strange and in some ways amazing multinational spaceship that is Copenhagen’s Bella Center. Or at least so we think—a US delegate grabbing a coffee warned me it may go on until Sunday.
But then she also asked me if I’d heard how things were going––an unusual, and perturbing, thing for a US delegate to ask a journalist.
In his latest speech the Brazilian leader, Lula, said the negotiations had reminded him of his youth as a union leader—arguing with the management until two in the morning. It didn’t seem to be a fond memory. Read more »
Philip Hunter —
18th December 2009
The Ban on under-15 drinking flouts science and sense
“The science is clear.” We have heard that one before in other contexts, like anthropogenic global warming, but now the assertion has come from the British government’s chief medical officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, in calling parents to prohibit their children from drinking until they are 15 and then continuing to supervise their intake until 17.
Donaldson himself seemed confused over what science he was talking about. When pressed on the Radio 4 Today programme, he admitted that small amounts of alcohol could not harm a child. Alcohol after all is a natural product of metabolism, and everybody’s metabolism has to handle a little. There is no such thing as a total teetotaller.
Read more »
Climate Consultant —
18th December 2009
"There is tremendous anger and frustration, but the protests tell a misleading story"
International negotiations aren’t what they used to be. When Metternich convened the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the crowned heads of state (including the Czar, British King and various obscure dukes) spent six months wining and dining each other and did deals over late-night cards in the ballroom. Relieved at having got rid of Napoleon, the Austrian government picked up the tab.
130 years later, when Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill met at Yalta, only a few select diplomats accompanied them. The world’s media were entirely absent: the Royal Air Force did not deem it necessary to shuttle them to the Crimea via Liberia and Egypt (Roosevelt’s approach route) or by flying boat through Gibraltar and the Dardanelles (as Churchill arrived). There was no civil society present when Churchill drew the post-war balance of power in Europe on a paper napkin and Stalin nodded his assent.
By contrast, Copenhagen 2009 has been, until the last 48 hours, an open, democratic process. The Bella Centre, a vast hangar on the outskirts of the Danish capital, has room for 15,000 people. Over 45,000 people applied for passes, most of them associated with non-governmental organisations. Even the official parties to the negotiation, who had preferential access to the centre, included many participants who were neither diplomats nor government figures. The delegation I went to see got me a ‘party’ badge. (I never found out if there was an ‘after-party’ badge).
The conference may be doomed to failure, but in part this reflects impossibly high expectations. A multilateral negotiation process, involving over 200 countries and many other non-state entities, cannot possibly lead to a mutually satisfactory ‘global deal’. Global deals, by their nature, involve small numbers of powerful people talking to each other in closed rooms. To be successful, they require a sense of urgency (even fear), extraordinary levels of gumption, a willingness to take risks even though the numbers and implications are unclear. We’ll know in the next 48 hours if those conditions were present.
Read more »
Comment (2)
