Month: February 2015

On “the glorious 12th” of February Robert Ashby BHA Chair of Trustees introduced the 12th annual Darwin Day Lecture hosted by the BHA. Richard Dawkins then introduced anthropologist Dr Eugenie Scott of the US NCSE.org as the guest speaker on ‘What would Darwin say to today’s creationists?’ (Note that NCSE has a wider educational mandate, and currently AGW-denial was another hot topic.)

Dawkins introduction highlighted two important points. Firstly that “evolution” is not a theory (a hypothesis) in the sense Darwin originally intended it, nor is it even a scientific law, but is an explanatory principle of how things came (and continue to come) to be (*1). Secondly that he is not as diplomatic or effective as Dr Scott when it comes to arguing the case for evolution against creationism. Both topics to which Dr Scott returned.

The event is celebratory and targetted at a large public audience, so naturally Dr Scott kept the content more entertaining and anecdotal than technical, and succeeded in that. Many of the well known creationist arguments aimed at undermining either evolution (by natural selection), or Darwin’s own originality or conviction to his own theory, were aired and shown to be missing the point whether or not they were scientific or even contained an element of truth.

For me, the one new item was the (laugahbly crude) creationist literature under the name Harun Yahya which had strong links with Turkish state support. Apart from the punchline Darwin might give to modern creationists (young earth, IDist or otherwise) “Haven’t you been paying attention for the last 155 years?” the telling points were in two of the questions.

Nicky Campbell (Host of BBC’s “The Big Question”) asked if Scott (or Dawkins) had ever had a creationist come up to them after a debate or argument and indicate that they now accepted Darwinian evolution? No, said Scott. Dawkins cited one who after a full undergraduate course had come to him and to say “Darwin makes sense”. Scott elaborated that she never wasted her time and lack of credibility arguing with those who professed faith-based creationist beliefs, life’s too short and there are plenty of people in an educational context who benefit more from having Darwin explained. After that Darwinian evolution takes over from the seeds of mutation sown. (Lesson there for Dawkins?)

Sue Blackmore (Evolutionary Psychology Lecturer and author of The Meme Machine) expressed the view that even in her own graduate lectures she had trouble getting many intelligent students to “get” Darwinian evolution by natural selection, did Scott have any tips? Scott had two. One, as Dawkins already indicated, it’s not simply “a theory” and success was easier if the open audience was targetted in an educational context, so yes, even there it was often difficult hence her own priority of educating open minds where success was more likely. Secondly however, Scott reminded us that since it was not “a theory” or a subject-matter scientific topic in its own right, it was important to teach the principles of Darwinian natural selection in every subject from the start, not just in biology as a particular science lesson. (Interestingly however, neither Scott nor Dawkins mentioned any non-biological evolution during the course of the evening; geographical and geological – tectonics, sedimentation and erosion – mechanisms affecting and explaining biological evolution, but no non-biological evolution by Darwinian natural selection. (*)

[(*) Note recent Unger & Smolin publication extolling the view of taking all causal explanations within the cosmos as evolutionary with a history of how things came to be; nothing, not even natural laws and mathematics are outside the history of the cosmos.]

[Post Note : in that reference to Unger & Smolin above (I’ve not yet completed the Smolin parts) I picked-up on their “conundrum of the meta-laws” – with a barely intelligible “riff” on Doug Hofstadter’s “Tabletop” – for me there is no conundrum, just something that’s hard to put into “Newtonian” forms of causal explanation – there is a “creative emergence”. It occurs to me this is the same issue as saying “Darwinian evolution as natural selection” is not a so much a law or a theory, as some kind of explanatory principle about how evolutionary causation works. The same explanatory principle of how everything came to be through history, that Unger & Smolin are talking about I say. Scientists should talk to each other more, rather than arguing with the perceived irrational.]

Ann Marie Waters, ex board member of the National Secular Society (NSS) and ex left-wing Labour politician, added to her outspoken non-PC infamy when she recently announced joining UKIP as a prospective candidate in the upcoming UK parliamentary election.

What’s that all about?

How does a “left-wing-to-her-soul” – “ex-Irish-catholic, culturally-British-Christian, lesbian, feminist, freedom-and-equality-rights-activist” – follow such a trajectory? Worth listening carefully to her answers.

[Post Note – A year on, Feb 2016 – Since this time @AMDWaters has moved on to Pegida and joined forced with “new era” Tommy Robinson. Same convictions, different political vehicle. Most interesting to follow the internal personal battles between the various high-profile individuals in this free-left, free-thought, humanist, secularist space – draft post in progress on settling tactical differences and emphasising agreed strategic objectives.]

[Post Note – and another year on, Apr 2017 – making post-Brexit mileage within UKIP, she and her baying-mob are perpetually sarcastic and sneering at every “Islam” related issue that arises, conflating all into that one term. Such sarcasm is neither wit nor constructive politics, it’s downright offensive and counter-productive.]

She spoke to the LAAG (London Atheist Activist Group) last night, 11 Feb 2015.
Her topic was Islamism and the Left, but we got the whole deal.

Disillusionment with the left is widespread amongst left-leaning libertarians – as most thoughtful humanists are by nature – paralysed by political correctness and unable to grasp intellectually and express practically any policy necessary to even address serious issues. To the point of being paradoxical, even hypocritical. (And it’s not new, think of Kinnock berating the Liverpool labour politicians, long before we get to analysing the demise of states built on variants of socialism, and the legacies of the “New Labour” project. Post Note – and as if to prove the point we now get brother Corbyn’s crass and juvenile not-even-attempts at “left” policy. Jeez.)

As Anne-Marie puts it, having believed left-wing politics stood for the freedoms and equalities of individuals she (still) holds dear – she discovered that in practice it was dogmatically ideological on internationalism, effectively totalitarian on deciding debate topics and agendas.

Struggling with her own conscience against political careerism and policies of “economic equality” – as much for already advantaged “white anglo-saxon male” roles, as for culturally disadvantaged individuals and minorities – she concluded the left was never really associated with human rights generally, nor with women’s rights and feminism specifically. Even talk of “women’s rights” is patronising to some extent but, for her, women’s rights around FGM, forced marriage, wearing the veil, patriarchal dominance and their Islamic context are the topical exemplars – matters of principle here and now.

Addressing these not only to Islam head-on but, given her more recent allegiance to UKIP, also to Immigration head-on, is the recipe for her incendiary reputation. Vilified in the mainstream media, abused on social media, death-threats in person and unemployable in the legal career she has clearly sacrificed.

Stepping down from her role in the NSS, was less to do with any dissatisfaction with that organisation (though here too there is the dominant left-wing libertarian culture), but primarily a matter of secular loyalty to protect the broader secularist agenda from the inevitable reaction to her current narrower political focus within UKIP.

On Islam, both current practice in states with majority Muslim cultures, and expressly in infamous passages from the Quran, women are second class citizens, reduced effectively to invisible slaves and property in many aspects, and non-Muslims are enemies simply for being so.

[She recited many examples – from the Quran, from the media, from surveys and reports – all previously reported, some are memes in their own right, many already referenced here, but many, as in many. Only a few I’ll note here.]

She contrasted Quranic and Biblical accounts of the stoning of the adulterous woman (let he who is free from sin cast the first stone) and the marriage of the prophet (Aisha was wed aged 7 and “consummated” at 9.)

She contrasted statistics and surveys of freedom and equality for women in states around the world, where unsurprisingly the Scandinavian & Nordic countries come out best, yet where non-home, non-date rape cases are (a) the highest in the world and (b) predominantly “Muslim immigrant” men assaulting local women (*). [Such inflammatory claims need careful checking beyond anecdotal evidence, but this is clearly the extreme end of the more general point. In that sense, she is stating “extreme” views.]

What is interesting is Waters’ take on #nothingtodowithislam and the “TME” meme (the problem is The Minority of Extremists). She sees these as “pathetic and dangerous”. I’ve been clear on my take. The truth lies somewhere between “it’s nothing to do with Islam” and “it’s everything to do with Islam”. Or as “moderate” Muslims would plead “Islam, we have a problem“.

There are problems, some of which are driven by Islamic culture. The extreme “terrorist” problems by extremist minorities, others – the particular women’s rights topics of Waters’ agenda – by wider, more deeply ingrained aspects of the culture. The tangled web covers everything from the historical religious influences on those states and cultures, to prejudiced pretexts and scholarly readings of the holy texts, not to mention the qualities and motivations of the scholars and the regimes enacting the political influences. But.

The problems of Islamism are a problem with Islam.
A problem better addresses than denied.

So why Immigration and why UKIP?

Immigration is quite straightforward here. It’s a policy against open borders, against unconditional immigration. (It may be a straw man to imply such a state exists, but) why would you welcome immigrants espousing a culture that actively denies the rights and freedoms of half of our existing citizens. Why import such beliefs. Why admit expectations that legal (eg Sharia) exceptions will be made for cultural content that directly conflicts with “our” human rights?

This is quite simply saying immigration should be conditional (which it probably already is) and the conditions of undesirability should include such direct conflict with cultural values on rights and freedoms (which it almost certainly currently is not). Highly non-PC but logically a no-brainer. Codifying and enacting such conditions would clearly require technical skill and political competence, but that’s no argument against against the core point.

Why UKIP? That’s trickier. For Waters, it’s a question of priorities and practical opportunity for turning principles into policy. Whatever other policies UKIP may have formally, or may appear to have according to media hype, or may contain due to individual members’ cultures and behaviours, does any other UK political party – expressly support secularism; real (non-PC) support for women’s rights as equal human rights;  and the (non-PC) concept of a British culture beyond “multi-culturalism”? Waters clearly believes not, and she’s probably right, though frankly I don’t know.

On the “I” in UKIP – Independence, the third-I – Waters claims that she (and UKIP) are actually all for a UK within a culturally unified Europe, the independence is really from the existing EU institutional arrangements – which have evolved to be inefficient, unworkable and effectively “corrupt and evil”.

What is clear is that Anne Marie Waters is sincere and candid, and is a conviction & issues (ie non-careerist) politician. Her specific agenda on women’s (& LGBT & other) freedoms, Islam and Immigration, whilst far from PC, is nevertheless clear and rational. And, whilst her focus is on the necessary and the possible here and now – (ie she’s not the Irishman who wouldn’t start from here) – she clearly has a deep appreciation of the historicity of the religious, cultural, nationalist, colonialist, east-west guilt-and-responsibility snake-pit in which we find ourselves.

The question is – does UKIP have any more like her?

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[(*) Post Note : Actual Norwegian NRK1 TV Dagsrevyen Nyheter interview with police chief in 2010 – all 41 cases over 3 years by “non-Western immigrants” – not specifically “Muslim” but explicitly from male dominated hierarchical cultures. We lived in Oslo 2009 – 2011 and enjoyed frequenting the ethically diverse east-end – food stores and restaurants in Grønland & Tøyen – a good deal in the final few months. Well-educated Norwegian colleagues certainly expressed concerns over immigrant population. Breivik was spring 2012, specifically targetted against labour left “tolerating” multiculturalism.]

Holding Notes : [Tatchell][Cashman][Women][Colonialism][FurtherLinks][LeftPCIslamAlliance][Modesty]

Prompted by Tweets in response to this Grauniad Higher Ed piece:

If “research” being published is primarily human readable text, then nothing wrong with PDF provided saved in a text-searchable form – how you save it matters. (And purists would say LATEX is a better format which keeps text separate from formatting – but formatted viewers have less wide-spread adoption than Adobe products. And being locked against casual editing, or open to annotation and comment are all widely available features with PDF.)

If what is being published really is structured – or benefits from being structured – where the organisation and formatting of content is really part of the information being published, then an XML document with (say) RDF-Schema (for structure) and style-sheets (for presentation) is the most future-proof way to go. Turns documents into databases without building the database first.

This is a common issue for all information publishing in all businesses, not just academic research.

The political philosopher Roberto Unger and the cosmologist / physicist Lee Smolin have jointly written “The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time” and its release last month had already been promoted as a landmark work.

It’s actually two books, one by each of them, with common introduction and index. So far, in addition to the introduction and index, I’ve completed only Unger’s contribution, which is about 2/3 of the total. Stylistically it’s written for a multi-discipline but technical audience in terms of the philosophy and physics. It’s not “popular science”. It’s also arguing a case rather than simply informing, so there is a lot of repetitive near-restatement in elaborate and technical language.

However the arguments are already clear and compelling, only a few points to disagree with.

There are three explicit and one corollary theses (my own paraphrased re-statements):

• The Singular (Individual) Universe – the cosmos comprises only one universe, evolving with a history. Nothing lies outside the universe.

• The Reality of Time – time is real and inclusive of the whole history of the cosmos. No part of the universe lies outside time.

• The Selective Reality of Mathematics – maths is a tool for describing, representing and manipulating reality, but is not some privileged layer underlying fundamental reality. Not even maths lies outside the cosmos and time.

• The Reality of Causation – but patterns of regularity, that might look like laws at periods in cosmological history are not timeless laws, rather they evolve and speciate like any other aspect of the cosmos. Not even patterns of causation lie outside cosmological time, they are emergent and meta, whether they appear law-like or not.

Aside – As well as those bare bones, reiterated, explained and argued by Unger, there are encouraging references to Mach and Poincare, Riemann and Einstein too, and the Hilbert project terminally scuppered by Gödel. More links later. (*)

The agenda and argument are not idle speculation. Unger is recommending this reset of simpler philosophical foundations removes a misleading “metaphysical gloss” from currently accepted physics, and provides greater empirical possibility for exploring any and all of the stubborn gaps in existing theory.

A recurring theme is what Unger refers to as “the conundrum of meta-laws”. Causality may be independent of the existence of laws, but is the causal evolution of of genuinely novel patterns and species of regularity itself governed by meta-laws?

Struggling to see what exactly he sees as the problematic meta-laws conundrum? [Personal riff on Hofstadter – Clearly patterns of regularity themselves occur in recursive “meta” layers upon layers, with “ortho” patterns in relationships between the layers. Again, patterns or principles of the possible, but not fixed timeless laws per se. For me this creative evolution of the actual from the conceivably possible screams “Tabletop” after Doug Hofstadter’s metaphor for “slipping” to adjacent possibles via any number of meta layers of meta relationships – meta-meta-physics.]

Anyway, to close this review of the first part of Unger and Smolin, here a large [snipped] quote from Unger as he closes his chapter on patterns of regularity in causation, before moving on to his final chapter on the selective reality of maths:

“The reality of time is [in fact] a revolutionary proposition. […]

[The meta-laws conundrum] suggests a sense in which our conventional ideas about causality are confused. Causal judgements presuppose the reality of time. The relations among logical or mathematical propositions do not. The laws of nature have been commonly understood to justify causal explanations. If time […] is all inclusive, the laws of nature should not be understood to be outside time.

Laws of nature [in the present cool universe] codify causal connections over [distinct] structure with a relatively stable repertoire of natural kinds and [patterns of] recurrence.

Nature often satisfies these conditions, but not always. The stability and the mutability of the laws need not contradict each other [historically].

It follows that we cannot hope to ground causality in a timeless and changeless foundation. […] Our conventional beliefs in [the dominant interpretations of] science, fudge the difference between the two horns of this dilemma. They grant the reality of time, but not to the point that [laws may change within it.]

To accept this criticism is to recognise the need to revise our view of causal explanation. […]

[The greater] the scope and ambition of our theories, the greater the danger in disregarding the historical character of causation [and their regularities] in the universe.”

Purely logical (timeless) objective structural descriptions of reality overlook the value of historical “becoming” explanations (to paraphrase Mary Midgeley berating Larry Krauss).

Right now I’m looking forward to reading the cosmologist’s (Lee Smolin’s) contribution to this argument, and skipping ahead few pages into his first chapter “Cosmology in Crisis” it’s pretty clear he is restating the same key points at the outset, despite the caveat that the two authors kept their contributions separate because they actually claimed to have disagreements in their views.

Already Smolin is also making it clear that sweeping away the misguided metaphysical gloss in contemporary cosmology and resetting a more common sense metaphysics, far from undermining today’s best accepted standard models and symmetries, actually increases the possibilities of empirical exploration for the many current gaps, mysteries and paradoxes. Reading on.

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[(*) Some Post Notes:

Unger is fairly dismissive of anthropic principles, weak or strong – but I interpret that as being a warning against sloppy anthropic thinking. ie our “anthropic perspective” in the “current universe” is clearly real, so recognising that is important, especially when pondering the “fine tuning” effects mentioned in this work, and evaluating interpretations already made by other humans with similar tunnel vision. We are always looking at our cosmos from our insider perspective. There is no other.

Also, the “Darwinian” evolution of laws of nature all the way down is pretty much what Brian Josephson was describing earlier at the meeting of Nobel Laureates, though – beware – not a great presentation.]

[Post Note : Final review here after completing Smolin’s section.]