From the Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. blog:
Henk Tennekes Resigns from Dutch Academy
Henk Tennekes is well known to the visitors of our website. A few days ago, he told me that he submitted a letter of resignation to the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences on Saturday, January 23. He wrote to me “I don’t want to remain a member of an organization that, like AMS and NAS, screws up science that badly.” The Dutch newspaper NRC-Handelsblad apparently got hold of a copy of the resignation letter and ran a News Flash on Saturday, January 30. In the letter to the Academy, Henk complains that he submitted the manuscript of his essay on Hermetic Jargon (which I am happy to reproduce here below, with his permission) to the Academy President at that time, Frits van Oostrom. The President, however, did not bother to respond. The NRC news flash, translated by Henk himself at my request, reads:
Tennekes Quits
By Karel Knip
“I have had it. Farewell.” With these words Henk Tennekes concludes his final letter to the Executive Board of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. He wrote his letter of resignation on January 23. A unique occurrence in the history of the Academy, which obtains its membership by co-optation. Normally, a member of the Academy loses his membership only when he dies. Tennekes is still alive.
For many years, Tennekes was director of research at KNMI. He also was a professor at the Pennsylvania State University and at the Free University in Amsterdam. In 1982 he became a member of the Academy. And now he steps out. “There is light out there” is the closing sentence of the essay “Hermetic Jargon” that he now gives a broader distribution.
Why quit? Is he mad about the global warming hype? Tennekes has often spoken up against alarmist language concerning the greenhouse effect and against the hubris of climatologists who pretend to know precisely what will happen to the climate in the future.
No, Tennekes uses the ultimate tool he has to object to the conflicts of interest within the Academy. It is supposed to be the highest independent scientific advisory body in the country, but at the same time it runs a number of research institutes, and has to lobby for their budgets. “That conflict of interest is breaking the wings of its advisory function,” he says. The Strategic Agenda of the Academy, currently being finalized, offers no hope for improvement.
Is that all? The essay “Hermetic Jargon” gives yet another impression. In it, he protests the inaccessibility of modern science, with its habit to restrict quality control (peer review) to the inner circles of each discipline. And he is annoyed by the dominant position of physics in the world of science. He wants to promote more dialogue between disciplines, but he discovered that the walls between them cannot be broken down. Stepping out is the final choice.
In response to our request Robbert Dijkgraaf, the current President of the Academy, states that the Academy regrets the departure, but respects it.
This picture will appear in the second printing of Simple Science of Flight by H. Tennekes, currently in press.
Hermetic Jargon
Farewell Message to the Dutch Academy
As soon as scientists and scholars from different disciplines talk to one another, confusion creeps in. In everyday language, words evoke clusters of associations, suggestions, hints and images. This is why an intelligent listener often needs only half a word. But the words that scientists use in their professional communications are usually safeguarded against unwanted associations. Within each separate discipline this helps to limit semantic confusion, but outsiders have no chance.
Disciplines are divided by their languages. Incomprehensible journal articles and oral presentations, ever-expanding university libraries, endless bickering over the appropriation of research funds, resources, and post-doc positions: The Temple of Science has become a Tower of Babel. A Babylonian confusion of tongues has become the organizing principle. As soon as more than a couple dozen scientists unite around the same theme, another specialist journal is created, comprehensible only to the in-crowd. If this is science, I want to get off.
Many years ago, two members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences tried to call attention to the problem. One was the leading art historian and Director of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Henk van Os, the other the retired methodologist of the social sciences, Adriaan de Groot. The two elderly gentlemen arranged a discussion meeting on the peer review system at Academy headquarters. Being an Academy member myself, I eagerly participated. In their introduction van Os and de Groot explained how all disciplines have a tendency to develop their own ‘hermetic jargon,’ the secret language that eliminates the risk of having to discuss the foundations of one’s discipline with the outside world.
Hermetic jargon: what a beautiful neologism! Hermetic: referring to airtight sealing, my Random House dictionary says. Words are at their best when they seed a whole cloud of meanings and associations. In this case my mind reacted instantly, grasping at such concepts as occult science, alchemy, and esoteric writing. Esoteric, accessible to the initiated only, is the qualification given by the philosopher Lucian to some of Aristotle’s writings. Hermetic sealing was the standard laboratory practice of the alchemists. The net effect of hermetic jargon is that outsiders cannot argue with the high priests who wield the words. They can only accept the occult writings in awe.
Looking at the academic enterprise this way, I come across a lot of issues that bother me. The first that comes to mind is that hermetic jargon makes it impossible to conduct mature, scientific discussions of the paradigms, dogmas, and myths that drive each discipline. The claims of the mainstream physics community worldwide, for example, are outrageous. All science is Physics, period, is what these priests claim. All other disciplines, including chemistry, biology, engineering and the earth sciences, are mere derivatives. Physicists glorify their Nobel prizes without ever contemplating whether the Nobel prize system might be based on a nineteenth-century assessment of the world of science. Hermetic jargon is also a very effective means of excluding outsiders from negotiations for research funds. The system by which professional colleagues judge each other’s performance is called Peer Review. Only peers in the same discipline may pass judgment on their colleagues’ funding requests and on the quality of their papers. Only high-energy physicists are allowed to participate in debates concerning the funding of high-energy physics, only micrometeorologists are allowed to review micrometeorological manuscripts. This makes a lot of sense, of course, because outsiders are in no position to judge the intricate technical details of the measurements and calculations involved. But such judgment is only a necessary first step. The key challenge for a meaningful peer review system would be to make explicit the underlying paradigms, and to subject them to scholarly scrutiny. This, to me, should be the essence of the duty of a National Academy, and perforce of each Academician.
Chances for a mature dialogue will improve when hermetic jargon is taken for what it really is: a way to defend barriers. There are plenty of unresolved issues and dilemmas in the interstices between the disciplines. Almost nobody dares to take a peek, but Gregory Bateson, the originator of the Kantian idea that Mind and Nature form a Necessary Unity, did. Angels Fear is the title of the book his daughter Margaret compiled after he died. The subtitle of that beautiful but rather messy book is Towards an Epistemology of the Sacred. The term ‘sacred’ should not be construed as referring to theology, but to the central problem of all epistemology: how can we know anything, how can we evaluate, who are we to make judgments? In Kant’s own words: “Reason suffers the fate of being troubled by questions which it cannot reject because they were brought up by reason itself, but which it cannot answer either because they are utterly beyond its capacities.” Yes, only fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
In oral presentations, to give another example, it would behoove the speaker to speak openly about the questions looming behind the research successes, behind the never-ending propaganda for scientific progress. I myself tried this a few times, but to no avail. In my induction speech for the Academy, in January 1984, I introduced the limited predictability of the weather as a prime example of the uncertainties associated with the sensitive dependence of nonlinear systems to initial conditions and to mismatches between Nature and the models we use to compute its evolution. I told my audience that the prediction horizon, in 1950 estimated by John von Neumann at 30 days, in fact is only three days on average. I dwelt only a little on the implications of this for the myth of endless progress in science. Apparently, meteorology is approaching the no-man’s land between the unknown and the unknowable, I said. This was enough to alert the cognoscenti. The moment the discussion period following my lecture started, the famous astronomer Henk van de Hulst stood up from his chair in the front row and said: “Henk, that is a sermon, not a lecture. Sermons are not appropriate in this Hall.” And the President, David de Wied then, closing the meeting and thanking me for my speech, said in front of the microphones: “Henk, I really don’t understand what you said, and I believe I don’t want to understand either.”
The two Academy members who had arranged the meeting on peer review apparently had concluded that voluntary changes in the peer review system were very unlikely. They opted for a direct confrontation. They proposed to amend the review system such that a number of colleagues outside the discipline concerned would have to participate in the evaluation of proposals for research funding and debates on the desired direction of research programs. Ask psychologists to look over the shoulders of meteorologists, involve theologians in the evaluation of astronomical long-term planning, let sociologists and engineers review each other’s professional papers, and so on. As soon as you do that, hermetic jargon loses the rationale for its existence.
It shall come as no surprise that these thoughts were torpedoed the moment they reverberated through the august Academy assembly hall. Everyone knew instantly the very idea was a land mine under the science establishment. Nobody understood that the proposal was rather modest in the sense that bureaucrats, politicians, and taxpayers would be excluded, and that the proposal in fact could be construed as reinforcing the power of the scientific nomenclature. The current practice is that spokesmen for each discipline negotiate directly with bureaucrats in government agencies, and refuse to be drawn into evaluations of the claims of other disciplines.
So all hell broke loose, right there in the meeting, the scene suddenly similar to that in a typical Knesset session, with Academicians jumping up, shouting, and cursing. Within half an hour, the President of the Academy, Pieter Drenth this time, stepped in, stating ex cathedra that the current review system was functioning well enough, despite minor flaws. He closed the meeting, and the Executive Board of the Academy decided to abort the idea altogether.
Following in the footsteps of van Os and de Groot, I have tried to fantasize about the fierce battles that might result if their proposal were put into effect. The central myth of cosmology and astrophysics, for example, is that the human mind is more powerful than the Universe. Stephen Hawking writes: when we discover a theory that unifies gravity and quantum mechanics, we will (I shudder as I write this) “know the Mind of God.” Martin Rees, then the Astronomer Royal of the United Kingdom, wrote a book called Before the Beginning, subtitled Our Universe and Others. Indeed, it has become common in astronomy to talk about Multiple Universes, an oxymoron if I ever saw one. Unfortunately, mainstream theology continues to propagate a similar myth, i.e. the stupid idea that one can talk with insight, and write scholarly publications, about God himself. That, in my mind, is an unforgivable epistemological fallacy. Readers not versed in the Bible might find it useful to read the story of Moses stumbling into a psychedelic thorn bush in Exodus 3. Moses hears voices and asks: “please tell me your Name, so I can tell my people who sent me.” The Voice answers: “I am whoever I want to be, that should be good enough for you.”
Being an engineer myself, I would be delighted to participate in a debate between engineers and sociologists. In both cases, the interaction between the discipline and society is central to the field of inquiry. Take cell phones. The technology is straightforward, but the sociology is complex. Engineers are servants to society. Their work, which uses physics, chemistry, and countless other disciplines, ought to be analyzed by sociologists. I confess that I know no sociology to speak of, but I know enough about engineering to claim that something must be amiss if the best book on technology I know of is Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
As to my own position, I can illustrate that with another incident at the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. I was elected into the Academy in 1982, and assigned to a small group of scholars not bound to a specific discipline, the Free Section. This group was the envy of several others, because the much coveted expansion of disciplinary sections was hindered by our presence. There were 100 chairs in the Science Division at the time, and several other sections claimed to need more. The powers behind the scenes argued long enough for the Executive Board to cave in to the demands to eliminate the Free Section, and lodge its members into disciplines. I was tentatively assigned to the physics section, which did not appeal to me at all. So I wrote to the then President, Piet van Zandbergen, saying that one could imagine putting me in the Engineering Section because I was raised as an engineer, in the Physics Section because my area of expertise is turbulence theory, which is a branch of theoretical physics, and in Earth Sciences, because that would correspond to my current position. Instead, I wrote, I would prefer to be assigned to the Theology and Philosophy Section because of my growing interest in epistemology. The President, eager to avoid any written record of the nuisance I had created, called me one night by phone, saying: “Henk, philosophy belongs to the Arts and Humanities Division of the Academy. The division between them and the Science Division is laid down in our Charter. You cannot cross that Wall however much you want to. That Wall cannot be breached.”
But one can step outside. I did. There is light out there.
Once upon a time their was a magazine that did branch the gap between the various scientific disciplines. It had great in-depth articles that would often serve as a good introduction into a new field. One could find educated articles about cosmology, nuclear energy, butterfly biology, mathematics, the mysteries of Stradivarius violins, anthropology, and almost any subject you could think of.
Then it was taken over by the social engineers when it was purchased by a different publishing company. As its political correctness increased the level of intelligence dropped. Now one can read the articles and never have to give a second thought to what the articles are saying because you no longer learn anything from them. It of course became a promoter of AGW and any letters to the magazine questioning the climate science were treated like it was written to “”Real” Climate”. I wonder if Phil Jones or Michael Mann had any input into who was on the editorial staff?
I miss the old Scientific American. I use to read it cover to cover every month. Now I won’t even look at it in the book store.
Bulldust,
Thanks for reminding me about the CSM Oyster Club. While it may not have bridged some of the gaps between the hard sciences and the liberal arts, it provided tremendous exposure to students and faculty from other countries. The only possible down side I suppose is that breaking down the barriers only happened in an informal setting after at the end of the working day.
It’s about the entanglement of scientists, politics, and money.
Anthony, thank you for once again for recently including a post that tends to link science and the underlying supporting philosophical issues. This aspect is one I consider the most important for the future objectivity and independence of science.
In his essay “Hermetic Jargon” Henk Tennekes references “””””. . . the philosopher Lucian to some of Aristotle’s writings . . .”””’ and he references ”””I. . . .in Kant’s own words: “Reason suffers the fate of being troubled by questions which it cannot reject because they were brought up by reason itself, but which it cannot answer either because they are utterly beyond its capacities . . . ”””’
So . . . . in the “Hermetic Jargon” we see the battle joins again as it has frequently done in the last ~2,500 years. The grand battle between the two basic philosophies whose theories have fundamentally shaped the major eras of our western culture. The two are not compatible. Where one or the other dominates there are profound consequences.
John
I just finished watching the excellent 1970 series “Connections” by James Burke.
It seems that most scientific breakthroughs came from accedental discoveries or cross pollenation with very diverse fields of interest. There is one thread in the show that links the death of two thirds of the the population from plague, to the abundance of linen, to the wearing of linen underware, to the abundace of discarded rags, to the availability of paper made from the rags, to printing, to punched paper cards on a weaving loom, to the punched cards of a computer made for counting people for the US censes, to the modern computer.
Where ever there is free inquirey, science thrives.
Restriction and dogma is the death of science.
In the business world,
Various organisations exist. I was a member of one for three or four years.
Rotary International. The pont is the organisation is a charitable operation. Totally non political and seeing I was President, for one mad year in the clubs history I saw no politics, obviously different members have various political affilliations.
But the purpose really was cross border sponsorship and negotiation in areas of health education and such.
And yes it was full of techologists of various types. Oyur club was mostly farm seeing it was in a bush region but other clubs were more diverse.
I guess this is a kind of Oyster club. Me I think cross discipline discussion is just applied thinking outside the box, with more advantages than disadvantages.
Henke is discussing patch syndrome. The internet will destroy this ivory tower patch syndrome.
I know I know back in your Box, Jack.
The oyster club works in my opinion.
Why is Solar radiation ignored in these “studies” of global warming? Surely humankind does not have complete knowledge of every type of radiation given off by the Sun, the magnitude of this radiation, or how it is affected by the sunspot cycle. Just 10 years ago these same scientist were not convinced there were “black holes,” now, they claim every galaxy has one at its center. For the last 40 years the learned scientists have told us that power from fusion is just 10-20 years away. If this is all they know about fusion it speaks volumes about what they know about the Sun. Is the Sun telling us it is transitioning to a different state?
Then there is the earth’s magnetic flux, what is happening to it? How does it affect those waves/particles/radiation given off by the Sun. We know the poles perodically flip (and one is due). Is it going to flip again soon? But, of course, if you ignore the COMPLETE solar spectrum, I guess you can (need to) ignore the effect changes in the earth’s magnetic flux would have on that radiation.
Am I the only one concerned about this?
Quote: UzUrBrn (19:34:35)
1. “Why is Solar radiation ignored in these “studies” of global warming?”
2. “Surely humankind does not have complete knowledge of every type of radiation given off by the Sun, the magnitude of this radiation, or how it is affected by the sunspot cycle.”
1. Because global warming is propaganda, not science.
2. As you note, Earth is connected to the Sun in many ways. That was one of the main points of a recent paper “Earth’s Heat Source – The Sun” [Energy and Environment 20 (2009) 131-144]
http://arxiv.org/pdf/0905.0704
With kind regards,
Oliver K. Manuel
Re Binny (15:08:02) Thank you for this. We often miss the forrest for the trees. When we forget human nature we think we are safe by the structere we live in. This is almost always false.
For instance it is stated by many “Power corrupts”. This also is fundamentally flawed. No reasonable persons seek to be powerless, to be a victim subject to the discretion of others; to have no control over there own lives and decisions. So others refine this saying, “The love of power corrupts” Yet this has the same problem. All love to feel empowered. Even the one who willfully submits to one in authority wishes to feel that it is both their choice, and that in that submission, they will gain the power to attain some end, either personal or to some benefit of society. The one who submits within a system does not mean he wishes to have no power or influence. All seek power, and in some ways all love power. A far better statement is that “Power reveals corruption” or alternatively, “love of power over the free will of others is corruption.” The corruption that power reveals is the use of power to compel others against their will, the desire to exercise tyrannical control of other people to accomplish some objective.
So in this sense we see that both the desire to have power, and the desire to achieve personal gain are not inherently evil. It is the desire to exercise tyrannical power over others in connection with the desire for personal gain (even if one portends it is only for the protection of the less fortunate) that is fundamentally immoral or dishonest and which is evil and destructive to a society. “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” (Plato)
Almost always the manifestation of seeking power in an immoral way involves exercising a form of tyranny, however petty it may be, over someone else or some other group, or within a group. Thus what is immoral is the practice of seeking gain via an expression of tyranny over another person. Murder, as a blatant example, involves both the removal of another’s same right for seeking self gain, and is an expression of tyranny over another person. Almost all crimes which are common to societies are a reflection of this fundamental abuse of power which can manifest in either a personal or group expression.
Those social systems which mostly easily engender tyranny should be rated poorly in their chance of producing a prosperous and happy society. To try to enforce selflessness, requires a strict application of the verb in this sentence, force. A society that so fundamentally distrusts the common people of the governed that strict central planning of economies and wealth is required, is in high danger (100%) of eventually falling victim to the revelation of the corruption which such consolidated power reveals, as well as becoming overburdened with inefficient bureaucracy. The current British threatened prosecution (because the were not licensed care providers) of two professionals who were each taking care of the other’s child while the other was at work, is a literal example of “The Nanny State” , and such examples will only get far worse with the environmental fascists currently trying for one world government in Copenhagen.
The Unites States recognition of the right to seek self gain, (capitalism) combined with the fact that we are a “republic” guaranteeing freedom from tyranny of other groups or from the tyranny of the majority, be that majority religious, political, corporate, or a combination thereof, is highly moral. However in empowering the individual there must be a strong co-commitment element of self-responsibility. One cannot expect the protections such a society enables, without both self responsibility and offering some form of service back to that society.
In one (Dutch) word: klasse!
There is nothing true which is beyond the capacity of reason.
Take it up with Goedel. In theory you are correct. It does lead to infinite regress which may be beyond the power of reason. Not having had infinite time to study the question I can say with certainty that I have no certain answer to the question. Can I have more time?
Pick a one acre plot anywhere on this planet and I’ll bet there isn’t a single person who knows everything about it. And there are those who say the “science is settled” on something as complex as an entire planet’s climate system, which is itself composed of numerous interacting systems. Incredible arrogance!
David (20:19:21):
The actual quote, from Lord Acton, is: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Acton and others who agree with his observation are trying to say, indirectly, that sheer human nature makes us take advantage of or capable of abusing others even when we may have the best of intentions, and definitely does so when our intentions are for the worst. I don’t think the kind of “power” that you are talking about is what Acton was talking about. It is precisely about political, social, scientific, and academic institutions who either do not have, or actively seek to not have, any accountability to a larger audience or public. Which is PRECISELY what Henk Tennekes is talking about, in the end.
Science, in my opinion, has strayed far beyond what its real purpose is: to try to better understand the physical world around. It does NOT exist to “know the mind of God.” In fact, it does NOT exist to replace God, or to answer ultimate questions. It strays out of its realm when it does so, in my opinion. It is the arrogance of its so-called knowledge and the jargon of its high priests that continues to make me skeptical of institutional science we see today. I know some of you won’t like hearing that. But read the poem “O sweet spontaneous” by e.e. cummings sometime, and you’ll see what I mean.
The Catholic Church (of which I am proud to be a member) got its comeuppance years ago when it strayed too far into things it shouldn’t have tried to control when it came to science. Maybe perhaps, after all of these years, the pendulum will swing the other way and science will get slapped back. Life needs to reacquire a little faith to it, anyway. Too much science, especially the kind that is coming from the warmists, is becoming bad for my soul.
For me Dr. Tennekes’ words are the first breath of fresh air on this topic I’ve heard in about the last three decades:
Indeed, it has become common in astronomy to talk about Multiple Universes, an oxymoron if I ever saw one.
“First there was nothing, then it exploded.” I didn’t notice anyone having a problem with limiting the Universe by claiming that there were a lot of them [and that they all must have had beginnings?], or noting that the meaning of the word “Universe” had changed without any explanation, while Steven Hawking was still being praised as nearly the smartest person ever. I could be wrong, but to me that was a very bad sign for Science. It also sounded way too Anthropocentric, and after reading abouit 10 pages of Hawkings book, “A Brief History of Time”, I had to stop because he sounded like a Creationist. Maybe it only got worse from there and somehow also fueled AGW?
The great scandal of this episode isn’t that crimatology went off the rails, but that mainstream science followed it (via the endorsement given by scientific societies, journals, and educators), and that so few voices within it spoke up against the absurdity of it all.
It looks to me as though part of the reason was an uninformed, unthinking, and hubristic reflex to express solidarity with credentialed / institutionalized / peer-reviewed / gov’t.-funded / “science” whenever it is attacked by forces outside the guild. IOW, the will to power, pelf (funding), and prestige by the gatekeeper-elite on behalf of institutionalized science is the real villain in this drama. (As Eisenhower foresaw.)
“Science” needs to be taken down several pegs. First, funding sources need to be diversified. (There should be seven mini-NSFs, competing with each other for funding on the basis of the results achieved, as determined by independent evaluation panels two, five, and ten years after the fact.)
Second, funding should be given to top scientists (20% of scientists produce nearly all the real progress according to de Sola Pool (I think that’s his name)) with no strings attached.
Third, highly accomplished scientists should be given funding to disperse at will.
Fourth, Darpa should be given authority (and appropriations) to fund long-shot research outside the defense realm.
Fifth, an agency should be set up to fund intriguing “crackpot” research (including an internal department aimed at debunking such research, to keep things from getting too crazy).
Sixth, awards should be given to successful / fruitful whistleblowers, curmudgeons, and “cranks.”
Seventh, there should be jobs for “devil’s advocates,” gadflies, and ombudsmen (internal critics) in every field of science.
Jakers (way back in the comments) – not a grumpy contrarian – a person who does not like being put in a box.
I can identify with that- i’ve spent much of my working life (as an engineer, I might add) with managers trying to figure out – should I be a software engineer, a test engineer, an electronic engineer, a systems engineer? My answer – I do all those at times. An engineering philosopher can be added to the list.
I completely agree with the commetn just above: “there should be jobs for “devil’s advocates,” gadflies, and ombudsmen (internal critics) in every field of science” – and I might add – in companies where technology development is done.
I once heard about the Gore company having “meddlers”. A great way to get innovation, review, and THOUGHT.
Louis Hissink (16:11:00)
Do greenhouses use the greenhouse effect?!
In the 1920s R.W.Wood constructed two enclosures, one covered with glass which trapped IR, and one covered with a sheet of rock salt which didn’t. He found less than one degree difference between the two, arguing that greenhouses depend on the lack of convection and cold air to carry away the heat, and not the trapping of infrared radiation!
http://www.wmconnolley.org.uk/sci/wood_rw.1909.html
http://www.landshape.org/dokuwiki/doku.php?id=introduction
M. Simon (22:21:09) :
“Take it up with Goedel. In theory you are correct. It does lead to infinite regress which may be beyond the power of reason.”
From E.M’s “darwin thread” I am pleased we have some potential agreement. (-:
P. S. loved your quote…M. Simon (09:20:04) :
“Physicists dream of Nobel prizes, engineers dream of mishaps.” Hendrik Tennekes
Regarding Larry…”I don’t think the kind of “power” that you are talking about is what Acton was talking about. It is precisely about political, social, scientific, and academic institutions who either do not have, or actively seek to not have, any accountability to a larger audience or public. Which is PRECISELY what Henk Tennekes is talking about, in the end”
Let me try to clarify, as this also is exactly what I was talking about. I was not really refuting the quote, just trying to be more percise. Have you ever had a work compaion who appeared relaxed, and cooperative, who then was given a position of authority and became a petty tyrant, wheras someone else may have been promoted, and appeared unaffected by it, still calm, still not controlling, yet a very effective leader because they motivated people in a positive way. As a more specific example, Mother Theresa had great power, but was not corrupted by it. As I stated : “A far better statement is that “Power reveals corruption” or alternatively, “love of power over the free will of others is corruption.”
Climate science was, as many here have noted, a sleepy corner, and suddenly it had the power to “save the world”, which is very close to Blackbeard’s “rule the world”. It is not surprising that some within the system, having an innate weakness to power, manifested that weakness when they were exposed to such power, and lavished with funds , attention and adulation, they joined hands with political activist to “save the world”. “This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.” (Plato)
It is not surprising that the skeptics message resonated most strongly in the United States. Out foundation was built on responsible independence.
The love of power for the purpose of subjugating others for one’s own end cannot be removed by any system. It just operates less effectively within a system built expressly for protection from such tyranny. The responsibility of the US form of government is to prevent the formation of such tyrannies: Corporate monopolies that unfairly drive out competition, lobby groups looking for special privileges, banking methods that rig the monetary system and allow leverage of assets tantamount to gambling, fractional reserve banking on steroids, government decisions making risk public but profit private, government sponsored enterprises that, under direct supervision of government regulators, do all of the above, are not caused by a capitalist / republic, but are a sick perversion of it caused by the love of power over others, and the lack of wisdom as revealed by satama dharma. It is the failure of the US government to police the above which is dereliction of their primary responsibility, the protection of individual freedom and power, from the tyranny of those with group power.
No form of government can be free from intrinsic ignorance, but the evaluation of all systems should be based on their ability to resist the corruptions power reveal. Since WWII the US has been the most powerful nation on this planet. Despite its flaws, the US has demonstrated a far greater resistance to exerting tyranny over others then any other nation, relative to the power possessed. Remember that if power reveals corruption, the US has passed this test far better then any other nation. Many on the left often repeat the mantra, “live and let live,“ but remain ignorant of the danger of the system they wish to implement which is inherently duplicit to this maxim. The US system is the best “live and let live” system, specifically due to its republic / capitalist system, and within any society but particularly a large non-homogenous society this has many advantages. The “let live” part is easily forgotten in socialism, and both the “let live” and the “live” part are discarded in murderous communism.
Tennekes makes his case in the Dutch Press!
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fclimategate.nl%2F2010%2F02%2F13%2Fklimaatbanneling-henk-tennekes-bloeit-op%2F&sl=nl&tl=en
http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/6024018/__HET_GELIJK_VAN_HENK_TENNEKES__.html?p=21,1
A interview by a dutch newspaper The Telegraaf. They are interviewing Tennekes.
Here is the translated link. Translated by Google Translate.
http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://www.telegraaf.nl/binnenland/6024018/__HET_GELIJK_VAN_HENK_TENNEKES__.html%3Fp%3D21,1&sl=nl&tl=en
I wonder if this man has read Candace Pert’s “Molecules Of Emotion”? She met the same wall trying to cross, and even seamlessly meld between molecular biology and the realm of emotions, trauma, and healing. She remains one of my favorite scientists.
Nick D @ur momisugly 15:03
Well stated. Unfortunately, ultimately the division into spheres of knowledge/influence would become contentious. Which is why no one sphere should be put in the position of speaking for all others as has been attempted in the AGW “debate”.
Bulldust,there’s an interesting description of The Oyster Club,where Adam Smith was a member, and other social clubs in Edinburgh during the 18th century in ‘The Scottish Enlightenment’ by Arthur Herman, Harper Collins 2003.)The clubs included The Tuesday Club, Mirror Club,The Poker Club, not the card game but fire poker for stirring things up, The Rankenian Club which tackled philosophical topics, and The Select Society, whose members included William Robertson, David Hume, Adam Smith and Lord Kames. Edinburghs cultural life was not dominated by state institutions or aristocratic salons but depended on a circle of tough minded, self directed intellectuals and men of letters. These clubs were gatherings “where all ideas
were created equal, and brains rather than social rank took pride of place.” Serious discussion took place amidst jovial, even boisterous company and plentiful consumption of claret.
Odd this ‘hermetic’ sealing of disciplines.
My son got an honours degree in Experimental Psychology; he is now in a senior position in investment bank scheme presentations…