A consensus means that everyone agrees to say collectively what no one believes individually. Abba Eban via Joe D’Aleo
Philosophy
Improving Prophecy
Since the dawn of thought, people have been using various methods to foretell the future. Forecasting is now big business and many large businesses have been made smaller through incorrect forecasts.
In Australia we have suffered long enough from bad forecasts. It is time to do something to improve forecasting standards.
Heresy Versus Science
In science, refuting an accepted belief is celebrated as an advance in knowledge; in religion it is condemned as heresy. via Fred Singer.
Censoring and the Internet
Before this year’s Beijing Olympic Games, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd chastised the Chinese authorities for blocking full access to the internet for the assembled world media: “My attitude to our friends in China is very simple”, he said. “They should have nothing to fear by open digital links with the rest of the world during this important international celebration of sport.”
Although Rudd expressed no concern for the average Chinese web user being unable to view tens of thousands of banned websites, his intervention was nevertheless a welcome call for transparency and greater democracy.
But now the Rudd Government is working towards implementing an unworkable filtering process in Australia that suggests a misguided understanding of the internet and worrying tendency to censor an inherently anarchic system.
Read more here: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8162
Michael Crichton on Consensus Science
“There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period.” Michael Crichton (1942-2008)
Richard Lindzen on the Politicization of Science
Hi Jen, Have you read Richard Lindzen’s article about the politicization of science. Did you know Realclimate.org is an astroturf set up by a left-wing PR firm? Al Gore sued Fred Singer to remove a co-author. Numerous heads of climate science organizations are not really climate scientists at all.
It’s all there and much more…
Go here and download the PFD to the right of the site: http://arxiv.org/abs/0809.3762
Regards, Joe Cambria
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.