Heartland’s climategate – and Mann’s book

The blogosphere has been humming over the last few days with revelations contained in document leaked from the US Heartland Institute. Documents outlining strategy for the promotion of climate denial – both through the media and through educations programmes.

Have a look at Gareth Renowden’s post The real Climategate: Heartland’s hypocrisy on display for a good summary and many links to other coverage and the documents themselves.

For me – there are no surprises in these leaked documents. I have just finished reading Michael Mann’s – The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches from the Front Lines so was familiar with all the dirty tricks, misrepresentation, political manoeuvering and the roll of the fossil fuel industry in financing the climate denial movement.

No surprises – but some of the details in the leaked documents were interesting. The fact that heartland actually has some of the well-known climate science critics on their payroll. That they are helping to fund some of the deniers blogs. and publications. And that they a consciously investing in a campaign to “teach the controversy” – that is discredit climate science – in the schools.

Have a look at The real Climategate: Heartland’s hypocrisy on display for the details.

Clearly these revelations are only the tip of the iceberg. Much more is going on behind the scenes. And Michael Mann’s new book gives an excellent coverage of these denier campaigns.

He’s been in the tick of it. He is still being victimized with McCarthyist attacks. The book outlines the political side of the attacks on climate science. But it also delves into some of the relevant science – especially around the so-called “Hockey Stick.”

Mann is an excellent writer and anyone interest in this area, especially if they have followed some of the political aspects, will enjoy the book. It is really an actually a page turner.

And it is positive.

I will review it properly in the next few weeks.

Bioluminescence in space!

Here’s a short and interesting video describing a technique based on bioluminescence used in a number of sciences. The video was produced by Luke Harris and Siouxsie Wiles – a New Zealand microbiologist blogging at Infectious Thoughts.

This isn’t their first video – and it appears it won’t be their last.

Who would have thought – a connection between fireflies and NASA

Meet the Lampyridae II: From Fireflies to Space Invaders – YouTube.

Priviliged whinging?

I am preparing a talk on “Accepting pluralism in a secular society’ for presentation at this weekend’s Interfaith Forum. Hence my current interest in these issues.

Carrying on from my last post, Defeat for imposed prayer, this video shows a discussion on UK TV about the judgement on the Christian prayers in the Bideford Town Council official meetings.

Is Christianity Being Marginalised?

Thanks to Dr Evan Harris (@DrEvanHarris) – who I think is the guy in the jacket who spoke a lot and made the most sense.

It just demonstrates the difficulty of arguing these issues across the theological divide. Obviously they can be dealt with more efficiently in court.

“Fighting for faith”

Now Baroness Warsi,  the UK’s first Muslim cabinet Minister who is also chairman of the Conservative Party Tory Party, has chipped in. Attacking “militant secularism”  which she describes as”deeply intolerant” and “denying people the right to a religious identity”.

She is off to the Vatican for talks with Pope Benny and has declared We stand side by side with the Pope in fighting for faith.

Somehow conservative religionists in the UK have misread the Bideford Town Council legal discussion. it did not rule Christian prayer illegal, just that it should not be part of an official council meeting. Those so inclined could pray as much as they wanted before the meeting opened.

But this has stopped such people claiming martyrdom. Yes, that and words like marginilisation are being bandied around. But in reality what is upsetting these people is not marginilsation – just that they iare in danger of losing some of their priveliges. Andrew Copson from the British humanist Associal=tion respond to Warsi’s article with a series of twitter comments:

Signs Britain being taken over by militant secularisation

• No 1: there’re more state-funded religious schools than ever before
• No 2: more public services contracted 2 relig groups than ever before
• No 3: we remain the only western state with clerics in the legislature
• No 4: first PM in recent history to publicly call UK Christian country
• No 5: 1st Muslim woman in govt at Vatican at public expense 2 see Pope

‘Census Christians’ don’t support their militant leaders

Mind you – these militant whinging religious leaders are very vocal – but how much support do they have.? Survey results released today suggest not as much as you would think. The Ipsos MORI research, commissioned by the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science UK (RDFRS UK), shows (among other things):

• 73% of ‘census Christians’ strongly agree or tend to agree that religion should not have a special influence on public policy
• 92% of ‘census Christians’ support the statement that the law should apply to everyone equally, regardless of religion
• 78% of ‘census Christians’ say Christianity would have no, or not very much, influence on how they vote in General Elections
• 61% of ‘census Christians’ agree that gay people should have the same legal rights in all aspects of their lives as heterosexual people
• 62% of ‘census Christians’ support the right of a woman to abortion within the legal time limit
• Only 23% of ‘census Christians’ believe that sex is only acceptable within marriage.

As Andrew Copson, commented:

‘There is clearly a vast gulf between the views of what we might call “census Christians” and the politicians, politicised Bishops and Christian lobby groups that claim to speak on their behalf.”

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Defeat for imposed prayer

Bideford - Devon

Non-consensual religious ceremony has always offended me so I am pleased to see this victory for human rights  – unfortunately, in the UK, not NZ. But the case is relevant. The UK National Secular Society (NSS) challenged prayers in local council meetings in December 2010. The case in the High Court was taken against the Bideford Town council – Mr Clive Bone, a former councillor who objected to these imposed prayers was also a claimant. (See British Humanists welcome High Court ruling against council prayers).

Although this was a limited case the ruling will apply to the formal meetings of all councils in England and Wales, the majority of which are thought to conduct prayers as part of their meetings. Furthermore, the Judge recognised that there could be even wider implications and for this reason granted the defendants right of appeal.

No disadvantage to religious belief

The NSS welcomed the verdict -  executive director Keith Porteous Wood said prayers had been “the cause of tension in a number of local councils”. He added:

“This judgment is an important victory for everyone who wants a secular society, one that neither advantages nor disadvantages people because of their religion or lack of it.”

And:

“The NSS is not seeking to deprive those who wish to pray the opportunity to do so; indeed, we fight to retain freedom of religion and belief. The judgement clearly states that religious freedoms are not hindered, as councillors who wish to do so are free to say prayers before council meetings.”

The judge made the same point. But once the meeting had become official one group could not impose its ceremonies on all:

“I do not think the 1972 Act [...] should be interpreted as permitting the religious views of one group of councillors, however sincere or large in number, to exclude, or even to a modest extent, to impose burdens on or even to mark out those who do not share their views and do not wish to participate in their expression of them. They are all equally elected councillors”.

He compared the imposition of prayers to bringing a  “potentially divisive ceremony, such as the singing of a political party’s song into a meeting.”

Whining by the privileged

On the other hand former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey interpreted the result as “the gradual marginalisation of the Christian faith, being pushed to the outskirts.”

He said religious freedom no longer seemed to be a priority: “Equalities seem to trump all other kinds of freedom. This is a time for Christians to stand up and be counted.”

And:

“These legal rulings may also mean army chaplains could no longer serve, and that the Coronation Oath, in which the King or Queen pledges to maintain the laws of God and the lessons contained in the Gospels, would need to be abolished.

“This is a truly terrifying prospect.”

Critics of the ruling are painting themselves out as the victims. One blogger claimed : “here is a concentrated drive by progressive secularists to drive Christianity from the public square, and especially the body politic.”

This is the same attitude as the expressed by conservative religionists who have been opposing anti-discrimination laws. They see them as a violation of religious freedom because it prevents them from discriminating in the business and jobs on religious grounds.

So, the snuggle for human rights in a pluralist society continues.

Whanganui City Council

The Bideford situation closely parallels the local situation where the Whanganui City Council has rejected Councillor Clive Solomon’s complaint about imposed prayers at Council meetings.

Perhaps local secular organisations should consider taking similar action against the Whanganui City Councillor. After all one cannot over-ride legal human rights by a majority vote within a group. As Mr Justice Ouseley said in the Bideford case such votes by a council “does not give it power to do what it has no power to do.”

On the way to theocracy?

I really loved this section of the High Court ruling because it does sum up the situation we face with such imposed religious ceremonies. It’s a quote from a previous judgement and says:

“The precepts of any one religion, and belief system, cannot, by force of their religious origins, sound any louder in the general law than the precepts of another. If they did, those out in the cold would be less than citizens and our constitution would be on the way to a theocracy, which is of necessity autocratic. The law of a theocracy is dictated without option to the people, not made by their judges and governments. The individual conscience is free to accept such dictated law, but the State, if its people are to be free, has the burdensome duty of thinking for itself.

So it is that the law must firmly safeguard the right to hold and express religious beliefs. Equally firmly, it must eschew any protection for such a belief’s content in the name only of its religious credentials. Both principles are necessary conditions for a free and rational regime.”

 

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ID research and publications

Here is another post to mark Darwin Day.

The pro-intelligent design (ID) internet echo chamber has been making a big thing of late about “peer-reviewed papers supporting intelligent design.” Their “Center for Science and Culture” has even published an updated list. (PZ Myers has provided a more accessible version of the list at More bad science in the literature).

This of course does raise some questions about what they mean by “peer review” and the real nature of some of the journals these papers are in (have a look at their in-house journal Bio-Complexity). But leaving those issues aside for now I just don’t think any of these papers are reporting “ID research.”

The nature of “ID research”

To me research supporting intelligent design should postulate some structured hypotheses for ID and seek to test them or validate them against reality. But none of the articles do that. Most, especially ones that are published in credible journals, deal with aspects of evolutionary science.

Sure they may postulate a problem, an example or issue where they feel current science does not have an answer. That’s what I expect in a scientific paper. Identification of problems and reporting work on them.

Like all areas of science, evolutionary science has its so far unanswered questions, its problems and anomalies. perfectly natural and perfectly acceptable to identify and investigate them. But calling such work “supporting intelligent design” is just dishonest. No specific ID hypotheses have been advanced, let alone tested.

This always seems to be the case for any list of “peer-reviewed scientific papers supporting ID.”

“Theistic science” – or argument by default

Nor, by the way, do these papers display any example of the alternative to “materialist” science. Their declared aim of replacing modern science with a “theistic science.” (See Wedge Strategy and Theistic science? No such thing). If they were doing any work like this why isn’t that demonstrated by the publications? I would love to see examples of such research and identify the different methods characteristic of such science.

To list these papers as supporting ID  is simply assuming that any criticism, any problem, any gap in evolutionary science is, by default, evidence for ID.

It’s not.

Relying on cranks

David L Abel

Another issue with this publication list which does supply some mirth is the frequent occurrence of publications by David L. Abel (17% of total list). He has raised some attention because he published a paper in the journal Life which had recently received attention for its publication of the whaky paper “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life,” by Erik D. Andrulis. (See The comparison to jabberwocky is inevitable for PZ Myers’ in depth discussion of that paper). Abel’s article is titled “Is Life Unique?” – Myers describes this as “Intelligent Design creationism crap,” and “drivel” (see More bad science in the literature). But Myers was impressed with Abel’s address and affiliation:

Department of ProtoBioCybernetics and ProtoBioSemiotics, Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc., 113-120 Hedgewood Drive, Greenbelt, MD 20770

Turns out this is a residential house, probably Abel is the only “employee,” but it does have na official name plate besides his front door! As PZ says:

“That’s every intelligent design creationism institute of scientific thinking: a cheap sign tacked up on a garage, with some guy with delusions of competence twiddling his thumbs inside.” (see Zooming in on the Origin of Life Science Foundation)

Abel himself describes his institute as a “science and education foundation with corporate headquarters near NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center just off the Washington, D. C. Beltway in Greenbelt, MD.”  If you are not careful in your reading you might assume he was actually based at a NASA site!

And here is the information on Abel held in his profile at the ID journal
Bio-Complexity.

David L. Abel

Affiliation	The Gene Emergence Project; The Origin-of-Life Science Foundation
Bio statement	Director, The Gene Emergence ProjectDepartment of ProtoBioCybernetics & ProtoBioSemioticsThe Origin of Life Science Foundation, Inc.

These lists of “peer reviewed papers supporting ID’ are getting rather desperate.

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Theological mental gymnastics over evolution

Darwin Day is this weekend so I thought I should do a couple of relevant posts.

Here I want to comment on a popular reaction to evolutionary science by mainstream Christians.  I am referring to the regular church-goer or adherent who will claim they accept scientific knowledge – not to creationists or similar people like the adherents of intelligent design who actively campaign against, or deny, this knowledge.

Theistic evolution?

Often these Christians accommodate the science and their religious dogma by describing their beliefs as “theistic evolution.” I have never understood that term. Evolutionary science is evolutionary science – one doesn’t go tacking on your ideological adherence. Are we going to have Marxist thermodynamics, conservative chemistry, libertarian zoology, etc? No, of course not. Science is science – it is informed directly by reality, not religious belief.

So I have always assumed that people who claimed belief in “theistic evolution” were simply saying that they believed in a god and also accepted evolutionary science.

But now I am not so sure. I recently heard a Christian speaker declare his acceptance of evolutionary science and claim it did not conflict with his religion – because he believed the evolutionary process was guided by his god! This description brought home to me that he did not accept evolutionary science – because that science explains evolution of life on earth as an unguided  process. The only “guiding” is in the process of natural selection – involving the environment and interaction with it.

The unguided nature of evolution was the great discovery, the revolutionary nature, of the ideas proposed by Darwin and validated against reality. It seems to me that to re-insert a guiding hand, as some of these “theistic evolutionists” appear to desire, is definitely throwing out the baby. Its like claiming to accept Newtonian mechanics, the laws of planetary motion, etc., and then claim they result from angels guiding the planets!

That is complete reversal of science -  a negation of the modern scientific revolution.

OK, I recognise that some people who all themselves theistic evolutionist are not saying this. They may simply mean that the accept evolution is a natural unguided process but occurrence within the nature created by their god. Well, good luck to them – my beef is with those who want to impose a divine guidance on evolution. To rewrite the science.

Religious apologists rewrite science

Alvin Plantinga, a philosopher of religion and religious apologist is one such person. He asserts, in a recent book based on his debate with philosopher Daniel Dennett, that Christian claims are consistent with “Darwinism.” (See Science and Religion: Are They Compatible?). As he describes it:

“God could have caused the right mutations to arise at the right time. He could have preserved populations from perils of various sorts, and so on. And in this way, by orchestrating the course of evolution, he could have ensured that there come to be creatures of the kind he intends. Now what is not consistent with Christian belief, however, is the claim that evolution and Darwinism are unguided or I’ll take that to include being unplanned and unintended. What is not consistent with Christian belief is the claim that no personal agent (not even God) has guided, planned, intended, directed, orchestrated, or shaped this whole process. Yet precisely this claim is made by a large number of contemporary scientists and philosophers who write on this topic. There is a veritable choir of distinguished experts insisting that this process is unguided; indeed, sometimes insisting that it is part of the contemporary scientific theory of evolution itself to assert that it is unguided so that evolutionary theory as such is incompatible with Christian belief.”

So he is telling those Christian who do accept genuine evolutionary science that their acceptance is “not consistent with Christian belief,” ” incompatible with Christian belief.”

Now – this is Plantinga’s claim, not mine. I am happy to see Christians like Ken Miller who accept and teach evolutionary science truthfully. That accept the evolutionary process is unguided – despite the myths in the holy books. But Plantinga is asserting that one cannot accept evolutionary science, which is unguided, and be a Christian!

Plantinga is being extremely disingenuous to assert:

“There is a veritable choir of distinguished experts insisting that this process is unguided; indeed, sometimes insisting that it is part of the contemporary scientific theory of evolution itself to assert that it is unguided.”

As if these experts are somehow misrepresenting the science. Of course they aren’t. However, Plantinga is. He is trying to reintroduce a pre-scientific concept, divine guidance, into a modern science. He is attempting to portray scientific experts as somehow the rebels in this situation. He  in fact is attempting to rewrite the whole nature of evolutionary science – as I said to throw out the baby.

The ultimate in cherry picking

And what does he do to put a pseudo-scientific gloss on his distortion of science? He refers to biochemist, and promoter of intelligent design, Michael Behe. To his use of the argument from ignorance – that he cannot see how anything as complicated as a living cell could possibly have resulted from an unguided process! Bloody hell – he relies on Behe and ignores Darwin and all the other scientists, biologists, biochemists, evolutionary scientists etc. Is that extreme cherry picking or what?

Of course – there is method in Plantinga’s apparent madness. Having redefined evolutionary science to require a divinely guiding hand (turning it into its opposite) he declares that conservative and fundamental Christians can happily accept evolution – because they are not the rebels. It’s those horrible atheists and naturalists who have got it wrong. Because they don’t accept divine guidance they cannot accept evolutionary science. He finishes his presentation with the words:

“Evolution, however, is one of the pillars of contemporary science. Hence, there is a science/religion or perhaps science/quasi‐religion conflict in the neighborhood of evolution alright. But not between evolution and theistic religion. The real conflict is between evolution (that pillar of contemporary science) and naturalism.”

It’s amazing what a bit of motivated ideology and some mental gymnastics can do to the honourable subject of philosophy.

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“What, me worry?” – distorting climate change data

Mad

Peter Gleick has a simple useful article in Forbes illustrating various ways that climate change deniers/contrariness cherry pick data to support claims that global warming is not occurring (see “Global Warming Has Stopped”? How to Fool People Using “Cherry-Picked” Climate Data). He is referring to an increasingly common argument that deniers/contrarians are promoting in OpEd columns and opinion pieces in newspapers. We have seen it here too, and the comments at New Zealand’s premium climate change denier blog Climate Conversation Group are full of such claims.

Recently I dealt with that argument as expressed by an old colleague of mine in a letter to the NZ Listener (see Open letter across the barricade). In the “open letter’ I reconstructed my own example of how global temperature data can be cherry picked to promote the “global warming has stopped” myth. But I had in the back of my mid  an animated graph which showed this more clearly.  Now I have found it – and reproduce it below. It’s from Skeptical Science (a mine of information) and is usually referred to as The Escalator.

I think this demonstrates the dishonesty of cherry-picking beautifully.

Mind you, it doesn’t stop motivated deniers and bloggers picking up these dishonest articles and promoting them to similarly motivated reader. Have a look at Local Whale Oil’s “No Need to Panic About Global Warming.”

A classic example of the activity that goes on in the climate change denier echo chamber.

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Free will – problems of definition

Some of the philosophically inclined readers have probably followed the recent internet discussion of “free will.” I am referring specifically to that between evolutionary biologist Jerry Coyne (blog: Why evolution is True) and philosopher Massimo Pigliucci (blog: Rationally Speaking). It been interesting partly because the debate has also encompassed commenters on each blog. Regulars who might otherwise have lined up with the specific blogger but disagreed in this case.

I have no wish to get into debates on “free will” – I find them frustrating because people often argue past each other. And it seems to me that the debate often really boils down to how we define “free will.”  So I just want to restrict my comments here to the matter of definition.

I think much of what Jerry writes is good – but in this case I find his definition of “free will” too mechanical. And I think this leads him to doubtful conclusions. Here is how he defines “free will” in his USA Today article (see Why you don’t really have free will):

“. . .let me define what I mean by “free will.” I mean it simply as the way most people think of it: When faced with two or more alternatives, it’s your ability to freely and consciously choose one, either on the spot or after some deliberation. A practical test of free will would be this: If you were put in the same position twice — if the tape of your life could be rewound to the exact moment when you made a decision, with every circumstance leading up to that moment the same and all the molecules in the universe aligned in the same way — you could have chosen differently.”

It is the “consciously” which I wish to take issue with. It’s important because part of his argument refers to work indicating that decisions on an action may be taken by a person well before that person is conscious of the decision. As Jerry describes it:

“Recent experiments involving brain scans show that when a subject “decides” to push a button on the left or right side of a computer, the choice can be predicted by brain activity at least seven seconds before the subject is consciously aware of having made it. . . . “Decisions” made like that aren’t conscious ones. And if our choices are unconscious, with some determined well before the moment we think we’ve made them, then we don’t have free will in any meaningful sense.”

Consciousness is much over-rated

I think this work is interesting because it suggests an important role for the subconscious (or unconscious part of the brain) in decision-making which, on the surface, appears conscious. In a way this isn’t surprising because most of the work the brain does is, has to be, unconscious. Just imagine if all the ongoing work involved in homeostasis were controlled by conscious decisions. That you had to consciously decide how to respond to every incoming biological threat and then pass those conscious decision on to the immune system!

So, I don’t think it is wise to differentiate so sharply between the conscious and subconscious working of the mind/brain. I have written before about the role of the subconscious in moral decisions and think this stretches to many more areas of our decision-making than we might think. And that is a two-way street – our conscious mental deliberations also influence our subconsciousness brain – and that in return feeds back into later conscious decisions. Our academic and social learning involves, over time, constant interaction between the conscious and unconscious brain.

My suggestion is that when we “freely and consciously choose” this decision is not restricted to the conscious, self-aware brain. It also, and inevitably, involves the unconscious. Using the particular definition Jerry has, and limiting the process of decision-making to the conscious brain, is just too mechanical.

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January ’12 – NZ blogs sitemeter ranking

Credit: http://www.wired.com/

Here are the rankings of New Zealand blogs with publicly available statistics for January 2012. Please note, the system is automatic and relies on blogs having sitemeters which allow public access to the stats. There are now over 260 blogs on the list, although I am weeding out those which are no longer active or have removed public access to sitemeters.

I have listed the blogs in the table below, together with monthly visits and page view numbers for January, 2012.

Meanwhile I am still keen to hear of any other blogs with publicly available sitemeter or visitor stats that I have missed. Contact me if you know of any or wish help adding publicly available stats to your bog.

You can see data for previous months at Blog Ranks

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The scientific method – what about the philosophical method?

I enjoy the In Our Time Podcasts with Melvyn Bragg. The subjects are very wide-ranging and always informative.

His last one was on The Scientific Method. It basically discusses the evolution of scientific methods from a philosophical viewpoint. The participants were:

• Simon Schaffer, Professor of the History of Science at the University of Cambridge;
• John Worrall, Professor of the Philosophy of Science at the LSE and
• Michela Massimi, Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy of Science at University College London.

Personally, I would have welcomed inclusion of a practising scientist to bring some practical insight into the discussion. Still, I did find the historical survey of philosophers ideas on the scientific method interesting. But it got me thinking – these philosophers seem so concerned about the scientific method – and yet no one talks about the philosophical method!

What is the philosophical method?

What methods do philosophers use? And how have these evolved over time? And why do we never come across critiques of philosophical methods? Is this because philosophers are happier critiquing other areas and avoid their own?

For example. While I thought this discussion did treat the subject fairly the descriptions of scientific method offered by various philosophers over the years do strike me as “just so” stories. I get the feeling that the philosophers concerned are presenting their pet model. Evidence quoted is usually anecdotal, more for example rather than support. The Copernican revolution, or the evolution of Einsteinian mechanics out of Newtonian mechanics are used to illustrate a thesis, rather than testing the hypothesis by analysing the data from the history of a large number of scientific theories.

Now, I could never have got any of my research results accepted for publication with only anecdotal and illustrative evidence. Good data, statistically analysed to show significance for claims, was always expected. The standards for philosophical theories seems to be a lot lower. How many philosophers really take data collection and analysis seriously?

The other thing that strikes me about these “just so” stories are that they always seem to ignore the human factor. Scientific method is often presented as an algorithm or flow chart – scientists behave this way and they produce hypotheses which are checked experimentally, etc.

But scientists are humans. They are just as prone to emotions as any other people. And in fact current scientific understanding of decision-making indicates that emotions are very much involved in our seemingly rational considerations. Where else do scientists get the passion for the work they do? Creativity does not come from mechanical application of methods. And scientists are also prone to prejudice, fantasy,  attachment to preconceived ideas, and confirmation bias as anyone else. The possible consequences of this need to be recognised and scientific methodology must compensate for it.

That’s why I like Richard Feynman‘s description of scientific method as “doing whatever it takes to avoid being fooled by reality.” This is a better description of the human reality of scientific research than any descriptive, or prescriptive, flow diagram of “scientific method.”

Why does this matter?

Well, for two reasons:

1: How often does one read material from opponents of science using pop versions of scientific method and philosophy of science to justify their rejection of, or denial of, scientific knowledge?  Creationists and climate change deniers will often talk about Kuhnian “paradigms” or Popperian “falsification” to justify their rejection of whole fields of science. We even have the ridiculous example of a climate denier group in Australia naming itself The Galileo Movement! They are equating acceptance of the current scientific understanding as equivalent to belief in a geocentric universe! (See “Galileo Movement” Fuels Climate Change Divide in Australia).

2: Post-modernist and ideological motivated concepts of the philosophy of science do get circulated in academic circles.  In the past I have heard some of these descriptions presented by local science managers and suspect that these ideas can influence management and human resources teachings via philosophy of science and sociology of science inputs. The danger is that this influence decisions on science funding and investment.

Maybe some of the cock-ups we have seen in science management and New Zealand over the years could be traced back to ideology and misunderstanding about the nature of scientific research picked up by managers during their training. Maybe not all these mistakes were due to incompetence.

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