Letter to James Delingpole of the Telegraph

Dear Mr. Delingpole,

I am writing to you as a response to the interview you gave with Sir Paul Nurse for the program Horizon, which aired on Monday 24^th January 2010. I wanted to summarize for you just why you are completely and profoundly wrong, and, since you are clearly not a stupid man, why you hold such a foolish point of view. After giving it some thought, I decided the best way to proceed was with a point by point rebuttal of your statements made during the interview. I would add that I have read some of your blog posts to round out my picture of your position, so that I might be more accurate in its portrayal.

I shall start with the footage of the press conference, where you announced you had first discovered the story:

“In to my lap fell the story that would change my life, and quite possibly save Western Civilisation from the greatest threat it has ever known”.

This is one of the most incredible statements I have ever heard a journalist make, and, sir, I believe you should be ashamed of yourself. Firstly, please explain to me why it has changed your life? I assume it is because it made you instantly famous, thrusting you in to the limelight and furthering your career. If that is the case, then shame on you, sir, because your motivations are therefore clearly personal, and based on personal gain, rather than what is best for society and humanity as a whole.

You clearly think Climate Change, as caused by humans, is a myth, but to describe this as the greatest threat Western Civilisation has ever faced is a statement of breathtaking stupidity. In what sense is it a threat? One of two conditions must be true. Either the climate is changing due to the influence of human industry, or it is not. If it is, then we need to take steps to change the situation. These steps are well known to everyone, so I will not go in to them here, but consider this. Imagine if, in a few hundred years time, we had taken the steps necessary, but it was discovered that the climate was not changing. We would have done things like broken our dependency on fossil fuels, which will run out soon anyway, and would mean that we would no longer be relying on uncertain, politically unstable countries for our fuel. If we transition to more renewable means of energy production, then the energy future of mankind would be far more secure than it is with hydrocarbons. So even if the climate was not changing, future humans would see a move away from fossil fuels as a good thing. Unfortunately, the climate is changing, so we either act, or we face the consequences.

This leads me to my question. In what sense is this a threat? Are you talking about the amount of money we would have to spend on it? To be sure, this will be a great deal, but since, as I have mentioned, fossil fuels, principally oil, will begin to run out soon anyway (then gas, although we have large deposits of coal still), we will have to spend this money sooner or later anyway. Is the threat you feel some kind of libertarian reaction to perceived government control and interference? If it is, that is nonsensical. If human action is damaging the environment (you know, the environment? That thing that keeps us alive and allows us to grow food? Heard of it?) then we need laws to prevent those actions. Being afraid of big government in this case is like saying the outlawing of Murder is a gross infringement on our civil liberty. Of course, this is all conjecture on my part as to your point of view, I would be most grateful if you could enlighten me as to why climate change advocacy is the greatest threat civilisation has ever faced.

Ok, on to the interview:

“The suggestion of the Scientists in the Climategate emails was that you hide the decline using ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’ which I think is some sort of fudge. This very fact of splicing two different sorts of data together on a graph…Scientists don’t do that. They don’t try to hide the decline by using ‘Mike’s Nature Trick’. What they do is they admit to the flaws in their data and don’t try and disguise that fact.”

You are correct. Scientists shouldn’t do that. Of course, the graph in question was not a part of the peer review literature, and if it was, then it would have been rejected by the scientific community. But then, you would know that if you understood peer review, wouldn’t you? As I shall come to, you quite clearly do not.

Below, I have included statements made by Sir Paul Nurse.

JD: “What is being done in the name of Science and ‘the consensus’ is essentially advancing a political agenda (that) has much more to do with control and governments intruding further in to our lives.”

PN: “Consensus is actually the position of the experts at the time, and if it’s working well…they evaluate the evidence. You make your reputation in Science by actually overturning (the consensus), so there’s a lot of pressure to do it. But if over the years, the consensus doesn’t move, you have to wonder is the argument and evidence against the consensus good enough?”

JD: “Science has never been about consensus, and this is one of the most despicable things about Al Gore’s so-called consensus. Consensus is not science.”

This is just staggering. How can a man who writes so much about science be so ignorant of it? Consensus is not science?! Science is structurally consensual! Do you know why? Because of EVIDENCE! Let me explain, and I’ll choose a nice, simple example.

Imagine you are in a room, with some friends, sat around a coffee table, on which sits a mug. The mug is large, empty and bright red. You can see the mug, and this visual is your first piece of evidence. From this observation, you form ‘The Mug Hypothesis’, which states: “There is a large red mug on the table”. Note that the hypothesis might be wrong. You might be under a misapprehension, hallucinating, or the subject of an optical illusion. Therefore, to corroborate your initial hypothesis, you gather more evidence. You pick the mug up, and feel its form in your hands. Its apparent weight and solidity further convince you of its existence, so you formulate ‘The Mug Theory’, which states: “There exists here a large, red mug”. You then declare this theory to your companions, and invite them to each hold it in turn, and each make a statement as to its features. They each, in turn, declare it to be a mug, also that it is large, and bright red. Do you see what has happened here? You have formed a consensus that the large, red mug exists. Are you all wrong because consensus is bad?

The thought experiment goes further. You now have a working theory of the mug, and can use this to first make a prediction: “This mug will contain a hot fluid”, and secondly to test this prediction, by pouring in to it hot tea from a thermos. The tea is contained by the mug, further proving your theory that the mug exists. And, due to the consensual position of your companions, each is comfortable passing the mug around and sipping the tea, convinced, as they are, that the mug exists.

However, we can not absolutely declare the mug to be extant. One of the group may be a consensus breaker, declaring “This is all an illusion. We are a part of a computer simulation, and the mug does not exist”. However, since he has no evidence to back up this claim, would you believe him? Imagine, to bring this point to a close, the consensus breaker then says “I can prove it”. He flips a switch, and the mug, tea and coffee table disappear. You would then all know that they were an illusion, and the consensus opinion would change to accept this new evidence.

This is what Science is. Consensus opinion that matches the available evidence. It would be absurd, for example, for someone in the above experiment to say: “There is no mug, because having a mug there is against my religion/politics” or “Those of you who claim that the mug is extant are merely pushing a political agenda”. Evidence is oblivious to political agenda.

Which leads me to another question. What agenda are scientists pursuing? And why? From the tone of your blog posts, you seem to think climate change is some kind of leftist conspiracy theory pushed by hippies and scientists so that government can further control our lives. How in the world did you arrive at such a ridiculous conclusion? First of all, can you please provide evidence that this is the case? For example, could you provide, say, some emails sent by scientists that elaborate on their dastardly Marxist plans? And why would they do this? Why would the scientific community want to politicise in this way? Can you not see the logical fallacy of it? The absurdity?

Talking of logical fallacy, here’s one: Ad Hominem. Linking the validity of a premise to the characteristics or beliefs of the person advocating the premise. I’m referring to the sneering way you bring up Al Gore. I don’t care if I’m talking to Stephen Hawking or Micky Mouse, if they have a position, and that position is backed up by evidence, then I have no choice to agree with that position. Just because you are suspicious of “Al Gore’s so called consensus” does not mean that that consensus is in error. If Adolf Hitler told you that the Earth was round, would you believe it was flat because he was a murdering tyrant?

PN: “I want to give an analogy. Say you had cancer and you went to be treated, there would be a consensual position on your treatment, and it is very likely that you would follow that consensual treatment because you would trust the clinical scientists there. Now the analogy is that you could say ‘well I’ve done my research in to it and I disagree with that consensual position. But that would be a very unusual position for you to take.”

JD: “Shall we talk about Climategate…I don’t accept your analogy…I think it’s very easy to caricature the position of Climate Change sceptics as the sort of people who don’t look left or right when crossing the road or think the quack cure they’ve invented for cancer is just as valid as the one invented by the medical establishment. I think it is something altogether different and I do slightly resent the way that you are bringing in that analogy.”

Another logical fallacy, this time a Straw Man. Note that I have been generous in my transcript of your quotation, filled, as it was, with a great deal more ‘umming’ and ‘ahhing’, indicative of your failure to answer the question, and providing the root of the fallacy. You divert the question in to an attack on the questioners intentions, accusing him of “Caricaturing the position of climate change sceptics”, when he is in fact doing no such thing. He has used an effective analogy to highlight the flaw in your position, and you respond with an attack on his motives. You then claim personal insult as a means to further deflect the analogy, yet another logical fallacy. The analogy is good, and you knew it.

PN: “Are you looking mainly at Peer Reviewed material or non-Peer revewed material?”

JD: “One of the main things to have emerged from the Climategate emails was that the Peer Review process has been, perhaps irredeemably, corrupted. What I believe in now, and I think we are seeing a shift in the way science is conducted…is a process called Peer-to-Peer Review. The internet is changing everything. What it means is that ideas which previously were only able to circulate in the seats of academe in papers, read by a few people, can now be instantly read, on the internet, and assessed by thousands and thousands of other scientists…and people like me who haven’t got scientific backgrounds but are interested.”

“It is not my job to sit down and read peer reviewed papers, because I simply haven’t got the time, I haven’t got the scientific expertise. What I rely on is people who have got the time and expertise to do it…I am the interpreter of interpretations.”

The Peer Review process has been irredeemably corrupted?! Precisely what planet are you on? I demonstrated in the above thought experiment what is meant by scientific consensus, and it is the peer review process that provides the forum to achieve this consensus. As I also demonstrated, this process is entirely subject to the available evidence, and if you don’t understand that now, you never will, and I can only conclude that you are an idiot (much as I hate to say it – that’s an ad hominem of my own, but such is life). Do you honestly think that a single graph produced by a single scientist in a non-peer reviewed publication with one flaw has brought the entire peer review process in to question? Irredeemably corrupted?!

“In…ter…net…? What is this ‘internet’?” says the poor, hapless scientist who has never heard of it before. I can’t quite believe you brought this up. My god man, it was scientists who INVENTED the internet! Do you think they don’t know how to use it? Peer-to-peer reviewing?! Sir, if you would just look, you would see that the scientific community has been using the internet to publish papers for peer review for years. It has, in fact, greatly improved lines of communication and united the global scientific community in ways that were once never thought possible. A researcher in Tokyo can finish his paper in the morning, and a professor in London can finish reading it with his afternoon tea. Honestly, peer-to-peer! As if you have independently come up with a great new way for science to be done! What you propose is how scientific communication is done! Just as an aside, precisely how did you get your job, since you are obviously so ignorant of your subject matter? I notice that you “Haven’t got a scientific background”. I confess, that statement did not come as a surprise.

“It is not my job to sit down and read peer reviewed papers, because I simply haven’t got the time, I haven’t got the scientific expertise”. No, sir, you clearly do not. But this brings me to my closing statement. You may not have the time or expertise to read peer reviewed papers. If this is the case, then you need to stop writing about science, because you have no idea what you are talking about. If, however, you wish to continue writing about it, then might I suggest you give the old peer review process a try. It’s the only way you will be privy to the state-of-the-art; it will also be good for you professionally. Do you know why? It’s called journalistic integrity.

Kind Regards,

Letter to my local MP

Dear Diane Abbott,

I have never before been moved to write to my local MP, but I feel the EU has made a grave mistake. Please see the following article on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12007965

The EU has recently rejected a 1.4bn euro financing package for the ITER Nuclear Fusion project in France. Let me explain why I think this is such a huge error.

What price would be too high to save the world? Imagine an asteroid was heading for the earth. How much would you want the government to invest in a project to divert/destroy it? A billion? Ten? A hundred? A trillion pounds? This may sound melodramatic, but a successful fusion technology could, literally, solve our energy problem. It works by fusing two atoms of ‘heavy hydrogen’. The resulting helium atom has slightly less mass than the two origin atoms, as that mass has been converted into energy according to E=mc². This is how the sun produces energy, and the physics have been well known to modern science for decades. The problems are in the engineering. Making a working reactor is devilishly difficult.

The benefits of Nuclear Fusion technology are enormous. To summarize:

1) We have enough fuel, in the seas of the world, to provide power to mankind for millions of years.

2) The only by-product of the process is Helium, an element which is both completely harmless and industrially useful. There are no emissions or radioactive waste.

3) Due to the energy density involved in fusion, a tiny amount of fuel provides an enormous amount of energy.

Contrast this with the problematic means we currently have for producing energy. Emissions from fossil fuels are destroying the biosphere. Radioactive waste from fission plants is dangerous for thousands of years. Renewable energy production is notorious for its low energy density, i.e. solar or wind generation. Fusion comes with none of these problems. I am sure that you, as a working MP, do not need to be told about the litany of issues associated with our energy needs. I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that Fusion, were it to work, would solve them all. Imagine the impact that would have on society.

In light of this fact, 1.4bn euros seems a fairly paltry sum, especially when you consider how much has been spent on bailing out banks across Europe. Since the environment is indifferent to national boundaries, if the EU does not step in with this finance deal, the British government should.

It strikes me as strange that people will take to the streets to protest tuition fees, fox hunting or Corporate tax evasion. Fusion research dwarfs them all in terms of the positive impact it would have on all the people of the World. What is necessary is for scientifically literate people to be in positions of power, to lobby for this emerging technology. As my representative MP, my request to you is that you research and understand the potential of this technology. You then need the imagination to see the ramifications to society if the technology is successful.

I look forward to your reply.

Regards,

Sci-Fi

I’m reading a novel by Iain M. Banks at the moment: Look to Windward. Oddly, it’s the first Banks novel I have read, and I say oddly, because this sort of thing is right up my street. It is an excellent book. I have a love/hate relationship with Science Fiction. I’ve optimistically sat through innumerable trashy films, in the hope that this is the one that will satisfy my investment in the genre. It is a curious thing; by definition, there are no limits to Science Fiction. It has, as its boundaries, the entirety of existence, time and space, and the capacity of the human imagination to travel. At its best, Sci-Fi is species defining and magisterial, but such quality is rare. A significantly high proportion of the Sci-Fi produced, especially on TV and in movies, is formulaic, clichéd. Maybe the writers and directors who produce it are too keenly aware of the loyalty of the particular fanbase associated with a production. I’ve known a few Trekkies in my time, and their concept of what is and is not good are vastly different to mine. Star Trek is a good example. At its best, it is aspirational in a species sense – we are, despite our humble origins, noble and capable of greatness. Episodes where the individual rights of someone different are fought for, for example, or where a genuine challenge from a fundamentally alien species is confronted, are where it is strong. Where it is weak is where it ‘panders to the geek’, where ‘technobabble’ as it is termed, is prevalent, and it founders on details and cliché. Perhaps I should not be too judgemental. It must be hard coming up with good ideas, but I do get the impression that the writers are often lazy.

What really irks me about bad Sci-Fi and fantasy is internal inconsistency. What is clearly not understood by many writers is that, as a viewer, I can be made to suspend my disbelief almost limitlessly, but only as long as there is internal consistency. An internally consistent piece of Sci-Fi is The Matrix. Cunning production and script allow the audience to clearly understand the relative powers of each of the characters, and why they are that way. We see the protagonist go on a journey, gaining in prowess at each step as he learns more of his own nature, until the conclusion shows his final transition that was promised due to his own change – and the fact that he had found love. In contrast, the sequels had none of this internal balance (not to mention that they lacked its sassiness and class). The relative powers of the characters made no sense, and were merely a vehicle for showcasing some breathless but shallow set piece sequences.

Look to Windward is set in the distant future, and concerns the politics and history of The Cuture, an immensely powerful race that spends its time in hedonistic pursuits thanks largely to the near omnipotence of its robotic overlords, the so-called ‘minds’ (one of Bank’s weak points in nomenclature). One shrewd critic has noted that, since the inhabitants of this civilisation suffer no material want, and, to all intents and purposes, are limitless in their biological and technological freedoms, all Culture stories take place at the periphery, i.e. its interaction with other (in this case less well developed) species/races. This is all to the good, as these are where the stories are, but the intrinsic nature of the society described fascinates me utterly. I have discovered there is even a name for it: Post-Scarcity.

Post-Scarcity is a state of existence of a society where material want has effectively been removed. One can imagine such a state of affairs being delivered by technology. Once methods for producing near limitless amounts of power have been found (say, Hydrogen Fusion, Antimatter Reactions, Dyson Shells, etc. My research tells me that the first is the most likely to be a viable proposition, since the basic physics have been well known for decades and it is merely an engineering one, albeit a monumentally difficult one), and once complete control is available over the atomic structure of matter, then all human need will be instantly and harmlessly catered for. For example, a person who was cold and hungry could approach an appropriately ergonomic device and command it to build, atom by atom, a nice warm coat and a fish supper.

These are old ideas and have long since consistently reappeared in many works of Sci-Fi, most famously the ‘replicators’ in Star Trek. What much Sci-Fi fails to comprehend is the awesome effect such post-scarcity capabilities will have on the structures of society itself. In fact, in all Sci-Fi I have encountered, only, so far, The Culture of Mr. Banks has adequately predicted a sensible sounding outcome. I am no doubt wrong in this, as there is much excellent Sci-Fi I must still read, but a lot of books and series fall on to old ideas of human communal structure even the post-scarcity technology is clearly available. Star Trek is an excellent example of this. In the latter series, it is clear that all human need can be catered for simply by the use of what they call ‘warp cores’ and ‘replicators’. And yet society still appears to conform largely to a similar structure to our own, with bureaucracies and economies. There is a species called The Ferengi whose entire existence (shallow and ill thought out) is based around the accumulation of wealth. Wealth for what? Their technology is comparable to that of humanity, so what do they have to spend money on, if everything and anything can be freely constructed atom by atom? More likely it is the Star Trek ethos creating an enemy whose outstanding characteristics the writers saw as a distillation of that which they hated in us, and be damned the inconsistencies. Nothing that a bit of twisted plottery won’t sort out.

The point is, if such post scarcity were to become a reality, fundamental changes to the structure of society would occur. The first thing to go would be money, obviously, since anything that could previously only be bought can now be obtained for free in limitless quantities. The one major exception to this would be property – how would one own a house with no money? I suspect that the transition would be chaotic and probably violent. If post-scarcity were to overnight become a reality, there would be no need for anyone to go to work. Presumably, with atomic control of matter, all maintenance tasks, such as the removal of waste, would occur automatically, and medical care carried out by teeming hoards of nanobots (a trace fanciful, perhaps). Since there would be nobody working, there would be no structure, with no police or regulatory bodies. People would literally roam about aimlessly, breaking in to and claiming whichever property they fancied. What would occur would be an overnight diffusion of the density and concentration of the human populace, until at some point, a natural balance would be found, and an appropriate bureaucratic body, ideally an impartial artificial intelligence, would oversee the fair rationing, and possibly rotational occupation, of property.

So the conditions of the race would move from an initial state of chaos, and most likely violence, to a calm equilibrium of genetically immortal humans with limitless power and only time to fill with hedonistic pleasure. In our current epoch, evil on a societal scale is largely the result of money and religion. The former, having long since become obsolete, would obviously cease to have a negative effect on human affairs. I suspect, too, that religion would die. Religion is an emergent consequence of our tribal nature. Our need to identify with a specific group, plus our instinct for organising and bureaucratising, plus our fear of death, plus our tendency to see causality and intent where there is none, are the things that make religion. Since our tribalism does have a practical base in the sense that we trade with other tribes and are mindful of the economic health of our own, and since such trade and economics would die, so, then, would this first pillar of religion. Since all monolithic bureaucracies exist to fulfil a specific purpose, and all that purpose is removed, there’s the next pillar gone. Once we are genetically immortal, that’s a strike three, and I seriously doubt that our fantasies of intent will be sufficient to maintain religion in anything like its current form. Perhaps a kind of animism will become popular, and, with the abundance of artificially intelligent nanotechnology shrouding our existence, maybe even partially accurate. So, money goes directly, religion by proxy. And there you go. No more evil, aside from the evil that men do individually, as in the psychotic, but if post scarcity can be truly achieved, dealing with the mentally deranged will be small fry in comparison. Look to Windward really is very good.

Reading on the shitter

It is important for one to have an adequate supply of books. Further, it is equally important to have a range of different types of books. Personally, my bookcase, on account of my upcoming studies, is an approximate blend of one-third fiction, two-thirds non-fiction, with some uncounted sundries. This, however, does not include that strange, noble brand of publication – the toilet book, and my much loved collection is growing satisfactorily.

When I am sat on the toilet, I feel an overwhelming desire to read. I know this is not unique to me – I have discussed the matter with at least one other person who gets the same urge – but I would be interested to know if it is a widely experienced phenomenon. The moment derrière hits porcelain, I just have to read something. My guess is that this is not a common experience, judging by the fact that only a tiny fraction of the private bathrooms I have visited are furnished with appropriate books. For example, in neither of my parent’s clinically clean water closets is there anything to read save the labels of cleaning products (my urge to read on the toilet is so strong that I will grab anything with words on it – and this usually means cleaning products. This is how I know what non-ionic and anionic surfactants are, and that Bitrex is an exceptionally bitter substance designed to stop children drinking bleach). I have, on occasion, brought the subject up with bookless-bathroom owners, and received a surprisingly common reaction. Apparently, having books in the bathroom can be unhygienic. I’m not sure why this should be, and can only assume the holders of this view could not trust themselves to remain on the toilet, instinctively deluging a bookcase in excreta. Should this happen, I would be forced to conclude that, yes, having books in the bathroom is indeed unhygienic. However, since most people’s toilets are not wantonly covered in shit, this objection is bunk.

I have mused long on why it should be that I feel such a need to read when going about this daily business. At first, I put it down to boredom, but knew already that this was incorrect. When crapping, boredom is not an emotion I feel, especially if I’ve been eating plenty of fibre. Besides, boredom in other circumstances is mutually exclusive to reading – one of the many causes of boredom is the feeling that, at that moment, there is nothing you fancy reading. I briefly toyed with the hypothesis that it was as a distraction from the main event. Again, I knew this to be wrong. If the plumbing is purring, and intake has been wholesome, the experience is a good one. I once read the following gem of wisdom, from I can’t remember who: “There is nothing so over-rated as bad sex, and there is nothing so under-rated as a good shit”. If there is a struggle going on, say, the morning after eight pints of Milton’s Sparta and a big plate of curried goat, all my concentration is taken with the matter in hand and my reading urge is put on hold. So distraction isn’t it either.

I think it might have something to do with privacy. Taking a dump is, perhaps, the most private thing we do as human beings, physically and mentally. Public toilets are difficult enough places at the best of times, but should I be in the unfortunate position of needing a crap in a public place, I find the experience particularly vexing. Public toilets invariably have cubicles with walls a good eight inches shy of the floor and ceiling, meaning that activities in adjacent cubicles are disturbingly audible. So strong is my urge for privacy that if a man uses the cubicle next to mine, I cannot go – I can’t abide anyone hearing what I am doing. Furthermore, I think its bad form that I have to hear him – it quite puts me out of my rhythm. Were I a municipal toilet designer, I would ensure that funds were diverted (and hang the needs of schools/hospitals etc) to the erection of thick-walled, soundproofed bunkers for the purposes of public shitting. They should also be furnished with indestructible steel locks, comparable in strength to tank armour. A lock on a toilet door is not merely a polite reminder that it is occupied. It is a defensive barrier, a device which says “this territory, for the next five minutes, is mine to the exclusion of all others, on pain of extreme social difficulty”.

Here, I think, there may be a link with reading. When you are having a shit, you are mentally alone, and any thought of contact with another person is unpalatable. Other singular activities are not so exclusive (at the risk of sounding coarse, masturbation comes to mind. But this, mentally, involves the intervention of an imagined other(s), unless of course you are extraordinarily self obsessed. I shall dwell on this no more). The situation is analogous to reading. Here, to, you are alone. You are psychologically involved in protagonists, but, with some exceptions, you are an invisible observer, safe in your narrative tower and beyond the regard of the characters concerned. My hypothesis, then, is that shitting and reading share certain types of brain activity associated with self regard and privacy. If there is any truth in this (and the chances of me properly investigating the issue are precisely nil) then the effect in me is pronounced.

As regarding the collection of books I would recommend, they are of a specific type. Reference and graphical books are typically the best. Something that delivers five-minute chunks of interest of amusement. Here is a sample list:

· New Scientist magazine. In fact, I recommend storing your back catalogue in the loo

· Cosmic Imagary – Key Images in the History of Science

· Various Aircraft recognition and aviation books

· Illustrated histories (especially WWII)

· Books about wartime and communist propaganda

· The Framley Examiner

· Beano Annuals (nosh!)

· BBC Companion productions (e.g. Life/Planet Earth etc)

· Various dark, troublesome graphic novels

Obviously, this is subject to personal taste.

So there you go. Reading and shitting.

Last Night's Dream

I’m in a desert of milky coloured sand, across which are arranged perfect dunes in evenly spaced lines, splitting the land like a vast tilled sandy field. I’m with a girl, who I don’t know, and whose features I can’t recall save her absolutely black hair. We climb to the top of a dune, and we realise our peril. Advancing over the dunes is an army stretching from horizon to horizon, and, this being a dream, it does not strike me as odd that the army appears to be early era Star Wars – tens of thousands of bright white Storm Troopers, countless marching war machines, shooting those improbable bolts of coloured light in an arch over our heads. Seeing that the pace of the advance is greater than our ability to outrun it, we agree to lay low on the lee-side of the dune, and hope that a) we are not the target and b) we will go unnoticed. Luckily for us, and now revealed, a rebel army of equal size awaits, hidden on the slope, the onset of the Empire, all dressed in capes of various greens and browns and wearing the soft-sided helmets so prized by the Ewoks. They rise, and advance past my companion and I, apparently oblivious to our presence. Presumably, the Rebels had the greater might of arms, for we did not see the Empire again.

The Empire’s disappearance may be because the dream either ended, or moved to a different place instantly, but memory in dreams is not to be trusted. Still, I assume it was the same dream, as I had with me my anonymous colleague, whose face I can’t recall. Also, we are in the same desert, only this time a large silver building is in front of us, bulbous, glass and chrome. We go in the only door. Inside it is ramshackle and dusty, like a parlour of the Wild West after a century of disuse. Oddly, and in contrast to these surroundings, men in smart business suits are sat around the rough wooden table, staring gravely at us. It becomes clear that I need to look for someone, another girl, and that this is a task I should have done by now and time is running out.

“It’s not her,” says one, pointing at the girl next to me. And all I can see is blackness. The man looks to a filthy window, through which I see the shadow of a person. The shadow moves, and is gone, and the meeting of men begin issuing directives and clues to where to look to find her. But I can’t do anything, for at that moment, by nose begins to bleed. Slowly at first, so that I can feel just a warm dribble on my lip, then with ever greater force. Soon I am covered in blood, and still it blasts out like a hydrant. If only I could stem the flow, I could take heed of the earnest advice around me and go and complete my task.

I’m underwater (in a new dream, apparently). The colour of it suggests that it is a deep, tropical sea – all clear, royal blue. I am just far enough under the water to see the bright sunlight above, which I would call ‘dappled’, if that did not sound too much like a cliché. I can still breathe. Well, I say that, but I have no memory of breathing – yet I am not panicking for air either. I should say, I can still exist. Ahead of me is a baby. I’m not sure if it is a real baby or a doll, as it is not moving, but it and I are floating at the same height, equally buoyant on some unseen gradient of salinity.

The baby explodes. Not like a bomb, there are no flashes of flame. Rather as if the baby is made of glass, an empty shell with painted features whose rising interior pressure proves too much. Nor is it sudden; a brake is upon the expansion, stronger than the viscosity of the water; the shards move with exaggerated slowness. Nonetheless, they are still dangerous – I am unable to move, and great shards are heading inexorably toward me.

Half way between me and the space where the baby once was, it suddenly becomes clear that a great sheet of glass had separated us. I can see no edge to it, up, down, left or right, so it might be, for all I can tell, an endless pane that neatly separates two hemispheres of the World. The remnants of the explosion are peppering the pane, sprawling cracks waxing as it loses its strength. It is, therefore, a race – which will give first? The pane, my only protection, getting weaker with every strike? Or the power of the explosion, dissipating so painfully slowly? The pane proves the stronger. The explosion has spent its fury, and the pane, though spidery with cracks, has kept me safe.

Go figure.

Jobs

Oh, my life. A common accusation spat at prominent atheists is that “There are no atheists in foxholes”. As with the “Atheistic genocidal regimes of the troubled twentieth century” attack, such claims have a sheen of credibility, but no logical mass. The idea, presumably, is to show that desperate and fearful humans will unashamedly resort to supernatural protestation to wish away an imminent, violent death. Apparently, mortal wish-thinking in the uttermost end of need can be seen as theological justification, a claim made rather crass by the millions upon millions of suffering souls who made the final cry, only to be met with divine indifference and a heedless bullet. Note that, as with almost all apologetics, the claim is not logical, evidential or philosophical, but emotional. And, as an appeal to emotion, one can empathise with mindset of the poor creature described in the example. Who would not cry to God? It is with this in mind that I can offer a similar, but less dramatic statement: “There are no atheists in the Job Market”. When word reached me that the job was mine, I threw up my hands and thanked God for my deliverance.

Still, divinity swiftly receded (as it is wont to do), replaced by fuzzy, difficult reality. I had misgivings at the interview. Central London is just, well, fucking mental. One is keenly aware that this is the heart of one of the great capitals of the world, where the scrape of humanity on this planet ossifies in a teeming frenzy, like whirling microbes encased in glass. Regent Street, though broad and long, is ill designed for the weight of biomass that fills it, and even a drizzly, late-spring Monday afternoon brings no respite. Some of the great brands of modern capitalism have their spacious mother-ships here or hereabouts, as can be seen by the giant Apple with a bite taken out that greets me every morning. Next to a Calvin Kline outlet with tennis-court sized windows and absurd prices is a small door leading to a foyer of sparkling chrome, white stone and pine. Surly and improbably pretty hostesses man the desk, all dressed like air stewardesses, all of Mediterranean origin, all quick to glare and bark at any infraction in the use of entry passes. Above are six floors of endless corridors, behind every door a business. My office is at the back, overlooking an ally, perpetually plagued by insanely loud roadworks. In this void, I sit with three salesmen and a bitchy marketing director. The salesmen are insufferably cocky, ribbing each other with every sentence, and, to an increasing extent, me. They refuse to call me ‘Matt’, instead barking ‘Rodda’. They treat every conversation like a sparring match, picking out and amplifying errors, mocking my accent (what fucking accent?), making uncouth implications about my country origins and choice of Hackney as a place to live, and attempting to illicit racist, sexist or homophobic opinions from me. In short, a bunch of fucking tossers. The job itself is of a renewals type, retaining customers that the salesmen have caught, which means spending inordinate amounts of time on the phone to aggressive business types, trying to get them to part with their cash. The system we use is difficult and precocious (as, I have learnt, are nearly all IT systems used by companies). I received one week of training from a man who didn’t care, I know a fraction of what I should. I fucking hate my job. I hate, hate, hate it.

Football Hooligans

Imagine a parallel universe, identical to this one in almost every detail. This universe contains an Earth, sitting in an identical corner of Parallel Milky Way, orbiting a Parallel Sun, at the shaky start of Parallel twenty-first century. This Earth is identical to ours in all respects save one – the circumstances of the birth of A. Subject. A. Subject was born in Earths A & B at the same time, but in different circumstances. A. Subject was a simple man, of low intelligence and high gullibility, prone to aggression and irrational violence. On Earth A, he was born to a wealthy Saudi Family, on Earth B to a working class family in a northern English town. His early years were unremarkable, extreme wealth on the one hand and relative austerity on the other. His Saudi Parents despaired of his academic failures, and worried about his penchant for bullying. His English parents thought him tough, and from a young age his father would take him to see the local football team, having been a lifelong fan. As his teenage years passed, A. Subject regularly rebelled against his parents, becoming involved in local Muslim youth groups. He often took to the street in his Northern town, hanging around with fanatical supporters of the football club, festooning his walls with memorabilia. He became enraged at the imperialistic aggression of the decadent west. He got drunk and smashed a shop window after his team was beaten in the cup. He became enthralled with a local preacher who instilled in him images of paradise and a respect for those who had given their lives to protect the faith. He mingled with groups dabbling with crime, and occasionally got in to fights at away games when the wrong person came in to the wrong pub. He began to see that the oppression of his people would only be relieved by force. He began to see other supporters at other clubs as worthless scum. One day, a war was started by the imperialist infidel on a brethren people, and he was inflamed. One day, he was at an away match when a large crowd of mixed supporters started fighting. He had pictures on his walls of those that had killed imperialists with their own life, and were thus perfect men. He organised, through social networking, the meeting of rival factions of club supporters. He took action, finding his way to the warzone, getting training from heroic men along the way. He arranged a date and time, after a big game, where the two groups of supporters could meet. He learnt how to make explosives. He learnt how to use knives and clubs. He drove a car, packed with explosives, to a military checkpoint and blew himself and eight soldiers to bits. He charged at the rival supporters, injuring three or four of them, as well as himself, and wound up in a police cell that night, awaiting a court appearance.
Modern societies are staggeringly complex. Individuals existing in society are mostly attempting to improve their own lot, responding to societal pressures according to his or her character and upbringing. Throughout history, a type a person has existed who was obsessed with an extremely narrow perspective, be it political or religious, all other perspectives being heretical and disgusting. Such men have been responsible for great evil. The profoundly narrow nationalism of the Nazis, and the attraction it thus had for the person of narrow perspective, caused the death of tens of millions of people in history’s most savage war. I shall call this person “The Narrow Man”. Assuming that “The Narrow Man” is an unavoidable statistical reality given a sufficient quantity of gathered humans, one can see that circumstances can greatly affect the capacity of “The Narrow Man” to do evil. During the Crusades, “The Narrow Man” would have been the vanguard of the pillagers. During the Inquisition, the torturer. During the Russian revolution, he would have been the most devoted and violent thug in the secret police, beating up dissidents and torturing prisoners. In Nazi Germany, he would have been a fanatical foot soldier of the SS. In the example above, he finds himself in a fanatical religion, whose extreme outer reaches condone suicide bombing. And in Northern England, he finds himself supporting a football club.
Organised sport in General, and Football in particular, are crucial to the civilised functioning of a society. With the fading of religion as a nationalistic force, and the extreme reluctance of modern western nations to engage in war with one another, sport offers a rare opportunity to satisfy whatever tribalistic longings may exist in an individual. It so happens that, possibly due to it’s working class roots and simple format, that football attracts the kind of fanatical loyalty previously reserved for religion. For this, we must be most thankful. “The Narrow Man”, in modern Britain, has his destructive tribal tendencies focused purely on a sport, and there they shall remain. Football is an essential pressure valve, where the worst characteristics of tribalism and violence can be given breathing space. A few town squares may be smashed up, some people may end up in hospital. But these things are nothing compared to the potential destructive power of “The Narrow Man”. Thank goodness for football.

Paedophiles

Hysteria is a dangerous beast. Hysteria removes the ability of rational people to make informed judgements on a particular problem. An example of the corrosive effects of hysteria is the diplomatic violation, gross infringement of freedom of speech and outbreaks of general violence following the publication of ‘blasphemous’ cartoons by a Danish Newspaper. The hysteria in this case enabled fear to dominate the liberal agenda, with the advocating of culls on freedom of speech in the interests of appeasing religious fanaticism, rather than the sturdy, courageous response in defence of free speech that would be more beneficial to us in the long run. A similar example of the dangers of hysteria surrounds the issue of paedophilia.
Hysteria in the case of paedophilia is entirely understandable. Society and the state must be obligated to take all possible measures to protect children. Moreover, a person who is a paedophile who fails to control their urges must be dealt with by the full dispatch of the law; some may even advocate the death penalty. This is all to the good; dangerous persons must be removed from situations where they may be a threat to children.
There is, however, a problem. Hysteria has caused the whole subject to be taboo, immune from discussion with those unfortunate enough to be encumbered with this most evil of sexualities inevitably labelled as perverts and monsters. I propose that this attitude increases the risk to children in society, and diminishes the well being of society as a whole.
I will start with the assumption that a person who is a paedophile has no more control over their sexuality that does a heterosexual or homosexual. Any objections to this assumption can be countered by the question of why anyone would choose to be a paedophile. Following from this assumption is a further one; given that child abuse appears to have occurred throughout history, there will always be a certain percentage of the population that are paedophiles. With this in mind, one can paint a picture of someone born into a life and a sexuality that would be, to put it mildly, a living hell.
Imagine a person who was a paedophile. This person has no control over his or her sexuality. This person is also a decent human being, and knows that his or her sexual urges can never, under any circumstances, be satisfied, as to satisfy them would be to commit a horrific crime. This person exists in a society which teems with children; they go to schools, they are the children of friends, colleagues and neighbours. Wherever the person turned, he or she would be continually confronted by images of that which is forever forbidden. Imagine for a moment knowing that the immensely powerful urges that can dominate a human being can never, ever be satisfied. A third assumption I would make would be that such people exist, and have for all their lives fought their sexuality. It leads me to wonder if there are people who have gone a lifetime suppressing their sexuality in order to avoid a terrible crime. Such people would be worthy of the highest praise; indeed, such moral strength would be inspiring.
Now let us imagine the man or woman who has less moral fibre. A weakness of this sort would be tolerated in people of normal sexuality, perhaps manifesting in minor moral transgressions. For the paedophile of this sort, they may never actually abuse a child, but they may at some time look at child pornography, maybe ignoring the fact that the children in the images are being abused.
Further down the scale would be the weakest person, someone for whom the strength of the urge simply outweighs morality, or someone who has no morals at all. This person would be concerned with simply avoiding capture, and may never abuse a child in their home town or country, but may travel overseas as a so called ‘sex tourist’, where secrecy and the ability to objectify an individual of a different culture weakens moral constraints. Or they might create elaborate plans to ensnare children in their own countries. Such cases form the prevalent popular imagery, monsters whose crimes fuel the hysteria surrounding the issue.
In order to help the first person, restrain the second and control the third, the hysteria generated taboo need to be removed from the subject. Branding all paedophiles as monsters retards progress. The moral first example will forever be surrounded by secrecy, never able to come forward and admit to their sexuality. It is for people like this that I believe a ‘cure’ should be sought for. It is unclear whether the libido of a human being can be chemically or surgically removed, but strenuous attempts should be made with this goal in mind. If such a ‘cure’ were possible, a paedophile could go to their doctor and openly discuss their sexuality. If an effective combination of therapy, drugs and surgery could be available, then the moral person of the first example could find relief from their hell and become a functioning member of society. The same would apply to the person of the second example. The person of the third example, having waived their rights by their actions, could have the treatment enforced on them. In all cases, the benefit to society would be a huge reduction in the threat level to children, and the improvement in the general well being of people of this sexuality.
In summary, restraining the hysteria and breaking the taboo would allow high profile research in a medical cure to be publicly endorsed. If a cure could then be found, and people could come forward to a medical program, a substantial improvement would be made in the well being of society.

The Red Herring of Religious Morality

Human morality, despite being a subjective and nebulous abstraction, is approached by both atheists and theists as a zero-sum game. You often hear it contested amongst the polemicists and charlatans that debate the subject ad nauseum that either a person of faith acts ethically only in the face of divine inducements, or morality is an absolute that is meaningless in the absence of God. Typically, religio-ethical debates centre on this issue as one of the last boltholes of scientific un-clarity, where a person of faith can feel they might be on more solid ground than the literal interpretation of scripture that only makes them look foolish. Since scriptural literacy is irreconcilable with everything we know about the workings of reality, it is chiefly in this moral domain that the real contention still lies (at least amongst the reasonable). The absolutes postulated by both sides are both, I believe, in error.
In the red corner, we have the atheist, secure in his iron tower of reason. He sees the claims of the religious as at best inconsistent, at worst immoral – the immorality of vicarious redemption, the abdication of personal responsibility etc. He thus accuses the theist of morality under duress, a continual cowering beneath the gaze of a divinity which guides the theist and without which, in the view of the atheist, the theist would have no conception of morality and would spend his time casually murdering passing strangers. Thus, the theist is, by definition, immoral.
In the blue corner, we have the theist. He feels that morality is an absolute that has been ingrained in to his ‘soul’ at the moment of his creation by God, perhaps as a gift to separate him from the ‘lower’ animals. By a willing rejection of this heavenly absolute, the atheist is left with only his subjectivity, leading axiomatically to ethical corruption, and (they never quite say this, but it is inferred) possible genocide (leaving aside the historical inaccuracies of this claim). Thus the atheist is, by definition, immoral.
Here we have a problem. Imagine that the atheist and theist are both decent people; helping out at the local school, giving to charity and recycling their kitchen waste. They do what they can to minimise their carbon footprint. They save for the future, call their mothers regularly and help their kids with that tricky maths homework. An unbiased observer might be forgiven for thinking that the two are morally identical. Can it therefore be said that both get their morality from different sources?
The problem with the theistic view of morality, and we must be abundantly clear about this, is that it bears no correlation with reality. I intend to prove this by dabbling in the scientific method.
Image you believe in an all loving, all powerful and all merciful God. You believe that this God created everything, and built the universe as a suitable home for his beloved humans. Unfortunately for you, it seems He built the world in such a manner as to be blighted by regular natural disasters (earthquakes, tsunamis and the like) that each take a devastating death toll of the humans He apparently loves so much. As a Theist, the occurrence of such natural disasters makes no sense, and thus must be ascribed to His mysterious ways, or, in a rather more sinister way, to the wilful rejection of His will by those that died, warranting their punishment. However, if you are an Atheist, particularly an Atheist with a scientific interest who has some understanding of the origins and formation of the Earth, you know that Plate Tectonics causes the build up of pressure along a plate boundary that eventually causes that boundary to fail, releasing large amounts of energy in the form of an earthquake. From this point of view, the earthquake, tragic as it is, makes perfect sense as simply a feature of the planet we happen to live on.
The natural disaster therefore makes no sense if you are a Theist, but perfect sense if you are an Atheist. And so it is with morality.
If all humans were imbued at their conception with an unalterable sense of the immutable moral laws, one could make predictions about the behaviour of those humans. If these humans had free will (a contradictory and inconsistent claim that I will leave aside for now), they could either choose to abide by, or rebel against, those laws. Further, if those laws were divinely revealed, then any human who accepted the law of God would necessarily be a moral person. For the sake of this argument, let us assume that the same moral law is available to all branches of the three great desert dogmas. Now, using the hypothesis that morality is an absolute that has been imbued in humans by God and that was revealed by His word, the prediction should be that all people of faith are, and have always been, paragons of morality. Now, let’s check this against the evidence. One piece of evidence alone is enough to disprove this hypothesis. For three hundred years, the maritime powers of Europe engaged in that great stain on the history of our species, the transatlantic slave trade. The participants in this moral abhorrence were extremely pious, religious societies, for example, Catholic Spain. Thus the hypothesis is disproved, or, if it is true that all men of faith act on their divinely inspired morals, then we can conclude that the average Human Being living almost anywhere on Earth at the start of the 21st Century has superior morals to God.
Now, another hypothesis. Human beings are an emergent phenomena, the result of thousands of centuries of Evolution by Natural Selection. It was to our survival advantage to live in groups, and thus we would display altruistic behaviour and feel empathy towards members of our own tribes, and react aggressively to intrusion or perceived threat from other tribes. As the race grew larger, the tribes became more complex, eventually becoming nation states and religious groupings. Now, using this hypothesis, I make the prediction that large complex conglomerations of humans in modern society display inconsistent morality based on who they identify as a member of their tribe. Some behave savagely, especially under duress. Others do not, and, in the pursuit of wealth, some even begin to see the race in its entirety as their “tribe”, enabling good relations and charity to cross previously impervious ethnic boundaries. And this indeed, is what we see.
So, just as earthquakes make no sense from a theistic point of view, neither does morality. The next time a theist says to you that the Holocaust was as a result of an atheistic rejection of God, say to them that the Holocaust, in all its epic savagery, is precisely what we would expect to happen at some point in human history if the theory that we are an evolved tribal animal, with no creator god, is true. The Holocaust happened precisely because there is no God. Not that they’ll listen, of course. They never do.