Some twenty years ago the Government Chief Scientist persuaded the
government to accept that the
basic rationale for government funding of research was that this
research would lead to "wealth creation".
It was 'conceded' at the same time that a limited proportion of
funding available for research could be
spent on research that would lead to improving the nation's quality of
life.
It is virtually axiomatic that a 'civilised' way of life provides a
higher quality of life once a reasonable
standard of material needs are met. I'm not aware of much research
into the question of what constitutes
a civilised way of life or what interventions the government may make
beyond up-holding the law and
ensuring the work-force can compete in world markets at all levels to
help ensure a civilised way of life.
Clearly the 'humanities' departments in our universities are 'ticking
away' reasonably comfortably? but to
what avail is rather beyond me as this is not my province.
Best regards,
Brian Orr
On 29 Jan 2011, at 15:22, Nicholas Maxwell wrote:
> Our problem is the disastrous way in which universities betray both
> reason and humanity. The proper basic task of academic inquiry is
> to help us realise what is of value in life, for ourselves and
> others - help us make progress towards as good a world as possible.
> This would require universities to devote themselves to promoting
> public education about what our problems of living are, and what we
> need to do about them, by means of discussion and debate. Instead
> of doing this, academic inquiry has long been devoted to acquiring
> knowledge and technological know. These enable (some of) us vastly
> to increase our power to act, via the development of modern
> industry, agriculture, weaponry and so on, all of which, without
> enhanced wisdom, leads to as much harm as good. It leads to all our
> current global problems, including of course climate change. As I
> have been arguing for over 30 years now, there is scarcely any more
> urgent and important task confronting us, as far as the long term
> interests of humanity are concerned, than to bring about a long
> overdue revolution in our universities so that (in addition to the
> pursuit of knowledge and technological know-how) they take up their
> proper task of helping us create a better, wiser world: see www.nick-maxwell.demon.co.uk
> for details.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Nick Maxwell
> ---------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re:
> New opinion poll on climate change
>
>
> What planet are you on?
>
> Tom,
>
> Just can't believe your contention that there is no medium for
> educating the public.
>
> Okay the media peddles a lot of misinformation and peddles a lot of
> useless/dangerous
> information e.g. how to go about catching your ideal partner.
>
> "No FT: no comment."
>
> Where have these large numbers of people who have a passable grip on
> the basics of climate
> change got their information from? The New Scientist?
>
> Brian
>
> On 28 Jan 2011, at 19:26, Barker, Tom wrote:
>
>> Well that's promising. Before Christmas the BBC did a survey that
>> recorded the most common response to the question, 'What is
>> biodiversity?' as: A washing powder.
>> I sometimes wonder if the frequent whinge about scientists not
>> communicating to the public properly has got hold of the wrong end
>> of the stick. The press is not there to educate; it is there to sell
>> a product (papers, and hence adverts), and that is all. There is no
>> medium for educating the general public. We just have to be thankful
>> that some people manage to coax air-time and column space out of
>> editors for the purpose of science.
>> Tom
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> From: Discussion list for the Crisis Forum [[log in to unmask]
>> ] On Behalf Of Bob Ward [[log in to unmask]]
>> Sent: 28 January 2011 18:59
>> To: [log in to unmask]
>> Subject: New opinion poll on climate change
>>
>> The Department for Transport has just published the results of an
>> interesting opinion poll from August last year:
>> http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/statistics/datatablespublications/trsnstatsatt
>> /climatejan2011report
>>
>> Predictably, the Daily Mail has focused on the small but detectable
>> change in the proportion of people saying that they are very
>> convinced
>> or fairly convinced that the climate is changing, from 83% in August
>> 2009 (ie before Climategate etc) to 74% in August 2010. But given the
>> amount of misleading nonsense in the mainstream media and blogosphere
>> over that 12-month period, it is perhaps more remarkable that
>> three-quarters of the population still agree that the climate is
>> changing - it shows that the self-proclaimed 'sceptics' are not
>> really
>> having much success with their campaigns of misinformation.
>>
>> Unfortunately, the poll did not include a question on whether climate
>> change is being mainly driven by human activities, although it did
>> include a question about the types of things that contribute to
>> climate
>> change, to which only 5% answered that they don't believe in climate
>> change and only 15% answered 'natural causes' (which is technically
>> correct anyway). However, it also shows a relatively low level of
>> public
>> awareness of the specific human contributors to climate change (for
>> instance only 59% think that emissions from road transport
>> contribute).
>>
>> The proportion of people who report that they are very concerned or
>> fairly concerned about climate change only fell from 76% to 71%
>> between
>> August 2009 and August 2010. And 72% say that they strongly agree or
>> tend to agree that they would be prepared to change their behaviour
>> to
>> limit climate change, compared with 73% in August 2009.
>>
>> So I would say that these results show that Climategate etc has had a
>> measurable but relatively small effect on people's acceptance of the
>> reality that the climate is changing, it has had an even smaller
>> effect
>> on whether they are concerned and almost no effect on whether they
>> would
>> be prepared to act. But there remains relatively low awareness of
>> exactly which human activities are driving climate change.
>>
>> Bob Ward
>>
>> Policy and Communications Director
>> Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment
>> London School of Economics and Political Science
>> Houghton Street
>> London WC2A 2AE
>>
>> http://www.lse.ac.uk/grantham
>>
>> Tel. +44 (0) 20 7106 1236
>> Mob. +44 (0) 7811 320346
>>
>>
>> Please access the attached hyperlink for an important electronic
>> communications disclaimer: http://lse.ac.uk/emailDisclaimer
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