The ‘Tree Ring Circus’: what does ‘divergence of the proxy’ mean?

November 26, 2009 — xanthippa

With the ‘leaked emails’ confirmed as authentic, many experts are sifting through the materials and analyzing them.

One thing which has been highlighted was the discussion about tree ring studies, from which the (now infamous – you can get T-shirts with it) ‘hide the decline’ phrase comes from. Here, I would like to explain what the ‘tree ring’ and ‘multi-proxy reconstruction’ thing is all about, and why it really, really matters.

When constructing the graphs of global temperatures, the scientists ran into a tiny little problem:  how do we know what the Earth’s temperature was like, say, 1 500 years ago? There were no ‘standardized measurements’…. So, how do we ‘know’?

Aside:  my explanation is going to be a simplification for the sake or clarity, which runs the danger of being an over-simplification.  Please, consider it to be a starting point for your own inquiry, not anything more.

The idea is that there are other ‘indicators’ of the Earth’s temperature than just ‘direct measurements’, like we can make today.

For example, ‘tree ring data’.  Each year’s growth can be measured on each tree, because tree-trunks grow radially outwards:  the latest year adds the newest (out-most) ring to the tree.  By looking at the rings, scientists can see which ones are thicker (meaning that the tree added ‘more growth’ that year) and which ones are thinner (meaning the tree grew less that year).

The reasoning goes something like this:

  1. The years when the weather is nice and warm, plants do well and grow more.
  2. Trees are plants, therefore trees do well grow more:  the warmer a year it was, the bigger the tree’s growth ring for that year will be!
  3. Therefore, looking back and comparing the size of tree rings will tell us when it was warmer and colder.

Sounds good, right?

So, that is what they did.

(By ‘they’, I mean the scientists who promote the ‘Anthropogenic Climate Change’ agenda and on whose scientific work the current political policies are based.  I shall refer to them as ‘the IPCC cabal’.)

They took core samples of very, very old trees and looked at their rings, counted the years and centuries, compared them, analyzed them, assigned temperature values to various ring thicknesses – and they came up with a nifty little graph. Because it does not measure the temperature directly, but uses a ‘proxy’ (a substitute) – the growth of trees – this nifty little curve was included on the graph they submitted to the IPCC report as one of the ‘proxies’ for actual temperature records from long ago.

Except that….

During the time period when we have had the most reliable, actual temperature readings, say, from 1960 to now, the tree ring growth did not correspond to the temperatures the scientists measured!

To the contrary:  while these scientists measured an in increase in temperatures, the tree ring ‘record’ from 1960 to now shows a DECLINE in temperatures!

The scientists did notice this divergence:  one set of readings went up, the other down. That can clearly be seen from the email exchanges between them – and from the graphs they exchanged, which I linked to above. Now, at this point, a real scientist would look at their data and say:  “We have actual, measured temperatures going up, while the temperatures reconstructed from tree-ring temperatures are going down!  Obviously, there are other factors at play here:  either some of our measurements are wrong, or the method how we are using to figure out temperatures from tree rings is wrong.  Therefore, either have to figure out what we are missing or figure out where we have made a mistake:  either way, this data cannot be used as is!”

Alas, that is not what happened.

Instead, they decided that since the first ‘divergent’ year that the ‘common data’ was available for both the actual measured temperatures and the tree-ring proxy temperatures was 1960nto now, they would simply stop showing the tree-ring data from 1960 on!!!

Then, nobody could tell that the tree-ring data showed something different than what they were claiming! This is hard to believe.  Please, consider the picture below:

get_th31.jpg get_th32.jpg

The bigger graph was what these people submitted to the IPCC thing.

The picture on the right (or below – depending on your browser and settings) is a close-up of the last few decades of the graph.  It shows the actual temperatures measured in modern times (black), and the ‘proxy’ temperatures as they were gleaned by the ‘scientists’ for the past dozen or so centuries.

The ‘tree-ring data’  – the temperatures they figured out the Earth ‘had to have been’ based on the thickness of the tree-rings from those years – is the pale blue line.

When one looks at the enlarged view of the graph, it becomes obvious that that line stops a few decades before the other ones do:  1960, to be exact…. And, the email exchanges show that the only reason that this data was excluded – why the line was not continued – was not because they did not have the data….it was because they did not like what the data showed!!!

And THAT is FRAUD!

By excluding the data, by stopping the blue line on that graph in 1960, even though the data since then exists, the IPCC Cabal of scientists PROVED they knew they were committing fraud!

And THAT is why so many respectable scientists are so very, very angry.

Disappointed, and angry.

Note:  the formatting of this post got ‘messed up’, so, I edited it to fix it.  Aside from formatting (and this note), the post has not been altered.

Posted in debate, opression, politics, science, society. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Feynman says: good science demands scrutiny!

November 25, 2009 — xanthippa

Our policymakers have all been coerced, in one way or another, to ‘accept’ (or, at least, pay lip service to) the assertions that the Earth is getting warmer and warmer, and that we, humans, are the cause of it.

These policies are largely based on the UN’s series of IPCC reports on Global Warming/Climate Change which claim that there is a scientific concensus that the Earth is warming and that the increase of CO2 due to human activity is the cause.

Recently released documents (originally hacked, but since verified as authentic) have demonstrated that many of the scientists who produced the studies which demonstrated this ‘CO2 forced (caused) climate change’ have refused to release their data for scrutiny by other scientists:  they have even stated they would rather destroy their original data than permit other scientists to analyze it!

And, they have been caught hiding data which would contradict their official findings….

So, what would Richard Feynman – in my never-humble-opinion, THE most brilliant scientist to have ever walked this Earth – say about this?

Lubo Motl, of The Reference Frame, reminds us of Richard Feynman’s famous commencement speech at CalTech in 1974 , in which Dr. Feynman discusses ‘cargo cult science’ and how it is gaining a hold in our mainstream education and science….  The whole speech is an excellent read!  Still, this is perhaps the most salient point he makes:

It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty–a kind of leaning over backwards.

For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid–not only what you think is right about it:  other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked–to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.  Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can–if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong–to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem.  When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.

In summary, the idea is to try to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

 

And, Dr. Motl asks:

Do you think the e-mails indicate that the climate scientists have followed the same principles?

Posted in politics, science, society. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

ACC scientists’ fraud fallout: the lawsuits are starting!

November 24, 2009 — xanthippa

While much of the mainstream media (MSM) is still sounding apoplectic apologetic about the ‘Global Warming Guilt’ scientists being caught in large scale fraud and subversion of the peer-review process, the documents leaked last week from UK’s University of East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) (I so do not want to use the term ‘ClimateGate’!), others are not so idle.

‘Watts Up With That?’, a well-regarded blog run by the outspoken and highly respected Anthony Watts, posted a story by Chris Horner of The American Spectator, entitled: ‘CEI Files Notice of Intent to Sue NASA GISS’.

Why, and how is it important?

CEI is the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a think-tank, which has focused on verifying whether or not ‘the government’ is releasing accurate statements, especially when it comes to issues with impact as pervasive as ‘Global Warming’ or ‘AGW’ or ‘ACC’ (whatever you want to call it).

NASA is the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (yes, the astronaut people) and GISS is NASA’s Goddart Institute for Space Studies.  And, in their own words, “Research at GISS emphasizes a broad study of global climate change.”

Dr. Hansen heads up GISS, and is perhaps one of the best known voices on this side of the Atlantic pond (aside from politicians and celebs) calling for drastic action to save us all from the inevitable catastrophe caused by man-made ‘climate change’.

The article starts out:

Today, on behalf of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, I filed three Notices of Intent to File Suit against NASA and its Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), for those bodies’ refusal – for nearly three years – to provide documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act.

The information sought is directly relevant to the exploding “ClimateGate” scandal revealing document destruction, coordinated efforts in the U.S. and UK to avoid complying with both countries’ freedom of information laws, and apparent and widespread intent to defraud at the highest levels of international climate science bodies. Numerous informed commenters had alleged such behavior for years, all of which appears to be affirmed by leaked emails, computer codes and other data from the Climatic Research Unit of the UK’s East Anglia University.

So – this is why it matters:

‘Good scientists’ – even the CRU scientists know this, as per the leaked documents – always hand over the ‘raw data’ (that means, exactly as it was collected (along with the methodology used, conditions under which it was collected), before it was processed or ‘normalized’ (scientific meaning of the word) in any way-shape-or-form), what they did with it and why, and their results along with their hypothesis and conclusions when they submit their work for peer-review.

This is really, really important:  errors or mistakes (not to mention fraud) can occur at any point of the work.  It can occur at the very point of data-collection.  For example, if a thermocouple ‘x’ were used to measure temperatures at 5 out of 15 points, and thermocouple ‘y’ was collected for the rest, it will be necessary for any reviewer to read up on both thermocouples to make sure they behave exactly the same way under all conditions.

Simplification:  consider 2 thermometers commonly used to measure fever.  One is an old fashioned mercury one, the other is the modern, stick-in-the-ear one.  If one takes a child’s temperature using the ear thermometer, they may get a different temperature than if they use the old-fashioned mercury one under the child’s arm.  Therefore, one would have to document taking the child’s temperature simultaneously with both temperatures and record the readings.  Then, one would ‘analyze the difference’ between the readings to see what the difference in readings is.  Then, if one recorded 5 temperatures with the ear thermometer, and 15 with the mercury one, then one would have to ‘normalize’ one set of the readings (by adding or subtracting the ‘normal difference’ between their readings) before one could lump all 20 together as one dataset.

When doing peer-review of another scientist’s work, making sure there were no errors or mistakes in how the data was collected (like lumping together readings from the two thermometers in the example above), that there were no mistakes in making any ‘normalization’, and so on. And, since errors or mistakes can occur at any point from here on, all the ‘work’ has to be subjected to scrutiny by one’s peers.

‘Good scientists’ consider this to be a necessary part of any peer-review process.

Yet, the ‘leaked documents’ demonstrate that many of their studies, on which so much policy is being based, have been submitted for ‘peer-review’ without supplying any of their actual data to the peer doing the reviewing!

They even threatened to stop publishing in journals which demanded to see all of their data and work!

That means that their work was not FULLY ‘peer-reviewed’!

That means we ought not put much weight in that body of work!

But, even worse:  the leaked emails show that, in multiple instances, some of these ‘alarmist scientists’ stated they would rather delete their data than release it for scientific review!!!

That is NOT what ‘good scientists’ do!

Which  brings us to the point of the Notice of Intent to File Suit:

CEI, using ‘Freedom of Information Act’ FoIA, requested GISS to release much of the data it used to make its predictions of doom and cataclysms.  It appears that, for years, GISS has not released it.

In addition, CEI appears to have requested access to the records of ‘discussions’ between various GISS employees about how the data was collected, processed and analyzed.  It would seem that they requested sort of similar-type material like was leaked, except from GISS instead of CRU.  And, it appears that GISS has not released it, either.

And, though I am no lawyer and people ought to draw their own conclusions, but it does seem to me that CEI is citing the information from the ‘leaked files’ that this ‘cabal of scientists’ was willing to deleted information requested under FoIA (which might constitute a pattern of behaviour among this group of scientists) to put NASA’s GISS on notice that if they do not release the requested information (as the law demands they do), they will indeed face a lawsuit.

As they say, we do live in interesting times…

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IPCC scientists, hacked emails and largescale fraud

November 23, 2009 — xanthippa

By now, most people are aware that the University East Anglia’s (UEA) Climatic Research Unit (CRU) has had their database hacked and tons of documents –  including emails between scientists (if one can use that term, in light of the ‘now confirmed’ information revealed therein) which contain some extremely incriminating evidence of scientific fraud, collusion to defraud the public and systematic efforts to subvert the scientific ‘peer review’ process and turn it from an objective assessment into partisan shill.

To me, the last one is the most serious.  But, first I have to ask:  how come this has not been the leading story in every newspaper and newsprogram everywhere?

Most people have only had a chance to come across a few apologetic articles, like this one in the New York Times, which present tiny snippets of the information unearthed (I condemn the means – let’s get that straight from the beginning – but now that the info is out there, we must assess it), without reasonable context, in order to explain it away as ‘harmless’ and thus diffuse any resulting criticism.  SHAME, SHAME, SHAME!

I first came across this at The Reference Frame, and I recommend it for the following reasons:  Mr. ReferenceFrame himself taught Physics at MIT.  Dr. Lubos Motl is a respected Physicist in his own right, with ties and connections with scientists all over the globe.  These, he put to good use himself, verifying whether or not the data the hackers leaked is genuine or not and whether what it reveals can be trusted.  As a Physicist, he is much more thorough in this than I would trust most journalists to be, he has the knowledge to evaluate ‘things’, and, let’s face it, as ‘one of them’, most scientists will be more comfortable and open discussing things with him.  (The corollary, of course, is that many ‘bad’ scientists will feel more threatened by him because he’s trained to detect any scientific BS!)

Plus, he is updating his post to include the latest bits…

AND, he has posted a comprehensive list of sites which are analyzing/discussing this. Again, I much recommend it… overall, I find his post to be a most useful frame of reference!

In case the absence of the mass media coverage on this topic has left you wondering what it is I am jabbering on about, here is the tip of the proverbial (and growing, not melting) iceberg:

If you would like to check through all the ‘leaked documents’, you can download them from Junk Science, or Friends of Science.  Or, look through the database Lubo Motl provides  on The Reference Frame:  it is excellent.  There are many well written blogs (as opposed to news stories(!)) that give the ‘scoop’ on this!

What the emails appear to have revealed:

  • data had been altered to ‘hide cooling’
  • data had been forged to demonstrate a ‘warming trend’
  • Scientists lamented that their data did not demonstrate the conclusions they wanted:  this is nothing new.  What is new is that they sought advice from each other how to fiddle the data in order to hide what it shows and instead conform to their desired conclusion
  • Scientists threatened to destroy data rather than permit other scientists examine the un-altered dataset on which their study is based (this is an essential part of the peer review process – without examining the raw data, another scientist cannot possibly assess if it had been processed ‘correctly’:  it is unthinkable that a proper peer review could possibly be done without examining the raw data
  • Scientists knowingly passed only  the data that supported ‘Global Warming’ on to the IPCC panel for evaluation, suppressing existing data that opposed it.
  • Scientists intentionally manipulated ‘impartial’ scientists performing peer review on studies which had findings which did not support AGW/ACC point of view, tricking them into rejecting non-AGW/ACC supporting studies…

All this is bad.  Very bad.  BUT – and this is, in my never-humble-opinion, is something so vile and unforgivable, I am having trouble wrapping my brain around it:  THEY COLLUDED TO SUBVERT THE SCIENTIFIC PEER REVIEW PROCESS!!!

Why is subverting the peer review process the thing that upsets me so much?

Because if people do ‘bad science’ – the peers reviewing it will, eventually, catch it and expose it.

Because if people are committing scientific fraud – the peers reviewing it will, eventually, catch it and expose it, and ruin the reputation of the scientist committing it.

Because if there is a group of scientists conspiring to defraud everyone – the peers reviewing it may take a while to catch on, but, eventually, they will catch it, expose it and make sure these conspirators never get near any science again!

The scientific peer review process relies on the honesty and integrity of scientists.  It is nothing more – and nothing less – than, when one writes up one’s experiment/scientific study, one submits BOTH the write-up AND all the supporting data and materials to other scientists who have expertise in this field.  These other scientists read the experiment’s/study’s hypothesis, then they examine the methodology used, data (the actual, physical data that was collected,  the method/means it was collected by, the ‘controls’ that were placed to limit other possible factors that might affect the data and so on, the methodologies and techniques used to analyze the data, and so on) and then they analyze whether or not the data, collected in the way it was, analyzed as it was, supports the hypothesis as proposed.

It is not an easy process – and it relies heavily on the integrity of the ‘peers’ doing the ‘review’!

That is why it is so highly valued!

There is no fame or fortune in it, yet it is hard (and necessary) work!  That is why most scientists take ‘peer review’ at face value!

By showing that this very process which is supposed to test (and thus assure) the integrity of scientific findings can be subverted, and subverted so easily, these people have ended the ‘age of innocence’ among the scientific community!

To sum it up – they have falsified science (and manipulated policymakers) in order to increase their own funding, they have subverted (and thus for ever destroyed the credibility of) the scientific peer review process and utterly destroyed the credibility of science and scientists!

I wish I could think of names vile enough to call them – but, there are none!  Their names will go down in history and become the worst possible insults a person can be called!

 

Posted in debate, politics, science, society. Tags: , , , , . 8 Comments »

‘Cap and Trade’ – a bedtime story (revised)

October 28, 2009 — xanthippa

Hat tip: The Reference Frame

P.S.  The original outrageous ad can be found here.

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To work, vaccines have to make you sick. Really.

October 20, 2009 — xanthippa

Recently, I found out that a lot of people are not aware that unless a vaccine actually made you sick, it did not work!

This is due to great sloppiness:  among the media, who report on ‘medical stuff’ without bothering to inform themselves on even the bare basics of the topic they are ‘reporting on’, among the educators (including Medical-school level), many of whom do not bother to actually understand the very things they are supposed to teach (or pretend not to, because of funding), and especially among the practicing medical professionals, who seem to think we are all so stupid that it is necessary for them to manipulate the information they permit us to have, so that we’ll make ‘the right choice’!

This is right out of several ‘pages’ of my ‘pet obsessive peeves’ book:  the ‘misrepresentation of science’ book, ‘bad/ignorant reporting’ book, ‘dumbed down education’ book, ‘state fascism’ – and a few more.  And, it makes me very, very angry.  Sorry if I am ranting too much….  So, what is the cause of my rant?

Recently, many Western news outlets (MSM, of course) carried the story that giving babies Tylenol (or, indeed, any other fever-reducing/anti-inflammatory medication) right before/after they get a vaccine greatly reduces the vaccine’s effectiveness.

OF COURSE!!!  THAT IS THEIR FUNCTION!!!

Why in the world would medical professionals – the very people who ‘cracked’ this amazing and life-saving process called ‘vaccination’ – need a study on something as obvious as this?  If you understand the process of how vaccines work, it is clear that taking analgesics and anti-infammatories will necessarily interfere with the very way vaccines work!

Doctors don’t know this?!?!?  D-ughh!!!

At this point, I am shaking my head and wondering where to start….

Let me walk you through the steps in process through which vaccines are supposed to work:

1. ‘Controlled Infection’

A dead or weakened version of the virus (or viruses, in case of vaccines which protect against multiple pathogens) is introduced into the body of a healthy person.  This is usually done by directly injecting the vaccine into the body or by applying them to the mucuous membranes and allowing them to permeate through there.

2. Immune system response

The immune system finds the ‘intruders’ and begins to fight them.  The methods our immune system employs in this include fever (most viruses do not reproduce effectively at higher temperatures – hence, fever is a potent weapon our immune system uses), hot-cold spells/chills (most viruses cannot handle sudden temperature changes, which is why our immune system uses this weapon to kill them…actually, this is also how the whole sauna/steam-room thing works, if performed properly:  people go get hot, then cool off extremely suddenly by rolling in snow or swimming in freezing water – and repeat this process 3x or more times within one hour: most germs will not survive these sudden temperature changes), inflammation (among other reactions, mucuous membranes try to trap germs, so this form of immune system defense may involve significant mucus generation), and so on.  In other words, the immune system will evoke all the symptoms we associate with ‘being sick’ in order to ‘learn’ this ‘germ’.

3. ‘Creating a memory’

The immune system, during this fight, ‘takes notes’, so to speak.  It creates an ‘entry’ in its ‘dangerous thingies memory bank’, where it records everything it has learned about each germ:  how to identify it (by the pattern of proteins on its ‘skin’) and how best to fight it (this may include specific antibodies the immune system ‘learned’ to produce, and the ‘systemic symptoms’ like fever, which are unpleasant but kill the germ way faster than they kill us, and so on).

4.  Future protection

A healthy immune system will keep this ‘record’ for many years, sometimes up to three decades:  the more dangerous the immune system judges the germ to be, the ‘deeper’ the ‘entry’ and the longer it will ‘remember it’ and recognize the germ, should it ever infect the body again.  This is important:  the germs which attack us will reproduce inside our body at an exponential rate.  If the immune system ‘recognizes’ the germ, it does not have to spend valuable time (sometimes days) trying to figure out how to fight it – time the germs would use to increase their number and, perhaps, overwhelm the immune system.  Instead, it can compare the ‘germ’ to its ‘database’, retrieve the information about what destroys ‘this germ’ most effectively and start fighting it very shortly after  the germ first enters the body.  This means the germ does not have time to produce millions of copies of itself before the immune system effectively destroys it – and the person is protected from a serious infection.

5.  The Trick!

Because the pathogen which was introduced through the vaccine was weakened or killed, it is not capable of reproducing (or, reproducing effectively) in the host (you).  That means that it cannot overcome your immune system while the immune system is trying to figure out how to fight it.

To sum it up:

The pathogens in the vaccine must be strong enough to make our immune systems ‘take them seriously’ and fight them (and thus ‘learn’ how to fight the full-strength germ, if it ever infects that person), but harmless enough so that they cannot overcome the immune system while it is trying to figure out what works against this germ.

This means that a vaccine which does not make your immune system go into high gear (make you ‘sick’) has not given you any protection!

So, if you get a flu shot – and you do not get ‘mild flu-like symptoms’ – the vaccine did not work!

And, if you take medication which suppresses fever, and so on, you will be directly interfering with the immune system’s ‘learning process’.  As in, the immune system will mistake the reaction to the pill for the reaction to the last thing it did to try to fight that germ!

Is it any surprise, then, that it does not ‘learn’ how to fight this pathogen effectively?

Doctors are said to still be taking the Hippocratic Oath:  ‘Do no harm’.  In a person with a healthy immune system, a vaccine will produce the symptoms of the harmful illness it is to prevent, but prevent the ‘harm’ that an actual full-strength infection would cause.

Vaccination is an important weapon in fighting disease.

But, like everything else, it can do more damage than good if it is not used properly.  If it is misrepresented and misunderstood, then people may sabotage the very process the vaccine is inducing, without knowing it.  Then, thinking they are protected, they will not act as cautiously as they might otherwise…

And that, in my never-humble-opinion, is a bad thing.

Posted in education, politics, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , . 6 Comments »

Questions for Jennifer Lynch

October 6, 2009 — xanthippa

Thank you, Blazing Catfur and Jay Currie!

Jennifer Lynch is the  face of the Medusa…the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.  And, she will be called to answer some questions about her organization – and her own conduct – by a Parliamentary committee.  (Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn testified yesterday.)

BCF and JC have been collecting questions to ask the Madamme Chief Commissar.

Give them some!

Here is what I’d ask:

1.  Why did you not submit the receipts for your expenses in a timely manner?

2.  What have you done to ensure that your travel expenses are, in these trying economic times, minimized?

3.  Please, submit the evidence that you have researched the cost of accommodations in alternate, cheaper hotel while traveling on the taxpayer’s dollar.

4.  What procedures have you put into place to ensure that travel and related expenses of other members of your organization are minimized?

5.  Who, within your organization, oversees travel expenses by the CHRC staff and how do they ensure the costs are minimized?

(OK – these are financial questions.  But, remember, they got Al Capone for tax evasion…)

Give them some!

Here’s where you can send the questions (these are the members of the Parliamentary Committee):

Conservatives:

Ed Fast – ed@edfast.ca , faste@parl.gc.ca

Daniel Petit – PetitD@parl.gc.ca

Rick Norlock – rick@ricknorlock.ca , Norlock.R@parl.gc.ca

Rob Moore – MooreR@parl.gc.ca

Stephen Woodworth – woodworth.s@parl.gc.ca

Brent Rathgeber – rathgb1@parl.gc.ca , rathgb0@parl.gc.ca

NDP:

Joe Comartin – ComarJ@parl.gc.ca

Bloc Quebecois

Serge Ménard – MenarSe@parl.gc.ca

Liberals:

Brian Murphy – Murphy.B@parl.gc.ca

Ujjal Dosanjh – Dosanu1a@parl.gc.ca , Dosanjh.U@parl.gc.ca

Dominic LeBlanc – dominic.leblanc@nb.aibn.com , leblanc.d@parl.gc.ca

Posted in opression, politics, science. Tags: , , . 4 Comments »

Why young kids should not be ‘institutionalized’

June 22, 2009 — xanthippa

Perhaps I am a little bit more obsessive about ‘parenting’ than most people are.  Frankly, I think all kids (but especially MY kids!!!) are too precious for us NOT to be obsessive in learning all that we can about all various facets of ‘raising them’ before we decide to have them.

So, before I went on to have kids, I read up on it.  Obsessively.  Exhaustively – I hope.

Of course, this was a 15-20 years ago….before I became a parent.  So most of it was not ‘online’…and I would be hard pressed to remember all my ‘sources’!  Much less ‘look them up’ and post links to them…  Therefore, what follows cannot be categorized as anything other than my ‘never-humble-opinion’!

Still, this opinion is based on having done my homework…and having read a lot of studies – many of them not really popular with the current ‘educators’ – still, these were bona fide scientific studies, publishes and peer-reviewed and from all various spectra of scholarly schools.  I will do my best to put it into ‘common sense wording’, in order to get the main point across as clearly as possible.

In order to understand what ‘we need’, psychologically speaking, it is a good idea to examine how – historically speaking – children were raised.  It is, after all, the societies which ‘did OK’ that survived – so, considering the circumstances of how they raised their kids may help us understand which ‘circumstances’ are most favourable to raising adults who are most predisposed towards perpetuating the most successful societies.  To re-phrase:  let’s look at what ‘worked’ in the past, and what did not – and why.

The ‘traditional’ way of raising children is in an ‘extended family’ unit.

This is true of every race, on every continent…so, perhaps, we ought to take heed of this lesson.

Very young children are raised in small groups:  the younger the child, the smaller the social group it is exposed to.  This is very important, for various reasons:  but, it is easiest to think of it in terms of ‘attachment’ and ‘social bond’.

The very first bond a child traditionally forms is with its mother.

This is due to in-utero conditioning (when the mother experiences ‘good/pleasurable’ things, from food to sounds and so on – her ‘feeling good’ chemistry is shared by the foetus:  thus, some ‘preferences’ are being programmed into the brain even before one’s birth) as well as nursing/early care.  (We are talking pre-baby-bottle times…nowdays, a father can step in and forge a bond with an infant much earlier than it used to be possible ‘traditionally’.)

As the child grows a little older, immediate members of the nuclear family (plus the maternal grandmother – but that is a different post) begin to forge social bonds with the infant.

These are very important:  from ‘father’ (in addition to ‘mother’) to ‘older siblings’.  The infant is still the youngest, most vulnerable – and thus most protected – member of the family.  It is difficult to explain just how important this last bit is:  it is essential in forming the ‘I am special’ bit of the personality – the bit from which ‘self-confidence’ and natural (not twisted) sense of ‘self-worth’ come.

As the child continues to grow, it is more and more exposed to a social group of ‘siblings and cousins’.  The important thing about this ‘group’ is that there is a significant variation in the ages of the ‘siblings and cousins’ – the older one becomes, the ‘higher they rank’ – but the greater the responsibility for their younger siblings/cousins they have to shoulder!

This is a natural means through which children learn that ‘growing’ brings BOTH privileges/status AND responsibilities.  This process is very positive, good for the ‘psyche’.  Our own history has shown it to be so.

It is also a natural ‘drive’ enhancer:  one wants to ‘catch up’ to the skills of the older children, while working hard not to be ‘passed’ by the growing skills in the younger children… with ‘special allowances’ to individual variations being possible because of the ‘family’ nature of the structure:  the differences are seen as ‘special talents’ – most of the time…

To recap:  there are 3 significant aspects to ‘traditional family’ method of child rearing

  1. The size of the social group the young child is exposed to is closely tied to it’s age:  the younger the child, the smaller the social group – and the ‘clearer’ the ‘social order’ withing that group.  The younger the child, the smaller the group.  Since this ‘group’ was usually left in the care of one adult – plus the ‘older children’ – the size of this group usually did not exceed 10-12 (in the first decade of a child’s life).
  2. The ‘social order’ within this group was, to a great degree, dictated by the age of the individuals in it:  the group was made up of children of VARYING ages – which brought along a structured ‘social order’ of status coupled with age.
  3. Each child was motivated to ‘catch up’ to the older children and ‘not be caught up to/surpassed’ by the younger ones:  exceptional skill was recognized, and did not ‘denigrade’ others…but, this was a strong motivator to want to succeed.  It was a ‘natural’ way of teaching kids that as one gets older, the expectations of them grow:  to earn respect, they must grow to fill these expectations.

This was not ‘forced’: allowances were made for ‘special skills’….if one had shown a special talent in a specific field, their responsibilities would grow in that field and lessen in others.  That is the flexibility inherrent in a small, family-based unit.

Also, because the children were of different ages, they could compete constructively with each other…the older children could acknowledge the growth in the younger ones without being threatened and all that….(most of the time, anyways).

The ‘modern’ method of ‘early childhood education’ violates this process in several important ways:

  1. The size of the group  in ‘state-sponsored’ pre-school/kindergarten is much larger than the size of the social group a child would  traditionally be exposed to.
  2. In ‘state-institutionalized care’, the children are ‘sorted by age’. That means that there is – at most – 1 year age-difference between the oldest and the youngest child in the group!  This is justified by the commonality of the ‘age-appropriate developmental stage’ the children share. It is not possible to understate the destructiveness of this ‘grouping’ to the children concerned!!!

OK – let me rant on the second point:  if the implications thereof have not become clear by now!!!  And while they are ‘obvious’ to me, perhaps I ought to explore them in another post….

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Posted in education, human nature, science, society. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

Doors-open Ottawa

June 6, 2009 — xanthippa

This is actually a really awesome thing!

Doors-open Ottawa is a weekend when all kinds of neat places open their doors and let us, the ‘unwashed masses’, peek in!

OK – so, many of the places are quite familiar:  the Hindu Temple, the Ottawa Mosque, the Gurdwara, many of the Churches….

But – a lot of the really awesome science labs are open, too!  From CANMET (see granite blocks crushed before your eyes – and get a fragment as a souvenier) to the bug labs (Canada’s ONLY nematode taxonomist explains the intricacies of his profession – on a tour guided by one of Marc Garneau’s distant cousins!)

This is a really awesome thing!

The only criticism?  Putting it on the last weekend before high-school exams keeps a lot of young people who could benefit from learning about the ‘reality’ of various choices in education/professions because they have to study – in order to have high-enough grades to make it into schools that prepare them for these types of careers!

Posted in education, science, society. Tags: , . Leave a Comment »

The future of broadband in Canada: have a voice!

June 5, 2009 — xanthippa

Tim Denton, the CRTC commissioner, has recently made the following statement:

‘The rights of Canadians to talk and communicate across the Internet are vastly too important to be subjected to a scheme of government licensing. If more Canadians were aware how close their communications have come to being regulated by this Commission, not by our will but because we administer an obsolete statute, they would be rightly concerned. Fortunately, good sense prevailed and the evidence for intervention was not yet present. But this confluence of facts may not always be there. Thus the call for a government review of a digital transition strategy is both wise and opportune. Let us fix this problem.’


via Michael Geist

And while I do not believe that the CRTC has the right to control our wavelengths, the reality is that they do.  And, to their credit, they have (as Michael Geist’s post puts it so eloquently), decided to keep their hands off the internet – for now.

But, they will go on to develop a new comprehensive national digital strategy…

All of our voices should be heard, to help ensure that the net truly remains neutral – or, at least as neutral as possible.  This is important:  still, most of us are not sure how to best be heard…

Which is why I am going to quote the following text from Campaign for Democratic Media almost in its entirety:

Citizens from coast to coast are expected to engage in Canada’s first-ever online LIVE video-streamed national conversation about the future of broadband in this country.

During Town Hall meetings in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver, viewers can take part in the confab through live, real-time online chat available at theREALnews.com, rabble.ca, TheTyee, Beyond Robson, SaveOurNet.ca and other participating websites.

The first of these innovative town hall meetings takes place in Toronto on Monday, June 8. The participating websites will start streaming video at 7:30 p.m.

The town hall events will bring together web innovators, entrepreneurs, social change leaders, cultural workers and citizens to discuss the future of the Internet in Canada. The sessions will be recorded and will form part of the citizen testimony that SaveOurNet.ca’s Steve Anderson will use to guide his presentation to the CRTC at the July 6 traffic management hearing.

SaveOurNet.ca is encouraging people who live within commuting distance to attend the town hall sessions to meet and mingle with fellow Netizens who want a say in Canada’s future Internet.

Here are the details, along with some updated information:

TORONTO • June 8 • 7 p.m.
The Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. West

Speakers include:
Mark Surman, Executive Director, Mozilla Foundation
Olivia Chow, NDP Member of Parliament
Steve Anderson, co-founder, SaveOurNet.ca
Rocky Gaudrault, CEO, Teksavvy Solutions Inc.
Derek Blackadder, National Representative with CUPE

Special guests:
Jesse Brown, Search Engine
David Skinner, Communications Professor, York University
Kim Elliot, Rabble.ca
Mark Kuznicki, remarkk consultant
Dan O’Brien, ACTRA
Ben Lewis, Canadian Federation of Students
Wayne Mcphail, w8nc

REGISTER TO RESERVE A SEAT: http://saveournet.ca/toronto

OTTAWA • June 10 • 7 p.m.
Ottawa Public Library Main Branch, 120 Metcalfe St.

Speakers include:
Michael Geist, Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa, blogger
Charlie Angus, NDP MP, Heritage and Culture critic
Rocky Gaudrault, CEO, Teksavvy Solutions Inc.
Bill St. Arnaud, Chief Research Officer for CANARIE Inc.

Introduction by Steve Anderson, co-founder, SaveOurNet.ca
Discussion Facilitator: Marita Moll, TeleCommunities Canada

Special guests:
Mike Gifford, founder of Open Concept Consulting Inc. Leslie Regan Shade, Communications Professor, Concordia University Graham Cox, Canadian Federation of Students

REGISTER TO RESERVE A SEAT: http://saveournet.ca/ottawa

VANCOUVER • June 20 • (time to be determined)
Vancouver ChangeCamp, BCIT, downtown campus, 555 Seymour St.

Speakers include:
Rocky Gaudrault, CEO, Teksavvy Solutions Inc.
Steve Anderson, co-founder, SaveOurNet.ca
(More to come)

REGISTER TO RESERVE A SEAT: http://vanchangecamp.eventbrite.com/

Canada’s FIRST live INTERNET DANCE PARTY will hit Vancouver on Saturday, June 20! This is a fundraiser for host SaveOurNet.ca as well as the official after party for VanChangeCamp.

6 to 8 p.m. – Social & Film Screening
8 p.m. to 2 a.m. – Internet Dance Party
Gallery Gachet

Special Guests:
Quest Poetics feat: Mello Black, Mario Vaira, & DJ Hayze
More guests to be announced soon!

RESERVE A SPOT: http://internetdanceparty.eventbrite.com/

Join the Facebook group of your local Town Hall:
http://saveournet.ca/content/town-hall-facebook-groups

Organizing these events would not be possible without your contributions. Please donate today:
http://saveournet.ca/donate

If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Campaign for Democratic Media.

Posted in debate, education, freedoms, opression, politics, science, society, technology. Tags: , , , , , , , , . 1 Comment »
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