Bishop Hill Unpresidential address
Dec 4, 2013 Royal Society 
Image: Somerset House: a meeting of the Royal Society. Via albionprints.com (click for link)Each year, the president of the Royal Society gives an address to the fellows at their annual meeting and Paul Nurse's speech last year is now available online. It's mostly fairly unremarkable stuff - extolling the virtues of the society itself; making the oft-repeated but scarcely credible claim that the society is independent of government; criticising those who reach different conclusions to Nurse's preferred scientific cliques. Most of this is in the first five minutes of the talk, and much of the rest is about the internal machinations of the society, which is probably important but frankly too dull for words. However, there's an interesting bit at the end.
Discussing official policy statements of the society, Nurse describes how they go through one or two rounds of independent review and are then signed off by the Council of the society. This approach, he says, gives them authority.Now of course the issue of policy statements was the root cause of the famous rebellion of the 41, with fellows from many different backgrounds critising the society for making unscientific statements on climate change and misusing the Society's public standing. I heard on the grapevine that the Council had discussed these issues and considered the possibility of adding caveats to the front of the reports to say that the contents were the opinions of the authors and not the society as a whole. I have no idea if this is now happening.
Nevertheless, Nurse is not going to talk about these problems, which I guess he thinks are matters for the higher-ups rather than the mass of ordinary fellows. In this way his speech is somewhat reminiscent of something from the Soviet bloc, with all the dirty laundry kept out of the sight of those who are allegedly being represented. There are even the obligatory attacks on "the enemy without":
Some bodies or individuals who have strong politically or ideologically motivated opinions about issues that involve aspects of science try to undermine the society with the tactics of the lobbyist using personal attacks, innuendo and half truths as their weapons. They are forced to use these approaches because of the strength of securely evidenced and reasoned scientific analysis that the Society pursues.
This is an interesting approach for Nurse to take, given that the statement is itself almost pure innuendo, and given, moreover, his previous remarks about Nigel Lawson, which were not only very personal but were not even half truths. His identikit-lefty's dislike of Lawson seems to have affected his judgement at that time, and it looks to me as if things have scarcely improved since. I think he needs to get over the whole "right-wingers are evil" thing that seems to underpin his every contribution to the climate debate.
Reader Comments (54)
That's something that keeps cropping up - 'evil right-wingers.'
People keep insisting climate change is Not a right-left issue- but EVERY SINGLE TIME someone writes an attack piece on Skeptics, the Right is always vilified. And who does that leave for the pro-AGW side?
I do know that some Few on the Left are also Skeptics. But it is at best a Specious argument, to claim that the debate on AGW is not a right-left situation, with the left fairly solidly on the pro-AGW side.
This is not just nit-picking. You’ve got a useful ally in Graham Stringer. The Labour Green paper on energy is requesting submissions - effectively Miliband begging to be kicked for being such a silly boy. With Grangemouth investing in the importation of cheap American gas and energy-consuming industry threatened with closure, the unions are going to start realising that their toy boy is not all he’s cracked up to be.
One day you’re going to find willing listeners on the left. Don’t be rude about us.
Having met Nurse several times I can confirm that he is the archetypal Grandee himself.
Geoffchambers - but I guess you are not an identikit lefty - that is the difference.
I have commented before, here and there, that if you belong to a political party or any form of "movement", you are expected to disconnect your brain and go along with any old pap the leadership spout. Those on either side politically that do not conform to this have my total respect. An example. I once lived, early in his tenure, in the constituency represented by Dennis Skinner MP. I would guess that if I had a pint with Mr Skinner in a pub, he and I would probably agree about very little, but I respect the guy very much. He is a good MP who represents his constituents well, and has had the lowest expense claims of any MP for years. His views on Bliar making £20m pa might not be that far from mine perhaps.
My sceptical position on CAGW is independent of my political views - BUT the reason the left are more likely to go along with CAGW (world-wide) is the scope for central control that it offers. Whereas people of the right are more freedom loving and sceptical of big government of any kind. Of course we only have politicians of the left in the UK really, but I dislike the antics of many on the current "right" and despise the likes of Cameron, Yeo and Deben and others, but many on the left are just as big, if not bigger, in the rent-seeking department. I don't have any time for any of them.
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have." - Thomas Jefferson - hijacked by many others since (including me).
And ranty warmist half-wit Marcus Brigstocke isn't exactly a leftie, is he..?
The real surprise would be expecting anything other than ranting hate from somebody with Socialist Worker roots, surely?
Geoff
I had precisely that thought when I wrote those lines. That's why I added the word "identikit". I hope it's obvious to readers here that there are plenty of people on the left who can look at climate and energy questions from a purely scientific point of view and accept arguments based on what is said rather than who is saying them. I just don't think Nurse is one of them.
Well I had just posted the comment on geoffchambers discussion thread, but it seems just as apposite here:
Well said, Geoff. It still needs pointing out occasionally that more than one or two regular posters on this site don't associate themselves as historically voting for the same party as the assumed majority (usually implied as the Conservatives).
I approach from the other direction. I think I recognise truly awful politics based on as-yet unsubstantiated scientific conjecture.
Whether my politics derive from the "making-the-cake-bigger", or the "dividing-the-cake-more-equitably" end of politics, I regard it as close to economic and political insanity to wilfully make the cake smaller on the basis of half-baked computer models.
Greenpeace-think states otherwise of course, but they are not, and never have been, much interested in objectivity. Their attitude to science and technology in general is best characterised as one of fear and loathing.
Regardless of his personal political affiliation, Nurse should adopt a more objective and scientific approach. Even he must realise that a climate policy based on models that disagree with reality is a cause for concern, not blind support.
The purpose of the GWPF is to make intelligent sceptics objects of ridicule like themselves . It is also to focus the debate on science which is 100% irrelevant as Roger Pielke Jr has said.
Pielke Jr is smarter than the GWPF combined. Why didn't Paul Nurse debate Freeman Dyson who is 12.8 trillion times smarter than Delingpole ? On the other side, we have even more preposterous characters like Cook and Nuccitelli.
The Beano wouldn't run a cartoon with Nurse vs Delingpole It is too silly for words. I saw Delingpole begging Alan Rusbridger for a column in the Guardian on Twitter by the way. The gravy train rolls on.
A dog wouldn't believe the Guardian on global warming.
It's not helpful to compare the Royal Society to the Soviets. By and large, real socialists (utopian rather than Marxist) seek to protect the most vulnerable in society from the worst excesses of capitalism. Based on the events leading up to and from the financial crash which arose from the ridiculous dogma of unfettered 'free-markets' plus several pointless right-wing oil-patch wars, their parody of right-wing evil-doers has plenty of justification. The idea of right-wingers seeking the moral high ground is ludicrous on the face of it. This blinkered self-righteousness is too prevalent on both sides. We need more facts and less political rhetoric. Nurses actual argument is that the prevailing science (by which he means mainstream scientific opinion) is 'securely evidenced' but in fact it has no real evidence whatsoever, and even if it did the policy would still be barmy. So attack his 'evidence', not his political leanings.
"Some bodies or individuals who have strong politically or ideologically motivated opinions about issues that involve aspects of science try to undermine the society with the tactics of the lobbyist using personal attacks, innuendo and half truths as their weapons. They are forced to use these approaches because of the strength of securely evidenced and reasoned scientific analysis that the Society pursues."
This is classic "Projection" as he is exactly describing himself and the Royal Society and practically every other Warmist/green organisation.
Of course there are many people on the left who are climate sceptics. Perhaps the wonderful Prof. Philip Stott being one of those to speak openly and logically, in an articulate manner about his views.
But it worries me that the left do not seem to care whether their policies are harmful to billions in the world - we have a planet to save and no evidence will change our mindset - truly Kool-aid. I guess some on the right are just as complacent on the issue (Camoron for instance) but seem quite happy to support the handouts based on the deluded policy. Difficult to determine conviction (don't laugh) from self-interest in his case.
A thoughtful piece today in the NY Times by Bjorn Lomborg
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/04/opinion/the-poor-need-cheap-fossil-fuels.html?_r=0
This bit struck me -
"The Obama administration announced recently, for instance, that it would no longer contribute to the construction of coal-fired power plants financed by the World Bank and other international development banks."
"The last time the World Bank agreed to help finance construction of a coal-fired power plant, in South Africa in 2010, the United States abstained from a vote approving the deal. The Obama administration expressed concerns that the project would “produce significant greenhouse gas emissions.” But as South Africa’s finance minister, Pravin Gordhan, explained at the time in The Washington Post, “To sustain the growth rates we need to create jobs, we have no choice but to build new generating capacity — relying on what, for now, remains our most abundant and affordable energy source: coal.”
It just maybe that the real reason is the USA is broke and they hope China will spend its money, but.........
I ask myself whether a republican administration would do the same. It is possible they would do the same given their scepticism of the UN and its off-shoots - but somehow I doubt it. On this subject I read John Bolton's (US ambassador to the UN 2005/6) book - an interesting and not too comfortable read for Europeans including us.
As far as the Obama administration is concerned - let them eat cake, or perhaps burn it.
To allude that the RS is like the Soviets and Nurse is like Stalin is totally preposterous.
Nurse doesn't have a moustache.
Nurse himself, brings factional climate politics to his RS ramblings and thereby nails his own guardianista crimson colours to the mast - while in the same moment doth hoist himself up, left - hanging on his own petard.
> And ranty warmist half-wit Marcus Brigstocke isn't exactly a leftie, is he..?
Errr, yes.
Or is that ironic?
More specifically, it's a totalitarian-liberal issue.
The former want more and more taxes and government, no matter what; so to them, CAGW is wet dream. This covers most/all of the left.
The latter are more circumspect about government, and include many on the right.
Tomcat
There are no green taxes in Britain I am aware of. Consumers pay a levy for useless wind turbines. The turbines are a distraction. The real future of UK energy is nuclear and that will be even more expensive. Nuclear will also be used to back up the turbines.
Brown calls for eight new nuclear plants (July 14 2008)
New stations to be part of 'nuclear renaissance' ·
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/14/nuclearpower.gordonbrown
The Labour party is very close to the nuclear industry.
Labour and the nuclear lobby
Anti-nuclear campaigners like to portray the government as being in the pocket of the nuclear industry.How else, they argue, do you explain the return to favour of an industry once written-off as dirty, dangerous and prohibitively expensive? The picture put forward by some critics is certainly a powerful one. It suggests the image of hapless ministers being schmoozed into submission by smooth-talking former party grandees now in the pay of nuclear multinationals.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5149676.stm
Given the amount of revenue the government extracts from the "Fossil Fuel Industry", it could rightfully be said that everyone receiving any form of state benefit is "in the pay of the FFI" .
One reason that "The Evil Right" now occupies so much commonsense high ground is that "The Left" has retreated from it into increasingly silly and reactionary positions.
Corollary Three: If you want to know what a 'progressive' is trying to hide, look at what they are accusing you of:
Bish
Thanks for the clarification. If I get a bit narky on the subject it’s because of the continuous harping on about the moral and psychological evils of socialism from some here (not you).
Sir Paul and I, both being Old Labour types, would probably agree in wanting to see British energy in the hands of some national body like the Central Electricity Generating Board. Then I’d put Graham Stringer in charge of it (or Dennis Skinner), while Sir Paul would probably prefer Caroline Flint. There’s no obvious way of resolving our disagreement on this issue, which is the real weakness of our common socialist position.
Ceboid: "Paul Nurse doesn't have a moustache"
He did once.
I don't often agree with Nigel Lawson, but his organisation is clearly named the Global Warming POLICY Foundation which focuses on the question What is to be Done? which is ultimately, the only question.
The technocrats can rant all they want but the debate is and always has been about policy, not science. Soon scientists will be relegated to the labs, as The Backroom Boys, where they belong, after their bright light moment of blinking celebrity. And please can we never hear any more about The Science from laypersons? I've worked with engineers, technicians and chemists all my life and never heard one refer to themselves as a Scientist without any qualifying adjective.
Well found Ruth. I found another one.
http://www.biography.com/people/joseph-stalin-9491723
eSmiff:
' Nuclear will also be used to back up the turbines. '
That sounds odd, how long does it take to ramp up an N-powered station? They are used for base load. STOR is being used to fill in for drop outs from wind turbines, and that is diesel generation.
'Brown calls for eight new nuclear plants (July 14 2008)'
Quite a bit has happened since 2008...
' ... making the oft-repeated but scarcely credible claim that the society is independent of government ...'
Last time I checked the RS was bankrolled by what it euphemistically calls ' ...Parliamentary Grant in Aid ...' to the tune of 68.2%
michael hart (Dec 4, 2013 at 12:27 PM): Greenpeace-(or, more accurately, Brownwars-)think is more “destroy the cake” than either dividing it or making it. I am further left than even I thought (and certainly a lot further left than many well-known “left-wingers”, which actually makes me suspicious of the whole left/right political argument), so consider the general left/right divide in what should be a scientific argument makes a mockery of the those with that level of thinking.
Mr Nurse, apply your supposed scientific mind to the problem, and raise the argument out of ideology and politics and place it in its proper place – SCIENCE. In science, disagreement should not be personal, political or ideological, but simply logical; good scientists are always sceptical, even of their own work, and will want others to examine their work with as much diligence as they hope they have applied to themselves – unlike Prof Jones, they will want someone to try to prove them wrong.
With all this information, one can only conclude that the whole farrago is about control. It is purely a power-play, using a supposedly-scientific argument to establish greater control over the populace, and entrench the proponents in positions of even greater power.
Interesting that Nurse is calling at one point for more fellows to be elected from "multidisciplinary areas". That would include our friends at UEA's Climate a Research Unit, for example.
As president of the RS Nurse's principal role is to uphold the scientific tradition. That he has failed will be felt by generations to come. Allowing science to be perverted for political ends is a crime against all humanity. Nurse you stand so accused.
dolphinlegs Totally agree
Eddy. Sorry, yes base load. The nuclear programme is going ahead AFAIK.
By and large, real socialists (utopian rather than Marxist) seek to...
JamesG - I believe you have fallen into the "Real Scotsman" fallacy.
Could Nurse and Stalin be related related?
Didn't Paul Nurse once tell the BBC Horizon program that in the 1950's he ran out into the street to chase a Stalinist dream?
I wish some FRS would stand up and challenge Nurse. The Fellows either don't disagree with him, don't care or don't have the balls. It is the same with politicians, there are no strong figures with intelligence AND leadership qualities, though there are a great many with neither.
Geoff,
I couldn't agree more. I'm a lefty but have no time for pseudo scientific climate alarmism.
Of course, it is the capitalists who are really driving policy and running the show but it is a few vocal 'useful idiots' on the left who are getting all the air time, with their talk of wealth redistribution. No legislation ever gets passed unless there is money in it for somebody. If that money comes from some old dear shivering to keep warm with a one bar, windmill powered, electric fire, who gives?
Green Energy is a capitalist's wet dream. What would you rather invest in? A risky oil field in deep, unforgiving seas, which is profitable at current oil prices but which could be disastrously unprofitable if prices fell by $20 a barrel (when Iran starts ramping up production, for example) or become a green company, win the approval of 'the left' and pocket a guaranteed return on investment for the next 25 years for building offshore windmills, all at the expense of the poor consumer/ taxpayer.
Another bugbear of mine is ‘Big Oil’. Big Oil is nothing of the sort unless you happen to be a nationalised oil company in the Middle East. They are just big companies with deep pockets run by accountants, which make money from exploiting other countries' reserves. If there is bigger and safer money to be made elsewhere, they will move on. If you are rich enough to buy any company at the click of the fingers, you immediately become an expert in whatever that company does.
Depressed
I think AGW appeals instinctively to the left, and academia generally, due to the populist association of fossil fuel with huge wealth. Ironically many of the original oil barons were extremely philanthropic towards research foundations. Of course many left wing governments legislated for total or controlling interest state ownership of hydrocarbon assets, including our own sorry episode courtesy of Tony Benn's BNOC and Britoil in the North Sea, until they realised that letting the multinationals risk their own exploration money and then hitting them with windfall taxation when they lucked in was far more lucrative that doing it all less productively themselves.
Now its gone full circle, and left wing governments steal the money from their own people and give it away under their own warped version of philanthropy as 'climate compensational justice.'
Perhaps that's right Pharos.
I also think that , with the disappearance of traditional industry , both manufacturing and extractive, from the UK, the left no longer consists of the "blue collar" (to borrow a US term) "working class".
It seems now to be overwhelmingly white collar, who are overwhelmingly public employees, and who often display a horror of the grime and noise of real mechanical industry.
I think that's important component of the hysteria over the appearance of a small drilling rig in Balcombe.
Among the many absurdities of the Greenpeace attempt to board the Prirazlomnaya , one thing that struck me was their description of this workplace as " a monstrosity, a terrible monolithic disaster in waiting" .
No mention of the workers on board whose temporary home it is.
What is this (seemingly European) obsession with the 18th century romance of the linearity of political opinion; do we still live with the foolishness of the Jacobins and the Girondists and all the rest of this French revolutionary passion?
Are you Brits capable of addressing the real problems we all face in different parts of the world. We have the obsessive centralists in partnership with the obsessively power hungry, and the rent seekers; this covers a large range in the traditional left/right spectrum. I might think that the centralists are misguided and foolish; that the power hungry are small minded and stupid; and that the rent seekers are singularly attracted to free money: but they can fall all over the old political spectrum. They are all similarly foolish.
I have even been in touch with your Libertarians, but they are all pussies who are all over the minor details and seem to either miss the big picture, or avoid it.
Having learned their politics from your own ineptocracy, our politicians in Australia are similarly small minded and mostly corrupt or stupid. I am pleased that our new Prime Minister has seem his way, stumblingly, to bag the IPCC and the annual stage managed Congress of Idiots. But he seems to also see the real problem through a dirty window, and still has some foolishness to unlearn. Part of the problem may spring from another piece of stupidity that we learned from some of your Edwardian aristocrats; "The expert must always be on tap; never on top". That this was a justification for the assumption that graduates in Greek, Latin and Great Masters should run the "Empire" is apparent. That it persists to this day (in other forms) is a sign we are a group of slow learners. Bureaucratic government is still run by a class of "Administrators" "who have learned nothing and forgotten nothing".
God help us; for we continue down this path ...
Bish wrote: "His identikit-lefty's dislike of Lawson . . ."
"Identikit" is a word I'm not familiar with as a Yank. Can someone define it for me? Sounds interesting . . .
As for the political side of this, I've recently taken to using a new word to describe the international left-wing blogosphere. I call it the "commiesphere." It's a term of endearment, because what would we ever do for entertainment without them?
I do see the world dividing into two camps on climate and a lot of other issues. In America, the commiesphere is now obsessed with making sure Obama's attempt to seize control of pricing and distribution of 1/6th of the world's largest economy is successful. Their machinations in this regard would make former propagandists for Pravda blush.
JamesG @12:43
"... the financial crash which arose from the ridiculous dogma of unfettered 'free-markets' plus several pointless right-wing oil-patch wars,..." Read your history, sir, please. Carter's and Clinton's insistence on what became known as sub-prime lending, and 2003-08 Democratic refusal to introduce banking reform led to 'low-doc/no doc' mortgage mortuaries.
'Unfettered,' indeed!'
In re 'several pointless oil-patch wars' - are you speaking of Hussein's war with Iran, invasion of Kuwait, chemical warfare against Kurds, and cleansing of Iraq's marsh populations?
.... .... In your Utopia, is there space for Kuwaitis?
Mind,I ask for neither apologies for nor explanations of UK hand in drawing Middle East national boundaries.
Best regards, from Central America's oldest democracy, John Moore
On reading a book about quantum mechanics (as you do to relax), I came upon this quote from Rutherford which struck me as very pertinent to Nurse
With his appeal for multidisciplinary studies Nurse must be thinking of degrees in Business Studies with Golf Course Management, or perhaps Eng, Lit with Ballet.
kellydown
War language. Sinking ships and shooting down aeroplanes were impersonal activities for sailors and pilots. The minute you accepted that what you had killed was more than just an inanimate object you failed to function properly.retireddave
BUT the reason the left are more likely to go along with CAGW (world-wide) is the scope for central control that it offers. Whereas people of the right are more freedom loving and sceptical of big government of any kind.
Sorry for picking up on yours out of a thousand similar comments here making the same erroneous point again and again and again, but the evidence suggests that the more 'authoritarian/leftist/freedom-hating' a government the less they believe in the climate doomsday shite. China, which single-handedly scuttled COP15 and thus saved us from the compulsory environmental opiate for the masses, is still run by Chairman Mao's Communist Party. It is high time for right-wing climate skeptics to stand and salute the red flag.
theduke - "identikit" is a facial composite system for constructing "wanted" pictures.
It's an American term - the British version was called Photo-Fit.
Bish,
This is a bit late, but never mind. I don't think any of us really know what the Left or the Right really mean, now. Hence, as you imply, there is no 'Identikit'.Tim Yeo vs Graham Stringer. My family, for many generations, always voted Labour. My dad is still a Trotskyite - bless his socks (Reminds me of an old story about Confucius - he and his friends where walking down some road and they came across an old man, squatting by the way. And Confucius started beating him with his stick. His friends tried to hold him back, asking "What are you doing?". He said "I can respect a young man trying to discover himself but a man of 60?!"). There was a Left that hated the State (in those days it was called 'bourgeois') and deeply distrusted, knew it for the corporatist, incestuous, slug of a parasite that it is (isn't the State always a parasite, a foreign body?). Of course, they had 'absurd' dreams of a better world - but don't we all? Hence, on this, I'm with Goeff, though I will never vote Labour - or Tory (or UKIP, for other reasons).
Trouble is we don't have politicians representing the people any more, simply their own careerist vested interests in what is now a global political world. Which explains why their policies make absolutely no sense for the countries they are supposedly representing but are rather pushing EU/UN aims.
Political definitions have become grossly distorted, deliberately so I feel, so that now we seem to have simply one political class representing Big Government!! Vote for whichever party and you get the same overall thrust of policies with just a little tinkering round the edges.
Free market capitalism was never the problem, it is the source of wealth, it is Crony Capitalism that is the major problem and that is enabled by Big Government.
"Free market capitalism can be defined as "a system wherein individuals are free to pursue their own interests, make voluntary exchanges, and hold private property rights in goods and services." Allowing consumers and producers to trade at mutually agreed upon prices, free market capitalism is a system characterized by voluntary rather than coercive exchange. In such a system, the role of government is limited: protecting individuals' basic rights to life, liberty, property, and association; providing a legal system for the enforcement of contracts; and defending individuals against internal and external threats of physical force.
By contrast, whether referred to as cronyism, corporatism, mercantilism, liberal fascism, or venture socialism, crony capitalism is simply the cooperation of government and business. While this cooperation benefits the involved business and politician(s), it generally hurts the politically and corporately unconnected. Furthermore, the power and benefits of crony capitalism can often lead to corruption, a fact which James Madison recognized when he stated, "Wherever there is an interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done, and not less readily by a powerful & interested party than by a powerful and interested prince."
The mechanisms of crony capitalism are numerous: Bailouts, stimulus, special loans, too-big-to-fail, favors, mandates, barriers to entry, political appointments, tax breaks, campaign contributions, 'sole-source' procurement, connections, grants, government-union cooperation, exemptions, government sponsored enterprises, political insider trading, and legal bribery.
Unlike in a free market capitalist system, under crony capitalism it is often more profitable for businesses to spend resources lobbying legislators for handouts in the form of grants, loans, or tax advantages, and protections against competition in order to increase their profits. In turn, the government's willingness to hand out special privileges promotes the politically well-connected rather than those who seek to earn the preference of investors and consumers based on merit. The gains of such activities usually accrue to the businesses and politicians involved at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. Consumers have to pay higher prices due to decreased competition, and taxpayers have to foot the bill for loans, grants, bailouts, and tax breaks. Thus, crony capitalism creates a system of privatized gains and "socialized losses." "
http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/library/business-and-economics/free-market-capitalism-vs-crony-capitalism
Again we seem to have deliberate confusion where crony capitalism is described as free market and the 'solution' to the problems encountered is given as further govt. regulation - the opposite of the truth and so the spiral downwards continues!!!
And the beneficiaries, certainly not the people, but rather Big Government, Big Banking, Big Corporate interests, all in partnership with the UN whose powerbase continues to grow!!
Indeed, Marion.
The irony is is that Marx very much praised 'Capatilism' and the 'productive forces' that it is supposed to unleash. He therefore was very much against, in his more lucid moments, 'interference' in the 'market'. All for laissez fair!