Martin Durkin VS Brian Cox (That Science Bloke From D-Rream)

Martin Durkin isn't a happy bunny. The physicist professor Brian Cox from D -Ream did a lecture on the BBC about the role of television programmes in promoting science, and in relation to this - how television documentaries presented by both scientists and documentary makers handle contentious scientific issues. I won't summarise too much on what he says as the entire 40 minute lecture can be found on this link. (The specific bit containing the furore I mention and Durkins documentary are in the second part, but I recommend watching all of it, it is a very concise and thoughtful look at how TV and science should be handled.) Cox explains the tendency of TV and journalism to provide "balance" on contentious scientific issues, which can lead to the elevation of junk science as somehow equivalent to the rigorously scrutinised scientific consensus in the eyes of the lay public. How a polemical "maverick" can pass flat earth science as somehow fact based in evidence based research, when it is largely opinion from unsolicited sources. Cox is obviously troubled by how increased "vetting" of sources and the veracity of the material may be seen as some kind of censorship which could harm the reputation of science. It is certainly not the case that Cox is advocating himself as some latter day inquisitor ready to silence a latter day Galileo for pissing around with his heavy balls off a steeple tower as James Delingpole and Martin Durkin may have you believe, as they blow hard on their toy trumpets.

Durkin is upset because Cox showed an excerpt of his documentary as the kind of "bollocks" that he was on about. That it may be seen as a factual piece and not as a hypothetical piece of "polemical cack" that may be a more accurate moniker. (To be fair Cox doesn't directly say it is the latter) Durkin then responded with a rebuttal he christened "Big Daft Cox" which really sums up the childish and petulant name calling Durkin seems so fond of (1).

Durkin, like Dellingpole is not averse to resorting to passive aggressive abuse of someone who has the temerity of questioning the validity of the climate change deniers science, he even gets a Godwins in early as well. (which the deniers never hesitate to point out is one of the cardinal sins of the "warmists", on every fucking occasion.) Guys if you are going to put your heads above the parapet expect some "critical" feedback. No-one should be afraid of critical analysis if they are as certain as they say they are. The response uses the typical tricks of the pseudo science trade.

"This year’s BBC Huw Wheldon lecture was delivered by pop star and celebrity-physicist Brian Cox, who was telling us how science should be reported on television.

Brian looks like a rebel. One of the kids. He has long hair and wears a T-shirt under his jacket. But appearances can deceive. I’ve met countless grungy greens who are every bit as censorious and freedom-hating as the most well-ironed Nazi."

The taking stuff out of context swiftly follows.

And, as it turns out, Brian is about as rebellious as Captain Mainwaring. He says it’s the job of documentary makers to relay to the public science which has been approved by the scientific establishment.

He didn't say that. He said scientists doing these documentaries should point out that the currant body of scientific evidence backs up their claims, and that laymen polemics, or the people responsible for these documentaries should be honest in saying "look this is just my opinion", or "there is no peer reviewed evidence to support these claims." He does not say that polemic pieces don't have a place, and for that matter neither do I.

"The logic of his descent into censorship went like this (it so often does): Science is really important – just look at the need to combat global warming. Government funding is therefore vital. And television ‘has a big responsibility to get the science right’."

Combating a potentially serious threat to the climatic welfare of the human homeworld is sort of a big deal. I know that Delingpole and Durkin think they are being all rebellious and clever by defying the "madness of the crowd", but based on what? Climate change scepticism is growing, leaders seem more inclined to go with that sentiment as well. They better be right about their "campaign for truth" or their may be serious consequences for society.

"He admits that his argument ‘does sound rather authoritarian’ and asks himself blithely towards the end, ‘Have I been led to an Orwellian conclusion? … I don’t know.’"

Well no. He never says stuff like "Swindle" should be banned. Just that the viewing public have a right to know that documentaries like Durkin's was counter to the rigorously scrutinised scientific consensus (which I must emphasise is NOT the same thing as conventional wisdom) that currently exists on the subject. That his views were his own and not based on peer reviewed scientific sources. I don't see this as any less dictatorial as product manufacturing guidelines being made to publish accurate data about their product, and what in reality it is or isn't.

Durkin really starts firing on all cylinders now.

"His special worry is global warming. The problem appears to be this. Lots of people don’t believe it. Despite the fact that there is almost total acceptance of this ridiculous theory in the media, many ordinary people just don’t buy it."

Firstly it wasn't exclusively about climate change. Secondly, yes there are lots of people who don't believe it. Many ordinary people (who don't have advanced degrees in climatology I might add.) don't buy it . But nearly every scientist in the field does!! People are of course free to believe what they want. However I think people deserve the right to have the objective evidence for and against presented to them, with transparency in the veracity of varying claims on a contentious topic. I do think we have an odd situation going on here when there is such a discrepancy in the views of the lay public and the scientific observations.

"So if some scoundrel (like me) pops up and says the science behind this garbage is bunkum, the scientific establishment – Cox & Co – become furious."

Rule number three of a climate change denier. Play the "voice in the wilderness" taking on the "establishment" card. Cox wasn't ranting like a loony anyway. If you are going to espouse a view that flies in the face of decades of painstaking research, and call it bullshit, expect a "robust" response!

"And I know to my cost what it’s like when they turn on you."

Yeah they pay you lots of cash to look at big skyscrapers in Hong Kong on a boat, and look wistfully at the Angel of the North. (2)

Durkin now turns his fire on the peer review process that is designed to ensure that a paper is rigorously scrutinised before being published in a respectable scientific journal.

"Peer review happens when an article is submitted for publication to a science journal. The editor doesn’t know whether the author is talking out of his hat or not, so he sends it out to other scientists working in the same field to (anonymously) pick holes in it. If the others say it’s fine he’ll print it. If not, he doesn’t.

"Peer review is at best imperfect. At worst it’s a rather nasty form of censorship within the scientific community. Good papers are frequently rejected. Rubbish is often printed."

Oh Martin! Where to start. The editor may know about the topic for a start, at the very least they may have a background knowledge of science (does tend to help if you edit a scientific journal). Secondly anonymity helps guarantee a fairer environment for scientists to lay into a paper, and not to cause fall out by either knowing the author or each other. Thirdly the editors don't just either bin or print. They can say that the author must perhaps cite one source as conjecture, or remove a dubious source prior to publication. Or rewrite the article to a higher standard and print it at a later date.

Peer review is obviously imperfect, all systems designed by man are. But I challenge Durkin to come up with a better alternative.

The fourth canard of the climate change denier is the "It's all a conspiracy to set up a new socialist world order" argument. Hence he starts to claim:

"Their reputations have been built on certain theories (like global warming). Their grant funding depends on the wide acceptance of these theories."

"Cox and his chums in the scientific establishment love to portray themselves as simple well-meaning scientific folk. But as anyone who has experienced the wrath of the scientific establishment will attest, it’s a significant political force, bullying politicians and beating up critics."

"But science is incredibly political. Whole careers are built on, and the funding of entire institutions depend on certain ‘scientific truths’, or as they should be called, ‘funding excuses’."

"Global warming isn’t just the best funding wheeze they’ve hit upon since the Cold War."

This claim that it is all some big con dreamt up by the "establishment" (3) to tax the schmucks like us never makes much sense to me. For a start it hasn't worked. If as they say; it was all a big conspiracy - did no legally binding treaty get formed at Copenhagen by the socialist brotherhood or whoever? Shouldn't they run with it? Secondly the modern scientific method doesn't work that way, and is much more adept at spotting woo than in the past. Popular climate change studies have been around for a few decades, if the ACC theory had been as riddled with holes as the skeptics claim, it wouldn't have survived long enough to become as "orthodox" as it is. A sort of survival of the fittest of ideas occurs. Intense scrutiny would have rendered it to the wastebin of bad ideas about 25 years ago. Finally as a tool to "scare" the public into punitive taxation it is a lousy scaremongering one. Politicians have used flat earth tales to bullshit the masses, but they have two major things that allow them to be used to this effect that AGW doesn't. Number one they appeal to popular prejudice and misconceptions, and number two; they are abstract and objectively hard to prove. Methods to combat AGW far from appealing to popular sentiment are often inconvenient and unpopular such as increasing the cost of flying and petrol. And AGW can be studied and researched, it is tangible, not some abstract subjective threat.

The debate about man made climate change may seem to be a scientific spat, it is not. It is politically motivated. If you listen to a denier for long enough, the real reason they oppose the ACC theory eventually comes out:

"What’s more, the political views of scientists are inevitably, profoundly coloured by their almost complete reliance on big state funding. Predictably, most of them have the trite anti-capitalist worldview that almost always go with it."

" It’s also a repository for all the green, middle class anti-capitalist prejudices which are part and parcel of the Western intellectual worldview."

Is it unsurprising that both Durkin and Dlingpole class themselves as neo-liberal libertarians? The anti-ACC movement is highly ideologically motivated, so don't think ill of me when I consider them a tad hypocritical to sneer at the majority of scientists who do support the ACC theory as valid, as only motivated by politics and special interest. Perhaps some do actually value objective research even if it doesn't fit in with their world view.

(1). Durkin reputedly fell out with a geneticist who criticised the material in "Swindle" and called him "A big daft cock" So the title of the riposte is quite ironic.

(2). See this post on the "Trillion Pound Horror Story."

(3). "Establishment" is a conspiracy theorist buzzword. You don't have to split hairs about who is part of the nebulous "establishment", it sounds all X-Files, and it protects you from being sued for libel if you name names.

Good News About the Ozone Layer

The UN scientists who undertook the "Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2010" have stated that the Montreal protocol of 1987, when 196 countries phased out the use of CFC's has meant that 2010 is really the first year when the thinning of the ozone layer, which led to the "hole" over the Antarctic discovered in the 80's - has not increased, but not yet decreased either. Hopefully this reduced level of CFC's means that the worst of the damage has been prevented. And that a concerted collective effort to curb a pollutant has been (so far) successful.

The CFC's creating the hole in the ozone layer was one of the most famous popular environmental focal points of the 1980's, yet was and still is rather misunderstood by many. It was a tragic tale of a very promising bunch of compounds having the ability to unleash a terrifying chain of events under the right conditions, which would lead to one of the most surprising examples of scientific unforeseen consequences. The hole in the ozone layer was a big concern in the 80 and 90's and led to Montreal being enacted to curb but not fully stop CFC's as well as things like freon and halon fire extinguishers dumping this stuff into the stratospheric ozone layer. As I said it does still remain a not well understood phenomena in parts of the lay population. The hole (it is actually more of a zone of depleted ozone, than a literal hole in the sky.) is sometimes blamed on man made climate change, whilst it is really a different topic altogether. Though the two do have some interlapping points, which really take us on other trajectories elsewhere. Was this why the Daily Star proclaimed that this story "proved" Global warming [their words] was just "hot air"? Many of the comments on the Expresses report of the story seem to confuse the two issues as one. So what is all this ozone malarkey then?

This will be only a summary of what the "ozone thingy" is all about. I mean who the hell am I, a bloody science teacher? About 20 to 30 kilometers up, in the stratosphere there is a diffuse band housing 90 percent of the planets ozone in a layer called the ozone layer. Ozone is essentially 3 chemically linked oxygen molecules, rather than the two linked ones you normally get in atmospheric oxygen. At this height the thinner air allows more UV radiation to saturate the molecules up there. This means that the UV can slice individual oxygen molecules off which attach to other paired up oxygen molecules, creating ozone. This ozone is also chopped up into normal oxygen by UV, which can then have other single molecules latch on and create some more ozone. This effect, with its interactions - also has the useful ability to shield the surface (and all us lot) from the most harmful levels of UV radiation such as UVC and the most dangerous wavelengths of UVB, so we get suntans and plant food, and not cancers and sterilized single celled lifeforms. A natural radiation shield that stops us getting zapped by our own suns less welcoming side. The molecules being chopped and shifted in the layer mean that it is constantly seeing ozone created then destroyed, then created again, all in a level of finely tuned equilibrium, and it is this equilibrium where CFC's do the damage.

CFC's or chlorofluorocarbons (or bromocarbons) were created in the late 19th century for use as refrigerants and propellant gasses and expander aerosols. They were initially seen as the saviour of this kind of chemical product. They took over from stuff that was either flammable or poisonous or both together. CFC's were neither. By using halogens rather than hydrogen bonded to carbon, they didn't burn, and lacked the unpleasant properties of older stuff used fo their new purposes. They were also very stable, well they were down on the ground. In the 1970's and 80's it was noticed (by amongst others James "Gaia Theory" Lovelock and others) that the ozone layer was thinning. It became known that CFC's which had been pumped into the atmosphere for 60 plus years, were themselves starting to degrade by UV bombardment in the upper atmosphere, it had just taken a while to degrade them. Single chlorine and even worse - bromine atoms were energised and broke free where they could interact with the ozone and "steal" the third atom, which could go on to eat into more ozone molecules. It is reckoned that through this and further catalytic reactions, one of these radicals could devour 100 000 ozone molecules, throwing the equilibrium to a sharp deficit of ozone to oxygen produced. Montreal was implemented to prevent the CFC's from overwhelming this layer to an unsalvagable level.

For me if the report singles out that the damage to the layer has been stemmed, then this is a great success story for evidence based scientific assessment and damage limitation of a serious problem. That perhaps a situation caused [unintentionally] by man on the planets ability to sustain life as we know it, can be rectified by reasoned collective action led by scientific methodology to prevent a positive feedback point of no return. It provides hope that a workable solution plan to counter man made climate change (which is different to this phenomena I might add.) is achievable in a reasoned and pertinent timescale. We may get ourselves unwittingly in these scrapes, but we can get out of them if the will is there.

*I'm pretty sure some bright spark somewhere is going to comment that if we aren't all going to get "cooked" by the ozone hole (usually worded "well they used to say that the ozone hole would kill us all.") after all then perhaps it should follow that man made climate change won't be such a big deal after all. Let us remember that it took a concerted effort to remove the CFC's. It didn't magically mend itself. Which I'm sure will be forgotten by the writers of this kind of stuff.

BP Stops My Postings (And Oil Leaks... Or Not.)

In regards to the Deepwater Horizon Oil leek in the Gulf of Mexico, I was going to write an entry saying that President Obama should perhaps give some consideration to the views of scientists who proposed using a nuclear charge to seal the borehole that was seeping out the huge volumes of oil (a shy 4 million barrel fulls), which was caking itself all over the sea and coast of that region, doing awful damage. The nuke -in theory; should have melted the hole, sealing it off. This would have been a pathetic attempt on my part to look all controversial. Dropping nukes on the US coast? What next? Although the USSR (when it existed of course) did use nukes to seal gas leaks. The gist of my argument was if an environmental disaster like this one couldn't really be abated after two months, after several attempts to seal it failed, and they were forced to put a big metal box over the leak and try to gather up the oil collected to surface tankers (a sticking plaster solution), whilst the black stuff was tarring up such a vast region. How far would a democracy in peace time situations go in order to combat such a catastrophe. The nuclear option would have been REALLY unpopular, but it may have had a decent chance of actually sealing the borehole. (although the geological nature of the well seems not clear, which some have contributed to causing the blast) It really was down to how receptive to "novel" (an understatement) solutions were the White House going to be.

But as of the 16th July, those tasked with stopping it, seem to have put a cap on the leak that has contained it. Put those nukes away then, we don't need them. The tests on the caps integrity over 48 hours seemed to show the leak is contained, however there are some tentative reports that gas and oil has been detected seeping out of this cap too, so it may not be over yet. The plan is to settle the flow of the well, so that the water above it keeps the oil in it by the use of relief wells extracting the oil, where the cap can then be removed and mud and cement will plug the well, like a kind of dental filling for the rockbed. So fingers crossed this is; at last - the beginning of the end.

The whole affair is as messy as the oil it dumped on the beaches and the creatures that got in the way, by having the misfortune of living around it. When we hear that the crew of the Deepwater Horizon had concerns for the safety of the rig. That the amounts of methane in the well was not known. That the rig had reportedly felt unstable during drilling. And most importantly eleven men never returned from the Horizon, which is now a lump of burnt metal on the sea floor. Then there is the financial costs, three and a half billion dollars of BP's money in stopping the leak and cleanup fees. The lowest company share values in 14 years. The fact that BP will have to sell off petrol stations (and the jobs of people who had nothing to do with the leak.) and other things to meet the costs. The compensation to the people who live in the area and the victims families (who deserve every penny). The fall out between the U.S and a company with British in the title. And the ecological damage. Oiled creatures, and the fact that lots of the oil is on the sea bed where it is harder for nature to degrade it. (though there is little British about it these days.) A truly horrible situation, hopefully coming to an end.