“Sorry son, don’t like the haircut”

DAMN I was going to sleep.

This from Malcolm Turnbull:

“NYTimes: Prison Population Can Shrink When Police Crowd Streets http://t.co/1a6vHnuL”

Oh thank you Malcolm. Another pass-on from America, where someone can get shot for entering the wrong driveway, can get mass-beaten by police, but where the relentless propaganda is that the best way to protect freedom is to curtail the individual and empower the instutution. Let someone carry a gun, but put RFIDs on students; let the gun makers thrive, and use drones to spy on citizens.

Back here in Australia, I am old enough to remember a darker era of policing, exemplified by what was a catch-phrase in the 1970s and 1980s:

“Sorry, son, don’t like your haircut.”

So here’s a story I’ve related before: that I knew someone who was arrested – not gently – on a charge of “resist arrest”. That’s sufficiently recursive to boggle the mind, but the most salient detail – the one that got a 1980s magistrate laughing out loud at an uncomfortable police prosecutor, is this.

At the time of the arrest, and at the court appearance, the individual in question was immobilised by a leg cast (plaster, not one of those plastic scaffolds we use now) that started at the pelvis and ended at the ankle.

The entire thing was a joke: merely a probationary constable getting a dose of the red mist at a cricket match, grabbing someone from behind at random, and taking exception when they tried to brush off the hand. The individual in question is and always was one of the most harmless people imaginable. Not harmless as in “wouldn’t harm a fly”, more “harmless as in Bernie Fraser would need four pounds of dope, a fifth of scotch and a hammer-blow to the head to be so laid back.”

To be more personal. I’ve been spread-eagled by a country cop for the crime of being the first to arrive at a car accident. I wasn’t in the accident, I was just the next car down the road, and someone else called the ambulance, and the ambos called the cops, and my teenage nemesis saw red when he saw me. The ambos talked him down.

Or there’s the friend of mine who didn’t even have to break the speed limit to get hassled: merely driving a 1970s V8 Ford Falcon Cobra (in imitation of the Moffat car that won Bathurst) was enough.

And personally? I’ve never even managed an arrest – which is probably an admission of failure as a journalist – let alone a conviction. I’m boring and somewhat conventional.

No, I won’t feel safer with an infestation of street police to take offence at my haircut or face.

And if I had one wish, it would be for the Liberals to stop telling Australia is should copy America in all things. I vowed long ago never to return to the USA, and I don’t wish it to be imported to Australia.

No, cybercrime isn’t bigger than the drug trade – not even by inflated industry estimates

One of my decisions for 2013 was to moderate how I express myself on Twitter. That doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy other people slinging it around…

Twitter was host to a row between @Asher_Wolf and News’ Claire Porter, @ClaireRPorter about this article: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/day-of-reckoning-is-coming-for-the-web-says-amit-yoran-former-director-of-us-department-of-homeland-security/story-e6frg6n6-1226565364997

Ms Wolf complained that the story was a little too fan-like (euphemism). It’s hard to disagree when the third par says “Amit Yoran is kind of a big deal.”

But it’s this line that I’m going to take issue with:

“Cyber security threats are in fact so common that more money is being made from cyber crime than from drug trafficking, Yoran said.”

Ahem. Here’s a UN source about drug trafficking (http://www.un.org/en/ga/president/66/Issues/drugs/drugs-crime.shtml):

“In 2009, the value of illicit trade around the globe was estimated at US$1.3 trillion and is increasing.”

And here’s a story (http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/cybercrime-costs-338bn-to-global-economy-more-lucrative-than-drugs-trade/57503) about the value of cybercrime:

“Norton reports that cybercrime is costing the global economy $338 billion a year, overtaking a still a lucrative trade in the underground drugs market.”

Norton is wrong, and ZDNet was unspeakably lazy to report it – since it took me just one Google search to find the UN data (search terms: global drug trade billions – it’s currently the number two result).

It’s also lazy for anyone to cite ZDNet’s report to support their own – not because of any systemic problem specific to ZDNet, simply because it’s not a primary source. Just because a journalist printed it doesn’t make it true.

The long and the short of it is this: the drug trade is worth around three times the cybercrime trade. But the computer industry has a long, long history of making itself bigger. A mature industry now, it still behaves like Chester the dog from Loony Tunes, trying to ingratiate itself with Spike, trying to prove it’s important, stealing gravy to add to its own steak.

Cybercrime is important. But it’s not bigger than the drug trade. It’s self-aggrandising for the industry to claim it; it’s lazy for journalists to report it.

Smithsonian feeds the quacks

“Over thousands of years, gold has been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, inner ear infections, facial nerve paralysis, fevers and syphilis. Now, preliminary findings suggest a new application for tiny grains of gold – destroying cancer cells.”

With that line, the Smithsonian Magazine demonstrates a journalistic habit that undermines science reporting, while at the same time giving comfort to promoters of pseudo-science. A journalist with a story, going in search of a Grand Narrative for the lead.

The rest of the story is fine: a straightforward discussion of research. But the “wisdom of the ancients” is not, I’d suggest, the right “grand narrative” for a serious health story.

“Over thousands of years gold has been used to treat” is linked by the Smithsonian piece to this journal paper. It’s just a throwaway line at the start of the paper, which examines gold-based therapy for arthritis and tuberculosis. Interestingly, that paper notes that “Eventually, gold therapy was extended to arthritis and lupus erythematosus, because of the belief that these diseases were forms of tuberculosis.”

That belief has long been proven wrong … but what of the rest of the list? “Inner ear infections, facial nerve paralysis, fevers and syphilis”. The Smithsonian doesn’t provide a citation, let alone discuss whether any of these treatments were effective.

Ancient Egypt used dung in treatments. That doesn’t somehow suggest they knew something about feces that we since lost; it means they were ignorant and superstitious, and based their treatments on not on science, but on magic.

They’d have used unicorn penis to treat cancer if they could get it: that doesn’t make it an effective treatment, it just sweeps unicorn penis up in the “try everything” pharmacopeia of ancient society.

Spurious credibility is exactly what pseuds, frauds, snake-oilers, ripoff merchants, gull-deceivers, anti-vaxers, crystal-sellers, homeo-sue-anyone-who-disagrees-pathy, chiro-save-a-laywer-for-us-practic and every other quack relies on to draw new, desperate suckers into their net.

Well done, Smithsonian.

Wireless spectrum scare-story: $400 per year per user?

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If Ord Minnet’s data are to be believed, the federal government’s spectrum reserve price is going to add $400 per year to “broadband consumers”.

If, of course, the Daily Telegraph got its understanding of the Ord Minnet numbers right.

Let’s take the number as read, and since I can’t see why a mobile investment would be recovered from fixed broadband users, let’s confine the calculation to the country’s 5.8 million wireless subscribers. Finally, let’s take one other number Ord Minnet’s Brad Dunn gave to the Tele:

“The bill to purchase enough spectrum to cover the 22.6 million population will be approximately $1.5 billion.”

With 5.8 million subscribers, $400 per subscriber would yield $2.3 billion in the first year alone. Or to put it another way: to recover $1.5 billion in a year, the additional cost to users would only need to be $258, not $400.

So that didn’t work.

Not only that, but spectrum is a multi-year investment. Telstra doesn’t have to recover $1.5 billion in the first year; $150 million over ten years would pay it back (yes, I am ignoring the cost of capital).

If you ignore any kind of ramp-up, then Telstra’s current 4G customers – around 375,000 last August according to ComputerWorld – would have to repay $150 million in the first year.

Would you be surprised to find out that $150 million divided by 375,000 is $400?

But that’s only the first year (and from the laziest calculation possible). If you presume that Telstra wants to have 10 million 4G customers after ten years, and use a simple linear ramp-up, the per-year spectrum cost recovery by the tenth year falls to $15 per user.

A more complex calculation is to assume that Telstra would spread the $1.5 billion over ten years so that each user pays the same amount towards spectrum costs. Then, ignoring the cost of capital, the extra burden on subscribers is a paltry $29 per year (or less than $2.50 per month).

Even with a 10% cost of capital – if my spreadsheet is correct, which I don’t guarantee, but it's good enough for this case – the annual per-user recovery with a ten-year ramp up is $132 – or a little over $10 per user per month.

There’s plenty of room in a 4G premium alone to cover that.

If any of my numbers are close to reality - closer, say, than $400 per user per year - then perhaps the government's spectrum floor price isn't as stupid as people are saying.

A post for a friend I haven't met

You might say I’m writing this for a friend.

Call it an awareness thing. I’m not competent to diagnose my friend’s condition, but I know how difficult it can be if your body decides to lay out a puzzler for the experts. So here’s the early history of Ms T’s condition, as always related with her permission.

Disclaimer: yes, I have told some of this in a disjointed way, before. This is more linear timeline, with a specific purpose. I won’t be offended if you skip over it.

The reason we want to set this on the record is to illustrate how, with a rare condition, the symptoms can deceive.

Ms T’s condition is the immune system disorder known as vasculitis. The immune system – I guess it’s the T-cells because they’re on the list of “things we look for in blood tests” – has decided to nuke her blood vessels.

That’s not particularly common, but there’s more. In my limited understanding, vasculitis typically starts with things like capillaries – there are some typical symptoms, purpling near the skin and so on. Ms T’s started with major arteries: one carotid, the celiac artery, one renal artery.

The celiac artery was the one that delivered the symptoms that got us a diagnosis. The rest ran under the radar at the time. And the symptoms didn’t actually point to the cause.

What happened – nearly three years ago now – was that her stomach shut down. Between January and March, she went from steak-after-bushwalks (15 km was a good day) to not eating (because every attempt ended in pain), and only able to walk with assistance. We tried a walk in February to see if her appetite would recover; I carried her he 200 meters back.

Yes, we were seeing the doctor. After several visits and nothing working, he referred us for imaging. The clinic had a six-week waiting list.

So we waited.

Things got moving once the specialist took a look. Ms T couldn’t eat because there wasn’t stomach there, just ulcer. So with the specialist speaking kind of urgently down the phone, the imagers waived the waiting list and opened early the next day for an CRT (or was it an MRI? Anyhow, a big machine that takes pictures).

The next day we were in hospital – and still running with the wrong diagnosis (a rare liver cancer).

So: most of Ms T’s condition was (externally) asymptomatic – the extent of damage was only revealed by imaging. Here only symptoms where symptoms not of vasculitis, but of the collateral damage.

Now, I could make a political point of this, something about the state of the health system, public versus private, blah blah blah. Once in the hands of the public specialists of RPA, I’ve got nothing but good things to say. Others have a different experience; I’m not responsible for that, nor am I going to change my report.

What I’m relating is how difficult a diagnosis can be if you have a rare disease. The GP got it wrong; the first specialist got it wrong. RPA – with six specialists taking their shot over nine weeks – ended up with a coin toss, vasculitis or endocarditis.

There simply isn’t an easy test. We tossed the coin the right way. She lived. Rough, but alive. We have the chemo, but right now it’s going in through a vein, which is roughly that we’re killing the T-cells from a safe distance and the side-effects are manageable.

The point of this story?

Right now, someone I know only on Twitter is threading through the labyrinth of mysteries. It won’t be the same thing as Ms T, unless the universe is throwing up the kind of thundering coincidence that makes you throw aside a whodunit in disgust.

But if something is taking months to work out, I’ll place a small side bet on “rare”. And if it’s not racing ahead, I’ll place a much smaller bet on “not cancer” and hope I’m right. But this difficult, I’ll guess that my Twitter followee is on the long road down rare chronic illness.

I hope not. I hope it turns out to be easy and innocuous and temporary.

If not, there’s good news and bad.

The bad is that it’s a very, very rough road.

The good is that many, many of us will stand alongside you. One last story in this overly long post.

In the darkest days – when Ms T was about 35 kg, we were still waiting for the first round of imaging, and I was watching her die – the previous owner of Bunjaree Cottages (which we now operate as our labour of love) gave us a free weekend in a cottage. We’d missed a regular booking, she phone, I told the story, and bingo.

That wasn’t all.

She also gave some life-saving advice – she’s a trained nurse – that kept Ms T going long enough. Just. She suggested something that was revolting, but extremely nutritious in small amounts. Ms T’s weight bottomed out at 31 kg, but she lived. Mrs A – the nurse – had experienced catastrophic weight loss before.

Right now, I can only pass on support and advice. But any of us in the same world are here to help, whether it’s moral, practical, whatever. Because governments aren’t helping: we only have each other.

Go well, Ms C. Our thoughts go with you.

Harvard Business Review goes crackpot with “green the Australian desert” scheme

Please remember this: what I’m about to discuss is an article in Harvard Business Review. You know: a highly respected publication with an international reputation.

In so far as a single article suffices for this, I’m about to drop that reputation in the blender and ask the immortal question “Will it Blend?”

The article in question is this one, “When Social Enterprise Demands Mega Scale”, in which a guru of e-mail marketing, Arthur Middleton Hughes, suggests solving climate change by turning on the desal plants on a vast scale, to turn 80 percent of Australia’s deserts into Paulownia hardwood plantations. This, he confidently asserts, would soak up about 80 percent of the world’s excess CO2 and pay for itself through hardwood sales.

The numbers are all wrong.

Quote: “Australia has 834 million acres of desert”.

No, we do not. According to Geosciences Australia:

“The total desert area equates to 18 per cent of the total mainland area of Australia” – which, given Australia’s total area, means the desert area is around 137 million hectares – or 339 million acres (2.47 acres per hectare).

In other words, whatever source Mr Middleton Hughes used for our area of desert, it was more than double the actual area.

“If 80% of the Australian deserts were provided with fresh water and planted with fast-growing trees, Australian deserts could reduce the CO2 in the atmosphere of the planet by 7.4 billion tons per year.”

Nope. Because of the simple error in research, the total carbon capture available isn’t 7.4 billion tons per year – it’s 2.9 billion tons.

How does Mr Middleton Hughes propose to pay for this vast project?

“If fresh water were pumped to 80% of these deserts and trees were planted, the result could be a world hardwood export business eventually worth $2.4 trillion per year.”

Ahem: according to Globaltrade.net, the global hardwood market in 2006 was $257 billion. So there isn’t demand for $2.4 trillion worth of hardwood; the price would collapse.

And all of this ignores the environmental impact.

Australia’s deserts aren’t some kind of Martian landscape where nothing lives or grows. Rain brings the deserts into bloom: they are vital and diverse ecosystems.

Thanks, Mr Middleton Hughes, but we aren’t going to hand over deserts to a crackpot scheme that won’t work.

Ethics and activism: more than fifty shades

I’ve stayed out of the Jonathan Moylan debate because recent events have left me a little fearful of controversy. More on that later*.

If you came in late, Moylan issued a fake press release that briefly caused the price of a company called Whitehaven Coal to fall. The fall was only temporary, because the hoax was discovered and reversed; but the outcome has been a frenzy of pro- and anti-Moylan moralizing.

Apart from simplistic 140-character attack-defend-change-tack arguments on Twitter, there’s been serious words written by Bob Brown, Christine Milne and others on both sides. Because The Greens decided to endorse Moylan’s activism, they’ve become a secondary target for criticism from the centre and the right.

(Personally, as a strategy I’m not so sure their position will harm The Greens. If their constituency is genuinely “old Reds”, hardline activist positions will help them more than trying to become filthy Fabians!)

I’m not competent to assess the legality of what Moylan did, so I’m happy to leave that question to the courts. If he’s charged and found guilty, it would seem pretty clear that he broke the law; if he’s charged and cleared, it’s pretty clear the other way. It’s only an open question if ASIC decides not to lay charges.

What of the ethics?

Unlike Edward Spence, http://theconversation.edu.au/whitehaven-hoax-was-an-unethical-act-that-was-harmful-to-all-11571 writing in The Conversation, I don’t see it as a simple ethical question. I don’t regard the “informational environment” with the same awe as Spence, for a start – mostly because I don’t think such a thing exists as a single thing. A cat video on YouTube isn't quite the same as a climate denier blog isn't the same as a stock exchange announcement.

It seems to me that the essence of disobedience and activism is that you must be aware of the possible or likely consequences of your actions, and willing to accept those consequences.

In short: there is no “clean” act of resistance.

There is no way to break a law without creating an ethical quandary.

When Mahatma Ghandi led the Salt March, he was encouraging his followers to break a law (a tax on salt).

It’s easy, 80-plus years later, to endorse his position; but as it happened? When one of the immediate results of the march was 60,000 individuals sent to prison, the ethics must surely have troubled Ghandi’s sleep. He was human.

The ethical example we get from Ghandi is more complex than good-versus-evil. The activist must renounce violence; and the activist must be prepared to accept the consequences of his resistance.

It’s interesting to note that Ghandi did not consider financial harm to be the same as violence, by the way. The Salt March was directed against a particular, oppressive tax, and he wanted all Indians to boycott British textiles.

Institutions are legitimate targets of resistance. They must be: because that’s what resistance is for, to force change upon institutions. An act may be wrong-headed and ineffective (which is where I feel Moylan went wrong), but it’s not evil merely because it’s directed against a particular institution that a particular ethicist feels is sacrosanct.

*I mentioned a fear of giving offence. I’ve found myself subject to a sustained campaign against the business that I run with my wife. In particular, there are those on social media who, if they dislike what I say, bring the business into the argument. There is also a persistent troll on TripAdvisor.

Because the impacts are immediate and devastating, it is an effective threat, and one that I have to work hard to resist.

But people who will hide behind anonymity to attack individuals on the basis of what they say or believe must be resisted. To do otherwise is to cowardly hide from cowards. So I guess the risk I bear is that I will continue to be attacked. Fortunately, I have more than one way to pay the mortgage. For now, we will survive.

Sex and chemo: don’t try this at home

To echo a previous post, I write this with my wife’s consent and endorsement.

Apart from shit, another thing you’re not warned about in chemotherapy – I guess, chronic illness in general – is what will happen to your sex life.

Oh, yes. Before anyone gives me the smug and obvious: don’t bother. I’m not talking about what’s obvious, I’m talking about what’s acceptable to talk about. If you need to know the difference, you’re too jejune to understand why publishing a problem is important.

OK. The kids have left, the adults can talk. 

It’s bad enough that nobody warns you that chemotherapy can lead to an utterly catastrophic and unpredictable case of the shits. It is, perhaps, worse that doctors don’t say “we will save your life, but only if you’re ready to be celibate”.

Let me recap for people who haven’t read my previous posts on my wife’s health – Ms T to those who don’t know her, and those that know her don’t need her name.

She suffers from an extremely nasty and uncommon immune disorder. Since her T-cells have decided that blood vessels are The Enemy to Be Destroyed, the T-cells have to be suppressed. Otherwise, her arteries die. Major arteries that became useless prior to treatment included the celiac, one carotid, and one renal artery.

Unlike a cancer patient, for Ms T, chemo will be forever. If it ceases, she will die.

Now, let me present a timeline of 2012.

January: liver infection

February: replacement of celiac artery, involving a 14-inch belly incision, like a failed seppuku, matched on her left inside thigh (where the replacement blood vessel came from).

March: bone marrow failure with blood transplants in ICU

April: further surgery because the major scar wasn’t healing right (immune-suppressed, surprise me!)

May: What we thought was an infection emerged in an intimate spot. Later, this would be diagnosed as a tumour. Tumours are a risk of immune-suppression, because (obviously) there’s no response to abnormal cells. This month also involved the removal of a fast-growing facial skin cancer of the same origin.

Forget June to August: the intimate tumour was being treated as an infection, and sex was out of the question. A gynecologist finally diagnosed the growth, and surgery was scheduled for September.

September: removal of a vulval tumour. Write off this month and October for healing.

October: Post-op infection that gave us a second tumour scare.

November: All clear from everyone.

In other words: with very rare and sporadic – and occasionally drunken “fuck it, let’s try anyway” exceptions – the year 2012 from January to November offered almost no opportunities for intimacy.

It’s probably worth saying, at this point, that Ms T and I have, in our relationship, been lucky beyond any possible expectation. We met in 1987, and moved in together in the same year. We have argued, mortgaged, parented, starved, prospered, cared for my mother, raised our sons, and never lost the delicious tingle of touching each other, holding each other, the joy of a kiss or the electricity of a hand on a cheek, fingers on the arm, words we whisper when nobody else can hear. She can catch my breath in my throat, and our sons are a wonder and a joy (and, to be truthful, too damn loud and boisterous to tolerate!).

And for nearly a year, we were, perforce, celibate.

Since circumlocution is not my style, and since Ms T has okayed this: the bio-availability of a cyclophosphamide infusion is not 100 percent. Some of it is excreted: via the kidneys, sweat, tear ducts, and other fluids.

Which means that even some aspects of sex that we might both enjoy are denied us. As she said when we were discussing this post: “Oral sex is out. I don’t want to kill you.”

Is the picture forming? Good. There’s more.

In all of this a couple of other aspects arise.

The first is that a secondary treatment that Ms T suffers is high-dose steroids. These have a side-effect that skin and membranes are paper-thin.

Go on, fellas: any careless move during sex will bleed. Now, if you love your wife: try maintaining an erection after hearing the word “ouch”.

Really, it doesn’t work.

And the other problem is me. I’m an erotic wreck, brought down by worry and stress, business and mortgage, the fear of losing my wife and the fear of losing our life. I have nothing of a stiff teenager left to offer.

Whenever we can, we hold each other in the night, and wish for better. As do a million others going through this experience. We know you, and share your frustration. Nobody warned us, and quite probably, nobody warned you.

Bushwalking again

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I hope you might understand how much this means to us: for the first time since very early 2011, Ms T attempted a bushwalk.

For the first time in nearly two years, I had the delight of holding her hand over steps and rocks, talking about the flowers and birds we saw, and stopping to admire yabbies in the creek. The kind of stuff that makes bushwalking worthwhile.

Until she fell ill, we were pretty keen bushwalkers. Not “extreme sports” types – we’re too old. She’d come to bushwalking in her early 40s (one of the reasons we love and now operate Bunjaree Cottages is its proximity to bushwalks), and because it made her feel good, we continued. We’re not campers, we’re wimpy day-walkers who used to pick out walks in the 15-20 km range as our favourites.

She could be pigheaded. Once, on the Southern Highlands, she rolled her ankle on a tree-root, came down on both knees, and left pretty deep cuts. We treated them with antiseptic and gauze, and revised down to a 5km walk.

The GP later noted, “if you’d gone to hospital, this wouldn’t have scarred.”

Ms T: “Who wants to sit around in a hospital waiting room instead of walking?”

For me, it was a revelation; for our marriage, a delight. Our sons loved it as well, which (since they were 7 and 9 when we started) was a bonus. There’s nothing like bushwalking for a host of things, including getting a couple of too-loud boys somewhere where their voices no longer upset you!

And they loved it – in one case, so much that he’s made nature his study at university.

And there were benefits for a total sook like me. Since Ms T never – even if we walked 24 km in a day – developed “powerful” ankles or a good sense of balance, steps, rocks, or unstable inclines meant I got to hand-hold her through it. I loved that aspect of bushwalks.

Ms T: "I didn't actually need help on that bit."

Me: "I know. I just like to touch you when we walk."

And then she fell ill, and everything changed. The immune system, for those that might doubt it, really can kill people. Ms T’s normal weight – about 55 kg – has dipped as low as 31 kg. Apart from four months in hospital in two years, there have been three months in a wheelchair, and a lot more of the time when her health was, at best, feeble.

So, no bushwalking.

Yesterday, we made our first small attempt to walk together again. We were very, very conservative: we chose the Darwin Nature Walk at Wentworth Falls, going in the reverse direction (starting at the end of the walk, near the falls) to keep us near the park and let her decide “that’s far enough”.

We covered about 4 km out-and-back, which stunned us both – and we learned that even a gentle-ish 50-meter climb with steps is hard on her surgical scar. We were so slow on the inclines that we attracted a bit of comment from more agile walkers (mostly cheerful and solicitous, so that’s okay).

And here’s just a couple of photos – excuse the camera-phone quality.

This is a grevillea servicea, otherwise known as the pink spider-flower. They were in profusion on the Darwin walk.

And this boring patch of land is actually very important. For much of the Darwin walk, there is hanging bog to the west of the boardwalk, just like this:

That’s what feeds the creek and keeps it flowing year-round. Without this “useless” land (as a developer would see it), creeks only flow after rain. The bog absorbs water, filters it, and releases it steadily into the creek. That creek eventually ends up in the Warragamba catchment – as do many other creeks and rivers, fed from bogs like this one.

Cartoonist versus climate science - the book promotion

It’s that time of year where copy-stretched editors get lax with their briefs, so it’s probably no surprise that The Age would let one of its cartoonists, John Spooner, loose on the climate science debate, here: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/sceptics-weather-the-storm-to-put-their-case-on-climate-20121228-2bz91.html.

The article is a book promotion – but that little detail is held until the end of the article. I’ll start at the start, in which Mr Spooner outrageously equates climate science to the Mayan apocalypse:

“WELL, so much for the 2012 apocalypse. If the ancient Mayans ever knew anything about the future, they made a serious miscalculation. The same fate has befallen the international climate change emergency brigade.”

See how clever that was? How funny? Climate science – which is based on measurement and observation – is the same as the faked-up media “Mayan apocalypse” scare story? We’re still here, so both the Mayans and the scientists are wrong.

In Mr Spooner’s logic, the science was proved wrong not by scientists, but by the failure of a political process. In other words, politics determines the validity of science.

He then indulges in a bit of name-calling (which is OK if you’re calling climate scientists names; anyone calling a climate sceptic names is indulging in group-think), before moving on to this:

“Anyone familiar with the judicial process knows the gravest issues of liberty and fortune are often determined by a jury selected from the public. Expert witnesses can give evidence in support of either side at a trial. The judge must rule on questions of admissibility, but in the end it is the jury that decides which scientific evidence is to be believed.”

In other words, because courts accept the decisions of the inexpert, the whole world is bound to accept inexpert opinion on science.

Then there’s this:

“In the climate debate, the only "judge" is the scientific method - a testable hypothesis followed by factual or experimental challenge.”

Wrong, Mr Spooner. You don’t understand the scientific method.

Science doesn’t start with a hypothesis – that’s a misapprehension pushed by journalists who don’t understand science. It starts with an observation. For example, quantum physics came to us, courtesy of Max Planck, because of the observations of energy radiating from black bodies. Hypothesis follows observation (as it indeed does in climate science). A hypothesis can be considered sound if it can be used to predict the behavior of a system.

“For example, everybody agrees that the warming trend paused 16 years ago, despite a corresponding 10 per cent increase in atmospheric CO2.”

No, everybody does not agree this. There is noise in atmospheric observations, but most of the extra heat is taken up by the ocean; there is no “pause” in global warming. Here’s a decent debunk, over at Discovery. http://news.discovery.com/earth/no-global-warming-hasnt-stopped-121017.html

“The reason why scientific consensus emerged in this debate is because political activists want to get things moving”, Spooner writes.

In other words, the entire IPCC process – including the review and editing of IPCC reports – is captive to activists. This is pure conspiracy theory.

The whole thing boils down to a book promo:

“I still feel that the voices of highly qualified sceptics are not heard enough. In an effort to redress this imbalance, an unusual book on the sceptics' view will be published in 2013.”

Enough said.

Seeking comment: is a “birds up close” experience a good idea?

This is on the personal blog rather than the Bunjaree Website, because I’m merely testing an idea.

I have tested this with my brother-in-law, a birder and bird photographer of 40 years’ experience, and I’d like feedback on it before I try it in earnest.

The idea is a birding weekend at Bunjaree Cottages – not for experienced birders, but for those that would like to see some of the most difficult-to-spot birds of the Australian bush close-up.

The weekend would be led by Dr Graham Cam, who has an intimate knowledge of Australia’s bird species and their ecology, and is also a noted bird photographer.

The activities would take place on the grounds of Bunjaree Cottages, and in other nearby Blue Mountains locations. We’re still working out some of the details, so feedback would be welcome.

1.     Netting

“Mist nets”, which catch birds harmlessly, have to be laid before the birds are active. Getting up before sunrise to help set the nets is optional, but certainly part of the experience!

2.     Checking the nets

This is where the fun and education happens. The party will tour the nets, getting close-ups of bird species that don't often sit still - and are murder to photograph. The birds then get sexed and banded – and if any of them have been previously banded, their bands will be recorded to be reported to the Australian Bird and Bat Banding Scheme overseen by the Department of the Environment.

Graham will be on hand to talk about all the birds found in the nets. It will be, as far as possible (remembering that the birds’ well-being is paramount), a real “bird in the hand” experience.

3.     Breakfast

You’ll be getting hungry by now, so it’s back to your cottage for breakfast.

So far, so good. The next question is this: after breakfast, which is better:

A.   Organised bird-spotting / photography

B.    Leave guests to themselves for the rest of the day

Under option A, we would select a destination that doesn’t need a 4x4 to reach, arrange a meet-up time, and spend a few hours on a photography / bird-spotting bushwalk. Under option B, guests spend the rest of their Saturday taking in the other delights of the Blue Mountains.

Anyone interested in an idea like this – let me know your thoughts in the comments!

“Not a racist”

I have mentioned before, I think, that my father – born in the 1920s – was a creature of his time, who tried as long as he could to change. His views were set hard, but I had the good fortune that he didn’t teach them to me.

In the 1980s, Japanese tourists in Katoomba might ask him for directions to Echo Point, politely and with hand-clasped bows. It would make him weep: "I might have killed their grandfather!" (He was on board ship in the pre-atomic-bomb bombardments of Tokyo).

And: he understood symbols.

He was a civil engineer, and if you look at Australia Square, shop in Bankstown Square or Carlingford Court or Penrith Plaza, his fingerprints remain.

He also served in the Royal Navy in World War Two – as a good Aussie, but Australia didn’t have enough ships, so some of our Navy volunteers were placed on English ships.

Enough. This is a story about racism, not World War Two.

When Oxford Square – corner Riley and Oxford Streets – opened, Stanley Chirgwin conceived an idea that was odd at the time. He somehow conducted a census of workers on the site, and worked out their nationality.

For the opening, he decided that every country represented on the site should see its flag flying (and the hardest to obtain was the Dutch flag, amusing since the building was in the hands of Civil & Civic, then owned by a Dutchman, Dick Dusseldorp, “Duss” in our household).

Asian flags weren’t excluded – even though my father “fought the Japanese”. His idea, in spite of an old-style Aussie racism that died hard, was inclusive. Every flag had its place.

Oh, and by the way, the Hurstville he grew up in had its fair share of Chinese market gardeners in the 1920s and 1930s, because that was the Sydney of the time.

So: when the @WeAreAustralia Twitter account makes this complaint:

“I do live in Hurstville and I think it's turning into a bit of an Asian ghetto.”

… I call bullshit and racism.

Let’s see.

My first Asian work colleague crossed my path in about 1982, and dammit, he’s good management material in a telecommunications carrier and I’m a hack! (Well done, Nguyen!)

In the subsequent 30 years, Asia has been part of my Australia.

And what have I learned in those 30 years, apart from food?

We’re all people. Really. Superficial distinctions don’t matter a damn. Asians visiting Australia as far back as the 1970s were willing to forget World War II and ask Australians for directions.

Anyone who thinks there’s a meaningful distinction that needs a lament is a sad individual.

And as for Hurstville? It wasn’t pure merino in the 1920s: why should it be now?

Government wants to mine your data, for your own good of course

If I remember my Nietzsche correctly, which I might not, one paraphrase of an aphorism runs “’for your own good’ is an expression of the will to power”.

That’s apposite in the flood of “for your good” stories that surround the world of so-called “big data”. Including this one: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/data-is-not-a-dirty-word-20121213-2bc9j.html#ixzz2FOP2LQUI  from Peter Martin, writing for Fairfax.

There’s a good reason that Peter Martin is no Ross Gittins: Martin is so easily blinded by the light, as he has been in this profile piece. In the name of “your own good”, Kim Carr – whose ministerial duties have been whittled down (presumably because nobody wants anyone like him to be the smartest person in the room), has discovered A Cause: Big Data in the Service of Citizens.

For a start, I’m wary of powerful people with catch-phrasey causes. I do sling personal money at causes from time to time, even if people who know me may consider the Rural Fire Service and SES to be merely self-interest. But when someone with a position of power gets fired up, I worry, because they downplay downsides.

Identifying the downsides is one of the handful of roles that journalists can still rightly claim: “Here’s someone with A Plan: what’s wrong with it?” is one of the most legitimate questions any journalist can ask.

Peter Martin fails.

The gist of the Fairfax story is that Big Data will let governments do a better job of identifying those who need help, before they ask for it.

I can’t argue with the idea that people need help. Without the Australian health system, my wife would now be dead AND I would be bankrupt. An American friend of mine, watching our progress through a serious, severe and chronic immune-system disorder that needs ongoing chemo and has required three surgeons this year (one involving replacing about 40 cm of artery), tells me we long ago passed the million-dollar-patient mark, were we in America.

But mining their interactions with government?

A thousand times no.

Prove to me that Senator Carr has only the purest motives; prove to me that no Australian government in my lifetime could ever have motives other than Senator Carr’s; demonstrate that his ideas will save lives or families; I will still say no.

It’s not only the Philip K Dick “pre-crime” associations that the idea brings. It’s a simple matter of corruption.

There is no way on earth that the Senator, the government, or all the functionaries employed to protect the data, can guarantee it against misuse. Anybody needs only to see the information on a screen, and they have a lever to use against an individual.

Some of them will.

And there’s no way to guarantee that the future of Commonwealth data mining will be benign – because agencies like the Tax Office are helplessly in love with Number 5’s statement: “More data! I need more data!”

And it’s always with the excuse “for your own good” – as it is in the Peter Martin article.

Nietzsche was mad, possibly syphilitic, and certainly contributed to a world view that is odious in the modern world. He was crap as a physician of the psyche, but very good as a diagnostician.

“For your own good” is merely a way to exercise power. It's the price, to descend into the scatological, for which your arse is sold. Ask yourself: is the lube worth the pain?

Remember Smith’s Weekly? (I don’t): the lesson for “player journalism”

While I endorse much of what Drag0nista says in this blog post, I disagree with one piece of her argument: that the player journalist looks like a recent development.

Somewhere in this book-burdened household, in which nearly two dozen shelves groan and the books that don’t fit sit on stacks on floors or tables, there is a book called “Remember Smith’s Weekly?” It’s a chronicle of the rise and fall of a patriotic tabloid of mid-20^th century Australia.

Among other things, it’s a rag that helped establish the Packer dynasty. But that’s not germane to this argument.

The chronicler in “Remember Smith’s Weekly” recounted its role as a player tabloid in a much more racist pre-war Australia, campaigning against Jews. I recall a cartoon whose captions read:

“May I remove my bicycle before we burn the shop, father?”

“No, son! We must be honest!”

…which was a typical racist “Jews as insurance fraudsters”

The historian telling the tale, one G Blackie of whom I know little, considered the anti-Jew campaigning of Smith’s Weekly to be important in its downfall: its attitudes were hateful during the lead-up to World War II, and during the War.

But it retained some shred of integrity: when the horror of the Holocaust emerged, Smith’s Weekly retracted.

That retraction put the magazine on the skids, and in 1950, it closed.

Pre-war, Smith’s – like many organs today – was a player. Its favoured venue was the immigration debate, its obsession “keep out Jews”. And its lessons are drear.

If you admit error, you alienate readers, and die.

What does this tell us about today’s “player journalists”? – the ones who believe their commentary agendas are right in spite of any evidence that they’re wrong?

Their bosses have learned Smith’s lesson. Never stop, never pull back, never retreat a step. If you do, the readers that believed you last week will hate you, and leave.

The problem for publishing, an activity distinct from journalism, is this: when you’re constantly acting like a complete idiot in public, your responses to a reader exodus are limited.

Look back at Smith’s: one part of its readership started drifting away when they resented its attitudes; the rest drifted away when it admitted to undeniable facts.

And now look at the vice that Fairfax and News have devised for themselves: on the one hand, readers departing because they resent the denial of facts; on the other, the inevitable loss of readers when facts will no longer be denied.

It’s a vice unique to the “player”. If you merely write facts, you won’t be burned this way. It’s when you decide that you no longer want the world of reality-based constructs, but want to – as a journalist – create your own reality, that the bill arrives, and you find that you can’t pay it.

Remember Smith’s Weekly?

The only way a journalist can RISK becoming a "player" is to know that ALL his/her facts are right. Because the player-proved-wrong is merely a dupe of others.

An outsider’s view of Nelson Mandela: a life to celebrate

I have no right to write about Mandela, surely.

Surely not. I’m not South African, black or white. I never met him. I have no experience of apartheid except through the media. All I have is a view from a distance, and experience of death.

When Nelson Mandela dies, celebrate him. He will die boasting a successful life that would be hard to match, and a successful death of similar stature.

When I was a kid, he was an activist; when I was a teenager, he was becoming a symbol; as a young adult, some of the things I learned about politics came from his imprisonment. Then he was released, then presidented, and then retired to honour, and loved the world over.

And he has lived to 94, and is still honoured in spite of the messes that still beset South Africa. They don’t taint Mandela: his name is so much a byword for his honour, integrity, stubbornness and will.

And in spite of that will – which must certainly mark Mandela as one of the hardest men the world has seen, both will and character intact in spite of the attacks directed against him – he remains without anyone that matters to try and deny him the honour, blacken his character, scandalize his repute in anything that matters.

And he reached the age of 94. And although probably not at home, with any good fortune, he will die relatively peacefully – not shot nor beaten to death like his fellows in the same struggle, whose ghosts must surely visit him with the guilt of the survivor from time to time – but merely old.

Old, loved, honoured and successful.

If you believed in a heaven, there is nought to weep about: Mandela will surely be there. If not, why weep? He fought, survived, achieved, and lived to a very great age.

He doesn’t need our tears. He doesn't need us. 

We need his life to be celebrated and remembered. We might want tears, but they won't make a difference.

Applaud Mandela's life. Remember him, and look around you: somewhere in the world, today’s activists throw up those who, in another half-century, will be held in the same regard. Find them, and support them, and remember that Mandela would tell you that he, and they, are human after all.

Good news at last (and thank you for keeping me sane)

Ms T has, as you may know, suffers from an immune disorder requiring lots of heavy cytotoxins (as well as surgery back in February that left a seppuku-scar, a couple of tumours, now gone, that frightened the daylights out of us, and other stuff).

And a great many people have said so many wonderful things to me about my previous posts, that it would be unfair to keep good news to myself. You may not know this, but it is a jack under the flat tyre of depression to know that other people understand.

So. We’ve had a little string of bits of nice news, and in my appreciation of your previous kind words, here they are.

“That’s not a cancer” – a worrying lesion gets a specialist’s cold-shoulder.

“The celiac bypass is perfect” – the surgeon following an ultrasound examining the 30cm of leg-vein that’s shunting from the aorta to the celiac artery, supplying Ms T’s liver and stomach (it may have been better if he hadn’t said to himself “damn I’m good” while looking at the pictures).

“Liver scores are good, and your kidneys are picking up” – today, at the renal specialist.

In fact, the renal said, the current round of mustard gas – sorry, cyclophosphamide – seems to be doing what it’s supposed to be doing: making the patient as sick as a dog, slaughtering the immune system, leaving the patent subject to random infections, leaving the patient defenceless against tumours that normal people wouldn’t ever know had been there because they’re dealt with and so on.

And keeping her alive.

The blood vessels remain open; the arteries that remain to her remain open (the carotid isn’t coming back, but there’s collaterals built around the blockage, thank heavens!).

The renal specialist was the most surprised, which surprised us. After agreeing with my general opinion of surgeons (“So smug I could punch him.” “Oh, everybody wants to punch surgeons, that’s how they are.”) she said to my wife, “Actually, I’m surprised at how well you’re doing. I thought you’d be on dialysis by now. If you survived.”

She did. And there’s my Christmas, along with taking care of Bunjaree Cottages for our guests (if you want to head to the Blue Mountains, we’re http://www.bunjareecottages.com.au here and there are still vacancies for the long school holiday!) and writing when there are people to write for, and doing GIS when it’s there, and wondering at life when there’s a moment to spare.

And here, as I said, is my thank you for the dear, kind, gentle and loving souls who have helped keep me sane this year. We – me and Ms T – both know what such things mean in the hard days and sleepless nights, and our appreciation is hard to adequately express. Thanks!

The plea of a deadbeat dad: how does my son enter work?

I haven’t often felt this inadequate as a parent.

No, strike that.

I have always felt inadequate as a parent. I was inadequate when Ms T was not-coping with post-natal depression and our eldest son was perfectly capable of crying for seven hours at a stretch, unless she was cradling him and dancing to early 1990s thrash-punk (he still likes The Pixies’ “Dolittle”, thank heavens). I was manifestly inadequate when he was being bullied in Year 4, to a point that was close to call-the-police. I tried to be adequate through his teens.

Now he’s nearly an adult, we get on brilliantly, and I’m insanely proud of things like his university results – where the hell does a son of mine get the seriousness to land regular “distinction” results, including in one did-it-on-spec unit that’s in the doctoral stream and he doesn’t yet have his BSc?

(This is especially poignant for me, the university drop-out because I ran out of cash in 1990.)

For someone who thought “why didn’t I know you?” when I carried my father’s coffin, that feels good. Snd I’m also gob-smacked at how he’s learned to care far and beyond his years: knowing how sick his mother is, he doesn’t maunder or rage, he simply says “yes” to whatever burden her illness brings to him. Cheerfully.

But: I have NO idea, none whatever, about how to tell him to get a start in the job market.

You see: when I started out, it wasn’t so hard. For office types, there were regular start-by-examination in any number of industries. My start was in the insurance business, as an 18-year-old clerk; I then moved to telecommunications – as a trainee with paid training – on the basis of another enter-by-exam job offering.

And I moved around a few jobs and suffered a few interviews, and then found my first niche, as a journalist specialising in technology. That was in 1987.

Since then, I have hardly ever needed to go through the indignity of job-seeking and interviews. I have been head-hunted, I have travelled with the furniture in acquisitions, and I have coat-tailed (“You do the bid, I’ll do the work and take my cut” – a wonderful way to outsource the interview thing!). But I have hardly ever actually applied for a job.

Which, as you might guess, makes me utterly useless to advise my son about how to get work in the long university break.

So: my son is intelligent, can present a decent facsimile of someone who likes the customer even if he doesn’t, can work hard, talks intelligently, likes old ladies and toddlers, and detests the very idea of making his start with McDonald’s. What should I suggest to him?

Google’s tutorial: how to lose a defamation case

How shall I put this? Bluntly, I think, is best.

It shits me to tears when the commentariat sees fit to drip venom on the result of a court case without reading the damn judgement. Even more tears, when it’s clearly a comment from someone who doesn’t understand the court case or even the legal system under which it was fought, but still sees fit to drip venom, etc.

And it shits me to tears when it’s clearly a knocked-off-in-a-hurry bit of cheap American clickbait with no reference to what happens in another country.

Enter ReadWriteWeb, with this http://readwrite.com/2012/11/26/court-rules-wrongly-that-google-is-a-publisher brick-thick intervention into Google’s Australian defamation loss.

"Court rules - wrongly - that Google is a publisher". Even even the bloody headline is wrong. 

Google is a publisher, and proud of it when it wishes to be. When it decides to let journalists into the inner sanctums of Google Maps, it is insanely pleased with itself at its job of correcting maps that governments think are authoritative. In other words, if a Google Map is more accurate than the “real” map, it’s because Google collected “ground truth” data, reconciled the discrepancies between that and its own maps, and publishes its own maps.

It also relentlessly (if, anyhow, you happen to be a recipient of notices) publishes its own Official Google blog posts, and creates its own direct mail campaigns (had one in the letterbox this week). Any claim that Google isn’t a publisher is disingenuous. And because some people between the Pacific and Atlantic have trouble with words like that: really, Google is a publisher, whatever statements it makes to mislead idiots.

But it’s the complete and utter failure to actually read the judgement that makes me want to pick up a broadsword and kill a thousand men in a mead hall.

Here’s a few salient points about the case. From the judgement, which Jon Mitchell didn't bother with because of the long words.

1. Google treated the original request – “remove defamatory material” – as too trivial to bother with. Its response was the equivalent of “here’s a phone, call someone who gives a shit”.
2. Google treated the court as too trivial to bother with. It had the opportunity to call witnesses with knowledge of what happened, and didn’t.
3. Google treated Australian defamation law as too trivial to bother with. It decided that its defence would rest on decisions made in England – which, in case it hasn’t noticed, is actually a different country. Its legal mind was about 25 years out of date, since we stopped sending appeals to the Privy Council in 1986. Australian courts can consider judgements in other jurisdictions – as they do, including those from America – but English decisions are no longer binding here. Idiots.

Now, instead of a frankly dumb-as-a-bag-of-hammers off-toss by a remote twerp, here are the three facts which, it seems from reading the judgement, actually matter:

1. Google was asked to amend the search results so as not to present a defamatory imputation.
2. Google admitted in court that it could have done so.
3. Yahoo had already lost a case on the same facts.

In other words, Google just couldn’t be arsed. Its decision was “don’t bother and don’t spend more on the fight than a settlement would cost”.

The judge frequently makes it clear that Google could have done better, and had it done so, the jury may have been free to find in favour of the search engine giant.

In other words, through the combination of arrogance and can’t-be-bothered, Google has supported a precedent that ReadWriteWeb detests. Take your complaint to Mountain View, fools, and stop giving us patronising piss-in-the-pocket advice from the other side of the Pacific.

Patronising MSM journalists hasten their own demise

Well, Sydney is baking and I’m grumpy and I have a pet detestation that fastens on journalists either waving the arse of their ignorance in the reader’s face, or treating the readers themselves like idiots in their desire to patronise.

There’s this special tone of voice, “I-know-something-you-don’t” (imagine it singsong “nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!”), that journalists use when they think they’re educating their audience but are really just patronising the living daylight out of us.

Here’s a piece about battery technology research from the SMH. http://www.theage.com.au/business/carbon-economy/scientists-edging-closer-to-creating-holy-grail-of-renewable-energy-world-20121128-2aecc.html It’s lame in that kind of lameness that you get when the journalist fears any real science will turn off readers.

And especially lame is this:

“Batteries keep the lights on at night, and are perhaps the most surprising component of the otherwise high-tech array. Nestled among the coconut palms and shiny solar panels are bungalows containing 1344 giant lead-acid batteries weighing a combined 257 tonnes.”

And…

“Tokelau's energy set-up may seem anachronistic…”

As some of you know, my wife and I operate a solar-powered set of holiday cottages, Bunjaree Cottages in Wentworth Falls. We don’t have 1,344 batteries – a more modest 36 is our kit, and there are humans out there who will contrive ways to suck them down from 54 V at 5pm to blackout at 6am (no mean feat: my family in December 2011, during a rain spell, managed three days without losing power).

So okay, I am familiar with lead-acid batteries and not in the least surprised, but neither should the Herald’s “carbon economy editor” (the invention of useless titles is one way once-were-warrior newspapers rage against the dying of the light), nor the Herald’s readers.

If you open the bonnet of your car – an anachronistic activity I know, but bear with me – you’ll find it packed with “anachronistic” hundred-year-old technology. The internal combustion engine, for a start; not to mention the lead-acid battery in a corner to give you a start in the morning. Kick the tyres and you’re kicking something from the 19^th century, with enhancements, wrapped around improvements on wheels that even Pharoes had.

Now, I’ll grant that some of the story passes muster – although telling us that someone invented the vanadium redox battery, but not caring to describe it screams “out of depth reporter” to me (the science is easy to find on Google; essentially, it uses vanadium in two different solutions to store the charge).

I have found over decades behind the alphabet piano that mostly, you don’t need to patronise the reader – and in the world of the Internet, it’s an advantage not to. If the story is good, readers will find it, share it, pass it around – and you’ll get the hits. Is it better to seek out idiots, or to assume that it’s just as good to have the same number of informed, knowledgeable readers in front of the story?

I suspect a mindset is at fault: even as its readers flee, the old world of the newsroom believes itself party to privilege. It can’t shake the habits of “knowing something you don’t”, the keeper of the curtain who, for a suitable fee, will draw it back and give the audience a peek.

AusSMC: goodbye. You're not there to censor science

I have just asked the Australian Science Media Centre to no longer consider me a member.

Here’s why.

First let me set down my scientific credentials: I have none. I am a journalist with a strong interest in science, and – I hope – a functioning sniff-test on what I will and won’t write about. Their job was to educate me, but it seems I have to turn tables.

My only credential is that The Register (http://www.theregister.co.uk), for whom I write (http://search.theregister.co.uk/?author=Richard%20Chirgwin), gets millions of hits in any given week (sometimes on a good day), and my science stories do well enough that nobody tells me to lay off science stories.

The Australian Science Media Centre has seen fit to upend a very public bucket (http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/11/27/3639625.htm) on two Southern Cross University scientists for “media coverage by press release without a peer reviewed scientific paper to back it up?” asking “whether releasing preliminary data to the media is ever warranted”.

Let’s start with the hypocrisy. For the AusSMC to set “peer review” as the benchmark for “talk to the press” blithely ignores its own patron, the Baroness Greenfield, who just as blithely ignores peer review (for example http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2012/feb/27/1) when it comes to her theories about social media and brain development.

Also, there’s this exceptionally silly statement.

“The scientific process goes something like this: a researcher constructs a hypothesis, runs experiments to test their hypothesis, gathers data, interprets the results and then puts the lot through peer review”.

Bollocks. Nonsense. That’s how the scientific publication process goes. Science is messy. I’d suppose the most exciting words that an elder professor can hear from a PhD candidate are:

“That’s odd…”

And I have an example, here (http://sydney.edu.au/news/science/397.html?newsstoryid=3204). Speaking at the Australian Institute of Physics recently, CUDOS’ Dr Ben Egglestone was more frank about the researcher’s puzzlement. Actually, the first thought was that a bit of apparatus (presumably expensive) was broken.

The observation came first; after which came the hypothesis; after which the experimental test. After which, the paper.

Back to the CSG issue.

The first public discussion of the work by Dr Damien Maher and Dr Isaac Santos was not, as far as I can see, this press release (http://www.scu.edu.au/news/media.php?item_id=6041&action=show_item&type=M) as asserted by AusSMC, but rather this (http://www.climatechange.gov.au/government/submissions/closed-consultations/~/media/government/submissions/csg/CSG-20121109-CentreForCoastalBiogeochemistrySCU.pdf - PDF) submission to a Department of Climate Change’s inquiry.

I see nothing remotely improper about a scientist contributing to a government inquiry, even pre-peer-review.

It seems the press release was issued after the Sydney Morning Herald noticed the submission and put together this story: in other words, the press release was probably intended as a media summary after every man and his dog started calling up the University.

Which brings us to the question “whether releasing preliminary data to the media is ever warranted”?

To be polite, don’t be silly: is the world now to start censoring its scientists solely on the basis of whether a journal has accepted a particular item of research for publication? Sure, it’s good business for the big journals, but as a journalist, I acknowledge no obligation whatever to protect their business model.

In the specific instance of the SCU submission to the government inquiry: the document repeatedly makes clear that it is presenting preliminary results. The researchers say that their measurements are incomplete – they “provide evidence for significant but unquantified” emissions, and call for “baseline studies” before new projects are commenced.

Ahh, someone or other complains, but they didn’t release the raw data, so nobody else can test it! No: because the raw data is off with a publication undergoing peer review. It’s stuck in the “process” that the AusSMC is promoting.

More broadly, suggesting an extension of peer review from its proper(ish) role – ensuring that the science is sufficiently rigorous to justify publication in a specific journal – into a pre-publication self-censorship is an awful idea.

First, keep in mind that “peer review” isn’t magic. It means “this result is robust enough to warrant publication” – after which the real business of “replicate it or rip it to shreds” begins. The journals do not replicate an experiment before they publish: that is the job of other scientists, after they’ve got their hands on the data.

Apply a “pre peer review” gag? So that no scientist can ever answer the question “what are your current research interests?” So that all science journalism is forever beholden to the embargoes and fanatical media management of the large publishers? So that journalists can see nothing, read nothing and know nothing except by the grace of the journals – while laying out $20k in annual subscriptions?

Should Cornell University pull Arxiv because a journalist might download a document that hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed?

To think that the Australian Science Media Centre wants to filter “science” through the lens of the “science publisher’s” world view is a depressing thought indeed.

Goodbye. I don’t wish the AusSMC bad luck, because – to paraphrase Archie Goodwin – even with good luck, it won’t get much of an epitaph.