"Multi-universe Commensality NEWS" ? Nah - I'm just string-theorying you along ....

    It is arresting to chart the type of names Halifax ,Nova Scotia based  NGOs have given themselves over the years.
     It can tell us - muchly - about changes over time in communication and transport and how people alter what they conceive of as their home and region.

    Nova Scotia originally was much larger - making up most of the province of New Brunswick, all of PEI province, and all of Cape Breton (which itself was a short-lived province, and so should be again).
   These three provinces have long called themselves the Maritime provinces or more simply and more commonly, the Maritimes.
    After 1949 and the entry of Newfoundland and Labrador as Canada's tenth province, the powers-to-be in Ottawa found all four provinces "Down East" to be provincial beyond belief (this from 1950s Ottawa, that hotbed-not of worldly sophistication !)
   So they got lumped together as Atlantic Canada - neatly excluding the large portion of Quebec that is by any standards of science, in Canada and fully in the Atlantic coastal zone.
    Halifax has always been the capital and biggest city by far of Nova Scotia.
     And since WWII, it has been the biggest city by far of Atlantic Canada and its unofficial capital ---and one of five unofficial regional capitals of Canada.
    When transportation was so bad in Nova Scotia that all rural seats had to be represented in Halifax legislature by Halifax men with business or family ties to that rural area, what would be called today NGOs tended to be realistic and 1840s educators called their new NGO, the Halifax Mechanics' Institute.
    But once rail and steam ship travel was more reliable and speedy, one sees the Nova Scotia Institute for Science in the 1860s.
    By the 1930s, it was common to see NGOs calling themselves the Maritime School of Social Work.
      New post 1970 NGOs, set up by the boomer generation, tended to call themselves the Atlantic Filmmakers Co-op.
    (This was real hubris as this co-op of volunteer 'hands-on' amateurs really was effectively Halifax area based.)
    Recently, St Mary's university and the Atlantic School of Theology, two second tier post secondary institutions in national Canadian terms, and located in the smallest by far region in Canada in terms of wealth and population, set up The Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs (CCEPA) .
   Chutzpah bravo !! Why should all the national NGOs have to be  run by default out of Ottawa or Toronto ?
      Now the "Global Commensality NEWS" - is my blog and journal an attempt by a Haligonian to bypass Canada and cover the planet ?
      No.
      "Global Commensality" is one concept, utterly indivisible - that is why it is in my blog and journal title and my key subject area.
      In fact, while I am thinking globally on this subject, I have tried to limit myself to reporting locally.
     I am working hard to find the hyper-local 'angle' to any international news stories about 'global commensality versus late modernity' (aka Doomers versus Deniers.)
    Can't see, though, why some local Halifax based physicist couldn't blog - straight-faced - under the moniker of Multi-Universe Maven : go for it !

Science under the microscope: the old BIG question versus the new BIG question

   GCR is not at all interested in the old BIG question that animated so many researchers for so many years : how exactly are scientific discoveries  made ?
   The new BIG question for ordinary citizens/activists as well as for those academics in the areas of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the History and Philosophy of Science (HPST), is this:

 How exactly are scientific discoveries made popular ?

   Not made public, mark you well : how are they made popular - popular enough in some cases to overthrow the old paradigms of not just professional scientists but of all world culture.
   In particular, GCR is driven to find out why the startling discoveries made in science between 1895 and 1935 are still not popular science.
    Popular as in, 'found in public school teaching and textbooks' or as in 'found in the mindsets of politicians,newspaper editors and CEOs - not to mention their voters,readers and customers.'
  Why did it take the Apocalypse of 1945 to even begin the process of popularization?
   And if Modernity did fall in 1945 as 'everybody* claims', why is it still alive and well in the 2010s - in fact, a very fit competitor to its fresh young replacement - Global Commensality ?
   (*Albeit the Deniers yet have not addressed this question, but rest assured - when they do ,they will deny this consensus as well. )
   Peering through this historical prism, GCR tends to see the current debate between Deniers and Doomers as a re-hash of the old,old debate between Sky Gods and Earthlings, from the time of WWII...

DENIERS are liberals, DOOMERS are conservative, n'est ce pas ?

   Wrong, wrong, wrong.
   Totally wrong : this oddball idea that DENIERS are conservatives.

   Only the Liberal mind holds that reality is totally knowable and totally perfectible with the application of enough human willpower.
   So we hear the Liberal mind at work when we hear the Denier proclaim: "If there is too much carbon pollution in the atmosphere, we will find the technology to sequester it back into the ground, cheaply, easily and safely."
    And : "Let us not impede the ever upward pace of progress by all these alarmist doubts and fears."
   By contrast, it is the Conservative mind that doubts that humanity is perfectible, it is the conservative who, in a theological sense, believes that all of us are sinners.
   If they further believe that Jesus - strictly according to the Bible, seems to have liked having sinners at His dining table - then they end up at one with GCR :
    If all are sinners, and sinners end up at the big table, then we all dine at the big table : global commensality in a nutshell.
   Doomers doubt that perfect solutions exist to safely allow ever-increasing HCP (human carbon pollution) of the atmosphere - or that they are easily and cheaply obtained .
   They worry the actions of a few excessive-carbon diners will spoil the dinners of all, carbon-diners or not - a highly conservative viewpoint, by any standard.
   Funny old world, ain't it ?

DENIERS & DOOMERS : please read Stephan Lewandowsky

   Stephan Lewandowky is an Australian professor and author in the area of cognative science, specializing in the role of skepticism.
   Perhaps this is why he has become so focused on the debate between the DOOMERS and the DENIERS over the importance of HCP (Human Carbon Pollution) in the atmosphere.

   Skepticism is clearly radiates from the very bones of every Denier, but what is perhaps less obvious is that it also there among the Doomers as well.
  It should be obvious why GCR admires Lewandowsky : like this journal, and unlike almost every other commentator, he takes the debate between the two sides seriously.
   In particular, he views it as a serious debate between people with
differing assessments on the matter of risk, fueled by the fact that what behavior either side view as risky and what they do not, is dominated by that side's world view and ideology.
  All his research in cognitive processes suggests that world views and ideologies are not easily moved by any amounts of 'new evidence', as that evidence is only viewed through the prism of each viewer's existing ideology.
   Doomers are convinced that our existing and ever increasing carbon polluting of the atmosphere severely threatens the long term human economy.
   They thus believe that the short term pain and risk of a severe (but temporary) hit to our national and personal incomes through a steep tax on carbon, will actually be cheaper to the global economy over the long run.
  In public anyway, Deniers rebut their skeptical doubts that there is too much carbon pollution in the atmosphere, but in any event claim a carbon tax would be a fatal risk to impose upon carbon-extracting and carbon-using industries, when we can't be 100% sure Mother Nature isn't causing this supposed increase in carbon pollution.
   In rebuttal, Doomers tend to be skeptic that the economic sky would fall upon us like a ton of coal, if carbon-burning does becomes a smaller and smaller part of the human economy.
   But back to Lewandowsky and here GRC  (may) differ with him just a little.
  This journal feels that most Deniers do secretly agree with Doomers, agreeing that there is altogether too much HCP flying about.
   However because of their ultra-religious faith that a high tech solution to any problems human progress throws up (like carbon pollution) will always be easily and quickly found, they feel there is no need to shut carbon industries prematurely.
  Lewandowsky quotes well known carbon pollution-denier, Australian Senator Nick Minchin, who notes (as does
 GCR) the highly suggestive coincidence of certain events of the period around epochal year of 1989.
   His thesis is that The Fall of Communism was a disaster for the left and led them to seek a new weapon to beat up the free marketeers with - and that was climate change.
  It is true at that time, two - not just one - history-making events occurred.
  Obviously the 1989 Fall of the Berlin Wall, signaling the end of communism and in some sense, signaling the lack of traction in the old, old verities of good versus evil, in the tales that socialists tell about the capitalists.
  The second event was less obvious, but just as epoch-making: the long simmering pot of climate worries suddenly became front page news world wide and has stayed there ever since.
   Awkwardly for the Senator's theory, the rise of climate change
worries on front pages proceeded, not followed, the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
  And it was led by an icon of the Right, not by wild-eyed treehuggers.
  Most people credit the rise to a September 27th 1988 Speech to the Royal Society ,on the dangers of climate change, by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
   (She had actually intended the speech to promote what to her was the safer alternative energy of nuclear plants over was to her the highly strike-prone coal mines.)
   However it ended up being reported in the world's flaccid oldstream media as 'if even Thatcher takes this climate story seriously, we johnny-come-latelies-to-every-party-journalists must rush to play catch-up as well'.
  GCR thus half agrees with Senator Minchin.
  The green climate change question 'is the ever-growing global economic pie actually making us all sicker not healthier?' did replace the red versus white fight over how to divide that ever-expanding global economic pie.
   But it was not the reds leading this charge: the greens are merely replacing the reds slowly ,but surely, among the new generations of the young and the green concerns are thus rising among mass concerns.
   But the majority of the world population - in particular the older and hence powerholding majority - is still white and red, not green.
   This white and red majority is a little worried about climate change killing their grandchildren's futures.
 But not enough to make grandmother or grandfather seriously willing to reduce their personal comfort today via some effective  (ie heavy) carbon tax.
   The inside-the-scientific-peer-reviewed-beltway debate over the existence of dire amounts of human carbon pollution (HCP) in the atmosphere is long over.
   However, the debate in the much bigger world of Popular Science has just begun....

DOOMERS versus DENIERS : they're already killing each other

   Any reader of the media can't help but notice the increasing number of fatal collisions between tiny compact cars and great big pickup trucks.
   We do need pickup trucks filled with tools and supplies to make our economy run - but how many of these like-shiny-brand-new 5 year old pickups are bought just to drive the He-man of the family to and from his desk job ?

   Many of us have friends (we'll call them DOOMERS) who are convinced that carbon pollution is fouling the atmosphere and killing the planet ---- but they still keep on driving a carbon-spewing car instead of walking or taking a bus  --- but to make amends, they buy a car as small as possible.
   Other of our friends (they, we will call DENIERS) are 'scientific libertarians' ---- loudly denying the setting of any limits or restraints on their personal and economic behavior ---- they have responded to the looming carbon pollution disaster by deliberately buying the biggest, heaviest, highest pickup truck they can afford.
   Thumbing their two ton noses at the DOOMERS.
   Unfortunately this means that car accidents, when they occur, are more likely to be fatal - at least to the DOOMERS - the DENIERS usually get away with scratches.
   How many lives would be saved, how many won't lead miserable and expensive lives in a wheelchair the rest of their lives, if only more of us gave up on cars ?
   Does Christianity and Cars ever mix ? Ditto for other ethical religions.
   One car wonder what pickup truck St Luke the Physician drives...

the optimistic DOOMERS and the pessimistic DENIERS ...

Michael Marshall

The DENIERS are ever optimistic about their ability to muck about with Man and Nature, wholesale, without ever making too much of a mess of it ---- but they are highly pessimistic about the ability of working class people to be able to string two sentences together about anything important.

DOOMERS are highly pessimistic that Newtonian Man can be trusted to do anything truly complicated without making a total cock up of it, but are very optimistic about the hidden cleverness of Nature's smallest, weakest members.

Optimism and pessimism are not in fact held consistently on all matters by anyone, not even by people we ALL agree seem born prenaturally optimistic or pessimistic.

We humans are in turn, pessimistic or optimistic, depending on the particulars of an issue.

DOOMER and DENIER are fun labels to smear upon others, but they are a dim reflection of the true complexity of  the cumulative
positions we hold over our lifetimes.

But where DENIERS and DOOMERS differ most, is over their  assessments of the ability of civilized humanity to be able to correctly predict the ultimate consequences of its activities upon our entire ecosystem.

In that narrow area alone, the labels DOOMER and DENIER, smear or not, are useful metaphors to describe both groups....

DOOMERS versus DENIERS : the war between the SCIENCES

Michael Marshall

An ideological war really only gains traction when both of its sides garner catchy nicknames.

So we see English Roundheads versus  Cavaliers .Union Grays from the North versus Confederate Blues from the South. The Orange against the Green. Russian or Hungarian Reds versus the Whites. Revolutionary America's Rebels versus Tories (or Loyalists). Spanish Loyalists versus the Nationalists.

Now we have had lots of (verbal) wars in the past involving Science (with a capital "S").

The War between Science and Culture or the Humanities. The supposed War against Science better seen as the scientists' war against religion. The Science Wars between postmodern social science critics and  the hard (physical) science defenders of scientific realism.

The latest war is one being fought within the ranks of hard, physical, science and this makes it new.

It is a war between sciences, a civil war within science itself.

Well, new in the memory of most scientists, which isn't saying a lot.

A more ahistorical bunch is hard to imagine.

But this war did go on, back in the 19th century ----and in varying forms  ----right back to Plato versus Aristotle.

Today its popular nicknames - given by each side to the other side, as is traditional - see the advocates for the newer science being called DOOMERS and the defenders of the older science being labelled DENIERS.

Two hundred or so years ago, the order of new and old would have been reversed.

Then the older science under attack would have been called Catastrophists (instead of Doomers) --- and the rising new science would be called Uniformitarians (rather than Deniers).

But you could say that two hundred years ago, the real battle was the enduring one between Natural Philosophy and Natural History.

(I support this viewpoint myself.)

But whatever, the substance of the disagreement between various kinds of science and scientists remained unchanged beneath all the varying labels.

On a bigger scale,the Catastrophists can be seen as part of the efforts of Romantic Science, itself a subset of the overall Romanticism Movement , to mount an attack on the earlier Classical Science --- and the Classicalism Movement in general.

 Meanwhile in the dark shadows, a new Counter-Romantic Science, (Positivism/Modernity/Scientism) was birthing and preparing to attack in turn.

Think of it as the electoral-cum-rhetorical politics of intellectual ideas, with sequential elections and the tidal flow of the Ins versus the Outs.

With the Ins and Outs publicly claiming to be externally - and eternally - consistent but actually considerably changed on the inside, after each bout of time in  government and in opposition.

The dance of the dialectics......