O’Conall Street

I don’t want to moan today about the Power Sharing Executive which never meets or about the French President who came and left.

It may be summer but there is no evidence of the mood lightening in political terms on this island. In fact we are told today that Sinn Fein are willing to negotiate all summer to break the deadlock in the Executive and by Mr Adams that Ireland needs to negotiate all summer with Europe over what he describes and as the ‘dead’ Lisbon treaty. I am sure the government appreciate Mr Adam’s word of advice but am told there are more than a few TD’s believe the Sinn Fein’s priority should be the day job and the bread and butter in the North that need immediate attention.  

On a more summery theme, came across an interesting article last night about that other old chestnut, creationism. Slate.com has a piece by Christopher Hitchens about Salamanders and Creationism. It’s a great read and I have reproduced below for your intellectual enrichment.

It is extremely seldom that one has the opportunity to think a new thought about a familiar subject, let alone an original thought on a contested subject, so when I had a moment of eureka a few nights ago, my very first instinct was to distrust my very first instinct. To phrase it briefly, I was watching the astonishing TV series Planet Earth (which, by the way, contains photography of the natural world of a sort that redefines the art) and had come to the segment that deals with life underground. The subterranean caverns and rivers of our world are one of the last unexplored frontiers, and the sheer extent of the discoveries, in Mexico and Indonesia particularly, is quite enough to stagger the mind. Various creatures were found doing their thing far away from the light, and as they were caught by the camera, I noticed—in particular of the salamanders—that they had typical faces. In other words, they had mouths and muzzles and eyes arranged in the same way as most animals. Except that the eyes were denoted only by little concavities or indentations. Even as I was grasping the implications of this, the fine voice of Sir David Attenborough was telling me how many millions of years it had taken for these denizens of the underworld to lose the eyes they had once possessed.

If you follow the continuing argument between the advocates of Darwin’s natural selection theory and the partisans of creationism or “intelligent design,” you will instantly see what I am driving at. The creationists (to give them their proper name and to deny them their annoying annexation of the word intelligent) invariably speak of the eye in hushed tones. How, they demand to know, can such a sophisticated organ have gone through clumsy evolutionary stages in order to reach its current magnificence and versatility? The problem was best phrased by Darwin himself, in his essay “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication”:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

His defenders, such as Michael Shermer in his excellent book Why Darwin Matters, draw upon post-Darwinian scientific advances. They do not rely on what might be loosely called “blind chance”:

Evolution also posits that modern organisms should show a variety of structures from simple to complex, reflecting an evolutionary history rather than an instantaneous creation. The human eye, for example, is the result of a long and complex pathway that goes back hundreds of millions of years. Initially a simple eyespot with a handful of light-sensitive cells that provided information to the organism about an important source of the light …

Hold it right there, says Ann Coulter in her ridiculous book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. “The interesting question is not: How did a primitive eye become a complex eye? The interesting question is: How did the ‘light-sensitive cells’ come to exist in the first place?”

The salamanders of Planet Earth appear to this layman to furnish a possibly devastating answer to that question. Humans are almost programmed to think in terms of progress and of gradual yet upward curves, even when confronted with evidence that the past includes as many great dyings out of species as it does examples of the burgeoning of them. Thus even Shermer subconsciously talks of a “pathway” that implicitly stretches ahead. But what of the creatures who turned around and headed back in the opposite direction, from complex to primitive in point of eyesight, and ended up losing even the eyes they did have?

Whoever benefits from this inquiry, it cannot possibly be Coulter or her patrons at the creationist Discovery Institute. The most they can do is to intone that “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” Whereas the likelihood that the post-ocular blindness of underground salamanders is another aspect of evolution by natural selection seems, when you think about it at all, so overwhelmingly probable as to constitute a near certainty. I wrote to professor Richard Dawkins to ask if I had stumbled on the outlines of a point, and he replied as follows:

Vestigial eyes, for example, are clear evidence that these cave salamanders must have had ancestors who were different from them—had eyes, in this case. That is evolution. Why on earth would God create a salamander with vestiges of eyes? If he wanted to create blind salamanders, why not just create blind salamanders? Why give them dummy eyes that don’t work and that look as though they were inherited from sighted ancestors? Maybe your point is a little different from this, in which case I don’t think I have seen it written down before.

I recommend for further reading the chapter on eyes and the many different ways in which they are formed that is contained in Dawkins’ Climbing Mount Improbable; also “The Blind Cave Fish’s Tale” in his Chaucerian collection The Ancestor’s Tale. I am not myself able to add anything about the formation of light cells, eyespots, and lenses, but I do think that there is a dialectical usefulness to considering the conventional arguments in reverse, as it were. For example, to the old theistic question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” we can now counterpose the findings of professor Lawrence Krauss and others, about the foreseeable heat death of the universe, the Hubble “red shift” that shows the universe’s rate of explosive expansion actually increasing, and the not-so-far-off collision of our own galaxy with Andromeda, already loomingly visible in the night sky. So, the question can and must be rephrased: “Why will our brief ’something’ so soon be replaced with nothing?” It’s only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design.

I am spending the day in Nottingham with the Directors of the British Geological Survey (BGS). Last night Dr Marie Cowan was bringing me up to speed with some of the BGS’s recent communications initiatives. Marie is one of a growing number of scientists who see the value in science communications and its role in attracting young people into Earth Sciences.

The BGS joined YouTube last week when it posted a short video on a role play day for sixth form students during which they consider the arguments for and against a planning application for a quarry in an area of special scientific interest. We used this role play model to great success back in Belfast. In our case the case application related to a gold mine in the Sperrins, very topical in the context of this weeks news from Conroy Exploration that they believe the potential for the Clontibret site is much greater then previously thought. The video is an excellent first step into YouTube for BGS. The potential to use social and digital media to platform science communication is immense and I am sure we well see much more where this came from.

In Colombia the family of Ingrid Betanourt will be celebrating her release after six years under FARC captivity in the jungle. Her cause was another examples of a cause which has been keep alive on facebook and other social networks as well, of course, as being a major international news story.

Finally less then a year after announcing the closure of its Limavady plant, Seagate Technologies has detailed a £120 million investment in Derry. I have not had a chance to see the full details of the announcement but hope this will see further high added value activities coming to the North.

Sammy Wilson put himself on course for a head on collision with London, Dublin and Brussels administrations on the issue of climate change last night. Speaking on BBC’s Hearts and Minds the Northern Ireland Environment Minister repeatedly denied the contribution greenhouse gases are making to climate change and steadfastly refused to introduce measures designed to reduce the region’s carbon footprint. He maintains there is no credible scientific evidence of climate change and what evidence there was is prejudiced. He went on to dismiss the International Panel on Climate Change as a failure. Mr Wilson also has an interesting perspective on fuel prices, blaming the ‘green lobby’ for many of the factors which are leading to the global increase in fuel costs.

The Programme for Government agreed by the main Assembly parties sets as a main objective the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 25% below 1990 levels by 2025. It will be interesting to watch how much priority the Minister gives this objective.

On another front there is speculation that Caitriona Ruane might be replaced in Education this summer. One wonders whether a simple reshuffle will be enough to find a way through the policy morass.

We may be enjoying a period of political stability but I sense a growing unease amongst the electorate about the ability of our executive to govern through an agreed programme. Following St Andrew’s the principle of collective responsibility at cabinet level was introduced in Northern Ireland. Whilst ministers are entitled to their personal opinions the reality today is that we know more about what they believe personally then we do about what the executive stands for collectively.

Here is the interview in full complements of slugger.

Just back from a really stimulating day debating the future of earth science at an event hosted by the Royal Irish Academy, the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland and the Geological Survey of Ireland.

The most senior earth scientists on these islands as well as the profession’s European leaders identified the emerging skills shortage as an immediate priority for the sector over the next decade and spent some time discussing ways in which to bring a new generation of geologists forward.

Manuel Rugueiro, the President of the European Federation of Geologists, wrapped up his talk on that theme with a Youtube video which is worth a look at.

I have been asked to speak at a Royal Irish Academy seminar on geoscience tomorrow in Parliament Buildings which is being led by Garth Earls, the Director of the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland, and have been canvassing expert opinion on how to best illustrate the gap between many scientists and the press. Dr Marie Cowan, the British Geological Survey’s communications manager pointed me to a very useful report on science and society which was published earlier this year by Research Councils UK.

I’ll be using some of the findings in my presentation but was taken by the positive trend in public perceptions of science.  Through the 1990’s and early noughites public scepticism of science was at very high levels. Fueled by Chernobyl, Foot and Mouth and the perception that science had become too close to business many scientists and institutions responded by distancing themselves from public debate and the media in general although this trend is slowly changing.

My research for tomorrow’s speech threw up another great story, that of Carl Sagan, which highlights the internal barriers to communication within the scientific community.

In 1992, the astronomer, author of twenty books translated worldwide, an enormously successful television series and a Hollywood film, was denied membership to the National Academy of Sciences.

In fact he was not able to raise the required two-thirds vote from its members. Director of the Laboratory of Planetary Studies at Cornell University, Sagan had distinguished himself for the calculation of the greenhouse effect on Venus, for his studies on the surface of Mars and on the oceans of Titan, Saturn’s large moon. Too many colleagues turned up their noses at his tireless activity in spreading scientific news, which had made him, perhaps the most famous scientist in the United States, and one of the most vibrant defenders of science in the world.

Two years later the National Academy of Sciences reconsidered its vote, honouring him with the Public Welfare Medal. Sagan had brilliantly challenged two important prejudices which besiege scientists that choose to communicate with
the general public: the idea that scientists who do are distracted from their “real” work – research – and the idea that scientists are not able to express themselves clearly, as if their mental universe were so far from the common man that at the very least they need a “translator”.

There has not been a post on Slugger O’Toole, Ireland’s top political blog since yesterday (Sunday) at 6.24pm which is most unusual. I am presuming this is a technical glitch but have not had this confirmed.  Everyone on O’Conall Street hopes this influential and informative site is back in business soon.

What a day to go down boys.

The smoking ban is now well established across these islands yet there seems to be little drop in the numbers who remain addicted to the infamous weed.

 Josh Gilbert,a New York colleague and source of many a good blog picked up on an interesting New York Times story on this issue last week. 

The NYT covers a study to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine that finds there is a significant social factor at work in kicking the habit. It follows an earlier paper by the same authors that determined there was also a big social factor in weight loss.

According to Josh the research points to the enormous opportunity in healthcare communications to more and more create programs that defeat isolation, encourage participation, build community, and don’t just educate patients about treatment therapies but help improve health outcomes through facilitating advocacy.

The application of complex adaptive networks is becoming more popular amongst communications specialists and is driving our business proposition here at Weber Shandwick.

Every once in a while we are reminded of the importance of independent regulation in  certain areas. This morning the Consumer Council reminded us of the importance of strong independent regulation in the electricity market. In the midst of a global energy crisis it is critically important that energy companies are scrutinised independently and consumers and operators are treated fairly. In the long run this is the only way to guarantee sustained public confidence in the system and protect it from the possibility of commercial or political interference.

Personally I was disappointed when the Minister for the Environment, Arlene Foster, opted against the establishment of an independent environmental regulator yesterday.  Some are suggesting she is putting short term politics ahead of long term environmental protection. This move will not cost her a single vote nor will it create a public outcry. The issues are technical and the man and woman on the street will not know the difference between a rebranded EHS and a fully independent regulator. That is until there is a crisis and questions are being asked about whether the environmental watchdog is able to behave independently of political or commercial pressure.

It was Churchill who said the price of democracy was eternal vigilance. The point of independent regulation, be-it in energy or the environment, it to be the independent arbiter. This is easier said then done.

After twelve months of uncertainty Caitriona Ruane appears on the verge of turning the clocks back six years.

Can I declare an interest. I have an eight year old son (P4) and was looking forward to him being spared what I consider to be an outdated and infective judgment of a child’s potential - the eleven plus.

During the five years of suspension the New Labour government etched a consensus on the governing principles on selection from the major stakeholders and the political parties. Until St Andrews everyone accepted that selection at eleven was going, there was also an increasing acceptance that the demographic shifts all around us required a fundamental rethink and that a collegiate model was a possibility.  That was twelve months ago. Today the minister is reported to be on the verge of reintroducing selection at eleven.  

In many ways Ms Ruane inherited a good roadmap and needed to set about strengthening support around the already accepted principles as well as putting meat on the bones of the new system. Instead she retreated to 2002 rhetoric,  appeared to avoid the stakeholders and set herself on a war-footing with the Education Committee in the Assembly.

The long and short of it is that the common ground which had been gained has been lost and the principles which had been accepted are now being rejected. It was never going to be easy but that is no excuse for any minister who was handed a solid set of principles on which to build. There is very much this Sinn Fein minister could learn from the way in which her direct rule British colleague, Angela Smyth handled the issue during her time in charge. So far it’s been a walkover for New Labour over SF.

My son and his schoolmates deserve better. They are starting a new new curriculum which will not prepare them for selective testing at the end of primary school.   In fact it has been designed to do quite the opposite as it is based on a process on continuous evaluation of the child’s progress. I guess teachers everywhere will be arriving a work confused and concerned about how they can support their students in the coming years. Many will believe they are being used as pawns in this increasingly poor case study in policy reform. I will study her full proposals in great detail when they emerge at the end of this week and would encourage every parent to do so also.

Varney II is out. On a preliminary skim over the executive summary I am far from overwhelmed. He endorses all the good bits of existing Executive policy and calls for its implementation, something nobody will disagree with, and then adds a few of his own favourites just for completeness. The best one is the call for the privatisation of the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Agency, hardly the magic bullet to solve our competitiveness issues but in the report none the less. 

Sir David was asked to look in a considered way at the structural issues impacting on the competitiveness of the Northern Ireland Economy. He wrote and academic analysis, 90% call for implementation of existing policy 10% recycling of existing GB programmes.

 The lobby groups are reflecting this in their initial responses. The Institute of Charted Accountants in Ireland has said:

“Sir David Varney’s findings are in marked contrast to his disappointing review of Northern Ireland tax policy published late last year.  On that occasion, he seemed to find that nothing was wrong with the Northern Ireland economy, and in particular that no changes to tax policy were required, a position which ICAI strongly contests.

While on this occasion he has supported review and reform, the issue of taxation, a key component in assessing Northern Ireland’s competitiveness, has again failed to feature, and this remains a significant shortcoming.  This is particularly so in that the role of tax in offering a competitive edge is gaining widespread currency, not just in the context of the Northern Ireland economic debate.”

In a week when the Treasury is under siege from big business moving to the Republic he has failed to really recognise the North’s potential as an FDI location or a potential special region within the UK. This report, like it’s predecessor will disappear onto the shelf quickly. Our local Minister’s will put on a brave face and claim the better bits. This is not their report and not their analysis and it would be very unfair to hold them responsible for it. We have very many talented economists on this island in the public and private sectors. Next time we need some advice I think we should ask one of them.