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ARC Grants have just been announced for 2013
Let’s look at what won a grant in light of the fact that nearly 80% of all the applications for ARC funding fail. (Indeed Nobel Laureate Brian Schmidt wonders if our best scientists are hobbled by an arduous waste-of-time process where they spend up to 30% – 50% of their working life applying for grants.)
Looking at the current round of successful grants. How do you beat four out of five candidates for funding? Here’s one successful method:
Step One: Use statistically insignificant results obtained by dubious techniques to generate a paper with conclusions that grab headlines.
Step Two: Make sure these “results” support contentious Labor Party policies, and actively promote the spurious conclusions in the media prior to publication.
Step Three (optional): Possibly go on to publish the paper, then again, maybe not.
Step Four: Apply for more money.
Apparently the ALP need to find budget savings from the science program to deliver their promised “surplus”. They are thinking of a grants freeze — which is a good way to create uncertainty and encourage the best researchers to leave the country. Here’s […]
By Jo Nova
We know it’s a cult when we have thousands of years of nuclear power available but scientists want to build giant mirrors in space to reflect the sun onto solar panels on Earth.
We know it’s corrupt when governments won’t pay for research into the suns role in our climate but they’ll give 2.5 million Euros to a wild idea that might rescue their banker and investment friends last technological white elephant. This was funded under “EXCELLENT SCIENCE – European Research Council (ERC)” don’t you know?
They figure we could get teams of robots into space to assemble vast mirrors about 1 km across that would reflect the sun from 900km above Earth onto solar plants so they make electricity a bit more often. What could possibly go wrong, apart from mishaps that blind drivers, hurt wildlife, screw body clocks and waste gazillions of dollars?
As the huge reflectors pass over a solar plant, they will spin around and point at it to illuminate it “and it’s immediate surroundings”. Thus theoretically extending the working day of the solar panels, and delivering energy at breakfast and dinner time when the peak hour demand is killing our new fragile […]
Trump tells Universities – No free speech means no federal grants OK?
Universities depend on Big Government, so it’s practically a law of physics that they will evolve into Big-Gov promoters unless some force stops them.
What is surprising is that most conservative governments let it happen.
Trump does the obvious but unheard of:
The Hill: Trump says he’ll sign executive order for free speech on college campuses by Tal Axelrod
“We reject oppressive speech codes, censorship, political correctness and every other attempt by the hard left to stop people from challenging ridiculous and dangerous ideas. These ideas are dangerous,” Trump said. “Instead we believe in free speech, including online and including on campus.”
“Today I’m proud to announce that I will be very soon signing an executive order requiring colleges and universities to support free speech if they want federal research grants.”
This came to a head because a conservative activist was viciously punched at Berkley. (See the full appalling attack on youtube). “Higher” education has become Hater education.
9.6 out of 10 based on 84 ratings […]
It’s another Green market wonder story:
The government announced last year that it would extend grants for electric cars for a further two years but halved the payments to £2,500. Around 17,500 cars were registered in the first three months of the year as motorists took advantage of the grants before they were cut.
… According to Department for Transport statistics, between April and June 4,200 plug-in cars were sold – the lowest for two years.
Biofuels international
— GWPF
Environmental reporters seem a bit flummoxed as to how markets work. When times are booming it’s because of “demand”. (Don’t say the word subsidy)
Green vehicle demand revs up as UK electric car sales quadruple
2014 saw a surge in UK green car sales due to increased choice and a demand for lower costs and higher efficiency, reports Edie.net
When the sales disappear, so do mentions of buyers who want “higher efficiency”. Parliament gets the blame, though it never seemed to get the credit.
Spot the economic genius in 2015:
[Nick] Clegg said: “The extremely low running costs of these cars help drivers save money. […]
It’s just another way the bureaucracy is throttling science. In grant applications the government asks scientists to tell us what impact the discoveries they haven’t made yet will have on the world. The scientists dutifully make something up, knowing the whole process is unscientific, but what does it matter? A little lie here, a little lie there and pretty soon we’re rewarding corruption.
Does Government-science punish the honest? Everyone behaves as if it does:
Another professor in Australia said: “It’s really virtually impossible to write an (Australian Research Council) ARC grant now without lying.”
Times Higher Education
Academics ‘regularly lie to get research grants’
Scholars in the UK and Australia contemptuous of impact statements and often exaggerate them, study suggests
A new study anonymously interviewed 50 senior academics from two research-intensive universities – one in the UK and one in Australia – who had experience writing “pathways to impact” (PIS) statements, as they are called in the UK, and in some cases had also reviewed such statements.
It was normal to sensationalise and embellish impact claims, the study published in Studies in Higher Education found.
We reward those who exaggerate, then […]
Government, Opposition, what’s the difference? It’s all become shades of “bigness”. With the UK Big-Government orbiting in the shadow of the Mega-Government in the EU, is it any wonder an alternative had to spring forth? And Lo…
In case you haven’t heard, Mr Reckless left the UK Tories, joined UKIP (the UK Independence Party) and just won the byelection becoming UKIP’s second member of Parliament. It surprised quite a lot of people. Analysts are abuzz: the electorate was not as old or white as the first seat UKIP won, and it was ranked 271st on the list of seats UKIP “might win”. Labor won just 16% of the vote.
People seem to like the idea of small government, lower taxes, and politicians who don’t promise to change the weather. Who would have thought?
Perhaps the mighty English will one day even win the right to buy powerful hairdryers, and serious vacuums? We dare hope!
BBC News
UKIP’s victory was in many ways even more impressive than their triumph in Clacton. The ease with which they demolished a 9,000 Tory majority was striking and this after the Conservatives had strained every sinew to halt the UKIP bandwagon.
9.3 out […]
The global warming segment on the ABC last night marks a new direction for the Catalyst ABC Science-unit. In the past, their method of dealing with skeptics was to pretend they didn’t exist (see the transcript of July 2013), but apparently they’ve realized they are losing the war. Is this the first time they’ve acknowledged that there is a skeptical view, and that there are questions to answer? Could be. Perhaps it does hurt when they are repeatedly caught putting forward a biased one-sided point of view. They even interviewed Garth Paltridge and Judith Curry, with a moment of Christopher Monckton and Maurice Newman, too. But don’t get too excited. While the shift is a slight win for skeptics, there is no sign that Catalyst are any less biased, better informed or more aware of what the scientific method is. It is just a shift in PR tactics.
Anja Taylor still didn’t ask hard questions or do her research properly. Catalyst viewers would be almost as much in the dark as they were before. It is as if the point of the show was training for the ABC faithful to answer the dreaded skeptics. Because even though skeptics were no […]
Thanks to Steve Hunter. See more of his cartoons at Andys rant.
Taxpayers rejoice! The science-propaganda agency is gone for good. One down — scores to go.
Tony Abbott was sworn in yesterday. Today Greg Hunt rang Tim Flannery to tell him the commission is closed. His $180,000 3-day-a-week job as a sales agent for “climate change” is over.
BREAKING (ABC): The Abbott Government has abolished the Climate Commission, pushing ahead with its plan to scrap government bodies associated with Labor’s carbon pricing scheme and climate change policy.
The commission was set up under then prime minister Julia Gillard in February 2011 as an independent body “to provide reliable and authoritative” information on climate change.
Jo Nova applauds the Abbott government decision to cut waste and to stop funding an inept unscientific agency which was unbalanced to the point of being government advertising in disguise. Today is a great day for taxpayers. This agency propped up billions of dollars in pointless futile government spending trying to change the weather. Nothing will bring back money spent on desal plants that were mothballed when the floods came that real scientists predicted. […]
Stephan Lewandowsky’s work is a case study in government funded inanity. Some Australians are sure that burning coal will make storms stronger. Others are not convinced. In November 2012 Lewandowsky’s intellectual contribution to science in Australia was to call the unconvinced “stupid”. If that’s not inane enough, at the same time he claimed that he didn’t recieve funding from any organisation that would benefit from his article.
How many taxpayer dollars went towards funding that? No conflict of interest?
Are Australian Research Council funds used as a form of third party advertising for Labor Government policy?
Writing in “A storm of Stupidity, Sandy, Evidence and Climate Change” on The Conversation, his reasoning is like this: some scientists reckon that a very bad storm called “Sandy” has “links” to man-made emissions of a trace gas. Lewandowsky reasons that because those scientists are called “experts”, anyone who questions them should be called stupid. (He thinks this article and that tweet were overdue). Though, in a twist, apparently he doesn’t actually think the unconvinced are actually stupid, he thinks they are ethically “disembodied” people who “mislead”. (As an aside, notice how he approves of news articles that call them stupid even though […]
There’s a mindset, a world view here that’s profoundly unreal, anti-science, and of course, fully funded by the Taxpayer from start to end (how could it be any other way?).
From the researcher who holds childish assumptions and misunderstands his own results, to the site that posts it all as if it were “higher thought”, to the trained communicator of science who then parrots the mistakes and insults half the population at the same time. Cheers! Private money couldn’t fund a satire like “The Conversation”. (Well, it could if it were funny.)
The Conversation recall was funded with $6 million.
Stephan continues his war on science
Lewandowsky’s bread and butter stuff is breaking the central tenet of science — namely, that evidence is more important than opinions. His mission (though I don’t think he’s aware of it) appears to be to return us to pre-Enlightenment days when Bishops controlled the public conversation. In this post-post-modern era, some things are so post they’re posterior — some parts of science are returning to unscience. This “science” is not about your data or reasoning, and not about your results — it’s about your ability to get a grant, a title, a university badge. […]
Paul Homewood follows the money to find Royal Society funding.
(Figures are rounded)
…
Even if we acknowledge that most of the money goes straight to research, there is a slab of money that goes straight to the Society:
So government funding (Parliamentary Grant in Aid) amounts to 67% of total income. Similar amounts have been fixed for a 5 year period to allow the Society to plan ahead properly. It is also worth noting the income generated from commercial activities, such as investment income and publications.
Government money is channelled through the Dept of Business, who insist that it is allocated to specific projects and programmes. Most of this is therefore paid out by the Royal Society in the form of research grants etc. However in 2010/11 £2,265,000 was allocated to “Support and Central Expenses”, in other words overheads costs.
9.1 out of 10 based on 41 ratings […]
For pure, circular destruction of wealth, happiness and prosperity, it doesn’t get much better than this. Not long back Greenpeace and co were busted for planning a six million dollar campaign to disrupt and delay the coal industry — and today The Australian reports that three of the major organisations involved received close to $750,000 from the government, for “public climate change activities” raising doubts about whether public funds had been misused.
The Nature Conservation Council (NSW), Environment Victoria and the Conservation Council of Western Australia have received grants of $211,000, $213,215 and $319,420 respectively for public climate change activities since last December.
Environment Victoria and the Conservation Council of WA confirmed yesterday they had backed the development of the anti-coal campaign.
The coal miners are an industry that is legal, employs 40,000 people directly, provides the fuel for more than half our electricity and generates about $13b in tax dollars for the Australian government.
Now if the NGO’s wanted to explain to the rest of us why we ought to decide to reduce our coal mining, that would be fair enough, but they aren’t trying to convince us with reason or debate, they’re trying to disrupt a legitimate economic […]
Shouldn’t the government know what the benefits and costs of the carbon tax are before they make it into law? This is looking awfully like a case of “policy first, justifications later”.
First they promised they won’t do it. Then they do it, and they ask for even more of our money so they can pay PR hacks (introduced to us as scientists and economists) to tell us how fabulous their unwanted plan is — after all, the Climate Change Commission has no purpose other than to advertise the Carbon Tax. Then there’s a $12 million advertising program. But wait, there’s more…
Amazingly, there are now $250,000 grants (how many?*) from the Department of Climate Change to anyone who can persuade the public to accept the carbon tax!
If the government had thought this through, they’d already know why they wanted to bring in the tax. (Or maybe they did think it through, but are afraid to tell us the real reasons?)
As it is, they’re only bringing in the tax because 12% of the voters voted one green member into the House of Reps, and it was the price paid to keep Gillard in power. But for most Australians […]
A sample of recent scientific news from NIPCC * The Glaciers of Greenland were smaller 5000 years ago; * African savanna trees thrive with increases in CO2; * It was hotter in China a thousand years ago, and by a whole degree; * Marine-life-with-shells can’t agree on their favourite CO2 level and * Temperatures make no difference to the 5000 year record of hurricanes. […]
Poor writing can throw up a fog to hide dubious claims.
Prasad Menon
The Extravaganza of the Deakin Lectures is taking place at the moment in Melbourne, and Des Moore on Quadrant Online accused them of being a one-sided propaganda machine paid for by government money (though not in those exact words).
In response, the Wheeler Centre defended themselves on their blog*, and claimed that Quadrant’s missed the point: They don’t need to do the debating thing because bloggers do that (and they link to moi).
So the Wheeler unit, which is supported by the Victorian Government, EPA Victoria, Carbon Innovators Network, The Age, and the ABC et al defends a policy position taken by Government Departments, and minor clubs like, y’know, the UN, and yet it’s OK, there’s no fear of government funds being used to propagate a one-sided message, because JoNova is discussing the science (with no government funding, no industry sponsorship, and no university support). So that’s what they call balance.
The rest of us call it government advertising. It’s just a different form. A government-funded unit gets to use taxpayer dollars to prop up a government policy and help large investment funds and a […]
By Jo Nova
A team of psychologists were so sure “climate deniers” deceive themselves for selfish reasons that they ran three experiments with four thousand people, only to find they were completely wrong.
The researchers figured that those who do not accept that coal makes storms and floods must be motivated by their desire to keep on polluting, or flying, or feeling warm, and so they lie to themselves about the science in order to feel OK about it. (A bit like academics must do when it turns out they get paid well, but don’t know their research topic at all, maybe?)
It must have been quite the shock when Zimmermann and Stötzer were proved wrong on every single experiment. They even tried to bribe skeptics with $20 cash rewards and it still wasn’t enough.
Why are people climate change deniers? Study reveals unexpected results
Do climate change deniers bend the facts to avoid having to modify their environmentally harmful behavior? Researchers from the University of Bonn and the Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) ran an online experiment involving 4,000 US adults, and found no evidence to support this idea. The authors of the study were themselves […]
This was actually written by Mark Lawson. We are collaborating on a collection of papers covering the main problems with intermittent energy. He appears frequently in The Spectator and he is a published writer in his own right. His website.
Key points
The use of hydrogen as the medium of a power export market has an obvious, major flaw. Unlike coal or gas, hydrogen can be created anywhere where there is water, wind and sun. Why should any country import the gas when they can make it on their own territory?
Hydrogen is not like LNG. It is much harder to put into liquid form, is much more likely to leak and has different properties which make it a far more dangerous gas.
Hydrogen has been used as a feedstock in many industrial processes for decades, but the vast bulk of the gas is consumed in the same place it is made, from methane and steam. This is a cheaper method of manufacturing than by using electricity.
Energy losses from converting electricity from renewables into hydrogen and then back again at the other end means that it is less wasteful to use a transmission line. These can now carry […]
“The IPCC remains addicted to hockeysticks”
In the 6th dimension of Intergovernmental Climate Propaganda, which arrived last week, the long discredited Hockeystick is not just a sidenote, it’s the very first graph the IPCC uses in their Summary for Powerful people (the ones who make policy).
As per usual, hundreds of years of warmth has been retro-extinguished. Thousands of proxies around the world all deviated from the real temperature and non-randomly in the same direction. It’s a conspiracy I tell you! Luckily the IPCC has found scientists who can correct these simultaneous errors of proxiness which mostly they do by just tossing out the results they don’t like. They ignore whole series they don’t like, delete the years that don’t work for them, and flip that data upside down if they need to. And if that’s not enough they use trees that grow larger rings when CO2 is higher.
And when they are not deleteing data, they’re using the wrong trees. No one is even pretending anymore. They’ve done it all before and no one went to jail or even lost a job.
As Steve MacIntyre tells it the PAGES2017 data set winnowed down the thousands of proxies to their […]
Octopuses survived the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, but look set to go blind thanks to coal fired power and your car.
Octopuses may go blind from climate change, study warns
…
Plastic pollution and climate change may be significantly altering the level of oxygen on our planet. Now, a new study dives into the impact it could have on marine life, including squids, crabs and octopuses – blindness.
The study, published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, highlights how important oxygen is to sight and retinal activity for certain marine larvae. Tiny declines in oxygen levels result in significant vision impairment, including almost total blindness in certain species.
“Using in vivo electroretinogram recordings, we show that there is a decrease in retinal sensitivity to light in marine invertebrates when exposed to reduced oxygen availability,” the study’s abstract reads. “We found a 60-100 [percent] reduction in retinal responses in the larvae of cephalopods and crustaceans…
Or more specifically: Octopuses will go blind if they are suddenly dumped in tanks with reduced oxygen…
To test the theory, the animals were put in reduced oxygen environments for approximately 30 minutes.
Time to […]
Excuse #101: Denying Climate Change is an Evil Depraved Sin so we don’t need to bother coming up with reasons anymore
Why is Krugman sticking pins into Denier Dolls? It makes him feel better.
He said it himself — if people disagree about climate change in good faith, it means climate believers need to be more persuasive. But if they are just evil, there’s nothing you can do. This is the end-days desperation. And after thirty years of propaganda, there’s nothing left in their communication toolbox. The awful truth is that in the muted, lopsided debate, they had all the money and institutions but they still lost.
When you can’t convince people with polite discussion all that’s left is to agree with your opponents or demonize them. So that’s what Krugman does. Change the goal-posts — he’s saying these evil people are not even worth talking to.
Humans are incredibly good at rationalizing stupid things. Pace Paul Krugman, who wrote this in the NY times last week. This week, the Sydney Morning Herald became the copy-paste late repeater of junk analysis and naked smear by a failed economist. Bravo.
Denying climate change is evil Climate denial is rooted in […]
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JoNova A science presenter, writer, speaker & former TV host; author of The Skeptic's Handbook (over 200,000 copies distributed & available in 15 languages).
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