I pass on an article published in 'The Australian' newspaper of 18th May 2013 written by Assoc. Prof. Greg Melleuish of the Uni.of Wollongong on the NSW central coast, Australia . He has admirably expressed some ideas which have gnawed at me for some years. The article is headed 'Too many academics are driven to abstraction by their addiction to models.' Sub-headed 'Emotional zeal coupled with self interest fuels an obsession with man-made climate change.' While I have no objection to climate change debate, I have a problem with it becoming an object of religious zeal, brooking no contrary view.
Quote " In some ways the growing intellectual power of the Left over the past fifty years, in Australia as in other parts of the world, can be seen as the dominance of the radical enlightenment over the moderate enlightenment. One feature of this dominance has been the rejection of ideas that come from Anglosphere societies in favour of those that come from continental Europe, be they French literary theorists or German philosophers. The moderate enlightenment always sought to reconcile the great body of ideas, beliefs and ways of doing things that we have inherited from the past with the new discoveries of the sciences.
The radical enlightenment from the 17th century until today, has little or no time for tradition and wants to make the world anew on the basis of abstract, and usually untried theories. Moreover, they believe it is possible to inflict those theories on the world through an act of will.
We should fear this growing dominance of the abstract over the concrete and of an adversarial culture over one that seeks to reconcile ideas and the practical realities of the world. Intellectuals and intellectual life of this type will do little for the future of Australia. These intellectuals are instinctively Platonists and gnostics; they perceive themselves to have access to ideas that are superior because unlike the rest of us they have seen the light while we see only shadows. Their ideas need to be imposed on the real world.
When one looks at the contemporary humanities faculties of our universities, one sees that they are increasingly addicted to theory and to making the world bend to their theories. It is this combination of abstraction and a faith in the capacity of the will to impose these abstrctions on the world that makes these intellectuals such a threat to the contemporary world.
Just how frightening the situation is can be seen in two current issues that have important practical consequences for Australia. These are man-made climate change and the desire for the current government to regulate the flow of ideas. In both cases academics have played, and continue to play, a crucial role and it must be said that their role has not been on the side of the angels.
The first is naked self-interest. Modern academia is about publishing papers and winning grants as a means of self advancement. They have discovered that with climate change they are on a real winner. They can claim that the government needs to fund them so that they can find ways of overcoming the effects of climate change, even reverse it. It becomes the 'magic pudding' of research. Enough can never be done. There is always a need for more research, for more grants.The more that is done on climate change, the more that needs to be done. As a research topic it appears to be one that can be milked forever.
The second is that as a topic it is an expression of the academic desire to reduce the world to a series of models that can be manipulated to predict the future. Climate change relies heavily on computer modelling, on the assumption if one feeds in enough information, one can create a model that actually depicts reality.
The Soviets believed in this fantasy. They sought to build a super-computer that would be able to create a model, thereby allowing the state to predict the demand for every item used by its people. The model came unstuck on platform shoes. In the 1970s platform shoes came into popularity so the Soviets set about planning to produce these shoes. The only problem was that by the time they had them ready, the fashion had changed.
We live in a world that is both complex and contingent. It is a delusion to believe that we can create a model that depicts reality in such a way that we can control the future. When we attempt to do so we simply remain in the abstract world of the model and become its slave.
The third is a form of moral panic that seems to have overcome many academics. A major discovery of the past 100 years is that education and devotion to intellectual matters does not make modern human beings more rational. Academics, like other people, are prone to scares and panics, and hence to using their intellects in defence of irrational projects.
In Germany the Nazis conquered the students before the rest of the country. The two intellectual giants, Martin Hiedegger and Carl Schmitt, came out in support of the Nazis. It could be argued that it is their addiction to abstract models that makes academics more prone to emotional manipulation, as they do not often possess a well-developed sense of balance between their rational and emotional natures. The more one is addicted to abstract models, the less defence one has against one's irrational urges.
What we can see in academic support for climate change is an emotional zeal combined with a highly developed form of abstract thought that is not very healthy, especially when it is combined with a strong sense of self-interest. What is argued is that academic abstraction makes academics more prone to millennial aspirations and the belief that they can save the world.
In his recent book on millennialism, Richard Landes argues that millennial movements become more extreme the more they fail, and it will certainly be the case that this is what happens with the climate change lobby. Empirical evidence will have little effect on their views and they will cling to the faith for as long as possible. As this faith is founded upon their models, they will come more and more to rely on the models and ignore the real world. And they will become more determined to impose their their views on any recalcitrant unbeliever.
The zeal with which academics pursue their defence of climate change is a reminder that many of them are more interested in imposing their views on the wider population than they are in allowing for the freedom of speech and expression.
Academics, like many other intellectuals, have a very high opinion of themselves and their rightness. Humility is not a virtue in their world. If you are right and you have good intentions, then surely you should not only be heard but should also prevail. In fact, you probably believe that you have a duty to prevail and to drown out the views of those who lack your qualifications and capacity to employ models. They are just inferiors who need to be brought into line.
Such an attitude has long defined how climate change alarmists see their critics and the wider society. Such people should be like their (academics') students who are there simply to listen and absorb, not to answer back. Unfortunately, this attitude seems now to have spread to government circles in Australia, which, under the direction of Julia Gillard and the Greens, are not interested in listening to criticism of their plans but instead think only of ways of preventing their critics from being heard. They have decided; it is the task of the rest of us to obey.
The government and their academic allies use a number of tactics to achieve this goal.
One is to delegitimise anyone who is not considered to be an 'expert' in the field. It has been used to attack climate change sceptics by claiming that they do not publish in the peer reviewed journals that are controlled by the climate change alarmists.
The view that only the 'experts' have a right to speak is anti-democratic. It assumes that the wider population is a bunch of bogans. ....
Two is to complain about the 'extremism' of those with whom one does not agree. ....
Three is to complain about lack of balance. If a publication decides to argue strongly for a position that is not officially approved then it is being unbalanced......" Unquote.
Sorry to be a such a balloon buster, but the Assoc. Prof. has summed it up pretty well.
Academic disrepute arises from (1) funding imperatives, (2) reputation imperatives, (3) resistance to change.
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