How to Make Science Fit Your Prejudices
Nick Griffin seems to have hijacked science from Professor Stephen Oppenheimer, a geneticist at the University of Oxford, to fit his prejudices, according to The Times. I have a feeling that is not the first time that they’ve used scientifically-correct books and research to back-up their views. In fact, that excellent book by Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners, which is a meticulously researched history of immigration into the UK, is recommended on the BNP’s web site. I suspect though that it has too long sentences for most people who support such a party.
This is very much a trick of racists and fascists. Hitler did it all the time and was always looking for research to fit his awful theories. Read The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze to find out more.
But Griffin has had a bad day.
He tried to blame the BBC for his poor showing on Question Time, last night. I put it down to his bankrupt policies and the fact that he was out of his depth amongst his fellow panelists and the audience. After all it’s one thing to get up in front of friends as he does in the BNP and another to get up in front of critics.
He is no Jorg Haider or Geert Wilders.
I did like this comment on The Times article.
The Irish invented whiskey when they learnt distillation after trading perfume with Arab Muslims which proves Nick Griffin’s theory about how foreigners are destroying our heritage! If it wasn’t for those Muslims, we wouldn’t have all those alcoholics!
The Return of the Elm
Look at the paintings of John Constable and you’ll see lots of English Elms. Sadly most of them are no more as they were devastated by Dutch Elm disease in the 1980s. At our previous house, we had several large specimens and I can remember the day they all came down. We’d tried everything that we could to save them, but you can’t resist nature.
Here’s what Wikipedia says about the English Elm.
Ulmus procera Salisb., the English Elm or Atinian Elm was, before the advent of Dutch elm disease, one of the largest and fastest-growing deciduous trees in Europe. A survey of genetic diversity in Spain, Italy and the UK revealed that the English Elms are genetically identical, clones of a single tree, the Atinian Elm once widely used for training vines, and brought to the British Isles by Romans. Thus, the origin of U. procera is widely believed to be Italy, although it is possible the tree hailed from what is now Turkey, where it is still used in the cultivation of raisins.
But, we still have some English Elm in this country and they seem to be resistant to the disease. This seems to be surprising, if they are all genetic identical, so perhaps they are not, or there is another factor.
The Conservation Foundation is now distributing elm saplings to schools, that have been grown from this possibly disease-resistant strain of English Elm.
This is the sort of initiative that we should all support.
Incidentally, some years ago, I met David Bellamy, one of the founders of the Conservation Foundation. One of my companies had won a green award.
He was not as I expected, in that many media experts are full of their own ego and never listen to your point of view. I found him to be very much a listener, who made some extraordinary incisive points, that many would not accept.
He is very much a maverick and we need more thinkers like that. They may not always be right, but challenging them often produces a train of thought and a result, that is infinitely better than a conservative approach.
I always describe myself as scientifically green.
The English Elm project ticks all the boxes, as those children in thirty years time will want to take their kids back to their school to show their children, their elm trees.
Holiday Reading
I rarely read novels and usually take something that educates me, rather than enlightens.
Books I’ve enjoyed on holiday include the following.
- Lise Meitner – Ruth Lewin Sime – A biography of one of the greatest women scientists.
- Bloody Foreigners – Robert Winder – Not what it seems, but a scientifically-correct history of immigration into the UK. Ideal for keeping Germans off sun-beds.
- Moscow 1941 – Rodric Braithwaite – The definitive account of the battle for Moscow in the Second World War.
- The Wages of Destruction – Adam Tooze – An economic history of the Nazis, by a serious Cambridge academic.
- The Password is Courage – John Castle – A wartime biography of Charlie Coward, who rescued hundreds from Auswitz.
- Rosalind Franklin – Brenda Maddox – A biography of the Dark Lady of DNA.
- Buckminster Fuller’s Universe – Lloyd Steven Sieden – A biography of the greatest philosopher of the twentieth century.
- Principia – Isaac Newton – His great work, that laid down many of the scientific truths, which govern our lives.
- The Skeptical Environmentalist – Bjorn Lomberg – This book debunks many of the myths put around by quack scientists and charity doommongers.
- Beyond the Blue Horizon – Alexander Frater – A book following the route of Imperial Airways to Australia.
- Fermat’s Last Theorem – Simon Singh – A great mathematical story.
- The Man who Loved Only Numbers – Paul Hoffman – The remarkable story of Paul Erdos.
- Liberators – Robert Harvey – The brutal story of those that liberated South America from the Spanish and the Portuguese.
- The Subterranean Railway – Christian Wolmar – The story of the London Underground. I actually read this on Salina, which is the last place you’d build one.
- Prisongate – David Ramsbotham – A frank expose of the British penal system.
- Aspirin – Diarmuid Jeffreys – The remarkable story of a wonder drug.
- Engineering Archie – Simon Inglis – How one man designed many of Britain’s football grounds.
The trouble is that I bought most in hardback and eat into my hand-baggage allowance.
But this is only a start list. There are lots more and I’ll add to it in future.
The Anonymous Widower 