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NOT TO PUT TOO FINE A POINT ON IT . . .

Susan Greenfield strikes me as pretty strange, and she achieved that without rapid on-screen images at a tender age.

I suggest that being born into a barmy culture that has interfered with everything from fertility, through impregnation and gestation, to infant nurture sustenance and parenting, is enough, in itself. By the time we add screen-focused activities to that lot, the kid is probably a crackpot anyway.

Eh-oh!

STATURE CANNOT BE DENIED

When one surveys the qualities of Lord Goldsmith and Jack Straw, the immeasurable depth of their integrity is immediately apparent. No Briton, in possession of that innate ability to assess their fellow Briton, accurately, can be in any doubt as to the nature of what is being withheld from our scrutiny. I, for one, applaud Jack Straw for showing, once again, the kind of man he is, and level of integrity at which the Mother of all Parliaments conducts herself. Bravo!

The stories like the one you mention last about social networking sites invariably come from newspapers like the Daily Mail. They come up with these silly stories for one reason: THEY JUST DON'T GET IT!

But isn't it nice to know that in a few years, there will be no place for them and they'll be forced out of business. The thought of it just about makes their inane rambling nonsense tolerable, perhaps even comedic.

Barrie (#1) Strange indeed. The Lords works in mysterious ways.

Post 2 oh oh oh spot on Barrie but far 2 polite. Watch this Space. If I can get away with it.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Ok auntie mod beeb lets try another pathEtick/root. Mr stRAW wishes me and others 2 believe WOTeva he says.

SO sorry I dont.
The deal is I work hrd and pay my taxes and the GUVomit protects my offspring.???

I REALLY Trust the Govermeant 2 include T blair.

At 3: "The stories like the one you mention last about social networking sites invariably come from newspapers like the Daily Mail. They come up with these silly stories for one reason: THEY JUST DON'T GET IT!"

The Daily Mail always gets it in the neck from the out-of-touch.

The Guardian will soon be an extinct species...and thank god for that!

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Mark Urban should request Israel's alleged footage of firing from the graveyard. Israel's forces captures live video from all warplanes and drones. I hope Israel pays for the repair of tombstones it damaged. Ditto, those responsible for blowing up the cross.

Jack Straw's blocking the release of the cabinet minutes is just the latest shameful act in the illegal invasion of Iraq.
Also, Â鶹¹ÙÍøÊ×Ò³Èë¿Ú comments stating that Tony Blair sincerely believed Iraq possessed WMD cannot be verified. Blair merely states this. Intelligence experts who gave secret evidence to Hutton and others disagreed. The late Robin Cook is the only minister from the time emerging with any credit.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

THE CENTRE CANNOT HOLD (NOR THE EDGES)

Well Newsnight - a tour de force! Are you trying to out-do the Mail? Pullover man (from The IT Crowd?) reminded me of Rick from The Young Ones being anarchic. Did we get anywhere? If I want to tap into people getting heated about published evidence (or lack of) I can come here!
What was his blog? 'Bad Science'? I think he should re-name it Bad Hair Day, and gain a decade or two, before returning.

It isn't social-networking sites which have made them 'self-centred'. It's their daft, 'self-centred' parents.

Speaking of which (i.e. 'environmental pixie-dust' rather than biological genes), it might be timely to ask what tacit assumptions most of our economic 'experts' hold as givens as they appear to be into the same etheral stuff as 'educationalists' and parents.

IDS, THE INVISIBLE MAN OF WAR

As I keep saying, it was IDS (with Blair shaped, charismatic stars in his dreamy eyes) who marched his troops to Tony's rescue.

I know IDS is now succouring the young and vulnerable (not in Iraqi rubble, of course) but that should not shield him from searching questions regarding gullibility when the Torys voted WAR! Might MI5 have a chat with him, should he be tardy with the truth?

"Baroness Greenfield meanwhile points out that those on the autism spectrum are particularly comfortable in the cyber world.

"She's right about that, but her analysis is the wrong way round," said Professor David Skuse, of the Behavioural Sciences Unit at the Institute of Child Health.

"The young people with autism we see do have a problem with face-to-face communication although they can be very articulate. They need to communicate and the internet is giving them a channel that they would not otherwise have. "
(from the link re. social networking)

There you go JoJo. I told you so!

#15

"It isn't social-networking sites which have made them 'self-centred'. It's their daft, 'self-centred' parents."

Do you have evidence to support your assertion JoJo? ......No, I thought not.You'd have to go out to collect that.

13thMan (#17,#18) "There you go JoJo. I told you so!"

So far, you haven't managed to tell me anything other than the fact that you have a major problem anticipating stimulation of your sensory surfaces and reliably reporting what you observe.

If social networking (or anything else) -'rewired brains', we would surely have had far more success in the alchemical businesses of education and rehabilitation would we not?

Why is attainment and e-offending so predictable, from such an early age, do you think?

Why I refer to these (i.e. what empirical evidence I am tacitly referring to) is something which you would do well to look into a little further rather than trying to conjure up yet more abuse if support of an indefensible position.

ARE WE DOOMED BY LIBERTARIANS/ANARCHISTS?

It was an interesting, but kid gloved, exchange between Ben Goldacre and Aric Sigman last night. Goldacre promised - but the question that really should surely be asked on Newsnight is how it's come to this, and Brain-Gym, and SEAL, and SureStart, HeadStart, Aiming High etc etc etc ad nauseam.

I've given my (often unpopular) views. Are we up to facing the empirical facts given the evidence, or wil continue dreaming/behaving and suffer the consequences?

Too many talk as if those have a basis in reality whilst continuing to the ?

Or should one just accept that plausible denial is just as much the business of the entertainment industry as it is politics?

The key to grasping all this and doing anything about it is to grasp the properties of the , but that, alas, as any experienced Key Stage Three maths teacher will explain, is something which is much easier to say than to successfully achieve. Why?

and those prone to be enthralled by pixie dust - and please look up the Leitch Review and the abject failure of the LSC adult literacy training programmes. See the denial?

What does it all say?

IS THE ANSWER: 'YES - DOOMED' JJ? (#20)

We are born helpless animal. The first tranche of skills acquired, are skills of 'cleverness', and hailed as such by our 'significant carers' (avoiding the pejorative term: 'parents').

The clever little animal is soon shipped out to various 'institutions of cleverness-enhancement' and becomes seduced by 'being cleverer', equating it with education.

Any maturity is achieved by default; and wisdom (coeval with, or dependent upon, maturity) is all-but absent in typical lives.

We are many generations into this cycle, such that wisdom is now, effectively, bred-out. Achievers, shaped by the process above, run banking, play at governance teach the next generation - and start wars. We all live and die, as children, dancing to any passing piper, however manipulative.

No way back?

#20 Yes Jean I read the Telegraph article. With one in nine of British people born abroad at what point do we cease to be British and just "the world"?!

And why did all the media pick up on the drop in Eastern Europeans coming here, as it would be a popular spin, and not quote the fact that the indigenous British population was declining. Our population must be at least 65 million now, especially with all the illegal immigrants.

I actually still think it's a good idea for all countries to have a small turnover of population, but why does everybody think it's wonderful to inundated us with different races with no wish to live as the British do? I also noted that people coming here to work as opposed to British people working abroad, outnumber us by 4 to 1. So British people must like their home country more than one would think!

I also find this appalling. What has happened to the rights of women in this country?! We seem to be going backwards!

HOME IS WHERE THE HEART IS (#23)

I am not sure I wanted to read that Lizzy. One thing is sure: with the UK population now stressed, it will end in 'tears'.

As for the 'rights of women in this country' don't you think that IN THEIR HEADS the women in question are still 'elsewhere', accepting of a different cultural norm?

#24 barrie

"As for the 'rights of women in this country' don't you think that IN THEIR HEADS the women in question are still 'elsewhere', accepting of a different cultural norm?"

Yes I agree barrie, but how sad and miserable must these women be?! Even if not allowed out on their own, they can see a completely different way of life here for women. It must drive them slightly insane, and they must miss their own countries where this culture is the norm. They appear to be imprisoned here in their own customs, but never part of Britain. Why do our laws and the government accept this? Why have we, in the jargon, become "soft touch Britain"!!! We seem able to bend our laws and way of life for anyone foreign, and yet have the most authoritarian government ever controlling the indigenous population.

Post 25 You get what you pay for.
I dont pay and refuse to do so. I Dont Want/Need what they sell.

Arab/Highland Hospitality.
You meet an Arab in the middle of the desert you have no food/water you are getting close to The Big Sleep. He/They will feed/water/care for you with their last drop of water/morsal of food wnen you are well enough he/they will send you on your happy way.
A similar condition is treated in a similar way in the Highlands when Dr Death is knocking on your door.

The sad fact is that there are persons here that have more than outstayed their welcome. How long do you continue 2 feed a Dog that continues to Bite your hand.

Just in Case.
May I qualify myself, this is NO rant about Arabs/Muslims, without them I would not be Gobbing off 2 you now.

PS Reports this morning and years before state that our children/Service personel are being Attacked on a Daily basis by UK? born people?

Their Heads and Hearts suggest to me that they are where they want to be.

OH WAD SOME POWER THE GIFTIE GIE US (#25)

Hi Lizzie. The gift to see ourselves might be part of that missing wisdom perhaps? (#21)

Our children are trapped in 'battery-house' rearing, that a 'Primitive' might well be aghast at. Our women are trapped in the belief that male values and goals are worth pursuing, such that they begin to get male illnesses. How might an 'oppressed' woman, from a totally different culture, view that?

I am of the opinion (from self inspection) that man has a set of drives and rewards that go deep. By observation and enquiry, I get the impression that woman is equivalently, but FAR FROM IDENTICALLY, configured'.

My homespun wisdom is that we are OBLIGED to be culturally attuned to what nature has constructed, or species-sustainability fails. I am as sure as I can be, that our culture is perverse, in that it runs counter to nature in a number of crucial ways.

Monotheism is male. Mechanisation is male. 'Western' culture is male. Even Feminism is male. Mother Earth is 'man-mad'; and just look at the state of her!

ecolizzy (#25) "Why do our laws and the government accept this?"

Because it contributes towards undermining the status quo - i.e facilitating 'Liberalism'.

I think one has to judge (and earlier) governments by outcomes not by their stated intentions/policies. It's the same with all else. It's outcomes or consequences which ultimately matter. Behaviour is reinforced by its consequences and we should take politicians' verbal spin for what it is - luftgebaude.

New Labour has broken this country up and will continue to do so. They are internationalists, not national socialists.

PS. Look up 'Collective Guilt' is Google.

Sparking on all cylinders as usual Barrie, I cant fault you and wont.

But (theres allways a but depnds on how big the butt is)
A Woman is a man with a womb.
A Man is just a man for A that. (most of them in the words of an Arab Sheik fairly Worthless creatures, I cannot find fault with him either.

Brilliant Newsnight Tuesday! My favourite had to be the studio debate on social site such as Facebook (of which I am a fan and use all the time) and Bebo rotting children's brains. As Jeremy pointed out - where is the evidence and that it was ridiculous to suggest that the sites re-wired children's brains. It's true that you can quote anything from anywhere and twist that extract into something else. Dr Ben Goldacre also stated that social networking sites increase peoples social lives, and Jeremy also stated that it DOES increase interaction. Surely the argument that spending time in a non-face to face way can be applied to ohone calls and letters too? Would that mean that phone calls and letter writing are also injurous to health and can re-wire a child's brain?

Post 28 JJ
I disagree they are Stalinists. They will keep the Blood Red Flag flying high, Their Blood however will not be on it.(or WILL IT) Guess what! My offsprings blood will not be on it, not if I can help it, It Will be theirs NULAB before My childrens.

It has/was been a close call.
One of my wonderfull daughters (I have more than 2) on 7/7 was, you guessed it in the middle of the Smoke on a bus.
Help me out here JJ, Where does the Fault/Blame/Guilt/ETC/ETC/ETC LIE, I am begining to believe it lays with me.

In teh wake of last night's programme on 'bad science', perhaps Newsnight could invite Bishop Williamson onto the programme along with say, Richard Dawkins and a few other people who are concerned about our widespread deterioration in rational behaviour?

I've always been concerned that the USSR/Russia (which ended up with most of the liberated camps on its territory), didn't make a big issue of this matter after the start of the Cold War. Quite the opposite in fact, taking Mahmoud Abbas' PhD thesis into consideration.

IT'S ALL IN THE LAYING! (#31)
(Sorry to hear your daughter was on that bus, dAllan169. I hope she escaped injury and trauma. Best wishes from a fairly harmless man.)

"I am beginning to believe it lays with me."
Oh it DOES! IT DOES! (:o)

PROCREATION WITHOUT
DUE CARE AND ATTENTION

So I got to Heaven and breathed a sigh;
a relief to find that when you die
you really do go up above
all floaty haze - all peace and love.
Then a voice - I found it rather surly
came from an angel bluff and burly
he said: "Three kids I’ve got you down for."
I said: "That’s right, we didn't want more."
"But you had 'em willy-nilly" said he
and studied his clipboard menacingly.
"Statute 7A - for your information
deals with the act of procreation.
Your Heavenly Bliss is in suspension:
'Cavorting without due care and attention'.
You might have thought you had free will
but that willie of yours was never still!
No floating for you mate - you’ve cocked it up
you must learn your lesson you mucky pup."
Then he frog-marched me off to a sad grey area
not peace and love - a bit more scarier.
In off-white smocks we sat harangued
by an archangel who tirelessly banged
on and on about paradoxical rights
to remain unconceived through untold days and nights;
except for the pair, who make this new life
having thought it right-through as man and wife.
Well! It wasn’t going quite as I expected
the more I thought the more I got dejected.
In British Law there’s no duty of care
(except she's under 16, shouting "No!" or "unaware".)
Otherwise procreation's quite unencumbered
and the unconceived with consciousness get lumbered.
I realised I'd not given a second thought
three kids - condemned to life - to this world I'd brought!
Then, as the truth dawned on me, all was light
my smock became fine cloth of purest white.
I gaily pranced off to the floaty-haze zone
to marvel how obvious the truth I'd been shown!

errata (#28) "I think one has to judge this government (and earlier ones)..

and 'in Google'.

dAllan169 "I am begining to believe it lays with me."

One of the messages of Qutb was that the Liberal-Democracies have been decadent ) for decades. Some of our values are seen as a threat to theirs, and yet ironically, many of their values appear to be rather like ours used to be - a focus on the family, anti-usury, and clear role divisions and mores for the sexes.

Watching Richard Watson's recent piece set amongst radical Islamists made me question whether he is doing good or ill, as it seemed clear to me that his tacit, secular-pressure, was what was agitating some of them, and that's not what anyone should be doing.

We need to seriously ask ourselves whether we are ultimately doing ourselves any good at all looking at our demographics. I've spelled this out elsewhere.

Thankyou Barrie Mucky Pup strikes a cord/rings a bell. Not sure about the white smock even in the Artic mine has ALLways been Denison/DPM/Camo. along with a steel skidlid 2 protect the vitals Cheers :)

test

@23:
Thats cultural diversity for you. Two questions. What women in her right mind would want to share herself to a man who already has another/others?...what man would want more than one women to keep and bear children?...well, if there's a benefit system in place....why not.
The Islamic tradition of having more than one wife is more common than the western mind perceives...its rife and the insult to the tax payer is we pay for their cultural marriage options; i would hazard a guess that many of the indigenous Britons take great exception to this. I sometimes wonder if the govt is in cahoots with the BNP in creating a new nationalism by way of distressing the masses with the ever increasing stories of our Govt overdoing the accommodating of other cultures. We are told by our servants that we are a tolerant multicultural society and any dissent shown to this new order of thinking will only get you the charge of harboring racist views.

I witness constantly the hatred shown in the work place, for example, between certain ethnic groups, the demarcation lines are drawn. Resentment is never far away when other staff members disappear to pray under the stairwells...the staff put up with it' .We know they hate our western lifestyles and values and whilst we work in the standard issue corporate environment (once owned by HBOS but now LTSB) the thin veneer of respect amonst the different cultures is starting to crack - amongst us all - and that often heard refrain about who the working class would vote for, "Labour!" is now replaced by... I'll be voting for the BNP".

History always gives us lessons to learn but we soon forget them...Northern Rock doing 90% mortgages! no! they never learn do they...maybe Brown needs to understand the term 'moral hazard' he can ask Mervin King what thats all about, and then apply it not just to financial institutions but to British society.

I don't vote Tory but given the far right nature of some of the posters on this page I would like to offer my condolences to David Cameron.

He is a genuine human being and I am sorry for his considerable loss.

Though there may appear to be wide gulfs between political parties at times they have far more in common than divides them and there is, and should be, mutual respect.

Conversely there is the desire, but sadly not the capacity, to jettison social elements who act as a vile cancer in society.

quote Watching Richard Watson's recent piece set amongst radical Islamists made me question whether he is doing good or ill, as it seemed clear to me that his tacit, secular-pressure, was what was agitating some of them, and that's not what anyone should be doing. unquote

The reality is that there is growing dissatisfaction with the current policy of appeasement because it is does not appear to be leading to a behavioural change in the agitators. A lot of people were very unimpresed by the government's submission to a threat to mobilise 10,000 protesters.

quote and yet ironically their values appear to be rather like ours used to be unquote

Can I refer you to post 23? quote We seem to be going backwards! unquote

34 JJ
A Fag paper you couldnt put between the 2.
2 Protect/Nourish/etc/etc/etc blah blah blah
is all its about, women and children no matter who what colour religen etc, If we cant do that then we are incapAble.
We live in The Garden, We tend our fruit/flowers/vegshitables etc

Do We Can We?
Not doing very well at present
Its Easy enough

thecookieducker (#37) "The Islamic tradition of having more than one wife is more common than the western mind perceives...its rife and the insult to the tax payer is we pay for their cultural marriage options;"

Interesting point as the standard point made about polygamous Muslim marriages is that they only happen where the male can afford them.

Government data on school kids shows that only about a quarter of the pupils at 7 years of age in Tower Hamlets are White British. Not surprisingly, Tower Hamlets (and then Newham) has the highest projected growth rate in London over the next 30 years (99.9% of which will be in BME groups). These groups also come bottom in the SATs and have high unemployment rates.

It's all so sadly predictable, but if one points it out, one risks 'offending' some people. It's odd, one would have thought they would be most concerned.

Maybe they have problems reading their own behaviours accurately?

doctormisswest (#40) We are going backwards demographically, that's in the data. There's a fine line to be observed here given that there are at least two fundamental sex inequalities:

1) males can not bear children and
2) females are always certain of their offspring's parentage.

There are clearly other inequalities reflected in sexual-dimorphism, but the above go insufficiently remarked upon in our ill thought through egalitarian times (looking at the demographic and social consequences).

We appear to have created a peculiar culture where males have duties and females have rights. There is also an ethnic counterpart to this, which, it is said, amounts to discrimination against, gentile, white, males.

Why?

women have the right to education and employment, the right to own property, the right to custody of their children, the right to move freely in society dressed as they please and the right not to be physically abused by their partners - how peculiar!

I should like to congratulate Mark Urban on his very moving piece on the Gaza Cemetery. The War Graves people do a magnificent job, including the custodians and gardeners.

doctormisswest (#44) "women have the right to education and employment, the right to own property, the right to custody of their children, the right to move freely in society dressed as they please and the right not to be physically abused by their partners - how peculiar!"

It's not so much peculiar, as self-centred perhaps?

In other (e.g. socialist) systems the onus is on duties rather than on rights.

What I'm pointing to here is that as society has shifted towards rights in the Liberal-Democracies birth rates have gone down, as has the integrity of the familiy. Narcissism, on the other hand, appears to have gone up, which in the guise of celebritism may well serve the commercial interests of those who make money out of people obsessed with their rights, but look where it's got us (not to mention the very high rate of Major Depressive Disorder in females in their middle age - twice the rate of males).

Sarah:

Re: Jack Straw decision....I do not agreed with his rationale regarding not supplying the government decision making on this war in Iraq....

(**//**)

Re: War memorial in Gaza, Thanks for the excellent news piece about a place...for the war dead are able to lived in peace and quiet...


~Dennis Junior~

But in, defense of the Jack Straw decision....He had to protect the security making decision of the United Kingdom....

~Dennis Junior~

#19 I think I said this before Jo Jo...It would help if you read what was written before responding. I'm not the only person to say that (e.g. BS..one way or another). I doubt you are a BS robot; machine intelligence is better than that.

PROJECTION

thegangofone (#39) "..there is the desire, but sadly not the capacity, ."

ANARCHISM

Look into the attempt by New Labour to amalgamate the Home Office Inspectorates in pursuit of 'efficiency'. The ex-HMCIP fought this.

Looked at superficially it was all about efficiency, but those who knew what was going on saw it as the creation of a bottleneck, a choke which would reduce efficiency exacerbated by inadequate staffing.

That's how New Labour operated in general - spinning whilst creating toothless sinecures - behind which it would all ultimately fall apart.

yes, but... duties can be perverted too, and have the unfortunate property of being suitable for validating repressive structures. Nobody said liberal democracy would be easy.

NARCISSISTIC INGRATITUDE

13thMan (#49) I am well aware of what you write. However, I'm not at all sure that you are. It appears to me that you resent being corrected by others, and that you respond with abuse when they try to enlighten you.

doctormisswest (#52) "yes, but... duties can be perverted too, and have the unfortunate property of being suitable for validating repressive structures."

As I have said elsewhere, there really are group inequalities (susained by gene barriers). Importnat oines between the sexes are both genetic and hormonal. Genetically, females have one fully active X chomosome just like males, but males also have a small Y chromosome, and only some of those genes exist on the second, largely inactivated X in the female. There are important physical brain differences too which account for mean differences in behaviours between the sexes, quite apart from differences to do with those bearing on reproduction which I have mentioned in #46. We have been living with myths, and rights have been the cause of far more misery and harm than is generally acknowledged. They have created a self-centred, celebrity obsessed, self-destructive society.

"Nobody said liberal democracy would be easy.

My persistent theme has been that in its current form it's demographically self-destructive - see the TFRs across the Liberal-Democracies (East and West). The East had this system imposed upon them. It appears to perniciously, and insidiously breed self-centred behaviour, which also appears to be self-limiting (negative population growth).

Maybe you should give duty some more thought? I think it's why the old USSR constitutions were and the present PRC consitution is duty based rather than Human Rights based. It's also perhaps why the West uses NGOs to subvert the PRC etc using 'Human Rights' 'violations'.

JJ - I think you are confsued about the role of the blog commenter! Couldn't it also be said that, despite your extensive knowledge and laudable research trail, the language of some of your posts belies a slightly narcissistic perception of your own intellect?

doctormisswest (#55) "Couldn't it also be said that, despite your extensive knowledge and laudable research trail, the language of some of your posts belies a slightly narcissistic perception of your own intellect?"

You clearly think so, but that's just you turning to the ad hominem rather than focusing on the issue which is being explicated and that's a reflection of your narcissism not mine. This point, I suggest, will require some careful thought.

If you look to the news or published statistics from all official sources, you'll see that there's far more to this than you appreciate.

Try and focus on the logic and evidence.

JJ whether you like it or not you subscribe to a school of thought. Your frustration arises from not recognising this simple fact.

doctormisswest (#57) Yes - it's called logic and the scientific method. You should consider joining, as at present, you appear to have been seduced by irrationality, relativism and hubris. Take note: in time, this always ends in tears once 'supply' dries up.

Far from being a relativist, Jean, the reason that I post is to salve my rational conscience that I am doing something to help move relativism on its way like an unwanted hobo, before we all catch lice!! Apologies to all hobos who are offended by that analogy.

Your links to data on birth rates, migration, education, feminisation and genetic variation are very welcome.

But you seem not to be aware that data are sought, collected and interpreted within an ideological framework. Admitttedly ideology may be mimetic and at some point in the future we may discover natural laws that govern the flow and retention of memes but we haven't achieved that yet.

Leaving aside decisions about funding, collecting and analysing, we are faced with decisions about how best to respond to the stimuli that data represent; and how to assess 'best' - best for who/how long?

Your oft mentioned understanding of language ability is pertinent to understanding how inappropriate decisions sometimes receive support and your current condemnation of banking is pertinent to understanding why inappropriate decisions sometimes receive support.

At certain limits/conditions a gene pool can disintegrate. Do you believe that point has already been reached? In which case why bother trying to explain the reasons for it, if it's too late to stop the process. That's a bit like sitting at a bedside in a hospice explaining to the occupant in graphic medical detail the aetiology of their terminal illness.

However, if you think there are certain strategies that could achieve desirable outcomes then I'm all ears but I don't recall any positive suggestions from you, that may be an unfair perception but I find that I remember only your warnings of doom and gloom - projecting my own worries no doubt. Although I do believe one of your strategies is for women to stay at home and have children. Fair enough, that's a position. Opening workplace nurseries might also encourage increased birthrate. So then you say we don't have the money for that, fair point and one that leads us straight back to income disparity and the current banking fiasco.

With respect to education, you ignore the fact that the education system does not allow all individuals to reach their potential and there is thus 'room for improvement', as teachers love to tell us, and IMO you conflate IQ with intelligence.

Anyway, the tone of your emails is what annoys some posters. Being competent at something does not confer the right to disrespect others, otherwise teachers would still be allowed to use sarcasm as a learning reinforcer but as it is teacher-centred, it is now deemed 'inappropriate'. But I have to say, my physics teacher was a whizz at it and I think I would have failed altogether without those slightly acerbic but equally affectionate nudges towards the end goal.

One of the best programmes I ever saw was about NPD - the guy who constructs scales of disorders. All the way through the programme a highly qualified psychsomething explained the incremental stages and related symptoms - have you seen it? I don't want to spoil the ending but you may have guessed already...

doctormisswest (#59) Most of that was fair. I'm not sure about the end ;-)

However, it isn't ideology, but theory which drives data collection, and theories are just short-hand for our current critical mass of observations and their relations - i.e our web of belief in an area of knowledge. One learns to use that web in one's training and then works at the edge of the web if one's a research worker. Core constructs are treated as quasi-analytic truths only because they've stood the test of refutation and serve as a pragmatic basis for prediction/control - they are open to revision, but rarely are for obvious reasons. Please put 'it's all ideology' into your Room 101 - see - it's worth spending a lot of time on.

The only useful measures we have for intelligence are IQ and its proxies (like SATs), all the other talk is hot air. IQ tests are just normative constructions, that is, they're designed to partition populations i.e they are scales usually with a mean of 100 and SD of 15. They are tools, and science is just a network or web of observation categoricals/relations for making better predictions/managing our way in the world. IQ is quite a good tool.

Yes, I do sound fatalistic - I am worried. I see a theoretical solution, and older women tend to agree with it, but younger ones do not, I understand why. Many older women know from bitter experience that this analysis is sound, but how does one put old heads on young shoulders? Mothers try, and fail all the time. However, in our current, Liberal-Democratic political systems I don't see a practical solution, so I fear our political systems will have to change or we will all suffer. This is what happened, I believe, in the 1930s in Germany (and it wasn't just Germany if one looks at the anti-Comintern Pact). Germany infamously voted out Liberal-Democracy for a reason, it was destroying the country.

What I had hoped to do was to trigger the sort of constructive response which all too briefly appears in your post.

Thank you.

#53 "13thMan (#49) I am well aware of what you write"

Then can you explain why your responses, in most cases, bear no relation to what I have written? It appears your mind is so narrowly focused, so constrained by the preconception all comments that appear critical must criticisms of specific views you hold, you reply in what seems to me (and I do know and understand what I wrote and why I did so) to be random ranting. RANDOM.

Modernisation is a progressive move towards the individual expression of a person's loci on distribution curves. That includes traits associated with sex/gender. To return to life lived between 2 SDs would be the cultural equivalent of neoteny. I've previously linked to the theory of neoteny and autism, so perhaps cultural neoteny also exists. But logic tells me that not all societies will become neotenous and some will continue to evolve.

I take your point about the IQ distribution curve shifting. It is a problem. But while we search for possible solutions we could at least try firing on all cylinders. IQ is a good tool. True. And so is a screwdriver.

Now look up Intellegence on Wiki and then look up Dexterity. And then ask yourself how is ideology transmitted?

I thought you'd guess the end - Number 10 on the NPD scale - the really dangerous narcissist - was the psychiatrist who had been explaining the condition throughout the programme! He didn't work and he lived in a quiet location with a woman who had learnt to live with someone so attached to rituals that to disturb one could be fatal. Then they showed the outakes for his appearance on the programme. It must have taken a long to get the final shots because he was clearly a difficult man to please.

13thMan (#61) It's never a good strategy to reinforce bad behaviour.

I suggest that you spend more time making an effort to understand what you don't understand.

NOT(ALL(MALE_GENTILE_SCIENTIST EQ AUTISTIC))

doctormisswest (#62) Although we now live in an ever more feminised society, it's bets not to use science as a source of material for creative writing.

doctormisswest (#62) is rare () although many now think that the pathologies are just extremes along the normal continnua of individual differences (e.g NPD is just the extreme of normal, healthy self-esteem).

Incidentally, most of us appear to be hard to live with one way or another - as seen by the frequency of broken families ("Hell is other people" - Sartre, 'No Exit').

I suggest you read 'The Bell Curve', give some more time to the ETS link material, and to the Leitch Review which covers the UK. In the UK government, decades ago, psychologists used to be employed to do IQ testing. Now they do other things, little of which does much good. 80% of psychologists today are women - because of the shapes of IQ distributions of males and females, there are with an IQ of 120 as there are females, and as one moves up to 2SDs and 3SDs from the mean, the ratio increases expoentially. What does that tell one do you think? These tail differences show up at 7, 11, 14, 15 in SATs too (females do better in English/verbal, males, maths/spatial/logical) - it's not just IQ tests. Who do you want running the country?

Our changing demographics has a practical bearing on the current crisis and much that appears in the news. Don't shoot messengers (like some others here) - it's just denial - and put the brakes on that creative writing as much of your post was pure fiction ;-)

JJ, I love that clip of Murrow, I didn't see the film. I also found your Quine quotes and they blew my mind. In recent years I've found it almost a relief to read histories of great people who struggled against the indequacies of the ideology of their time, but how jaded were they! by the time they lay down to rest. Where does that need to remain rational, and to resist the temptation to put one's own desires before the pursuit of benefits to the community, come from? I see that Murrow was brought up a Quaker in a log cabin. Quakers have given us chocolate, lego and public waste-bins and they allow the practice of 'speaking in tongues'. Is that true?

But despite that I still believe that where we are now is the right place to be- not the right place to be in the future, but now. These are the problems that face us now. The proletariat is connected internationally just as Trotsky dreamed it could be.

But why do we need to compare today with the Russian Revolution? And if we are to continue interpreting today's events in relation to the RR then can you please give me a synopsis. Two friends spent three years at University explaining the RR to me but its mystery still escapes me. The RR started with a party that split into two - one wanted democracy the other wanted central democracy and became the Bolshevik party led by Lenin, and ultimately the communist party. Trotsky was a Bolshevik but he wanted international and permanent revolution and eventually Trotsyites were purged from the party. Where do the anarcho-syndacalists fit in and how does any of this relate to today other than to discuss politics in terms of state control and class struggle? And please don't tell me to go and read as I've tried that and one thing I've noted is that even though the RR is complex, those who like discussing it IMO have a predilection for confusion above solutions!

doctormisswest (#62) Although we now live in an ever more feminised society, it's bets not to use science as a source of material for creative writing.

what you mean like George Elliot did??!!

At the end of the day, even if you are right, you have to be able to pursuade others of that truth since others, as you point out, have lower IQs than you. Have you ever tried explaining how to calculate a percentage to someone who can't? Well, I'm no mathematician but it is a bizarre experience. I don't understand how people who haven't memorised times-tables are able to shop effectively. But then some people have minds like relief maps, and they are useful to travel with if you can calculate percentages but can't tell which direction you are moving in in relation to the Earth's axis.

I came to the conclusion after 20 years of research that the only way to tell the truth is through literature because the truth is so sensitive that it cannot be looked in the face. But I believe there are two schools of thought in physics, formalism and the other one. The other one holds that three things cannot be known, truth, definability and demonstrability.

Sartre was ultimately a mysanthrope and so was Marx, why bother spending time with these types? I suggest you read the Bell Jar.

Who are the best language users of our time? Geoff Hoon, Peter Mandhelson (don't know where the h goes), Ricky Gervais & the tall one, Stephen Fry, Jo Brand, Davina McCall, Jennifer Aniston, Monica Geller, Benazir Bhutto, Condaleeza Rice, Barack Obama, Tony Blair, Amadinajad, Baroness Farsi, Eammon Holmes, James Whale. Fairly equally matched I'd say. Although Monica may be scripted by a man.

appropos percentages, I just had to post this !

doctormisswest (#65) "those who like discussing it IMO have a predilection for confusion above solutions!"

I agree.

The point I keep making is basically a very simple one i.e. that anti-statism is anarchism and anarchism has been championed by Neo-Conservatives (and recently New Labour) as free-market Neo-Liberalism. What we've experienced over the past three decades (a generation) is erosion of the Public Sector/Civil Service at our collective cost. Individualism is not the answer, as it's just self-centredness (narcissism). Ultimatelly, despite the rhetoric, it clearly doesn't work. There was an illusion of economic growth based upon breaking up what was the envy of the world, it's why people wanted to come here. Look into which group ran the 1905/17 RR. Which group champions internationalism (see the Socialist International) and which group also champions free-market economics. Is this because they have no stable state of their own? Inb fact, when given a state Why is such outrageous behaviour tolerated? Why are they prone to such paranoid, extreme stress responses? Why does psychiatry/psychopathology figure so prominenly in their culture?

Finally, consider the 'inquisition' of Bishop Williamson. If one questions how many died under Stalin or Mao (propaganda exagerations no doubt), why is there no outrage?

The answer surely, is propaganda in the service of 'collective guilt' to secure affirmative action i.e hegemonic advantage at the expense of others' good will. See NPD and other Cluster B Axis II PDs.

There is a major injustice here, and dismissing it as anti this that or the other is egregious. Those who behave this way really are the trouble makers, not those who point it out.

doctormisswest (#68) "At the end of the day, even if you are right, you have to be able to pursuade others of that truth"

Alas, no, that's part of the Marxist/Lysenkoist/Educationalist/Environmentalist Liberal-Democratic myth. Large parts of the population are uneducable in these matters. Education is essentially the selection of behaviours and their reinforcement. One has to work with what's emitted,and those rates were selected by the environment long before we were born.

PS. See Barrie on scripting, or my remarks on credit-assignment in general. There used to be a good audio on the web entitled 'On Having A Poem'.

JJ, you are blind to your own philosophical standpoint. There is a vast amount of human capital going to waste in this country due to the lack of physical and political capital in people's lives. I was amazed watching a recent porgramme about a teenage herione-using mother. I was amazed because although you could label her life as 'chaotic', she was incredibly organised given her addiction and its mental and physical effects. But all the organisation was going into the addiction - getting the stuff, administering the stuff, developing a support network to get her child to school when she couldn't and developing a support network so that a small group of addicts had an early warning and emergency action system for dealing with potential overdose situations. Coping mechanisms amongst poor people are often quite sophisticated - Shameless started off portraying this but has descended into a parody of what it once was.

IT'S A MATTER OF BREEDING

doctormisswest (#70) "JJ, you are blind to your own philosophical standpoint. There is a vast amount of human capital going to waste in this country due to the lack of physical and political capital in people's lives."

What precisely am I blind to?

I have been telling you that all the money pumped into trying to change behaviour on the premis that it's SES which determines cognitive ability/attainment is flawed, and empircally does not work. HeadStart did not work. It is based on an assumption based on a correlation betwen SES and IQ, but they got the direction wrong. It's IQ which determines educability and SES, IQ has high heritabilty.

As to drugs, they work because we have stuff 1000x more powerful than morphine serving critically important functions in habit formation. Have you note dhow hard it is for people to change? Exogenous opiates short circuit habit-formation. Have you ever tried to rehabilitate drug addicts, offenders, etc? What you're describing is what's basic to all behaviour, but what's really hard (demanding/taxing) is working out at the edge, not the core. See 'Two Dogmas' article. Question your core assumptions, I am.