Lest we Forget Anne Glover…

As 2014 draws to an end and Anne Glover disappears back to her monastery, there is a danger that what she said and her actions will be forgotten. So here I record just a few of her strange ideas and remarks with the intention that they will haunt all scientists who, now and in the future, through their Will to Power, seek to establish Scientific Government. Her comments also serve to remind the sane that science and technology are too important to allow scientists and technologists – with their scientific and technological determinism, their reductionist and fragmented minds, and their Enlightenment notions of progress – power to influence the course of development of science and technology, and that if they are so allowed, this will inevitably lead to yet more horrific episodes in the human story, for these have and always will be a consequence of the Will to Power. And so …

From the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Spinoza lecture delivered on 19 November 2013 (http://www.eppa.com/sites/default/files/news/news/attachment/Spinoza%20Lecture.pdf):

1. “We are all entitled to our own opinion but not to our own facts.”

Spoken like a true devote of any Abrahamic religion – no room here for heretics with different facts.

2. “In an ideal world in which policies were based on peer reviewed scientific data, policies would evolve but would not change from one government to the other.”

Spoken like a true totalitarian – in a totalitarian system of government policies evolve but do change significantly with time for they are the prisoners of dogma, and thus comes forth that which is all too familiar …

From the FT article: Finding an element of trust

“We trust industry where it suits us: in the toothpaste we use, the pizza we buy or the car we drive.”

Spoken like someone who demonstrates little understanding of the grim facts of business – we do not trust industry, but look to government to impose regulations on industry because we know that they cannot be trusted. The evidence is clear, and can be found in history books and news and current affairs programmes. There are a countless number of examples, stretching back in time from the present to the early days of industrial capitalism, both high-tech and no-tech, where lack of trust has been fully justified.

Here is just one small and topical example: on January 1^st 2015 VAT regulations in the European Union are changing. In inter-country business-to-consumer transactions, VAT has so far been payable at the rate in force in the country where the business supplying the product or service is based. It will in future be incurred at the rate in force where the EU end-consumer resides. Why is this change being made? The answer is that many major players in the online retail industry deliberately establish their head office in any country offering the best possible VAT rates. And the reason they do this is that directors of these companies have a fiduciary responsibility to do so. And at times this drives companies into unethical and sometimes dishonest business practices, and you will be surprised how easy it is to create such a culture within a company. And I note here, that this is also the case in university science, engineering and technology research departments, where unethical practices and behaviour are the norm. So please – no more nonsense about trusting industry when it suits us. Where money and profits are involved, we need law and its enforcement, for trust does not work. And the same comment applies to scientists, engineers and technologists working in research departments in both the public and the private sector – the Will to Power! We should not trust scientists, engineers or technologists or the organisations that employ them. We need law to make these people and organisations accountable for their actions, and we need investigative journalists and artists willing to expose their collective delusions and their hidden agendas.

In the demise of Anne Glover as a Chief Scientific Advisor, we may have won a small victory, but the war against the madness of science and scientists has not been won. And the comment made by the President of the Royal Society about Anne Glover’s demise serves as a further warning: “Scientific advice must be central to EU policy-making , otherwise you run the risk of having important decisions being unduly influenced by those with mixed motives.” And this, it would seem, was said as though scientists do not give advice with mixed motives! More nonsense from the deluded scientific mind!

My message to all scientists, engineers and technologist who seek power and want a technocratic form of Scientific Government – Soviet style government – is to form a political party and stand for election and then we will be able to see just how extreme and nutty you actually are.

To conclude my 2014 blogs, I look to the future, with the observation that the quest to find an entirely new approach to considering science, engineering and technology in policymaking remains and can be formulated thus: how to achieve the benefits without scientists, engineers and technologists destroying humanity. We have already drifted far too far along the path to destruction and it is now time to begin to walk a different path. And until scientists, engineers and technologist fundamentally change and reject the foundations upon which their practise is based, they should expect to experience an increasing storm of rejection. And this is something for all you deficit model and all we need is better communication thinkers to take note of.

My promise to you for 2015 and beyond is to begin to raise such a storm.

What’s on Anne Glover’s Mind?

If you want to know what is on Anne Glover’s mind, to peer into that mind so dominated by science to the exclusion it seems of everything else, then you can now do so by virtue of the word-cloud that I have created.

Taking the content of interviews, speeches and articles, I pasted all the words into an online word-cloud generator and found, not surprisingly, that the word evidence stands out as being the one most often used. Policy and science also have a high frequency of occurrence.

Creating word-clouds can be interesting, for it gives insights into people’s obsessions and also throws up some surprises, which was the case with Anne Glover’s word-cloud, for, among the dominant words that I expected to see, was one that I did not. And that word was “people”! Being intrigued by this, I delved into the raw data (words) to see what evidence there was for Ann Glover’s apparent interest in people. This proved to be a revelation.

At the same time that I created this particular word-cloud I also generated one for the Transition Movement by taking words from their web site (www.transitionnetwork.org). Here I also found that the word “people” had a very high prominence. The word was used here in the way one would expect for such a movement: people as our fellow human beings, members of communities; people that the movement seeks to involve in the construction of a sustainable world; those that, with encouragement and support, are empowered to make changes in the world, to make it a far better place than it would be if such matters are just left in the hands of those with political power and Chief Scientific Advisors (or former ones).

So Anne Glover, in her words, shares the same interest as the Transition Network? I regret to inform you that this is not the case. What Anne Glover means by people is – others. The concern and interest that Transition Network have for people, as our fellow human beings to be empowered, and to be respected as human beings and treated with great humanity, is simply not evident in Anne Glover’s words, and for this reason I modified the input text, replacing “people” with the word “others”.

And the above is one of the reasons why we need to drive scientific types out of government and to deny them access to power, because they do not think in terms of humanity – they see human beings as machines, and this is one of the fundamental flaws in Western science and one of the reasons why, as I discussed last week, people should turn against a science based on this philosophy.

About this matter I will say more in future blogs. For the moment though I close by saying that the priests and priestesses of science, engineering and technology, need to be rendered powerless by sending them back to their monasteries. Society must now find a new way of dealing with science, technology and engineering matters in policy making, without giving these vested interests any power at all. And do not expect to find ideas for such in the minds of scientists. The responses from the scientific world that resulted from Anne Glover’s demise are truly frightening and serve to remind that battle against the cold inhumane logic of these outdated Enlightenment thinkers is only beginning. It is a battle that humanity cannot afford to lose.

Power belongs in the hands of ordinary people and their democratically elected representatives, and not in the hands of Chief Scientific Advisors who choose to work secretly, which, if you care to look, is how those who conspire to obtain power by deception operate.

And for making us aware of all the above and the need for a new approach to addressing matters of science, engineering and technology in policy making, we should thank Anne Glover, for she serves as a warning of the dangers lurking unseen inside the minds of scientist, engineers and technologists, and others too, who, working together, are seeking to establish their theocracy, their new world order – the rule of science and reason, which will, without any doubt, turn out to be yet another crime against humanity.

And as for the word-cloud, known as What’s on Anne Glover’s Mind, you can see this at the following web link (there may be a delay loading and you will need to accept the running of Java): http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/8394472/What%27s_on_Anne_Glover%27s_Mind%3F

Should People Reject Western Science in its Present Form?

Anne Glover Science: In an ideal world, in which policies were based on peer reviewed scientific data, policies would evolve but would not change from one government to another.

Reality: In a totalitarian system of government policies evolve but do change significantly with time for they are the prisoners of dogma, and thus comes forth that which is all too familiar …

This week I reflect upon the question: should the peoples of the world reject Western science – aka Anne Glover science – in its present form? The answer is that they are already doing so, and more should follow their example. And based on what Anne Glover is on record of saying, the faster they do this the better, for she will ultimately be seen as one of the most dangerous people that ever lived, for she, and other scientists, seed, through their fragmented and reductionist thinking, a human catastrophe the likes of which … But you do not believe this, nor do you want to hear about this matter. You never do. If anyone has said in 1933 what the Nazis would do, no-one would have believed them. You will therefore not believe what will flow from words spoken by foolish scientists here in the year 2014.

It is fear of people turning against science that is one of the factors that underlies all the initiatives that I mentioned in my blog from a few weeks past. People no longer trust scientists, and there are many high profile scientists, those that I call the nutty professors, who well illustrate why we should not trust scientists, not to mention the actions of industry (and their unholy alliances with the scientific communities) who have used science in the pursuit of profit, and in doing so, have left a legacy of toxicity, environmental degradation, over consumption … The list is quite long!

Those in power, the establishment, are worried and are seeking to placate the public through a number of measures, often based on the notion of better communication, but which do not satisfactorily address the deep rooted problems that exist within Western science – deep flaws that cannot be corrected without reinventing science through the development of new philosophical foundations and new beliefs and values, quite different in nature to the ones upon which Western science is based.

Those who have managed to read to this point, or have not become outraged already by the above heresy, might have noticed that I posed the question in terms of turning against European (Western) science, not turning against science as an intellectual means of understanding more about nature and the universe. I know this might come as a surprise to many Europeans, given that they are Europeans, but there are many ways of undertaking science, for science (and also engineering and technology) are culturally determined. Put simply, Western science – in which I also include engineering and technology – reflects the values and beliefs of European culture, which could be summarised as making a virtue of living life like a plague of locusts. It is also fundamentally Abrahamic in character, and hence is bound up with sole truths which are divinely reveal to humanity – in the past by God, but now by science (which is a God substitute).

European scientists, engineers, and technologists are living the values of beliefs of the period known as the Enlightenment. That is roughly 1600 to 1820. Do not therefore be fooled by the apparent modern look to science – it is a case of 21^st century knowledge and technology, 17^th century values and beliefs. And it is this observation which partly provides the answer to the question previously posed, in earlier blogs, concerning scientists, engineers and technologists – why so smart yet so dumb? Anne Glover, now the former Chief Scientific Advisor to the previous President of the European Commission, through her naïve comments, serves as an exemplar of this phenomenon. But she is not alone, as was clearly revealed by the worms in the woodwork that emerged to support the notion of having a Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Commission. These worms are advocating technocracy (another form of theocracy) – the rule of science and reason. Scientists are very keen to impose this on the world, and naively believe that ethics will prevent this from becoming yet another European horror story: why so smart yet so dumb?

The science, engineering and technology that we see in the world today, are European in character, and those in the developing world, those who have for far too long been subjected to the imposition of European culture, should recognise this, and begin to develop science, engineering, and technology based on their own cultures. This is something that I have being working on for the past 30 years and its now time to pull together the various threads to show peoples in India, China, and other places what they are doing by accepting this Western model and how they could develop a much more powerful and sophisticated approaches based upon their own traditional cultures. And in doing this not only can they develop approaches that are based on harmony with nature (rather than control, conquest and domination which is the European way), but also unleash on Europe the forces of creative destruction, and in so doing bring to an end European cultural dominance in the world.

If the world is to ever achieve a sustainable way of living, European culture, which is at the source of the problem of sustainability, has to be changed. The force of creative destruction is one of the ways to achieve this and to create the circumstances where Europeans will have to stop being European. This is how the unbreakable chains that bind Europe (otherwise known as Prometheus) to the rock of the past will be smashed. This is how to set Europe free and to render ineffective those like Anne Glover who are the personification of the Prometheus syndrome.

The modern scientist is the embodiment of the Will to Power.

More to follow in future blogs …

Anne Glover Science – for those situations when Nazi Super Science is just not evil enough

So, with the abolition of the post of Chief Scientific Advisor to the President of the European Commission, one scientist’s Will to Power is thwarted, and Anne Glover will have to return to her monastery. But this is not the time for celebration, for although one tiger is back in the cage, there are many more of them stalking the world, pursuing their ambition to impose the rule of science and reason, which if you will care to recall, had is last major outing in the world in the 1930s, with its main proponents being Stalin and Hitler. But we have short memories and we have already forgotten the major role that the scientific mind played in the creation of the perverse systems of government that both these tyrants gave birth to. We have not learned the lessons and we still do not recognise the danger lurking in the minds of scientists like Anne Glover, with her secret activities and her open disdain for politicians and democratic institutions such as the European Parliament.

With the above in mind, this week I continue with the technique called de-familiarisation – making the familiar seem strange – that I wrote about last week. So now I introduce to you Anne Glover’s science: for those cases when Nazi super science is just not evil enough. I invite you now to enter the scientists’ very dangerous world of delusion and denial.

This place of delusion and denial is one, where it is believed, the world can be known in an objective manner. Science provides the means to do this in a way that is devoid of any values and beliefs that the observer may hold. The observer and the observed system are independent: one does not affect the other. Reality exists and is independent of the observer – the observer by observing discovers the truth – the sole truth. And from this value based statement flows the nonsense that Anne Glover and other scientists speak, both through their words, and also through their silent narrative, which is …

“The world, the universe, nature, our lives, can only be properly understood through science, and all other ways of knowing the world are inferior and irrelevant.

“Anyone who does not agree with scientists and rejects science is suffering from a deficit. These “others” need to be re-educated, and science, as the all knowing and all powerful way of revealing the sole truth, will appropriate art for the purpose of communicating with these “others” to correct this deficit – which is defect in the mind – to make such people, normal, for the rejection of science is wholly abnormal.

“Science is the only way that the human condition can be improved, and this will be achieved through the application of science for commercial ends, and, in creating even more prosperity for Europeans through this process, those in less developed parts of the world will also benefit as the crumbs fall from the table of the already over prosperous. This is the natural order of the world at work, the product of evolution, which made Europeans the dominant culture in the world.

“Science will also solve all the problems of humanity, bringing forth a golden age, when science and reason will rule, and everyone will live wonderful lives, free from disease, poverty, injustice, prejudice, oppression, and so forth, for self-evidently these are all problems that only science can solve, and in doing so we will make Europeans even more prosperous.

“Scientists can redesign nature to make it better than that which evolution has produced. Through science we can gain control over the natural world. We will become the masters of nature. People too will be improved. All the variety in humanity that nature produces – all those disabilities than make people different from the normal – will be corrected, or eliminated. Science will create the perfect human being – a normal human being. Science will also produce enhancements to human beings, giving people more powerful eyes, better brains, more robust limbs, and so for. Science will extend human life far beyond that which evolution has determined to be our natural lifespan. We will create the super-human.

“Only science can deliver the above, which is why politicians must do what scientists tell them. Science is too important to be ignored. It provides the basis on which the people, the “others”, will be governed. It is all for the greater good, which is why we cannot allow the “others” to stand in the way of progress. This is a matter that is too important to allow people, the “others” to decide upon.

“Fortunately the European Union provides the perfect forum to implement this change in the nature of government, for like the Soviet Union, it is modelled on the idea of technocracy, where experts rule and the people, the ruled, the others, do as the experts tell them: When people are allowed to choose they choose wrongly.

“And thus will come about the ideal circumstance: policies will evolve, but will not change significantly from one European Commission Presidency to another.”

The above is a manifestation of the Will to Power. It is an evil that is destroying humanity, and will in the end lead to all those things that have shown Europeans and their culture to be one of the most violent and destructive forces in humanity’s still brief history. It will ultimately lead once more to:

A totalitarian system of government where policies evolve but do change significantly with time for they will be the prisoners of dogma, and thus will come forth that which is all too familiar …

Anne Glover and her science are an evil that will ultimately enslave humanity in a cold and barbarous system of living where defective machines – aka human beings – will be decommissioned when their economic utility has expired. The conditions that will bring this about are those that will result from the social, economic and political circumstances that will prevail as an unsustainable civilisation begins to adapt itself to an environment where there are too many people, not enough resources, and increasingly violent and murderous conflicts founded in Abrahamic ideology and dogma (i.e. conflicts among the seven Abrahamic thought systems that I mentioned in a previous blog). It is already happening and society is blind to this, which is why I now write that which will appear in my next blog …

Making the Familiar Seem Strange

“And so life is reckoned as nothing. Habitualization devours works, clothes, furniture, one’s wife, and the fear of war. ‘If the whole complex lives of many people go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.’ And art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stony.  The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar’, to make forms difficult, to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged. Art is a way of experiencing the artfulness of an object; the object is not important.”

The above is an extract from a 1917 paper by Victor Shklovsky entitled Art as Technique. It is quote that should help you to make some sense of my writing: that which appears in my blogs, my tweets, and my works of fiction. When I write I continually strive to make the familiar seem strange. By deliberately making my work the way it is, I hope to extend the difficulty and length of perception.

We live in a world where making the familiar seem strange is one of the most important things any artist can engage in. Habitualization is everywhere, especially in science, engineering, technology, economics, and politics, and also in art as well, and one of the most notable institutions where habitualization has taken hold, is the European Commission, where one can list many programmes and initiatives that have ceased to exist for the people caught up in them.

Shklovsky was a member of a literary school known as Russian Formalism, which took the position that it is verbal strategies that make literature literary, and that these strategies are based on the foregrounding of language itself, and the making strange of the experiences that they create. Thus it is not the author that should be the centre of attention but the verbal devices that the writer uses. What therefore matters is form and technique.

And the above is the aesthetic that underlies my work, which is why all my writing seems so strange. It is also what drives me forward, for, like all art, the quest to perfect a style never ends, and thus it happens that work evolves and develops over the years, and it was with this in mind that I started exploring and developing … something that can be described as the unity of, what most people see as opposites. More about this in due course!

And with this idea of making the familiar seem strange, I pave the way for future  blogs which – most definitely will make the familiar seem strange …

An Example of Horizon 2020 Innovation Nonsense: Citizen Engagement and Participation in Smart Cities

Later than normal owing to internet connection problems, the blog that should have appeared on Sunday …

Back in 2012 I acted as a rapporteur during the DG CONNECT’s strategy review week. Selected people (known as stakeholders) were allowed to participate in a number of meetings on specific subjects. The meeting that I worked with addressed Smart Cities (whatever that may mean). A central theme of this meeting was the importance of citizen engagement and participation. Everyone was so clear about how crucial this was for the success of Smart Cities. And in the meeting room, of the 40 or so people present, how many had any idea about what this really means and how to achieve it? I suspect that the answer was two – myself and the chairperson, an architect who is involved in mass participation.  None of the panellists in this meeting demonstrated that they had any insights into this so called crucial matter, and in fact, the chairperson, who was only there to moderate the discussion, put them all to shame for he was the only person who had anything of value to say about engagement and participation.

It is my advantage, in acting as the rapporteur, and also because I am a writer (a key capability of which is observation (as Charles Dickens well illustrated)), that I can observe what takes place in meetings. And what I observed were people paying lip service to citizen engagement and participation. What they were really interested in was gaining access to European Commission funding so that that could continue with, what I later came to describe as a technology joyride.

Prior to the meeting I mentioned to the Policy Officer with whom I was working, that, if the European Commission were really interested in citizen engagement and participation they should be looking for projects constituted along very different lines to that which is usual for an ICT research project. The response was that changing the nature of projects was unnecessary.

Anyone with deep knowledge of participation will know what I am talking and will understand the need for an approach that fits the needs of such projects, and will also  recognise in the response, the operation of taken for granted assumptions about … so many things that I will not here go into details.

Sometime prior to this strategy workshop, I was involved in a proposal that sough to respond to a call for user-driven innovation in the area that is now called Smart Cities. I proposed to the consortium that we should adopt what is sometimes called a user-centred approach that would embrace the participation of citizens who would become the drivers for the project’s work, which obviously means leaving open the details of this work – how else would it be user-driven?

This idea was greeted by the other consortium members with great enthusiasm. Then one of the technology people said: “so long as we do not have to do anything differently.” I have been hearing this for close to 30 years. New science – yes! New technology – yes! But, whatever you do, never, ever, ask a European engineer or technologist to do anything differently! It is a heresy to do so!

The bad news is that when embracing participation it is necessary to design and run projects along lines that few technologists are familiar with, and most of them would not agree with – in the end it is about their dogma, and what these stupid people find acceptable. I say stupid for this is yet another manifestation of that rather peculiar behaviour that I have highlight in my (now) often asked question: Why so smart yet so dumb?

Here I mention also the need to change the evaluation process as well, for participatory projects need to be evaluated against their own internal logic, as the evaluation of the proposal I was involved with, well demonstrated. Having embraced user-driven innovation and only defined areas of interest in a suitably broad manner, the experts condemned our proposal for not defining exactly, what would be done. Yet they were supposed to be evaluating proposals that sought user-driven innovation. More stupid people!

Recall last week’s blog and my comment about the research proposal evaluation system: an orthodox system, designed by orthodox people, to enable orthodox experts, to make orthodox comments, about what are mostly orthodox research proposals – and in those cases when proposals are not orthodox, which should imply that the orthodox experts do not understand what is before them (otherwise why would it be innovative?), to continue with their orthodoxy, and to strangle the innovation at birth.

One can add words like innovation to call texts. One can re-order the evaluation criteria and give greater importance to impacts. However, hanging a sign on a cow that says I am a horse does not alter the fact that, what you have is still a cow.

The message is clear – if you have an innovative idea, do not apply for funding from a European Commission research programme.

And to conclude, I note, that after the strategy workshop was over, I said to the policy officer:

“It will be interesting to see if this idea of citizen engagement and buy-in will, in reality, be achieved! History suggests that it will not – are we asking general infantry to do the work of special forces? If I were managing Research and Innovation in a competing region or country (like India and China) and looking for a weakness to undermine Europe's efforts in Smart Cities, this matter of user engagement and involvement would be it, and I would make sure that considerable effort was directed at addressing this topic and creating an environment where ICT centric/driven solutions would not be accepted – on the battlefield you need to exploit your enemy’s weaknesses.”

And the response I received was:

“That’s a very interesting and compelling train of thought. I would tentatively agree. In my personal opinion I am not so sure whether the idea of citizen engagement and related notions will really achieve what the buzzwords around it suggest. Further, it might even carry the kind of risks you mentioned.”

A counter argument against all the above is that through DG CONNECT’s engagement with the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) these matters will be resolved. Nonsense! I have worked in the space between Technology and the SSH for 30 years and the complexities of this are only known to those who have been brave enough to enter the space, and such people are few in number. Perhaps engagement with artists then, through ICT & ART CONNECT? More nonsense – even fewer people know anything about this. These are all recipes for telling tales of the emperor’s new clothes.

And it was during the process of working on the DG strategy workshop, that the idea of writing a book directed at assisting those in the Eastern world to exploit Europe’s strategic weaknesses took hold. I have mentioned this idea before, in my blog On the Saying of Unreasonable Things, which is a copy of a correspondence I had with Morton Løkkegaard, MEP, in connection with New Narrative for Europe. I have many case study examples to illustrate my points: Smart Cities; New Narrative for Europe; FET Proactive; Marie Curie Initial Training Networks; Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters; Factory of the Future; ICT & ART CONNECT; Responsible Research and Innovation; Future Internet Research and Innovation; and Anne Glover.

So I am back once more to the notion of the Prometheus Syndrome. It is here, around the notion that Europe is tied to an irrelevant past by invisible and unbreakable chains, that China, India, and others will engage Europe in battle and defeat it. The book I will write about this will be made open access, so all will be able to read it, but I intend to ensure that it is written in a way that few Europeans will understand or accept – which is not a difficult thing to do. This is something else I have been studying for the past 30 years as well.

Innovation Nonsense: Horizon 2020

This week’s blog is a follow-up to my comments from two weeks ago when I responded to Neelie Kroes’ farewell speech as Vice President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda.

To begin, for those who are not aware, Horizon 2020 is a European Union research initiative extending over seven years, which constitutes a framework (a Framework Programme) of individual research programmes covering a diverse range of topics. Horizon 2020 is run by the European Commission, and its central theme is innovation – Europe does not have enough of this, so politicians, both elected and unelected (those who run Europe as though we were still living in the 1950s) have decreed that there shall be more innovation, and Horizon 2020 is a response to this. Innovation by decree! A very interesting idea!

Recently I had cause to read the briefing material that is supplied to experts who are invited to undertake evaluation of research proposals. I found something in this material, which I here reproduce (with additional words of explanation in brackets for the benefit of those not familiar with the jargon):

“Calls (for research proposals) are less prescriptive (than in previous Framework Programmes) – they do not outline the expected solution to the problem, nor the approach to be taken to solve it. Call/topic descriptions allow scope for applicants to propose innovative solutions of their own choice.”

The above of course is a very interesting insight into the minds of Brussels bureaucrats, who dared to believe that they knew what research programmes should be doing at the lowest levels. And, based upon over 30 years of experience of working in research and development, including much time over that period spent dealing with the European Commission, I wrote the following:

“Matters of preferred solutions and approaches will instead be imposed by our (European Commission) experts, with the result that all will be as before.”

Innovation in Horizon 2020? What a load of nonsense! Until we get rid of the experts, there will be very little innovation. Innovation by its nature challenges accepted solutions, which is what most experts carry in the minds, and finding enough people who are open enough to do what they find unacceptable according to their beliefs, is an impossible tasks. If we want innovation we need to fundamentally change proposal evaluation procedures. There is a way to do this, but no-one wants to.

What one can say about the European Commission’s evaluation procedure is this: it is an orthodox system, designed by orthodox people, to enable orthodox experts, to make orthodox comments, about what are mostly orthodox research proposals – and in those cases when proposals are not orthodox, which should imply that the orthodox experts do not understand what is before them (otherwise why would it be innovative?), to continue with their orthodoxy, and to strangle the innovation at birth.

What fool would bring their ideas to such a system? Apparently quite a lot of people! This is because their prime motivation for participating is – money. This is also a culture of dependency.

I also hasten to add that industry-driven research is often no better, for industrial people are often highly orthodox and do not know what they should be doing, for too many of them are out-of-touch, or protecting business models that are no longer relevant, or are behaving as though the future will be very similar to the past. If someone in industry did know what to do, why would they be bothering to tell the European Commission, and also, in effect, sharing their information with others in their industry?

I have a very good example of a case that illustrates very well, industry not knowing what it should be doing, while at the same time, telling the European Commission what it thinks the European Commission should be doing to support this nonsense. I will address this example in a blog in the next few weeks, for it well illustrates what is wrong with Europe, and the major components of the problem – industry, academia/research and the European Commission – otherwise known as Europe’s research and innovation system. It is also an example that demonstrates what I call the tyranny of the past.

Horizon 2020 is likely to turn out to be just another story of the emperor’s new clothes, a tale of interference in matters not fully understood by all the parties, and a narrative based on the world as it was in the past. This is how it was when I first became involved with European Commission programmes, this is how it is now, and thus will it always be so.

As I have said many times in my blogs, Europe has become like Prometheus. I even told Barroso this. But he is a technocratic politician who for 10 years occupied an unelected position as President of the European Commission, while at the same time speaking empty words about democratic values. What he really believes is: when people are allowed to choose they choose wrongly. A better title for the President of the European Commission would be Chairman of the Central Committee of the European Union Party, for their vision of Europe is a technocratic one relevant to the past – they are the past!

Goodbye Europe – hello China and India, and others too. It is time to abandon Europe to its well deserved fate.

Next week I will give an example of DG CONNECT’s Horizon 2020 nonsense. I have many more examples, some of which I have already included in past blogs, like for example, Anne Glover, who is probably the biggest nonsense in the European Commission’s history.

And what of the other Abrahamic Religions – Capitalism, Communism and Atheism?

In an earlier blog I stated that European science is the fourth Abrahamic religion. Capitalism is the fifth. It too is the product of the age of Enlightenment – it was born in the same stable as European science. Both share the same belief that nature and human beings are complex machines. This is very convenient if one is interested in exploiting the machine for profit, which both science and capitalism are. It helps to explain also the interest in re-engineering nature (for example through GM), and the delusion that, because they are dealing with a machine, the risks can be foreseen, and managed.

The above is the nature of the machine-centric thinking that dominates European culture, which brings me to mention the sixth Abrahamic religion – communism. It too is a product of European culture, and being so, sees people, society, and the economy as being nothing more machines that can be re-engineered to make them better, but what better is, has proved to be a rather subjective concept, which of course it is. Hence with communism one finds, as one does with European science and capitalism, the notion of the nameless, faceless masses, now called the general public, and actions based on reason, taken in the public interest, for the common good. Ann Glover, being as she is, a technocrat at heart, flourishes in such an environment, and would be equally at home in industry or in a communist state.

Mikhail Gorbachev, in the dying days of the Soviet Empire said: “The party does not lay claim to being the sole bearers of the truth.” It was a telling remark about the nature of communism and its silent narrative that it was the sole source of the truth. Western capitalism and western science also share this same belief, that they are the sole source of the truth. They are all the product of an Abrahamic age that is now drawing to a close, but, they are not going down quietly. Western capitalism and Western science already have blood on their hands, and more destruction will follow in due course, for, as their world begins to crumble, they will recede further into their delusions, and will seek to apply more fervently their dogma. This is what Anne Glover is doing now. Expect more of this in the years to come, as well as the military conflicts and suppression of human rights that accompanies the collapse of a whole civilisation.

And then there is the matter of the seventh Abrahamic religion – western atheism (not to be confused with eastern atheism). Here, in this seventh Abrahamic belief system, to you will find people who have also discovered the sole truth, which is one of the main defining features of the European (western) mind, this being a product of an Abrahamic culture. And here one can note that, there is in this world at the moment, no one more Abrahamic than the self-appointed leader of western atheists, Richard Dawkins. He is also the personification of this rather strange psychological characteristic known by the question that I often pose: why so smart yet so dumb?

Collectively, all seven of the Abrahamic thought systems are tearing the world apart, waging war among themselves, on each other, as well as on what remains of the non-Abrahamic world, and on nature. Yet their age is drawing to a close. The challenge is to how stop people caught-up in these dogmas from destroying the world, without resorting to their methods, and to enable a peaceful transition to a post-Abrahamic age.

So here we stand in a world created by seven Abrahamic thought systems, which one can say are the seven generations of the creation of the modern world, the human world, and through their madness they will destroy it all. It is time to learn that we are but one, and that the only way to achieve a better world is to walk away from the world that these misguided people are creating. It is time to unite as one, in a way that will result in all the self-created distinctions dissolving away, and to do this everyone needs to rediscover the true nature of being human, and to transform themselves into something very different.

And the strange thing is that was the reason why Abrahamic thought first appeared in the world, and its purpose, was to show how to become something very different, while at the same time demonstrating the consequences of not doing this. We have now seen what Judaism, Christianity, Islam, science, capitalism, communism, and atheism are capable of – now it is time to learn the lesson of history, and turn to that which offers us a way out of this madness.

We must set ourselves free from ideology and dogma and recognise that our real enemy is the human mind. In the battle between the mind and the soul, the mind has too often won. This cannot continue. We will either unite and conquer the mind, or live in the hell that it will create. This is the message of Abraham, and we have the means to set ourselves free, for it has always been there, waiting for us to see it and find the collective courage to take the first step.

Only most do not see this, such is the power of the human mind to blind people, so that, what is clear, becomes hidden in plain view – Encounter with a Wise Man, A Tale of Two Deserts, Enigma.

In future blogs I will explain more about the method that underlies my writing, and why I position things, like science, in contexts such as an Abrahamic thought system.

Two Europes or One Europe?

Two Europes or One Europe? This is the title of Neelie Kroes’ farewell speech as Vice President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda. In it she says what she really thinks, which is similar to what I have being saying in my blogs since I first started blogging back in July 2013 – that Europe has become like Prometheus, being bound to the rock of the past by invisible and unbreakable chains, regenerating itself in exactly the same form that it was yesterday. I told President Barroso this when I wrote to him in October 2013. I also told Anne Glover something similar when I wrote to her as well at about her delusions. They did not listen. They are still not listening. They orientate their ears towards the wrong people, because they too are the wrong people – their feet and minds are firmly planed in the past. They are part of the problem, as is Neelie Kroes. Changing the name of the Commissioner responsible for the Digital Agenda will not change anything, for whoever takes over will also be the wrong person.

So, back to the matter of Neelie Kroes’ farewell speech and I ask: why did she not publicly say this five years ago? I ask this because, from what I learned through my involvement with the European Commission, she was evidently asking some challenging questions of those who run the European Commission’s ICT research programme – questions for which there were no satisfactory answers. There are still no satisfactory answers, even though some efforts at reform have been implemented. The problem that is that the Prometheus Syndrome is little understood, and people like Kroes have no answers, for she too is like Prometheus, as she demonstrates towards the end of the speech by her insistence on maintaining this outdated concept of a single Europe defined in the way it has been since the time of …. One can insert many words here depending upon how far one wants to go back into European history. Try a few words like, the Romans, the Sun King, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Hitler. The means of achieving it may be different, but the goal of a unified Europe against the wishes of its peoples remains the same.

Without the consent of the people! The politicians complain about the rise of nationalism in Europe, but cannot see that their own actions create the conditions for this.

The fact is that European minds are caught up in the past, and their thinking is determined by such things as the Enlightenment, technocratic beliefs, and the delusions that bodies like the European Commission are still relevant and can gain mastery over Europe’s competitive woes and bring about a transformation.

The problem is that people like Kroes, and those who work in the European Commission, and industry leaders too, do not sufficiently understand what is happening in the world, and are inclined to say, as Kroes does herself, that there is nothing fundamentally wrong, all we need is … here you can fill in the blank yourself, depending upon the narrative that you believe provides the solution, the silver bullet, that will restore Europe’s fortunes.

There are many such narratives, some of which I have mentioned in my past blogs: New Narrative for Europe; Valley of Death; Responsible Research and Innovation; ICT & Art CONNECT, etc.

I leave you with a reminder, a lesson from history concerning Copernicus. Most people do not know much about Copernicus, and what people do know is often shrouded in myth. Copernicus is credited with the idea that the solar system (in those days referred to as the universe) is heliocentric. The dominant scientific theory (dogma) of his age was that the solar system was geocentric.

Copernicus was a priest. He worked alone. He was not the source for the idea of a heliocentric universe. This can be traced back to the Ancient Greeks. He knew that. What Copernicus did was to produce a detailed model of a heliocentric universe, using observational data from the ancient world (he did not have his own data) – the same data that Ptolemy had used in the second century AD to construct the geocentric model that was to endure for close to 1500 years. Scientists in academia, Copernicus’ contemporaries, could have done what Copernicus did, but they did not. It took someone, working outside of the established system, to overturn a dogma. But it did not happen overnight. He published his book and died, and no-one took any notice for close to 40 years. 

Kepler was the person who made the big step forward. He recognised that Copernicus’ model was also in need of change – that change came in the form of elliptical orbits which finally did away with all strange fictions that both Ptolemy and Copernicus used to make their models fit with that which can be observed.

Europeans have a long history of behaving like Prometheus! And the reason you do this is because you are like Prometheus. Say hello to Anne Glover, Chief Promethean Advisor to the President of the Europe Commission, if that is, Junker does what is expected and reappoints here. Why would we expect that Junker is going to be any different from Barroso? They are all like Prometheus and what they will say, as they preside over the decline of Europe is “evidently we are not doing with sufficient vigour, that which we are familiar with, that which we have done in the past” which is what they are already saying.

It is time to disengage from this failing system. Time for ordinary people to build a different type of civilisation, a different type of Europe, for without any doubt, Europe is heading for yet another one of those horrors that it has so much experience of creating. The European Union in its present form has the potential to create the very circumstances that its founding fathers were seeking to consign to history.

So yes indeed there are two Europes – thankfully! There is the old one that the political classes (people like Kroes, Barroso and Junker), technocrats, the European Commission, industry, Chief Scientific Advisors, and more, are part of, and there is the new Europe that is being built by ordinary people working outside the system. The challenge is to support the latter and to isolate and marginalise the former, without resorting to their methods. And to do that one needs a pen, a brush, people’s wallets, their lifestyle choices, and new politicians that are not part of the old order (whether they be nationalist or single Europeanists).

C P Snow – Another Case of Why So Smart yet So Dumb

I write this having just re-read C P Snow’s book The Two Cultures, which contains the text of his original 1959 lecture and the 1963 essay which he called The Two Cultures: A Second Look.

I first read this book back in the 1980s, and decided to read it one more time to locate a particular sentence that I want to use in a work of fiction. Putting the words of real life people (scientists, engineers, and technologists) into the mouths of fictional characters is one of the techniques I use. I have found scientists, and their cousins in engineering and technology, to be a rich source of dialogue which can be used to highlight their rather peculiar beliefs and the nonsense that they often speak, which reveals also their silent narratives. Anne Glover is a very good example of a scientist speaking such nonsense, and her particular distorted views of the world have been the subject of a number of my recent blogs, where I have revealed her silent narratives. And using the words spoken by scientists, either in fiction or non-fiction, to reveal their silent narratives and to expose what lies behind the words – values, beliefs, delusions, denial, self-constructed realities, biases, etc. – lies at the core of what I do. C P Snow’s book is a gold mind of nonsense (as is Anne Glover).

His book is not all nonsense of course, but his silent narrative can be seen as a manifestation of the question that I keep asking about such people: why so smart yet so dumb? This one can say is a disease afflicting the European mind, and it is an illness particularly to be found among scientists, engineers, technologists, economists, and people bound up in the industrial era techno-science, capitalist paradigm, which keeps the European mind bound to the past. And it is not just these groups that are locked into the past – social scientists, artists, and others also share this view of the world, such is its contagious nature.

At the beginning of his lecture, Snow states that: “By training I was a scientist: by vocation I was a writer.” Not so! Snow was a scientist who wrote. There is a difference! Snow had his feet and mind firmly planted in science. The quality of his thoughts and reflections are mundane, and reflect the output of a mind trained and conditioned by science, which has its place in the research laboratory, where it is effective, but this is where it should be contained. Tigers are best kept in their natural habitat, where they can do what they do, but that is where they belong. Put them into the human world, and what follows is inevitable!

In comparison to his contemporaries – such as Rachel Carson (Silent Spring), Arthur Koestler (The Sleepwalkers, The Act of Creation, and more), Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), and Michael Polanyi (Scientific Thought and Social Reality) – Snow is merely expressing opinions of the kind one would expect to hear expressed in a bar room. Educated opinions no doubt, but certainly not the work of a mind with the mental skills needed for the critique and analysis that Snow attempted. If indeed there are two cultures (or more), then they are most likely to be found by considering the cognitive styles and skills that relate to different types of human activities, as well as in values, beliefs, etc. This is not something that Snow gives proper recognition to, but which can be found when exploring the subject of disciplinary differences in a systematic way, and some understanding of this can be found in the above mentioned work of his contemporaries. As I often say – it’s all about behaviour! Snow’s book is perhaps just one piece of evidence demonstrating that there are significant differences in cognitive styles and skills – a case of horses for courses, which means that what is suitable for one person or situation is unsuitable for another. Those who appoint people as Chief Scientific Advisors should take note of this!

Before moving on, I would also mention here that this book by Snow is not about Two Cultures, but one that primarily addresses the divide between the rich and the poor. This point he emphasises in Second Look. That the book is often quoted, mentioned, referenced as being relevant to the disciplinary divides in society, like for example between art and science, or art and technology, is strange, for the book has very little to say about any disciplinary divides, nor does it offer much in the way of insights. Are we here dealing with a book like Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, which, as Charles Handy once noted, must be one of the least read but most often referenced books of all time?

What Snow’s book does however demonstrate, is the construction of shared realities, silent narratives, and myths, by scientists. This is evident in many places throughout the book, but becomes explicit in Second Look, when Snow starts to criticise those with a romantic view of the past, and their myth that prior to the industrial revolution, life was idyllic. He criticises such people and brands them as Luddites, which is a common mistake made by scientific types. They mistakenly see Luddism as a reactionary movement against progress (by which they mean new technology) where in fact it was a movement brought about by the lack of progress of the type that is far more important than new technology – the type of progress that I will soon turn my attention to. For the moment, I will restrict my comments to saying that Luddites made a statement that people are not machines, and should not be treated as such, which is exactly how science and capitalism view people.

Snow, after criticising the romantic myth, then demonstrates the construction of another myth, the scientific one:

“Millions of individual lives, in some lucky countries like our own, have, by one gigantic convulsion of applied science over the last hundred and fifty years, been granted some share of the primal things. Billions of individual lives, over the rest of the world, will be granted or will seize the same. This is the indication of time’s arrow.”

Snow however conveniently disregards the fact that the agricultural labourer of the 18^th century, did not suddenly find himself living in a paradise once industrialisation arrived, simply by offering him the opportunity to work in a factory. Swapping the oppression of the land owner for that of the factory owner was no progress, as the Luddites clearly showed. Most ordinary people living in the mid-19^th century lived in the same squalor and poverty that existed 100 years earlier, only the circumstances were different (perhaps worse).

History reveals a story of a continuous battle between the vested interests of the few, and the rights and interests of the many. It is a battle as old as civilisation, and what can be said of the role of applied science in these battles? In the fight to abolish the slave trade and slavery, what role did applied science have here? In establishing the rights of ordinary people to organise themselves through trade unions, what did applied science contribute? When laws were introduced to protect young children by making unlawful their employment in factories, was it applied science that led to these laws? Was free education for all the product applied science? In the fight to achieve universal suffrage, what use was applied science? What leading role did applied science play in the introduction of social security benefits? Our National Health Service, providing free healthcare at point of need and use – was this the product of applied science? And in recent times, what can be said of applied science’s contribution to establishing our current legal basis for equality?

The above are the elements of which great leaps forward have been made, the type of progress that Luddites yearned for, but which was not forthcoming from industry nor applied science. This real and meaningful progress did not in fact begin to appear in a significant manner until the 20^th century, which has been described as the people’s century, and which clearly demonstrates both the negative aspects of science and technology, and the importance of progress defined not by science and technology, but by being human and treating humans as humans, and not as faceless and nameless entities, whose only utility is an economic one. It is a lesson that has not yet been learned.

It would of course be unfair to say that applied science has not contributed to the improvement of human lives. That is not the point. What I want to do is to place the benefits of science in proper prospective, but Snow, like most scientists, looks at the human world and sees the benefits of applied science, and ignores the fact that other forces and intentions were at work, and what he sees is actually the result of a complex process, in which applied science has played some part, but certainly not the most important, except perhaps in the area of medical science and treatments, but that too was dependent upon the notion of (free) healthcare for all, regardless of class and financial standing. Without such a radical social reform, there would have been no advances in medical science and treatments for the vast majority of people (as is well demonstrated in the United States).

But the fragmented and reductionist mind does not see this, because it has lost the ability to see the bigger picture. Snow was one these fragmented thinkers. There are many more, and their number and influence grows. And as Snow demonstrates (as do people like Richard Dawkins), education does not offer a solution.

Snow (like Dawkins and Glover) can be seen as nature’s proof that scientists should not be involved in policy making. They can provide inputs yes, but that is not what they want. They believe that their world view is more important than any other, that they are the sole bearers of the truth, and they seek power by means most undemocratic to impose on others a technocracy – the rule of science and reason. And when they are challenged they become visceral as do all who live their lives in the self-imposed prison that is called dogma. Moreover, because they are scientists, they do not see this, and cannot foresee the consequences of their actions – for them there are no consequences!

In my novel Moments in Time, the central character is one of these technocratic people with a fragmented mind. But gradually he starts to understand as the consequences of his actions begin to have a personal impact – sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. And understanding the consequences of their actions is something that all those bound up in dogma, be it scientific, religious, political or economic are capable of. In the novel, there is a point where the central character states:

“Do you not know that we invent, that we are the creators of the modern world? Intensive care technology, pharmaceuticals, mobile phones, cars, domestic appliances, computers, trains, central heating, deodorants, fast food, throwaway cups, tasteless vegetables, overcrowded roads, mountains of discarded plastics, chemical weapons, unnecessary energy consumption, mindless and repetitive manual work, dwindling oil reserves, environmental pollution, global warming, loss of biodiversity, nuclear reactors that melt down … Yes, indeed, we create the best of all possible worlds, …”

Prior to this moment in time however, he would not have said this, or if he had, the sentence would not have included all the negative things that are the product of a science and technology that is no longer fit for purpose. The understanding that modern science, technology and engineering are at the heart of our problems is something that the central character in the story slowly comes to realise. But Snow does not recognise this, and indeed he could easily be placed within the setting of Voltaire’s novel Candide, where, even after the experiences faced by the characters, all the death, destruction, injustice, etc., Snow would still be there at the end saying “All is for the best, in this best of all possible worlds.”

But I conclude on a more positive note concerning Snow’s book. At the very end of A Second Look, he states: “Scientists can give bad advice and decision-makers can’t know whether it is good or bad.” Did I not say that the book was not total nonsense? And here we are back to the matter of Anne Glover, and how a President of the European Commission will ever know that her advice, or more correctly her version of the truth, the words that she whispers into his ear behind closed doors, is good or bad? And such a statement points to the need for a different and more sophisticated approach to policy-making than that which scientists like Anne Glover are able to imagine. Suffering from the affliction why so smart yet so dumb, will in the end lead to …

It takes a special set of circumstances of the kind that the character in Moments in Time experiences, for the unbreakable chains that bind Prometheus to the rock of the past to be smashed and for people to be set free. Now is the time to create these exceptional circumstances, and about this I will have more to say in due course.

Open Letter to Mr Junker, President to be of the European Commission – On the Matter of Chief Scientific Advisor, and Anne Glover in Particular

Dear Mr Junker,

I note that you have deferred the decision on whether you will or will not have a Chief Scientific Advisor.

Whether or not the post of Chief Scientific Advisor is needed is something for public discussion, as is the process by which such a post should be filled, along with the means of monitoring the appointee’s activities. Improvements to policy making processes are also something worth discussing, but one should not look to the natural sciences for insights here (notice I did not say evidence), but to philosophy of science and to cognitive psychology, particularly the work of the Nobel Prize winning, Professor Daniel Kahneman, who would I think, be amused by the very naïve remarks that scientists make about being objective, rational, unbiased, independent, and so forth. Here one can observe that there is nothing more irrational than claiming to be rational, and nothing more subjective than claiming to be objective. And as for claims of independence, there is nothing stranger than humans and their beliefs (as Kahneman has often observed)!

The above apart however, there is still the matter of Anne Glover, and the fact that there is such a matter, is in itself a warning sign that there is something fundamentally wrong, both in terms of the way the post of Chief Scientific Advisor is constituted, and with the person currently holding the post.

If you were to seek a means to reinforce the image of a lack of democratic process and values in the institutions of the European Union, and to communicate the message (to a public that is increasingly hostile to the European Union) that its institutions are outdated and rooted in values from times long past, then you need look no further than Anne Glover. She is a person who can be well summarised as, a case study in the failure of democratic processes and values. Some will also say she is yet another step along Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.

She stands as a warning of worse to come – the re-emergence of technocracy. And, as for the “best” evidence of her technocratic inclinations, one needs look no further than her public pronouncements and the comments that she has associated herself with:

“People can have their own opinions, but not their own facts.”

“Science is currently not in the room when the decisions are made and this cannot continue like this.”

“Political decisions should be based on science.”

“In an ideal world, in which policies were based on peer reviewed scientific data, policies would evolve but would not change from one government to another.”

“If it is politically acceptable to decide not to base a final policy on data and science, this should be transparent and clear.”

What she is saying is this: “When people are allowed to choose, they choose wrongly. Only science is in possession of the truth and this truth will be determined by scientists based on current orthodoxy. Scientists know what is best for the common good. Politicians should do what scientists tell them to do because scientists are in possession of the truth, which is something only they can understand. Those that are in possession of different truths are wrong and suffering from a deficit. Science has a right, that no other group has, to participate in the government of the people, and scientists do not have to be elected to these governing roles through democratic process. When politicians do not do what they are told, they have to tell the people that this is the case.”

Does this sound familiar? It should do, but in case it does not, consider the above as it might have been written in times long past:

“When people are allowed to choose, they choose wrongly. Only religion is in possession of the truth and this truth will be determined by priests based on current orthodoxy. Priests know what is best for the common good. Politicians should do what priests tell them to do because priests are in possession of the truth, which is something only they can understand. Those that are in possession of different truths are wrong and are heretics. Religion has a right, that no other group has, to participate in the government of the people, and priests do not have to be elected to these governing roles through democratic process. When politicians do not do what they are told, they have to tell the people that this is the case.”

You would not accept theocracy so why accept technocracy? They are but the same things, but with different names, and they both lead to the same disastrous outcomes.

Anne Glover is a technocrat. She is not just proposing a fundamental change to the government of the people without their consent, but has used her office to undertake a political campaign to implement these changes, in a way that is only possible in an undemocratic institution such as the European Commission. See now why so many people want to leave the European Union? It is a matter of preserving democracy, which, in the end, is far more important than the economic prosperity of a society that already has more than its fair share of material things.

Paraphrasing another technocrat from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the infamous, discredited, and highly deluded, Frederick Winslow Taylor (the father of the nonsense that is Scientific Management) Ann Glover is advocating the following:

“Under our system of government we will tell politicians what to do and how they are to do it and any improvement they make upon the instructions given to them will be fatal to success.”

The above is a system of government that can only be maintained through authoritarianism and totalitarianism, which is Hayek’s point, and the model for this is the Soviet Union. It is one thing to use information (not evidence) provided by science to support policy development, quite another thing to place science in a central role that seeks to usurp the wishes of the people in the name of some elusive concept known as the truth, which history demonstrates is usually nothing more than dogma, based on one groups misguided belief that they have more legitimacy than others.

Mikhail Gorbachev, in the dying days of the Soviet Empire said, “the party does not lay claim to being the sole bearers of the truth.” It was a telling remark about the nature of Communism and its silent narrative that it was the sole source of the truth. What Anne Glover is laying claim to, is that science is the sole bearer of the truth and in doing so she is laying the foundations, through her naivety, for the beginnings of a Soviet style European Union – a technocracy. Have we learned nothing from the tragedy that was the 20^th century? Apparently not!

It is within your power to stop this slide towards technocracy. History has shown us that there are none so dangerous as those who think they know the truth. Anne Glover is such as person, so send her back to where she belongs, to her micro world of the laboratory. Future generations will thank you for this, for it only takes the right social, economic, and political conditions – the ones that Western Civilisation are currently creating – for Anne Glover’s way, and worse, to look like attractive options. Now is the time to act to stop this happening.

And to conclude, I make a summarising comment upon the nonsense of Anne Glover and her beliefs, by paraphrasing Thomas Paine:

“One of the strongest natural proofs of the folly of having scientists involved in policy making, of having chief scientific advisors who believe that they have a right to govern and who are able to reveal the truth, is, that nature disapproves it, otherwise, she would not so frequently turn such people into ridicule by giving us an ass for a lion.”

Sincerely yours,

Paul T Kidd

The Narcissistic Chief Scientific Advisor

Into the deep dark pool she stares, trapped in an eternal glance, held there by the love she has for her own self-image, unable now to she herself, and the rest, for what they actually are. By her side, the artist in residence sits, gazing into the deep water, for she too has fallen in love with this self-image. And she whispers that which the Chief Scientific Advisor wants to hear – “I am passionate by science” she says, “so let us communicate together to all those who, as yet, have to fall in love with you, those who have yet to see the light of science and reason.”

And hovering above them, winged Nemesis is there. She has delivered her punishment for their hubris, and because of this curse, they do not understand that, what is looking back at them it is only an image of what they want to see. And with mind transfixed on this illusion, they will not notice the new science emerge, which comes not from the City of the Golden Stars, but from far distance shores, from cultures which, most Europeans do not respect, have not the slightest understanding of, nor any interest too. It is here, in these Eastern worlds, far beyond the notion of single truths and the one best way, that the future of science rests, and it will be a science that those caught-up in European ways, in Abrahamic thought, will struggle to adopt. Which is the point …

The Future of Europe is Not Science

Gathering this week in Portugal, the deluded and the damned, otherwise known as European scientists, along with their close allies known as industrialist, will discuss the notion that the Future of Europe is Science. At this science party rally, industrial era scientists and industrialists, both born in the same Enlightenment stable and sharing very similar dogmas, will discuss 21^st century issues, using their 18^th century minds.

On the agenda are topics such as improving human health and the condition of the environment, but being as they are, highly reductionist, with very fragmented minds, which think of the nature as a complex machine, it is unlikely that they will be recognising that many so called problems in the modern world are not problems at all, just symptoms of a science and industry that is bound up with a way of thinking and operating that is no longer fit for purpose. Instead, they will conspire together, in trying to deal with these symptoms, to create more problems. It will be very much a case of doing even more intensely, that which is the problem. As I said, they are the deluded and the damned.

The future of Europe is most definitely not science. The past was science, and a pretty messed up world science created, not to mention all the death and destruction that can be laid at the door of science, as well as some very perverse systems of government. And clearly many have not learned the lessons of the 20^th century, and once again technocracy and the madness of rational thinking is beginning to pave the way towards a new European horror, which is something that Europeans excel in creating.

The way ahead lies down a different route. Finding that route is the one of the most important challenges of our age. So far I have yet to find evidence that the challenge has been taken up in any significant way. Most of what I have discovered could be called, the existing system trying to regain legitimacy. There will be more about this in future blogs.

Hubris will always meet its Nemesis. The time for European science to meet its Nemesis has arrived. The future of Europe is a return to humanity, treating people better, and celebrating the oddities and the irrationalities that make people human. Those in power in Europe, or who are accruing power and influence, like scientists, need to stop seeing people in a utilitarian way, and above all, the system of which they are a part needs to halt the process of abandoning the people of Europe to the power of money.

More humanity is needed in policy making, not more of this perversity called European science. We need a different science, and one thing that is fairly certain is that the majority of those gathering in Portugal this week are not likely to be the ones who will develop it. For this we should look elsewhere, to a culture that is not founded on the Abrahamic obsession of revealing, of constructing, the sole truth.

And now the battle lines are drawn. It is time for peaceful resistance. It is time for people to begin to disengage from this unsustainable world created by Europeans – a world based on the European values of control, conquest and domination, and making a virtue out of living life like a plaque of locusts.

The weapon of choice is the pen – through the power of words the climate of thought will be changed. And the brush too will play its part. It is time for the Anne Glovers of the world to discover the real value of literature and art, and why over many years, all those authoritarian regimes restricted what writers and artists were allowed to do. And the Anne Glovers will also discover that, out of literature and art will emerge a new science quite different to the one that now toys with art, but largely on its own terms and conditions.

And it is here in this encounter that people will decide their future and that of their children, and their children, for be in no doubt, that once science and reason take power, there will be no way back, and, as I said at the end of my book Encounter with a Wise Man:

“I have also encountered, over the centuries, many people who have foolishly predicted the end of the world, yet life goes on. I am wise, hence I know not to make such predictions, but in many respects it would be better for you all if such end-of-the-world prophecies were to one day come true, for death will seem a better alternative to the hell that ideology will have created.”

Be in no doubt that science is an ideology – one with a very pernicious dogma that is ripe for ridicule, as are the why so smart yet so dumb people that so often make an ass of themselves in public.

The Science Party Manifesto

After many years of research and undercover investigations into the murky world of a subversive group that I call the Science Party – a loose coalition of people pursing a very familiar agenda – I can now reveal to you their intentions. My text is written in the satirical and ridiculing style that befits the ramblings and delusions of this mixture of lunatics, fanatics, extremists, and the misguided – potentially dangerous people for whom science has clearly gone wrong. The disturbing thing about what follows is that it is founded on statements made by people I have met, or has been written, or is what these people are actually doing!

Based on the writings and preaching of our great leader, The Chief Scientific Advisor, and other Big Scientists, who are now watching you, we present here our manifesto:

Under our system of government we will tell politicians what to do and how they are to do it and any improvement they make upon the instructions given to them will be fatal to success.

Everyone will be equal, but some will be more equal than others, namely scientists.

We the experts know what is best for you.

As science and scientists are special they will be exempt from the normal rules of society and its laws and be able to do things that others will not be allowed to do.

Scientists have a right to participate in government and to be seated at the policy making table.

Scientists will govern, and other ways of seeing the world, will not be allowed to interfere with this process.

You will still be allowed to have your opinions, but that is all they will be. No-one will be allowed to have their own facts.

Only the best evidence produced by science will be taken into account. This evidence will be known as the truth, the sole truth.

Policy will not in future change significantly, and will be the same under all elected governments, with the only adjustments allowed, being those made according to any new truth approved by science.

Scientists will determine what is the best evidence – the truth – and politicians will not be allowed to use any other evidence.

We will trust industry and so will you.

Religion – together we can cure it. We are the cure. Science is the new opium of the masses. Hallelujah, science saves!

As science is not completed until it has been communicated, we will undertake a programme of public education that will establish in peoples’ minds not only the truth as determined by us, but also the truth about scientists: that they are rational and objective, that they are independent, unbiased and rigorous, that they highly ethical, that they conduct their work within a framework of strict standards of behaviour concerning conflicts of interest. We have no axe to grind. Trust us!

No one will judge the past based on current standards of behaviour. It is self-evident that what we now see as bad things in the past were appropriate at the time – this is the nature of the slow improvement in human behaviour that we call social evolution. Step improvements in human behaviour are clearly not possible – everything is about a slow hill climb. There is no possibility of sky-hooks pulling people upwards at a faster rate. This is a violation of the laws of social Darwinism upon which we will be building the future.

The BBC will be forced to transmit programmes extolling the virtues of scientists, engineers and technologists, and the work that they do.

Medical experiments on non-consenting human beings will be legalised.

Convenience killings will also be legalised. In the future, the state will, on your behalf, slaughter your elderly relatives, the chronically sick, the dying, and all those babies born with mental and physical disabilities. This is just a matter of reason – they are a burden on society and are not economically productive. And in case you think ethical concerns will be raised, do not worry for we have much experience of manipulating ethics to make the above seem quite normal and reasonable. The whole operation will in any case be out-of-sight and therefore out-of-mind. Special facilities will be built in remote locations. These factories will have built-in cremation facilities, will be designed using the latest production engineering and logistics principles, and will deploy state-of the-art computerised equipment. The whole process will be designed to achieve maximum efficiency and minimum operating cost. These innovations will lead to economic growth and will create jobs. The termination process will be handled by experts, and to preserve their anonymity they will all wear masks and will call themselves either Dr Shipman or Dr Mengele.

People who do not agree with the above manifesto points will do so because they are suffering from a deficit, a lack of right-mindedness, and such people will be re-educated.

In due course we will provide a list of people, books, art works, etc. that reflect deficit thinking, which contradict the truth about science and scientists, and which do not support our system of government. George Orwell is the first person on this list. His books Animal Farm and 1984 will be burned. Many more people will added to the list.

People who resist and continue to maintain their lack of right-mindedness will be called heretics, counter-revolutionaries, or dissidents.

As human life is not sacred, and people are nothing more than complex biological machines, when convenient, we will arrange for some of these machines to be switched off. This aspect of our system of government is called the final solution.

We will use art to more gracefully embed these changes in society, so that you do not notice what is happening, and by the time you do notice it will be too late and the rule of science and reason will have been established. Science and reason will reign for a thousand years.

As most people will not agree to this manifesto, we will implement it through stealth by indoctrinating young children, perverting society’s values and beliefs, and by infiltrating government and its institutions, working to place unelected people in positions of power and influence, such as chief scientific advisors.

We do this in the public interest; it is for your own good, for the common good.

All the above will lead to a better world, where people will be happy, and everyone will have lots of things to do, and gadgets to keep them distracted. Disease and suffering will become things of the past.

In due course we will provide you with a creed that you will be able to collectively recite at you Science Party rallies, such as scientific conferences, workshops, covert meetings with industry, etc. This will help to confirm and reinforce your faith. It will also help you to identify those whose beliefs are wavering, and there will be an online facility to enable you to report such people to Big Scientists. Also, soon we will deliver to you the commandments as revealed by the Great Dork, which tells the uninitiated, the public, how to think for themselves.

Welcome to our Brave New World , our new world order – the one best way. Hail science and reason. Raise higher the banner of science. Under the banner of The Chief Scientific Advisor we move forward. All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds that science will create. Science makes you free.