Education is being replaced by propoganda by the Left in the UK

I am increasing having the conversation with my wife about if we dare to leave our children in the state sector. (This is a desperate conversation as our income won't cover school fees and some changes would be needed to get the money in.)

My major concern in the way Science is no longer actual taught in the State sector. A good friend of ours is a science teacher and she has described the new science qualifications as almost science free.

Now a report from Civitas seems to be saying the same thing.

The left have no shame and effectively are trying to use education for political propaganda. When debates were based on knowledge and facts they lost - so they are trying to remove those obstacles - Stalin would be proud of them.

PS If you doubt what is happening to UK science nip over to the BBC's bitsize revision site and see what actually passes for Chemistry these days ! ( A large amount seems to be geological stamp collecting to me.)

80% of scientists are not right just by defintion

I mentioned Channel 4's upcoming documentary tonight on those who disagree that man causes global warming.

And I've just been listening to John Humphrey's interviewing a few scientists on what politicians should believe.

The problem is that you can't have an opinion poll of scientists on an issue to determine truth. The one in a million may be right or indeed no one may be right.

As I have said before Climate Change has proven to be very useful politically for politicians trying to justify their role in the world. Its the new cause celeb for "campaigners" ( many of them rich people who can't find meaning in their life) to make themselves feel good.

In the mean time what if global warming is true but man isn't causing it ? Instead of spending money intelligently on coastal defences and reservoirs we will have pissed it away on damaging our economy.

This is why there should be more scientists and engineers in parliament whom understand risk and proof and less career politicians. ( By the way Engineers with practical experience would be far better than scientists as they live with the consequences of their professional decisions ).

We should stop going on about tokenism like career women to win and start thinking about a wider body of talent and experience into the commons. Unfortunately it looks like the precise reverse is to happen as the those with talent and merit are forced out of the Lords to be replaced by more career politicians.

Remember science is not a democracy, but a democracy without proper understanding of science will become a failed society.


Update: The most excellent First Post has an article titled Global warming: Nature goes against Science which reports one case of excessive claims and the acquiescence of a scientific magazine in making that case. A good - but not to heavy read.

Global warming backlash is buidling up steam

We have all got so used to being told that Global Warming is a fact and those who argue against it are evil Luddites that we may have lost sight of the science. And worse its now being used as one of those political issues politicians use to justify their existence and why they should take our money.

Journalists are now starting to question all this received wisdom - and about time too !

The following program on Channel 4 in the UK on Thursday looks good;

Channel 4 Thursday 8 March at 9pm

In a polemical and thought-provoking documentary, film-maker Martin Durkin argues that the theory of man-made global warming has become such a powerful political force that other explanations for climate change are not being properly aired.

Should be worth a watch ! There's a trailer here ...

Large cuts in science and engineering research in Britain made by NuLabour.

Just wondering over at my old haunt at Slashdot when I came across this headline "British Government Slashes Scientific Research" .

Hold on a minute I thought - why didn't we hear about that ? No clues over at the dumbed down BBC Science news site - ( yet more surveys of Antarctica and the MOD employing psychics make the headlines there ). A search of the BBC news site revealed nothing - choosing their web option you get this search ...

Which suggests no one else was much interested either. The cuts - as reported on the Research Councils Web site are:

Arts and Humanities Research Council: £5.3 million
Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council £6.7 million
Council for the Central Laboratory of the Research Councils £0.5 million
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council £29.0 million
Economic and Social Research Council £3.0 million
Medical Research Council £10.7 million
Natural Environment Research Council £9.7 million
Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council £3.1 million

To my mind the £29.0 million from EPSRC stands out most starkly. Remeber British workers could be about to loose their jobs as we have fallen behind in some areas of materials science ( wait for the EADS Airbus announcment in a few days).

EPSRC are saying:
EPSRC is now assessing the impact that this announcement will have on funding of research and postgraduate training in the engineering and physical sciences in the UK. The forthcoming Council meeting in March will consider options to find the necessary savings and remain within its financial allocation.

Think on this next time you see one of the arts graduates who make up our government going on about high tech jobs and how Britain has to compete against India and China in the future.

It is also a sign of the growing fiscal panic in government at the moment.

Now in fairness I have some strong doubts about how useful much government funded research is - and I have a PhD in Engineering so have some idea of what I'm talking about. But my points are:

1) No mention, that I could find, on the BBC - why ?
2) How does this fit with the public pronouncements of government ?
3) The money is being saved to fund the DTI - why ?

Michael Kenward writes for Science Business a good article here .. extracts below..

Exit stage left Lord Sainsbury, Minister for Science, enter stage right mandarins bearing hatchets. They then wield these to take lumps out of the budget of the Research Councils (RCs).

....

Not being an expert in bean counting, we can't be sure that we've divined the entrails accurately, but following a link from the Treasury web site we reach a PDF file of Spring Supplementary Estimates 2006-2007 Section 2, Department for Trade and Industry. Within this we see that £27 million went from the science budget for the "Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment Directive". Nice irony there. The number is just £2 million shy of the amount taken from the EPSRC, the research council that supports research into electronics and electrical equipment.

Update: [Hat tip to komadori - see comments] The BBC has an article on this from 22nd Feb and it blames the Rover bail out at the DTI. The irony here is that Rover was doomed anyway - but to bribe reassure the electorate just before a general election the government was happy to spend millions of tax payers money. Now they won't get the science and engineering base they were told about at that election.