VinnieK

I don't think it's really a shame. With a few notable exceptions (such as engineering and law) university is primarily about education, not vocational training. The basic 'skills' you happen to pick up along the way are common to the vast bulk of degree courses, namely the ability to analyse, reason and construct and present arguments for your conclusion at a high level are generic, and there's no real reason why someone should go into a degree course intending to enter their chosen subject in a professional capacity. A large number of university applicants' main aspiration is to secure graduate level employment. For this they require three or four years in higher education and it makes sense that they will choose to study a subject they enjoy (and perhaps is related to their preferred area of employment), without necessarily wanting to work in that exact discipline for the rest of their lives. I'm not sure what you mean by this. We don't live in a full on command economy where someone forcasts the number of graduates needed for a certain discipline and then allocates so many places at each university for that subject - the number of places available tends to be influenced primarly by the number of applicants and the amount of funding. If people aren't taking up STEM subjects, it's not because of wonky forecasts or what have you. The reason such subjects attract less applications is as decades old: the subjects simply don't appeal to the vast majority of people and aren't prerequisites for the bulk of graduate jobs.

This isn't quite the full picture. I remember reading that of the 60% of Engineering students who study accredited courses, only 29% of those (so just over 17% overall) choose to go into the Engineering profession once they graduate. In other words, even a large proportion of people who are interested in engineering enough to spend three or four years studying it aren't too fussed about a career in it. Arbitrarly limiting degree places on other courses isn't going to fix this, it just means less people will go to university overall. Also, it's a bit of a push to say that mathematicians, or even scientists are needed in "huge" numbers. The vast majority of graduate level jobs out there require at most an A-level's worth of mathematics - unsurprisingly, the number of jobs that actually require a person to know their way around a Coxeter group or a soliton are few, and I suspect the same holds true of the sciences. I don't doubt that we could do with more STEM graduates, but to say they're needed in huge numbers is a hell of an exaggeration. As an aside, looking around on graduate recruitment sites, it seems like the qualifications most in demand are business, marketing, and related degrees.

Off topic, but which university was this? They don't usually close down courses with people still on them, they just close applications for the next year and run the degree until all current undergraduates have completed their studies. If, for whatever reason, they can't do this, then they typically arrange for a place to be allocated to their students at a different university. At any rate, why didn't your son just transfer to a different university?

I agree entirely, but I'd argue that this is not one such group. As is often the case in regional nationalism, Mannin Aboo looks more like a cause in search of an opportunity, rather than a true reaction or solution to current affairs. I'm sure that things like the reciprocal health agreement and the VAT business provided a tipping point, where privately held sentiment boiled over into the public eye, but I do doubt that they provided the impetuous for those sentiments. As such, their message does not necessarily tally with the nature of the challenges ahead, and requires scrutiny, if not outright skepticism. Furthermore, and to labour a point I've already skirted around, if nationalist movements want to be taken seriously, they need to get their act together and provide the public with solid arguments for their cause and detailed plans for at least the most fundamental points of their reform. It's not enough to shout "Mannin seyr!" and offer vague commitments to establishing a republic based on a written constitution or what have you: a coherent plan for institutional structures, economics and reform, justified by due consideration and analysis has to be in place already and the public given the opportunity to discuss it and decide for themselves before any action is taken or even before such a movement is placed in a position of power. That the nationalist movement on the Island has thus far failed to do this, instead prefering to rely on sloganeering, cloying sentimentality, and half formed policy statements is precisely the reason why they have so miserably failed both themselves and the Island for the past fifty years or so. It's also why I suspect that Mannin Aboo are less than serious in their commitment to such issues or the welfare of the Island in general, why I believe their cause deserves a sceptical eye more than a pat on the head, and why in due time they too will fail and fade into the same kind of embittered obscurity as has Mec Vannin over the years.

I'd prefer that passion to be a manifestation of conviction arising from due consideration and reasoned argument, rather than reason and thought being used to justify what looks like a knee jerk position long after it's adopted. This is especially the case when we're talking about something as important and as monumental a change as the constitutional status of an entire people. To be honest, to blithely cry out for independence with such scant attention paid to the hows and whys takes the piss. There is a difference between having a taste for the limelight and a passion for politics and serving your community.

It's a pity then that all we've seen so far is bluster and empty sloganeering. I'd applaud it if there were some sign that this had been thought through and their beliefs reasoned, but so far it all smacks of attention seeking and setting up a mildly provocative bandwagon.

Their Myspace is much better: The Isle of Mann forever- Mannin Aboo! A group for all the Celtic Heroes' Ny Fennee' upholding all things Celtic and Gaelic and fighting for Freedom and, most importantly, fighting for INDEPENDENCE!!! Unfortunately I couldn't find a link to their undoubtably well thought out and comprehensive plan for independence, but I'm sure it's there.

I suspect it would also be the case that we, like a good deal of semi-rural UK areas and particularly a fair bit of the North West be largely neglected by Westminster in terms of investment and infrastructure. In short, we really would become a run down backwater. From what I can gather, there was a very distinct identity amongst the Manx and those born on the Island to recent newcomers that although perhaps not refined to the point of full blown nationalism was close to it. For instance, one telling wartime letter written by a great uncle of mine talks of being thankful that he's a Manxman and not British (despite his father being English), and from what I can tell he wasn't alone in this (similarly, there are a couple of faded old copies of Fo Halloo floating around back home, despite a fair proportion of the family coming from England and Ireland). In fact, from what I've heard from older relatives, it's not that long ago that the Manx and in particular Manx catholics found it quite difficult to find good employment, so there certainly was a sense of difference there, sometimes verging on antipathy and I don't think the traditional political apathy of the Manx should necessarly be confused with the adoption of a British identity (I know all this is very shaky and anecdotal, hopefully someone like Frances may be able to cast more light on the idea of Manx/British identity on the Island). What bothers me about the Island's nationalist movement, well one of the things that bothers me about it at least is that it seems to ignore entirely the fact that the UK has had a profound influence on the Island, and any attempt to enshrine natonal identity in political ideology should embrace and reflect that, since that's what makes us who we are. As it is, they seem more interested in imagining the Island as a piss poor knock off of Ireland, trying to erase god knows how many centuries of influence in an attempt to recreate some vague hiberno-Manx utopia in the Irish Sea.

I'm not sure about control, but certainly influence and disrupt. It all looks very cold war, where Russia would repeatedly play merry hell and get up to all kinds of mischief on the diplomatic stage, either directly or via its puppet states.

Wait a minute, why's that a reason why climate change is natural? Zuh? This isn't a reason either.... Buh? Wah? Feh? Meh. I see... we've gone from trying to prove climate change is natural, to assuming it's natural, via an erratic factgasm of assertions that are unrelated to the actual thrust of your argument. Such posts provide a convincing argument for access to the internet being determined by an entrance exam, perhaps in tandem with a thorough psychological assessment.

I don't think anyone has the answer to that yet, and it's further complicated by the question of whether or not there's a boundary. It's generally accepted that the observable universe has a boundary, and this is what's meant when people say that the universe is so many light years across and so on, but the actual universe is much larger and unbounded (I think the standard example is of the surface of a sphere, which is finite, but has no beginning or end).

Sorry to disappoint you, but I suspect the rantings of a deluded malcontent like Monckton who desperately wishes that he had the kind of influence he believes his title deserves is not a very effective counterpoint. As for the 'crybaby story', oh I wasn't really complaining about it. It's true that science is underfunded and scientists often underpaid, but in the end these are acceptable trade offs for what remains a rewarding career. I was more trying to illustrate the point that the financial rewards are so slim, and the business of getting a position so drawn out and challenging that the vast majority of scientists really are there primarily for the science and out of respect for the position. But you keep chasing your own shadow and seeing whatever it is you want to see, just don't expect many people to take you seriously.

Much of what the mock Lord Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Chipshoulder has written has already been discussed on this very forum, adding nothing new bar taking the rhetoric to unhinged new levels of sillyness. Here's a handy hint: citing a repeatedly discredited toffer who prances around wishing he were a) a member of the House of Lords, b) a scientist but isn't cut out for either and who lacks anything even close to a relevant qualification is not the best way to establish the validity of your argument. It's about as convincing as wheeling crazy Jimmy, self proclaimed crown prince of tramps and East Prussia in as a character witness at a trial. That the Jimmy in this instance has a website doesn't really make a difference.

Oh good, another hatchet job from that demented old fool Christopher Monckton (of Bletchley, dontchaknow). I believe taking Monckton seriously about virtually anything is soon to be adopted as a clinical measure of insanty. Jesus, it's like sitting in a room with the unbalanced and emotionally disturbed sibling of Newsbot in here.

Very true, but it has to be said that the public also seem to have developed a thirst for distorted science: on the one hand they want to see scientists telling them that doing something easy like eating cardboard will stop them getting cancer or halt the aging process and wearing odd socks promotes happiness and well being, whilst on the other they want to see scientists who happen to suggest that there will be consequences of this or that established form of behaviour pilloried and exposed as power hungry frauds. It's a tune which a significant proportion of the media is happy to play. As I've said before, I think it's compounded by a streak of an anti-establishment attitude rather than anti-science, and is at least partly a consequence of the government being a bit heavy handed over the years in its attempts to influence the direction of society, but, together with a short sighted demand to justify and explain every penny of the relatively poor funding of science in terms of immediate and practical benefits, that's one of the factors that's helping screwing up public science in the UK.

Science moves at its own pace, and it's natural that the risks of some form of behaviour or in the sustained use of some item only become truly apparent when sufficient time has elapsed to present some evidence that further investigation is recommended. You make it sound as if the "scientific community" somehow shares some collective guilt for the unforseen consequences of the widespread adoption of fossil fuels over the past century and a half (which has been as much a question of policy and public attitude than it has technology. Sure science has refined the basic design of the car, but that doesn't mean that virtually every family needs at least one), many of which have been difficult to observe due to limitations of both technology and sheer logistics until relatively recently.

Ah, apologies, I got the wrong end of the stick. There will always be some who's motives are less than honourable, although I know that if I were in climate science and the sort to put my own gain before all else, I'd probably turn to the energy companies long before I considered the government as potential source of patronage.

You make it sound like scientists have to produce whatever results the government desires in return for a living wage. Do you really believe this is true? The fact that Scientists are employed by X, Y or Z should be irrelevent if they are competent scioentists who have respect for their profession. The fact that they are so retained, employed, financed does not automatically disqualify their findings but it might make you review a little bit more carefully. Going into academic research in general requires about four years living close to minimum wage pursuing a PhD. Once that's completed you can look forward to a fair number of years being employed on short term contracts and having to move from town to town, or even between countries in order to secure a succession of postdoctoral (junior research) positions. This is all at a time when your peers have amassed a comparable or superior salary, usually with more job security, by entering the private sector and are in a position to start settling down. Furthermore, it's not uncommon finding that you're working 6 day, 10 hour a day weeks, sometimes even more when the pressure's on. Then, if you happen to find a lectureship, replete with a modest increase in salary, you often face up to a two year probationary period and a significant increase in responsibilities and workload in the form of teaching and administration responsibilities, further training and so on. Somewhere in this you have to squeeze in research and things like conference attendance, which inevitably spills over in your free time. Not only is your research squeezed by this culture, but it's also relatively poorly funded in the UK, with the success rate for funding grants being anything from 1 in 3 applications to 1 in 7 being successful in securing even a relatively small amount of money. The point of this is that overall a career in academic research can often entail putting your entire life on hold until your early to mid-thirties, for little in the way of financial reward (certainly the wage is below average for professionals of similar qualifications and experience) or long term career prospects, and a job that involves seemingly endless demands and responsibilities that only hinder the main reason you're there, that being to pursue research. The simple fact is that if scientists by and large didn't have respect for their profession or science in general, they wouldn't subject themselves to upwards of ten years of stress and uncertainty in order to eventually land a (relatively speaking) poorly paid and somewhat less than respected position. This is especially the case when you take into account the lure of the private sector or even institutions in other countries that do value their academics. What's more, given that being hired depends in a significant part on your record of publications and PhD thesis, itself a piece of original research, it's very hard to make the case that we should be worried about incompetance.

You make it sound like scientists have to produce whatever results the government desires in return for a living wage. Do you really believe this is true?

Which they got from the weather stations, which is the data available online and which can be viewed following Dave's links. If anyone thinks CRU's analysis is just plain wrong, they can get the data, perform their own analysis and publicise their findings. What on Earth is so difficult to understand about this? To be honest, when the e-mails were first leaked I was a bit miffed with some of the things members of the CRU are recorded as having said to one another. However, having seen the meal being made of this by you and some quarters of the media, stretching the truth and relying on nothing more than insinuation, distortion, and outright bullshit to push your opinion, never once justifying it with anything even approaching reason and demonstrating little interest in actual discussion, I can't help but feel a great deal of sympathy for the CRU. Don't get me wrong, I can understand some aspects of sceptic's positions, and that this is a very complex subject (certainly the science is beyond me). Furthermore, I do sometimes disagree with the way both the message and the solution have been pushed by the Government. But you are nothing less than shameless, with no discernable interest in this issue or its resolution beyond self-interest and feeding a juvenile hunger for conspiracy theory.

Firstly, it wasn't their raw data, they retrieved the data from various weather stations around the world, used it and then adjusted it to take into account variability in collection methods. In effect, all they did was compile it ready for analysis, whether the original data remains in the posession of the weather stations in question I don't know. Maybe you should take it up with them? Secondly, the data was lost moving to the new building. This suggests that they held on to it for as long as circumstance allowed. By then, their research and methodology would already have passed sufficient scrutiny and been published, so really there was no reason to keep it whatsoever. Edited to add: I'm sorry, but you really are either being astonishingly thick or shamefully disingenuous. UEA got rid of their records of the raw data they used. Which part of this don't you understand? The raw data still exists, and is available (follow Dr_Dave's links) to anyone.

I have some questions for you Dr_Dave. 1. When was the CRU set up? 2. Why was it set up? 3. Who funded it? 4. When the data was requested under Freedom of Information requests, why did CRU scientists deny access under reasons of 'proprietary' - why didn't they just say that they dumped it in the 80's? Why don't you answer the question posed to you. You've asked your share, now let us hear what, if anything, you have to say. Incidentally, the answer to 1-3 is: Look it up on google. 4. Are you referring to McIntyre's request to get CRU temperature data? If so, it's worth pointing out that he went to the Met office, who denied his FOI request in part on the basis that it was proprietary, not the CRU.

Dr Dave has already covered much of what I'd want to say with regards to this. However, it's worth adding that the raw data was probably dumped because there was no further use for it, any research directly based on it had been assessed, accepted, and refined via peer review. Given this, what would be the point in keeping it, especially when the data was not recorded by the CRU itself but by weather stations who presumably had their own records? If public confidence in scientific institutions is shaken by this particular matter, I'd say that it's less the fault of the scientists and more due to the fact that the public don't actually have realistic expectations of what they do and the resources at their disposal. For instance, why would you expect scientists to hold onto all of the data they'd worked from during their careers, in most cases long past its usefullness? Furthermore, where and how would it have been stored? Would there have been some kind of archival system in place to ensure that data wasnt duplicated across institutions? And, perhaps most relevant (and remember, we're talking about the 80's here) who would have paid for all of this? I somehow doubt that during a period of high unemployment and strained public finances, that either the government or the public would have been too eager to devote god knows how much money towards preserving vast quantities of raw data "just in case".

Sure, but that doesn't mean the scandal, or that the points the article makes are justified. At first this does seem pretty off, but journals vary in respectability. If you read the e-mails themselves more closely the impression is more that the CRU people are concerned that politically motivated and flawed science is making its way into a particular journal and that partisan appointments are being made to the IPCC committee, something which they believe needs to be addressed (and, quite naturally, you're not going to want to publish in a journal you perceive as being hostile to your science and as hosting flawed research). Now, I'm sure that paragraph will be scoffed at for being a bit pot/kettle, but let's put this in context: a number of those most prominantly opposed to the idea of climate change, many of whom have demonstrable links with the energy industry (compared with implied or insinuated links between the CRU and government) have been pursuing the CRU and other climatic research centres relentlessly for years now. As a part of that, these have been publicly accused of dishonestly, incompetance, and corruption and their research attacked at every single turn. I agree that things may have gone too far with regards to FOI requests, and the intemperate language employed, but if climate science has become too polarized and politicised, who's fault is that? At the very least, the CRU had the dignity to keep their sniping to themselves, whilst much of the opposition displays it as a badge of honour (and it's telling that they've managed to get away with it). What's more, where were all the tutting voices and clucking hens when scientists were being pressured in this way? Where was the concern that those who are now crying that they're the victims of a politically motivated campaign against them are often the same people who apparently saw no conflict of interest between dismissing climate change and their links with industry and business? Even though I disagree with the sentiment, I can understand that many people are concerned that they're being taken for a ride by what they view as government sponsored research. What I can't understand is why they appear so complacent when it comes to the possibility that what they accept as legitimate criticism of the CRU and similar institutes may be influenced by other vested interests and lobby groups. To be honest, it smacks more than a little of rank hypocrisy, a willingness to overlook the motives of one side, because they happen to be saying the 'right' things, whilst endlessly questioning the motives of the other; of wholeheartedly accepting one side's criticism of the other; and, at the most paltry hint of shenanigens, get up in arms, condemning the CRU as 'taking sides' and furthering their own personal aims when, if we're honest here, much of the sceptic camp and indeed their supporters have been unashamedly doing for years now. There are serious questions to be asked here in the wake of the CRU e-mails, but I suggest that they're less about climate change, and more about how those campaigning against the notion of climate change, aided in no small part by those in the public who have happily remained silent or oblivious regarding the motives and methods of those who promise they can keep their lightbulbs and cars, have successfully politicised and manipulated the debate to near unprecedented levels and ushered in an age where scientific research runs the risk of being at the mercy of factional politics and vested interests at every turn. *edited to add: The author of the article, Christopher Booker, is an aging historian who, in addition to being a long time opponent to current theories of climate change, has argued that white asbestos is chemically identical to talc and thus poses no health risks, claimed a shyster prosecuted under the trades descriptions act for falsifying qualifications was the foremost expert on asbestos, and that BSE and CJD are unrelated. In short, I would ask my cat to explain scientific matters before I asked that old fool!

Well, we can but hope. Maybe one day we'll be lucky enough to be subject to inquiries into every human endeavour in which there's no proof that there isn't corruption or conspiracy, such as balloon manufacturing, and cake decorating, and nearly everything else. If you're looking for a hot new scoop, keep an eye on the entomologists. From what I hear they get fuck all funding, and there's no proof of any conspiracies there either - a clear sign they're up to something. Within ten years expect claims of a giant, malevolent sub species of moth that can only be driven off by repeated categorization by, you guessed it, ENTOMOLOGISTS! Bastards, every last bug lovin' one of them.