VinnieK

Well, your terms are certainly a lot better than the blatantly charged 'accomodationalists', which combined with the idea of this being "soft on faith", starts to resemble soviet style stigma through nomenclature! I wonder why it is usually biologists of a certain age that get so publicly het up about atheism/theism.

:( I missed the fonny joke?

I was surprised as well as I'd always imagined it as a bit of a grim swindony kinda town, but it's much more lively and nice than it's made out to be - definitely one of the UK's forgotten gems (which I'd say is partly because it's an absolute pain to get to). I know what you mean about it being a little flat though, I didn't actually realise how much I missed the Island until I ended up somewhere where I couldn't see any hills!

Yeah, and it's surprisingly nice. Not sure what that's got to do with anything though, since I was bitching about the idea of screwing up the Island with a massive great theme park, and not actually criticising the Island itself.

We can only hope! Feltland is a far more sensible alternative to an Alton Towers style theme park, the two possible marketing angles for the latter being: "Come to the Isle of Man. It's like Alton Towers, except it's more expensive, harder to get to, and smaller!" or "You thought Blackpool was a hole? Well we took a pretty little island and built a load of shit rides on it. Visit Manxland: the newest, most derelict piss and chip wrapper sea side crapopolis our stupid taxpayers' money can buy."

Don't forget Studebakers in the roll call of fallen nightclubs. With its clientelle being made up primarily of depressed middle aged divorcees, hen nights, underage kids too witless to try Paramount or Toffs and the odd psycho now and again, all dancing to shite cheese, it was more a sociological experiment than a nightclub. Not to mention an entertaining alternative for those moments when the Tardis got too boring (such as most of the time after it was renamed the Outback).

I'm not so sure about this. Take for example the world of academic research, specifically in the sciences and engineering. It has to be said that the rewards for such creativity and invention are, apart from the odd gong here and there or conference jollies (which are as much a hassle as they are anything else), pretty modest overall, public recognition minimal, and the hoops a person has to jump through becoming more numerous and stifling. If anything, the popular trend is to reward those who entertain us - this has been the case for generations and shows no signs of abating. Also, a large and growing proportion of students entering university these days seem to aspire to careers in investment banking and, alongside law, this is where people view the greatest potential to be rewarded for their efforts rather than in an area that demands a particular sense of creativity or invention being dedicated towards a purpose that is specifically beneficial. Were it possible, I suspect society might gravitate towards the following model: 5% Footballers/models/tellybox cloth-heads 18% Hedge fund managers/solicitors/braying pin stripe golems 76.999% Contestants on Britain's Got Talent. 0.001% Designers of things like toastabags, and various other items that could appear in JML's inventory of mystifying things.

Define 'good looking' independent of cultural sensibilities and the varying tastes of fashion over the ages! Then compare with the average couple to see how their closely their respective choices match this definition.

I'd put my money on those with a taste for drunken abandon - the offspring of countless nihilistic fumblings in pub car parks, nightclub bathrooms and bus stops will one day rise up and bend all of humanity to its will. To be honest, I have no idea. Again, our discussion is going to be limited by not knowing to what extent those traits are nature over nurture, and, if the latter is the predominant determining factor, how and what proportion of those traits will be modified, restained, or encouraged in individual cases by the prevailing social order the various subgroupings people find themselves in. In other words, any such argument is as much sociological as it is biological, which is unfortunate since most of the former discipline is ideologically motivated bunkum churned out by time serving citation whores

Another problem with the model (and perhaps the most glaring) is that it assumes that professionals are by and large more intelligent than non-professionals, in terms of raw intelligence. I'd argue that this ignores a whole host of factors and secondary discussions about intelligence, such as the role of class and money in influencing a child's later professional status, making the mistake of equating professional status with intelligence. I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that an awful lot of professionals are in fact quite unremarkable when it comes to intelligence, and have managed to get where they are primarily due to background and an ability/coaching in playing the system when it comes to exams/university and interviews.

So, youtube, anecdotal evidence and hearsay, and whatever public domain articles you find you can twist and misinterpret to suit your argument? What's the convention on how such sources are cited? Do they require individual entries in the bibliography, or is it more usual to write "(Bllk) Bollocks, the Internet. Various years."?

Good point. I fully retract my previous statement for fear of being lynched by the self loathing science hacks and shuffling mounds of deathtech obsessed corduroy who make up the readership of that venerable apocalypse themed alternative to the Beano.

Got to love invocations of Lockheed Skunk Works in internet discussions, it's the science equivalent of quoting some guy down the pub who swears that he infiltrated Area 51 when we was in the SAS. Was it they who came up with this gem: "theoretically a never ending fuel supply in space would mean faster than light speeds as theoretically there is nothing to slow it down and it would never stop increasing in speed unless they wanted to"? If so, it would appear that their acclaimed physicists are actually 13 year olds. 13 year olds who don't have even a basic knowledge of physics. Or access to a textbook. Or the internet. Or a more knowledgeable friend they can ask about these things.

It's fun, certainly! Though it has to be said that such citation metrics are often regarded with suspicion when it comes to how they claim to measure significance and communication in the sciences. For instance, the analysis only covers eight years, which is a relatively short time frame over which to analyse citations. Many papers will continue to accumulate citations long after such a period (for example, one paper I'm looking at cites publications dating back to the 70's), and it's not unheard of for entire subdisciplines to only gain widespread recognition and garner citations years after their initial development (examples being homological algebra and combinatorial geometry). Also, a lot of the communication of science is effectively hidden by the graphic. For instance, say an algebraicist comes up with paper X, which two physicists find useful and cite accordingly. Then suppose that twelve chemists go on to write papers using material from the phycisists' work. Now, they will cite the physicist, but might not cite the algebraicist, though their work is indirectly dependent on his or her's - the next round of citations may ignore the physicist as well, and so on. In a sense this process is represented in the diagram you include: it's notable that molecular and cellular biology and medicine are two of the biggest citation "hubs", given that these disciplines are not only vastly applicable, but, having a broad scientific basis, could also be seen as "hiding" the true degree of contributions from other disciplines. A fair example of this would be the current efforts to unify quantum mechanics with gravity, or understanding the connections between thermodynamics and gravity. Both are thought to be highly dependent upon the development of something called quantum group theory and the insights this discipline offers. Now, should such efforts prove fruitful, the papers that result will surely be justly celebrated and receive numerous citations, many more in fact that the underlying theory which is so crucial to the process - in other words, citation metrics spanning differently disciplines typically fail to convey any meaningful measure of significance (despite them often being used to this effect!) of what it seeks to represent.

If you banned cars from Douglas (which would presumably solve the congestion issue), why on earth would you then need to slap a heavy premium on businesses which actually genuinely need them to operate, other than to satisfy your own personal crusade against the internal combustion engine? Seriously, have you actually thought about this at all? There's little apparent benefit in such "massive" premiums, and plenty of problems such as placing ever greater strain on the ability of businesses to operate.

I don't know, some environmentalists do have good ideas that aren't solely coercive. Having said that, it's interesting that those who do rely primarily on the stick often suggest proposals that are nearly always regressive, i.e. they typically penalise the poor more than the wealthy (who can happily afford the charges, and so on).

The carrot is that you reduce the number of cars, and we all have a better quality of life. I'm not that anti-car, I've got two myself. I just fekking hate driving, its a nightmare. There's too many cars on the roads. I can manage with one car, I've only got two cos it's cheap and convenient. If everyone else managed with one, I'd happily do it. Why do you have to wait for every one else to plough ahead before you follow suit though? If you value the principal behind the argument, and you're confident that you can manage with just one, surely you can get rid of one of them regardless of what everyone else is doing.

Gladiators style atlaspheres are the only realistic alternative. They're only marginally less glamorous than bicycles, are safer, and are probably good for the environment in a million billion different ways.

I was wondering the same thing - it may have some benefits, but are these outweighed by the costs (both in financial terms and those of disruption). My plan is cheaper, and I believe more effective: 1. Calculate the number of excess cars contributing to congestion, 2. Randomly select and confiscate that same number of cars from the populace, 3. Beat anyone who complains until they stop. 4. Recycle confiscated cars and use the salvaged material to manufacture halberds and spears with which to keep the unwashed and beligerant serfs in check.

Or some cycle lanes. You can't pitch cycle lanes as an alternative to a monorail, that would be madness. Monorail beats all!

Are they going to paint it orange, ban people from wearing hats, and make it shit? It's a tried and tested formula.

Those aren't the signs of alcoholism "sneaking up", they're the signs of long established alcoholism in its fullest stage. Alcoholism actually tends to develop via routine drinking, often without an initial need to get blind or even moderately drunk. Like most addictions this dependency steadily gets worse, which is sometimes exacerbated by psychological and circumstantial factors until the person is no longer able to function, and is a process that usually starts in early to mid 20's, when their drinking habits are less noticeable as being "unusual" and progresses slowly. Certainly in some cases there can be some kind of emotional shock that triggers rapid acceleration sufficient for people to notice, but in many cases it can go largely unnoticed by even the closest of the person's acquaintences until the addiction is already at a chronic level. By the time people reach the stage where signs such as the ones you mention begin to manifest, they're usually so far gone down the path of addiction that nothing short of a dramatic intervention stands much of a chance of breaking it, and even then such an act is only a starting point and requires a considerable period of work to overcome alcoholism in its entirity - especially if there are emotional factors at play such as clinical depression .

Always glad to share vintage screamy blastbeats, and to defy expectations! Fact: Ans has good taste when it comes to wine.

As I've made clear previously, I don't believe Rushdie deserves the award on merit, but nor do I believe that such an award should be prohibited on the grounds that some maniacs out there believe that violence and threats are a justified expression of religious or cultural indignation. That depends on what you believe the government's intentions were. In a sense the timing is excellent as it allows them to cast themselves as stout and resolute defenders of free speech (such an effect would be diluted were Iran and Pakistan simply to ignore Rushdie's knighthood with sage maturity instead of resorting to ridiculous threats). I assume that the Government simply decided that the benefits of the decision outweighed the diplomatic consequences (which so far has consisted of bizarre sabre rattling) or the possible actions of a few demented zealots, rather than being guilty of "political ineptitude". Ultimately, the opinions of extremists, be they motivated by ideology, religion, or racism cannot be modified by accomodating or pandering to those opinions or to react to them with silence for fear of provoking them further - this simply demonstrates that they have the power to influence government and encourages them further. Instead they need to be confronted, openly criticised, and brought out into the open where it can be demonstrated that they have no power or influence. I agree that this could be done better than by handing Rushdie a gong, and that the Government's decision to knight him is probably more self serving than they will claim, and as I mentioned before I don't believe he deserves is, but I would more prefer that he receives his knighthood for the above reasons, than to see him denied it because some fascist theocracy wants to bully the world into silence with veiled threats of future conflict. Say, after a hypothetical period of race riots, the BNP employed some implicit threat of violence in an attempt to prevent a particular author being honoured or even published (for whatever reason). I for one would prefer to see their threats be met head on and to see people criticise those issuing the threats than I would seeing them being quietly appeased. I still think Rushdie am well rubbish though, like.

I think it's a bit much to credit him with creating the post-colonialist scene, he was certainly a part post colonialism, but so were a considerable number of other authors such as Buchi Emecheta and Hanif Kureishi, not to mention much older post-imperal authors such as A.S. Byatt, Anthony Burgess, and Jan Morris and literary theorists such as Edward Said. What separates Rushdie from any of these authors, many of whom are considered "better" writers in terms of their craftsmanship? Here's the crux of the matter. Who has he influenced, and in what way? He may have influenced young indian authors, as you say, to start writing in the first place, but that is more by example and personal involvement than the quality and literary importance of his work, which really isn't that great. Sure hand him out a gong for services to free speech or encouraging young authors or whatever, but for literature itself? No.