Academic morals

Some nationalists purvey national origin stories about which they care deeply, sometimes not that far from the creation stories told by what used to be called primitive tribesmen, and react badly to alternative versions of these stories. Some black people, understandably, react badly to any suggestion that black people might not be as clever as white people – a suggestion which, as it happens, is complicated by the fact that black people are better at some brain things while white people are better at other brain things. Academic Reich at reference 1 pokes at the first of these issues while academics Herrnstein & Murray at reference 2 poke at the second, with all three getting some stick as a result. So before coming back to these two books in posts to come, I thought to air some thoughts on academic morality more generally, morality in the sense of whether there were fields of research which were better left fallow, better left unploughed. When it is better not to poke? And if one has poked, when it is better to keep the knowledge so acquired to oneself?

A relaxed view of the academy is that academics are seekers after knowledge and they should be free to go where their quest takes them, within very broad limits. They should be free to talk to other academics, free to publish their work as they see fit. Trying to set narrow limits, to give a bit of direction from the outside, in an effort to be helpful, usually turns out to hinder rather than to help.

And if it so happens that some of their product is put to bad uses in the world outside, that is the fault and responsibility of the world outside. The academics live in the cloister, in the ivory tower, and are not responsible for the bad uses to which their knowledge might be put –rather as Facebook declines to take responsibility for the stuff circulating on its platform.

I leave aside the case where there is real and present danger of attracting the attention of the religious or political authorities. In the way that one might have in early modern Europe, in Stalin’s Soviet Union or, I dare say, in many Muslim countries now.

Bad uses

I see three areas where there might be problems.

• Making knowledge and technology available to bad people to do bad things
• Publishing new stories which contradict the old stories, the strongly held beliefs, of large groups of people. New stories which are offensive to many people
• Publishing stories which can be adapted for bad purposes, which can be used to build  bad stories, to give bad stories a bit of respectability. Again, bad stories which are offensive to many people.

No doubt there are others.

Under the first head, one might argue that an academic should have nothing to do with atomic or biological weapons. Or with the perfection of military grade rifles for sale to the general public. Or with the manufacture of explosives from things which might be found in the average kitchen. Which brings us to the distinction between morally wrong and legally wrong: making research into atomic weapons or military grade rifles illegal probably does not answer, but we need not do it ourselves and we might shun people who do. And such disapprobation can be effective, can be career limiting: the academy is awash with fads and fashions, if not morality, and attempting to pursue unfashionable research can make it difficult to get posts, promotions or grants. I recall reading of a psychiatrist who got a lot of funny looks because he was trying to do research into paedophilia. And fads and fashions can be a problem more generally, in the way that they suck all the money in, at the expense of the unfashionable.

All of which is complicated by the difficulty of separating out the good from the bad. Research into biological warfare, into bad biological agents, for example, might well have considerable overlap with research into good biological agents. Does one forego the latter for fear of the former? Who should try to decide about such matters?

Also by context: all kinds of weapons research is OK in the prosecution of a righteous war.

Under the second, we have research which bears on matters of belief. Neither geology nor evolution sit very comfortably with the notion that God created the world in seven days, or that God started work on the world 5,789 years ago, planting the first men and women on the top of Mount Carmel, in what is now Israel, a year or so later. Do we expect geologists and people working on evolution to show respect to the many people having such beliefs? Or to give such beliefs airtime in the text books they might write for use in our schools and universities?

And under the third, we have the works noticed here. The work on the genome by the likes of Reich and his colleagues, has attracted the controversial attentions of one Wade (another old Etonian, now resident in the US), which can be read about at references 3 and 4 – although, for myself, I am content to pass on Wade on the account of Orr. While the work on IQ by Herrnstein & Murray attracted lots of comment, for, against, considered and unconsidered. One might write with great care about race and intelligence, but that is not going to stop bad people making bad use of those writings, probably by quoting bits and pieces out of context or by falsely claiming their authority.

Publication

These issues are made more pressing by the ease with which information can now be moved about and shared. In the olden days, if I had some heretical conversation in the cloisters of my monastery, my abbot would probably turn a blind eye. But now such conversation surfs the Internet, freely available to anyone who cares to look or who has an interest in making trouble or generating clicks. The abbot should probably not turn a blind eye any more.

At the risk of sounding elitist or even authoritarian, we need to filter the raw work of academics to make it fit for public consumption. And the public needs to be able to trust what it is given. None of us can go into everything and we have to delegate most of that going into to things to others, to others in whom we trust, trust which, as a former bureaucrat, I believe needs to be built in layers. We trust our Parliament (Brexit aside) to pass the right laws, to set up the right oversight, which result in the right universities, which result in respectable academics publishing good work in respectable journals - work which can then, if appropriate, be precised by well educated journalists in respectable newspapers for general consumption.

Then, while looking again at Herrnstein & Murray yesterday, I was struck by their argument that while you might ban discussion of tricky matters – in their case the IQ of black people – from the public realm, you are not going to be able to ban it from the private realm – where much harm might be done by ignorance. It was better that bar room discussions and arguments were based on some facts, rather than relying completely on trash from social media.

Which brings us to the opening diagram, about how we might accord trust to the papers and articles which are turned up by our search engines, by our browsing in various online forums or by casual surfing of the Internet. How we distinguish useful, usable information from the trash. How does one tell the difference?

Gloss on opening diagram

A diagram which is intended to illustrate the business of bringing academic work to the public. A simplified version of a complicated world; not to be taken too literally.

The work and words of academics are given backing in three ways: their own reputations, the reputations of the institution to which they are affiliated and the reputations of the journals in which they publish their work. With part of this last resting on the refereeing of papers before they are published. And with refereeing being absent in the case of self publication and newspaper articles. Private publication among colleagues is not at issue here.

Institutions may be public, in the way of most universities, such as Harvard or Tübingen. Or they may be run by a private foundation, perhaps founded by a rich entrepreneur or funded by a large corporation, but with the foundation providing something of a firewall between the institution and the source of its funds. One such is the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Then we have other institutions which are essentially parts of large corporations or agencies of governments: institutions which exist to serve the ends of their parent, whatever they may be, such as Elsevier or the Atomic Weapons Establishment (formerly known as Aldermaston, now privatised). Government apart and other things being equal, our trust in these institutions falls from left to right. And then, to the far right, we have the independent learned societies, with one such being the Royal Society. With the picture being confused by many journals with fancy, academy sounding names actually living in places like the Elsevier stable: professional science might be said to need to be published by professional publicists and the two professions are different.

Some journals are more prestigious than others – and other things being equal we put more trust in papers in more prestigious journals than in less prestigious journals. I note in passing that open publishing is not the same as self publishing. Open publishing is about open access, about being free at the point of delivery, not about scrapping the refereeing process. See, for example, reference 5.

Like journals, some newspapers are more prestigious than others. But with the big difference that newspapers are much more circulation driven; they publish stories which they hope will sell newspapers, serving Queen and Country sometimes comes a poor second.

And like academics, some journalists have a reputation to lose. They work for reputable newspapers and would not want to lose their good name. We trust them to publish stories which are true, or at the very least, well intentioned.

So there are plenty of clues out there. Responsible communicators do have access to what is needed to sort the wheat from the chaff, the wheat from the tares. The trick is for their voices to be heard above the chatter and worse of the irresponsible communicators, more interested in selling copy or clicks – or perhaps in just having a laugh at someone else’s expense – than in communicating.

Conclusions

I do not admit thought crime, and academics should be free to poke around as they might see fit. But publication is a different matter, I do admit publication crime and I do not believe that academics should be free to publish whatever they feel like, there being plenty of academics out there with poor judgement in such matters, as there are in any other walk of life. And the judgement of most of us lapses some of the time; we do need some help and it is best not to be in solitary confinement in the ivory tower. Unfortunately, I do not see any simple rules to guide academics or academies, otherwise their institutions, in what they do and what they offer the public.

Perhaps the best that we can hope for is that academics in respectable institutions be both sensible and respectful – and that respectable institutions and referees of respectable journals will police this hope. Where by sensible, I mean not to poke around in sensitive areas without there being some reasonable prospect of value add, of doing some good. And where by respectful, I mean not to gratuitously upset decent people who happen to have backgrounds or beliefs which you do not share. If you want to publish something which is clearly going to upset such people, have a care. Try to mitigate the affront.

In which the referee assisted process of review should be a big help. The institutions just need to keep those processes and procedures up to scratch, up to the mark. And we the public need to take care where we take our information from and to be sensible in our use of it. Not, for example, in the interests of making an impression in the bar room, passing off offensive tripe as the real thing. We all need to be good citizens – to which end we all need good education – hopefully not the variety peddled by the faith schools of reference 6 that Prime Minister Blair was so keen on. (As noted above, it is not just academics who have poor judgement).

And with that off my chest, I can return to reading about ancient DNA and the testing of intelligence.

PS: since posting, I have been reading in last week’s Economist about some people in Croatia who are building road cars which can travel in excess of 250mph. So perhaps I was wrong in the foregoing to major on military grade sporting rifles. And perhaps the European Commission should earn its keep and arrange for these vehicles to be excluded from public roads. I dare say there are all kinds of interesting technological spin-offs, but on the basis of 60 seconds thought, I don’t think such things should be allowed on our roads. See reference 7.

References

Reference 1: Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the new science of the human past - David Reich – 2018.

Reference 2: The Bell Curve – Herrnstein & Murray – 1994.

Reference 3: A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History – Nicholas Wade – 2014.

Reference 4: Stretch Genes – H. Allen Orr – 2014. A review of reference 3 to be found in the issue of NYRB for 5th June, 2014.

Reference 5: https://www.plos.org/. The deal seems to be open access, free at the point of delivery, author (or his institution) pays. Around USD2,000 a pop.

Reference 6: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/sep/02/education.labour.

Reference 7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimac_Automobili. Rather easier going than the company website.

Ambulance chaser

PPI might have been a financial scandal, but it also seems to be easy pickings for the legal eagles. These particular eagles have somehow gotten hold of my mobile phone number and have taken to ringing me up on what seems like a daily basis, although I have yet to actually speak to their call centre.

Perhaps vulture would be a more appropriate bird than eagle. A common sight on what passes for the news from Microsoft. Always dressed up as an attractive young female; not like the older solicitor noticed at the end of reference 2 at all.

Hitherto, it has been our land line which attracts this kind of stuff, with BT providing some protection, while my mobile has been more or less free of it. Hopefully that is not about to change.

I have just now sent the Oracle people an email asking them to desist and I wonder whether it will have any effect. I also hope that they are no relation of the pushy but respectable computer people of the same name.

PS: prompt reply from Oracle - within hours - denying that these calls are anything to do with them. Perhaps I will find the time to get to the bottom of the matter.

Reference 1: https://www.oraclelegal.co.uk/.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/08/legal-and-financial-services.html. I might add that company A of that post was indeed satisfied with the copies made by the older solicitor. The bit of business has now been done.

Fortean Times

A good haul from the Raynes Park platform library on the way home.

So anti-clockwise from top right we have:

In the green, a 'Wallpaper* City Guide' to Las Vegas from Phaidon. Quite a nicely produced thing and, oddly, containing about a quarter of its volume as pages on which to make notes. Perhaps Phaidon are losing their original market in art books, largely of a sort which for which the Internet is a more than satisfactory alternative, and are thrashing around for something to put the talents to - while at the same time making a living.

A smartly produced and informative consultation document for airspace and future operations at Heathrow, dated January of this year. As well it might be, given the money and public interests involved. Unclear to me from whom this document comes, with the website that comes with it, reference 1, telling me that it is closed. Perhaps whoever it is that owns this bit of critical national infrastructure these days?

A short document from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission about its cemeteries in Poland, containing around 1,200 graves, mostly Commonwealth airmen who lost their lives over Poland or prisoners of war who died there, during the second world war. I also learn that by the end of the second world war there were nearly a quarter of a million of Polish servicemen and women serving under British command.

And last but not least, two numbers of the Fortean Times - with rather more having been available should we have been that interested. Named, I know now for Charles Fort, from Albany, New York State, of Dutch stock. The scientist and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke was a Fortean, who started in Minehead and ended up in Sri Lanka. He was also something to do with the Interplanetary Society, whose building at Vauxhall, on the way to Waterloo, has puzzled me for years. While cursory inspection of reference 2 suggests that it runs all kinds or more or less sensible meetings about planetary exploration there. But an odd magazine, a miscellany of all sorts of weird odds and ends, some of anthropological if not scientific interest. Probably plenty of UFO's and visits by Martians & other aliens. Plus a dash of sci-fi porn. Probably all kinds of odd readers. I think my time would be better spent on the Heathrow document.

Reference 1: https://www.heathrowconsultation.com.

Reference 2: https://www.bis-space.com/.

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Fake 66

More of the same. The pilaster, for example, is real enough, but the fluting thereon is a paint job, as is the fancy work alongside.

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Fake 65

Up to and including the brown wood coving, it is what it seems. But the plaster ceiling is mainly fake.

Why on earth did they do it? One would have thought that a competent interior designer could have done something much better for the money. Perhaps they were in the grip of some fashion.

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Fake 64

A door contrived in the middle of some trompe l'oeil decoration. All paint job. Snapped in Kensington Palace and a fitting companion piece to the tapestry door snapped in Hampton Court Palace at reference 1.

Clearly the interior decorators used by the royals a few hundred years ago liked this sort of thing.

Reference 1: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/fake-60.html.

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Kensington Palace

Last week, we finally made it to Kensington Palace, with BH having been dropping hints about the place for years. What finally swung it was the need to get more value out of our membership of Hampton Court Palace; FIL had been glaring at us from up on his cloud.

Five trolleys neatly parked on Station Approach. Marked down for attention later, then forgotten.

A young man, who for once in a while was taking his lady for a day out in London on the train, and who spent nearly the entire journey making very important phone calls to do with his very important work. I think his lady gave up in the end and gave her attention to her mobile phone.

Not fake

After some deliberation, and despite being advised by the Network Rail Journey Planner that it would be much better to change at Vauxhall or Victoria, we changed onto the District Line at Wimbledon, which worked very well. Except that we emerged into a shower at Kensington High Street. Declining the fancier opportunities in the exit arcade, we opted for refreshment in the adjacent M&S, where I was impressed by the solidity of the tables. As far as I could make out, solid oak blockboard with not an MDF in sight - which I would have thought reasonably expensive.

Interesting clientele, including one middle aged, middle class lady, probably once good looking, who was sat within earshot and talked non-stop, managing to drop all kinds of impressive sounding words on the way. She might have been something in high finance.

From there into Kensington Palace Gardens. We noted that the rather ugly security barriers outside the Israeli Embassy had become discrete green posts, presumably armoured steel and let six feet into the ground to be on the safe side. Plus a couple of heavily armed policemen. Last noticed at reference 1, getting on for ten years ago now.

Kensington Gardens turned out to be a good place for the aeroplane game, scoring a three and several twos in the course of the day.

While Kensington Palace had rather serious security too, presumably because half of it still functions as a palace, unlike Hampton Court which, apart from a bit of grace and favour, is very much a straightforward tourist attraction.

Once inside I made a special study of hinges, having been struck by that noticed at reference 2, subsequently at reference 3.

Hinge one

Hinge two

Hinge three

Hinge one was very much the same as that spotted at Hampton Court; hinge two was rather ornamental; and, hinge three look like a set of perfectly ordinary brass butt hinges, the sort of thing which holds some of our own interior doors up. Perhaps it was all down to the whim and mood of the estate carpenter on the day the work needed doing, with no particular rhyme or reason at all.

Bust one

Bust two

Bust three

Along this way we came across a rather fancy bust of a black man, but did not think to read his ticket. So I ask Google Image Search which says that bust one is an antique. Then I cut the image down to something more like bust three using Microsoft snipper and it comes up with the blog captured at bust two, to be found at reference 4. Seemingly a blog which is directed at ladies who would rather not pay for a paper ladies' magazine - but it did include bust three, which gives a better idea of the bust, if not of its context. But it does not say who it is and the best our rather elderly guide can do is that it might be an eighteenth century bust of a page. Which does not seem quite right to me, the gent. in question being too old and too grand.

Venus and Cupid

A singularly ugly picture, apparently a favourite of George II. All Google can tell me about it is that it is probably a picture of Venus and Cupid.

Weather vane

Then a first, in the form of an interior weather vane: a dial over a fireplace connected to a weather vane on the roof. It must have made a useful conversation piece before radio and television were invented, when it was too dark to read with any comfort and one had tired of playing cards.

We were reminded of a strange fashion in dresses, call mantuas. See reference 5.

Sunken garden

Handsome sunken garden on the park side of the palace. A larger version of the sunken gardens at Hampton Court. The large tea tent, installed for the duration of the Orangery refurbishment, is visible to the left.

Tea stainer

It seemed a little early for the full-on afternoon tea on offer and which most of the others were taking (complete with doggy bags, perhaps a nod in the direction of the US portion of the clientèle), so we took the lunch instead, which turned out to be fine, and quite reasonably priced. I took a little more wine for dessert, while BH took tea, which turned up another first, in the form of a little wire brush stuck in the spout of the teapot to do service as a tea strainer. And for the first time in a while, there were proper tea cups, rather than the great heavy things you usually get.

Clientèle mainly ladies, of all ages, probably more than half tourists and holiday makers.

Royal tent

As can be seen in the snap above, it was a very royal tent and I don't suppose I would care to have to pay for a wedding in one. Perfectly comfortable when we were there, just a slightly flapping roof to moan about. But it might get a bit uncomfortable in full summer if the sun was in the wrong position.

Back garden

Photography in the vicinity of the Israeli Embassy was forbidden but we sneaked a snap of the back garden, probably allowed. With the block at the back properly scoring as a fake, being fairly new but in a fake old style. Quite a lot of it about these days.

On the way to the tube, we came across a Greek baker selling all kinds of good looking stuff. We took a couple of olive buns, something we have not had since our days near the top of Green Lanes in north London. Very good they were too. As far as I can make out from Gmaps and Bing, Menoo Eclectic of Kensington Church Street, next to Patisserie Valerie - at least for the moment.

On the tube to Wimbledon, we were intrigued by a sign in the tube - a District Line tube running between Edgware Road and Wimbledon - saying that the doors might not open at Baker Street. Perhaps the train was let out to the Circle Line people if they were running short for some reason or other.

We wondered about the density of chimney pots, with some terrace houses near the river sporting lots of them, in rows of ten or more. We supposed that a proper house would have a chimney pot for every proper room. From where I associated to the last tea lady at the Treasury, who in the late 1980's could remember the days when one had to hump buckets of coal up for the fires of the eminent. With the proper tea lady name of Gladys. Perhaps when I tire of aeroplane spotting, I could go in for counting chimney pots in the various parts of London and its suburbs?

Overall verdict, a homely, mainly low ceilinged version of Hampton Court Palace. Lots of rather dingy paintings. Lots of fakery (noticed separately). The trusties were a bit enthusiastic and you were apt to get quite a lecture if you asked an innocent question.

PS: I close by noticing what we thought was a gratuitously offensive picture involving lots of lips on the front of the little tube map, otherwise useful, offered at Kensington High Street tube station. Presumably the arty types responsible thought it was clever. Probably rather younger than ourselves.

Reference 1: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=israeli+embassy+lebanese.

Reference 2: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/01/cold.html. The hinge being the third of ten snaps.

Reference 3: https://psmv4.blogspot.com/2019/02/dining-in-oak-room.html. The hinge being the fourth and last snap.

Reference 4: https://thevintagecontessa.net/.

Reference 5: http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/thecollection/womens-court-mantua-dress-georgian.

Reference 6: http://www.tulliehouse.co.uk/. For the museum more generally.

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