The Direct Consequences of an Indigenous Voice to Parliament

Introduction

Sadly, the Murdoch Press and the coalition parties have decided to use the forthcoming referendum on an Indigenous Voice to Parliament to run a scare campaign in an attempt to radicalize Australia towards the right wing of politics.  In that context, it is important to look carefully at the Referendum question, to see what it means.  The proposed alteration to the Constitution will consist in inserting the following text:

"Chapter IX Recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples
129 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice
In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia:

1. There shall be a body, to be called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; 
2. The Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice may make representations to the Parliament and the Executive Government of the Commonwealth on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples;
3. The Parliament shall, subject to this Constitution, have power to make laws with respect to matters relating to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice, including its composition, functions, powers and procedures.”

A New Body

 The first provision of the proposed amendment will establish a new body, called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.  That is all it does.  The composition, and role of that body is left entirely to Parliament to decide.  That is important, and I will discuss what it means later; but for now it is sufficient to note that because the new body will be enshrined in the Constitution, it would not be possible to disband it without a further Constitutional Amendment.  One problem with this provision is that by specifying what the body will be named, but not what it will do; it leaves it open for the body to not in fact represent the views of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians, ie, to be their voice in name only.

Making Representations

The second provision of the proposed amendment gives a single power to the body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice; ie, the power to make representations the Parliament and the Executive Government.  Oddly enough, this grants almost no power at all.  As it stands every Australian citizen and resident has the right to make representations to Parliament.  We can do it by the use of petitions.  A 'representation' is defined as 'The action of placing a fact, etc, before another or others', or 'A formal, and serious statement of facts, reasons or arguments made with the view of effecting some change.' (Both definitions from the Shorter Oxford Dictionary).  If we write to a minister, or to a member of parliament, stating a grievance or arguing for some particular policy, we are making a representation to that minister or MP.  More importantly, if we sign a petition and send it to the House of Representatives, there is a formal process that will be followed resulting the petition being considered by the Petitions Committee; and from their being presented to the House of Representatives (and published in Hansard).  Alternatively, we can send the petition to a particular member of Parliament who may then choose to present it.  This is the case, even if the petition has only a single signature.  I personally have made about five representations to Ministers (by sending them letters, or visiting their electorate offices); and along with others, made many representations to Parliament (by signing petitions).  The idea that the ability to make representations to Parliament and the Executive through the Voice to Parliament gives them rights other Australian's lack fundamentally misunderstands the nature of democracy.

It is reasonable, if it gives no additional rights to Indigenous Australians, what does it give?  Well, partly it is a symbolic gesture.  The existence of a Voice to Parliament will serve as a reminder that we should be listening to the Indigenous peoples of Australia when framing policies that directly effect them.  More importantly, it should give the representations to parliament and the executive from the Voice more formal weight than is typical of petitions.  Likely it will mean that every such representation will be Tabled in both the Senate and the House (ie, formally placed on the table at the center of each House, and then published and retained in records by the Parliamentary Records Office).  Similarly, for representations to the Executive, it will mean the relevant Minister receives a copy of the representation; and would likely need to reference it in any related decision (either referencing it and agreeing with it; referencing it and agreeing with it, but stating why its considerations are overruled by other considerations; or referencing it, and disagreeing with it, stating why).  But nothing in this Constitutional Amendment will compel either Parliament to vote in a particular way because of the Representation, or a Minister to make the decision desired by the Representation.

Amorphous Form

I say that is likely, or course, because the exact composition and powers of the Voice to Parliament will be determined by Parliament, according to the third clause of the proposed amendment.  This is both a safeguard and a problem.  It is a safeguard because, if the initial legislation constituting the body should be flawed, or become outdated; it can be revised by the same or later parliaments.  Unfortunately, it also means that the body could be sabotaged by a hostile parliament with great ease.  Should some future Prime Minister decide that the Voice to Parliament should consist of six representatives, all personally appointed by themselves - and could steer the relevant legislation through parliament, the the Voice to Parliament could become merely the PM's echo chamber rather than the voice of, and for the Indigenous Peoples of Australia.  Similarly, if that future PM should decide that the representations to Parliament should neither be Tabled in parliament, nor published; with the agreement of the both houses, they could do that also.  What they won't be able to do, however, is to allow the representations of the Voice to Parliament to determine the outcomes of voting on legislation except by persuasion. 

A New Chapter

The last thing to note about the proposed amendment is that it will incorporate a new chapter in our Constitution.  Certainly Peter Dutton noted it, saying in his speech to Parliament:

"If the Referendum is successful, amendments will not be made to existing chapters of the Constitution.  Rather, a new chapter will be inserted.  That should set off alarm bells in the mind of every Australian."

Peter Dutton does not say why it should set of alarm bells.  I believe that is because he cannot state the reason.  

Chapters, in legislation and Constitutions serve to divide the law by subject matter.  Chapter 1 of the Australian Constitution, for example, is "The Parliament", and contains provisions dealing with the number of houses, there membership and how that membership is elected (among other matters).  The total information supplied by the chapter heading (ie, that this section deals with Parliament) is also provided by the first section of the Chapter (and of the Constitution), which reads, "The legislative power of the Commonwealth shall be vested in a Federal Parliament, which shall consist of the Queen, a Senate, and a House of Representatives, and which is hereinafter called The Parliament, or The Parliament of the Commonwealth."  In similar manner the entire information given by the proposed Chapter heading for the forthcoming referendum is given also by the first clause of the amendment.  The Chapter tells use the included subject matter shall be regarding the recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and the first clause tells us that the further provisions of the proposed amendment are "In recognition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Peoples of Australia".

Peter Dutton is, of course, and experienced parliamentarian; and prior to that career, he was a police officer.  He knows how to read legislation, and he knows that no fundamental point of law turns on the inclusion of more or less chapters.  Had the Australian Constitution had separate chapters for the Governor General, the House of Representatives, the Senate, and so on - instead of including the provisions relating to them into one chapter on The Parliament, it would make no difference to our Constitution beyond the cosmetic.   Equally, he knows that had the proposed amendment been merely included in the preexisting 'Miscellaneous' Chapter, it would make no difference to the interpretation of the amendment, nor to the functioning of the Voice to Parliament.  Similarly he knows that 'making a representation' is not a novel power but a right available to all Australian citizens and residents; and that it does not in any way constitute a legislative power, or a legislative veto.  He also knows that the proposed amendment grants Parliament all the power to determine the "composition, functions, powers and procedures" of the Voice to Parliament.   Sadly, he also knows that most Australians are not well informed on this issue, something he is determined to exploit with empty rhetoric in his scare campaign.  

 

 

A Question of Legitimacy: Australian Government and British Possession

 On the 22nd of August, 1770, Lieutenant James Cook wrote in his Journal:

"Notwithstand[ing] I had in the Name of his Majesty taken posession of several places upon this coast I now once more hoisted English Coulers and in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third took po session of the whole Eastern Coast from … Latitude [38° South] down to this place by the Name of New South Wales together with all the Bays, Harbours Rivers and Islands situate upon the said coast after which we fired three Volleys of small Arms which were Answerd by the like number from the Ship."
(Quoted from https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/cook-claims-australia)

This is arguably (along with other claims of possession by Cook and later Arthur Phillip) the most racist act in Australia's history.  It is racist because it purported that European law and custom automatically overruled the laws and customs of the native people of the land simply because it was the law agreed to among Europeans; and on that basis Europeans could claim possession of any terra nullius (or 'uninhabited land') on the basis of that law, regardless of the fact that the law had not been agreed to by other civilized peoples (such as those of the Middle East, India and China).  It was further racist because in a land clearly inhabited, and in which Cook had met (and shot, and killed) several of the inhabitants, it made the assumption that the land was uninhabited for legal purposes because the inhabitants did not farm in the manner of Europeans.

The claim of possession was not the last racist act directed towards indigenous Australians in Australia's history; and certainly not the most directly vicious.  It was, however, the most consequential.  The founding of English colonies in Australia, and later the Federation of Australia by an Act of the English Parliament derive their legitimacy from the legitimacy of that original claim of possession.  If that claim had no legal force in Australia; then neither did any Act of the English Parliament have legal force in Australia - and if they did not have legal force, neither could they establish legitimate government in Australia.  And if we assert the legitimacy of the Australian government in law; then by that act we logically also assert the legitimacy of that original act of dispossession and with it the racism entailed by it.

I am certain that many will claim that the legitimacy of the Australian government rests on some other foundation than the initial racist act of claiming possession of Australia for the English Crown.  An obvious candidate for an alternative principle is the Jeffersonian claim that "... governments deriv[e] their just powers from the consent of the governed ...".  The problem with such a claim' is that it is not the basis of Australian law.  Rather, Australian law cannot come into effect unless it receives the 'Royal Assent'; ie, the signature of the Queen's representative at State or Federal level.  There was an attempt to correct that flaw in our Constitution in referendum on becoming a Republic in 1999 - but the Australian people rejected it; and it remains the case in Australian law that Australian governments can make laws they have never proposed to the people, and which the majority of the people disagree with - provided they have royal consent.

An alternative ground for legitimacy might be found in Realpolitik - whatever the merits of the initial dispossession, Australia now exists as a functioning society, and that fact alone grants its government and its laws legitimacy.  In practical terms, we are more or less forced to this position.  Whatever the merits, Australians are simply not going to abandon this continent as a whole; and if they did, it would not help the indigenous people - for some other power would immediately seize so wealthy (and effectively empty, in this scenario) a land.  However, that is a constraint only on how we proceed.  If we make it the founding principle of the 'legitimacy' of our government - we have thereby declared that our government is based on the principle of might makes right.  In doing so, we also declare that if some foreign power were to conquer Australia, and make good their possession; then by that fact alone they would have justified their aggression.  We would be declaring, in fact, that not just power, but morality comes from the barrel of a gun.

A third, and more reasonable, suggestion would be to accept the illegitimacy (and immorality) of the original act of dispossession - but argue that it is now history and cannot be altered.  Consequently we must accept the legitimacy of the English Parliament granting Australia a Constitution as a legal fiction; and do our best to ensure our laws are moral and principled going forward.  The problem with this position is its narrow view.  While as a practical matter, we must currently accept the legal fiction of the legitimacy of the act of dispossession; it is not the only legal fiction we have available to use in grounding our society.  While we cannot go back in time and establish a Treaty with the indigenous peoples of Australia; we can establish now a legal framework such as the indigenous peoples would have accepted in a Treaty has a treaty been signed with them; and, with the consent of their descendants, establish that framework in the Constitution - making it the basis of legitimacy of Australian society.  Too me, this is far superior.  If we must have a legal fiction at as the foundation of our law and governance - let it at least be a just legal fiction rather than one that appeals to ultimately immoral principles.

This is an approach I find very desirable.  I want there to be a Treaty with the indigenous peoples of Australia, adopted as a Constitutional Amendment, and made part of our Constitution.  Ideally, it would include a clause making it only possible to alter the language of the Treaty by the consent of the majority of Australian indigenous people in Australia; and ideally, also, it would include a bill of rights.  At this time, however, that is not a practical aspiration.  However, we can alter the laws of Australia (and where necessary, the Constitution) to give the indigenous peoples of Australia the protection for them and their descendants against the tyranny of the majority that a genuine treaty process in the past would have provided.  Which is, of course, the purpose of the Voice to Parliament and Makarrata Process.

What proportion of CoV-SARS-2 infected people are asymptomatic?

This is my third attempt to examine this question.  The previous two versions died in draft because the results from various studies were in significant disagreement, so that I could come to no firm conclusion.  Fortunately I have now come across a meta-analysis that should give a clearer answer.  That meta-analysis is by Wenquing He, Grace Yi and Yayuan Zhu, all of the University of Western Otario.  Their paper is "Estimation of the basic reproduction number, averageincubation time, asymptomatic infection rate, and casefatality rate for COVID-19: Meta-analysis andsensitivity analysis" published by medRxiv.

When did the virus responsible for COVID-19 jump species?

With the Australian government following the US government in trying to impute culpability to Chinese handling of the outbreak of COVID-19; and with the Chinese trying to exonerate themselves, and implausibly shift the blame to the Americans, the exact timing of the jump of the virus responsible for COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) from animals to humans has become politically fraught.  Fortunately, some information about that event can be gleaned from phylogenetic data from the virus itself.  The determination of the event cannot be exact for a number of reasons; but it has the advantage of being free from politics, and of possible suppression of data.

So far as I have been able to determine from an extensive search of Google Scholar, there has been just one peer reviewed paper tackling that subject - "Evolutionary history, potential intermediate animal host, and cross‐species analyses of SARS‐CoV‐2" by Li et al.  They state in the abstract, "Based on Bayesian time‐scaled phylogenetic analysis using the tip‐dating method, we estimated the time to the most recent common ancestor and evolutionary rate of SARS‐CoV‐2, which ranged from 22 to 24 November 2019...", and more precisely, in the text, "Our results also suggest that the virus originated on 24 November 2019...".  The purpose of this post is to discuss in more detail those results, and what they actually mean.  I will also discuss the results of Andrew Rambaut of the University of Edinburgh, which were directly published to the web (and hence only subject to informal peer review).

Updated:14/5/2020

Did the Chinese report only 1 in 100 COVID-19 cases?

Did the Chinese report only 1 in 100 COVID-19 cases?  It seems like an extraordinary question, but that is the implication of an article (Tsang et al) published by a group of scientists from Hong Kong.  They write: 

"Among the 127 000 cases that we estimated in Wuhan by Feb 20, we estimated that there could have been approximately 11 000 infections (95% CrI 7000–21 000) that met version 5 of the case definition with illness onset by Jan 1, 2020. In the observed data, there were 114 confirmed COVID-19 cases with illness onset by Jan 1, 2020, corresponding to around 1% of our estimated total. Before Jan 23, we estimated that 92% (95% CrI 88–95) of cases were undetected." (My emphasis.)

The article was published in the Lancet, so it needs to be taken seriously.  Never-the-less, I think they are clearly wrong.  In the first instance, I think they are wrong because their model predicts approximately approximately 90 cases with disease onset on December 2nd, six days prior to the onset of symptoms in the first known case.  If that had been the case, the disease must have jumped to humans in early November at the latest; and cases would have started to find their way into intensive care units by late November - something clearly contradicted by the testimony of Chinese whistle-blowers.   

I have other, more direct criticisms which will be the subject of my post.  The most crucial of these criticisms is that when we confine the analysis to Wuhan patients, the logic of the definitions together with known clinical data show Tsang et al to massively over-estimate the effect of changes in the 'case definition' on the number of patients diagnosed with COVID-19.  

Before going further, however, I must clarify that the authors of the article do not suggest that any under counting was deliberate, or fraudulent; and nor do I suggest that there was no under counting.  Of necessity, in a new disease which can manifest in a mild form, there will be initial under counting of the disease.  That is because people with mild symptoms will likely not go to a doctor, and if they do, may dismissed as having an aberrant form of some other disease.  Therefore, in the case of COVID-19 there must have been under counting due to ignorance; and the authors do not suggest any other reason for the extent of the under counting.  Where we disagree is that I think they radically over estimate the level of under counting; and that they do so in part due to logical flaws in their paper.

Data and Anti-Chinese Jingoism around COVID-19

Short, skinny - The statistics of the spread of COVID-19 show that recent demands of an inquiry into China's response to COVID-19, led chiefly by Donald Trump and echoed by his allies around the world are based on a jingoistic attempt to find a foreign scapegoat for Trump's own policy failures in response to COVID-19.

The Religious Discrimination Bill (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed the motivations behind, and the core problem with attempts to secure religious people from discrimination in the manner of the Religious Discrimination Bill, 2019.  To summarize, the key protection being instituted is not a protection against discrimination, but rather grants to religious people only, exceptional privileges when it comes to disseminating their views.  In this post, I will look at fundamental flaws in the particular implementation of the law related to the definitions used in the bill.  These flaws have far reaching implications, including a potential for it to become mandatory for the courts to determine what is, and what is not reasonable doctrine or practice in a religion.  In that eventuality, the government, through the courts, will be mandating what is, and is not permissible to believe in any given religion, ie, the exact reverse of freedom of religion.

The Religious Discrimination Bill (Part 1)

 The Australian Parliament is currently considering the Religious Discrimination Bill, 2019 - which is currently on its second exposure draft.  The Bill is motivated by what some Christians view as increasing discrimination against religion and the religious, and specifically Christianity in Australian society.  The two factors motivating the Bill at this time have been the passing of Marriage Amendment (Definitions and Religious Freedom) Act, 2017; and the Israel Folau incident, in which Israel Folau was sacked by the Australian Rugby Union for making claims on his Instagram account about about supposed fate of homosexuals and atheists (among others) in the hands of a purportedly good God.

The Mundanity of Near-Death Experiences

So called 'Near-Death Experiences' (NDEs) are supposed by many to be proof that there is life after death.  For a person experiencing all the classical elements of a NDE, it must be psychologically near impossible to draw that conclusion.  In a situation where they nearly died, they will have had an out of body experience, appeared to pass through a tunnel towards a bright light, met with supernatural beings and/or their beloved dead, felt cognitively enhanced and a profound experience of peace; only to be yanked back into this mundane world of pain and sorrow.  From the outside, the conclusion is far from convincing.  When near death, an implement noted for its ability to find meaning where none exists (eg, to see shapes in clouds, or faces in rock formations) is subject to extraordinary stress, and hence unusual sensations.  Prima facie, the implement will attempt to make sense of such unusual sensations, and that the result should be something like NDEs is entirely plausible.  Does science give any support to either of these intuitive interpretations?

Problems with "The Good Delusion"

Recently, Alex O'Connor (aka CosmicSkeptic) gave a talk to the Dorset Humanists titles the Good Delusion.  In it he argued that free will does not exist, that in consequence morality does not exist, but that moral language can be reconstructed in a way that makes it informative, if not moral.  I think he is wrong on all counts.  I made some criticisms on a few points of the video, but it was suggested to me by somebody else that Alex was unlikely to read the comments and so that I should email him directly, which I have done.  In the process, I expanded on my points.  I thought it might also be useful to post the email on this blog.  It should be noted that the points below are not all my disagreements, though they are enough to refute the initial part of his argument; and the misconceived idea of reconstructing moral language is not motivated without the errors I refute.  I should also note that these do not constitute my positive argument for free will, and for morality.

Richard Carrier and Simon of Cyrene

In "On the Historicity of Jesus", Richard Carrier goes through Mark trying to show that all the stories within it are either "... more likely a fiction than a historical tradition, or just as likely either way.  As an example of the later, he gives Mark 15:21, the story of Simon of Cyrene being forced to carry Jesus' cross.  To justify this claim, Carrier interprets Mark 15:21 as an extended allegory.  Personally, I always have problems with allegorical interpretations.  The fact is that humans are creative, and consequently any story can be given an allegorical interpretation by an intelligent author.  Because the topic of the allegory is not previously constrained (unless explicitly stated in the original story), some other story or belief can always be found to match the structure of the text that is being allegorized - particularly if you are prepared fudge on the details.  Ergo the fact that you can find an allegory has no bearing on the original intentions of the author of the story being allegorized, unless you can find independent evidence that it was intended as an allegory and the fit is perfect.  In this post I intend to show the fit of Carrier's allegory is far from perfect.

Richard Carrier and Jesus of Nazareth

Introduction

As part of Richard Carrier's campaign to persuade us that Jesus was mythical, he needs to divest Jesus of all Earthly association.  A Jesus with a mother, brothers and sisters, or a hometown in Galilee is a historical Jesus - not a myth.  As a result, Carrier against those known associations, sometimes offering specious arguments in doing so.  In the case of Jesus' association with Nazareth, he does this by suggesting without basis that Mark's identification of Jesus as being from Nazareth is an interpolation in "Proving History".  To motivate that speculation, he attempts to show that Mark treated Capernaum as Jesus' hometown - exaggerating some evidence, and ignoring the inconsistency his suggestion introduces to Mark in doing so.  In "Proving History", of course, his intention is argue for his method in historical analysis, so he is content to argue that based on Mark (and absent the verse he suggests may be an interpolation), we would consider Capernaum to be Jesus' home town.  Carrier goes further in "On the Historicity of Jesus", arguing on specious linguistic grounds because the early Christians were called Nazorians; which name suggested a fictitious connection to Nazareth when the gospels were composed.

Jordan Peterson Resources

Jordan Peterson on Post Modernism:

I have some familiarity with post-modern and Marxist thought from my days studying philosophy, though I would not claim to be expert in either.  I was sufficiently knowledgeable, however, that when I first encountered Peterson's critique of Post Modernism, I recognized it as, at best, inadvertent caricature of a bad faith critique, and at worst as deliberate lies and distortion about the topic.  In short, it was typical of his discussion in any area outside his immediate expertise.  The internet contains much better criticisms than I could provide.  In particular, from the YouTube channel, "Cuck Philosophy" we find both a direct critique of Peterson on Post Modernism, and a critique of Stephen Hick's book, "Explaining Post Modernism".  The later is particularly important because it appears to be the source of Peterson's ideas on Post Modernism, and is one of the most abysmal works of non-scholarship ever published with the pretense of being scholarly.  Hicks is a libertarian, and likely an Objectivist (ie, a follower of Ayn Rand).  His ideological commitment is very clear in his critique of Post Modernism, which he thoroughly misunderstands and misrepresents.

Before proceeding, I should note that from what I understand of Post Modernism, I have major disagreements with it, and its various schools.  But that does not prevent me from recognizing that at its best it is scholarly and interesting.  It certainly has developed useful tools for finding where people bury their shortfalls in reason by rhetorical tricks - an ability that Peterson is right to be afraid of, and which his following would do well to learn.

Jordan Peterson on the Nazis:

Before proceeding on this point, I do want to note that Peterson does say something very sensible about Nazi-ism, ie, that for the vast majority of people, had they been in 1930s Germany, they would have ended up as supporters of the Nazis.  You may think otherwise of yourself, but that is because your current self has grown up in an entirely different situation, and the you that grows up in that situation (hopefully) holds the Nazis in revulsion.  But beyond that point he makes two fundamental errors - his description of the motivations for and historical situation surrounding the holocaust are wrong, as shown by German speaking student of history, Three Arrows; and he insists that the Nazis were atheists, something The Cult of Dusty entertainingly rebuts.

Jordan Peterson on the Limits of Discourse:

In his Big Think talk, Peterson attacks the left for not establishing limits to discourse - ie, a threshold beyond which leftists have gone to far, such that centrist leftists will disassociate themselves from leftists who go beyond that point.  In treating "the left" this way, he treats it as a monolithic entity in order that he may demonize it.  As it happens, I, and nearly all leftists, have a clear demarcation.  We will not let go of the rule of law, nor of democratic government.  Peterson ignores that demarcation point, possibly because it is not the demarcation point of the right, where even centrist rightists happily support the Pinochets and Bolsonaros of the world.  Peterson's demarcation point is "racial superiority".  In point of fact, that is just false.  The Republican party in the US, for example, has an eight term Congressman who is a white supremicist; and had several open Nazis running for office in the most recent Congressional elections.  But the more fundamental criticism is that it is a standard that finds nothing wrong with a Franco, a Putin or a Duterte.  Essence of Thought has an excellent and detailed critique of Peterson's lecture, whose only significant failing is that it does not address my last point - which I feel is fundamental.

Edited to add:
I wrote this comment four years ago, and in provides a short distillation of the problems with Peterson's reasoning:

In some respects it is very easy to call Peterson out. First, he can be called out on his dishonesty. For instance, he rose to fame because his refusal to accept a law (Canadian Bill C-16) that, according to him, potentially made his lectures hate speech, and which would have made misgendering trans people a crime. According to the Canadian Bar Association's submission on that bill, neither is true. Peterson, of course, is not a lawyer. He at no points walks through the bill and shows how his inference would follow. He just makes the assertion. By doing this, he gained a reputation as a defender of free speech, but clearly that was a total con, for he was not defending against an attack on free speech. What is worse, Peterson actively campaigns to have whole disciplines removed from universities because he disagrees with what members of those disciplines say, showing he does not actually defend free speech unless you agree with him, or say something he can countenance. https://www.cba.org/CMSPages/GetFile.aspx?guid=be34d5a4-8850-40a0-beea-432eeb762d7f In fact, Peterson frequently makes up false facts to defend his position. One famous case is that of the Lobster brain, and hierarchies, which is taken down in detail by biologist, PZ Myers (the first video is not entirely clear, but the second two clearly show the flaws in Peterson's position): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq7W9frEPLg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sqx57l781WM&t=71s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=glJn1_VLBHs  

Moving on from his looseness with the truth, the next key point to make about Peterson is his absurd definition of truth, ie, as that which we need to believe for our society to survive. This belief is key, for without it, Peterson could not draw inferences from ancient myths to political theories. If somebody were to say that because the ancient Egyptians had a myth about a son entering the underworld and resurrecting his father, with the two then jointly reigning, therefore we need to follow a conservative politics we would question their sanity. And though I have oversimplified, that is what Peterson essentially does. Such a claim would typically be rejected, quite rightly as not grounded in empirical facts, nor clear reasoning. But Peterson makes the argument that, firstly, the ancient myth and others like it grounded an understanding of how society works, and that those societies were successful and promoted human survival, so that consequently we are justified in believing that the archetypal story encompassed within the myth is more true even, than the findings of physical science, because demonstrated to promote human survival. And because the archetypal story is more true even than science, we are justified in grounding our understanding of society on it. (Again, simplifying, but that is the essence of the argument.) Peterson discusses his idea of truth at length, and is demolished in rebuttal, in a podcast with Sam Harris: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gdpyzwOOYY  

Then, you can move on to the actual myths he uses for his alchemy. You should note that myths can be interpreted in various ways, with no particular way being canonical. It follows that Peterson's archetypal stories are actually read into the myths as much as they are found in the myths. You can further note that Peterson primarily uses myths that were developed to justify patriarchal, somewhat tyrannical monarchies; and that their political purpose inevitably shapes them to be favourable to conservative, and patriarchal, and frankly misogynistic world views (all traits evident in Peterson's political philosophy). When you note his selective sources, Peterson is essentially arguing that because tyrannical patriarchies of the past used propaganda to justify their existence, we can conclude from that propaganda that women should by primarily home bodies, and that we should follow a conservative political philosophy.

Finally, if that is not enough, you can go on to note that Peterson's descriptions of Marxism, Postmodernism, and their relationship are all transparently false. So much so that is dubious that he can have read the original works of Marx, or post modernists, and if he did, it was his preconceptions or rhetorical needs totally eliminated his ability to understand what was going on. His misunderstanding, however, serves the useful tactical purpose of being an all purpose slander of his political opponents.

Original context:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o847bCPAdys&lc=UgzcOxOKH7qmQkSOP_t4AaABAg.8eZJqDcViRs9cd0zpT5vsP

Richard Carrier and Rank-Raglan Heroes, Part 1

Richard Carrier and Rank-Raglan Heroes

The core of Richard Carrier’s argument for the a-historicity of Jesus of Nazareth is his use of the Rank-Raglan mythotype to establish a low prior probability of Jesus’ existence.  For something so key to his argument, however, Carrier plays very fast and loose in his use of the mythotype. Specifically,

1. He modifies key criteria to better fit the story of Jesus of Nazareth;
2. He biases his scoring in favour of finding Jesus of Nazareth a member of the mythotype;
3. He biases his scoring against finding historical figures to be members of the mythotype; and
4. He uses a biased sample of the mythotype in establishing his prior probabilities.

The first three of these points have been pointed out before, notably by James McGrath (“Rankled by Wrangling over Rank-Raglan Rankings”) and Johan Rönnblom (“Is Jesus a Rank Raglan Hero”).  Daniel Gullota has also made similar points in his review of “On the Historicity of Jesus”.  That review, however, is behind a paywall and inaccessible to me.  I only know of its contents through Carrier’s response to that review.  Unlike the first three points, I am not aware of anybody previously making the fourth point.
 

In this blogpost, I will restrict my discussion only to Carrier’s treatment of the Rank-Raglan mythotype, and specifically how he modified the criteria.  I will not discuss how he scores results, and how he selected his sample for comparison. Nor will I concern myself with his use of Bayes theorem on the data to generate a prior probability of Jesus of Nazareth being historical.

Richard Carrier, Rank-Raglan Heroes, and Bayes Theorem

I recently prepared this as a comment on a small part of Richard Carrier's video critique of Bart Ehrman's claims in his debate with Robert Price.  The comment, however, appears to be to large for YouTube to digest, and I would like to have it available for reference, so I am posting it here.  It will be of little interest unless you are interested either in the historical Jesus (or Mythicism with respect to Jesus), or Bayes Theorem.  If you fall into the first camp, but are not familiar with Bayes Theorem, here is a brief introduction (which, however, does make a mistake in assuming the second test [5:12], as described by him, would be independent).

Ethics and Christianity

In first Samuel, chapter 15, we learn that Saul was commanded to:

 "[Attack] the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys."

This is the first genocide that is recorded in history, so far as I know.  It is a "final solution" far more complete than that of Hitler against the Jews.  It has important ethical considerations with regard to Christianity.  Specifically, any form of Christianity which is literalist enough in its interpretation of the Bible such that Samuel's command to Saul to slay the Amalekites was in fact a command from God is committed to the view that genocide is sometimes the morally correct thing to do.  Indeed, given that the 'offense' of the Amalekites was to attack the Israelites as they sojourned from Egypt (Exodus 17), even moderately literalist Christians are committed to the view that genocide can be the morally correct thing to do based on the actions of the forebears of a people, 13 or more generations beforehand.

Hurtful anti-gay propaganda

The ABC reported on a hurtful and mean spirited poster used in Melbourne on Aug 21st.  The poster shows a child, huddled into themselves while two men stand over him with rainbow coloured belts, doubled up as if to deliver a beating.  It leads with a headline statistic that 92% of children of same sex parents have experienced abuse; which from the context of the poster must be interpreted as physical abuse.  That statistic, and others used on the poster come from a poor study by Paul Sullins published last year (Invisible Victims: Delayed Onset Depression among Adults with Same-Sex Parents).

The abuse statistic, as noted above, is incorrectly portrayed by the poster.  The study actually reports:

"Retrospective questions at Waves III and IV asked about adult mistreatment during childhood, including whether a parent or caregiver had “slapped, hit or kicked you,” said “things that hurt your feelings or made you feel you were not wanted or loved,” or “touched you in a sexual way, forced you to touch him or her in a sexual way, or forced you to have sex relations.” Respondents reporting any physical, verbal, or sexual abuse at either Wave were coded positive for abuse victimization. Four-fifths (79%, 95% CI 77–80) of reported mistreatment was verbal abuse."  (My emphasis.)

So, only 19% of children in the study reported physical and or sexual abuse, with the other 73% being cases in which there was at least one instance of at least one of their parents saying something which "... hurt your feelings or made you feel you were not wanted or loved".  What is more, from the way the question is phrased, the parent who thus abused the child need not have even been one of the same sex couple, but may have been the partner in a prior opposite sex relationship of their natural parent.

What is more, there is something very hypocritical about this poster.  The majority of opposition to marriage equality is religious based, and in Australia in particular, based on the Christian religion.  It is a precept of the Christian religion that, "Those who spare the rod of discipline hate their children. Those who love their children care enough to discipline them."  Paraphrasing based on the poster (and the study), "Whoever does not abuse their child, hates their child."

That, of course, is a ridiculous paraphrase, but likewise the poster is an absolute distortion in following the study in not distinguishing between actual physical abuse carefully administered discipline, and between actual abuse and words that merely hurt feelings.  It should be noted, however, that to the extent that Christian's actually believe, and follow the teachings of their bible, one hundred percent of children of Christian parents will have experience abuse, by the standards of the poster and the study.

The study itself has face devastating criticism from Nathaniel Frank ("Comment on “Invisible Victims: Delayed Onset Depression among Adults with Same-Sex Parents”").  Frank writes:

"Sullins claims that his study examines “children raised by same-sex parents into early adulthood.” But in fact, he has zero basis to draw this conclusion, as he is applying a wholly untenable definition of “raised by.” All he knows about his data set is that his subjects, who ranged in age from 12 to 18, spent some of their teenage years with a parent who at some point had a same-sex partner. Since we do not know if that partner was ever actually a parent, legally or otherwise, it is inaccurate to characterize such households as “same-sex parented” as Sullins does eleven times. It is even more inaccurate to claim that those living in these households were “raised by” same-sex parents, since we know nothing about the youths’ parentage before their teenage years."

That criticism is a little overstated in that, "The partner parents in [Sullins'] sample were thus all designated by the children in their care as a parent, as their “mother,” “step-mother,” “father,” “step-father,” or similar."  That is, they may not have been legally parents of the children, but were considered to be parents by them.  But what is not overstated is that the same sex partners of the natural parents typically had not been so from birth.

Sullins defends himself on that point by saying:

"On the broadest measure of tenure, that is, time in the care of the longer-tenured parent, average parental tenure was close to current age and did not differ between same-sex and opposite-sex parent families. ... There are good grounds to say the children were “raised by” these parents."

But that response is evasive.  Of course the children had spent their lifetime, or nearly their entire lifetime with their 'longer-tenured parent', ie, their natural parent in the vast majority of cases.  But that in no way implies they had spent a similar period with the other parent, ie, being raised by that couple.  In fact, children of same sex parents had typically spent just 51% of the time living with both parents as they had with the "longest tenured parent", compared to 91% for children of opposite sex couples in the study (see Table 1).  In other words, the children of same sex parents had lived about half their life (on average) without their natural parents new partner, during which period they may have had multiple other step parents, or none.  They are likely to have gone through at least one traumatic separation from a prior parent.

So, in addition to inflating the abuse statistic by the very low bar ("hurt feelings"), Sullins is comparing children of stable, long term opposite sex marriage to children of same sex couples who have gone through either at least one relationship breakup, or lived most their life in a single parent household, and who are currently living with a step parent.  He does not control for these extra factors.  Nor does he control for the extensive bullying of the children of same sex parents that until recently was the norm, nor (come to that) the extensive persecution of their homosexual parents which used to be the norm, and which his statistics are being used to perpetuate.  Like many studies aimed at attacking the LGBTI community, Sullins' study gains its results by comparing apples with oranges.

Here is the rainfall within 128 Km of the Mount Stapylton radar near Brisbane.  The first map is for the 24 hours up until 9:00 AM, Thursday the 30th of March, 2017.  The second map is for the following 23.5 hours.  Combined they give a good idea of where the rainfall from ex-tropical cyclone Bettie ended up as it passed over Brisbane.

Looking at the map, Brisbane proper got of lightly.  Regions near the city center copped as much as 200 mm, but other regions only got about 100 mm (including where I live).  In contrast, areas near Caboolture copped 300 to 400 mm, as did the head waters of the Logan River (the area in the triangle formed by Greenbanks, Beaudesert and Boonah).  That is the likely cause of the Logan River setting a record flood.  Worst was the Gold Coast, with the area centered on Murwillumbah, which has copped more than 400 mm of rain, with some receiving as much as 500 mm.  Small bickies compared to Proserpines 1 meter of rainfall in 24 hours, but still a lot.  Indeed, a very lot for rivers with short catchments to handle.

For more information, the ABC has a good round up.

Debunking Presidential Election Myths

It's probably time to debunk some myths.

The first myth is that America voted for Trump. In fact, more people voted for Hillary Clinton than for Donald Trump. Politico shows that 59,814,018 voted for Clinton, while 59,611,678 voted for Trump. That is Hilary Clinton received 202,340 votes more than Trump, thereby receiving 50.08% of the vote of those voting for a major candidate. There are two reasons why Trump got elected despite Clinton receiving more votes. The first reason is that the system is rigged against Democrats. That fact is that in the US, for Presidential Elections, not all votes are equal. That is because Article II, Section 1 of the US Constitution requires that each state have a number of members in the Electoral College equal to the combined total of their Members of the House of Representatives, and their Senators (ie, 2 per state). Because Wyoming (population 429,000) has two Senators, just as does New York (population 19.8 Million). The result is that a vote for President in Wyoming is worth 3.6 times as much as a similar vote in New York. Slate plotted the power of electoral college votes in 2012:

A comparison with a map of Red and Blue States shows a distinct bias in favour of the Republicans:

Of greater concern is the practice in most states of giving the person with the most votes in that state all the Electoral College votes from that state.  Thus in Florida, while Clinton trailed Trump by 1.3%, receiving 47.8% of the vote, Trump received all 26 of the Electoral College votes.  A difference of 0.1% of the national vote made a difference 52 in the relative Electoral College count.  Indeed, had 60,000 Trump voters in Florida voted Clinton instead, we would have a knife edge election with Clinton currently on 254 Electoral College votes to Trump's 253.  Nevada (6 votes), Pennsylvania (20 votes) fell to Trump by similarly close margins.  Without this bizarre feature in which a persons vote is set at nothing if they did not vote with the majority in their state, Clinton would have won the majority of the Electoral College votes in a close run election despite the pro Republican gerrymander mentioned above.

Whatever can be said for this system, that it is democratic is not one of them.  It is unlikely, but in principle this system could deliver the Presidency to a person with less than 25% of the popular vote.  That it only occasionally produces a President with a minority of the popular vote (the last time being to George W Bush) is down to good luck, not to any merit in the system.  And while Trump will happily accept a victory on these terms, the evidence is strong he would not have accepted a defeat where he had more of the popular vote.

The second myth is that Trump was elected by the working class.  Wikipedia has a rundown of the demographics the people who claimed to vote for Trump in exit polls.  Liberals and Moderates voted for Clinton, while Conservatives voted for Trump.  Republicans and independents voted for Trump, while Democrats voted for Clinton.  Woman voted for Clinton, while men voted for Trump, but married women voted for Trump while single men voted for Clinton.  Whites voted for Trump, while all other racial groups voted for Clinton. Protestants and Mormons voted for Trump, while people from all other religious affiliations voted for Clinton.  Those under forty voted for Clinton, while those older voted for Trump.  And here are the kickers, those without a college education, or with a post graduate education voted for Clinton, but those with only an undergraduate degree voted for Trump.  Those on $50,000 per annum or more voted for Trump, while those with less voted for Clinton.  Finally, those living in suburbs or the country voted for Trump, while who lived in cities voted for Clinton.

If you make a profile from this, you do not get somebody from the working class.  Rather, you get a white married person in middle age, or older who has a college education and is on above medium income.  The are not the people who lost jobs in the rust belt, but rather people who are doing reasonably well and are seeking to protect their advantage.  In short, the profile of a Trump voter fits the profile of a Tea Party member to a "t".

Trump was not voted in by the disaffected working class, but by the radical, irrational right.  By that body of the American public that have trained themselves to believe utterly irrational things, be it about global warming, the location of Barack Obama's birth, or the cause of the collapse of the Twin Towers in 9/11.  Having trained themselves in irrationality, they have been suckers for it in the form of Donald Trump.

Same Sex Marriage and Children

Many opponents of same sex marriage use as their bedrock argument, the claim that the children of same sex relationships fair poorly when compared to those from stable, heterosexual marriages.  I do not think that is the case.  In the USA, the children of African-American couples fair more poorly than do the children of same sex relationships, as do the children of people having an income below US$25,000 a year  (Rosenfeld 2010).  In both cases the performance is significantly less than is the average for the children of heterosexual married couples (significant to the 99.9% level).  Yet we do not on that basis argue that the marriage act should be amended so as to forbid the marriage of African-Americans or of the relatively poor within our society.  The reason we do not apply a parallel argument to that used against same sex marriage, even though the evidence supporting the argument is stronger, is that we do not think that race or wealth are morally relevant criteria on which to make that distinction.  Not only that, we do not think that the comparatively poor outcomes for the children of African-American or impoverished couples are sufficient basis to make them distinct moral categories with respect to marriage.  I think we can be stronger than that.  For most of us, including me, we think it would be morally offensive to argue for a ban on the marriage African-American or impoverished couples on that basis.

It follows from that, and that for some people they consider the outcomes of children relevant to the same sex marriage debate that they have already included the moral distinctness with respect to marriage of same sex couples as a premise in their argument.  Had they not already included that distinction, then the evidence with regard to children would be as irrelevant as it is in the case of race or poverty.  So, rather than being an argument from the moral distinctness of same sex relationships when it comes to marriage (as it purports to be), the argument from the welfare of children already assumes its conclusion in it premises.  It acts as an apologia to reinforce prejudice rather than as a reason that stands on its own.