~ do you believe in the pink and plump?

This morning I heard Rob Oakeshott phrase something rather eloquently on the science of Climate Change. To paraphrase, he asked would you take your child to the doctor if they were sick? Wouldn't you be negligent if you did not? If your car was malfunctioning, wouldn't you take it to a mechanic?

This is to say that we rely, sensibly, on experts to inform and advise us on subjects in which we are not conversant.

Why most of Australia - seemingly - wishes to dispute the overwhelming evidence provided by specialist authorities on climate science and economics beggars belief. The well has been poisoned, that is clear. Fearmongers are at large, conspiring with other agents of unreason. I see sallow-faced pamphleteers smacking their thin lips in sordid anticipation. And merchants, pink, corn-fed, redolent of baby powder, lining their wallows with profit ...

All of it working to muddle our heads on this most critical of issues. For all her faults, I feel deeply for Julia Gillard at this moment. She is facing a storm of sheer madness, the outrage of the greedy, the vitriol of the hateful - yet she is refusing to back down. I wish there was more I could do.

Science is science. It is method not opinion. The science that gives us life-saving drugs, microwave ovens, iphones, sophisticated crash-restraints, plastic, podiatry, GPS systems, X-ray machines, Predator drones and Zhu Zhu pets is the very same science that has been advising us, firmly, for decades, to act on climate change.

The scientist observes, measures, experiments and records. He or she examines the data, shares it with other scientists, and may draw conclusions. An hypothesis may result. The process is then repeated as many times as necessary. If there is sufficient evidence, a theory may be presented to the scientific community. The theory is then subject to review by peers and, if it is a good one, may be published in a journal.

But, no matter how much evidence accrues to back it up, it will only ever remain a theory - for in science nothing is certain. Will the sun rise tomorrow? It is not certain. Just very very likely.

This is the scientific (or empirical) method. It has brought us from the dark ages of fear and superstition to unparalleled levels of civilisation.

If we ask ‘do you believe in climate change’ we are asking ‘do you believe in science’.

Do you believe in science?

~ trypanophobia & the anti-vax fools

Why do we believe things despite a lack of evidence - or even in the face of overwhelming proof that we are wrong? Because it suits us to, I think, more or less.

What other reason can there be, down at the bone?

Are we too proud to admit we’re wrong? Too scared to break with our peer group? Or we’re paranoid? We’re making money? We like the idea of certain things being true because they fit with the kind of universe we’d like to live in? Or they feel right? Or they issue from the mouth of someone we admire? Or whom we respect? Or whom we find beautiful?

Generally, it all comes down to the same thing: if we break with evidence, we can, unlike scientists, believe whatever the hell we like. Unless, I suppose, we’re ignorant or mentally incapable of understanding the meaning and the implications of scientific proof.

So what lies behind the choice so many parents make to deny their children vaccination? Why have they chosen to believe that the MMR vaccine causes autism, despite there being not a skerrick of proof?

The luxury of resting ones child’s health on the back of an urban myth is allowed only by the vaccination of other children. And as such it is profoundly decadent. If these parents had lived through the heyday of smallpox or polio, their position would have been untenable - but the horror of those days has apparently been forgotten.

And if the vast majority of today’s children were not vaccinated and there was no establishment of ‘herd immunity’ then epidemics of debilitating often fatal diseases would sweep the country. There would be the same amount of autism but a whole lot more measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, tuberculosis and pertussis.

The anti-vax canard is already causing deaths. There have been outbreaks in new age havens like Byron Bay. A four month old baby has died from pertussis because of low vaccination rates. She was depending on herd immunity to protect her until she was old enough to be vaccinated, as are those who are immunologically compromised and cannot withstand a vaccine.

But, again, why choose to fly in the face of established evidence?

I’ve been wondering if it might come down to trypanophobia? (That would be the fear of needles, by the way) I wonder if Jenny McCarthy’s ‘mommy instincts’ were actually roused by the sight of cold steel not only penetrating her child’s pure flesh but pumping arcane scientific fluids into its system? To a parent’s eye it is indeed an apparent violation.

It’s not an insignificant phobia. 10% of us have it. And to quote Wikipedia “thousands of years ago humans who meticulously avoided stab wounds and other incidences of pierced flesh would have a greater chance of survival.” It takes a solid trust in medicine & science to shuck instinct and submit one’s child to such an experience, but at least it is a trust based in good solid evidence - not in quack doctors, net paranoids, and loopy new age energumens.

I think some parents simply choose not to yield their child to the medicated barb. The screaming of the babe trumps any amount of figures and statistics. But when mountebanks like Dr Wakefield give them sets of figures they can happily agree with, they seize on them, and so the thing grows.

However, there is a new delivery mechanism in the chute: a dermal 'nanopatch' developed by Professor Mark Kendle, from Queensland University's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology. The patch promises to deliver vaccines far more effectively than the needle and with only a few minutes wear.

If this idea comes to fruition, I wouldn’t be surprised if it pulls the rug out from beneath the anti-vax movement. With the needle gone, there will be no critical emotional response holding up the whole insane edifice, and the nasty business might just crumble away.

People might then realise it was all just a very complicated way for selfish, cowardly parents to avoid having a doctor pierce the skin of their screaming child - for its own good and the absolute good of us all.

(PS. Sadly, I’ve just heard an ad for Channel 10’s 7pm program: To vaccinate or not to vaccinate? I hope to goodness the dangerous nutjobs aren’t getting equal time with the scientists again.)

(PPS. I just realised that I might have called this post 'The Needle And The Damage Done'.)

~ a third column

“I started this blog because, like everyone who gets into blogging, I wanted to add a third column to my ... template.” ThreeColumnBlogger

Over the next week or so, health willing, I’m going to make an effort to update the Sails of Oblivion layout, so please excuse me if the page looks strange from time to time. I really want that third column ... mainly for the twitter feed and all that stuff which gets lost at the bottom. And I think it’s time for an improved header. And a fresh new look all round.

I saw a little wattlebird yesterday. Similar to the common red wattlebird but devoid of wattle and yellow-stained chest, and blessed with a distinctive, possibly even more demented range of vocalisations. Today there were some masked lapwings on one of the Monash Uni ovals. In the Valley Reserve I witnessed the wonderful display of a flirty grey fantail and, briefly, I think, an eastern spinebill.

As long as I can remember, there have been tiny brown and grey chirruping birds living outside the window of my study. Like all species, they have their own specific character - a thing which birders (unfortunately) call their ‘jizz’ - but until recently their identity has remained mysterious. Despite their abundance, it was a hard job pinning them down - even with the help of my new field guide. They do not look spectacular; they are not an imposing bird in any way, yet they colour the ambience here with their twitters and trills, and the flickering they do among the leaves. I am sure I would notice their absence.

I learned that they are brown thornbills - and with this knowledge a world opened up, just there, outside my window, of which I had no real prior awareness. Now I know their preferences, the months they breed, the kind of nests they make and the extent of their range. It’s all so ... fascinating. A name is a key - and never more so now we have the internet.

I am beginning to see the hot churning black hole at the centre of the birder’s mind; I am beginning to feel its irresistible attraction ...


This is the long-billed corella. The last few mornings I have heard the harsh, grating voices of a flock passing high above the house. The bird often looks scruffy because it has a habit of digging for tubers, including, helpfully, the bulb of the hideous onion weed. The individual above, (photographed by Noodle Snacks) is, however, perfectly presented, though the bloody bib suggests (falsely) that it may recently have been gnawing at something’s throat.

Yesterday, Polly imprisoned a daddy long legs in a small lidded container together with a snail in the hope that by morning they would have ‘mated’. Also, she’s acquired a device called an R5 which holds eighty games and can be plugged into the back of her DS - this will settle her for the next week or two

Speaking of mating, did you hear about the transgenic pig-sheep? I was excited for a while - and hopeful, thinking it might have some advantages for the environment. We farm pigs anyway; if they could grow wool as well as bacon, then there's got to be some kind of energy saving. Perhaps some of our sheep pastures could be turned to forests roamed by woolly free-range pigs? Disappointingly, the abomination turned out to be the Mangalitza, a rare porcine breed from Austria with no apparent sheep genetics. Still, the idea is there. There's no reason to give up hope entirely.

And if only there were a substance that was neither illegal nor poisonous which you could have just a little of as night begins to fall. Something to make you laugh and forget how tired and sick you feel, something to elevate the spirit and anaesthetise some of the wounds acquired during the day - and which did not give you a hangover. Is Big Pharma working on something like this? Would they be allowed to? And if they succeeded, would it be legal?



This is a an old car that burned in the black Saturday bushfires. It was part of a collection of valuable Australian antiques and was donated to the Melbourne Museum in the condition you see. The chassis of most modern cars warped, even melted in the terrible heat, but older cars, with heavier steel bodies, seem to have been able to hold their shape. Mind you, the insides were a charred and melted melange.

~ the shadow biosphere

What if current conditions on Earth were perfect for the genesis of life? Not life as we know it, but another kind, a different kind starting anew from the inanimate organic soup - while we happily continue on our way, ignorant of a new challenger rising from beneath. Something based on a triple or quadruple helix perhaps, or on plastic, neon and carbon monoxide. Perhaps something congealing in the anoxic depth of the Gulf of Mexico ...

Perhaps the havoc we are wreaking on the planet is making conditions perfect for this new genesis, perhaps our toxic effluents are providing the perfect nutrient mix.

I was going to write a story about this. I have a few scribbled pages in a notebook. But after hearing Paul Davies speak on the Science Show the other week [4 July], I don’t think I’ll bother.

In an absolutely fascinating address, he discusses something he calls the ‘shadow biosphere’. He posits the notion that life may have originated more than once on the Earth, and, asks, if this were the case, how we would go about finding it.

If it was something that has faded away, then we would have to look for ‘ancient biomarkers in the fossil record’ but, if not, if there is indeed a shadow biosphere currently intermingled with our own, he suggests a number of methods by which we could identify it.

Firstly, it would have to be small. If were anything more than microscopic we would have noticed it already. But the vast majority of life on Earth is microscopic and the vast majority is unresearched and unsequenced. If this shadow or ‘weird’ life was ecologically separate, we might find it by subjecting samples to extremes of radiation, acidity, or general contamination, or by looking into extreme environments like the upper atmosphere or around super-hot hydrothermal vents. If it was ‘integrated into our ecology’ we could examine how it cycles carbon [if it is carbon-based], or the chirality [handedness] of the compounds from which it is formed. Davies also suggests that weird life may process arsenic instead of phosphorus.

He presents the enthralling possibility that there may conceivably be, rather than a tree, a forest of life on Earth.