The case for Australia and other governments bringing pressure to bear on Sri Lanka in manifest ways, including sports boycotts, is made abundantly clear in this article.
"RAJAPAKSA IGNORES HUMAN RIGHTS, SAYS UN COMMISSIONER
Melbourne, Tuesday --The UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Navi Pillay, says Sri Lanka has broken its promise to improve human rights in the island nation. Pillay said the Rajapaksa regime had failed to investigate atrocities, as it promised the UN a year ago, and that opposition leaders were still being killed or abducted.
In an interview with the Sri Lankan Sunday Times, Pillay said: “The Government has made little progress in pursuing true accountability and reconciliation measures... “...There is a long history of national inquiries in Sri Lanka that have led nowhere but to impunity.... There has to be justice, if there is to be lasting peace.”
Pillay has also issued a stern warning to the Sri Lankan Government not to repeat last year’s intimidation and threats against human rights defenders at next week’s UN Human Rights Council meeting to examine Sri Lanka’s progress on human rights and post-war reconciliation with Tamils.
The BBC reported last March that the Minister for Public Relations, Mervyn Silva, threatened to “break the limbs” of certain journalists and human rights workers whom he called “traitors.” His comments came a day after the UNHRC passed a resolution that contained criticism of the country’s human rights record, as well as a call to initiate an independent investigation into allegations against the Sri Lankan military of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the final days of the civil war in 2009.
Pillay said the Sri Lankan Government had been reprimanded by the UNHRC president for its behaviour at the 2012 session. She said she had written to the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister to protest that some of the threats against various groups were carried on his own website.
Next Monday the UN Human Rights Council will begin debating the second US resolution on Sri Lanka in 12 months. It is expected to call on Sri Lanka to honour its promise to the UN last year to initiate the independent war crimes investigation and to:
• Credibly investigate widespread allegations of extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearances.
• Demilitarize the north of Sri Lanka and re-evaluate detention policies.
• Implement impartial land dispute resolution mechanisms.
• Protect the right of freedom of expression for all and enact rule of law reforms.
Campaign for Tamil Justice spokesperson, Trevor Grant, said the first US resolution, which was supported by Australia, the UK, Canada and India, among others, was so weak that it encouraged Sri Lanka to continue its program of ethnic-cleansing against the Tamils. “It was the equivalent of a wink and nod to Sri Lanka to carry on persecuting Tamils. A draft of the second one looks about the same,” Grant said. “Until the UN faces the reality on the ground in Sri Lanka, that a genocide is taking place and it needs to act strongly, then nothing much will change.”
The International Crisis Group and Human Rights Watch have recently issued scathing reports on the Sri Lankan Government’s abuse of human rights. They have called on the countries meeting at the UNHRC next week to implement much stronger action this time.
A letter signed by 133 Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist pastors and nuns in Sri Lanka has asked the UNHRC to set up an independent war crimes’ investigation, claiming the Government does not have the political will to do it. At least 40,000 Tamil civilians died after being herded into supposed “safe zones” in May, 2009. A 2011 UN report said there were credible allegations that these people were then shelled and bombed by the Sri Lankan military. The report said that there was evidence that the Tamil Tigers may have committed war crimes.
Pillay explained why she believed it was important for the independent investigation to go ahead.
“Because tens of thousands of civilians were reportedly killed. Because there are very credible allegations and some strong pictorial evidence and witness accounts indicating that war crimes and other serious international crimes...took place on a large scale,” she said.
“There is a long history of national inquiries in Sri Lanka that have led nowhere but to impunity. This makes such an international investigation essential. Crimes like these cannot simply be ignored or pushed aside. There has to be justice, if there is to be lasting peace.”
In a speech to the London School of Economics recently, Pillay drew the comparison between UN reports on Sri Lanka and Rwanda, where a Government-orchestrated genocide against the minority Tutsu population in 1994 saw almost one million people die while the international community did virtually nothing. The Petrie report on Sri Lanka was an admission that the UN had made a grave error by leaving the war zones towards the end of the war in 2009. It was a decision that cost the lives of thousands of innocent Tamils as the Sri Lankan military ruthlessly attacked civilians in what became known as the “war without witness.” “Rwanda’s lessons were not implemented in Sri Lanka,” Pillay said.
Campaign for Tamil Justice calls upon the UNHRC to:
• Immediately take the strongest action required to stop the persecution and the ethnic-cleansing of Tamils in Sri Lanka by the Government. This includes Government-sponsored land theft, destruction of Tamil homes and transplanting of Sinhalese citizens into traditional Tamil regions, demolition of cultural icons such as Tamil shrines, and the massive military presence used to control of the daily lives of Tamils in the northern and eastern regions.
• Initiate immediately an independent international investigation into allegations by a UN panel of Sri Lankan military war crimes and crimes against humanity towards the end of the war.
• Stop the murder, torture, jailings, beatings and disappearances of Tamils and fully support the prosecution of those responsible.
• Demand an end to the murders and disappearances of Sri Lankan journalists. Demand full investigation and prosecution of those responsible for these crimes.
• Demand a sustainable solution to Tamil grievances. This includes giving Tamils political autonomy and empowering them by allowing self-determination in traditional Tamil regions.
For further information contact Campaign for Tamil Justice"
Tuesday, February 26, 2013
Monday, February 25, 2013
Conference with a difference
Conference registration and hotel reservations for Modes of Explanation May 21-25 in Paris are now open. Updated information at
http://modes.isce.edu/update
To register please visit: http://modes.isce.edu
For more conference information please visit: http://modesofexplanation.org
Modes of Explanation
Three days to discuss and learn about advances in modes of explanation. A look at how our mode of explanation affects our affordances for action.
Modes of Explanation is a discussion conference, the actual presentations of attendee's work will occur on-line and only a five minute or less synopsis will precede the discussion session during which the work is discussed.
The challenge to prospective attendees is to prepare a presentation which can evoke meaningful discussion amongst the attendees. One's presentation could, for example, focus on: 1) how we go about explaining and the limitations/strengths of our approach, 2) what kinds of explanations "work" and which kinds "fail" 3) the context dependency of explanatory form 4) the differences in use between "good enough explanation" and "truth claims" 5) the need for/use of mechanisms and "narratives" as a meaning of "explaining" (making understandable in a coherent way) some aspect of complexity or of a real in life complex system 6) how a reliance on sameness or of category as a simplifying reduction was inadequate to the situation being examined or 7) how modes of explanation vary by discipline.
Keynotes: Paul Thagard, Nancy Nersessian, David Snowden, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sandra Mitchell, Kevin Kelly, Hugo Letiche, Timothy Allen, Zack Kopplin & more
To register please visit: http://modes.isce.edu
For more conference information please visit: http://modesofexplanation.org
Modes of Explanation
Three days to discuss and learn about advances in modes of explanation. A look at how our mode of explanation affects our affordances for action.
Modes of Explanation is a discussion conference, the actual presentations of attendee's work will occur on-line and only a five minute or less synopsis will precede the discussion session during which the work is discussed.
The challenge to prospective attendees is to prepare a presentation which can evoke meaningful discussion amongst the attendees. One's presentation could, for example, focus on: 1) how we go about explaining and the limitations/strengths of our approach, 2) what kinds of explanations "work" and which kinds "fail" 3) the context dependency of explanatory form 4) the differences in use between "good enough explanation" and "truth claims" 5) the need for/use of mechanisms and "narratives" as a meaning of "explaining" (making understandable in a coherent way) some aspect of complexity or of a real in life complex system 6) how a reliance on sameness or of category as a simplifying reduction was inadequate to the situation being examined or 7) how modes of explanation vary by discipline.
Keynotes: Paul Thagard, Nancy Nersessian, David Snowden, Rukmini Bhaya Nair, Sandra Mitchell, Kevin Kelly, Hugo Letiche, Timothy Allen, Zack Kopplin & more
Michael Lissack
Executive Director and ISCE Professor of Meaning in Organizations
see http://epi-thinking.org and see
http://epi-biz.com
Please consider attending the Modes of Explanation conference in Paris May 21-25, 2013. I am sorry not to be going but will be at a conference in Bonn 'Water and the Anthropocene' which runs at the same time. We have two papers scheduled to be presented at the Bonn Conference.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
'Evidence Centres' and a UK Chief Social Scientist
As this article from Penny Sarchet describes the UK Cabinet Office is about to create six new 'What Works Centres' to assess whether ideas for new policies can work. I do not know whether to be excited or appalled! My inclination based on this article (and thus limited background appreciation) is the latter. Why? Well for a start these centres seem to be based on a particular paradigm of what works and how what works might be assessed. And underpinning this a particular view of policy development and deployment suggests itself. I hope I am wrong. I also hope that one centre has systems thinking in practice capability and methodological skills.
Whilst I am all for strengthening the role that social science research plays it is a very broad church with myriad epistemological pitfalls - I wonder how the post will be described and the person chosen? And how will they practice in rleation to social science and other sciences? Might there be an opportunity to cultivate a reflexive, community of practice of chief scientists?
"Cabinet Office plans ‘evidence’ centres
Around six institutes are being planned, which the government is calling What Works centres. The centres’ assessments will be used to inform decision-making in government departments. More details are expected by the end of February.
Research Fortnight has learned that the centres are to be modelled on the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. NICE assesses evidence on the effectiveness of medical treatments and provides guidance to the National Health Service on whether these treatments should be purchased.
The Cabinet Office, which also houses the government’s Behavioural Insights team, is known to favour a NICE-type approach in other areas of government policy.
In 2011, the Cabinet Office announced in a white paper that the government would consult on how to establish credible accreditation bodies that would mirror the work of NICE in other areas of public services. It said that public services require “robust accreditation of what works”.
Leading social scientists have welcomed the news. David Hand, professor of statistics at Imperial College London, says: “It’s about time we put more effort into evidence-based social policy.”
Keiron Flanagan, lecturer in science and technology policy at the University of Manchester, adds that NICE-like bodies could be important for pointing out what he calls “dodgy” claims made by ministers about policies that are not supported by evidence. But the centres, which will not be directly testing new policies, would need good evidence to work with. “In many policy areas, there is not good evidence available,” he says.
Similarly, Mariana Mazzucato, professor at the University of Sussex’s Science and Technology Policy Unit SPRU, warns that external advice cannot substitute for a lack of expertise within government, something that she says the US is better at. “The Department of Energy is run by a Nobel [laureate],” she says. “Just as important as thinking about external ‘advice’ is the need to reinvigorate the status of government, so that it attracts the brightest young minds, and hence sector-specific expertise and talent.”
“Instead, what we have been witnessing in the UK is the downgrading of what government is seen to be able to do, and its budget to do it,” she adds.
Hand, in contrast, says: “Having external and independent opinions is very important—not only to ensure that the right things are done, untarnished by ideology, but also so that people can see that the right things are being done.”
In a related development, a long-awaited decision on the appointment of a government chief social scientist is thought to be imminent. The naming of such an adviser is expected to be among the first announcements that Mark Walport will make after becoming government chief scientific adviser in April.
“This is something that’s been talked about since [former Home Office chief scientific adviser] Paul Wiles retired,” comments Hand. “Clearly it’s a good idea. It seems odd to me that there isn’t one, [as] you could describe a lot of our economic and social problems as problems of social science. We live in a society, we function in an economy—those are all social science areas. I’m surprised, to be honest, that there isn’t more government emphasis on the social sciences and the solutions provided by the social sciences,” he says.
Flanagan, however, says he has conflicting feelings about the possibility of a chief social scientist. “I would be reluctant to see social science separated out from natural and physical science, and I imagine that a chief social scientist would not have the clout of the chief scientific adviser. However, I don’t believe for a moment that the UK science lobby, who see the CSA not just as an adviser but as a champion for science in government, would ever accept a social scientist as government CSA.” "
Whilst I am all for strengthening the role that social science research plays it is a very broad church with myriad epistemological pitfalls - I wonder how the post will be described and the person chosen? And how will they practice in rleation to social science and other sciences? Might there be an opportunity to cultivate a reflexive, community of practice of chief scientists?
"Cabinet Office plans ‘evidence’ centres
As government prepares to announce chief social scientist
by Penny Sarchet
Around six institutes are being planned, which the government is calling What Works centres. The centres’ assessments will be used to inform decision-making in government departments. More details are expected by the end of February.
Research Fortnight has learned that the centres are to be modelled on the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. NICE assesses evidence on the effectiveness of medical treatments and provides guidance to the National Health Service on whether these treatments should be purchased.
The Cabinet Office, which also houses the government’s Behavioural Insights team, is known to favour a NICE-type approach in other areas of government policy.
In 2011, the Cabinet Office announced in a white paper that the government would consult on how to establish credible accreditation bodies that would mirror the work of NICE in other areas of public services. It said that public services require “robust accreditation of what works”.
Leading social scientists have welcomed the news. David Hand, professor of statistics at Imperial College London, says: “It’s about time we put more effort into evidence-based social policy.”
Keiron Flanagan, lecturer in science and technology policy at the University of Manchester, adds that NICE-like bodies could be important for pointing out what he calls “dodgy” claims made by ministers about policies that are not supported by evidence. But the centres, which will not be directly testing new policies, would need good evidence to work with. “In many policy areas, there is not good evidence available,” he says.
Similarly, Mariana Mazzucato, professor at the University of Sussex’s Science and Technology Policy Unit SPRU, warns that external advice cannot substitute for a lack of expertise within government, something that she says the US is better at. “The Department of Energy is run by a Nobel [laureate],” she says. “Just as important as thinking about external ‘advice’ is the need to reinvigorate the status of government, so that it attracts the brightest young minds, and hence sector-specific expertise and talent.”
“Instead, what we have been witnessing in the UK is the downgrading of what government is seen to be able to do, and its budget to do it,” she adds.
Hand, in contrast, says: “Having external and independent opinions is very important—not only to ensure that the right things are done, untarnished by ideology, but also so that people can see that the right things are being done.”
In a related development, a long-awaited decision on the appointment of a government chief social scientist is thought to be imminent. The naming of such an adviser is expected to be among the first announcements that Mark Walport will make after becoming government chief scientific adviser in April.
“This is something that’s been talked about since [former Home Office chief scientific adviser] Paul Wiles retired,” comments Hand. “Clearly it’s a good idea. It seems odd to me that there isn’t one, [as] you could describe a lot of our economic and social problems as problems of social science. We live in a society, we function in an economy—those are all social science areas. I’m surprised, to be honest, that there isn’t more government emphasis on the social sciences and the solutions provided by the social sciences,” he says.
Flanagan, however, says he has conflicting feelings about the possibility of a chief social scientist. “I would be reluctant to see social science separated out from natural and physical science, and I imagine that a chief social scientist would not have the clout of the chief scientific adviser. However, I don’t believe for a moment that the UK science lobby, who see the CSA not just as an adviser but as a champion for science in government, would ever accept a social scientist as government CSA.” "
Mooching around MOOCs
What are we to make of the phenomenon of MOOCs? I doubt anyone involved in Higher Education does not have a view. There are the enthusiasts and the sceptics as a plethora of recent articles reveal e.g. The Crisis in Higher Education, by Nicholas Carr. An example of the sceptic perspective is:
"The promoters of MOOCs have a “fairly naïve perception of what the analysis of large data sets allows,” says Timothy Burke, a history professor at Swarthmore College. He contends that distance education has historically fallen short of expectations not for technical reasons but, rather, because of “deep philosophical problems” with the model. He grants that online education may provide efficient training in computer programming and other fields characterized by well-established procedures that can be codified in software. But he argues that the essence of a college education lies in the subtle interplay between students and teachers that cannot be simulated by machines, no matter how sophisticated the programming."
It certainly seems true that most of the courses that have been presented to date do not involve what educators call epistemic learning. In many ways the contestation is between learning and instruction, a point taken up rather elegantly by Nicholas Negroponte.
What neither article does is refer to the 40+ year history of The Open University (UK) in developing very effective pedagogic models to underpin large scale supported open learning courses. Having now announced that it will take a leading role in a UK consortium (called FutureLearn Ltd) to deliver MOOCs I hope the experience of the OU will take the debate into new territory that has as its essence a pedagogy of personal and social transformation. After all that is what the world needs...and at scale. Or are we seeing a playing-out of the corporatisation of universities and with it the commodification of instruction (as I would not care to call it learning)?
Thus far, as Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic notes:
'Research universities, which have little previous experience of online teaching, dominate the MOOCs offerings and this is evident in the outdated behaviourist pedagogy most in evidence. Most MOOCs are little more than OER with test material added.'
"The promoters of MOOCs have a “fairly naïve perception of what the analysis of large data sets allows,” says Timothy Burke, a history professor at Swarthmore College. He contends that distance education has historically fallen short of expectations not for technical reasons but, rather, because of “deep philosophical problems” with the model. He grants that online education may provide efficient training in computer programming and other fields characterized by well-established procedures that can be codified in software. But he argues that the essence of a college education lies in the subtle interplay between students and teachers that cannot be simulated by machines, no matter how sophisticated the programming."
It certainly seems true that most of the courses that have been presented to date do not involve what educators call epistemic learning. In many ways the contestation is between learning and instruction, a point taken up rather elegantly by Nicholas Negroponte.
What neither article does is refer to the 40+ year history of The Open University (UK) in developing very effective pedagogic models to underpin large scale supported open learning courses. Having now announced that it will take a leading role in a UK consortium (called FutureLearn Ltd) to deliver MOOCs I hope the experience of the OU will take the debate into new territory that has as its essence a pedagogy of personal and social transformation. After all that is what the world needs...and at scale. Or are we seeing a playing-out of the corporatisation of universities and with it the commodification of instruction (as I would not care to call it learning)?
Thus far, as Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic notes:
'Research universities, which have little previous experience of online teaching, dominate the MOOCs offerings and this is evident in the outdated behaviourist pedagogy most in evidence. Most MOOCs are little more than OER with test material added.'
The illusion of certainty
Another good article by Ross Gittins appeared in The Age last week. In relation to the Australian Reserve Bank and its critics Gittins, in an article entitled ' Reserve Bank bursts bubble of certainty', observes:
"The other reason the Reserve has yet to get things badly wrong is that no one understands better than it how fallible its forecasts are - all forecasts, for that matter. And it's never afraid to admit its fallibility to the world."
"The other reason the Reserve has yet to get things badly wrong is that no one understands better than it how fallible its forecasts are - all forecasts, for that matter. And it's never afraid to admit its fallibility to the world."
Lumpers and splitters
It is generally widely known that botanists fall into one of two camps - lumpers or splitters. In a sense these are boundary judgments that systemists appreciate. The lumpers see traits in common that warrant a wider boundary; splitters see differences that to them warrant demarcation and distinction. Unfortunatly the actions of botanists leaves the likes of tourists or journalists or novelists out of sympathy with their actions for their's is an all or none systematic (not systemic) choice. Take the acacia for example - species that are symbolically and culturally significant in much of Africa and Australia. No longer can I legitimately (in botanical terms) refer to the thorny acacia of Africa (as I did in my last post). Instead by rights I should have referred to the spiny vachellia, or perhaps senegalia!
According to Wikipedia:
"The genus Acacia previously contained roughly 1300 species, about 960 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the tropical to warm-temperate regions of both hemispheres, including Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and the Americas. However, in 2005 the genus was divided into five separate genera under the tribe "Acacieae." The genus Acacia was retained for the majority of the Australian species and a few in tropical Asia, Madagascar and Pacific Islands. Most of the species outside Australia, and a small number of Australian species, were reclassified into Vachellia and Senegalia. The two final genera, Acaciella and Mariosousa, each contain about a dozen species from the Americas."
According to Wikipedia:
"The genus Acacia previously contained roughly 1300 species, about 960 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the tropical to warm-temperate regions of both hemispheres, including Europe, Africa, southern Asia, and the Americas. However, in 2005 the genus was divided into five separate genera under the tribe "Acacieae." The genus Acacia was retained for the majority of the Australian species and a few in tropical Asia, Madagascar and Pacific Islands. Most of the species outside Australia, and a small number of Australian species, were reclassified into Vachellia and Senegalia. The two final genera, Acaciella and Mariosousa, each contain about a dozen species from the Americas."
Kenya Post Card 2
On my last night in Nairobi I went with friends to see a local movie 'Nairobi Half Life' which was excellent. The movie itself, as well as the venue, seemed to me to hold all the contrasts that characterise Kenya today - elegance, poverty, violence, solidarity.
On our last morning at Lake Nakuru National Park we were alerted to a predator by the impala; scanning the vicinity I spotted a leopard jumping over a fallen tree. Later it wondered across the road in front of us in search of an impala kid. In all we saw about 18 different species of mammal and countless birds. The lake is very full as my photos below show; not many of the flamingo for which the park is famous were present. My colleagues and I, though not experts, could not help but feel that the biology of the park was out of kilter. We surmised that the absence of elephant was having negative effects on thorny acacia recruitment and, instead, favouring excess weedy species invasion as undergrowth. This may have been exacerbated by a very heavy stocking rate of Cape Buffalo.
The park is also touted in most of the promotional literature as the site of some of the main Euphorbia forests in Kenya. What these same web-sites do not mention is that almost none of this unique forest remains. I am still to find an explanation for the forest's disappearance. Perhaps over grazing by black rhino, one of my Sth African colleagues suggested?
The research that took me to Kenya concerned how social and biophysical scientists were working together to address issues of food security and poverty alleviation. Historically these two groups of researchers have not always worked well together. I now know much more about African Swine Fever - one of the projects of concern. I left impressed with the efforts being made.
On our last morning at Lake Nakuru National Park we were alerted to a predator by the impala; scanning the vicinity I spotted a leopard jumping over a fallen tree. Later it wondered across the road in front of us in search of an impala kid. In all we saw about 18 different species of mammal and countless birds. The lake is very full as my photos below show; not many of the flamingo for which the park is famous were present. My colleagues and I, though not experts, could not help but feel that the biology of the park was out of kilter. We surmised that the absence of elephant was having negative effects on thorny acacia recruitment and, instead, favouring excess weedy species invasion as undergrowth. This may have been exacerbated by a very heavy stocking rate of Cape Buffalo.
The park is also touted in most of the promotional literature as the site of some of the main Euphorbia forests in Kenya. What these same web-sites do not mention is that almost none of this unique forest remains. I am still to find an explanation for the forest's disappearance. Perhaps over grazing by black rhino, one of my Sth African colleagues suggested?
The research that took me to Kenya concerned how social and biophysical scientists were working together to address issues of food security and poverty alleviation. Historically these two groups of researchers have not always worked well together. I now know much more about African Swine Fever - one of the projects of concern. I left impressed with the efforts being made.
2013 ASC Conference in UK
The ASC conference this year will be in Bolton UK from 28 July to 3 or 4 August, including pre
and post conferences. Bolton is where Mass Observation originated.
Theme: Acting—Learning—Understanding
Dates: Main conference 30 July to 2 August; pre conference 28 and 29
July; post conference 3 and 4 August.
Location: Institute of Educational Cybernetics, Bolton University, Lancashire, UK.
Bolton is an old industrial town on the northern fringe of Manchester, UK, home of the Industrial Revolution and also of early British computing. It is near some of the most beautiful scenery and coast in the UK including the North Welsh coast and Anglesea Island, the Pennine mountains and the Lake District. The Scottish border is about an hour or so’s drive. It is wonderfully located for a holiday. Manchester is the real revival city in the UK and its international airport has good international connections including with the US. London is a 2 hour 10 minute train journey away.
Theme: Acting—Learning—Understanding
Dates: Main conference 30 July to 2 August; pre conference 28 and 29
July; post conference 3 and 4 August.
Location: Institute of Educational Cybernetics, Bolton University, Lancashire, UK.
Bolton is an old industrial town on the northern fringe of Manchester, UK, home of the Industrial Revolution and also of early British computing. It is near some of the most beautiful scenery and coast in the UK including the North Welsh coast and Anglesea Island, the Pennine mountains and the Lake District. The Scottish border is about an hour or so’s drive. It is wonderfully located for a holiday. Manchester is the real revival city in the UK and its international airport has good international connections including with the US. London is a 2 hour 10 minute train journey away.
Friday, January 18, 2013
Kenya Post Card 1
I have been in Nairobi now for almost a week, secluded in the very comfortable ILRI campus for most of that time. This is my first visit to Kenya. In many ways the experience, at least environmentally, is not new - it is has all the familiar and enjoyable elements of the highland tropics. Much of the vegetation is very familiar with kikuyu grass and Australian tree species widespread. Of course socially and politically it is far more complex and, thus far, beyond experience - see this TED talk for example. That said, electioneering has begun in earnest for the Presidential and associated elections due in March. This is a significant moment for Kenya as a new constitution is being enacted with a new regional level of elected governance.
I have been impressed by the interest Kenyan's take in their politics - a contrast I feel to much of the apathy exhibited in say Australia or the UK. Although highly disillusioned with their politicians they do not seem to have switched off. In contrast my first impressions, from an admittedly limited number of conversations, is that many are actively interested and engaged with developed views of how to make things better.
Our visit to Nairobi National Park early last Sunday was rewarding - we saw 17 species of mammal and many different birds including ostrich, two types of bustard, cranes etc. It was a rather surreal experience viewing these animals in an 'old natural habitat' with the burgeoning Nairobi skyline in the background - an example of the new 'natural'!
I have been impressed by the interest Kenyan's take in their politics - a contrast I feel to much of the apathy exhibited in say Australia or the UK. Although highly disillusioned with their politicians they do not seem to have switched off. In contrast my first impressions, from an admittedly limited number of conversations, is that many are actively interested and engaged with developed views of how to make things better.
Our visit to Nairobi National Park early last Sunday was rewarding - we saw 17 species of mammal and many different birds including ostrich, two types of bustard, cranes etc. It was a rather surreal experience viewing these animals in an 'old natural habitat' with the burgeoning Nairobi skyline in the background - an example of the new 'natural'!
Sunday, December 09, 2012
News from Institute for 21st Century Agoras.
Ken Bausch has made contact to advise that their 'Global Agoras' website was down
for a few days while they repaired it from a Russian hacker attack; it is now operational again he said - but unforunately my attempts to create links have failed, so I can only assume the website is still down. Included in Ken's email was reference to:
Good New Videos
'Jeff Diedrich has produced the best short explanation of our dialogue process ever' claims Ken.
I note that the process used is similar to what might be used as part of a social learning approach to governance - something our research has focussed on for over a decade or more. It is a very uplifting clip but also raises some questions such as (i) how did participants come to participate?; (ii) what was done with the outlcomes/learning that happened? (iii) was the process, or could the process, be situated in a conducive, systemic governance process and set of institutions? (iv) Did the process design have the wrong starting point? Does it assume a desire for co-existance, or the presence of governance processes and institutions that make a trajectory towards coexistance possible?
Ken goes on:
Yiannis
Laouris has created two videos around an international youth
colaboratory in Cypress. In the first, Yianniis explains the power of
the colaboratories with youth participation. In the second, young people describe the experience.
Friday, December 07, 2012
IFSA Wrap-up - Great cartoons
Post-symposia greetings from the IFSA 2012 Local Organizing Committee
"Dear collegaues.The local organizing committee wish to thank you all for a very rewarding and satisfying symposia. It was a great joy and inspiration for us to be with you during the four days of the symposia in Aarhus. We hope that you all got back home without any trouble. Even though that we are very enthusiastic about how IFSA 2012 went along, there might be things that could have improved your experience at the conference - there might also be things which actually worked well and was worth considering on another occastion. If you have any comments on our organization of the symposia, we would very much appreciate your perspective on what we should learn from the symposia. Please send us an email at ifsa2012@agrsci.dk with your comments.
At the closing session, the Danish cartoonist Niels Roland presented his drawings inspired by the issues discussed at IFSA 2012. You can now see Rolands closing session drawings on Youtube. We hope that you once again will enjoy Roland's satirical exploration of prominent issues discussed within the IFSA community. We are also working on supplying you with images from the symposia. We have of course been taking a lot of pictures, which will be uploaded shortly, but we will very much appreciate if you would share some of your own photos from the symposia - do not hesitate to send us copies of photos which you think should be shared among the other participants."
Water issues and food production systems
Recently in The Age there was this stark warning:
' LEADING water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages'
This issue, like any systemic issue has many facets. I for one can no longer condone ruminant animal production practices (i.e., mainly cattle) that create biological inefficiencies of the sort associated with feeding concentrates and other human edible food to animals. In San Francisco recently it was good to see many restaurants advertising on their menus that animal products were grass fed (which is what ruminants evolved to do - convert grass). Australia should abandon all feedlot operations that have come to be developed around the spurious notion that rumen biological efficieny is the driving factor in production system development. As The Age article notes:
'Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in a climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One-third of the world's arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals.'
Strict vegetarianism is probably not for everyone; an intermediate step could involve all, or some, of the following:
'I believe the best options for our health as well as our planet are red meats and dairy products from mainly grass and forage-led ruminat animals such as cows and sheep'.
Andrew Campbell in a series of articles points to the potential for systemic failure arising from Australia not continuing to invest in irrigation research for food production. I support fully his claims that:
'... the proposal that we simply shift our irrigated agriculture north “to where the water is” does not stand up to even a cursory analysis. Similarly, the suggestion we can cost-effectively pipe or pump or ship the water south “to where the people are” ignores basic physics and economics.'
However, I was not sure that he made the point strongly enough that water must be used for maximum biological as well as social efficiency - so no more irrigated dairy pastures or forage for feedlots and more opportunistic annual cropping please.
' LEADING water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages'
This issue, like any systemic issue has many facets. I for one can no longer condone ruminant animal production practices (i.e., mainly cattle) that create biological inefficiencies of the sort associated with feeding concentrates and other human edible food to animals. In San Francisco recently it was good to see many restaurants advertising on their menus that animal products were grass fed (which is what ruminants evolved to do - convert grass). Australia should abandon all feedlot operations that have come to be developed around the spurious notion that rumen biological efficieny is the driving factor in production system development. As The Age article notes:
'Adopting a vegetarian diet is one option to increase the amount of water available to grow more food in a climate-erratic world, the scientists said. Animal protein-rich food consumes five to 10 times more water than a vegetarian diet. One-third of the world's arable land is used to grow crops to feed animals.'
Strict vegetarianism is probably not for everyone; an intermediate step could involve all, or some, of the following:
- reduce animal production that is dependent either directly or indirectly on irrigated production systems;
- reduce embodied-in-global-trade water exports in terms of crops used to feed animals - as is typical of much of European agriculture - this could return more water to enviromental flows and protect areas in Brasil and Argentina from over exploitation and biodiversity loss;
'I believe the best options for our health as well as our planet are red meats and dairy products from mainly grass and forage-led ruminat animals such as cows and sheep'.
Andrew Campbell in a series of articles points to the potential for systemic failure arising from Australia not continuing to invest in irrigation research for food production. I support fully his claims that:
'... the proposal that we simply shift our irrigated agriculture north “to where the water is” does not stand up to even a cursory analysis. Similarly, the suggestion we can cost-effectively pipe or pump or ship the water south “to where the people are” ignores basic physics and economics.'
However, I was not sure that he made the point strongly enough that water must be used for maximum biological as well as social efficiency - so no more irrigated dairy pastures or forage for feedlots and more opportunistic annual cropping please.
Not ethically defensible
Australia's policy position in relation to Sri Lanka has not been tenable for many years; in public policy terms it is a classic systemic failure. More recently it has become a farce. I am in agreement with Bruce Haigh: it's just not cricket playing with oppressive Sri Lanka writing in the most recent edition of Crikey when he says:
"Who would have thought that in the space of 17 years, Australia could have gone from being a leading champion in the worldwide fight to end the racial discrimination of apartheid to siding with the corrupt and venal government of Sri Lanka in the genocide of Tamils.
Australia has former prime minister John Howard to thank, with the raw racism and political expediency embodied in "we will decide who comes here", the policy of turning back the boats, mandatory detention and temporary protection visas -- all directed against asylum seekers. Unfortunately Labor prime ministers Rudd and Gillard embraced at first the essence, and now the substance of his policies."
The mainstream media and public in general are also lacking, seemingly, in awareness and discernment and thus responsible action. Australia, and the rest of the world for that matter, should not be engaged in sporting ties of any sort with Sri Lanka; all future cricket matches should be cancelled until such time as responsible and ethical government returns.
This article by Lyse Doucet Chief International Correspondent, BBC News says it all:
"Hundreds
of thousands of Tamils ended up trapped in a tiny strip of land. The
United Nations failed in its mandate to protect civilians in the last
months of Sri Lanka's bloody civil war, a leaked draft of a highly
critical internal UN report says.
"Events in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond to early warnings... during the final stages of conflict," it concludes.
The government and separatist Tamil rebels are accused of war crimes in the conflict, which ended in May 2009.
The war killed at least 100,000 people.
There are still no confirmed figures for civilian deaths in the last months of battle. A UN investigation said it was possible up to 40,000 people were killed in the final five months alone. Others suggest the number of deaths could be even higher.
Former senior UN official Charles Petrie, who headed the internal review panel, told the BBC the "penultimate" draft the BBC has seen "very much reflects the findings of the panel". He is now in New York to present the report to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Sources say an executive summary, which sets out the panel's conclusions in stark terms, has been removed in a final report which will number about 30 pages.
There was no immediate response from the UN, which does not comment on leaked reports. But senior UN sources say the secretary general plans to publish the hard hitting review, and act on its wide-ranging recommendations in order to "learn lessons" and respond more effectively to major new crises such as Syria now confronting the international community.
'Systemic failure'
The UN's investigation into its own conduct during the last months of the conflict says the organisation should in future "be able to meet a much higher standard in fulfilling its protection and humanitarian responsibilities".
It identifies "systemic failure" in a number of areas, and describes the internal UN crisis-management structure as "incoherent".
The panel questions decisions such as the withdrawal of UN staff from the war zone in September 2008 after the Sri Lankan government warned it could no longer guarantee their safety.
Benjamin Dix, who was part of the UN team that left, says he disagreed with the pullout.
"I believe we should have gone further north, not evacuate south, and basically abandon the civilian population with no protection or witness," Mr Dix told the BBC.
Hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians remained in the war zone, exploited by both sides: forcibly recruited by Tamil Tigers or used as human shields; or under indiscriminate government fire, or at risk of arrest.
"We begged them, we pleaded with them not to leave the area. They did not listen to us," said a Tamil school teacher now seeking asylum in Britain, who did not want to be named. "If they had stayed there, and listened to us, many more people would be alive today."
Despite a "catastrophic" situation on the ground, this report bluntly explains that in the capital Colombo "many senior UN staff did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility - and agency and department heads at UNHQ were not instructing them otherwise".
It says there was "a sustained and institutionalised reluctance" among UN personnel in Sri Lanka "to stand up for the rights of people they were mandated to assist".
'Culture of trade-offs'
Citing detailed records of meetings and reports, the review highlights how the UN did not publish mounting civilian casualty figures even though they had "been verified to a good standard". Under severe pressure from the Sri Lankan government, it also did not make clear most deaths were caused by government shelling of "no fire zones" designated as havens for civilians.
The government repeatedly denied it shelled civilian areas.
How did the UN failure happen? The report explores at length how senior staff in Colombo "had insufficient political expertise and experience in armed conflicts and in human rights... to deal with the challenge that Sri Lanka presented", and were not given "sufficient policy and political support" from headquarters. It also points to the Sri Lankan government's "stratagem of intimidation", including "control of visas to sanction staff critical of the state".
The result was a UN system dominated by "a culture of trade-offs" - UN staff chose not to speak out against the government in an effort to try to improve humanitarian access.
Edward Mortimer, a former senior UN official who now chairs the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, says UN staff left when the population needed them more than ever.
"I fear this report will show the UN has not lived up to the standards we expect of it and has not behaved as the moral conscience of the world," Mr Mortimer said.
"There was a responsibility to protect in Sri Lanka but unfortunately it didn't get publicity like in Libya. The north of Sri Lanka was destroyed field by field, street by street, hospital by hospital but we didn't get that kind of reaction - Sri Lanka doesn't have much oil and isn't situated on the Mediterranean."
There were no UN peacekeepers in Sri Lanka but this report says the UN should have told the world what was happening, and done more to try to stop it.
In New York, "engagement with member states regarding Sri Lanka was heavily influenced by what it perceived member states wanted to hear, rather than by what member states needed to know if they were to respond".
During the last months of war, there was not a single formal meeting of the UN's top bodies.
The executive summary of the draft report highlights how "the UN struggled to exert influence on the government which, with the effective acquiescence of a post 9/11 world order, was determined to defeat militarily an organisation designated as terrorist". The Tamil Tigers, or LTTE, are a proscribed terrorist organisation in many capitals.
Frances Harrison, who has just written a book "Still Counting the Dead" on the last months of the war, told the BBC "the only way now for Ban Ki-moon to restore the UN's tattered credibility on Sri Lanka is to call an independent international investigation into the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in 2009".
"What haunts me is the outcome of this dreadful conflict might - just might - have been different if the UN had at the time publicised the independent eyewitness testimony and casualty data its staff meticulously collected that indicated the bulk of killing was the result of government shelling," says the former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent.
"Who would have thought that in the space of 17 years, Australia could have gone from being a leading champion in the worldwide fight to end the racial discrimination of apartheid to siding with the corrupt and venal government of Sri Lanka in the genocide of Tamils.
Australia has former prime minister John Howard to thank, with the raw racism and political expediency embodied in "we will decide who comes here", the policy of turning back the boats, mandatory detention and temporary protection visas -- all directed against asylum seekers. Unfortunately Labor prime ministers Rudd and Gillard embraced at first the essence, and now the substance of his policies."
The mainstream media and public in general are also lacking, seemingly, in awareness and discernment and thus responsible action. Australia, and the rest of the world for that matter, should not be engaged in sporting ties of any sort with Sri Lanka; all future cricket matches should be cancelled until such time as responsible and ethical government returns.
This article by Lyse Doucet Chief International Correspondent, BBC News says it all:
"Events in Sri Lanka mark a grave failure of the UN to adequately respond to early warnings... during the final stages of conflict," it concludes.
The government and separatist Tamil rebels are accused of war crimes in the conflict, which ended in May 2009.
The war killed at least 100,000 people.
There are still no confirmed figures for civilian deaths in the last months of battle. A UN investigation said it was possible up to 40,000 people were killed in the final five months alone. Others suggest the number of deaths could be even higher.
Former senior UN official Charles Petrie, who headed the internal review panel, told the BBC the "penultimate" draft the BBC has seen "very much reflects the findings of the panel". He is now in New York to present the report to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
Sources say an executive summary, which sets out the panel's conclusions in stark terms, has been removed in a final report which will number about 30 pages.
There was no immediate response from the UN, which does not comment on leaked reports. But senior UN sources say the secretary general plans to publish the hard hitting review, and act on its wide-ranging recommendations in order to "learn lessons" and respond more effectively to major new crises such as Syria now confronting the international community.
'Systemic failure'
The UN's investigation into its own conduct during the last months of the conflict says the organisation should in future "be able to meet a much higher standard in fulfilling its protection and humanitarian responsibilities".
It identifies "systemic failure" in a number of areas, and describes the internal UN crisis-management structure as "incoherent".
The panel questions decisions such as the withdrawal of UN staff from the war zone in September 2008 after the Sri Lankan government warned it could no longer guarantee their safety.
Benjamin Dix, who was part of the UN team that left, says he disagreed with the pullout.
"I believe we should have gone further north, not evacuate south, and basically abandon the civilian population with no protection or witness," Mr Dix told the BBC.
Hundreds of thousands of Tamil civilians remained in the war zone, exploited by both sides: forcibly recruited by Tamil Tigers or used as human shields; or under indiscriminate government fire, or at risk of arrest.
"We begged them, we pleaded with them not to leave the area. They did not listen to us," said a Tamil school teacher now seeking asylum in Britain, who did not want to be named. "If they had stayed there, and listened to us, many more people would be alive today."
Despite a "catastrophic" situation on the ground, this report bluntly explains that in the capital Colombo "many senior UN staff did not perceive the prevention of killing of civilians as their responsibility - and agency and department heads at UNHQ were not instructing them otherwise".
It says there was "a sustained and institutionalised reluctance" among UN personnel in Sri Lanka "to stand up for the rights of people they were mandated to assist".
'Culture of trade-offs'
Citing detailed records of meetings and reports, the review highlights how the UN did not publish mounting civilian casualty figures even though they had "been verified to a good standard". Under severe pressure from the Sri Lankan government, it also did not make clear most deaths were caused by government shelling of "no fire zones" designated as havens for civilians.
The government repeatedly denied it shelled civilian areas.
How did the UN failure happen? The report explores at length how senior staff in Colombo "had insufficient political expertise and experience in armed conflicts and in human rights... to deal with the challenge that Sri Lanka presented", and were not given "sufficient policy and political support" from headquarters. It also points to the Sri Lankan government's "stratagem of intimidation", including "control of visas to sanction staff critical of the state".
The result was a UN system dominated by "a culture of trade-offs" - UN staff chose not to speak out against the government in an effort to try to improve humanitarian access.
Edward Mortimer, a former senior UN official who now chairs the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, says UN staff left when the population needed them more than ever.
"I fear this report will show the UN has not lived up to the standards we expect of it and has not behaved as the moral conscience of the world," Mr Mortimer said.
"There was a responsibility to protect in Sri Lanka but unfortunately it didn't get publicity like in Libya. The north of Sri Lanka was destroyed field by field, street by street, hospital by hospital but we didn't get that kind of reaction - Sri Lanka doesn't have much oil and isn't situated on the Mediterranean."
There were no UN peacekeepers in Sri Lanka but this report says the UN should have told the world what was happening, and done more to try to stop it.
In New York, "engagement with member states regarding Sri Lanka was heavily influenced by what it perceived member states wanted to hear, rather than by what member states needed to know if they were to respond".
During the last months of war, there was not a single formal meeting of the UN's top bodies.
The executive summary of the draft report highlights how "the UN struggled to exert influence on the government which, with the effective acquiescence of a post 9/11 world order, was determined to defeat militarily an organisation designated as terrorist". The Tamil Tigers, or LTTE, are a proscribed terrorist organisation in many capitals.
Frances Harrison, who has just written a book "Still Counting the Dead" on the last months of the war, told the BBC "the only way now for Ban Ki-moon to restore the UN's tattered credibility on Sri Lanka is to call an independent international investigation into the slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians in 2009".
"What haunts me is the outcome of this dreadful conflict might - just might - have been different if the UN had at the time publicised the independent eyewitness testimony and casualty data its staff meticulously collected that indicated the bulk of killing was the result of government shelling," says the former BBC Sri Lanka correspondent.
Springer Books - Christmas Sale
My contact at Springer says:
'We've just been informed of the following
Christmas sales initiative - we've not yet been told if there are any
other sales in the pipeline.
Springer are offering a £20-off voucher on any eBook
from springer.com from 10-26th December to all visitors. This is on-top
of any other existing discount which the user may have (e.g.,. a Springer author 33% discount).
From the 10th to 26th, those using this link will see the voucher applied during your session on the site.
The only stipulation is that the eBook can’t be £20 or less before the voucher is applied.'
Monday, December 03, 2012
In the Drakensbergs
Two days for muscle recovery was a small price to pay for doing the Tugela Gorge walk in the Royal Natal National Park in the central Drakensbergs. It was also a delightful setting for designing and running an interactive session for about 50 people as part of the recent International Conference on Fresh Water Governance for Sustainable Development:
Ison, R.L, Pollard, S., Biggs, H. Du Toit, D., Colvin, J.D & Wallis, P. (2012) More Systemic, More Adaptive: The way Forward for Water Governance. Special Workshop Session, International Conference on Fresh Water Governance for Sustainable Development, 7th November, Central Drakensburg, South Africa.
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Ison, R.L, Pollard, S., Biggs, H. Du Toit, D., Colvin, J.D & Wallis, P. (2012) More Systemic, More Adaptive: The way Forward for Water Governance. Special Workshop Session, International Conference on Fresh Water Governance for Sustainable Development, 7th November, Central Drakensburg, South Africa.
This session was very well received by those who attended.
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Foucauldian-style resistance
Foucault, that popular French theorist wrote of resistance in 1982:
"I would like to suggest another way to go further toward a new economy of power relations, a way which is more empirical, more directly related to our present situation, and which implies more relations between theory and practice. It consists of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point. To use another metaphor, it consists of using this resistance as a chemical catalyst so as to bring to light power relations, locate their position, and find out their point of application and the methods used."
More recently a journalist in the Scotsman newspaper wrote about her daughter trying to choose the best university to get her degree. In Scotland, she would not be charged fees but in England she would have to pay thousands of pounds in fees and finish with a large debt. However, the daughter thinks it might be better to go for a "top" university and pay the fees as it would get her a better job and there are more "top" universities in England than in Scotland to choose from. My friend and colleague Drennan Watson, in the spirit of resistance, wrote the following letter to the Scotsman paper in response to this issue:
Research no guide to educational standards
Published on Sunday 21 October 2012 19:17
Christine Jardine rightly focuses on the question for her daughter of “which university will provide the best springboard for her future” (Perspective, 17 October). But, mistakenly, she then focuses on the Times Higher Educational World Reputation Rankings as a guide.
This claims to assess universities on teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook by drawing on the assessments by “senior, published academics”. Valid assessors of the quality of training of their graduates are their employers in government and industry and the graduates themselves. According to supporters of the Times’ system, the only graduates assessed are postgraduate students in the universities. Assessing educational performance on this small, non-random sector is statistically laughable.
As Ms Jardine says: “Universities are judged across the world on their research record.” That is the problem. The idea that research output of a university is a measure of quality education and degree offered by it is bogus. Many a “distinguished” academic whose lectures appear baffling because he is brilliant is simply an incompetent communicator.
Before gaining a university post in which research is a key activity, a candidate must gain a good, honours first degree then a PhD as a three-year training in research. The appointee is then unleashed to lecture and teach undergraduates with little or no training in education. The results are inevitable.
As an undergraduate, I ranked my lecturers competent if they could be heard beyond about the fourth row and then found intelligible by students when heard. One-third failed.
I taught in a range of universities and institutes of higher education in UK. The problem remains. Accounts from current students strongly indicate matters are worsening. Government, by scoring university performance basically on research output is making matters worse. I co-authored a paper in the prestigious journal Nature. That would merit points. I co-authored a 350-page, well-reviewed textbook for undergraduates, but that would merit none.
Ms Jardine is rightly concerned at the need to properly fund education in universities, particularly in the face of the rise in student numbers. Equally important is to introduce proper training in educational skills among those paid to teach our undergraduates. Government should insist on it as a condition of funding. Research and education are equally difficult and complex activities requiring, to a considerable extent, different skills and personal qualities – frequently not found in the same person, particularly in academics. What other profession would be permitted to exercise such a critically important, skilled, social function without proper training and proof of performance?
We do not trust the education of children in primary and secondary school years to untrained, unassessed staff. Why do we do it to them in vital years of adult education?
R Drennan Watson
Forbes Alford, Aberdeenshire
"I would like to suggest another way to go further toward a new economy of power relations, a way which is more empirical, more directly related to our present situation, and which implies more relations between theory and practice. It consists of taking the forms of resistance against different forms of power as a starting point. To use another metaphor, it consists of using this resistance as a chemical catalyst so as to bring to light power relations, locate their position, and find out their point of application and the methods used."
More recently a journalist in the Scotsman newspaper wrote about her daughter trying to choose the best university to get her degree. In Scotland, she would not be charged fees but in England she would have to pay thousands of pounds in fees and finish with a large debt. However, the daughter thinks it might be better to go for a "top" university and pay the fees as it would get her a better job and there are more "top" universities in England than in Scotland to choose from. My friend and colleague Drennan Watson, in the spirit of resistance, wrote the following letter to the Scotsman paper in response to this issue:
Research no guide to educational standards
Published on Sunday 21 October 2012 19:17
Christine Jardine rightly focuses on the question for her daughter of “which university will provide the best springboard for her future” (Perspective, 17 October). But, mistakenly, she then focuses on the Times Higher Educational World Reputation Rankings as a guide.
This claims to assess universities on teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook by drawing on the assessments by “senior, published academics”. Valid assessors of the quality of training of their graduates are their employers in government and industry and the graduates themselves. According to supporters of the Times’ system, the only graduates assessed are postgraduate students in the universities. Assessing educational performance on this small, non-random sector is statistically laughable.
As Ms Jardine says: “Universities are judged across the world on their research record.” That is the problem. The idea that research output of a university is a measure of quality education and degree offered by it is bogus. Many a “distinguished” academic whose lectures appear baffling because he is brilliant is simply an incompetent communicator.
Before gaining a university post in which research is a key activity, a candidate must gain a good, honours first degree then a PhD as a three-year training in research. The appointee is then unleashed to lecture and teach undergraduates with little or no training in education. The results are inevitable.
As an undergraduate, I ranked my lecturers competent if they could be heard beyond about the fourth row and then found intelligible by students when heard. One-third failed.
I taught in a range of universities and institutes of higher education in UK. The problem remains. Accounts from current students strongly indicate matters are worsening. Government, by scoring university performance basically on research output is making matters worse. I co-authored a paper in the prestigious journal Nature. That would merit points. I co-authored a 350-page, well-reviewed textbook for undergraduates, but that would merit none.
Ms Jardine is rightly concerned at the need to properly fund education in universities, particularly in the face of the rise in student numbers. Equally important is to introduce proper training in educational skills among those paid to teach our undergraduates. Government should insist on it as a condition of funding. Research and education are equally difficult and complex activities requiring, to a considerable extent, different skills and personal qualities – frequently not found in the same person, particularly in academics. What other profession would be permitted to exercise such a critically important, skilled, social function without proper training and proof of performance?
We do not trust the education of children in primary and secondary school years to untrained, unassessed staff. Why do we do it to them in vital years of adult education?
R Drennan Watson
Forbes Alford, Aberdeenshire
Vale Frank Fisher
Life certainly has its circularities. Last week whilst cleaning out my office in the Menzies Building at Monash University (Clayton) I came across notes that I had made when Frank presented a talk at the University of Sydney on the 4th August 1988. I noted that Frank came from the Graduate School of Environmental Sciences at Monash and that he had formerly been an Electrical Engineer. My notes are an eclectic array of terms that have littered my own writing and scholarship over most of the intervening time. Examples include: '3rd generation thinking'; 'epistemology'; 'reductionism'; 'utilitarianism'; 'understanding comes from interaction with others'; 'dialectic'; 'the edge of madness - feeling an indoor plant to see if it is real'.
As outlined in an earlier post Frank died from complications associated with an inoperable brain tumour on 21st August 2012. Since his death there has been a very moving public memorial service - more a celebration than a mourning - in a packed BMW Edge at Federation Square in Melbourne. Also a launch of the ebook 'Everyday Transcendence: The Influence of Frank Fisher' that was put together and completed (if not published) just before Frank's death. The book can be downloaded from Frank's legacy website, 'the Understandascope' and there are also video segments from the memorial service and the book launch. Please explore them and appreciate why Frank was loved by so many and why so many were transformed through knowing Frank.
Frank's obituary appeared in The Age on Monday September 24th, 2012.
As outlined in an earlier post Frank died from complications associated with an inoperable brain tumour on 21st August 2012. Since his death there has been a very moving public memorial service - more a celebration than a mourning - in a packed BMW Edge at Federation Square in Melbourne. Also a launch of the ebook 'Everyday Transcendence: The Influence of Frank Fisher' that was put together and completed (if not published) just before Frank's death. The book can be downloaded from Frank's legacy website, 'the Understandascope' and there are also video segments from the memorial service and the book launch. Please explore them and appreciate why Frank was loved by so many and why so many were transformed through knowing Frank.
Frank's obituary appeared in The Age on Monday September 24th, 2012.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Systemic failings in Higher Education
Yet more compelling evidence that forces currently driving the HE sector place it on a trajectory towards systemic failure.
“It’s wrong to force people to lie,” he said, adding that the issue is one of research integrity.
Andler explained that such dishonesty could take two main forms. In one, researchers flesh out funding applications with details of activities they have already completed. In the other, they exaggerate the likely impact of their work to make their research seem more relevant to funders.
Robert Winston, broadcaster, Labour peer and professor of fertility at Imperial College London, described a phenomenon he calls “the science delusion”, where scientists approve of their work being marketed as much more important and influential than is actually the case. As an example, he cited the mapping of the human genome, which has not lived up to expectations that it would, for instance, revolutionise our ability to manage diseases.
“Scientists need to be more modest,” he said, explaining that two worrying consequences of these tendencies are that scientists permit their work to be overhyped and fail to admit that they have emotional biases that can influence their science.
The comments were made in presentations at SciTech Europe, an event held in Brussels on 22 November."
"Focus on innovation is backfiring, Brussels conference hears
The pressure on scientists
doing basic research to produce innovative results is undermining
researchers’ credibility, two prominent scientists told a conference in
Brussels last week.
Mathematician Martin Andler, co vice-president of grass-roots
scientists’ group Euroscience, said there was tension between the need
for researchers to do basic, blue-sky research and the requirement for
their work to be innovative and have an impact. He says he is concerned
that researchers feel under pressure to claim their work will have a big
effect when often it is not possible to know whether that will be the
case. “It’s wrong to force people to lie,” he said, adding that the issue is one of research integrity.
Andler explained that such dishonesty could take two main forms. In one, researchers flesh out funding applications with details of activities they have already completed. In the other, they exaggerate the likely impact of their work to make their research seem more relevant to funders.
Robert Winston, broadcaster, Labour peer and professor of fertility at Imperial College London, described a phenomenon he calls “the science delusion”, where scientists approve of their work being marketed as much more important and influential than is actually the case. As an example, he cited the mapping of the human genome, which has not lived up to expectations that it would, for instance, revolutionise our ability to manage diseases.
“Scientists need to be more modest,” he said, explaining that two worrying consequences of these tendencies are that scientists permit their work to be overhyped and fail to admit that they have emotional biases that can influence their science.
The comments were made in presentations at SciTech Europe, an event held in Brussels on 22 November."
Monday, October 15, 2012
NECSI analysis makes sense
The New England Complex Systems Institute in their project on ethanol use for fuel are producing relevant insights:
They 'make three key statements to enhance
understanding and communication about ethanol production's impact on the
food and fuel markets: (1) The amount of corn used to produce the
ethanol in a gallon of regular gas would feed a person
for a day, (2) The production of ethanol requires so much fossil fuel
energy that its energy benefit is only about 20%, and (3) The cost of
gas made with ethanol is actually higher per mile because ethanol
reduces gasoline's energy per gallon.'Saturday, September 15, 2012
New Sustainability Exchange
I am advised by colleague Mark Yoxon that the Sustainability Exchange is a central point and community for colleges, universities and
sector service providers, sharing best practice, knowledge and
resources on sustainability – all online.
Extract from their press release:
Education organisations unite to launch pioneering centralised knowledge bank and community on sustainability.
Leading organisations from across the further and higher education sector have joined forces to create the ‘Sustainability Exchange’. Combining resources and experience from 23 of the country’s top sustainable development and education bodies, the Sustainability Exchange will pioneer the UK’s first centralised information portal and online community for the sector, sharing a wealth of information that is available to everyone.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Recent good news: a new research project
With Chris Blackmore and Kevin Collins from the Open Systems Research Group we have had news of success as part of an international
research consortium for a project entitled “Climate change adaptation and water governance: reconciling food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services” (CADWAGO). One of 15 shortlisted proposals
to the Europe and Global Challenges Call released by a trio of European Foundations (Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Compagnia di San Paolo and VolkwagenStiftung), the project will develop the knowledge base and
capacity to adapt to climate change through improved water governance approaches.
It builds on several earlier projects including the well-known SLIM project coordinated from the OU in 2000-2004. A grant of 9.000.000 SEK
(equivalent of about 1.000.000 Euro) has been set aside for the project
over three years.
There were 76 proposals from international consortia for the call. Fifteen were short listed and invited to proceed with a main proposal and hearing. Only four were selected from the 15, as despite extra funds being available, these were the only ones achieving a consensus from the external panel.
The VolkwagenStiftung has a record of funding innovative systems-based research having in the past made funding available to the Club of Rome leading to the well known ‘Limits to Growth’ study. Whilst this proposal is focused on the nexus between climate change and water security, it has implications for other global challenges. There is a crucial link between good water governance, food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services in contexts characterized by controversy and uncertainty. CADWAGO brings together 10 partners from Europe, Australasia and North America who have extensive social science research experience in climate change adaptation and water governance issues, thereby extending the collective global knowledge base through sharing methods and findings.
CADWAGO builds on the lessons from on-going research cases to create a forum and dialogue between researchers and stakeholders at different scales. The lessons from the cases will be synthesized and used in the adaptation of key European policy processes and governance actions that have a global impact. High impact peer reviewed publications and practitioner orientated publications will also be focused on as key project outputs.
There were 76 proposals from international consortia for the call. Fifteen were short listed and invited to proceed with a main proposal and hearing. Only four were selected from the 15, as despite extra funds being available, these were the only ones achieving a consensus from the external panel.
The VolkwagenStiftung has a record of funding innovative systems-based research having in the past made funding available to the Club of Rome leading to the well known ‘Limits to Growth’ study. Whilst this proposal is focused on the nexus between climate change and water security, it has implications for other global challenges. There is a crucial link between good water governance, food security, renewable energy and the provision of multiple ecosystem services in contexts characterized by controversy and uncertainty. CADWAGO brings together 10 partners from Europe, Australasia and North America who have extensive social science research experience in climate change adaptation and water governance issues, thereby extending the collective global knowledge base through sharing methods and findings.
CADWAGO builds on the lessons from on-going research cases to create a forum and dialogue between researchers and stakeholders at different scales. The lessons from the cases will be synthesized and used in the adaptation of key European policy processes and governance actions that have a global impact. High impact peer reviewed publications and practitioner orientated publications will also be focused on as key project outputs.
Wicked, as in 'great'
Nice post from Roger Jones taking an uber 'technical rationalist' to task. Also this one from David Hodgson who reports on what seem very positive urban developments in Adelaide. If only the current lot in Melbourne (i.e. State Government) could embark on something similar.
Saturday, September 08, 2012
Big Boys Gone Bananas
I take it back. In my last post I suggested that the Enviromental Film Festival Melbourne might on the whole not run to uplifting, if not quite humerous material. I was wrong. Last night I went again and saw Big Boys Gone Bananas. It is an uplifting film and shows what can be achieved when individuals, groups and institutions support morally relevant action. It did however take a Swedish culture to support the outcome, and unforunately we do not all have that. It is almost enough though to suggest moving to Sweden.
This documentary explores the true story about this filmmaker and a banana corporation, and the dirty tricks, lawsuits, manipulation used to silence him.
Ultimately, it explores the price of free speech: Dole spent a lot of time and money trying to kill the story of BANANAS!*. As Dole's own public relations company stated, "it is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation.""
The movie, by Fredrik Gertten, (2011,Sweden; 1 hour 30 mins) is worth watching:
"What happens when a large, multinational corporation
senses a threat to its reputation? A Swedish filmmaker inadvertently
found out after producing his film BANANAS!*.
This documentary explores the true story about this filmmaker and a banana corporation, and the dirty tricks, lawsuits, manipulation used to silence him.
Ultimately, it explores the price of free speech: Dole spent a lot of time and money trying to kill the story of BANANAS!*. As Dole's own public relations company stated, "it is easier to cope with a bad conscience than a bad reputation.""
Thursday, September 06, 2012
Surviving Progress
Last night I went to the screening of 'Surviving Progress' at the Environmental Film Festival Melbourne (EFFM). The organisers are to be congratulated as they have put together a solid and varied program. Unfortunately taking it all in would be too intense for me. In this vein I overheard an audience member say last night 'where are the environmental comedies'?
'Surviving Progress' makes it clear that our situation is no laughing matter - an implicit message of the film is that we are in a type of evolutionary cul-de-sac and it will be a real test of the evolutionary gifts bestowed on humans as to whether we can get ourselves into a new, viable, trajectory. As one commentator said, when civilisations failed in the past there were other models in the wings. At the moment it is not clear that any such models exist.
The movie is a Canadian production:
Surviving Progress presents the story of human advancement as awe-inspiring and double-edged. It reveals the grave risk of running the 21st century's software � our know-how � on the ancient hardware of our primate brain which hasn't been upgraded in 50,000 years. With rich imagery and immersive soundtrack, filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks launch us on journey to contemplate our evolution from cave-dwellers to space explorers.
'Surviving Progress' makes it clear that our situation is no laughing matter - an implicit message of the film is that we are in a type of evolutionary cul-de-sac and it will be a real test of the evolutionary gifts bestowed on humans as to whether we can get ourselves into a new, viable, trajectory. As one commentator said, when civilisations failed in the past there were other models in the wings. At the moment it is not clear that any such models exist.
The movie is a Canadian production:
'Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks, 2011 (Canada)
Produced and distributed by the National Film Board of Canada
1 hour 26 mins
Surviving Progress presents the story of human advancement as awe-inspiring and double-edged. It reveals the grave risk of running the 21st century's software � our know-how � on the ancient hardware of our primate brain which hasn't been upgraded in 50,000 years. With rich imagery and immersive soundtrack, filmmakers Mathieu Roy and Harold Crooks launch us on journey to contemplate our evolution from cave-dwellers to space explorers.
Ronald Wright, whose best-seller, "A Short History Of
Progress" inspired this film, reveals how civilizations are repeatedly
destroyed by "progress traps" � alluring technologies serve immediate
needs, but ransom the future. With intersecting stories from a Chinese
car-driving club, a Wall Street insider who exposes an out-of-control,
environmentally rapacious financial elite, and eco-cops defending a
scorched Amazon, the film lays stark evidence before us. In the past, we
could use up a region's resources and move on. But if today's global
civilization collapses from over-consumption, that's it. We have no
back-up planet.
Surviving Progress leaves us with a challenge: To prove that making apes smarter was not an evolutionary dead-end.'
I particularly liked the challenge posed in the film to contemporary economic and financial models, especially how debt has been manipulated by a global oligarchy. Given how economics and finance models failed in the GFC (and continue to fail) it is disturbing that so many young people want to study economics. Diane Coyle writes that:
'According to UCAS figures (UK), 7,800 students began an undergraduate degree in the subject [economics] in autumn 2011, and more than 50,000 applied to do so. This represented an increase in student numbers of 8.5 per cent since 2010, compared with a 1 per cent rise in the total number accepted to UK universities.'
This concern is particularly valid given the evidence that:
'The messages from employers are consistent, be they in the public sector, investment banks or consultancies. Young economists do not know enough economic history, or enough about the intellectual history of their own subject and the continuing debates about methods. Although they are technically adept, they are too narrow in how they approach the problems they face at work.
Scandalously, many economics students also leave university without two essential practical skills for employment as economists: the ability to find and use data correctly, and the ability to communicate their technical knowledge to non-specialists.'
Coyle, an economist and employer of economists, goes on to argue that:
'Economics [has] also become very abstract, taking no account of institutions such as hedge funds and standards of behaviour that, with hindsight, were so obviously important........As far as undergraduate economics is concerned, one important change needed is to introduce more interdisciplinarity into courses. Among other things, this would help to teach that both inductive and deductive reasoning can be applied to the same problems. Economics has become too narrowly deductive and theory-based. Exposure to other social sciences can correct this'
I was less enamoured with the ways in which 'Surviving Progress' dealt with our propensity to seek out 'miracle innovations' that will resolve our collective dilemma. In other words to extend the models of thinking and acting that underpin our current trajectory rather than opening up new, radical possibilties. The material devoted to J Craig Ventner I found disingenous and systemically flawed. Colleagues have recently drawn my attention to articles which typify what I mean, including this one in Ventner's own domain of genetics. In the language of the film, these susgestions are merely attempts by the existing oligarchies to maintain their hegemony! They also reflect the systemic failure of our governance processes as is vividly portrayed on the front page of today's leader in The Age:
'Australia's highest-emitting brown coal electricity generators are between $400 million and $1 billion better off than they would have been without the carbon tax, according to new modelling.
In terms of what to do next 'Surviving Progress' has little to offer that is new, an argument echoed in this review. We have known about limits for some time. Also of the need to reduce consumption (though one part on this was well handled and deserves a YouTube slot of its own). One way the film could make a real difference is if every senior managment team (including Universities) put it on the agenda of their next away day and treated a viewing like a book club exercise. That said, it would probably require a few non-board invitees to keep the conversation going beyond 10 minutes!
Surviving Progress leaves us with a challenge: To prove that making apes smarter was not an evolutionary dead-end.'
I particularly liked the challenge posed in the film to contemporary economic and financial models, especially how debt has been manipulated by a global oligarchy. Given how economics and finance models failed in the GFC (and continue to fail) it is disturbing that so many young people want to study economics. Diane Coyle writes that:
'According to UCAS figures (UK), 7,800 students began an undergraduate degree in the subject [economics] in autumn 2011, and more than 50,000 applied to do so. This represented an increase in student numbers of 8.5 per cent since 2010, compared with a 1 per cent rise in the total number accepted to UK universities.'
This concern is particularly valid given the evidence that:
'The messages from employers are consistent, be they in the public sector, investment banks or consultancies. Young economists do not know enough economic history, or enough about the intellectual history of their own subject and the continuing debates about methods. Although they are technically adept, they are too narrow in how they approach the problems they face at work.
Scandalously, many economics students also leave university without two essential practical skills for employment as economists: the ability to find and use data correctly, and the ability to communicate their technical knowledge to non-specialists.'
Coyle, an economist and employer of economists, goes on to argue that:
'Economics [has] also become very abstract, taking no account of institutions such as hedge funds and standards of behaviour that, with hindsight, were so obviously important........As far as undergraduate economics is concerned, one important change needed is to introduce more interdisciplinarity into courses. Among other things, this would help to teach that both inductive and deductive reasoning can be applied to the same problems. Economics has become too narrowly deductive and theory-based. Exposure to other social sciences can correct this'
I was less enamoured with the ways in which 'Surviving Progress' dealt with our propensity to seek out 'miracle innovations' that will resolve our collective dilemma. In other words to extend the models of thinking and acting that underpin our current trajectory rather than opening up new, radical possibilties. The material devoted to J Craig Ventner I found disingenous and systemically flawed. Colleagues have recently drawn my attention to articles which typify what I mean, including this one in Ventner's own domain of genetics. In the language of the film, these susgestions are merely attempts by the existing oligarchies to maintain their hegemony! They also reflect the systemic failure of our governance processes as is vividly portrayed on the front page of today's leader in The Age:
'Australia's highest-emitting brown coal electricity generators are between $400 million and $1 billion better off than they would have been without the carbon tax, according to new modelling.
In terms of what to do next 'Surviving Progress' has little to offer that is new, an argument echoed in this review. We have known about limits for some time. Also of the need to reduce consumption (though one part on this was well handled and deserves a YouTube slot of its own). One way the film could make a real difference is if every senior managment team (including Universities) put it on the agenda of their next away day and treated a viewing like a book club exercise. That said, it would probably require a few non-board invitees to keep the conversation going beyond 10 minutes!
Wednesday, September 05, 2012
Around Alice Springs
Acknowledging the OU EDM Programme
In 1997 we set up a new Post Graduate degree in Environmental Decision Making (EDM) at the Open University (UK) because we wanted to move beyond the mainstream understanding of Environmental Management (EM). In particular we wanted to move the focus away from 'an environment' that needed to be managed to a focus on how all decisions took the environment into account. Thus EDM was a different form of practice (praxis) to the prevailing EM paradigm. As first Director of the program it was always difficult to know how much impact our program had. None-the-less it got off to a good start and has had a strong stream of students ever since.
Now, in its wisdom, the OU is rebranding all its Environmental offerings under the rubric of Environmental Management (following expensive advice from external consultants). We shall see how this unfolds. Rebranding of course does not mean that the usual high quality teaching will cease, nor that a systemic perspective, as was developed in EDM, will be abandoned. In fact Systems academics at the OU are making significant contributions ot the rewriting of undergraduate EM courses.
Recently I had occassion to read a paper by Andrew Halliday and Marion Glaser (2011) A management perspective on social ecological systems: a generic system model and its application to a case study from Peru, Human Ecology Review 18 (1) 1-18. This is a thought-provoking paper. It was good to see in the acknowledgements the following:
'The first author wishes to thank members of the project team of Pro Naturaleza’s Manu Project for their friendship, insight, and stimulating collaboration, and acknowledge his debt to the Open University’s post-graduate course Environmental Decision Making — a Systems Approach, which pointed the way towards the view of social-ecological systems outlined in this paper.'
Now, in its wisdom, the OU is rebranding all its Environmental offerings under the rubric of Environmental Management (following expensive advice from external consultants). We shall see how this unfolds. Rebranding of course does not mean that the usual high quality teaching will cease, nor that a systemic perspective, as was developed in EDM, will be abandoned. In fact Systems academics at the OU are making significant contributions ot the rewriting of undergraduate EM courses.
Recently I had occassion to read a paper by Andrew Halliday and Marion Glaser (2011) A management perspective on social ecological systems: a generic system model and its application to a case study from Peru, Human Ecology Review 18 (1) 1-18. This is a thought-provoking paper. It was good to see in the acknowledgements the following:
'The first author wishes to thank members of the project team of Pro Naturaleza’s Manu Project for their friendship, insight, and stimulating collaboration, and acknowledge his debt to the Open University’s post-graduate course Environmental Decision Making — a Systems Approach, which pointed the way towards the view of social-ecological systems outlined in this paper.'
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