Soundtrack to thesis survival.

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Having read Andy Coverdale’s excellent post on Music to Survive a PhD, I decided it was time to roll up the shutters on my own PhD blog and document the contents of my headphones as I was writing up this Summer. Like Andy, I cannot listen to lyrics while writing. Sometimes, if things are getting particularly tricky, all music has to go off in order to think. However, in the main music was a helpful way of blocking out the rest of the (shared) office and acting as a signal to myself that it was time for me to work. And there were also the very early morning bus rides to the office where I needed getting going for the day, hence:

Beyonce – 4 

This was the album I listened to more than anything else this year. If, like me, you never paid that much attention to Beyonce before, you should really check this album out, it’s one of the best albums in years. Very strong songs all the way through, and her singing – my god, her voice is incredible. Too good to write to, but great for maintaining sanity when faced with another day of trying to keep up with the writing schedule

Anything by Theo Parrish 

Parrish is generally groove-based enough for my brain to latch on to, while not being dancefloor enough to distrct me from the job in hand, Also, I have been listening to him for a long time, so there is enough familiarity with the music for me not to have to concentrate too hard. Like driving a fmiliar stretch of motorway and subconsciosuly knowing which junction to leave at. So for me, his music was instrumental in helping me write. For you, it’s worth listening because he makes otherworldly house music like no-one else. Lots of imitators – no equals.

Hugo Capablanca – Beats In Space Hallowwen 2011 special


http://www.beatsinspace.net/playlists/492
 (free download)

One-off studio session orchestrated by Capablanca which has never been released. Psych-Krautrock vibe which manages to sound really fresh despite being an overcrowded genre. Listened to this a lot while writing. The pulsing effects and shards of melody work really well for me – would like to hear more from this man.

Legowelt – The Teac Life

Here is an artist that never reallygot on my radar until the release of this album. A blisfully melodic soup of techno unwinding over two hours, this was the only album I listened to while working and commuting. Glorious. What is more, the album was released as a free download – pick it up here.

Rustie – Glass Swords

If Legowelt took full advantage of the extended album lengths available to artists in the download era, Rustie turned the other way, issuing a series of 7-inch length missiles that sounded like techno/R&B cut-and-shut jobs given a progrock-synth respray. This was fantastic for propelling me through mundane tasks such as proof reading or bibliography-checking, although I eventually found the beats too busy not to be distracting. Amazing music though. 

My Last FM stats were very helpful in jogging my memory for this post. You can see a lot more of the stuff I have been listening to at 
http://www.last.fm/user/WarrenPearce/charts
 

Thesis submitted

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P139

This afternoon I submitted my thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. It’s called “The meanings of climate change policy: implementing carbon reduction in the East Midlands”.

I am very happy about this news.

The last four weeks have been very busy, and I’m now pretty tired. I’m also starting a new job on Monday (still at University of Nottingham). But I will post more about that next week. Until then, thanks to everyone who has provided me with support and inspiration over the last three years.

How do you reference a Lord in Harvard APA? #referencing #APA #phdchat

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EMR letter – September 12.pdf

I am referencing the above letter in my thesis (handing in Friday!). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Harvard APA guide isn't too hot on how to reference Lords. As a result, I am not sure how to reference the letter. Maybe like this?

Deben, Lord, Kennedy, D., King, J., Fankhauser, S., Hoskins, B., Krebs, Lord, May, Lord, and Skea, J. (2012, September 13). The need for a carbon intensity target in the power sector. Letter to Rt Hon Edward Davey MP.

This seems safe, but 'Deben' is not actually a surname (the surname is actually Gummer, but doesn't appear on the letter). Also including the 'Lords' in full make the whole thing harder to read, so it looks like 'Lord Kennedy' etc.?

In theory, I would be happier with:

Lord Deben, Kennedy, D., King, J., Fankhauser, S., Hoskins, B., Lord Krebs, Lord May, and Skea, J. (2012, September 13).?The need for a carbon intensity target in the power sector. Letter to Rt Hon Edward Davey MP.

but would it come under 'L' or 'D'?!

Is there a 'right' answer under APA? Or is this an area where some new ground needs to be broken, as it was with referencing a tweet??

Any thoughts gratefully received!

Atoms are not people: comparing the natural and social sciences

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Following a debate on the utility of social sciences cf. natural sciences as a basis for public policy (see here for some of the comments), I thought it might be time to sketch out some background on the differences between these two (very) broad areas of knowledge.

IS SOCIAL SCIENCE A 'SCIENCE'?
In 1853, Auguste Comte posited that all branches of human knowledge passed through three stages of development: theological, metaphysical and positive. Positive philosophy was the ultimate state for any area of knowledge, where observation and reasoning led to the discovery of laws. Comte regarded the natural sciences as having reached this state, whereas the social sciences were lagging behind – a position restated by Richard Feynman in the Horizon clip above.

Of course, "social science" is a term still in common usage today, which inevitably invites comparison with the natural sciences. Indeed many, if not all, branches of the social sciences have attempted to replicate scientific methods in order to achieve results that measure up to laboratory criteria such as validity, objectivity and generalisability. My argument is that in many cases these criteria are inappropriate for the social sciences, not because the latter is natural science's "poor relation" but because they are fundamentally *different* in character. How so?

LABORATORIES vs REAL WORLD
In the natural sciences artificial, closed environments are created in laboratories. This can not (usually)? be done in social sciences, the 'outside world' is an open system with multifarious potential variables to be measured.? These open systems preclude the discovery of generalised 'laws' which can predict human behaviour across range of circumstances.

WHY WE NEED SOCIAL *AND* NATURAL SCIENCES.
While natural sciences can help us understand the world, we need the social sciences to explain it. The pace of scientific discovery impacts ever more heavily on society, throwing up new questions for politics, religion etc. We need knowledge of the day-to-day language which people use and the personal, prior experiences with which they interpret their world, in order to show us how people come to diverse opinions on such discoveries (e.g. climate change, stem cell research, artificial intelligence). This is an argument made by a diverse range of thinkers such as Wittgenstein, Dilthey, Apel, and Oakeshott.? People do not necessarily come to such opinions by means of a 'rational', scientific process.?

SCIENTIFIC LAWS CAN BE DISPROVED
The world of science is not as 'fixed' as it sometimes appears. Kuhn's groundbreaking Structure of Scientific Revolutions uncovered the social processes inherent in practice of science. The Climategate emails provided a window into some of the less seemly language used by some scientists when discussing their field. Also, scientific results are always, by definition, provisional and waiting to be falsified. Significant assumptions which appear to have strong foundations can be disproved.

STATS IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES
The world of social science's pursuing of scientific credibility has the potential to lead to the use of statistics to provide spurious certainty. How have the figures been calculated? Why have the researchers chosen to measure those variables rather than any others? This is not to repudiate the use of quantitative measures in social sciences; they have an important part to play. But they need to be treated with caution.

CRAVING CERTAINTY IN A CERTAIN WORLD
What I think this comes down to is (wo)man's aversion to uncertainty. The scientific method is seductive in holding out the promise of provable facts upon which we can base our decisions. A treatise in the nature of facts is beyond this post, but I would modestly propose that when the scientist takes off their white coat and leaves the lAb, they walk into a world dominated by uncertainty and unknown unknowns. Atoms are not the same as people, and any attempt to think we can come to know the two worlds in the same way are not doomed because social science is in some way deficient, it's because they are irrevocably different.

Scientific evidence, political argument – some thoughts from the @Policy_Exchange event

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There was a lot to be said for Tuesday's Policy Exchange event, "Communicating Climate Change on the Right", not least that it got a very wide variety of people in one room: green NGOs, sociologists, policy wonks, MPs, journalists, psychologists, climate scientists, investors and a delegation from climate sceptics/deniers (delete according to preference) GWPF. One of the speakers they listened to was Peter Lilley, who described himself as the "grit in the oyster" of the discussion. Lilley was one of only five MPs to vote against the Climate Change Act in 2008 so I will focus on his contribution here, particularly as I presume he is the kind of person the event organisers had in mind.

Lilley used some familiar rhetorical flourishes to express his position. He began by emphasising his scientific background and that he accepted the existence of the greenhouse effect, thus framing his subsequent speech as quite moderate and 'rational'. However, Lilley later went on to, at best, misinterpret recent global temperature data, stating that there has been no increase in the last 15 years. Lilley attempted to establish his scientific credibility through some general views on the greenhouse effect before employing a somewhat dubious reading of the data in order to resist the case for cutting emissions.

Unsurprisingly, many of the people in the room cried foul at this. Fair enough – one could imagine a scientist providing a convincing rebuttal of Lilley's presentation. Indeed, Chris Rapley from the Met Office did just that in the Q&A session (after objecting to the appropriation of the word 'sceptic' by Lilley et al as he felt they were not being sceptical in the scientific sense). What I take from this is that *scientific* evidence is not sufficient to win a *political* argument. While Lilley did say at one point that "Conservatives are rational", couching his objection to the Climate Change Act in terms of cost-benefit analysis, perhaps a more telling line was that "climate change isn't a problem of communication, it is one of conviction and belief".

Speaking before Lilley, psychologist Adam Corner posited that "the climate narrative was infused with the language of the left". Debates often focus on increasing regulation and/or taxation, international agreements and, at the extremes, conspiracy theories of world government. If one has an innate opposition to such policy options then it becomes less likely that evidence, scientific or otherwise, will make much impression on such core beliefs. Of course "scientific evidence" is often used by different groups of people at different times – so while a green NGO may stress the importance of scientific evidence within climate policy, it may be rather more sceptical of evidence from similar sources in the GM crop debate.

One could conclude from this that there are various tribes of people whose different core values are going to determine the weight they give to different 'evidence' that comes their way. Rather than as a counsel of despair, I think this opens up a question that the event sought to pose, but didn't quite get round to addressing on the night: could a more localist 'bottom up' approach be compatible with climate change policy? As Corner highlighted, many on the Right see climate change as an issue of the Left. I would actually go further than this and say that even many who accept the general arguments about the need for action, it is an issue too far removed from their core priorities.

So the key to communicating climate change may be not to talk about climate change at all. Fuel security, cutting fuel poverty, fuel efficiency, households using microgeneration to escape the grip of the Big Six. These are all ideas which may speak to the Right's concerns more than 'climate change'. They should not be seen as a direct substitute – pursuing these aims is very likely to lead to a cut in carbon emissions, but does not amount to the same thing as prioritising the latter. However, as the Hartwell Paper argued in the aftermath of Copenhagen, a more circuitous route to cutting emissions may actually prove more fruitful than one which seems direct, but is in danger of running into the sand.

FURTHER READING FROM THE EVENT

Good perspectives from Damian Carrington (one of the speakers) and Carbon Brief's Ros Donald

LSE's Bob Ward linked to this overview of recent temperature trends, rebutting Lilley's assertion that warming has stopped

We need *less*

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No cuts and a tamborine

Lucky to be attending an event called “Education for the Crisis” at De Montfort University later this month, which seeks to find a way forward for education in light of the crises and disruptions of the early 21st century. Thinking about these ideas, I’ve written down an idea that’s been rattling around my head for a while, essentially how those opposing capitalism and the cuts are overlooking the environmental and resource crises which are intertwined with the degradation of capitalism, and how it’s hard to argue against cuts when we all need to survive with *less* in the future.

This is a rough draft. If the words within it mean anything to you at all, please leave a comment below:

When we think about education and the crisis, we might think about what the former might say about capitalism. When capitalism becomes the subject of discussion, thoughts may turn to the swirl of street protests over the last two years. While some of this action has been unfocused (sometimes, deliberately so), a common thread through much of these actions has been resistance to cuts in services and funding by the Coalition Government. These ideas come together for many on the left, who argue both against the cuts and against capitalism. But this position fails to take into account the environmental and resource aspects of the crisis.

In common with other Western countries, the UK derived its wealth from its position at the forefront of the Industrial Revolution combined with the advantages of colonial power. This wealth came through the use of a disproportionate share of the world’s natural resources, with environmental consequences across space and time. Consequently, the West can afford (once comfortably, now less so) annual welfare budgets which cost more than the total GDP of most countries.

If all the world’s countries consumed resources at the same rates as the West, we would need well in excess of the one planet’s resources we have at our disposal. This implies an urgent need to reduce our own consumption. This in turn implies a reduction in (material) wealth and the tax base, and with them the ability to support the existing scale of the welfare state. We can argue that cuts are uneven and unfair (in particular those aimed at the disabled) or that we could reduce spending in other areas of government (e.g. defence, international development), but if the pie gets smaller then so do the slices within it. To deny this is in fact an acceptance of the West continuing to consume a disproportionate share of natural resources in order to prop up GDP, and with it the welfare state papering over the ever-widening cracks.

As a result the environmental and economic crises throw notions of social justice into sharper focus. Squeezing the total national wealth threatens escalating poverty without more radical redistributive measures. But it also highlights the folly of ‘business-as-usual’ and defending the status quo, no matter what side of the political argument we come from.

What does this mean for education? Well, I think we need to find out. Not because I want to zero in on the welfare state, it is just an example of how the crisis cuts across the old left-right spectrum and needs to challenge our thinking on the institutions cherished within our political traditions. We need to fight for the goals of the present, not to protect the symbols of past struggles…