After many struggles and changes of policy over trans issues, the Government has now published its draft for consultation of the ‘Non-statutory guidance for schools and colleges in England over Gender Questioning Children‘. “Draft”, “consultation”, “non-statutory” and “guidance” are all politicians’ words, indicating that the Government doesn’t really want to tackle trans issues. It is not only the Labour party that dare not say what a woman is: the same question resulted in Rishi Sunak sounding like an inarticulate fool. One must remember that only a few years ago, steered by Maria Miller, our Conservative Government was charging ahead with gender self-identification.
The muddle in Government over what it prefers to call ‘gender questioning’ is of particular relevance to schools, where the lives of headteachers are currently being made impossible by repeated conflict between two ideological groups with completely different views about what defines a man or a woman. On the one hand there is the quiet majority of staff, pupils and parents who take the traditional line that basic biology defines whether a child is a boy or a girl. This group would, for instance, require biological girls to be referred to as girls, expect girls’ schools to contain biological girls only and allow biological girls alone to make use of girls’ toilets, changing rooms and girls’ sports.
On the other hand there is a vociferous and aggressive minority with, in the words of the guidance, views of “gender identity ideology, the belief that a person can have a ‘gender’ that is different to their biological sex”. Such views are linked to “a significant increase in the number of children questioning the way they feel about being a boy or a girl”. In practice this ideology would allow children to make their own choice as to what sex, what mixture of sex, or what absence of sex they might wish to have and go to whichever sex of school, facility or activity they wished. Such children often request that they be treated as if they are of a different sex from their biology, a process “often referred to as social transitioning”. Such social transitioning has led along the pathway to puberty blockers, often followed by surgical intervention to make a girl’s body look like a boy’s, or vice versa.
The conflict of these two ideologies has led to chaos within schools. Teachers have been sacked for ‘misgendering’ pupils, i.e., calling a biological girl a girl. A teaching assistant was sacked for sharing two Facebook posts that raised concern about transgenderism. A Church of England primary school allowed a four-year-old boy to join a Church of England school as a girl, causing consternation among his friends when they found out and he waved his willy about. Such is the potential for conflict and censure that no headteacher dare make clear decisions over such issues: they do their best to duck responsibility knowing that, whatever side they take, they will be attacked by the other. The guidance is kind enough to say that it appreciates “how daunting this is for school and college staff”.
On the surface, the solution to this conflict is a simple and obvious function of management: if diametrically opposite views exist over an issue, those in charge need to make a clear ruling. Over the same transgender issue in the NHS, where there was equal conflict over treatment options, NHS England has recently decided that “puberty suppressing hormones… are not recommended to be available… for gender incongruence”. It would seem straightforward for the Department for Education to send out an edict endorsing the traditional view of sex or that of gender identity ideology.
Instead, like Rishi Sunak’s spluttering over the question, the DfE has ducked its responsibility. Its advice consists of five principles. Three are truisms about having legal duties and being kind to kids. The one positive statement is that “Parents should not be excluded from decisions” about their children. Who could demur? But on the key issue of whether a boy can ‘become’ a girl, or vice versa, all the DfE can state is: “There is no general duty to allow a child to ‘social transition’.”
This guidance is at the consultation stage. As usual with consultation, the questions are inane: “Does this guidance provide practical advice to support schools and colleges to meet their duties effectively?”
The admirable and sensible Transgender Trend, in its own consultation response, answers this question perfectly in a single word: “No.” It is absolutely right. Schools are left to set their own policy and, whatever line they take, are left alone to carry the can.
Why, we may ask, is the Government, or its arm in education, the DfE, so reluctant to rule against gender identity ideology? Again the answer is simple. The Equality Act 2010, so foolishly nodded through by Conservatives before the 2010 election, specifies that “gender reassignment” is a “protected characteristic” and that treating adversely in almost any way someone with gender reassignment, for instance a girl who wants to be treated as a boy, is defined by the Equality Act as an offence.
This Conservative Government has been hoist with its own petard. The foolishly ill-considered Equality Act, so apparently beneficial because it embodies sentiments of kindness to all mankind, is so vague that it could mean anything and an attempt to rule that children must not be treated as though they were able to change sex would be subject by special interest groups to legal challenges lasting for years. It means that only a politician braver than our Prime Minister would dare to define what a woman is, but no minister would dare to back a headteacher who attempted to implement such a decision.
And so we come to the attempts to define extremism. Here we will find that, in the same way that the Equality Act stands in the way of taking any sort of decision over the trans issue, it will make it just as difficult to decide what is an extremist. Many of those who strongly differ over U.K. policy on Palestine will be of non-European ethnicity, Muslim and believe in a different world order. Having the protected characteristics of race, religion and belief, they will be defended by the Equality Act. Small wonder that Michael Gove has called for the Equality Act to be “revisited”.
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“Through the lens of good science”
There, ladies and gentlemen, is the fallacy at the heart of the problem.
Science knows nothing of our “lenses”. It knows nothing of “good” or “bad”.
Science is a culture of doubt, of constant questioning and challenging.
If you make an assertion, you must prove it, and if anything arises which disproves it, you must start all over again.
Kids, it’s called the Scientific Method, and your teachers have forgotten all about it, never mind what it means.
Modelling is to a great extent conjecture/guesswork based on debateable assumptions – it is not science. And evidence alone will prove the model. So if policy is going to be based on modelling, the ‘track-record’ of climate models needs to be examined. To date it hasn’t been that good.
Yes, the modellers have been brilliant at selecting only the evidence which fits their models.
Modelling is very similar to budgeting, especially in government and institutions. It’s often way out, and eventually some empiricism has to bear, which usually results in radical change, accompanied by the excuses of “adaptations”, “when the facts change….” etc.
Forecasting is very difficult – especially about the future
True science is based in scepticism, when all the sceptics questions have been satisfactorily answered then you the truth.
Shortly after Einstein published the Theory of Relativity there was a counter publication called “100 scientists against Einstein”, Einstein’s reply was they only needed 1 to prove me wrong. That’s true science and as you say the Scientific Method has been forgotten, which politicians have cheapened to worthless.
“Science knows nothing of our ‘lenses’. It knows nothing of ‘good’ or ‘bad’.”
That god of yours sounds a bit dim, a bit one-sided. You realise the god “Science” was human-created, right, only about 400 years ago?
Does he have a sister? She might be more sussed, rounded, and altogether more interesting.
I used a capital S because it was at the start of the sentence
The Scientific Method, on the other hand, is our way of making sense of the world around us, and is indeed a product of our minds. It is not a god, no.
But yes, Mrs MAk is altogether rather more rounded
You can’t prove a hypothesis, only disprove it.
Science, for me, is a set of hypotheses awaiting falsification.
<blockquote>members voices can still be heard, but through the lens of good science</blockquote>
What sort of scientist advocates specacles to the hard of hearing? She means, of course, “through the <b>filter</b> of good science” which is a more accurate and more sinister metaphor.
It’s clear now, the danger isn’t sea level rise but of drowning in insidious corporate propaganda.
I’m a human-induced climate change denier but Chris Morrison surely agrees that the trend of temperatures in the graph has been upward since about 2007. We can accept this without neurotically rushing to blame human-caused CO2; there maybe benign natural causes which might become clearer if we spent more time coolly looking at longer term temperature trends.
We’re talking about an increase of just 0.5C over forty years. And that’s before we take into account the weaknesses in the way the data are gathered.
If you extend the X axis back a few “climate cycles” to include ice ages and warm periods, the line for the last forty years is but a moment and it’s flat. Flat.
Agreed.
And that’s an increase from a particularly cold decade (1970s).
I started looking at temperature data to write a chapter in a book on climate modelling. I eventually realised there is nothing I could say about the temperature data except it was utterly $*&!
It is manipulated in so many ways and at so many levels, that the end result is meaningless. It is impossible to draw any conclusion from the data … except that it is impossible to draw any conclusion from the data.
Mike right as usual.
One question I ask of the cultists, and have yet to get an answer :
‘What is the “correct” temperature of this world’
And, more importantly, what is the correct proportion of CO2 in the atmosphere? Then watch and listen to them flounder.
Ask them if they’ve ever heard of Rubisco. That should get them.
I’m highly sceptical of the IPCC position on climate change. I think the science shows that most, if not all, of the recent warming is natural and even another degree or so of warming would have far more positive effects than negative.
However it simply isn’t true that global warming ran out of steam recently. Yes there has been roughly 7.5 years without any warming, however there have been similar or longer periods in the last 40 years with a pause in warming. Taking longer term trends e.g. 20 years, the current rate of warming is more or less the same as it was at the end of the 20th centuary.
http://www.ysbl.york.ac.uk/~cowtan/applets/trend.html
This allows you to see the trend over any time period (since instrumental records started) for a variety of data sets.
I’m writing this in a spirit of friendship since I think it’s important that climate sceptics get the facts right so they can’t be ridiculed by alarmists.
Yes Matt it is the small, sometimes adjusted nature, of the temperature record that is the problem. MikeHassler’s comment above is very relevant.
Examples of 90 year old data being updated to fit the narrative abound. A new version of the record comes out every few years and look see, I told you 2010 was warmer than 1998, so I made it so in the new version. In one case from the 1930s some data from the handful of Arctic stations was deemed too hot ( narrative fit problem ) so plus 4c was simply altered to minus 4c.
The datasets are meaningless and in some cases the raw data has been “lost” altogether. We often have hottest year evah announced with the increase well within the error bars of the data. Hundredths of a degree rise in data only read to 0.1.
Matt,
Why not have a look at the Central English Temperature Record, or better still The Armagh Observatory
The planet may well be warming. That is not really in dispute. It has been since then end of the Little Ice Age. What is or should be in dispute is that it has anything to do with CO2.
And also, whether the warming is beneficial or not.
Yes Ross it is because an ice ended thousands of years ago.
What concerns me is we are due another one. Ain’t nature a bugger
The sequence of glaciations and inter-glacial warm periods in the Pleistocene Ice Age in which we are living falls in line with the Milankovitch Cycles. It was on the 41,000 year cycle but switched to the 100,000 year cycle about a million years and a few glaciations ago. It may switch back. The next glaciation will be along in about 85,000 years or 15,000 years depending on which cycle dominates. In the meantime, enjoy the sun-bathing.
Only if you agree that it’s been downwards since about 2016….
Here you go people. Get informed “through the lens of” websites like this. Enough to make your eyes water and weep!
https://www.geoengineeringwatch.org/
98% of Good Scientists agree that hurricanes are caused by not tithing enough to the Church of Good Science.
This fact cannot be disproven using Good Science. All who question it are therefore not Good Scientists, and will be excommunicated.
Shameful from the BHS. Shameful.
The problem is Neil that you don’t get to be in these posts if you are not a believer.
Try applying to be CE of the Met Office telling them you want to do more balanced science. The only word you would hear would be “next”.
Follow the money.
Same as it ever was.
‘Good science’ is that which reflects the views of the publishing institution’s seniors and grantors of research funds, i.e. it is driven by money, and by sanctimonious ideology (which as it happens, is almost always driven by money and ‘prestige’too).
‘Normal science’ is that which is based on the study of facts.
I think that Hayley Fowler twists facts to the detriment of anything that contradicts her ideology……..and therefore her earning capacity and ability to rub shoulders in high places.
The extent of public psychological manipulation is so extreme now that we’re not far off living like the Truman Show.
We ARE in the Truman Show. Now!
Is it not possible, with so many individual minds connected, to ignore these people and do whatever is necessary to progress in a forward rather than backward direction?
I propose a new political party, named simply The Sceptic Party.
It’ll never work, though. We’d wouldn’t agree on much… because we’re mostly scientific in nature.
I’m not confident political parties ever achieve anything useful, they appear to be rubber stampers. Added them to my ignore list.
Exactly. The people who would perhaps deserve the power don’t want it.
I know I don’t want it
All political parties eventually succumb to groupthink.
“rubber stampers” – is that a euphemism?
Yes I have always thought that anyone wanting to be a politician should be barred from the process.
I think we could agree on keeping government as small as possible. After that there ought not to be too many decisions to disagree about.
Exactly. I mean, just how many MPs does our country need? Six hundred plus, really?!
You would think….
Like all the ramifications and issues relating to Covid, the danger comes when theoretical projections provide the basis of legislation, or define the stance of particular organisations, while the media presentations rely on throw-away lines and virtue-signalling in reporting.
Absolutely, it’s the way they assert their ideology, because they know damn well that their ideology is based on emotion not logic…….it is therefore profoundly dishonest, and its purveyors are working on the presumption, ‘tell a big enough lie for long enough and it comes the truth’.
‘Through the lens of good science’…….
…….a great book title for Matt Ridley or James Delingpole if ever there was one.
More like “The Backwards Telescope”.
Roman Theological Society (BTS) Pope, Professor of Theological Impacts at Cathedral , subsequently explained that the paper was “a heretical view from one of our membership that geocentrism was not a real phenomenon”. Xe went on to say: “We do not think it is appropriate to provide them with a forum under the cross.” S
Censorship, and all the evils that arise from it. Nothing more, nothing less, and those who presume to call themselves “scientists” are unworthy of the title, and stand shamed for their cowardice and groupthink.
As I’ve been saying, a New Dark Age…
BUUUURN THE WITCH!
Which one?
It’s a very long list…
Well with the catastrophic imminent devestating rise in sea levels forecast by The Science, we could use the tried and tested method.
The witches who drown are witches and the one who float are witches.
There problem solved)
Radiohead.
The problems of science are compounded by the worship of it by those who do not understand, because they have not been taught what science is.
Serious, genuine scientists do not make grandstanding predictions. They speak cautiously, with a wariness that annoys the media.
So the media honours show-ponies with a sense of drama and occasion. The more prone you are to grand declarations, the less you are a scientist – and the more media attention you will receive.
It’s not only cowardice and groupthink we have to consider, but the desire to be part of a celebrity culture which rewards with attention and funding.
Spelling error: you must have meant President Hayley Fauscist.
There are some real nutters in the BHS … no interest whatsoever in the science … just green nutters.
Most of the professional bodies are like that now
Yes, and their autosignatures feature their chosen pronouns.
Wonder how much these people and organisations make from their ‘climate change’ stance. Wonder what the view would be if the funding was withdrawn.
Science is dead.
I’m waiting for the “New” maths with flexible answers; 2 + 2 is 4 or 5 or 3 depending on your race, sexuality, gender and how many social credits you have. At least it will spend the end of technology used to subdue us.
I’m so useless at maths, 2 + 2 = 5
Don’t worry. Crap with maths? You must have dyscalculia. For you 2+2=5 scores full marks. The career adviser suggests you would make an excellent aeronautics engineer.
The good news is that the climate has not gone haywire and as per the predictions of the past 30 years. The bad news is the doom-mongers and climate zealots still retain the narrative – largely unchallenged in the mainstream media.
Someone, somehow, needs to get one of modellers in court and forensically examine his modelling methods and the ‘climate science’ behind the need for the models.
It is quite clear that actual, real-life, irrefutable climate data and information, is totally ignored by those with particular interests to further.
The climate zealots are doing very nicely, thank you…
With a reported net worth of $1 million, Great Thunberg is the world’s youngest and wealthiest climate activist.
$1 Million. Is that all. Surely that rates as abject failure.
You sure it’s not a way of paying for the “services” of her “model” mum?
Not completely off-topic: those who welcomed the installation in their home of “smart” gas meters may soon start thinking differently when mains gas gets rationed – especially if their home is poorly insulated.
Does someone here know the details of the gas rationing plans in Germany? I’m assuming the authorities won’t limit themselves to turning the supply of mains gas to whole towns off and on, and off and on again, as happens with domestic electricity during organised power cuts. The epoch we entered in March 2020 suggests a finer-grained control will be sought, with of course a hate campaign against those who try to circumvent it…
…and against those who point out the causes and consequences.
Goebbels advocated “guns before butter”. His successors in the German state are openly preparing to ration the supply of domestic gas rather than reverse their policy on sending weapons to the Ukraine for the government in Kiev to use in its war against Russia. That’s guns before warmth.
Globo-totalitarianism and the “split” totalitarianism of war are going hand in hand…
““We do not think it is appropriate to provide them with a forum under the BHS logo.””
This would never have happened under Sir Philip Green.
Off topic but just saw this shocker…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60927032.amp
Dyson’s new headphones with built in air-purifying face muzzle. Please someone tell me it is an early April Fools’ Day. The article explicitly says it isn’t but please, it has to be. It’s just too much now. The first time I see someone wearing these, I swear I will take them and stamp on them.
It has to be a joke, doesn’t it? In the times where it is hard to distinguish the Babylon Bee from the BBC, you just never know. Either way, after two years of torturing people with muzzles, this joke is in bad taste, and even if it is a joke, I bet a large number of morons would pay Dyson prices for it.
“We don’t expect them to be cheap,” O’Boyle added.
Excellent. I hope Dyson completely fleeces as many mask morons as possible. I would charge them an absolute fortune. Stupidity on that scale needs to be exploited and impoverished. Plus it would make the sight of anyone wearing them even more hilarious. It’s a win-win.
It was in the Telegraph on the 30th. I thought it was early in error.
I still think there must be a large element of Potentate’s Garments in Climate Science. Many must know it isn’t happening as advertised (same as Covid) but are just hoping to keep the sinecure going long enough to reach retirement.
I saw a comment elsewhere recently suggesting that Climate Change is now too big to fail and I fear that could be true. If you recruit only in your own image for 30 years you don’t get any science at all. Every institution now has a climate expert and most just regurgitate from a hymn sheet in the same manner as the agricultural journo mentioned by James Dent.
I see the satellite temp data has been falling since 2016 and is now about the 30 year average.
Any substantial man-made climate change remains a theory and heavily fudged models of half the system. Climate models think there are no changes in the Sun’s output that effect our weather and climate – despite 100’s of scientific papers to the contrary.
The government now knows that Covid modelling was very poor and they should consider that Climate is at least a couple of orders of magnitude more difficult.
anyone else shudder when they read that?
Blairs 5th column and 4th estate in full effect.
we need a government that is willing to dismantle Blair’s legacy and demand proper evidenced data when these people make these claims, I want to see for and against evidence with reasons to those conclusions.
we also need a media that challenges these things, if they are correct they will stand up to scrutiny, that is how science works.
Many of those campaigning for zero carbon are wealthy landowners who benefit from subsidies for wind and solar power, or have interests in green companies – the subsidies are paid for by the working and middle classes. This was even in the Guardian a few years ago. Zac Goldsmith did not declare family interest in green grant cuts | Zac Goldsmith | The Guardian
NUT ZERO
The Nut Zero cultists
Wish to put us back in caves
By destroying grown up energy
Make us New World Order slaves;
They want to limit plant food
Yet we must lives on greens
They’ll ban God Given protein
But feed us on vaccines.
Voltiacs and windmills
We know only work part time
They need fossil fuelled back up
To Deny this is a crime;
It is time to get afracking
And digging up more coal
We have plenty carbon energy
What swe own we can control.
Patrick Healy
This should please the climate lobby (zealots)
British scientists have invented “Eco-Plastic”, this material is 100% environmentally friendly, it uses none of the vast quantities of energy, water, chemicals and trees that produce cardboard.
Secretary of State for the Environment – George Eustice said the invention would be a game-changer in the way packaging would be used. From November 1st 2022 all packaging must be made of this new material. The Government will be providing £250 Million to kickstart this revolution. The campaign will be called “Fantastic Plastic” and will extol the virtues of this new material.
The new material can be recycled, reused for years making it a win, win for the climate, environment and the Nation.
Further details can be obtained from :
The Rt Hon George Eustice MP
DEFRA
Seacole Building
2 Marsham Street
London
SW14DF
Seacole Building? What was its previous name?
It’s not April the first by any chance? My – how the time flies.
At last someone with common sense willing to speak out. Long may he be allowed to do so.
So many emperors, so few clothes.
Speaking of politicians (how useless they are)
Last night on Farrage on GB News, he was going on about the shale wells in Lancashire not now being capped.
He then got some deranged Global Warming Cultist on to argue for their capping and sending us all back to live in caves, by demanding we only persue Unreliables.
Then to ‘cap it all’ he interviewed an alleged Tory MP, with an Italtian name I cannot remember, representing the Black Country (is that still allowed?) who said he hoped that his children, grandchildren and their children could live in a ‘carbon free’ world or some such crap.
First of all, I presume he was talking about plant food and not coal which his constituncy is floating upon, and to think this is how Tory politicians think, it shows there is no hope for our future. He is the first, and I would think the last, Tory MP for that constituency since Herod reigned.
Additionally, and I know I keep beating this horse, why in hell does Nigel and the other sane presenters have to get idiots like these two on air, and not get som real scientists to put the case for reason?
So people can see they’re idiots and take to the other side of the argument?
‘ Humans are part of nature and have probably had some effect, likely very small, on the atmosphere. ‘
‘Likely very small’, that may not pass the scientific test. Opinion.
‘no credible data that could be falsified is available‘
Eh? Are you talking about some sort of null hypothesis? Confusing.
‘Forecasts of future warming come from unreliable computer models.‘
Yes, of course, we’d only want to use the unreliable ones.
Basically this article is a rant, I don’t mean Mr Dent. It is not unreasonable, given the significant rise on pollution over the last 300 years, to assume a noticeable detrimental effect on the atmosphere and the environment in general. To not consider this is to pretty much tar yourselves with the same brush that your hope to apply to your targets.
These academic maniacs don’t want to examine “facts” and “evidence”. They can’t handle the truth. Or rather it is an inconvenient truth which whacks a massive spanner in the works of their political agenda. Factards!!
It would help if the general population realised what 500 parts per million of CO2 actually represent as the proprtion of our atmosphere and what proprtion of our atmosphere a 4% increase of that means. Carbon is a basic element of life and the slight increase of CO2 has helped plant growth and fed those who would be hungty without it.