Doomsday Again

Doomsday cults have, of course, been around for a very long time. Historically, they have been relatively isolated, resulting the deaths of just a few hundred people at a time such as in the Jonestown massacre. But it may well be that the globalisation of issues of news and current affairs brings with it the danger that these cults might be capable of growing into something much more widespread.

I came across this interesting passage in Wikipedia this week:

Doomsday cult is an expression used to describe cults that believe in apocalypticism and millenarianism and can refer both to groups that predict disaster and those that attempt to bring it about to destroy the entirety of the universe.^[1] The expression was first used by sociologist John Lofland in his 1966 study of a group of members of the Unification Church of the United States, Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith. A classic study of a group with cataclysmic predictions had previously been performed by Leon Festinger and other researchers, and was published in his book When Prophecy Fails: A Social and Psychological Study of a Modern Group That Predicted the Destruction of the World.^[2][3]

Referring to his study, Festinger and later other researchers have attempted to explain the commitment of members to their associated doomsday cult, even after the prophecies of their leader have turned out to be false. Festinger explained this phenomenon as part of a coping mechanism called dissonance reduction, a form of rationalization. Members often dedicate themselves with renewed vigor to the group’s cause after a failed prophecy, and rationalize with explanations such as a belief that their actions forestalled the disaster, or a belief in the leader when the date for disaster is postponed.

I had to read this twice to check that Professor Lofland was talking about members of the Unification Church in California in the 1960s, and not the swathes of people still banging on about

Jacinda’s Belly

Adern with her Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta

If you are a Communist, or even just a fellow traveller, you might well applaud New Zealand’s increasing moves away from Western alliances, and into the arms of Communist China.  But if your political views are more moderate, you might well be starting to worry that New Zealand will end up on the wrong side in what increasingly looks like the next major international conflict.

It should not have been too hard to predict. New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Adern, is a former president of the International Union of Socialist Youth, the successor organisation to Young Communist International.[1] No wonder she has signed New Zealand up to China’s Belt and Roads programme. She is apparently happy to present New Zealand to China as the “soft underbelly” of Western alliances.

For the time being, New Zealand remains a member of the Five Eyes security alliance[2]. But it is doubtful that that membership can last for long: the other members of the alliance are bound to be concerned that New Zealand will promptly pass on any intelligence shared with it to China.

Jack is as Good as his Master

I wonder how many people call their baby Jack not realising that Jack is a diminutive for John.

Or how many people call their son Shawn not knowing that that is how Sean is pronounced.

Presumably, Meagan Markle knows that Harry is a diminutive for Henry, and called her baby Archie because she wanted to make sure that he would never to be able to walk with his head held high among the British upper classes with a name like Archibald.

Getting Carried Away

It is probably unfair to blame Carrie Symonds for the hot water that the Prime Minister has got himself into, concerning the funds used to refurbish the prime ministerial flat at 10 Downing Street. She has had her life turned upside down, and as the Prime Minister’s partner is no doubt subject to restrictions on her freedom that many of us would find intolerable. These restrictions must be particularly burdensome to a young mother bringing up a new baby in a city apartment.

And even worse to have to do this in an environment so damaging to the spirit. I have never been inside the flat at number 10, but the number of people have remarked on how dowdy it is, and how Boris Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa May, made even worse with her suburban John Lewis furnishings. The Daily Mail’s captions suggest they are right.

When Carrie Symmonds moved in, no wonder she  wanted to change the curtains!

And very probably, it is in the public good that the place be improved. The job of Prime Minister is an extraordinarily demanding and stressful one, and the odds of bad decisions surely get worse if the Prime Minister has return to a ghastly depressing flat after a busy day. And a bit of public expenditure in that regard is hardly outrageous. Our neighbours, such as the French, spend far more on providing a bit of luxury for their leaders.

But it has not been done well.  Carrie Symmonds was largely instrumental in getting rid

How Science Gets Turned into Doom Porn

This is a really interesting piece of research. Look at this picture: what is going on here?

It happens to be about whether drugs intended to alleviate depression actually work.

The left-hand column shows the trials. Pretty evenly balanced. About half of the trials show that the drugs work (green) and about half of them show that they don’t (red).

The next column shows which of the studies gets published. Pretty much all of the green ones get published, but only about half of the red ones. So if you look at what gets published, instead of the actual research, you’re already getting a pretty distorted picture.

The next column Shows how the published studies are reported. Interestingly, even some of the studies showing that the drugs don’t work get reported as if they do work. And only about half of the published studies showing that the drugs do not work get reported.

The next column shows the spin. Hardly any of the negative studies are now highlighted, but pretty much all of the positive studies gets spun upwards (including the ones that are actually negative!).

The final column on the right shows which of the studies are cited in other studies. Again, the -ones get a very raw deal indeed.

So, when people talk about “the science”, which column they talking about? Unhappily, the picture which emerges is that people who are not scientists, and even unhappily quite a few who are, don’t look at the actual data. They look at the spin, and the citations. Which isn’t really very accurate at all.

Bat & Trap

For the purpose of my younger daughter’s recent party at The Phenelry I dug out my bat and trap set that I made a while ago. I have to admit that it is somewhat agricultural in construction, but then again a really refined bat and trap set would not be right. Not right at all.

Happily, my daughter’s friends thought it was all a bit of a hoot, and enjoyed the game.

Quite right too.  I’m very proud of having been, when an undergraduate, a member of my university’s bat and trap team. We played in the local Kentish league.

For those who don’t know, bat and trap is a particularly Kentish game. It is related to cricket, but differs in a number of respects:

• it is ordinarily played in a pub garden, not on cricket pitch;
• there are 8 players per team, not 11;
• the batsman is not permitted to interfere with the process of bowling;
• by and large, the fielding team is not permitted to interfere with the process of batting save, occasionally, to catch the batsman out.

All this has the very admirable consequence that at any one time, 15 of the 16 players can be enjoying a beer, or whatever else they are drinking, without too much interference.