Queen1973 03.10.2012 02:37 |
Did anyone sewe Brian on the Alan Titchmarsch show...He really argued his point go Brian!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
Bad Seed 03.10.2012 08:47 |
Do you Think??? I thought the farmer argued his point far better than Brian. I certainly side with Brian on the matter but I don't think a lot of neutrals will after seeing that. |
The Real Wizard 03.10.2012 10:32 |
link What a dick the farmer was. Brian would be tried for perjury for citing the only proper unbiased scientific experiment to date? Brian then asks him where bovine TB came from. His response begins with "it MIGHT HAVE come from" when Brian has always supplied the answer based on facts. And his pretense of caring for his cows is laughable. He makes a living off infecting and torturing cows by forced milking. He's unhappy because they died, which means he lost money, full stop. He's looking for any quick fix solution that will appear to result in less money lost for farmers like himself in the future. It's so unbelievably transparent. The other guy was a piece of work too, trying to vilify Brian for not campaigning to decrease the roadkill rate. This tactic of attacking the messenger in favour of having reasonable debate is so predictable in these kinds of discussions. Typical conservatives - ignoring scientific data, spinning, creating their own facts to support their narrow-minded ideological agenda at the expense of whatever stands in their way. But alas, people of science will continue to lose to arguments in much of the public's eye, because most people aren't scientists. They can't relate to spending a month on an experiment purely dedicated to accuracy irrespective to what they wanted the results to be. They can, however, relate to the quick fixes to complex issues that conservatives tend to offer. They are excellent tacticians, masters of the skill of presenting a viewpoint with no basis in reality as if it did. People line up for the kool aid. |
mooghead 03.10.2012 10:41 |
kill zem... kill zem aaaalllllllll |
madmetaltom 04.10.2012 05:18 |
That farmer was a bellend! Get roger to go on with Brian next time! hehe KILL EM ROGER! |
Mr.QueenFan 04.10.2012 09:05 |
Brian did the right thing. You shouldn't argue with this kind of people. Let them sink alone! |
GratefulFan 05.10.2012 00:08 |
Politics and science and fandom certainly make strange and dysfunctional bedfellows. What is it exactly that all you people here in the cheering section are cheering for? If the badger question is at least in part "what is the truth of the matter?" that farmer under all the hot headed bluster and counter productive personal attack is exactly right. Brian does not argue honestly. His reasoning is often fallacious to the point that as much as I'd like to blame it on the well meaning passions of somebody I respect and admire on so many other fronts I am finding it increasingly difficult to believe it's not a deliberate manipulation of a public inclined to his position anyway. The first concepts out of his mouth on the show should make anybody committed to reason based evidence want to crawl into a hole and cover their ears. Who initially gave what to whom (do we even know that for sure? ) and what an infectious agent is named(!) are nothing but history classes in epidemiology once disease becomes endemic in populations. As Brian uses those facts they are red herrings whose main contribution is to transmute a conjured sense of subjective injustice to something meant to feel like an objective scientific argument. It's not. He goes on to say that the primary means of transmission is not badger to cattle, but cattle to cattle , (just one of the many things that he states as categorical truth that are in fact murky at the very least) something that invites a casual listener to think that a focus on badgers might be misplaced. In fact about four seconds thought should tell anybody that unless and until the disease reservoir in the wild is managed it doesn't matter if 20 badgers infect 20 cows or 1 badger infects one cow who infects 19 of his herdmates. Movement controls can have no impact on intra-herd disease. The last thing he gets to before Ben Pullen melodramatically accuses him of perjury is that the best science they have tells them that culling can have no meaningful impact on bovine TB. Not quite. What that science says is that culling as it was conducted in the trials (a very important distinction that farmers are absolutely right to make) is unlikely to have have any meaningful net impact on bovine TB, and may make it worse due the effect of perturbation. It did reduce bovine TB in the epicentre of the culls to a statistically significant degree, a fact that would probably have spurred more science in a less politicized climate. It is unlikely to be coincidence that a bovine TB eradication program in New Zealand unhampered by this kind of politics that is considered world leading and a resounding success found that no method of control worked reliably over the long term until they tackled the wild reservoir in possum with sweeping and vigilant culling. When funding for culling was reduced for a period the incidences in cattle spiked once again and went back down with reinstatement. Long established epidemiological principles tell us that if you eradicate enough cows and badgers that have TB and reduce the infection rate to a critical point the epidemic cannot sustain itself and eradication becomes possible. Brian lists the length of experiment, the cost of the experiment, the number of badgers that were killed, and it's all more misdirection and proof of nothing when it's applied to a broader question that it was ever designed to test. It has been credibly argued as well that the report was misapplied in proposed culling areas where ecological boundaries had the likelihood of dramatically altering perturbation patterns. I'm not even from the UK so a measure of humility on an issue that isn't really mine to wag on about is clearly in order, but I have done a lot of reading and thinking about these things generally and as they relate to Brian nonetheless. My sense is that what a more aggressive cull could contribute is unlikely to ever be known because the real limits are not coming from science, but from politics and changing ethics. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a society rejecting the concept of a cull of the scale that would likely be necessary on grounds of the financial and ethical costs and the indiscriminate loss of healthy wildlife. Nothing wrong and possibly everything right. Nothing wrong at all in an approach that embraces the idea of the UK being a trail blazer in animal ethics and accepting for a longer time the uncertainty that comes with new and untested approaches like large scale vaccination and acknowledging and supporting their farmers through that period. But almost without exception that's not really the conversation that is taking place. People take strident refuge in science that for the time being is frankly used in a way that overstates the evidence both for vaccine and against culling. Too much is abstracted, from sick, dying and dead badgers infected with TB to farmers distilled in the public mind to callous, greedy thugs. Meanwhile, the practical effect is the lives of badgers irrationally traded for the lives of cows as politicians dither. The things that Brian has said about farmers are quite simply terrible. That they don't care about their animals (how the f^&* would he know), that they should just farm something else and, most cruelly I think, that none of it matters because they're compensated anyway. Brian's last album didn't do very well. Maybe he should take up the trumpet. Most of us have jobs and all of us seek some sense of purpose in life. To imply that it is insignificant to throw money after a problem that sees farmers have to watch their herds removed and slaughtered, both the lives of their animals and their work for nothing, lost to a terrible invisible disease, is extraordinarily callous. To not acknowledge that it has to hurtful and frightening to have your work discarded, to make no contribution to society as a result, to feel so at the mercy of this terrible disease and have your livelihood caught in the middle of an emotionally charged cultural maelstrom where the majority seem all too ready to fashion ignorance into arrows and barbs. The most important thing said on that show was that people who genuinely want to know what to think and how to be part of the right solution really cannot. They are victims of a couple of warring factions who have made each other the enemy rather than facing the common enemy of TB. To me people who cheer on Brian May's antics are the TB of good policy, good societies and thoughtfulness. He deserves little but rejection on this issue as he generally conducts it and some of you people really can't kiss his ass often enough or hard enough. Brian among many wonderful things can also be rigid, ego driven and destructively stubborn. As fans we know some of his best musical work came from the push back and tempering force of other band members. Nothing tempers him on this issue. Not rationality, not empathy for other people, not humility, not curiousity and not for the most part the public. I truly don't think anybody is doing him any favours. |
The Real Wizard 05.10.2012 09:49 |
GratefulFan wrote: Nothing tempers him on this issue. Not rationality, not empathy for other people, not humility, not curiousity and not for the most part the public.What could be more rational than citing science as a reason not kill thousands of animals? Curiosity leads one to the scientific process of proving a proposition to be true or untrue by testable measures, which leads to answers. Nobody should be required to be rational or empathetic towards people who do not understand this. The people who are wrong should be the ones searching for a sense of humility instead of a loophole to support their untenable beliefs or desires. If the public doesn't understand this, it doesn't make Brian or science any less right. If Brian has an area to improve upon, it is communicating his message to the public. But he hasn't been doing too badly. When the government tells you to back off, you know you have made a difference. There, I used all your buzz words ! |
The Real Wizard 05.10.2012 09:50 |
GratefulFan wrote: His reasoning is often fallacious to the point that as much as I'd like to blame it on the well meaning passions of somebody I respect and admire on so many other fronts I am finding it increasingly difficult to believe it's not a deliberate manipulation of a public inclined to his position anyway.You just find it inconvenient because you eat meat. It challenges something you cherish. So it's easier to attack the messenger instead of listening to the message, because you potentially have something to lose - even if animals have something to gain. There is no longer a rational argument in favour of the idea that eating animal products is superior to alternatives that are currently in place. We possess self-realization and therefore the ability to make better choices to minimize the negative effects our lives have on other creatures. The loudest voices against this kind of idea come from the meat and dairy industries. I wonder why? The latest piece of propaganda is that soy lowers one's testosterone levels. In our lifetime, we can expect the propaganda to come from much powerful places, similarly to cigarette companies in the 60s and oil companies today. Treating animals with respect is the next major cultural hump we need to get over. Women, blacks, gays, animals. Society progresses. Please don't stand in the way. |
GratefulFan 10.10.2012 12:38 |
The Real Wizard wrote: What could be more rational than citing science as a reason not kill thousands of animals? Curiosity leads one to the scientific process of proving a proposition to be true or untrue by testable measures, which leads to answers. Nobody should be required to be rational or empathetic towards people who do not understand this. The people who are wrong should be the ones searching for a sense of humility instead of a loophole to support their untenable beliefs or desires. If the public doesn't understand this, it doesn't make Brian or science any less right. If Brian has an area to improve upon, it is communicating his message to the public. But he hasn't been doing too badly. When the government tells you to back off, you know you have made a difference. There, I used all your buzz words !Being considered rational and right is something that should be earned, don't you think? Brian's positions are not scientific, they are subjective ethical positions that he selectively hitches to objective data when it serves him, and only when it serves him. If the science around culling was expanded, and the independent criticisms of aspects of the original researchresulted in further work and new findings that supported culling as part of a multi pronged approach to eradicating bovine TB, would Brian reluctantly embrace it and look forward to when both badgers and cows could be healthier and safter as a group? No, he'd be ranging all over it decrying "pandering" and "stupidity" and "bloodlust" and all manner of other thoroughly unscientific concepts as he always does. He uses some science in a limited way to support his positions and sidesteps it all together when it doesn't serve his goals. Just a few days ago he was on his Soapbox mocking farmers for what he represented as late game desperate propaganda regarding declining hedgehog populations relating to badger predation and domination of food resources. Had they suddenly become "peanut-flavoured" har har har? One could certainly conclude from his words that badgers don't eat hedgehogs at all, let alone affect their wider circumstance. He unilaterally declared humans and poison to be solely responsible, all delivered with the weary air of somebody forced to suffer fools. He didn't provide any link to what he was even talking about with regard to these farmer claims, so I dug in a little, as I always do. Turns out these are not new concerns but ones that date back at least five years with scientific research appearing on both the DEFRA site and resurfacing again a couple of years after in a separate study independently conducted by a researcher at a UK university that confirmed that there is a clear correlation between badger populations and the presense of hedgehogs, or lack thereof, and that the pressures on the hedgehogs likely include badger predation and competition for resources. You know, science. No need for reeses pieces theories and weary mocking. But one would never know that if you just listened to Brian May, and even then listened only around the edges, presumably because his positions are appealling to many of us who want to be responsible and compassionate people. He argues this way all.the.time. It's dishonest. The blatentness of it all still shocks me sometimes, even though I'm well used to it by now. Humility is required to understand that each of us has a set of experiences and knowledge that is by definition limited. Anybody who has to ask why good judgement requires clear empathy understands neither its meaning nor purpose in my opinion. On this issue Brian lacks humility in buckets, and has only very narrow and selective empathy. Fine for yapping at a local pub and setting a grubby new low in fairness and honesty in argumentation, terrible for guiding public policy |
The Real Wizard 10.10.2012 12:43 |
GratefulFan wrote: If the science around culling was expanded, and the independent criticisms of aspects of the original research resulted in further work and new findings that supported culling as part of a multi pronged approach to eradicating bovine TB, would Brian reluctantly embrace it and look forward to when both badgers and cows could be healthier and safter as a group? No, he'd be ranging all over it decrying "pandering" and "stupidity" and "bloodlust" and all manner of other thoroughly unscientific concepts as he always does.Projecting your preconceived notions onto others says more about you than it does about them. Brian may be passionate about this cause, but being a man of science means data always trumps ideology. So why not put your theory to the test? Email him and send him the link to the study you mentioned. Maybe his position will evolve with the information presented to him. |
GratefulFan 10.10.2012 15:56 |
The Real Wizard wrote: Projecting your preconceived notions onto others says more about you than it does about them. Brian may be passionate about this cause, but being a man of science means data always trumps ideology. So why not put your theory to the test? Email him and send him the link to the study you mentioned. Maybe his position will evolve with the information presented to him.What does it say about me Bob? I've consumed close to everything he's written and said on this issue. I've observed him and his arguments closely on this for years. Can you say the same thing? There's nothing preconceived. He does not "use" science consistently or honestly. That's an observation, not a notion. The fact that I had to go back about 3 days on his Soapbox to find an example of it for you might make an objective person more concerned about it's likely use as a general tactic, which is in fact the truth of the matter. I have addressed Brian directly about all this stuff, several times, though not for about a year. It would have made me fell a bit small to criticize him only here, and not where it might count and take a bit of courage. I posted both to his old Facebook page that collapsed under the weight of it's own insanity and several times as well to his SaveMe forum, which he's also moved on from. QZ member Cacatua could confirm all that if anybody doubts it. I did it with honesty, love and respect. And lots of words! And much hope. But it was hopeless, so I stopped. I also stopped writing to him on his Soapbox on other matters, because on both occasions that I did he wrote me back kindly and graciously, and because I couldn't be sure whether he was in a position to know that I was a vocal critic of his animal rights approaches I thought he should not be put in the position of being unknowingly kind to someone who was on QZ ragging on him. That is my compromise in lieu of writing him directly on these issues because I have over time come to a position of having no faith in his ability to be fair, reasonable or honest. I tried to have some integrity. He so rarely does that I don't feel I owe him my name or my thoughts given his increasing militancy and treatment of others on his one way Soapbox propaganda people abuse machine. Does Brian not have Google at his house? How often would you have some woman from Canada personally challenge his approach and his facts on a UK issue? Isn't it him up with the billboard, fist pump and all, representing himself as an expert on the subject, mocking (again) those who say he's ill informed? He is ill informed. Because he doesn't really want information, he wants an outcome. He's not just "passionate". I'm passionate. He's lost the feckin' (see how I did that there?) plot. Why don't you follow what he says as closely as I do, put it to the test against other information out there, along with reasonable standards of discussion and decent treatment of other people, and you take it up with him? You're the one who thinks he's the bees knees on this issue. |