Great Apes?

Year on year I find that candidates for the technical building services qualifications I deliver are less and less able to learn without chopping up the subject matter into bite-sized chunks. And of course, once you start cutting up their meat for them, they want it guided on demand into their reluctantly waiting mouths. How soon before we also have to chew it for them?

Yesterday, however, I had the rare experience of assessing two candidates for their inspection and testing practical task who were entirely competent. They did the work efficiently, sensibly and without fuss and demonstrated a thorough grasp of the reason behind every part of the process. Proceeding to fault finding they both also showed an excellent understanding and were able to explain their processes clearly and propose good, practical rectification procedures.

It is a shame, therefore, that they end up with only the same recorded attainment as those who rely entirely on rote-learned procedures and regurgitated stock phrases which, while providing a workaday route to completing the qualification, hardly inspire confidence. Some fully-qualified electricians are more equal than other fully-qualified electricians.

And just as in the broader world of education the poorly educated become the educators, looking for ways to make their lives easier. Every time assessments are reviewed and revised the apparent aim is to make attainment easier; the tail always wags the dogs as with any bureaucracy. Rigour disappeared a long time ago under a tidal wave of requirements to de-colonise curricula, increase whatever diversity is actually supposed to mean, and of course, to ‘leave nobody behind’.

Imagine my dismay, then, on finding that examination boards in the UK are looking at ways of examining GCSE and A-Level qualifications online. Worse, they are considering adaptive testing, whereby a less able student is given an assessment more suited to their level. Where does this end up, with everybody being awarded an A* for every subject? As we say here, we can explain it to you, but we can’t understand it for you.

For many, the thirst for knowledge just isn’t there. The school experience has prepared them for a life of having everything explained by others and carrying out work tasks in a perfunctory manner, much as in the old Soviet system – “we pretend to work, you pretend to pay us”. Few, in my experience, even see the value in reading. And we let these people vote, drive vehicles and procreate (not necessarily at the same time).

Worker's play time

I scan the horizon, but I can’t see any signs of hope, I really can’t. Each iteration of Homo sapiens appears to tend further towards Homo incognitans. Maybe it’s a good thing. At some future point when humans have lost the ability to reason, to communicate, to even use basic tools, maybe we will be less of a risk to the planet and we can revert back to being packs of hunter-gathering primates and learn to amble along on our knuckles again. I suspect we will be happier for it.

Save the Pale!

We go to great lengths to preserve wildlife habitats. Interfering with nature, we are told, is an abomination which must be avoided; we have no right to interfere with the way animals live their lives. I’ve always thought it a little odd that while we build tunnels for migrating toads and withhold planning consent to save some rare flower that nobody has ever heard of we have no such reservations when it comes to experimenting with our own species. I have long held the view that if you really want to understand humanity you need look no further than Sir David Attenborough’s life work.

In the main, animals only want to avoid conflict, to eat to survive, survive to breed and in breeding to pass on to their young the best chance of completing the full life cycle in their turn. Darwin’s genius insight into the driving principles of evolution manages to explain all urges, all instincts, all physical and mental attributes as the fundamental survival of traits which facilitate the replication of genes that inform the entire make-up of the successful entities. The theory of evolution by ‘survival of the fittest’ is simple, observably true and elegant, requiring none of the hypocritical complexity of ‘intelligent design’.

And so it must be seen that the ubiquitous and entirely normal concerns about mass immigration and enforced societal change are not the aberrations that the race industry would make them out to be. They are part of the same set of instincts which have allowed our survival and evolution. Just as in the simplicity of evolutionary theory, the simplicity of innate antipathy toward species difference is far more likely to be true than an acceptance of ‘multiculturalism’ that requires an entire new lexicon to be written and a set of punitive rules to be enforced.

But no. It is nearly fifty years since Enoch Powell’s erudite observations and clear warnings were shouted down as racism and in all that time we have achieved very little; certainly done nothing to address the very real issues. Reviled by the left and causing embarrassment to a Conservatism trying to be all things to all people, rather than uphold simple truths, Powell has been consigned to an altered history where he was the only nasty bigot saying such things. The simple truth? We were disturbing our own native habitat and the most affected people had no voice.

Our governments have, instead of listening, continued to pursue policies of division and tension and instead of tackling the problem have made talking about the problem a crime against society. Recently, Labour and the Tories have pretended to listen, but only because there are votes in listening. Then they reveal themselves when they utter such garbage as Miliband saying he will make ‘islamophobia’ a crime and Cameron suddenly floating the idea of a black Prime Minister. People can only be led for so long by foolish commanders and the lemming cliff of multiculturalism is a leap too far.

Meanwhile, Europe wants to prolong the death throes of decent, civilised society by insisting we import more machete wielding cultural enrichment from all over North Africa. Where the holy grail for many naturalists is to find sufficient difference to claim and name a new species to protect, our social engineers steadfastly overlook the glaringly obvious in order to claim humans are of one clan-mankind. But I’m with the animalists. We have stood silently by and watched, even connived in, the steady destruction of our own expensively constructed ecosystems. Isn’t it about time we stood up and began to preserve our own unique species?

Doing it by Numbers

Fish, reptiles, amphibians… cold, slimy unfeeling, primitive inhabitants of our planet’s thin, life-supporting layers breed like there is no tomorrow. For them there isn’t; at least in the sense of any notion of legacy. Their offspring burst forth and struggle for survival – like tiny baby turtles being picked off by a deadly Luftwaffe of gull-Stukas as they instinctively dash for the sea, in a literal race for their lives. The numbers game is the strategy of indifferent forebears who will have no interaction other than, perhaps, a fight for territory with their grown-up but unrecognised progeny. It works, but it epitomises the red-in-tooth-and-claw nature of, er, nature.

The cold-blooded appear to be from an earlier evolutionary strain, successful but with small brains and driven by pure instinct. Higher up the chain of life come the mammals and birds which, generally, invest rather more in raising their broods, the young needing protection until they can fend and fight for themselves. But still, when push comes to shove, certain animals will readily devour their own young… and then have some more. All playing the numbers game; the more you have the greater your species’ chances of multiplying and of dominating.

The higher primates however, have a different strategy. With bigger brains and therefore bigger heads, they drop their sprogs before the giant heads make natural birth impossible to survive and then, despite all that pain, they dedicate a huge part of their lives to rearing the young and schooling them in the ways of their societies in order that they may then go on to do the same. It appears to be more than just raw nature driving their actions and the survival of that revered infant is placed at the highest level of their priorities; in humans sometimes coming even before survival of themselves… which is a bit short-sighted, if you think about it, but that’s primal urges for you.

Still, there’s only so much love to go around and there is a limit to how many children can be given the best chances in life. The more you have the more thinly you spread their possibilities and the more you depend on levels of altruism that may not be available when resources are stretched. Breeding in numbers is a survival trait adopted by animals with lower cognitive functions; a trait that fish, reptiles and amphibians appear to share with the worst of welfare dependents, primitive societies driven by authoritarian religions… and certain strains of Labour voters.

Better to give than to receive?

You can almost forgive the chavs for they know what they do, but there’s only so much oxygen to go around. If you want to know who the enemies of human evolutionary progress are you only have to look at who in the world has the biggest families. I mean, for fuck’s sake, how many Kardashians does one planet need?

(r)Evolution?

In a jungle in Borneo a bird of paradise struts and puffs himself out to twice his actual bulk and dances to attract a mate. He grows an extra-long tail feather, develops bright throat flashes and crests and generally preens and pouts until he gets himself laid. He doesn’t know why, he just knows he has to do it; the unthinking drive to procreate. Richard Dawkins, in The Selfish Gene posits that it is not the bird, the tiger, the human that is the purpose of life but the simple duplication of the gene itself, which has no other behaviour than replication and occasional mutation.

Evolution by natural selection of more favourable mutations is an elegant process and discounting the hogwash of the Intelligent Designers it is a demonstrable truth. Until somebody actually proves the existence of a higher being the sanest notion is that there isn’t one. Such a shame that billions of people feel such a need to believe in something ‘better’ that they set about killing each other in its name. But hey, fuck ‘em; they’re wrong.

From single-celled slime to air-breathing fish, to shrews to apes and on to man, here we stand, erect and proud and yet still obsessed, above all else, with procreation. That’s your genes working you there; working you like Geppetto worked Pinocchio before he got his wish. Working you like Shari Lewis worked Lamb Chop. Like Len McCluskey works Ed Miliband… You get the picture.

Is there such a thing as Intelligent Evolution? Who knows, but among all the species on earth one of them keeps trying to better Darwin. While the natural order is that the weak go to the wall, some strains of mankind like to tidy that process up a bit and eradicate whole tribes of undesirables, usually in the name of religion, which is kind of ironic if you think about it.

But why can’t we all live together in peace and harmony, you ask? Simple really, because somebody, somewhere is developing an extra-long tail feather, that’s why. You try and impose equality and pretty soon you realise that no matter how hard one strives to be mediocre some are genuinely more equal than others. The dangerous ones are those who believe their extra-equal qualities must be used to the benefit of mankind and instead of simply getting on and getting individually wealthy, decide to tinker with the whole of society.

Thus making something that people want and selling it at a profit makes you a scheming capitalist devil. The pursuit of individual excellence makes you a selfish non-contributor, doing what comes naturally and putting your own family first makes you a pariah. And employing simpler people on a lower wage than you take for yourself is the very epitome of the profit-seeking evil that lurks in your dark heart.

No, the evolved socialist will have no truck with that. For the furtherance of humanity all must be controlled by the few who know best. So to hell with the nuclear family and to hell with property ownership. Damn you patriotism and nationalism and begone you nasty, grasping individual. Together we will build a better way. Together we are strong. Together we go forward into the bright new future; comrades all. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?

So, we dilute the indigenous population to drown out the natural protest. We create entire new industries in diversity, multiculturalism, social services and ‘wellbeing’. We police it all with a legion of hysterical watchmen covering racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, invalidism and general bigotry and we make having an aversion to anything and expressing an opinion of it into a hate crime and prosecute accordingly. To bring peace and stability, say the socialists, we must create division and fear; it’s for their own good. It’s Intelligent Evolution.

But still there’s the yearning to have that edge; to find a mate. And the genes show their hands. Union bosses earning a packet yet living in subsidised social housing. Various ‘Czars’ paid handsomely by the state to do very little, if anything about things that can’t be solved by diktat. Armies of lawyers making a living from the engulfing tidal wave of new ways to become – or not become – a convicted criminal. Wasteful councils building shiny new offices, retiring their executives early, then buying them back as ‘consultants’. The list of niche opportunities for the ‘more-equal’ goes on and on.

It’s a funny old thing, evolution. Some species thrive and some don’t survive. Some develop ever stronger while others dwindle and become extinct. The only thing that drives it all is hanging around long enough to reproduce. The more you do that the bigger you win and some of the longest surviving species on earth are the parasites – they make a living entirely off the efforts of others, adapting as necessary to continue the feast.

Socialism, in a nutshell

Thus New Labour – the Tory-lite concoction of Blair and chums after a brief flare of colour retreats to the margins and the über parasite reverts back to Old Labour, the most successful survivor of western politics. It’s not who is better who wins, it’s just who wins. But evolution can surely do better than this?

The Ascent of None

On Sunday morning Nicky Campbell (isn’t he a bit old to still be called Nicky?) hosted the BBC talk show The Big Questions, this week’s question being “Is it time for all religions to accept evolution as fact?” I love this show because it manages to gather together in one place a plethora of beliefs as wide and outlandish as you’ll find in any multicultural inner city school… except these are adults!

Shakespeare’s seven ages of man kicks off with the mewling and puking infant, followed by the whining schoolboy and then the sighing lover, but he misses out the bit where you open your eyes and make your own mind up. Except, does he? Because too many people drag into adulthood unquestioned beliefs that rely entirely on blind faith. 

The assembled audience and participants were drawn from the whole range of religious beliefs in the UK, by which of course I mean mostly Islam – it is the BBC after all – and every single one of them was utterly unprepared to accept what any of the few scientists had to say about the hot topic of evolution, even those scientists who also professed a religious leaning. 

Science doesn't have all the answers – in particular it can’t answer “Why?” but religion has exactly no answers. Not a single one. I have no particular axe to grind, but religion has all the provable credibility of astrology, phrenology, homeopathy and ‘crystals’. It may provide comfort in times of despair and it may provide a soothing hub for the cohesion of many communities, but where science requires evidence, religious belief requires only blind, unquestioning faith. 

In that respect, religion and left wing politics have much in common. Brooking no argument, the articles of that faith say that left is God and right is Satan. That being caring and happy and clappy for rainbow-coloured ‘fairness’ will heal the sick and feed the poor; that, somehow, there will always be enough money to pay for all that compassion, so lacking in the legions of hell – or The Tory Party as they call it. 

And yet, despite many otherwise intelligent people being drawn to it, the policies of the left rely entirely on sufficient numbers on the right remaining to earn the money and be repeatedly plundered in the name of fairness. The doctrine says that the harder you labour the more Labour must take from you; that the less likely you are to need ‘social’ services the more you should pay to provide them. Socialism can only really work where everybody believes and if everybody believes what use will we have for evolution?

As always, I try and find a suitable picture to illustrate my theme. I can only ascribe the happy coincidence of the appearance of this tweet by Ricky Gervais on my timeline this morning to divine providence!

The European Union debate is another which revolves around constantly reciting the dogma that to leave would be a disaster but, just as with all faiths, no objective rationale is ever raised, no bottom line audited. The truth is, nobody knows. Another truth is that staying in means we will forever be enslaved to the high altar of a socialist federal dream, with no opportunity to explore our ages of man beyond the dreamy, blinded lover.

Maybe science will one day find its God Particle; the thing that, once and for all, proves the existence of a higher being. Until then I'll continue to question, continue to disbelieve and wear my scepticism on my sleeve.

(And if you're still not convinced of the Messianic monstrosity that is the EU, take a long look at this document on the 1975 Referendum Stitch-up , which pretty much sums up how I've always perceived it to be.)

Evolutionary Voting Tactics

Charles Darwin knew a thing or two about niches. His seminal study of the Galápagos finches explained how each species had evolved a means of exploiting the scarce resources of their harsh environment. Beaks. That was the secret.

Humans are a species of many beaks and can exploit almost any environment given, as Barnum observed, enough suckers. And we’re all suckers for one thing or another, aren’t we? Even the beleaguered Yosser was just a finch in search of the right kind of seed.

Here’s a great example. Set up a monitoring body for education and watch the finches flock. The creation of an inspectorate in turn creates inspectors, who then probe and point and write reports. “Something must be done!” They say, so things are done. Principally, resources are diverted to the task; food for finches. As the forerunner of Ofsted was founded almost 200 years ago they’ve had plenty of time to get really good at it.

“New slates!” they demanded and manufacturers sprang up to service that demand. Today, we have a slavering over all things electronic and pointless £gazillions are spent feeding the biggest, dumbest birds you ever did see, with remarkably little impact on the preparedness of the young chicks to take flight. But think of the jobs at stake if we suddenly came to our senses. The education industry is a behemoth and we should be grateful to watchdogs like Andrew Old for keeping a eye on its inanities.

The same happens in medicine; collusion between health authorities, doctors, drug companies, newspapers, television and Uncle Tom Cobley and all conspire to create both the habitats and the denizens to inhabit them. Made-up diseases, made-up cures and made up ‘ologies’ keep millions in employment. Shocked? Don’t be. It’s the economy, stupid.

People have a way of sniffing out an opportunity. And people have a way of doing what little they can to improve their own chances. Entrepreneurs need no government help, but will naturally vote for the side least likely to tax their endeavours into dust. The less able will opt for the side most likely to try to buy their allegiance. And the good people in the middle will recognise that without trade there will be no jobs, no dole and not enough nuts to go round.

Which kind of explains why the latest opinion polls show Labour with a convincing lead against the Conservatives and yet more people (36% to 28%) still trust the Tories with the economy. It isn’t nonsensical, it is entirely consistent with human behaviour.

Which is also why, despite the utterly untenable notion of Ken Livingstone regaining the title of London Mayor, some tits are still going to vote for him.

Tit-for-twat. Don't be a Tit. Don't vote for a Twat.