Valley Guy is just reminding us that because a fraud- backer has no science to support the fraud, they routinely, and baselessly disparage truthful competent scientists, like Judith Curry, because their work exposes the science- bereft climate fraud.

Fascinating. Jut in the last couple of weeks, I've been groping towards something similar, but at a lower, or earlier, level, having just read some of the Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm's, book "On History", in which, he asserts, evidence is vital for any proposition to be paid attention to. But what if people simply deny that something is evidence ? And, to cap it all, that it is not necessary for 'truth', that 'truth' depends more on how you feel about an issue, and that if you think a story is true, then it's true, since the heart is more important than the head.

I've been typing up, page by page, around twelve thousand pages of old documents relating to Aboriginal policy, mainly here in South Australia, and putting them on my web-site, www.firstsources.info

One critic wrote and had a go at me, that what I had typed up was all just my opinion. I was baffled that someone's notion of 'evidence' was indistinguishable from 'opinion', that truth - as backed up, however imperfectly and inconclusively, by evidence - was no more than opinion. The inference seemed to be that I should not have put it out there, that I should not have transcribed anything, I should have left it alone, and in that way it would have ceased to exist. In short, that truth *or a 'cause') could be better served, and quite properly manipulated, by not providing evidence, by ignoring it, by suppressing it. After all, 'evidence' was no more than 'opinion'.

I'm not asserting that whatever evidence there may currently be is the whole story: Popper would suggest that something may come along which completely refutes, and explains away, all that 'evidence'. We can falsify but never satisfactorily verify. Fair enough. But we run with SOMETHING, i.e. that which the best available evidence would suggest. But

[TBC]

[continued]

For example, my colleague and I have just finished typing up the 1935 Moseley Royal Commission on the Aborigines in W.A., initiated by the new Labour government there, two or three years after the Rabbit-Proof fence story is supposed to have occurred. The evidence (plus Index) covered nearly a thousand pages, but there is not the slightest mention of such a story. Other issues, yes, chaining of prisoners, the transport of people with Hanson's Disease to the lazaret in Darwin, etc., but nothing about the Fence story.

Paul Hasluck, future Minister for Territories and Governor-General, was a reporter on the pro-Labour 'West Australian' at the time, avidly pro-Aboriginal, and travelled all over with the Royal Commission, but also says nothing in his memoirs about such a story. On 'Trove', there is nothing in the 'West Australian' of the time about such a story. The Rabbit Department (yes, there was one) had hundreds of employees along the Fence (strictly, 'Fences'), maintaining it (yes, a fence needs to be maintained, who would have thought?). Employees would have spent afternoons in their local pubs, discussing their day. Local country newspapers said nothing about the Story, and seemed to have passed nothing on to the 'West Australian', or onto any national newspapers. After all, it would have made a fabulous story.

So what evidence should one expect for something which is supposed to have happened ? Surely, local newspapers, selling their story to the State newspapers. Mention at a Royal Commission: one of that nasty Mr Neville's harshest critics, Mrs Mary Bennett, a fine and passionate left-winger in WA, said nothing about this story at the Royal Commission. So, in the face of all that, what WOULD count as evidence that the Rabbit-Proof Fence Story was valid ?

Surely we must run with what evidence is 'there' ? If someone wishes to assert something, then they must produce evidence: as the old Roman maxim put it, 'asseritur gratis, negatur gratis' - what is asserted without evidence can be ignored without the need for evidence.

[continued]

I'm not suggesting that the Rabbit-Proof Fence Story didn't necessarily happen, but that there does not appear to be any evidence that it did. Perhaps some evidence, conclusive evidence, could be produced that demonstrate clearly that the Story did happen. But without any evidence, one cannot just 'believe'. Or should one trust any story-teller ?

Indigenous history seems to be full of these 'stories': that people were herded onto missions, pushed off land, driven over cliffs, massacres in huge numbers, etc. Maybe I'm incredibly naïve, but the written evidence not only does not back up these assertions, but what IS in the record renders much of these myths unlikely.

For example, in all States and the N.T. (not just in S.A., to my surprise), if we picked a time period, there would have been a thousand rationing depots and stations across the country - at the same time as the 'staff' of Aborigines Departments numbered in single figures. Here in SA, the one-man 'Department', i.e. the Protector, was assigned a part-time clerk in around 1912, and in WA. Neville also had one single staff member, his accounts clerk. How does one man 'herd' people ?

Missions also were extremely under-staffed, one, two, maybe four staff, all with huge jobs, while Aboriginal people could, necessarily, come and go as they liked. There were no fences around Missions anywhere. The bottom line was, in short, that the Protector's main role was to supply rations to large numbers of depots, helped by unpaid missionaries, pastoralists, police troopers, post office workers, etc., and as soon as there was a need. So not much 'herding' there. Not much evidence of people being pushed off their land either.

Evidence guides us in what we can take as likely, in what we can trust. None of us can know everything, so we have to make assumptions about much of the issues that affect us. But surely we are mugs if we do believe something for which no-one has ever provided any evidence at all. Evidence must trump no-evidence, until better evidence comes along.

Joe

An amazing piece of mental gymnastics by DA. He seemed to be arguing that none of us has the knowledge, time or energy to become an expert in more than one or two fields, and that is where we need to rely on the expertise of specialists in other disciplines. I can only agree.

Then we get the complete flip when it comes to the subject of climate change. We can no longer trust the massive body of evidence accumulated over many years by meteorologists,oceanographers, climate scientists etc. Instead we should presumably heed the wisdom of such luminaries as Maurice Newman, Alan Jones, Lord Monckton , Andrew Bolt et al.

I am constantly astonished at the number of people who would readily admit they know nothing about such things as quantum mechanics, nuclear physics etc who then claim expertise on climate science.

for Bilmc:

The article tries to encapsulate the wisdom of Hardwig. If you have issues with it, write to him. I said that I do not trust many of those who tell us that they are experts in climate change, and for good reason. If you go to my website you will find plenty of illustrations that caused the lack of trust.