Inception

Give us the child for 8 years and it will be a Bolshevik forever - Lenin

There was once a psycohology / sociology experiment involving three chimps in a cage.  The cage contained a bunch of bananas at the top and a rope to reach the bananas.  Upon climbing the rope to reach the bananas, each chimp is repelled with a burst of water from a hose, also in the cage.  The chimps soon abandon attempts to get the bananas. 

The next phase of the experiment involves swapping out one of the original chimps for a new one with no experience of the water.  As it makes its first foray for the bananas, the two original chimps, pull the new chimp down.  The swapping out is repeated with a second and third chimp and a similar process occurs.  Eventually there are three chimps within the cage with no experience of the hose and despite that, none of them will attempt to climb the rope.

The experiment illustrates what Lenin knew all those years ago.  Lenin knew that with the right message and education environment he could place a thought of his design (in his case Bolshevism)  into the mind  of someone else and have them believe it, repeat it and live by it. 

The potency for this rested with the genius of the human mind.  In an effort to enable the human mind to manage the multiple stimuli it receives each day, it has developed a process of filtering and simplification and generalisation.  In other words, when the mind sees or experiences something it first looks inside itself for a previous similar experience and should it find one, brings along all the thoughts, feelings and reactions that the previous experience generated. The aim is to speed things up and keep us safe.

Examples of this are door handles and boiling water.  We encounter door handles most days.  Regardless of whether we have seen a door handle like that before, we recognise it and know what it does.  We do not need to relearn.  If we see a pan of boiling water, we know to stay clear without having to retest the idea it is dangerous.  This comes from deep in the subconscious.

There is however a flip side to this as Lenin understood and the chimps demonstrated.  A person does not need to have tested something or direct experience of something to believe it.  In the right environment an entire frame of reference can be planted in a person's head by something or someone external.  Done right it can be a pervading thought and the person holding it will truly believe that they formed that thought themselves. 

One example of this all pervading thought system is often evidenced with the man made global warming narrative and the mechanism is present in the education system.

Evidence of this came this morning as one of RB's offspring was doing some homework around an end of topic assessment on atmospheric gases.  In the first question we see a comparison of earth's present atmosphere gas composition with Mars and the notion that earth once had a similar atmospheric make up to Mars today, with all that Carbon Dioxide. The next question is one on earthquakes and tectonic plates (odd one that for a chemistry paper).

Then we start to make the jumps.

The next question comes back to earth atmospheric composition.  The introduction starts to suggest that life on earth would not be possible without the atmosphere.  Billions of years ago, the composition of the atmosphere was very different from the composition today, following which we get a pie chart showing a composition of 98% Co2 from billions of years ago.

Part one of that question asks the student to complete the blank pie chart with the current composition of earth's atmospheric gases.  The second part of the question then makes the leap:

There is evidence that the composition of the earth's atmosphere is changing.  One possible reason is that many power stations generate electricity by burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil or natural gas.  Sulfur dioxide So2 is produced when coal burns in air.

From that we go on to ask:

• What environmental problem does sulfur dioxide cause?
• How could this environmental problem be reduced in coal fired power stations
• Excess carbon dioxide should be prevented from entering the atmosphere.  Explain why.

It is clear from one of young RB's answers that his lessons contain use of the words greenhouse gases,  and the notion that greenhouse gasses are to be avoided because they trap heat in the atmosphere.

What we have here in this paper is a battle for a child's mind.  This paper on atmospheric composition spends the vast majority of its content concentrating on Co2 and is riddled with more metaphors and imagery than one might find in a Tolkien novel.  We start with Mars, a planet that everyone knows to be dead and barren and just happens to have a majority composition of Co2 and the suggestion that we were once in a similar position.  For some reason we throw in something about earthquakes (natural disaster image anyone?) and then we start to get to the idea of the ability of the earth's atmosphere to change from its current composition to another, following which we complete the circle with the image of power station pumping "filthy" greenhouse gases into the air.  The narrative - our power stations and other forms of producing Co2 will turn earth into lifeless Mars.

In some ways, the paper is subtle.  It asks a question about the current composition of earth's atmosphere acknowledging the nitrogen and oxygen content but yet for these majority gases, no questions are asked. All the questions are about Co2, and its role in damaging the chances of life on earth.  Then there is fact.  Take for example:

Excess carbon dioxide should be prevented from entering the atmosphere.  Explain why.

 

There we go - carbon dioxide is bad and we have an excess of it and we need to stop before we become Mars.  There are no questions about what role Carbon dioxide plays in Earth's atmosphere.  Whilst we've had a question on the process of burning methane & air, where is the question of what happens to Co2 when it meets plant life. The questions take the student down a very specific path and draw a very specific conclusion.  

There are no questions about the other theories, nor are there any suggestions as to what they might contain.  There is no opportunity to compare those theories or answer a question on comparing the merits of the different theories.  In other words the student is being told what to think as opposed to how to think.  There is no opportunity to undertake the age old scientific process of testing whether a theory stands up to scrutiny or not and therein lies the problem.  

 

Look at that "Excess carbon dioxide" question above.  Although it seems an open ended question  it is simply not possible to answer that question by suggesting that Co2 should be allowed because alternate schools of thought on the subject find the research into the correlation highly flawed.  It's not possible because the answer has already been decided within the question.  They do not want an answer on the other theories, just an answer on why this theory is right. End of debate.  So in order to get the marks for the "correct" answer, RB junior needs to parrot the AGW narrative because their life chances are tied to it.  I think this is something that Autonomous Mind may also have experienced in a past blog post (but I'm unable to locate it).

RB junior is not alone.  He, along with his fellow students are considered the bright ones at science and may well pass into science related roles, yet this is what they are being taught as the fight for their minds continues.  If they receive no challenge to this orthodoxy, this frame of reference will drift into their subconscious.  They will start to use this notion in what they perceive to be their own original thought.  They won't recall how such an idea took hold in their heads nor will they even be able to recognise that it may have come in via an external source.  Their work and ideas will flow from it.  The concept of Inception will have been achieved.

So if you have children or grandchildren, take an interest in what they are thinking.