tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-357943202012-01-27T16:40:45.756Znotes from an exiled academicOxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comBlogger429125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-83552731594776966742012-01-22T11:00:00.000Z2012-01-23T03:46:25.558Z2012-01-23T03:46:25.558Z

Elderly should be encouraged to downsize ...[Housing Minister Grant Shapps] said that authorities should encourage elderly homeowners to move to more suitable accommodation by helping them rent their old homes to families. He pointed to the example of a pilot scheme in east London where Redbridge council has helped elderly people move without having to sell their homes in a bid to tackle the

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-80716992203014119422012-01-19T08:00:00.000Z2012-01-19T18:06:45.601Z2012-01-19T18:06:45.601Z

Below is the text of a letter of application to Oxford University recently sent with regard to a professorship in Education.Dear ...I am applying for the Professorship of Education being offered by the Department of Sociology in association with Green Templeton College, as advertised in the University Gazette, and attach my CV, which includes the contact details of three referees, together with

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-12886407082857948182012-01-16T15:00:00.000Z2012-01-16T19:06:52.380Z2012-01-16T19:06:52.380Z

In connection with the absurd claims by Alan Ryan (former Warden of New College, Oxford) that it is 'crazy' to look for a genetic element in determining intellectual ability, I may comment that I have never known, or known about, a family in which the innate variations in IQ and other aptitudes between the various members were not very definitely recognised by both parents and siblings. My

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-75029014642418084692012-01-02T16:30:00.000Z2012-01-02T16:45:13.725Z2012-01-02T16:45:13.725Z

The basic moral principle is that one should avoid imposing on other people one’s own interpretation of the existential situation, and overriding their reaction to it. This principle is weakly, and occasionally, recognised in human societies, and best protected, more or less unintentionally, in capitalist societies in which you can only get other people to do anything for you if you are willing

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-70938498188326930682012-01-01T12:01:00.000Z2012-01-20T12:49:37.800Z2012-01-20T12:49:37.800Z

The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. (Professor Albert Bartlett)I do not know that I would agree that unawareness of the exponential function is the greatest shortcoming of the human race, but certainly this unawareness (real or apparent) facilitates legislation which is designed to reduce the advantages of one section of the

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-16500075256618449402011-12-31T16:01:00.001Z2012-01-01T11:08:10.544Z2012-01-01T11:08:10.544Z

Recent remarks by the Care Services Minister, Paul Burstow, express the warmest goodwill towards unpaid carers who help elderly relatives. But there is something suspicious about this, as about recent expressions of outrage that house owners who go into care homes should be forced to sell their houses to pay their fees, so that their children will be deprived of their inheritance.We know that, as

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-90461566829580159652011-12-29T16:20:00.008Z2011-12-30T13:07:04.658Z2011-12-30T13:07:04.658Z

As has been pointed out, pensioners are fair game for anything because they constitute a population with an above-average IQ. At the start of their lives, they are exposed to compulsory education, but at the end of it they are free, with whatever assets they have managed to retain after living for so many decades in the oppressive society. This cannot be allowed.Britain’s army of unpaid carers

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-38737530556299888232011-12-23T16:17:00.010Z2011-12-23T16:51:52.974Z2011-12-23T16:51:52.974Z

copy of a letter to a salaried philosopherI suppose a Philosophy Department would be the most obvious thing for my incipient (squashed and suppressed) independent university to start with. It is incredible that no university anywhere has taken any interest, nor any sufficiently wealthy individual.On the face of it, a Philosophy Department is cheaper to set up than a Science Department, which

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-18074163956930247932011-12-16T12:19:00.004Z2011-12-16T16:51:26.708Z2011-12-16T16:51:26.708Z

Andrew Lansley last night warned that NHS spending may have to rise for ever, simply to keep pace with rising life expectancy.The Health Secretary told the Spectator magazine he was not satisfied with managing to get a real-terms rise in health spending for this Parliament – he wanted to see increases in the years beyond. Mr Lansley said the NHS was still immune from cuts, even though other

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-25472465509728241882011-12-16T12:02:00.003Z2011-12-16T12:16:26.317Z2011-12-16T12:16:26.317Z

notes on photos of my parents1. My father missed getting a First by one mark. There was an easy explanation of a shortfall in his marks, but the examiners made no allowance for it, and awarded him second class honours. There was no oral examination for borderline cases at London University in those days, as there was at Oxford and Cambridge.In fact he had arrived 40 minutes late for the practical

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-72367120030888022102011-12-06T16:23:00.004Z2011-12-16T12:12:56.127Z2011-12-16T12:12:56.127Z

My parents were great people (‘great’ in the old-fashioned sense) who had terrible lives. Like me, they were models of what the modern world most wishes to destroy, having aristocratic genes and high IQs. They were very idealistic, honest and responsible, perhaps too much so for their own good (or for mine). Here are a few photographs which may convey more than is easy to verbalise.The first is

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-45870821910423075352011-12-02T11:59:00.007Z2011-12-02T15:53:01.232Z2011-12-02T15:53:01.232Z

There are complaints that George Osborne’s ‘Austerity Budget’ fails to provide sufficient protection for ‘the most vulnerable’ sections of the population. Populations regarded as ‘vulnerable’ and ‘deserving of protection’ are highly correlated with ‘populations with the lowest average IQ’.Confirming that most benefits will rise in line with inflation, Mr Osborne insisted the move was ‘fair and

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-68883461791149627002011-11-29T15:33:00.004Z2011-12-02T11:20:40.732Z2011-12-02T11:20:40.732Z

Melanie Phillips complains of the loss of moral principles in modern society.Two ... incidents happened recently. A 79-year-old woman has died from head injuries after trying to fight off teenage muggers who robbed her of the bag containing her husband’s ashes.This attack followed hard on the heels of a story about a teenage burglar who, asked to write a letter of apology to his victims, wrote

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-15840947794867538202011-11-25T14:33:00.008Z2011-11-25T15:55:12.235Z2011-11-25T15:55:12.235Z

Thank you for writing, and sayingI think Celia Green is one of the great modern British writers – in the perfect world she would be a household name. It is nice that you get something out of my books, even if I do not get much out of modern British writers.The reason I have produced so few books, and none of recent years, is that the publication of the books did nothing to relieve the

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-13408221760046438412011-11-15T14:53:00.002Z2012-01-19T12:01:58.427Z2012-01-19T12:01:58.427Z

I am amazed at the antagonism to capitalism that is expressed in sympathy with the anti-capitalism protesters.Capitalism is the only thing that has given me any advantages in life with which to repair the damage of a socialist environment, which ruined my life and the lives of my parents when I was exposed to a state-financed education.Having been born as the offspring of two socially displaced

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-38996310607540979552011-11-10T14:25:00.004Z2011-11-10T14:35:44.989Z2011-11-10T14:35:44.989Z

Once when I was at Miss Maughfling’s (the preparatory school I attended) I got sent to write lines instead of going out to break. I was in the kitchen (a large room) with the other children, and the kettles were on to make the drinks that Miss Maughfling handed out. You could have milk, cold or warm, or hot orange juice made from concentrate, which was what the kettles were for.The steam was

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-35723192103058924102011-11-04T08:00:00.000Z2011-11-04T09:33:43.151Z2011-11-04T09:33:43.151Z

copy of a letterThank you very much for finding and sending the scan of the photograph of me aged one. We still have not found the original (all this moving around while being so short-staffed) and I would have been sorry to lose it altogether.I think my mother realised it showed how precocious I was and kept it hidden, so that we only found it after her death. It was in a box-file in which she

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-9952503203461098372011-11-01T20:37:00.005Z2011-11-01T21:44:08.590Z2011-11-01T21:44:08.590Z

copy of a post to our Facebook group:There are some people who express enthusiasm for such books and research as we have been able to produce. In fact we have produced only a very small fraction of what should have been possible if we had been less rigorously deprived of support.If anyone’s enthusiasm for our books and research extends to wishing to see more of either produced, we would

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-7246255861153384262011-10-21T11:27:00.006+01:002011-11-10T12:41:47.266Z2011-11-10T12:41:47.266Z

‘And there are other things. I couldn’t go to discos to meet girls because my ears are very sensitive to noise and they hurt.’ (Low tolerance of noise, along with several other of Simon’s idiosyncrasies, are symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome – a mild form of autism – but he has never been diagnosed.) [Daily Mail]There is a wish to believe – and hence, in effect, a belief – that a high IQ, and the

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-44941809815861938302011-10-20T13:56:00.007+01:002011-10-20T18:45:47.451+01:002011-10-20T18:45:47.451+01:00

As I have previously said on this blog, the state now appears to feel free to change legislation in ways that are effectively retrospective, in that they make a mockery of past efforts by forethoughtful taxpayers – such as myself and my colleagues – to plan for their life after normal retirement age.Commentators whom one might expect to be critical of such retrospectiveness seem to share the

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-60442157139944874762011-10-19T12:21:00.000+01:002011-12-30T11:26:45.048Z2011-12-30T11:26:45.048Z

In response to my application for the Oxford Professorship in Psychology I received a brief rejection letter from the University's Personnel Officer. Herewith the text of my response.As it said in my letter, I hereby appeal to any senior academic to come to visit me at my impoverished independent university, to discuss ways of supporting me, so that I do not go on being prevented from

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-65996182085952572152011-10-14T08:00:00.006+01:002011-11-10T12:42:01.051Z2011-11-10T12:42:01.051Z

copy of a letterI was talking with Fabian, and asked him why he thought it was that there was such a resistance to the idea of reparation being made to a person who had been placed in an unsuitable and unacceptable position as a result of their ruined ‘education’.Fabian told me about somebody who wrote rudely in response to his blog that ‘society does not owe anyone an academic career’.I said, ‘

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-64555664749160089322011-10-13T16:57:00.004+01:002011-10-14T09:09:35.077+01:002011-10-14T09:09:35.077+01:00

Simon Norton is a former child prodigy, whose story superficially resembles mine. A book about him, The Genius in the Basement by Alexander Masters, was recently publicised in the Daily Mail.Very precocious, very high IQ, but now exiled from academia and living as a recluse. What went wrong? He is quoted as saying vaguely that perhaps he did not apply himself enough. No suggestion that it was

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-24507323503222971032011-10-09T08:00:00.000+01:002011-10-09T20:29:19.480+01:002011-10-09T20:29:19.480+01:00

Herewith the ‘Notes on my CV’ referred to in the previous post.In interpreting a CV it is normal to consider only what a person has been permitted by society to do as evidence of what they are able to do. However, in my case I have to ask for the realities of the situation to be considered, as my life has consisted of being artificially prevented from doing what I could have been doing very well

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-35794320.post-71758804811194606622011-10-05T12:21:00.011+01:002011-10-05T19:27:27.455+01:002011-10-05T19:27:27.455+01:00

There follows the text of a letter of application which I made for a Psychology Professorship at Oxford University last year.The ‘notes on my CV’ referred to will be posted separately.I would draw attention in particular to the last paragraph, which for these purposes I have put in bold.I hereby appeal to anyone in a position to provide finance for it, to consider this as an application for

Oxford Forumnoreply@blogger.com