The fine art of denial

As I look out my window, I see a rich landscape of plants against a rather picturesque valley between quite imposing ridges of a mountain range. Closest to me are some familiar small trees, deliberately planted to provide a buffer from a road that is very busy on public holidays, but otherwise quiet. Beyond are a sprinkling of natives, some very large and old, some relatively young but pruned savagely to head height and other saplings finding their way into adulthood.

By happy accident, those closest to the house turned out to be a fire-resistant species and offer protection from wild-fire; those further away drop a layer of humus every year which accumulates into a tinder dry layer of fuel.

I have conscientiously grazed and cleared this areas, not just because they represent a fire risk, but I am paranoid about snakes, amongst the most venomous in the world; not because I am frightened of these snakes, per se, but because transporting someone bitten to the nearest emergency centre is a minimum of one half hour travel, not matter the transport medium - if one of my children were bitten, they would certainly die while waiting for anti-venom. I have coached my children to steer clear of snakes and this strategy has served many who live in rural areas well.

Further from the house, one can identify a line of the endemic species, the Manna Gum, along the river flats, isolated to a thin strip on otherwise completely cleared land. On the slopes even further beyond, a limited set of species of tree can be found with a distinct lack of undergrowth - you can walk freely to the top of the ridge, hindered only by your fitness in scaling slopes of between 20 and 30%.

To the untrained eye, this landscape is unremarkable. It is probably repeated in thousands of locations across Australia. With some exceptions. Few people are quite as fastidious about the trees they choose to plant. Some have little care for the native exotic divide; many do not investigate the properties of the trees they plant - their response to frost, fire, soil type and drought. I do, but only in regard to my block of land - I am not a botanical encyclopaedia.

Now imagine you came upon my block, in study mode, perhaps as a student of rural development. What might you conclude about the area in which I live? What scientific standards might you apply to your study? What kinds of evidence are more or less useful in ascertaining the truth?

From the road, you would note a species of wattle easily identified by its stone blue leaves. You would quickly observe that these are exceptional in the area - not a single instance of this tree can be observed in 20 kilometres of valley. You would quickly conclude that this is an introduced species. Since the trees are all young, you would conclude that this was recent. Furthermore, since the individuals are on private property, you would conclude that the introduction was via an agent under my control, whether it be deliberate or accidental planting. Accidental planting is less likely given the extent of plantings that are not endemic amongst the obvious signs of garden beds, selectively cleared areas and plants obviously pruned and managed.

What would confuse you, however, is the apparently random planting of these trees. Two stand close to one another, another is almost 100 metres away and another close by it. As you know the tendency of humans is to plant in clusters or rows, this might be explained by the planter having a kind of organic pattern in mind - don't plant things too regularly otherwise it doesn't look natural.

The truth is odd but not weird. Two original individuals of the same species were purchased and planted simultaneously. The intention was indeed to defy a regular pattern. One suffered from an natural ailment of wattles - old age - and rotted away. The other suffered an extraordinary event - it was hit by a car in an accident. Both (quite old) specimens had dropped seeds, some of which now flourish as saplings and came up, naturally, after a sequence of very hot then very wet weather. The rotten individual I cut down - the accident victim fell over and was eventually removed.

If you were a better student, you might have asked me about these plants and the truth would have been revealed promptly and more comprehensively. But relying on my witness is fraught with problems. First, my memory for many things is hopeless; I might just lie to you and I may be confused.Whichever way you approach it, getting to the truth is going to be difficult, problematic and laborious. You would have to find evidence of the original specimens or seeds spread in a pattern which could only indicate a mature individual reproducing.

On the contrary, putting a 'spanner' in the 'works' of your thesis is child's play. How do you know that the seeds have not been introduced by a vehicle that picked them up in their tyres and drove in both places? Could they not be an endemic species, long suppressed by grazing, emerging because of a unique set of conditions that I have imposed as custodian of this block.In terms of intellectual effort, discrediting a thesis takes almost no effort in comparison to forming and proving it in the first instance.

The discrediting or denial leans on a natural concept of justice - 'beyond reasonable doubt'. If you are going to be thrown into jail or I am going to invest billions on the basis of your thesis, I don't want to be wise after the event. I want all based covered. The science required to quench doubt is horrendous.

Indulge me further with my analogy. In examining my property, the obvious planting of a fire-resistant species close to the house, combined with the clearing of a buffer zone, devoid of fuel, around my house, point directly at a consciousness about fire. Complementing this, the complete absence of fire scarring except in isolated burn piles demonstrates a regime of burning fuel to reduce fire risk. A line of trees of varied species, none fire-retardant, on the western side (the direction of the strongest winds), various heights in a pattern consistent with a wind break , indicate intentional planting for a purpose - thus, the fire control measures in planting are unlikely to be accidental.

The truth is, they all are. The burn piles are actually for the purpose of a New Year's bonfire - they are coincidentally useful in removing fuel. The cleared areas are snake prevention and grazing horses for recreation and coincidentally useful in reducing fuel. The fire-resistant species are completely accidental - I was dumbfounded to find that a species I planted close to the house because it grew well on our soil, was the right height, had a pleasant habit and soft leaves, turned out to be fire-resistant!

Your thesis was wrong. You might have introduced even more comprehensive proof of fire-planting and they would all have been wrong - yet, the thesis was compelling and not 'wrong' in any sense we consider erroneous. Only privileged information can strike it down. Or further science. The most comprehensive analysis of species across the block would show that several trees stand in positions which create a significant fire risk - most notably a blue gum at the corner of the garage, its fuel falling into gutters on the garage and on the ground in an area difficult to clear, creating a fire hazard.

When it comes to refuting a thesis, only more and more science can get us closer to the truth. Denialist claims, selecting just one item that breaks the thesis, may not be incorrect, as the example above illustrates. But, denial leaves no way forward. Only further theses, all equally breakable, with accompanying laborious, resource hungry science, can bring us closer to the truth.

What evidence could I muster to show that the landscape in which I live has been profoundly affected to nearly 200 years of grazing; endemic cedar and ironbark are completely absent from the landscape? What small detail could a denialist bring to show that my thesis of profound change is unfounded? Seasons have varied greatly lately, and this suggest that predicting the climate in this place over the last 200 years might be impossible, therefore making my thesis about degradation by grazing as likely as degradation by natural attrition.

Upon discovering the bones of a Diprotodon close by, a herbivore that could not be supported in a landscape so heavily wooded, could I conclude that human habitation and practices, most likely fire-stick farming by Aborigines, was responsible for a previous dramatic transformation of the botanical landscape from savannah to fire-adapted forests? Could a denialist bring evidence that humans co-existed with Diprotodons for a long time in some places as the 'chink in the armour' of this thesis?

As Andrew Bolt, that arch-denialist, adequately demonstrates in his blogs, the fine art of denial is to find one single item that throws doubt on the thesis and then let your audience's natural scepticism or self-affirming beliefs do the rest. After all, who is going to resource the science needed to support a revised thesis? And how easy it will be to find yet another vulnerable point! And how easy it is to see that, given all the right conditions, that denial could be just the right level of analysis needed to plunge an unsubstantiated thesis into oblivion, the only 'moral' path to take, in the service of us all!

In the US, science denial continues unabated. A court case was needed to establish that ID was not science and that its objections to evolution did not constitute grounds for teaching an alternative view or break evolution as a thesis. Perhaps, in the face of denialism generally, we need a Court of Scientific Integrity, established specifically to examine all claims to truth according to a standard of 'reasonable probability' based on the evidence available presented by advocates and experts.