2012 Ehrlich Award For Wrong Predictions Goes To ...

Introducing the annual Ehrlich Award, which at the start of each year will be given to the "wrongest" published prediction I observe of or relating to the previous calendar year. (Of course, if I make a really stupid prediction of my own pertaining to this or any other year, I will happily self-nominate, and even if necessary self-award. )

There are a few groundrules - for instance the predictions need to be vaguely meaningful (in terms of being able to assess whether they have happened - this year's winner stretches that one sometimes), and secondly predictions that carry a stated assessment of chance of falsehood are not included unless that assessed chance is ludicrously low.  After all, even odds-on favourites do get beaten sometimes. 

The Ehrlich Award is named in (dis)honour of Paul Ehrlich whose lifetime achievements in the field of publishing wrong enviro-scare predictions (oh no, you're an "idiot" if you say they were "predictions"; they were actually only "scenarios") are almost as staggering as the excuses trotted out on behalf of all his false apocalypses.  Apparently, not only is it a hit predictively for Ehrlich fans if something vaguely like the prediction happened, or if it could still happen later, but even if nothing like it happened, that's a hit too, because it means people must have listened to the prophet's warnings and, for that reason alone, averted their ways from their sins.

Anti-Discrimination Change Requires More Scrutiny

(See also later article An Open Letter to Brian Wightman)

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Advance Summary:

1. A proposed amendment to Section 17 of the Tasmanian Anti-Discrimination Act, designed to address bullying, is flawed by appearing to carry unintended consequences for political speech and lacking appropriate, explicit and prominently-debated exemptions in this area.

2. The proposed amendment should not be passed by either House of Parliament in its present form.
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Skimming the Sunday Tasmanian, which I buy mainly for the TV guide, I came across a piece on pp. 74-5 (sigh) by Simon Breheny. (This is now online here.) The piece argued that proposed changes to the Anti-Discrimination Act will curtail free speech in Tasmania, mainly by greatly extending the grounds on which it is an offense to "offend, humiliate, intimidate, insult or ridicule" someone. 

This piece had many signs of something I should not expect to take too seriously.  It was headlined "Attacks on free speech" (the sort of headline that usually indicates simplistic and invalid tabloid melodrama.)  It was written by a law-student "lobbyist" for the Institute of Public Affairs (a self-described "free-market think-tank" with a dubious historic form guide), and worst of all it tried to curry sympathy for Andrew Bolt.