DAVE ROBINSON – background and interests
I'm an ex-agricultural researcher, a zoologist by training, born in India of English parents, now an Australian citizen living in Queensland - the State which I fondly call home, yet which I believe should be abolished! (along with all the other States and Territories - see this page). My reasons for migrating to Australia (in 1971) included the weather, environment, living and working conditions and escaping from English (especially female) obliqueness, which I could never handle (I'm the world's worst mind reader). Never was a person luckier than one raised in the Devonshire countryside, then settled in Australia. Since arriving here in 1971, I've moved house many times, living with my family in Sydney's western suburbs, the NSW Northern Tablelands and South-east Queensland, and (after settling the children in Brisbane) with my spouse in the Sunshine Coast and currently in far north Queensland's Clifton Beach. The vagrant life is entertaining but not necessarily to be recommended. There's something more solidly human about picking a pleasant spot in the country and building up a permanent home and lifestyle there from scratch. In today's world few people are able to go down this road. Dave Robinson is an exceedingly common name. Because of my amateurish interest in philosophy, I had better mention at once that I am not the Dave Robinson who is a professional philosopher and author of the fascinating book "Introducing Philosophy" and several other books in the "Introducing ..." series.
Interests – Mainly music, philosophy, humanism, wildlife and travel. See below for more detail, other pursuits and comments. It's obvious my interest in website design is minimal, but at least the entire site (except for a couple of pages) was assembled from first principles without the help of a webpage builder. "Antirests" – These are mostly entrenched interests, persuasions, predispositions or customs that other people may hold but which I happen to find deeply disturbing or just futile. (I've also included a few petty dislikes.) Examples are religion (see below and this article), prolificacy (the population explosion), torture and cruelty, child abuse (especially psychological abuse), genocide ("ethnic cleansing"), the United Nations (incredible impotence and inconsistency), Australian federalism, politicians in general, logging of natural forest, current animal production and fishing practices, land, water and energy misuse (especially by large corporations), the Australian taxation system (suffocating effluent breeding faster than flies), "political correctness" (a pitiful kind of deceit), most cities, most dog owners, pet pamperers, doonas, coriander, olives, foreign English (I rue the day that Esperanto fell by the wayside), people who say “you know” two or three times in every sentence, TV presenters who begin every other sentence with “Now”, and miscellaneous other social trends. (Notice how I say all this in the same breath!).
Idols and heroes - These include Beethoven, Kant, Einstein, our "diggers" and war veterans, all the great classical pianists and my wife, whose efforts in voluntary community work I especially applaud. Many Australians, believe it or not, have never heard of one or more of the three celebrities in this list, but few would fail to recognise my idol of the moment, that remarkable youngster, Bindy Irwin, daughter of Terri and deceased “crocodile hunter”, Steve Irwin. Long may she reign! (but I don't hold the same opinion about the crocs - see Crocs - Are there too many? ).
INTERESTS
Although lacking musical ability, I enjoy constructing stuff with a keyboard/computer midi set-up, mostly piano music and ballads (but have done nothing in the last three years). For this I mainly use Cakewalk Pro software. You can find a couple of audio samples and some scores here. 
Philosophy – A combination of the Western empiricist tradition with a kind of idealist absolutism and various other elements (see My philosophical outlook and Wotser Proper Filossofer?). I'm mainly interested in trying to put everything under the one umbrella - for example, fields of knowledge as diverse as mathematics and logic, physical facts and sensory experience, and ethics and aesthetics. The concepts of truth and integrity are central to my thinking, and, I believe, central to both science and ethics. Truth comprises mainly everyday objective facts, and meaningful explanations and ideas which are wholly consistent with these facts and which have calculable effects in the real world. Integrity refers to our willingness to recognise truths, to repel garbage and to live in tune with reality. One of my many maxims is "Truth before God, God before Scriptures", which rather too politely sums up my resoundingly negative attitude towards theism and the traditional religions (see below). Like the logical positivists, I believe there are clear criteria of truth, and that religion is the chief enemy of truth and integrity 
(though they certainly have many other dangerous foe). We have to thank Aristotle, undoubtedly one of the greatest (and dullest) philosophers of all time, for setting us on the road
to truth. Among more recent sages Kant is my model of innovation and imagination,
A J Ayer my model of clarity (Kant is undoubtedly my model of impenetrability!). K.R. Popper's book The Open Society and Its Enemies is possibly one of the most significant books of the 20th century (though Herbert Marcuse, in "One Dimensional Man", seems to find many more insidious constraints on human freedom than does Popper). In popular philosophy, "The God Delusion" (2006) by Richard Dawkins is essential anti-religious reading. (I have only just finished it, January 2007. For me, a few succinct pages in Ayer's little book, Language, Truth and Logic, were enough to get religion out of the way, but Dawkins covers a much wider field. I haven't read any of Sam Harris's stuff apart from these TruthDig webpages, which contain some of the best atheist material I've found so far.) Unquestionably the worst book I've ever read is the only book that's read by many millions of people the world over (no marks for guessing, but stop, look right, look left, then guess). On an equally crass but less alarming level, I'm horrified by some of the views held by neo-sociologists and the "loony left/bleeding hearts brigade" (as Brisbane journalist Lawrie Kavanagh used to call them) and the corresponding destructive trends that have emerged in Australian society. Although I am a humanist (of sorts), I recently (2011) made a conscious decision to become a racist (of sorts!) with respect to just one race - only its adult members, not their children. This is not a prejudice, but a well considered stance based on informed opinion. However, my definition of racism and similar "-isms" differs from the norm (see this section of my humanist pages). Strangely, my misgivings about this race (or pseudo-race) are not primarily related to any inherent characteristics of the people as such, for the brunt of the blame for their lamentable plight lies in the extraordinary (and overtly racist) policies of the government of the land to which the race belongs. Probably at least 99% of these citizens have unfortunately (and very willingly) fallen into the putrid swamp thus created. More than that I cannot say, as Australian law does not allow free speech, whatever you might believe to the contrary. My optimistic intention is to use these pages mainly to present some ideas about logical theory, criteria of meaning and truth, connections between truth, integrity and "moral" behaviour, existence, an empirical view of maths and logic and the ethical philosophy of Central Humanism and associated issues. Global concerns – Many global issues are becoming morally significant, and amongst these I include population growth, conservation, especially of natural forest, carbon pollution and vegetarianism. Some notes on these issues can be found here.
A persistent problem - indoctrination – There are, of course, very many problems with the human race as such and it's hard to say which of them is most fundamental. Some say 'greed', some say 'the aggressive nature of the male of the species', others say 'the wealth/poverty divide' and so on. One fault that really bothers me is the inability of people to draw the line between trust and gullibility. However, I think number one on my list of human evils goes to the 'mis-education of children', which results in the perpetuation of barbarism, the destructive social mindset that people rarely come to recognise for what it is. I'm referring especially to informal education - the stuff that gets passed down from parent to child through the generations, representing the cultural heritage. The brain of every child becomes more or less hardwired with cultural garbage, ranging from what they think they should eat to the outlandish fantasies of the traditional religion of their particular society. What they come to see as a way of life for themselves is really a way of death for humanity. "Every child has the right to be shielded against religious indoctrination"If we're going to brainwash our kids with anything, let it be with creative, caring, conservationist ideas and objective truths rather than with ambitions of destruction, greed, hatred, and trading in nonsense. But above all they should be taught to think for themselves. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights ideal of "freedom of thought, conscience and religion" has little relevance for human beings who lack the capacity for autonomous, rational thought. I need hardly add that I am passionately, unconditionally and irrevocably opposed to the religious indoctrination of young children. Although religious propaganda is by no means the worst misfortune that may threaten the life of a child, it is one of the most widespread and ought to be considered a serious offence.Religion, in all its forms, is a malignant disease - an anti-truth, anti-life virus that is capable of infecting even scientists (like Francis Collins, for example). Thinking of religion as anything but a disease inevitably leads to exasperation and loss of respect for the sufferers. But I must admit I do think of it in more aggressive terms when the victim is an otherwise intelligent, well educated, responsible human being. Such a person is fully accountable to himself, so his integrity and moral fortitude are called into question. It is a complete mystery to me how any reasonable person could have a shadow of doubt that all the traditional religions are deeply immoral. It's unethical for people to take seriously, and to run their lives in compliance with, a heap of glaringly obvious falsehoods, fairytales, deceptions and meaningless nonsense. And it's even more unethical to force-feed your children with this type of garbage, at a stage when they cannot possibly assess its worth. It's unethical because it's mind-destroying and dangerous. As I have contended elsewhere (e.g. see here), religion is unquestionably the excrement of the human mind, and those who drag their children through it - well, let's try to stay polite and say they are doing them the greatest disservice.
Wildlife – Mainly bird-watching (feathered kind included!), and the bush-walking that goes along with it. My childhood was greatly enriched by two little books: The Observer's Book of British Birds and The Observer's Book of British Butterflies. The same books that instilled in me the collector’s passion for stealing birds’ eggs and pinning butterflies to cork boards eventually gave me the love and respect that put an end to those insensitive hobbies. To this day I fondly remember the contrasting regal colours of Vanessa atlanta and the silver song of Phylloscopus sibilatrix. When I came to Queensland I soon realised this immense, sun-baked region is a naturalist's paradise: I'm definitely no expert, but I'm convinced there's stuff out there - perhaps even warm-blooded - that doesn't get a mention in any book. Travel and cultures - "Wherever you go, go with all your heart” (Confucius). Have travelled widely, especially in India and Europe. Delights for the senses, food for the mind, people never to be forgotten, but there's a devil of a lot to be done out there. No place like home. I'm torn between global humanitarianism and patriotism (though there's no particular reason why they should not coexist).
Soccer – the king of sports. I follow the English game as much as I can, which isn’t very much. (Don’t have Foxtel etc). These notes, mainly about Queensland soccer, were getting a bit long and ragged, so they’ve been transferred to here. Graphic arts etc – While I have no talent whatsoever as an artist, I find the graphic arts more enriching than poetry (but less so than music). My favourite schools are impressionism and most of the related "isms". This page links to some fine examples. Miscellaneous – I've had a long interest in computer keyboard design and have researched the subject thoroughly. Everyone knows the standard keyboard layout (like that of the piano!) is ridiculous. But what to do about it? On the home page there's a link to the best solutions I can offer. My "professional expertise" is in the far-removed field of poultry husbandry and nutrition. During a lifelong career in the poultry industry I sometimes went out of my way to justify its practices and give moral support to the farmers. I now think I was totally mistaken. Well, not quite totally - I still believe the "middle-of-the-road" stance adopted by most farmers, researchers and the public is the least justifiable. There are four unassailable objections to intensive animal production (“factory farming”), namely food wastage, cruelty, health hazards and environmental degradation (though recent research suggests that products from grazing animals, such as beef, lamb and milk, have a larger "carbon footprint"). Why I didn't understand the arguments long ago I really don't know. Anyway, I've finally become a staunch opponent of the "battery" cage system of egg production, and of the nonsensical research aimed at propping the system up (or knocking it down). A cage is a cage is a cage. And as for chicken, I never want to touch another piece as long as I live! Let others have the pleasure of licking their damned fingers! ...............................................................CONTACT.................................................................... |
Music – Chiefly classics, from Vivaldi (1678-1741) to Prokofiev (1891-1953), and traditional and mainstream jazz, including our very own "father of Australian jazz", the illustrious 
