Next to Science 2.0, one of my most frequently visited websites is Telegraph Blogs.  Among those issues which most raise the hackles of the readership is that of Climate Change.  Many of them regard Anthropogenic Global Warming as a religion based on spurious science.  It is very tedious even to contend with a single one of them.  The latest thing to arouse their ire is

£2bn of UK aid to help Third World go green

Britain yesterday pledged almost £2 billion in “climate aid” to help finance foreign projects including wind turbines in Africa and greener cattle farming in Colombia.

Regarding which, someone commented:

So we borrow money from the Chinese and give it to the Danes to build windmills to be erected in Africa and then pay the loan back over lets say 25 years at our children’s expense.

So, question 1: any suggestions as to how to disentangle the science from the politics and economics?

Another hot issue is that of immigration.  The native Brits are naturally disgruntled that our powers-that-be have taken encouraged competition on our own soil from people, some of whom are actively hostile to our identity.  However, among the commentators, there are a few prolific ones who bring up the issue of IQ, often invoking the name of James D. Watson.  One particularly extreme person has stated that African women have narrower hips because they give birth to babies with smaller braincases.  That one is a shouter, and there is no contending with him.

However, on the issue of IQ, I did read, perhaps in something I was drawn to via the Science Codex or Real Clear Science, that over a hundred years ago, Russian peasants scored badly in tests of the type which required one to recognize that dogs and cats are members of the ‘animal’ class.  It became apparent that they simply did not classify things the way we do, because to them a dog was primarily a guard-thing and a cat was primarily a vermin control-thing.  With modernization, these apparent differences have evaporated.

Question 2: does anyone know where I can find this information again?

(A note on the title:

One of Bernard Matthews’ formed-meat products, ‘Turkey Twizzlers’, became a subject of debate in January 2005, when they were singled out for particular criticism by the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver in his television series Jamie’s School Dinners. The product became an emblem of the mass-produced processed food that Oliver wanted to remove from school meals. In the wake of the programme, several major catering organisations announced that they would no longer serve Turkey Twizzlers in schools.  Bernard Matthews discontinued the product in 2005. ­

But Hank will tell you they were still safer than similar organic products!)