I’m in London and on the first day here I went to see the skull of the Piltdown Man, the notoriously faked missing link with the skull of a human but a monkey like jaw. The reason for the exhibit was that it was in 1913 that it had been discovered so, settled science as it was all the way through to the 1950s when carbon dating proved that it was a very cleverly designed artifact whose actual creator no one has ever known (except the person who did it). So I said to the guide that I looked forward to a similar exhibition in fifty years time about global warming as the greatest scientific con in history, a thought to which he took exception but was very nice about it. But it will happen. How anyone in London can worry about global warming is beyond me. Bring it on should be the idea.

Meanwhile the Bank of England has installed its new Governor, Mark Carney, as a Canadian the first foreigner ever to be given that position. Well, he is considering a QE of his own to revive a sinking economy. My worries, as conventional as his own ideas on monetary policy seem to be, is that they are about as sound as his wife’s who was in the paper worrying about green issues, with the one she picked to discuss being the amount of paper used in making tea bags. It’s good to see people with their finger on the pulse of the major issues of our time.

From Catallaxy on 3 July 2013.