Coyote Blog

You're conflating two different things here.

If you want to advance the cause of science, you think up new ideas, new arguments, new experiments, and so on. You do this because the old ideas have already been thought - there's no point in thinking them up again. Almost every time, when a scientist comes up with a new idea that contradicts what the majority of their colleagues think, they're wrong. But if they're right, their idea will keep gathering evidence until it is the majority opinion.

If you want to avoid being wrong, that's not what you do. As a politician, you don't have time to gather evidence for your theory. You're not any smarter than a scientist - and while they have various biases, you also have many biases. If you want to be right, you listen to what authorities tell you. Yes, some people will disagree with authorities and turn out to be right. But most will be turn out to be cranks. That is not a chance any sane politician wants to stake their country on. That is not a chance any sane politician wants to stake their world on.

You suggests that AGW believers should make fact-based arguments. As you well know, lots and lots of AGW believers make lots of fact-based arguments, and AGW deniers make counter-arguments, and so on. But not every AGW believer or AGW denier is qualified to make a factual arguments. Any reader of Paul Krugman knows where they can go to get serious scientific debate about global warming. Paul Krugman could only offer an inferior copy of his specialist friend's better arguments. Paul Krugman is not trying to stifle that debate. He's just saying that people on the AGW denier side should not be so confident in their views that they risk the planet on the chance that tons and tons of scientists are wrong.

Dan-
It may be informative to look up the history of the 19th century Darwin "wars". The plan to create the National Academy of Science (NAS) was an attempt by Louis Agassiz and other anti-Darwin proponents to create a quasi governmental organization stacked with anti-evolution members. The intended purpose for NAS was simple- destroy the credibility of evolutionary theory. Fortunately, Agassiz's plan was undone at the last minute by the pro-Darwinian forces including Yale's Dana. The Darwin "wars" tactics also included threatening university funding, stacking universities with "right minded scientists", self selecting grad students, claims of consensus and personal invectives. The Darwin wars teach us two things: (1) appeals to authority and consensus are poor substitutes for science and (2) some things never change.

All this fuss about evolution is misplaced, IMHO. Yes, some evangelical Christians don't believe in it and some of them are candidates. But 50% of the population believes in UFO's too, and a ridiculous number think global warming, err, climate change is a proven fact (indicating a fundamental misunderstanding of science).

If we were hiring candidates for their knowledge of science, I would be concerned. But we aren't - we are hiring executives who are going to be running a government. Unless you think these folks will create a department of creationism, or some such, quit fussing and pay attention to the important issues.

After all, you can find lots of Democrats who believe in evolution, along with big government, centralize planning, Keynsian economics, and other nonsense. Why not bitch about them?

Krugman once was a competent economist. currently, he is a political hack. a real scientist, Richard Feynman,
skewered the use of appeals to authority in science--
http://neveryetmelted.com/categories/richard-feynman/

‘Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts’ is how the great Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman defined science in his article What is Science? ...

Immediately after his definition of science, Feynman wrote: “When someone says, ‘Science teaches such and such,’ he is using the word incorrectly. Science doesn’t teach anything; experience teaches it. If they say to you, ‘Science has shown such and such,’ you should ask, ‘How does science show it? How did the scientists find out? How? What? Where?’ It should not be ‘science has shown.’ And you have as much right as anyone else, upon hearing about the experiments (but be patient and listen to all the evidence) to judge whether a sensible conclusion has been arrived at.”

And I say, Amen. Notice that “you” is the average person. You have the right to hear the evidence, and you have the right to judge whether the evidence supports the conclusion. We now use the phrase “scientific consensus,” or “peer review,” rather than “science has shown.” By whatever name, the idea is balderdash. Feynman was absolutely correct.

They are not immune to empirical evidence, they merely haven't ever experienced any. It's a shortcoming of their education and experience. We need a new credential. One that shows that you've actually run a business and made a profit.

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"When, by the way, did the children of the sixties not only lose, but reverse their anti-authoritarian streak?"

where you stand depends on where you sit.

delurking: "As a guide to behavior, following the scientific consensus gives you the best odds of improving your lot." This is only true when the science is free to work like science. When science is used to support and is chiefly funded by an ideological, political, theological or rent seeking interest it is often best to remain skeptical.

Nitrogen(reactive) is replacing CO2 and we can watch the same attacks occurring as happened early in AGW against the non-conforming. How many people do you think it takes to be pushed aside, denied tenure or funding before everyone else understands the new rules of the game? Not many. It doesn't take a grand conspiracy- it only requires a few demonstrations of the consequences for not adhering to the desires of the funding or employer.

From a 3/29/11 Orlando Sentinel article discussing some research that argues nitrogen was not responsible for certain alleged negative environmental impacts:
"Because that "nitrogen story" is regarded as something like environmental gospel, and nitrogen pollution is a major concern worldwide, Cohen and several of his students speak cautiously of their finding that nitrates may not be the only, or even the most important, cause of the algae overtaking Florida's springs."

My rule is when scientists are "cautious" about discussing contradictory findings because it conflicts with the word of the gospel - its best to be skeptical.

Best example for "nose counting" is this:

Grade school teacher: How do we know whether this hamster is a boy or a girl hamster?

Kid: We could take a vote.

Click and Clack: Which is dumber: one guy who know nothing, or two guys who know nothing? (This after they talked about electric trailer brakes.) Their conclusion: The two, because one guy who knows noting will quickly run out of anything to say, but the two (like them) will just keep on talking.

small world

Delurking,
My concerns are not premature. Nitrogen regulations have far greater potential to limit energy, development and diet choices than does CO2. Most don't yet appreciate this fact- but EPA and NOAA do. Nitrogen science -like CO2 before it- is being tortured to fit policy ends.
As someone deeply involved in the nitrogen issue- I can assure you that the FL scientist's caution was not for purposes of science but protecting their careers. Do a web search for soil scientists being called tobacco scientists in the press for questioning the nitrogen paradigm (Herald Tribune - Sarasota). In NJ a recent fertilizer bill was based on the "calculations" of a 2nd year law intern working for one of the NGOs while a Rutger's soil scientist's warnings the bill would do more harm than good were disregarded and the scientist smeared for his efforts. (See Washington State as well). In NJ the scientific opinions behind a new regulation that limits development based on nitrate loading is confidential. For Barnegat Bay in NJ the QA/QC document that includes all the scientific opinions behind the "conclusion" that the bay is dying from Nitrogen is confidential. The raw data behind a study claiming NJ needs to spend $270 to remove nitrogen from stormwater is confidential. A three year old EPA report that found Barnegat Bay nitrogen loadings were OK has been thrown out and is being replaced by a new NOAA model that "simplifies" estuary dynamics to a single variable- nitrogen. The model was at least honest in that the model developers admitted it was created to support policy decisions. The model basically throws away decades of estuary science. This model also allows the modeller to project what the future degradation will be to an estuary unless strict nitrogen controls are established and then use this future condition to derive a factor used to "adjust" the existing data! Barnegat is being used to establish the "critical load" for estuaries that will then be used to limit fossil fuel emissions.

Scientists are smart people- it doesn't take more than a few of their colleagues to get hammered - before they understand what is expected of them. Incentives and self selection do the rest.

Part of the difficulty is the general lack of understanding of what science can and can not prove. The use of the scientific method (i.e. repeatable experiments using isolated variables) has been spectacularly succesful in physics. There is little debate in physics about which theories are proven and warrant consensus as fact versus those that aren't. Just refer to the experiments.

However, in many disciplines, the use of the scientific method is just not possible. These softer sciences rely on correlation and weak natural experiments (with many uncontrolled variables.) While it doesn't mean the consensus theories are incorrect it does mean they can not be proven in the same sense as physics.

The theory of evolution for example is hundreds of years old. There is as much circumstantial evidence for its validity as one could hope for. Nevertheless, no experiment has been devised that can prove it in the same sense that the atomic level structure of the atom has been proven (still working on some of the quantum level.) To deny this is to misunderstand the scientific method and therefore the nature of science.

While I happen to believe in the basics of Darwin's theory, I can accept with no qualms that many people don't. They are correct when they say it is a theory and has not been proven. They are also correct when they point out that the scientific establishment has a vested interest in the status quo. It is always thus, even in physics. I see no majic in consensus in the absence of the scientific method.

Macro Economics, Climatology, Phsycology, sociology, and political science are just some examples of areas of study that are unable to take advantage of the scientific method.

Their theories are highly ammenable to fashion and who provides the funding since they can only rarely be falsified by experiment. The use of math and computer models in their studies does not change this. While I am not saying they have nothing valuable to say, I am saying they have as much in common with philosophers as they do with physicists.

Finally, I would like to point out how the consensus advocates always point to disbelief in their consensus as being comparable to disbelief in Darwin. This is simply not true. The consensus behind Darwin is like no other. Darwins theory despite being unprovable has held its consensus for over a hundred years. During this time huge amounts of supporting evidence has been found without any contradiction to theory (only holes, missing evidence if you will).

Few of the other theories we are being told to accept on consensus can boast even 20 years of consensus and many face significant contrary evidence. To me this illustrates the faddish nature of their studies not their similarity to the theory of evolution.

Will- I'm not quite sure how to respond to "You’re probably right that it’s biased, but even if it’s biased there’s a good chance t will turn out to be right anyways I just don’t know." So tell me -when scientists are threatened and publicly smeared. When the raw data and scientific opinion supporting a new regulation are denied to outside review". When empirical data is thrown out in favor of a model that by its own admission views all problems as nitrogen caused. When the Public is told that nitrogen is killing an estuary and hundreds of millions of dollars are required to stop it but the gov agencies in private meetings say the opposite. When you tell the Public that 30% of the nitrogen load is coming from stormwater but the calculations show 3% at most. When you tell the Public that nitrogen levels in this Bay make it the 2nd worst bay in the world- despite the fact its nitrogen levels are below what USGS and EPA consider pristine! I was able to get one environmental reporter to look at the data and helped him put together a list of questions for him to ask the agencies. Two weeks later he was named EPA journalist of the year and two weeks following the EPA award he won a $10,000 journalism prize from an NGO. He no longer returns my emails. Well if its bias then its the strongest case of bias I've ever seen.

If evolution is so great, why do we have the endangered species act? Shouldn't animals be given the opportunity to adapt or die? If anything creationists are more pro-evolution by allowing species to come and go depending on the environment while ecologists take a more creationist view by trying to restore the garden of eden.

Ian,
I too am amused with the manner Darwin is used. Quoting David Dobbs "Of all the ideas Darwin pushed, none was more fundamentally and deeply radical than the notion that species were categories of taxonomic convenience rather than real divisions in nature."

I am not sure why a person's religious beliefs are pertinent if he runs for public office. As long as he does not try to foist his beliefs off on others, who cares?

My mother was an educated person (she had a PhD in organic chemistry). She derived much comfort in believing that someone "up there" was looking out for her. I am not religious, so I don't care whether the bible stories (creation, etc.) are true or not. I respect others' views and see no point in getting into arguments on a subject that is a matter of faith, and cannot be proven in the sense that math equations can.

Many believe in Darwin's theories. I have read arguments against them. Again, who cares, unless one simply wants to argue.