stupid

Is there an advantage to being "stupid"?

dr. dolittle — Mon, 20 Feb 2017 11:45:18 +0000

Is there an advantage to being "stupid"?

By Copyleft [CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

As I was looking through the scientific literature the other day, I came across an article published in 1973, "The Evolutionary Advantages of Being Stupid." With a title like that, how could I not read it?

In this article Dr. Eugene D. Robin discussed how larger and more complex brains are associated with greater intelligence, which by evolutionary standards was thought to be related to "superiority." He described how this line of thinking places man at the peak of evolution resulting in our tendency toward an anthropocentric view of the world. Anthropocentrism also leads to interpreting or seeing things in terms of our own experiences or value/belief systems.

Dr. Robin went on to argue that looking at survival of species in hindsight suggests that those which survive have done well whereas those that have died off must have been inferior. Rather, he argues it is important to think dynamically. Meaning that traits evolve continually as does the environment. So a trait that may benefit the species at one point in time might not help at all at if conditions change. He quotes Asimov who posed the question, "Which is the fitter, a man or an oyster?" If Earth were covered in water, clearly oysters would fair better than man.

With regards to intelligence, Dr. Robin also proposed thinking in terms of it being a dynamic trait that could help or handicap a species. Take for example diving mammals. Mammals that are good at diving, have evolved the ability to survive with low levels of oxygen. This ability may also protect them from health conditions associated with low oxygen such as blood loss, heart attacks, strokes, etc. In this example, smaller brains relative to body size are more advantageous as it allows the animal to dive longer (and perhaps have better health). In other words, by presumably sacrificing intelligence, the animals with smaller brains have increased survival. His own research looked at turtles that can dive for more than 1 week. To accomplish this, turtle brains create energy through pathways that do not rely on oxygen and, as a result, have reduced activity while diving. Thus, by anthropocentric standards turtles are relatively "stupid" even though they have survived over 200 million years.

Image of turtles from Lvova Anastasiya (Львова Анастасия, Lvova) (Own work (own foto)) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Another argument Dr. Robin presents is that dinosaurs were great at hunting because they were big. At the same time, their large size meant they needed to eat a lot and thus were at risk of running out of resources. Compare this to humans, who are more intelligent and thus able to manipulate the environment to produce adequate food (and other resources). What impact have these environmental modifications had? Or consider the modern rise of so-called "superbugs" from the overuse of antibiotics. Is human intelligence thus a lethal trait?

Source:

Eugene D. Robin. The evolutionary advantages of being stupid. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine. 16(3): 369-380, 1973. doi: 10.1353/pbm.1973.0060

Dictionary.com

dr. dolittle Mon, 02/20/2017 - 06:45

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How stupid are you? You have no idea!

gregladen — Mon, 29 Sep 2014 12:00:24 +0000

How stupid are you? You have no idea!

Learn more at this classic post by Don Prothero.

gregladen Mon, 09/29/2014 - 08:00

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Brain and Behavior

stupid

He explains it so clearly, though somewhat misses the flip side where those who are intelligent have a tendency to doubt how smart they really are.

Although apparently people at the 70th percentile have it nailed! (Although, how would they know they're at the 70th percentile?)

@Steve--

It's very simple. If you think you scored a 70, you did!

Of course, the really scary part is how really stupid the really stupid really are... That, along with how often we put them in control of things because they sound so confident.

George Carlin — 'Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.'

But, I think stupidity vs intelligence is not the correct metric.

At one end, it is lack of knowledge/skill, and sometimes total unwillingness to acquire it. Those are truly D-K-afflictees.
After all, there are lots of people with technical PhDs who think they are smarter than climate scientists and know AGW i wrong. There are often combinations of reasons.

But such folks rarely ask questions of experts in public, attend seminars by experts or go to AGU or EGU. A perfect example is the Stockkholm Initiative, where the latest post extols Andrew Montford, GWPF, and then Ian Plimer's book ... to help students.
See backgrounds, 4 are Emeritus professors.
(All these are in Swedish, so use Chrome to browse, as the built-in translation works smoother there.)

They cannot have low IQs, but most seem to think Murry Salby is right, Pehr Bjornbom has done many posts on that. Lennart Bengtsson (a real climate scientist) shows up, says why not, and they argue with him, then return to discussing the merits of Salby's pseudoscience. Their idea of checking things is to look them up in Wikipedia or reading Jo Nova.

While D+K say that it is possible to learn, I rarely see any evidence of that in the blogosphere, so that I've long ago established a policy of KILLFILE for anyone who clearly establishes an intense D-K pattern. (Meaning, don't bother reading, and *never* engage with them.)

But, there was one over at ATTP that was too amusing not to mention in a D-K thread.

"Michael 2 says:
September 29, 2014 at 4:23 pm
John Mashey says “a useful skill set is that of assessing expertise, something the Dunning-Kruger-afflicted especially lack.”
Nice demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger phenomenon :-)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
People are not “afflicted” with Dunning-Kruger. It is a word that describes both expert and inexpert persons; experts tend to deprecate their own expertise while unskilled persons tend to exaggerate their expertise.
The reason is simple — the more you learn the more you realize the magnitude of what *could* be learned but has not yet been learned.
A person just starting out in computer programming creates “hello, world!” and feels creative and powerful. That is good, because it is a long road ahead of him or her.
Your demonstration reveals that you know the words “Dunning-Kruger” but clearly do not understand the meaning thereof or you would not be carelessly calling it an “affliction”.'

Now, it turns out this was amusing enough to mention here for 3 reasons.
1) "Afflicted" has wider uses than pain, such as Afflicted means "impaired" or "stricken" and usually refers to a person who is mentally or physically unfit, or has been grievously affected by disease. If D-K prevents one from learning from those who know more, it is a serious learning impairment.

2) The "Hello world" example is especially funny. I'm not sure if it is supposed to impress ... but it happens that was introduced (in C, from where it spread) by a friend named Brian Kernighan, Bell Labs TM-74-1273-12, May 6, 1974 in "Programming in C: A Tutorial," I still have a copy and am probably one of those who commented on the draft, since I was already using C. Brian and I later wrote a few papers together.

3a) Some people look up D-K in Wikipedia.
3b) Fewer people also go read the original paper.
3c) And of course, a very few of us engage the researchers.
I have exchanged half a dozen or so emails with David Dunning, as I had some questions beyond the paper, and he was interested in D-K effects on climate blogs.
I sent him examples (some of which made him cringe) also reviewed a paper he sent for comments.
Wikipedia is OK, but conversations with experts is a lot more useful.

So,this was indeed a good demo of D-K, perhaps a bit recursively :-)

"Stupid is as stupid does."
--Forrest Gump

Doug, You're assuming that the mean equals the median. With regards to intelligence, I don't think that's the case... (There's a skew to the distribution.)

Correction: George Carlin was implying that. (Sorry!)

Rob, et al: Go rent the film "Idiocrasy" for an idea of how bad it can be -- and one cheeky theory of how it can get there.

(Not an A-List film by any means, but it has its moments of hilarity, so worth a watch. You'll swear you can see some of the changes in society since the film was made... Some web sites enumerate the "predicted changes" that they show already HAVE happened.)

John Mashey: M2 stated that he spent some 14 years getting certified to configure Cisco routing equipment. (So... 2 year diploma and a lot of hard work?) But at least he's certified.

Idiocracy has its moments - and I love Maya - but I wouldn't count on the science standing up to rigorous examination.

Porky Pearce

stoat — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:30:03 +0000

Porky Pearce

I suppose I could have made him a tosser, but I decided the the traditional rhyming slang was better.

Fred Pearce seems to have made a bit of a career out of being rubbish recently, but has now stooped to just making things up (or, just possibly, that good old journo standby, being so clueless as to what you're talking about that your paraphrases are so inaccurate as to descend into lies).

Anyway, Pearce's current lies [Update: as DC notes, the Newt updated its page on 2011/02/07, but without apology. Whether that means Pearce accepts his error or has been bludgeoned by the Editors, we don't know at this stage] are in the Newt Scientist where he says the leaders of mainstream climate science turned down the gig, including NASA's Gavin Schmidt, who said the science was settled so there was nothing to discuss. Gavin, of course, said no such thing. In fact, what he said was:

My decision not to accept the invitation to this meeting was based entirely on the organiser's initial diagnosis of the cause of the 'conflict' in the climate change debate. I quote from their introductory letter: At this stage we are planning to have a workshop where the main scientific issues can be discussed, so that some clarity on points of agreement and disagreement might be reached. We would try to stay off the policy issues, and will also exclude personal arguments. The issues we have in mind are Medieval Warm Period, ice, climate sensitivity, and temperature data. We would hope to have smaller groups discussing these in some detail, hopefully with scientists who are very familiar with the technical issues to lead the discussion. Since, in my opinion, the causes of conflict in the climate change debate relate almost entirely to politics and not the MWP, climate sensitivity or 'ice', dismissing this from any discussion did not seem likely to be to help foster any reconciliation.

(ref Eli I think). This is, of course, yet more fall-out from the silly workshop that Werner Kraus made such a prat of himself over.

If Pearce wasn't entirely and utterly clueless, he'd have read RC, viz Unsettled Science.

And... if you haven't been part of the climate wars, you might wonder why exactly any of this matters. But "the science is settled" has been one of the mantras used almost exclusively by climate denialists as a term of insult for those actually doing science (Pearce is fully aware of all this back story, of course. He isn't using the phrase accidentally or carelessly). It is a feeble attempt at a double bind: is the science settled? ha ha, then you can't be a scientist because real science is never settled. Is the science not settled? Oh great, then we don't need to do anything until it is. The answer, of course, is that we know now (and indeed have for years) enough about the science to know that the world is warming now due to human activity, and will be warming more into the future from more anthro stuff.

A number of people (hello folks!) have pointed this out in the Newt comments, but as far as I can see there is no correction to the original article. In fact, this feels like one of those things that may get vanished, so I'd better go take a copy.

Not strictly relevant here, but yet another candidate for the tosser list is Lord Carlise, one more booster of the terrorism threat. Well, its his job. Monckton isn't much better but Gareth has fun with him.

Refs

* That Ol' Devil Rabett
* Things Break too.
* Deltoid has a nice round-up
* Bart quotes me, which is always a good way to get a link in return.
* Post Normal Meltdown in Lisbon, part 1 - highly recommended.

stoat Thu, 02/03/2011 - 10:30

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I put in a comment (which has not yet appeared) and sent a letter to the editor pointing to the problem:

========

In the piece entitled Climate sceptics and scientists attempt peace deal, Fred Pearce includes a statement about me that is patently untrue.

"But the leaders of mainstream climate science turned down the gig, including NASA's Gavin Schmidt, who said the science was settled so there was nothing to discuss."

This is completely made up. My decision not to accept the invitation to this meeting was based entirely on the organiser's initial diagnosis of the cause of the 'conflict' in the climate change debate. I quote from their introductory letter (6/Oct/2010):

"At this stage we are planning to have a workshop where the main scientific issues can be discussed, so that some clarity on points of agreement and disagreement might be reached. We would try to stay off the policy issues, and will also exclude personal arguments.

The issues we have in mind are Medieval Warm Period, ice, climate sensitivity, and temperature data. We would hope to have smaller groups discussing these in some detail, hopefully with scientists who are very familiar with the technical issues to lead the discussion."

Since, in my opinion, the causes of conflict in the climate change debate relate almost entirely to politics and not the MWP, climate sensitivity or 'ice', dismissing this from any discussion did not seem likely to be to help foster any reconciliation.

At no point have I declared that the 'science was settled' and that there is nothing to discuss. Indeed, I am on record as saying the exact opposite.

Pearce might well note that even I am included in the "spectrum" that "disagree[s] with Schmidt"!

Fred Pearce did not interview me for this piece. I should like to request that in future, if my views are of interest, that he (or anyone else) should actually ask me directly. I am not hard to contact.

Yours respectfully,

Gavin Schmidt

PS. I am not a 'leader of mainstream climate science' either.

============

[Thanks Gavin. Still not appeared yet -W]

"Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled."

So said Al Gore ... in 1992.

[Or... did he? I notice you don't provide a citation. Looking on google I see only the endless denialist echo-chamber quoting themselves again and again. But can you point to Gore actually saying it?

You might find [[User:William M. Connolley/The science is settled]] enlightening -W]

Robert Watson, newly elected President of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)] was asked in a press briefing about the growing number of climate scientists who challenge the conclusions of the UN that man-induced global warming is real and promises cataclysmic consequences. Watson responded by denigrating all dissenting scientists as pawns of the fossil fuel industry. "The science is settled" he said, and "we're not going to reopen it here."

[Err no, that is more denialist fabrication. Read the link I gave you. That one comes from http://www.sovereignty.net/p/clim/kyotorpt.htm, not from reality -W]

Good post! I do a lot of rubbing my eyes in disbelief, but that article took the biscuit.

Could it be possible for climate scientists (real ones, proper ones, published ones, the ones who know what they're talking about) to set up a Youtube channel to explain why all of these fallacies are just outrageously wrong and dishonest? I can't help but feel that it's easy for written words alone to be dismissed, but when someone watches an explanation being given by a real person, where they can see their face and hear the words actually being spoken, it makes it far more difficult for the words to be detached from the speaker or for a mental image that feeds the reader's confirmation biases to be imposed on the text. Text can be seen as an effort to manipulate, but when you watch a person it's a different thing altogether. Simple talking heads is all it needs. I know Gavin's done a few at least, and the thing is that they work. People pick up on this stuff.

Q: "Is the Sun causing the warming?"
A: "Noooo, you numpty. Here's why.... yadda yadda yadda..."

Okay, not quite like that, but you know what I mean.

Conversely, when I saw the video of Curry's presentation of the t-shirt in Lisbon, I thought, "Is that them? These are the ones holding science to ransom? You've gotta be joking!"

Just a thought. Better out than in, maybe.

"Could it be possible for climate scientists (real ones, proper ones, published ones, the ones who know what they're talking about) to set up a Youtube channel to explain why all of these fallacies are just outrageously wrong and dishonest? "
Potholer54 and Greenman3610 both have youtube channels that have many excellent videos addressing comon misconceptions. Potholer54 takes on a few that are held by those who are concerned about human activities as well as the usual contrarian talking points.

Good places to start.

Dorlomin, that's not what I'm talking about. Potholer and Greenman do great vids, but I mean something as straightforward as this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krXF9Icfa6k

Talking heads, straight from the horse's mouth.

> something as straightforward as this.

Ah, relish the subtle mind-control tactics there, the naked women in the background to make the skeptics drop their, er, defenses ....

Hank, you must have clicked on a bookmark. I meant this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krXF9Icfa6k

Churnalism.

Naomi Oreskes.

âNo wonder the merchants of doubt have been successful. Theyâve permitted us to think we could ignore the waiter, while we haggled about the bill. The failure of the United States to act on global warming as well as the long delays between when the science was settled and when we acted on tobacco, acid rain and the ozone hole are prima facie empirical evidence that doubt-mongering works.â

[Ah, we're playing the "has anyone ever said it" game. The point you're missing is that this is (a) recent and (b) by Oreskes, not a scientist.

Being a careful chap I'm sure you noticed the "almost" that I (carefully) inserted in "used almost exclusively by climate denialists".

But since you dare to appear to defy my: do you accept my thesis that the phrase is "used almost exclusively by climate denialists"? -W]

Hank, you must have clicked on a bookmark.

I think he's referring to the two naked women paintings over Gavin's left shoulder.

I was pointed in the direction of this FP piece "in" New Scientist over at Deltoid before coming here. NS has finally (and belatedly) lost me as a regular reader and subscriber. The latest FP piece just adds to my reasons for not bothering with the publication any longer.

Eli believes in cutting the cards. What say that Pearce didn;t make it up but took someone's word. Now who would that be. . . ??

The byline was:
Fred Pearce, [i]consultant[/i].

I noticed that other people who are writing on the site are called "editor" or "reporter".

Consultant might be NewScientistSpeak for a reporter who's worked long enough on a subject that he's deemed to ready to pass broad expert judgements upon it. Even though, his opinions (like so many journalists') are mostly recyled soap-opera plots. He doesn't actually know his subject well (that's what 8+ years in universities are for), but to get the gumption to write about it, he has to convince himself that he does know it. So he "frames" it as a universal human conflict, which everyone knows something about. Sturm und Drang.

He's the newspaper equivalent of a Lord Moncton.
They both are good writers.
They both are smart enough.
They both accept grand titles.
They both read papers and style themselves self-declared experts.
They both dramatize.
They both make things up about people.
They both misquote.
They both find plenty of time for Hitler and Stalin.
They both want to insert themselves into the story.
They both tell pleasing stories with facts, but fail to apply the scientific method.

Pough, thank you for the sanity check.
J.B., you are to be congratulated on your focus.
Eli, you betcha.

@NN:

Please re-read the Oreskes quote again.

Former,

I read it very carefully.

Former,

In case you don't believe that careful parsing changes the meaning. Here is a quote from the web page for Merchants of Doubt.

â...an important and timely book. Merchants of Doubt should finally put to rest the question of whether the science of climate change is settled. It is, and we ignore this message at our peril.ââElizabeth Kolbert, author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change

> cover blurb
> text of book

One of these things is not like the other.
Traditional in the industry, you know.

Read the "Slaying the Sky Dragon" website yet?

You might find [[User:William M. Connolley/The science is settled]] enlightening -W

I certainly did. I found it very enlightening, in spite of how unoriginal the plot-line was.

Carrots for the Rabett. Pearce bought the denier framing of the CRU email theft, committed in a book and the Guardian to a position that aligns him with the "lukewarmers". Why the author of The Last Generation should do that is something of a mystery, but speculation will not get us far... So he accepts a seat at a table in Lisbon, and to justify his ticket he writes a piece for Nude Scientist. He can't be rude about all these people he's just spent days fraternising with (even though perhaps he should), and so he dashes something off. Turns out to be sloppy. Like his coverage of the Latif presentation for the same magazine.

But is he a lost cause? Spending a few days with "Steven Goddard" might have been instructive...

Fred's coming to NZ in March to attend a climate change forum. I'll be there. It'll be interesting to sound him out...

Fred Pearce is a tosser because he missed the money quote from GS: "...the causes of conflict in the climate change debate relate almost entirely to politics and not the MWP, climate sensitivity or 'ice', dismissing this from any discussion did not seem likely to be to help foster any reconciliation."

[Yes, but I think Pearce would only have discovered that if he'd bothered talk to Gavin :-( -W]

Hank, fair enough.

W.,

Quite so. The quote indicates that no amount of agreement on the scientific issues will affect the conflict in the climate change debate.

How does one make a career out of being rubbish RECENTLY?

Do not demonize New Scientist as a magazine because F. P. tends to fuck up. Yes he and other science writers should be held to account on inaccuracies, but New Scientist usually publish corrections when they have slipped up.

[A reasonable comment. So far they haven't published a correction.

If they wait ~1 week, until this article has faded into history, and *then* get round to publishing a correction, they will earn Null Points -W]

I can see why the editorial staff might have failed to catch this one. They publish articles about just about every subject known to science -and usually manage to do a great job balancing writing that is readable both to non-scientists and specialists, an incredibly hard task- but lack specialist knowledge in any given field. Thus they have to rely heavily on consultants (however they define it) and if the c. slips up, it is up to a hundred angry readers to correct the magazine.
No matter how obscure the matter is, any error will send a storm of protests to the "letters" section. The wide readership guarantees that no falsehood goes unchallenged. In that way, New Scientist is like a microcosm of science.

If FP gets chastised repeated times on a specific topic, it will be a signal to the editors that they may need another consultant for the coverage of climate science.
So you are doing the right thing.

As for science in general, N S is an excellent conduit of knowledge to the public, and generally dial down the sensationalism that is endemic in other science-for-the-lay magazines. Without an "intermediate" magazine for overlapping audiences like this, mainstream readers will be left to the dumbed-down accounts from Murdochland.

[I sent in a mail, though it took a while to work out who to. They don't seem to have a blogs editor. I used http://www.newscientist.com/contact/person?recipient=feat via http://www.newscientist.com/info/in12?full=true#edito And I said:

Your recent "article" http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/02/climate-sce… is deeply disappointing.

It badly misrepresents the scientist Gavin Schmidt, amongst other errors.

In fact, "misrepresents" is being kind, because it simply fabricates words he did not say.

The climate change arena is sureely charged enough without you publishing irresponsible material like this.

This blog posting details the problems:

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/02/pearcegate.php

If you want to retain your credibility, not to mention your subscriptions, you need to publish a correct, sooner rather than later. -W]

W, I get your point. This makes no sense. Once, when I described a planetoid as "1996 TL" instead of the proper "1996 TL 66" the letters section promply corrected me, so it is not as if you can get away with errors in NS...
I wonder if FP was writing this article from memory and didn't bother to double-check. Not that this is an excuse, but anyone with half a brain knows that errors *will* be found out.

26 Birger Johansson -- "As for science in general, N S is an excellent conduit of knowledge to the public, and generally dial down the sensationalism that is endemic in other science-for-the-lay magazines."

That's not a free pass to ramp up the sensationalism. Is it really likely that FP didn't know that a climate scientist using the words "the science is settled" is guaranteed to cue music, kick of the brawl in the bar, flying balsa chairs and sugar-glass bottles included.

If he wasn't aware then he's been reporting on a different climate on a different planet all of this time.

What's really sad to see is when a journalist becomes part of the story, intentionally or not, not just reporting on the story.

But Pearce isn't a journalist. He's a consultant.

For Nicolas:

"... put to rest any skeptical debate about the basic physics of gaseous infrared radiative transfer.â -- J. Curry

PS: http://judithcurry.com/2011/01/31/slaying-a-greenhouse-dragon/#comment-…

@ Hank, FP's a journalist, author and consultant. Perhaps on this occasion he got to wear all three hats at once?

From the very first time I saw the phrase "the science is settled" used, I understood it to be shorthand for "the science is settled sufficiently to provide a policy basis for strong action to reduce GHGs," which of course it has been for many, many years. Anyone who fails to understand that usage in context is either doing so on purpose or is blindingly dull. History showing that there was similar confusion sown in other environmental/health policy debates is icing on the cake.

I'm not sure how to measure your claim "almost exclusively." And I don't believe you qualified it as whether the person speaking was a scientist.

I'm not taking any position on the merits, I just happened to recall a fairly prominent historian who had used that phrase, and that others were happen to echo it.

[OK. Then we may well not be in disagreement -W]

Steve,

So you are agreeing with me that the phrase is often used? I'm not arguing whether it is reasonable or not.

> often

Depends on what values of "often" you're used to.
I'd say not so often:

"science is settled"
About 87,700 results

"hydrogen and stupidity"
About 1,750,000 results

"around the world before truth"
About 1,410,000 results

"climate fraud"
About 142,000 results

"all internet traditions"
About 302,000 results

Probably not often by now other than by denialists, precisely because it tends to get entirely insincerely leapt on and taken out of context. Which I think brings us full circle.

There are certainly important parts of the science that are settled for all but the dead enders and a few outlying scientists, but why you give them such weight is an interesting questions.

Of course you might be one of those who believes the Earth is flat, is that settled? What has happened is that a perfectly good phrase has been mangled by a well funded and long standing frontal assault from the political right.

Not having been part of the climate wars, I'd heard the science is settled mostly from AGW advocates(non scientist?). Ironic that it is now to scientists an unfair taunt, coded denialist talk. How did this happen.

[But did you indeed hear that? Many people seem to think they've heard the same; I've provided a page of links demonstating the opposite. Of course many of those are from old debate; nowadays, stating that t-s-i-s isn't unreasonable. People tend to avoid the phrase because, as Eli says, its been hijacked by the denialists. Its a bit like "nigger" -W]

Eli reminds that, for important parts, saying the science is settled is correct and wishes he could still use the phrase. In typical fashion, he blames the right and a well organized machine.

[If you mean that Eli is typically correct, then you're right. Come on, it isn't hard: just try a google search on it and see what you get. What you get is the denialist echo-chamber. What you don't get is links to speeches by what you call AGW advocates -W]

Gavin sheds the true light. It is not one's view of the science, but of politics that matters in the climate change debate.

And I believe that Gavin's observation cuts both ways. He has made his relevant political views quite clear.

[Has he? I must have missed that. Can you provide a reference or quote (from Gavin himself, of course, not from someone paraphrasing him) -W]

Meanwhile last Monday I took delivery of my Chevy Volt, and my new Solar Panels, and Solar hot water heat were installed last September. Still working out some kinks in those. Nissan Leaf arriving in July or so True story.

Why would you drive runts?

Meanwhile last Monday I took delivery of my Chevy Volt, and my new Solar Panels, and Solar hot water heat were installed last September. Still working out some kinks in those. Nissan Leaf arriving in July or so True story.

And this is relevant, how? I love how denialists trot out their green credentials as if this is somehow relevant to their views on those bits of climate science which are, indeed, settled to the satisfaction of most climate scientists.

It's sort of like a creationist touting a recent trip to the Galapagos as evidence that their motives are pure ...

[Argh, please stop to consider before posting like this. NN isn't a denialist and it isn't sensible to call him one, even by implication -W]

Science is settled certainly has been hijacked from it's original usage. At google, your wiki article is first. Next, is Al Gore using the phrase in Congressional testimony reported by NPR in 2007. The rest, all more recent usages, are as you describe. It has an air of schoolyard "I know you are but what am I" about it.

[But notice again that NPR article doesn't actually quote Gore using the phrase - it just paraphrases it in. This is typical -W]

Eli's typical fashion is to be cleverly correct, or perhaps too clever to be incorrect. I think he would agree with GS (and me) that politics matters more than science in the debate. I'm not sure if either would agree with me that disagreement on the science is not an impediment to action, or that agreement on the science wouldn't necessarily make action easier.

[I doubt he would agree unreseveredly - it clearly depends on what you mean by "matters". On one view, the science isn't really debated: it is very rare to hear any meaningful discussion of same by the denialists, largely I think because thy don't know any. So yes, in debate with them, the politics is more important -W]

Assuming "politics is used in its broadest sense, not narrow left right partisanship, by matters I mean what are the correct questions for debate.

[Oh, then I doubt we disagree. As I said earlier, for practical purposes we already know enough of the science -W]

Paul misses an important point, Eli, and he presumes William and Gavin, would quite wish to get to a policy debate, but simply are blocked by the bullshit science from the Steves and Tony shows.

[I've said much the same. The slight modification is that I think the debate *should* move on to policy, and take the science - say, as presented by IPCC - as given. We should not even be bothering to listen to the people who talk about "warming pauses" etc, and I certainly am not. However, when the debate does move on to policy I may drop out (but I don't promise to): I don't claim any special expertise there -W]

I don't miss Eli's important point. I think it is irrelevant. Nothing from the deniers prevents fruitful policy debate. It takes a recognition that climate is but one of several valid reasons for decarbonization. It is then possible to argue about how rather than why.

Views on nuclear power, corn ethanol, renewable standards, subsidies and incentives cut across political and denier/warmist lines.

[Argh, please stop to consider before posting like this. NN isn't a denialist and it isn't sensible to call him one, even by implication -W]

Oh, he's close, but I commented on a general trend. Watts says pretty much the same, touting the fact that he drives an electric car blah blah blah proving he's "green" therefore his high-school science background disproving the work of ... you! among others ... must be true.

Tom Fuller does the same, Mosher, Bishop Hill, etc.

Actually, I'd say that NN's adopting this mantra pushes him closer to the denialist camp than he's been before. He's obviously making the moral argument that since he's doing this stuff, we should pay more attention to his criticisms than we should if he didn't.

For the record, I've been telecommuting for almost 30 years, bike commuted about 2/3 of the time before that, and still walk and bus as much as is practical, so, screw your volt, NN ...

And get off your moral high horse.

Views on nuclear power, corn ethanol, renewable standards, subsidies and incentives cut across political and denier/warmist lines.

Corn ethanol is just another typical government subsidy of Republican farmers in Republican ("red") states, and will be defended by Republicans (including the current Tea Party types, or at least enough of them) for all time.

One could spend a bunch of time wondering how the Republican beneficiaries of FDR's more or less socialist invention of price subsidies to keep them in business could lead them to hate more or less socialist notions of doing the same for workers in cities, etc, but doing so might cause one to lose their minds. Their attitude is pretty much the same as those seen waving signs saying "Say no to Socialism! Don't cut our (mildly socialist) Medicare!!!!"

Nothing from the deniers prevents fruitful policy debate.

Right ... "there is no need to do anything because the science is a fraud" does nothing to prevent fruitful policy debate.

[Argh, please stop to consider before posting like this. NN isn't a denialist and it isn't sensible to call him one, even by implication -W]

The point is, it's a meme. If NN doesn't want to be associated with those using the meme as a moral foundation for denialism, then he should be smart enough to understand that touting the fact that he's buying a Volt has absolutely no bearing on whether or not his arguments have merit.

The fact that he spewed forth a string of "green stuff I'm doing" was done, without doubt, to bolster his other arguments, and the fact is that whether or not he buys a Volt or farms his own chickens or drinks his own piss to save on water consumption is irrelevant to whatever point he might be trying to make.

It's the flip side of "climate science must be false because Al Gore is fat and lives in a big house and flies here and there".

Fred also treats us to a diatribe once a year on world population day about the overpopulation myth:

http://biodiversivist.blogspot.com/2010/07/response-to-cornucopians.html

[... when the debate does move on to policy I may drop out ...]

Please don't. Can you name any issue on which the remedies proposed stayed within the range of options the science supported? That's where more scientists need to be most attentive and vocal, because the 'policy' suggestions will mostly come from the people who have been ignoring the science all along. As Donella Meadows observed, we know where the leverage points are -- and usually push in the wrong direction.

Re: #46. William, you're responding to a SPAMbot. What you really want to respond to is the original sentence in #40 by NN.

[Thanks. 46 deleted -W]

W.,

Your comment to Eli's #45 is better phrased than mine(46). Battling the deniers on the science is a distraction from answering the essential question. How do we best achieve energy transformation?

I also echo Hank's "please don't".

The delay-is-ok argument by the big money is used to buy time to shift their investment away from the problem before the problem is addressed. They want you to believe it's better to "preserve value" (of their tobacco processing gear, coal leases and mining operations) than to recognize the book value is dropping drastically as the cost of using their products begins to be accounted for. Of course there's another way to 'preserve value' for the original owners: sell the company off to small investors, foolish mutual funds and pension plans.

Altria, anyone? http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=altria+pension+investment

> How does one make a career out of being rubbish RECENTLY?

It takes constant effort to get ahead in the race to the bottom.
An old warhorse is challenging for the momentary lead "recently':
OMG! ANOTHER GLOBAL WARMING SNOWSTORM!!

Speaking of policy discussions, there's this new WWF/Ecofys report about moving to all clean energy by 2050.

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-03-how-to-get-to-100-percent-renew…

Besides the discussion at Grist, what other websites would be able to evaluate this report for the public? Is there an equivalent to RealClimate talking about what clean energy alternatives work, and could and should be implemented?

[Not sure. Off the top of my head, their assumption of global energy demand peaking and then declining to 2050 looks unlikey -W]

@ Holly Stick:

The Oil Drum? (that's one of the articles on the front page)

Thanks, Neven, that looks like a good one.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=renewable-energy-myths…
Roadmap 2050: a practical guide to a prosperous, low-carbon Europe
European Climate Foundation (ECF)

dhogaza,

I have no idea what you are talking about actually. I'm just enjoying some interesting new technology that I think is the type of thing that will eventually lead to solutions. If any are to be found at all.

I can't believe the mean spirited nature of your comments. You are actually quite wrong about my views, but even if you weren't it would be much more astute to applaud someone doing the right thing, even if you believe it is for the wrong reason.

[[Ah, we're playing the "has anyone ever said it" game. The point you're missing is that this is (a) recent and (b) by Oreskes, not a scientist.]

She holds a Ph.D. in Geology from Stanford University and was on the geosciences faculty at Dartmouth before moving into her current field (history of science). At least at one point in time, trained people thought she was producing pretty good science ...

> using the meme as a moral foundation for denialism

Consider just that point -- "'has anyone ever said it' game" is a denial theme. Look at how it's used.

Forget that he dissed your shiny new ride.

Oh, I forgot to thank you for

> it would be much more astute to applaud someone doing the
> right thing, even if you believe it is for the wrong reason.

I'll point that out to the people still frothing over that first 'hockey stick' sketch.

Hank,

This business of labeling discourse is uncivilized in my opinion. WMC made the point that the phrase is used in a certain way, and I made the point that I was aware that this was not always true. And that I was aware of at least one prominent individual who uses it frequently. For me it is just an intellectual discussion. You guys take all the fun out of blogging.

> labeling discourse is uncivilized

"... and every readerâs interpretation is of equal merit."
http://shewonk.wordpress.com/2011/02/05/pns-pretty-nonsensical-stuff/#c…

Forget that he dissed your shiny new ride.

Oh, I wasn't dissing his new ride. I'm enthusiastic about the Volt, or rather that GM's going to use the technology in several new vehicles over the next few years (which is pretty much rocket-speed progress for the auto industry, engineering, testing, tooling plants all throughout the supply chain, etc is a much more complex and lengthy process than most people realize).

And I think that it's great that NN buys fuel-efficient vehicles and takes other actions to cut his carbon footprint.

I'm just tired of people trotting out their green credentials as though they have any bearing whatsoever on their understanding of climate science. Reading NN's post in which he stated he's taking delivery makes it clear I was leaping to a conclusion, he didn't actually tie it into his credibility.

Sorry, NN.

As I said earlier, it's a common denialist meme, not quite up there with "I used to believe the science until I actually studied it myself", but still, somewhat prevalent. Watts in particular uses it as a "holier than thou" (and especially "holier than Gore" hammer to beat people with.

So next time william puts up one of his hodge-podge threads, tell us what you think of the Volt.

Off-topic but related, someone I know (through his son, actually) who made a fair chunk of money in silicon valley years ago was describing his test-drive of a Tesla ...

"I took along a fighter pilot friend to drive ..."

Apparently, it was a good time.

Thanks dhogaza, accepted.

Hank,

You still confuse me. But I want to point out that doing the right thing for the wrong reason is not the same as doing the wrong thing for the right reason.

Apparently, Ron Cram is working on a Wikipedia article about the climate science debate, including the Lisbon fiasco.

Or something like that.

Might still be in the sandbox, though.

[Rom was one of the Dear Departed for a while, and no-one missed him. You can see what he is up to though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/RonCram . Looks like he is up to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:RonCram/ClimateScienceDebateSandbox . What an utter wazzock. No-one took Ron seriously on wiki. Does anyone take him seriously outside it? -W]

NN -- 'right ... for the wrong reason' reminded me of these:
http://www.google.com/search?q=mann+"hockey+stick"+"right+answer"+"wrong+reason"

William,

I get the impression that everyone is whining about what happened at NewScientist and not really following through. Has anyone filed an official complaint with them? NewScientist will not care unless a good many people do make the effort to complain officially.

[I wrote them an email, for which they sent a formal-ack and then ignored. Gavin wrote them a proper let. They have had their chance; clearly the partial-withdrawl-without-apology is all they are going to do and I can't be bothered with them any more -W]

The Physics of the Imbecile: Chopra Interviews Kaku

drorzel — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:51:00 +0000

The Physics of the Imbecile: Chopra Interviews Kaku

I don't remember who pointed me at this transcript of Deepak Chopra interviewing Michio Kaku, but if I remember who it was, I fully intend to hate them.

DC: Is our conversation affecting something in another galaxy right now?

MK: In principle. What we're talking about right is affecting another galaxy far, far beyond the Milky Way Galaxy. Now when the Big Bang took place we think that most of the matter probably was vibrating in unison.

DC: So it was already correlated?

MK: It was already correlated. We call this coherence or correlation. As the universe expanded, we're still correlated, we're still bound by these invisible webs. You can't see them. The book Physics of the Impossible is being filmed for the Science Channel and we actually filmed this quantum entanglement.

DC: You actually demonstrated this?

MK: We actually demonstrated it right on TV cameras. We went to the University of Maryland outside Baltimore and we showed an atom being teleported right across the room. You can actually see two chambers, an atom in one being zapped across the room. A TV screen shows the blip whenever an atom is being teleported and this is non-local matter.

DC: That means going from here to there without the space in between?

MK: That's right it just disappears and reappears to someplace else.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!!!

The whole thing is like this. It's just brimful of gibberish. I mean, I expect Chopra to sound like a character from Star Trek, that's his shtick, but Kaku claims to be a scientist. He's on every other show on the goddamn Science Channel, and here he is spouting New Age twaddle and grossly misrepresenting good science.

It's a measure of the incoherence of this whole mess that Kaku can't even locate the experiment properly-- at least, I assume he's talking about Chris Monroe's experiments at the University of Maryland. I suppose technically College Park is "outside Baltimore," but by that definition, so is Philadelphia.

More importantly, they don't teleport atoms from one place to another. At the start of the experiment, they have a ytterbium ion in a trap on one side of the lab, and a second atom in a second trap a meter or so away. They teleport the state of one ion to another-- at the end of the experiment, the second atom is in exactly the same quantum state that the first one was at the start of the experiment. No material objects "disappear and reappear someplace else"-- you have two ions at the start, and two ions at the end, and two ions at every instant in between.

The teleportation is also not instantaneous. The quantum teleportation protocol requires information to be sent from one trap to the other at a speed less than or equal to that of light. This is fudged a little in the Maryland experiment, as the way they establish the entanglement gives them only one of the four possible output states, so they have advance knowledge of where it will end up, but in a more comprehensive system, the teleportation is not complete until a final adjustment is made to the target ion based on information obtained from measuring something about the sender. Quantum teleportation is not magic, it's perfectly consistent with both relativity and quantum mechanics.

And they're not using any mystical entanglement that dates from the Big Bang to teleport states. They have to work very hard to get the states of their two ions entangled for the experiment-- their success rate is something like one teleportation every 12 minutes. That's the main reason why their experiment is impressive-- getting the entanglement to work is a great technical achievement (as explained in my ResearchBlogging post on the experiment). It's not something that we get for free because all matter used to be in the same place fourteen billion years ago, or whatever New Age idiocy Chopra's peddling this week.

And the whole interview is like this-- this segment is just the part that I'm in the best position to evaluate. Between the two of them, though, they manage to say all manner of idiotic things about physics, biology, cosmology, and computing. Among other subjects.

Somebody ought to be ashamed of this. Ideally, Kaku would be, but that's clearly not possible given that he went on Deepak Chopra's radio show in the first place. But somebody ought to be ashamed. I'm just not sure who-- the Huffington Post? the Science Channel? Tim Berners-Lee for inventing the Web that let me read this gibberish? Guglielmo Marconi for inventing radio?

I don't really care who, but there better be some shame around here somewhere. Because this is completely ridiculous. Jesus, my dog could give a better description of the relevant physics, and she doesn't have a Ph.D., let alone a tv show...

drorzel Wed, 06/23/2010 - 03:51

Flat earth - and Piers too!

stoat — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 15:19:04 +0000

Flat earth - and Piers too!

We interrupt your schedule of cats and rowing for a brief snark at the denialists: courtesy of mt, who clearly ventures where angels fear to tread, we have Newsletter: NZCLIMATE TRUTH NO 244 by Vincent Gray: THE FLAT EARTH... The attached graph is in all of the Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate change, and it is fundamental to all their activities. It assumes that the earth can be considered to be flat, that the sun shines all day and all night with equal intensity, and that the temperature of the earth's surface is constant. This is abysmal stupidity and ignorance at its septic best: Gray really does believe that this simplified picture is the basis for the climate models. Good grief. Need I say moe, guv?

Well all right. Gray continues... It ought to be obvious. The earth does actually rotate. The sun does not shine at night. The temperature is not constant. Every part of the earth has a different energy input from its output. There is a correct mathematical treatment. It would involve the division of the earth's surface into a large number of tiny increments, and the energy input and output calculated for each one, using the changes in all the factors involved. There would then have to be a gigantic integration of all these results to give a complete energy budget for the earth. This is a not-too-bad description of how GCMs actually operate.

I'm finding it hard to believe that Gray really is this rubbish. There must be something else that he means. Or is Inferno now posting as Gray?

Update: Special bonus snarking: I should read climaterealists more often: I missed an exciting plug for Piers Corbyn. He predicted the volcano. Or something. To be honest I couldn't be bothered to read it all. But is has a nice pic and one of those hand-drawn weather front maps that went out with the ark.

stoat Wed, 04/21/2010 - 11:19

Tags

climate tripe

generic stupidity

septic tripe

can you really believe that anyone would write this

"I'm finding it hard to believe that Gray really is this rubbish."

Tell me about it!

I saw that at MT as well. I couldn't believe what I was reading. I thought it was just snark or some kind of joke. Unfortunately, it was serious. Denialism at its best.

Wow. I mean, just wow! What's just as amazing is the chorus of posters joining in. Take this:

"Models like these show how weak our knowledge is - the hubris involved is STAGGERING, thinking we can predict the end results of changes in inputs and outputs based on such a primitive understanding of insanely complex and inter-related systems that act and re-act in such a myriad of UNKNOWN ways.."

Oh the irony.

Is Gray really this stupid? Really?

He could be right, of course. After all he's an "Expert Reviewer" of the TAR and AR4.

We expect that kind of stuff here in the colonies (our ancestors being the people that were either kicked out of or ran away form all the decent countries), but I thought the Kiwis were comparatively sane.

[You need to register that new name ASAP -W]

Oh there is a very big denial industry here, particularly comming from the agricultural sector which makes up a massive (~25%?) portion of NZ's GHG emmissions. Federated Farmers (the agricultural lobby group) is particularly vociferous as is the far right (ACT) party currently forming part of the government.

I can't imagine where he got the idea the sun shines 24 hours a day. Clearly it can't:
http://scienceblogs.com/highlyallochthonous/2008/08/Paul_Kidby_Discworl…

Amusingly, there is currently a web advert right in the middle of Gray's nonsense

NEED
CASH
NOW

I've covered some of his more memorable pronouncements: Touch of Gray is a good one, in which he expounds on environmental Darwinism (or something, it's not clear what), or his resignation letter from the Royal Society of NZ (When Gray turns to blue.

Vincent Gray is 89 next birthday.

This is a not-too-bad description of how GCMs actually operate.

It's really quite amazing, isn't it? I was reading that statement of his going "but ... but .. but ...".

It's sad that someone with his educational background and stature can be so friggingly vocally ignorant about something that can be learned by spending about fifteen minutes in the Google.

I've seen the super-computer at NCAR, and must say I'm quite impressed. I hope the old guys who input the "assumptions" didn't fall for the old flat earth bit.

I think when the superintendent comes around they even bring out the machine that goes "ping"!

Yeah, I was looking at the prescription for what was needed and thought, hey Vinnie, that's what GCMs do, but I figured he wanted 2.5'x 7' boxes.

FWIW Eli knows where there are a couple of original Cray X-MPs sitting around decaying.

Having just read some of the latest stuff Curry has been posting around, I have to wonder how she would expect "a reasoned dialogue" might take place over there - or better yet why a reasoned dialog should take place over there.

Well Gray thinks people like you are just trying to a substitute for the theory of evolution*.

Why do you hate Darwin?

* Page 3 http://www.climatescience.org.nz/images/PDFs/GlobalScam3a.pdf

We are a new climate denial skeptics group from Calgary that will adress this problem:
http://friendsofginandtonic.org/

Oh, man. The Corbyn stuff reads like a Scientology memo or something. I had read JA's posts on Piers, but I never knew how crazy he was.

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/uncyclopedia/images/f/f4/IntelligentD…

[Ah, very nice -W]

Most Americans are Stupid and Unedumacated

grrlscientist — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 05:59:26 +0000

Most Americans are Stupid and Unedumacated

tags: americans, ignorance, stupid, uneducated, Bill Maher, comedy, humor, beliefs, television, education, streaming video

"This country is like a college chick after two long island iced teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars, and we can be talked out of anything, like health care," says Bill Maher. "We should forget town halls and replace them with study halls."

grrlscientist Sat, 02/20/2010 - 00:59

Oh my! Hilariously funny, and sadly true... :p

(Bill Maher) is like a college chick after two long island iced teas: (he) can be talked into anything, like (vaccines are BAD!!!) and (he) can be talked out of anything, like (scientific)health care

Fixed that for Bill.

A germ theory denying anti-vax crank referring to an entire country as "stupid".

That's almost as ironic as a germ theory denying anti-vax crank winning the Richard Dawkins award for science and reason :o

Automatically opposing anything that rethuglicans favor makes Maher right most of the time, but it doesn't make him smart or rational.

We can replace town halls with education halls. But if people don't want to be clever and educated. People don't like to think and it's big problem of our civilization. People like to eat, to sleep and to be entertained. It's normal for any being. But politics should lead people to intellectual achievements, not to byung a lot of garbage.

Is there a video of Maher explaining exactly what was in the health care bill, and exactly how it would improve our health care lot? Just askin'.

Sorry, but I put "teh health care bill iz teh awesome!" in the exact same camp as the "death camp" teabaggers. Do *you* know what was in the bill?

What is so freaking funny about drunk people being coerced into things? We all know why he picked a drunken college girl, friggin misogynist.

Bill Maher is so freaking wrong anyway. School is not the answer to this problem at all. Anyone who has looked at the cirriculum for these things (or just attended) knows that public schools are an obedience machine. Someone tells you what to do, when to do it, and it often makes no sense or has no relevance but you do it anyway to avoid upsetting an authority figure. Looking at how the united states is portrayed and what facts are left out of history lessons is shocking as well. There are massive efforts to keep people apathetic that extend well beyond school, and they aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Framing this as americans being too stupid to do anything correctly is dishonest. It is very difficult to live in a society where huge centers of power aim to depolitisize people and conceal important information without some of it rubbing off on you. If this much effort was aimed at any group of people the effect would likely be the same.

BM is a fool

I'm going to play devil's advocate here for a minute, because I keep seeing people say "Bill Maher is stupid about this, thus he can't comment on anyone else being stupid in a different way" First of all, that's a logical fallacy, and second, the accusations being leveled at him aren't even correct.

Several commenters above deride Maher as supposedly not believing in germ theory. While he could still stand to educate himself on immunology for sure, it is NOT true that "does not believe in germ theory" (seriously, a simple visit even to Wikipedia - which as a cited quote from him on the matter - would have sufficed to clear this up, as you can see for yourself: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Maher#Views_on_health_care ).

He does not disbelieve in the existence of the influenza viruses or polio or anything like that; it turns out he just is naive about the average healthy human being's immune system being able to TAKE influenza germs without dying; which is out of the loop in terms of understanding immunology, but not nearly as stupid and out-there as completely denying germ theory. Basically, he misinterprets over a hundred years' worth of science that indicates that good diet and exercise = better immune system as being good grounds to be skeptical he "needs" a swine flu vaccine. He also does not (or at least did not) appear to understand that the shot (as opposed to the nasal vaccine) for influenza strains is given using a dead virus, since he claimed he didn't feel the need to "shot a disease in [his] arm".

What this makes him is ignorant on something that is bad to be ignorant about but comparatively specialized.

This kind of ignorance, though foolish, is nowhere near the same ballpark of not realizing Judaism came before Christianity, even though...hell, like he said, Old Testament, New Testament, you'd think they'd figure it out. Or the whole "sun revolving around the earth" thing, which you would think would have been pretty well established by now.

Maher may or may not be a slight (unknowing) hypocrite, this is true... but in this case, being a hypocrite does not actually invalidate his points. It's like claiming that someone who eats a dozen brownies in one sitting can't say "hey, smoking cigerettes are bad for your lungs". Yes, they're dumb in another (health-related) respect, but that does not invalidate their ACTUAL point.

I would argue that most people, nay, all of them, are stupid or foolish at least some of the time or at least on one subject.

But yes, some people are stupider than most, some cultures or subcultures are more dangerously incurious than others, and while you may think it's hypocritical of him to point out this stupidity and mock it, in all honesty, how does that make his actual exact points as made here invalid?

The answer is it doesn't. So stop acting like it does, please. You do logic a disservice when you do that.

J VERY clearly and eloquently handled the issue here, this post serves to direct others to J's post (number 9 in case you're wondering) and to argue that while perhaps his own reasoning wasn't the greatest there certainly wasn't any reason to incite panic in the general population and force people into being immunized against swine flue. Dr Marc Lipsitch claimed in a fairly recent article that swine flu's death rate may have been well below a tenth of a percent, far lower than seasonal flu.

like a college chick after two long island iced teas: we can be talked into anything, like wars

Well, it's sure possible, but an army of tipsy college chicks is not necessarily the pinnacle of military effectiveness.

J wrote:

Well, it's sure possible, but an army of tipsy college chicks is not necessarily the pinnacle of military effectiveness.

Indeed, just like the US war effort in Iraq. And Afghanistan.

With Advisors Like These, Who Needs Policy?

drorzel — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:41:38 +0000

With Advisors Like These, Who Needs Policy?

A few years ago, the after-dinner speaker at the DAMOP conference banquet was Presidential Science Advisor John Marburger. As I wrote at the time, I think it's safe to say that he didn't make a positive impression on the audience. It also sparked a rather lively discussion afterwards, that some people speculated was the reason for the veiled threats we got the next year.

The Corporate Masters have just published an exclusive post-election interview with Marburger. I read it with some interest, mostly to see if it would change my impression of him.

I have to say, it didn't. Not only does he spout the usual hack-tastic disingenuous line about the funding of stem cell research and other projects, there's this wonderful exchange:

Seed: Did you see President Bush ever change his mind based on the scientific evidence that you presented him?

JM: As far as I can tell, the president, as a matter of principle, doesn't think it's wise to defy nature. By the time I've arranged a presentation about something for the president, all science questions have been resolved. And he expects it. He would probably fire me if I permitted a science question to leak into his briefings. I'm there to make sure that his advisors and his agencies have consulted with the science community, and that all the science issues have been taken care of before anything gets to him.

That's spectacular. It really lifts my spirits to know that we've been led for the last eight years by a man who would fire his science advisor if he were to be forced to confront a science question. And the idea that that advisor would happily go along with that... Just... wow.

Words cannot express how happy I will be a week from now, when we put actual adults back in charge of the government.

drorzel Wed, 01/14/2009 - 06:41

Tags

What? I love the blog and the insights both science and otherwise are great but i have to say this entry is way off base. Why do we want a science questions still on the table when presented to the President unless the president is a scientist. Do we want him to weigh in on it? Do we want the Presidents scientific opinion... Come on. Take this analogy to the business world. Sure in a tech company the CEO my really understand a subject but there is no way you go to a CEO of major company with a "technology" question still on the table. That is what a CIO or other leader is for. The CEO expects the CIO to bring the technology answer the CFO to bring the finance implications, the VP HR to bring the people impacts, etc...

Now if what you are really talking about is the President changing his POLICY or POLITICAL position based on the scientific position presented we are talking a different issue. What Marburger was saying was the President does not want his briefing to be where the science is debated.

This is absolutely no different than the President not wanting a couple of military advisors debating which weapons system will better accomplish the mission...

Actual adults are in charge of the government by managing this way... whether their decisions and policies are adult is a very different question.

I personally don't want the President in every briefing with debates. I want him picking respected experts to provide him the input on the item with all sides of the issue.

It would actually be a fine thing if all the science questions were answered before anyone talked to the President. Of course, it's impossible to do that and only someone entirely ignorant of science would expect it.

It would be lovely if all scientific questions were settled before they got to the President, but if it were possible to have all scientific questions settled before they got to the President, then there would be no need for a presidential science advisor in the first place. The whole point of the position is that the President will need to make decisions about issues of science before the full story is in, and will need quality advice in order to make those decisions.

And for that matter, there will be times when the CEO of Global Conglomerate Inc. will have to make some decision about technology before all of the questions about said technology are answered. The CIO can and should bring advice on the subject, but it's ultimately the CEO's call. That's why they pay him the big bucks. With regard to science advice to the President, it's even more so.

Besides, if all of the relevant scientific questions were settled before things got to the level of a Presidential briefing, there wouldn't be any need for scientists, would there?

Exactly but that is exactly what Marburger was saying except he made is clear the President does not want the science debate in the briefing. Folks are taking the line "all the science questions have been resolved" way to literally. What is meant by this is that the folks assigned to analyze and assess them have reached a position which drives the advisory briefing to the President.

As I mentioned this is no different than say the military or finance. Are all the questions resolved about what the military capabilities of enemy x are? Are all the questions resolved about will operation Y using strategy Z? Are all the questions about the economic impact of an event resolved? No but the President expects the military, financial and science advisers to have run these questions through and give him a clear brief with a suggested course of action for decision not a debate.

The key point is your statement " the President will need to make decisions about issues of science". No he doesn't. Bases on what you quoted he wants the scientists to tell him the scientific view (role of the advisers) and then he with other advisers makes decisions on the issues about policy, politics, economics, principles, etc. which are impacted by the science.

As a possible example he will probably not want to hear if it is unclear if the water found on Mars could have supported life (now or in the past) with the existing salt content... he will want to hear a recommendation about the science, the cost, the other missions competing for resources, the potential positive impact of the mission, etc.. The "issue of the science" is not the "issue".

This is not about NOT confronting the science issues it is about the scientists confronting them and reaching conclusion on them BEFORE they get to the oval office.

p.s. given the above however if what is really exercising folks is that a scientific fact/finding/etc. does not change the President's position, policy, belief then it really is not a science issue to begin with. Not that they shouldn't be, but policies, principles, beliefs, and least of all politics themselves are not always aligned with scientific "facts". Not sure we are clear which question we want the "adviser" dealing with, the science or the outcome/impact of the science on the list above...very very different questions and expectations.

No but the President expects the military, financial and science advisers to have run these questions through and give him a clear brief with a suggested course of action for decision not a debate.

So there is no need for footnotes in Presidential briefings?

We have just been through eight years with a President who insisted on a clear brief on every issue that came before him, and was sufficiently oblivious not to ask the question "How well do we know what we think we know?" So the people who met with him directly would always strip every caveat out of every briefing. So, for instance, the people who in 2002 correctly said, Maybe Saddam doesn't have WMDs, were systematically shut out of the process as the NIE that originally had footnotes and caveats to that effect was reduced to a document that said, Saddam definitely has WMDs and we need to take him down as soon as we can logistically get our military into Baghdad. Would Bush have ordered the invasion if he knew of the doubts? We'll never know, but he should have had a chance to ask.

In the ideal world where the President could wait until all information was in hand to act, it would make sense to do it this way. In the real world where decisions have to be made in real time based on imperfect information, this method leaves you vulnerable to confirmation bias and advisor bias. The decision whether to go to war must be made by the President (you are, however, correct to say that he and his advisors should leave tactics to the military). Likewise, we don't know yet just how bad a problem global warming will be, but we know that the chance of a disastrous outcome is high enough that we should act to prevent it even though it will be expensive to do so (again, expecting the President to read the original sources is asking too much). But in both cases, the advisor should provide not only a recommended course of action but, wherever possible, alternative courses of action and the risks involved with each. This is especially important in democratic/republican governments where the leader can and will be grilled by the opposition should the policy fail, but even in the corporate world or a dictatorship the smart, non-kleptocratic leader should know the alternatives in case he ever does have to respond to critics.

Uh, jj, if there is no debate, then why would there be a decision for the president to make? If all debate had occurred among his advisors before the presidential briefing and all the conclusions had been drawn, then the only point of the briefing would be to get a rubber stamp on the decision that had already been made. Otherwise, without a knowledge of the debate parameters, it would not be possible for the President to make an informed decision, or to turn down the given proposal.

If I were the President and the question before me was, "Do we fund weapons system A or weapons system B", I would absolutely want "military advisors debating which weapons system will better accomplish the mission", or at the very least I would want a single briefer to explain both sides of the issue, and why one side was favored over the other on military grounds (maybe even that the briefer disagreed with the consensus). Similarly, if the question before me was, "Do we fund this NOAA project or not", I would absolutely want my Science Advisor to honestly present both sides of the scientific issue. Then, taking those scientific issues into consideration, along with the political and financial issues, an informed decision could be made.

Let's say there are only two parameters to a particular Presidential decision between "A" and "B": the scientific content of "A" and "B", and the political content of "A" and "B". The President must decide "A" or "B". If he is only told, "The scientific consensus is for 'A'", then the only decision he can make is on the political content of "A" and "B". Choosing "A" would be "pro-science". Right? Would choosing "B" then be "anti-science"? Unless he is given more information, it is impossible for him to know, based solely on the briefing content. He is left with making a decision solely on the political content of "A" and "B".

I agree that most decisions have to be made below the level of the Oval Office. The President simply doesn't have time to give a thumbs up or down on every decision of the Executive Branch. But to say that all scientific debate must be excluded from briefings for those choices where the President must make a decision, is ludicrous.

Eric agree but that was not what provoked my first comment. You are always at risk for bias in the decision process but again this is no different than any leadership area where different forces are at play and seek to influence the outcome by the information available for the leader making the decision.

I want to reinforce that what started my comment was the need to be clear expectations on what he role of the advisor is and the role as created by the President (vs what some want it to be). I don't want the President deciding the science, military, or financial position (the person with probably the least expertise having the final say..I do want him well informed)what I want the President doing is balancing the overall decision with the significant influences for the country, etc... and then taking responsibility for the decision. One President (or other leaders) may want more of the debate visible, another may want simply the advice with the risks.

I am trying to isolate that a leader has chosen a course of letting the scientists make the "science" decision/recommendation to them, As well as clarify that this position is not somehow unique or un-adult (it is simply one of many leadership styles which vary by leader be they President, CEO, etc.)

I should also point out that most people here certainly want decisions made on sound science principles(objective, research, logic, etc.) which I assume is the underlying theme here. However, when making that position firmly it seems a bit incongruous to then be completely subjective about the outcome.(the fact is the President - and team - being over 18 and duly elected under the laws of the US is an actual adult).

Hi Prof. Orzel

Doesn't this defeat the whole purpose of that "science a d v i s o r " thing.
I am truly amazed that there are people out there saying such things in official interviews!

just my $0.02