[Osx-nutters] Denial

Wed Aug 15 00:00:13 BST 2007

On 2007-Aug-14, at 16:50, David Cake wrote:

> At 1:10 PM +0100 14/8/07, Stefano Mori wrote:
>> On 2007-Aug-14, at 03:25, Chris Gehlker wrote:
>>
>>>  I have met many people, some of them in bars, who believe that the
>>>  problems associated with alcohol are vastly over stated. They  
>>> offered
>>>  this opinion even though they weren't be paid by and association of
>>>  distilleries, breweries and vintners. Now by Stefano's reasoning I
>>>  must be skeptical of anyone who asserts that alcohol is a social
>>>  problem because so much is spent researching the issue and  
>>> because so
>>>  many  medical people and social workers are invested in the issue.
>>
>> Be skeptical of those who say that the skeptics are only in it for
>> the money, that the skeptics are so well funded that they are
>> influencing public opinion, and that their influence is so bad that
>> we must stop them, deny them any press coverage, and even put them on
>> trial.
>
> 	Now now, Stefano. I've almost always referred to cranks as
> well as paid shills. I'm well aware that there are many people who
> have their own reasons for their opinions.
> 	But more to the point, PR WORKS. Yes, a torrent of bad
> argument from paid PR shills convinces some people, and has other
> people questioning arguments when they really shouldn't be (ie using
> arguments already debunked, raising discredited evidence anew,
> repeating dubious philosopical objections to established scientific
> practice, and so on), including one Stefano Mori.

Oh, so you think I'm under the evil influence? My granda always  
warned me to watch out that someone doesn't put the evil eye on me.

oohh... ahhh... ickk... i'm coming out in blotches too!!!

But anyway, I don't deny that misinformation works to some degree,  
but you know the old saying.

The problem David is when you assume that anyone disagreeing must  
necessarily be under evil PR influence. Perhaps I've never given you  
a rational argument that you heard, so that's understandable.

> 	The thing is, the scientists are paid to do science. Almost
> all of the scientists could start offering anti-AWG scientific
> opinions and still keep their job.

Maybe if they all did it together in one huge coordinated consensus.  
Gentlemen! At midnight we flip!!

How do you explain cases where scientists themselves have reported  
being ignored and marginalised? It's one thing to say, "we don't  
agree with you", it's quite another to start saying "he's an old man  
and has lost it". One week a person is a respected scientist with a  
long track record. The next he's a stupid old fool. In the absence of  
evidence of a sudden stroke, or other debilitating brain condition,  
obviously that can't be true. People don't suddenly lose their  
marbles. Losing one's marbles seems to be strangely correlated with  
taking up an anti-AGW stance. Interesting correlation, that, don't  
you think?

Just because our debate has been long, doesn't mean I forget the  
vitriol that was directed at these poor bastards.

> ALL of them could just shut up and
> say nothing about AWG and keep their job - because actually most of
> them are paid to do something else rather than speak publically, like
> research and write papers. Why do they keep saying things in pubic
> anyway? Well, conviction and a duty to the public presumably have
> something to do with it - but its not really money, because virtually
> none of their money depends on taking a particular side in the
> debate. Really, they could

Well there you go, conviction may lead them to make statements to the  
public. A sense of duty. I did mention this earlier as a factor in  
why there may be a cultural bias in the research community; a gradual  
but still not properly formed awakening to the moral principle of  
caring for the ecosystem. No overt conspiracy is required, just a  
growing and shared morality.

A group's moral purpose has the power to, well, start crusades,  
invade foreign countries, and other little delights. I'm just saying,  
don't underestimate it.

> 	So, yes, Stefano. I think there is a difference between being
> a PR person paid to express a particular opinion regardless of its
> truth IS a different thing to being a scientist paid to perform
> research. If you can't see that they are not equivalent, you might be
> lost to conspiracy theory.

Hm, see above.

>> So leveling accusations at skeptics that they are invested in big oil
>> doesn't get you very far in deciding who's right, because the AGW
>> people are invested in what they do too.
>
> 	There is a big difference between doing what you do because
> you believe its correct, and it is a social duty, and doing what you
> do because a big cheque turns up telling you which side you are on.
> 	If you don't think there is a difference between these two,
> you are a very miserable and cynical man!

I have no doubt that many people do indeed feel a deep seated and  
very genuine moral conviction to care for the ecosystem. As it  
happens these people often also have a deep seated moral conviction  
for shared community. I generally suspect that this is why  
environmentalism and consensus are so implicitly intertwined.
And typically, and this isn't just in environmental groups, but  
elsewhere too, typically when there is a problem of disagreement--and  
disagreement is a problem because it runs counter to, and fractures,  
shared community--the disagreement is usually handled by questioning  
the moral character of the person disagreeing. The reasoning here is  
that, if you don't value community, then why are you *in* this  
community? Why aren't you just being nice and joining in? Why are you  
messing it up with your disagreements? So the pattern is, when  
someone disagrees, question their moral character. This is  
beautifully played out in the AGW debate. On one side there is a  
dedicated, sharing and caring consensus, and on the other side there  
are just morally reprehensible and disagreeable characters. The  
dynamic is very clear. If it was just happening in a therapy group, I  
wouldn't give a shit. If it's happening in science, and concerns  
planetary survival, then whoa dude, we're in big trouble.

Am I being cynical enough for you?

Anyway, that was more for entertainment. I don't particularly want to  
dwell on it here.

>> Departments don't just close one day with a sign on the
>> door, "Oops, we were wrong".
>
> 	We've gone over all this philosophy of science stuff in the
> past - the short answer is, scientific research is a lot less about
> what is right and wrong than non-scientists think, its much more
> about what produces useful results and what doesn't, which is roughly
> correlated with right and wrong but only very roughly. Departments,
> therefore, can cheerfully admit they were wrong on particular issues,
> and start using a different methodology that does, without having to
> have a changing of the guard. Its not like the guys who were doing
> all that dodgy neural network research when I was a student got fired
> when the fashion changed, they just moved on to a newer trendier
> numerical technique, they've probably learnt stats by now.

Jim Hansen said that his opponents would only go away once they are  
dead.

I love this touchy-feely view you have about these people.

>>> It seems to me that Stefano's reasoning can be applied to any  
>>> area of
>>>  empirical enquiry. The fact that researchers  in any area reach
>>>  consensus is prima facie evidence that they are engaged in a
>>>  conspiracy to fake or misinterpret the evidence.
>>
>> They reached a consensus about their predictions of the future. Right
>> there it stopped making sense, and they stopped being scientists.
>
> 	So,
> a) you actually don't believe in the predictive power of science? I
> mean, I'm assuming you aren't actually going to claim that scientists
> who believe the sun will rise on Thursday morning (and are prepared
> to say that that is a scientific claim) have therefore forfeited the
> right to be scientists? Or that scientists who believe that when they
> let go of something, it will drop to the ground? And other such
> trivial predictions about the future?
> Or maybe you do, and we can just move you into the craz...I mean
> philosophically eccentric file, and move one/

Please find a better example than the sun rising... which it's been  
doing since at least recorded history. That's like saying you got a  
guy to build you a 1 inch pile of matchsticks so now you're sure he  
can go build you a 2 mile high structure? Are you naive?

The reason they stopped being scientists is that they're making  
forecasts about a highly complex system, a hundred years into the  
future, and they haven't demonstrated why their forecast should be  
trusted. The latter is the key point. Why should we trust that  
forecast? If you can't demonstrate that empirically, it's not science.

> b) or is it just that you believe there is some magic point at which
> a scientist who, say, clearly says 'I am 80% certain that X will
> occur in 5 years' has ceased to be a scientist by virtue of his
> carefully stated doubt? That somehow it is unscientific to try to
> predict problems before they occur, scientists only explain what
> happened afterwards?
> c) or maybe you just have some weird bee in your bonnet about people
> stating levels of confidence in their claim, which would be weird,
> because papers we have discussed here in the past have had clearly
> stated confidence levels, and I'm sure we've discussed this specific
> point.

Look, what you say all sounds plausible and reasoned on the surface,  
and just about everybody on board the AGW worldview would agree, and  
see it as well thought out, very reasonable, very informed and  
perfectly sensible. Hence the high confidence of yourself and  
environmentalists and politicians is very understandable.

The problem is, it's what you don't know that bites you.