Friday, October 26, 2007

We're doomed!

I note that once again this morning we're all doomed. This is the view of a report that the UN has published by almost 400 of the great and good minds of science. As you'd expect the Indy has splashed it on the front page saying it's not just another environmental scare story (by implication suggesting the others it has run have been?), whilst the Times too makex it front page news and double-page inside coverage.

Amusingly the quotes from the report that have been used don't actually paint the picture of doom in quite such certain terms. They're all hedged. They say we 'may' pass on a bill to our children, or my personal favourite, that we must act now to 'avoid the threat of catastrophic consequences'. So that's not action to avoid catastrophy, but action to avoid the maybe/possibility of catastrophy. That's a bit like me saying that to avoid the threat of being conscripted in any possible future war I should cut off my arms and legs. Now there's a global policy to stop war if ever there was one. Amputation at birth to protect the children of the future from the horrors of land war!

The reporting also plays to the weakest of fallacious argument to bolster the importance and 'rightness' of the UN report. We are told that the top scientists in their field produced it. The subtle appeal to authority is clear. These people are experts therefore what they say must be accepted as right. Now I am not saying they are not right, but the appeal to their position in the body of knowledge is not what makes them right. The Science Editor of the Times however has based part of his commentary on such an appeal.

He argues that this is not just another agenda driven report from a green pressure group, but is instead a sound scientific one that operates by consensus and strict peer review. A group of 'top scientists' getting together and deciding that they share the same view does not however make their view correct. It is a cliche I know, but hundreds of years ago the experts all agreed the sun went around a flat earth. To base an argument on the fact that there is consensus and to claim that it is science is not science at all but a conflation with collective group think.

If you then throw into the mix a bit of politics it becomes clear from reading the excerpts of the report that this is not something free of value judgments. The end game of the report is the developed world is a nasty consumer whilst it allowed the developing world to lag behind with environmental consequence. The master/slave Hegelian world view, along with its Marxian extension based on exploitation and production shines through like the sun on our supposedly doomed planet. The idea that the report is agenda-free is - frankly - risible.

Again though I am not saying that the scientific knowledge that has formed the basis of such hedged predictions and clearly ideological recommendations is by necessity wrong. What is wrong is the way it is being presented to us. The hedged predicitons have become unhedged apocalypse. We're asked to accept it because the people involved simply know more than we do and they all agree with each other don't you know (some might call that a mob). And last but not least we're expected to ignore the ideological politics that run through its recommendations thanks to the appeal to fear about saving humanity from a fate equal to death.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

The consensus view of the voting population of Great Britain is that politicians are lying, mendacious, money grabbing, bastards. Which is why they don't vote. So maybe sometimes consensus can be correct.

Anonymous said...

You may well be right to say that many centuries ago experts believed that the Sun rotated round the Earth. It was however these same 'top scientists' - people like Copernicus - that first got it right and rode against conventional (and indeed doctrinal) opinion.

It seems to me obvious that as with any species, if you provide an abundance of resource, there will be a population explosion. With humans, that resource has come in the shape of oil, coal, steel, rubber and other such products. They will not last for ever (ok, rubber might if it's properly looked after).

Our society is built on the assumption that these raw materials always will be and so population levels can be maintained. They will not and they cannot.

Certainly, the technological advances of the last 250 years mean the neutral-resource consumption sustainable population level is significantly higher than it was in 1750, but I very much doubt it is anywhere near 6 or 7 billion.

dizzy said...

"So maybe sometimes consensus can be correct."

I didn't say that consensus couldn't be correct. I said consensus is not scientific.

You may well be right to say that many centuries ago experts believed that the Sun rotated round the Earth. It was however these same 'top scientists' - people like Copernicus - that first got it right and rode against conventional (and indeed doctrinal) opinion.

Indeed so, but I'm not sure what relevance that has to the point I was making other than I think reinforcing the fact that you cannot accept a theory of science on the basis that lots of people believe it.

Anonymous said...

I'm guessing all these "top scientists" have watched the cretinous Al Gore's film and been brainwashed?

Anonymous said...

I would take umbrage with the media who often sex up science to sell papers/increase rating and do a disservice to the science itself. The same can be said of bloggers. Unfortunately the public often have to rely on these sources because most don't have the inclination or education to read the source scientific material. One hope is the small number of bloggers with scientific backgrounds.

"you cannot accept a theory of science on the basis that lots of people believe it"

So you're saying most if not all the scientists have completely dumped the scientific method of observing, hypothesising and testing in favour of belief (like religion). That is irrational and conspiratorial to say the least.

Consensus means majority of opinion which was expressed in a typically scientific way by the IPCC scientists with a statement of uncertainty (10%). Statements of uncertainty are as old as the hills to scientists and do, unintentionally, represent examples of consensus when the uncertainty is a very low number.

Not since the early classical antiquity (400 BCE) have 'scientists' (I'd argue they were philosophers at this stage) thought of the Earth as flat (with the notable exception of Chinese astronomers until the 17th century). And then for a long time after science and scientific opinion was controlled/censored by religions of all flavours to fit their doctrines (theocratic science consensus). Only a handful of men were strong of will to flout religion and to become giants of the era before 'free science'.

Anti-GW have given up on science as a counter argument and have instead adopted the postmodernist critique of science and to say it is simply another discourse and not representative of any form of fundamental truth. Whereas the realists argue that science does reveal real and fundamental truths about reality.

"The end game of the report is the developed world is a nasty consumer whilst it allowed the developing world to lag behind with environmental consequence."

You've chosen certain provocative words that the scientists haven't but you haven't answered the question, are their facts right? FACT: The developed world are the biggest consumers. FACT: The developing world will suffer more because of either worse environmental events or the inability to deal with events due to lack of infrastructure. What some are arguing is that if facts when stated have unintended political consequences then those facts should not be stated at all. This is the same doctrinal censorship of science from the past. In this case the doctrine of differing political philosophies about whether we have a duty or not to help less developed countries either out of a sense of compassion or for perceived historical abuses or for economic reasons (development of new markets) etc.

dizzy said...

"So you're saying most if not all the scientists have completely dumped the scientific method of observing, hypothesising and testing in favour of belief (like religion)."

I think you'll find that is what you're saying I am saying rather than what I said. What I said was that you cannot say that something lots of people believe in is science or scientific, but that was the way this report was being portrayed in its reporting. I strongly suggest you read what I wrote again as it is clear that I am attacking the use of ad verecundiam and ad populum arguments to justify the conclusion of the reports.

You've chosen certain provocative words that the scientists haven't but you haven't answered the question, are their facts right?

That would be because I wasn't questioning the veracity of the scientific knowledge in the report. In fact I even said that the scientific knowledge in the report was not by necessity wrong. So I don't really undersdtand what your point is besides showing that you havn't read the post or maybe did not understand it.

dizzy said...

One hope is the small number of bloggers with scientific backgrounds.

This happens to be exactly the sort ad verecundiam argument I am referring to incidentally. Whether someone has a scientific background or not it does not have a bearing on what they say being either right or wrong, and to suggest that it does is not very sound reasoning.

Mulligan said...

Scientists need research grants, and some even like to see their obscure reports headlined on the BBC. A cat in hell's chance of either if you don't sign up in full to MMGW. Who the heck is going to prove you wrong when the world doesn't end in 50 years?

Amusing this week for the Express Science Correspondant (O'Hanlon?) writing a full page article denegrating scientists and other people who have got on the obesity and binge drinking bandwagon (based on unproven science) when he is one of the worsy proponents on conclusively proven man made global warming.....

flashgordonnz said...

"Our society is built on the assumption that these raw materials always will be and so population levels can be maintained. They will not and they cannot."
So technology is static then? Better write to the patent office and let them know: they can start looking for new jobs. Ever notice how there's fewer and fewer copper pipes around, but we still get water delivered to our homes?

flashgordonnz said...

"Anti-GW have given up on science as a counter argument"
Ha ha, funny because they haven't given up on science, it's just that your lot can't stand being shown errors in their "science". Then it becomes clear that the science (or lack of it) doesn't matter, because it’s a doctrine/belief/religion.

When will "pro" GW freaks understand that all they are doing is giving business new marketing angles to "push" their products! What a funny unintended consequence!

Anonymous said...

I hear a SAVE A PLANET TAX comming or SAP as i like to call it.

Anonymous said...

"It is a cliche I know, but hundreds of years ago the experts all agreed the sun went around a flat earth. To base an argument on the fact that there is consensus and to claim that it is science is not science at all but a conflation with collective group think."

That is not actually true, no one of any note thought the earth was flat, further more, the Egyptians/Greeks measured its circumference. (To withing 500 miles incedentaly which is not bad considering they had to do it with a pair of sticks, measuring the angle of shadows, and using prescision marching)

On the issue of the earth going around the sun (an very old helicentric theory from Helenic peoples, IE the ancient Greeks) or the other way round, the problem was that Aristotle had at the time shown up major flaws in the heliocentric argument which were not explained at the time (and you need to know a lot about the earth to do so) and nor were they clear until fairly recently.

However your point that a number of scientists take the same view does not make them right is correct.