A comment at GNXP’s open thread (too messed up by the recent switch from Haloscan for me to link to) led me to Epistemology & Endocrinology, at a blog I hadn’t heard of before titled “The Unsilenced Science”. The author’s background is in medicine, and for more from that perspective he recommends this segment on NPR. The main topic would be of interest to n/a, as it concerns racial differences in hormones, but I thought his discussion of anthropocentric global warming and human biodiversity was more interesting. Genetics/psychology and climatology are rather distant branches of science. We shouldn’t a priori expect someone’s position on one topic to correlate with their take on the other. But that does seem to be what we see. Perhaps there are some GSS questions I could look at, but for now I’ll just have to use examples. Half Sigma has been a great proponent of the acronym “HBD”. He is also very critical of AGW, often highlighting low temperatures and claiming that environmentalism of “Gaianism” is a religion taking the place of Christianity. Mencius Moldbug used AGW and HNU (human neurological uniformity) along with Keynes-Fisher macroeconomics as examples of the bogus pseudoscience we have been afflicted with ever since our rejection of monarchy. Dennis Mangan dissents from the mainstream (which I’ll define in terms of popular media rather than scientific specialists or the general public) on those as well as many other scientific issues (and speaking of Mangan and ideological combinations…). Similarly, I’ve heard a few creationists claiming that ClimateGate undermines the scientific case for evolution, and “fundamentalist” at the Mises blog once argued with me that Austrians should learn from the successful strategy of creationist intellectuals! As “nooffensebut” argues in the original post, I think people are just reaching for arguments, however plausible they may be on their own merits, that support an agenda they have. The common thread here seems to be that “liberals” or “the establishment” believes in one thing, and boy would they look stupid if that was shown to be wrong.
The author also dissents from the term “human biodiversity”, preferring instead “race realism”. I disagree, because the differences aren’t just cosmetic. One obvious thing “race realism” leaves out is gender. Furthermore, there’s a lot of biologically-based differences within race/gender categories. The Bell Curve was originally going to be about individual differences generally, before it became focused on IQ. Even after that, race only took up a relatively small part of the book, with most of the text focusing on differences within whites just to avoid the distraction. If group means were made equal, it would not greatly diminish the amount of variance that exists in the entire population. It might, however, become easier to discuss that variance.
As a follow-up to my previous post, he also seems sympathetic to China’s activities in Tibet, as evidenced by Why I am a Supremacist. I agree with his general gist: science has done a lot for me, what have most white people done that they should deserve any loyalty from me?
January 31, 2010 at 2:44 pm
“I think people are just reaching for arguments, however plausible they may be on their own merits, that support an agenda they have.”
That’s a pretty uninsightful observation on its own, but doubly so when made in defense of science as transparently agenda driven as AGW research.
As you well know, progressiveism (e.g. “liberals” or “the establishment”) already looks stupid, and yet it frequently adopts the figleaf of “science” to cover itself; something “scientific racists” are never allowed to do, of course. It is precisely for that reason so many anti-liberals are justly wary of research whose conclusions undergrid progressive calls for massive, impoverishing state intervention.
Unless you think the green economy actually WILL make us all rich? If a scientist said it, would you believe it then?
January 31, 2010 at 10:39 pm
If I were allowed to judge my own arguments, I would call it a fairly insightful observation that can be applied in a great many areas (hooray for outside view), AGW among them.
Yes, some AGW scientists have an agenda. According to “The Great Global Warming Swindle” the original agenda was Margaret Thatcher’s promotion of nuclear power! But many people who don’t agree with the usual agenda have acknowledged that AGW has sufficient scientific basis to take seriously.
You might more credibly argue that it IS stupid rather than LOOKS stupid. “Looks” depends on the subjective evaluations of people, so liberalism could appear smart and sophisticated even if it were not. Lately (Half Sigma would agree with me on this), conservatism has been developing a more stupid “brand”.
I agree on the double standard, I recall Linda Gottfredson (or was it Arthur Jensen?) wrote a paper on that.
I certainly don’t think the “green” economy will make us wealthier (and I don’t recall any economist saying so). The argument for it is that it is a necessary sacrifice to avoid other harms. But people don’t always like thinking in terms of tradeoffs (Tetlock has a good paper on that as applied to sacralized concepts) and so popular rhetoric pretends they don’t exist. Like a few others, I would actually prefer that the planet be a bit warmer, but there is a limit to how warm I’d like it to be and other possible effects (acidification of the ocean) to take into account.
February 2, 2010 at 2:50 pm
>If I were allowed to judge my own arguments, I would call it a fairly insightful observation
Have you never heard the phrase “partisan hack?” Spouting a cliche is not insightful, at least not if your concept of insight includes originality.
>Yes, some AGW scientists have an agenda.
Yes, they certainly do! As do the governments who underwrite their grants, and the universities who train and hire them.
>But many people who don’t agree with the usual agenda have acknowledged that AGW has sufficient scientific basis to take seriously.
Take it as seriously as you like, it won’t erase the very good reasons anti-liberals have to be suspicious. Wasn’t your point that their concerns are ultimately groundless partisan hackery? That’s what I disagree with.
Which isn’t to say none of their concerns aren’t. The real trouble with ‘agreeing’ with AGW – whatever that would mean with an issue that complex – is that, in our highly interventionist political culture, it automatically gives the progressive bureaucracy permission to, pardon my french, fuck us in the ass (some more). Or hey, maybe they’ll elegantly, coherently and cost-effectively solve the problem, right? I mean, who knows! Maybe a scientist would?
>You might more credibly argue that it IS stupid rather than LOOKS stupid
It does look quite stupid, to those who can see it for what it is. Which is who my post was about. Point taken, though.
>I don’t recall any economist saying so
What would it matter if they did or didn’t? No one gives a damn what the economists say. I did say SCIENTIST there at the end for a reason. Economists are not really considered “scientists,” or paid any attention, unless they are keynesians, or some other flavor of interventionist. The reasons for that should be pretty obvious.
That is why anti-liberals have worked so hard to argue against AGW as a fact: once it is admitted, any argument that nothing can or should be done, or that what is being planned is stupid or useless, or what is being executed is disastrous, will nearly all be non-interventionist economic arguments, or based therein, and therefore be totally ignored. Or sprinkled with magic keynes dust.
>But people don’t always like thinking in terms of tradeoffs
Ah, no. What’s relevant is that those with their hands on the levers of power have no incentive to PRESENT the trade-offs (assuming those are really even knowable beforehand), because if they did, they couldn’t sell their policies. And they haven’t presented them, and won’t. Instead they pretend that it will make us all rich, and much of the idiot public believes them.
>Like a few others, I would actually prefer that the planet be a bit warmer, but there is a limit to how warm I’d like it to be and other possible effects (acidification of the ocean) to take into account.
As an aside, I find the conceit (among liberals, not saying you subscribe to it) that any of this is fully knowable or controllable funny and infuriating. They will act that way, I guarantee you.
February 2, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Many old sayings are insightful. I don’t think originality is a requisite for insightfulness. Partisan hacks tend to behave in a predictable manner, but the mere concept of a “partisan hack” doesn’t by itself entail all the things I was talking about.
John Tierney has a post on AGW and conflict of interest.
I wouldn’t disagree that there are grounds to be suspicious of some people. I don’t think all concerns are partisan hackery. But the correlation between partisanship and, say, denying that the world actually has gotten warmer over the 20th century, leads me to believe partisanship is responsible for some of it.
Many people agreed that our health care system has problems. Attempts to reform it still ran aground. Nothing much seems to be happening on the climate front either, and most countries that signed onto Kyoto didn’t follow through.
The question of whether something will make us richer is certainly within the domain of economics. I don’t think natural scientists usually opine much on that aspect of the issue.
David Friedman has argued that it doesn’t actually change things that much politically if warming is happening for non-anthropogenic reasons.
To step away from AGW for a second, I notice that you often refer to “anti-liberals”. That seems a questionable identity to embrace (though you have not explicitly done so). It is defining one’s self in terms of opponents’ ideologies, and so just as liberalism shifts for baseless reasons, so must anti-liberals. Cue Vox Day.
UPDATE: I’m glad I came across this post which mentions a distinction between AGW and “DAGW” (where D is dangerous). Knowledgeable skeptics often only attack the latter claim. I don’t think Steve McIntyre has even stated a definitive position on either.
UPDATE 2: Here is a contribution from among the more readable spam comments I’ve found in my filter:
“The only way I could see the UFC even getting close to getting Rampage is if they were somehow able to get him involved with TUF 4 as a coach or something. Because that would guarantee Rampage not only exposure and instant stardom but also the biggest sponsors. Outside of something like that I don’t see how the UFC could land Rampage.”
In case you are wondering how an automated filter (which doesn’t care what the topic of the original post was) figured out that was spam, the commenter’s url pointed to a porn site.
May 8, 2011 at 7:16 am
The attempts to quantify the likely AGW effect of CO2 goes back to Svante Arrhenius’ paper in 1896. Naomi Oreskes has found AGW concern from the premier non-partisan scientific bodies of the USA from the 1950’s through the 1970’s.
What changed? Oreskes claims it was the backers of the George C. Marshall Institute, which created the political split over AGW ex nihilo. GMI’s coal and oil backers saw a threat to their business, and acted.
If you think about it, this explains quite a bit. Republicans are the pro-nuclear party, but considers the ideas of AGW and fossil-fuel depletion to be heresies worthy of excommunication (or at least a well-funded primary challenge). Why avoid the best arguments for nuclear power, and even declare them off-limits? Because the Republican party is a collection of mostly business interest groups, as the Democratic party is a collection of racial and gender interest groups.
May 8, 2011 at 6:26 pm
Interesting idea. I had never heard of the George Marshall Institute.
In the british documentary “The Great Global Warming Swindle” it is claimed that AGW originated when the Thatcher administration was trying to push nuclear power.
The closer fossil fuel depletion currently is, the less worrying carbon emissions should be. Particularly from a geological perspective.
I think business (particularly finance) has more influence in today’s Dem party than, say, Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton.
May 9, 2011 at 7:42 am
The ethics of the producers of TGGWS are questionable at best. See what they did to the testimony of Carl Wunsch.
GMI was also prominent in the effort to create a false fog of uncertainty about the health hazards of tobacco smoke. My rule of thumb is that being on the same side of an issue as an organization like GMI (or UCS, or La Raza) doesn’t necessarily make you wrong, but it ought to make you look very carefully at what’s been given as evidence.
May 9, 2011 at 11:45 pm
I had heard about Wunsch’s complaint and my comment should not be taken as an endorsement of the movie (I’m also pro-nuke).
Since I hadn’t heard about the GMI, it goes without saying I was unaware of their involvement in tobacco.
March 22, 2012 at 5:20 am
As several people have pointed out, TGGWS was a very flawed documentary — and, it must be said, consistent with film-maker Martin Durkin’s rather chequered history. The wiki entry covers a number of issues, but this investigation actually goes through the film with Durkin to pause and point out the most egregious errors as they occur. That’s followed by a good panel debate involving some climate scientists and skeptics.
On the strange correlations between anti-AWG and other heterodox positions, I have some links in this post that may be of interest. He’s not to everyone’s taste — personally, I find him one the few scientifically consistent environmentalists around — but George Monbiot also took an amusing stab at these issues here.
March 25, 2012 at 11:43 pm
Yes, I didn’t take the video terribly seriously.