Category Archives: Science And Society

Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Geoengineering

7 Comments

I have to say that I’m (slightly) encouraged that the new science advisor is willing to consider planetary modification as a solution to global warming, in the event that it actually turns out to be a problem bigger than the current preferred cure. But I think that Mickey Kaus infers too much, unless he’s seen more specific proposals than appear in the WSJ piece:

If shooting particles in the air can semipermanently change the climate of the entire planet … well, in the hands of well-meaning people it would be a risky, last-ditch policy to combat global warming. In the hands of less benevolent people it could become a heavy duty terrorist weapon, no? … If you have the missiles, is it that much easier to develop nukes?

Well, first of all, having missiles doesn’t help at all with developing nukes. They are entirely independent technologies. It might help in delivering nukes, if (as I pointed out in the New York Times) you can build the nukes small enough to fit on the missiles, and if you can also build an entry vehicle that can deliver it to a desired target (and yes, I know that the guidance doesn’t have to be that precise to simply take out a city, as opposed to a silo).

But even more to the point, nowhere did I see the suggestion that it would be done with “missiles.” I had an argument with an idiot at Free Republic a year or two ago when this notion (putting particulates in the upper atmosphere to block the sun) came up. He pooh poohed it, on the basis that rockets cost far too much, and made a stupidly ridiculous cost estimate based on Titans (which no longer even exist).

But if this were to be done, it wouldn’t use missiles. As I point out in the previous linked post, this would be an excellent market for reusable suborbital transports. And if you’re worried about suborbital transports as terrorist or rogue-nation weapons, you don’t understand their nature (at least for the short distances that satisfy either tourism or seeding particulates in the upper atmosphere). They would actually be less useful than aircraft, as a result of their limited range and payload.

Philosophy, Science And Society

Multiverse Versus Intelligent Design

22 Comments

A useful post from Jim Manzi:

we actually do have good scientific explanations for many of the phenomena that were claimed to be unexplainable without an intelligent designer. But scientific knowledge is never absolute, so there are always gaps, and therefore always space for such an argument. The problem with both ID and multiverse theory is the same: Neither is true and neither is false in a scientific sense; they are metaphysical frameworks with the scientific task of inspiring testable hypotheses, but are not themselves scientific theories capable of testing through scientific means.

It’s tempting to see ID and multiverse theory as mirror images — one looking desperately to prove scientifically that humans are special, and the other desperately seeking to avoid this conclusion. This is almost, but not quite, appropriate in my view. The proper question to ask about both multiverse theory and ID is whether they are fruitful. Ultimately, either each framework will help scientists develop physical theories in the form of predictive rules that can be tested through observation, or it will not. It’s very hard to see how ID can do this, but I guess that anything’s possible. Multiverse theory is more likely to do so, if only because it is a point of view that embeds a metaphysic that is far more congenial to so many more smart scientists.

But to look to science to answer a metaphysical questions like “Did God create us?” or “Are there completely unobservable aspects of reality?” is a category error of the first order.

Yup. As I’ve said repeatedly, science isn’t about proving that there is no God — it can never do so. It s about understanding the universe as much as possible on the assumption that there is none, or at least none that is rigging the game. The question of whether or not God exists is entirely orthogonal, and unaddressable by science.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

How Did It Go?

9 Comments

Here’s a graph of Anti-HumanityEarth Hour’s effects in California.

It doesn’t really surprise me. Even if a lot of people dimmed lights, the amount of electricity used for lights in CA isn’t that huge a percentage of the total demand. For instance, one of the biggest drivers, particularly in the Bay Area, 24/7/365, is server farms, and no Virginia, even in the land of fruits and nuts, they’re not going to shut them down for a stupid political propaganda stunt.

[Update a few minutes later]

Martian Achievement Hour?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society

The Naturalistic Fallacy

10 Comments

John Tierney has some thoughts on, and from Freeman Dyson, that seem appropriate to last night’s nonsense:

The disagreement about values may be described in an over-simplified way as a disagreement between naturalists and humanists. Naturalists believe that nature knows best. For them the highest value is to respect the natural order of things. Any gross human disruption of the natural environment is evil. Excessive burning of fossil fuels is evil. Changing nature’s desert, either the Sahara desert or the ocean desert, into a managed ecosystem where giraffes or tunafish may flourish, is likewise evil. Nature knows best, and anything we do to improve upon Nature will only bring trouble.

The humanist ethic begins with the belief that humans are an essential part of nature. Through human minds the biosphere has acquired the capacity to steer its own evolution, and now we are in charge. Humans have the right and the duty to reconstruct nature so that humans and biosphere can both survive and prosper. For humanists, the highest value is harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. The greatest evils are poverty, underdevelopment, unemployment, disease and hunger, all the conditions that deprive people of opportunities and limit their freedoms. The humanist ethic accepts an increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as a small price to pay, if world-wide industrial development can alleviate the miseries of the poorer half of humanity. The humanist ethic accepts our responsibility to guide the evolution of the planet.

Like Tierney, I am firmly in Freeman’s camp.

Economics, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Making A Difference

11 Comments

I’m going to turn on extra lights tomorrow night at 8:30. I hope that many of my readers will join me. Hell, I might even turn on the air, though we won’t need it. I’ll just run it with the windows open.

I wonder what these people think when they look at a picture of the Korean peninsula at night? Who do they consider more virtuous, those in the light, or those in the dark?

Call it a vote for sanity and freedom.

[Later afternoon update]

Here are some more suggestions:

Our press release described ways people might celebrate the achievements of humanity such as eating diner, seeing a film, driving around, keeping the heat on in your home — all things that Earth Hour celebrators, presumably, should be refraining from. In the cheekiest manner, we claimed that anyone not foregoing the use of electricity in that hour is, by default, celebrating the achievements of human beings. Needless to say, the enviros in the blogosphere didn’t take to kindly to our announcement.

Needless to say.

If our Human Achievement Hour is at all a dig against Earth Hour, it is so only by the fact that we are pointing out what Earth Hour truly is about: It isn’t pro-Earth, it is anti-man and anti-innovation.

Got it in one.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Here’s the web site for Human Achievement Hour.