Category Archives: Technology and Society

Business, Economics, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Bill Nye

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Enough with the “extra” children already. I don’t think he has any self awareness of what a totalitarian he is.

[Update Thursday morning]

The bullies of climate change:

“It should trouble everyone in the scientific community that the primary response of its leading voices when they encounter a voice they don’t like is to try to get that person fired from their job. That is doesn’t trouble anyone very much says something,” wrote Roger Pielke, Jr. in a blog post this month. Pielke is a scientist who concluded a decade ago that climate change was not contributing to more extreme weather events such as hurricanes and floods, a finding that was eventually supported by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

By exposing this flaw in climate science, Pielke has since been targeted by powerful climate interests determined to destroy his career and reputation. He has been called a climate denier, even though he believes human activity is causing climate change and he supports a carbon tax. President Obama’s top science adviser, John Holdren, wrote a lengthy missive against Pielke, which prompted one Democratic congressman to call for an investigation into Pielke’s research (he is a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder). The coercion was so great that Pielke left the field of climate science a few years ago.

He’s back in the fray now, after some climate bullies, including Mann, who is suing National Review for alleged defamation, attacked Pielke for his testimony on Capitol Hill last month on climate science. Pielke will start posting a monthly blog about climate issues, mostly to fight back against the campaign of intimidation by climate activists and the complicity of the scientific establishment. By exposing this flaw in climate science, Pielke has since been targeted by powerful climate interests determined to destroy his career and reputation.

“The science community not only allows this bullying, they applaud it. And the power brokers endorse it. There are no ordinary checks and balances in the profession,” Pielke told me. “There is a view among climate activists that if they can get everyone to believe the same thing, then the right policies will take place. It gives these people political standing.”

And that is what most terrifies the climate tribe: the loss of political power and policymaking influence, as well as the government funding that goes with it. In a recent interview, Steven Koonin, a former undersecretary in Obama’s Energy Department and now the director of NYU’s Center for Urban Science and Progress, said scientists are fearful of reprisals if they hold a different view of climate change: “If you get scientists in a room together, it’s a vibrant, alive science. But somehow that gets muted, if not suppressed, when you get out into the policy-making discussions,” Koonin said. “It’s very difficult to get into the club, so to speak, if you’re a contrarian. You might see your money cut off, but even more significantly, you’ll see opprobrium from your peers. If you speak up, you can be in big trouble.”

Or even threatened with violence. After the March for Science this past Saturday, shots were fired at the office of John Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama, Hunstville, and a well-known climate-change skeptic. Christy’s colleague, Roy Spencer, reported the shooting on social media on Monday: “When some people cannot argue facts, they resort to violence to get their way. Maybe the ‘March for Science’ should have been called the ‘March to Silence.’”

Maybe.

[Mid-morning update]

Bill Nye, the Scientism Guy:

The new show (supposedly aimed at adults but still written at a grade-school level) uses occasional references to science to introduce simple political advocacy, broken up by bad jokes and interludes of actual screaming. This isn’t science but scientism, the invocation of science in areas where there are legitimate differences of values. “See, you, me we’re in this together,” Nye tells his audience at the outset of the first episode. “If we think together and work together, good things are gonna happen.” This might be a tempting thought to some — “Come, join our mob, happiness will ensue!” But groupthink isn’t science.

No, not it’s not.

[Late-morning update]

Bill Nye’s view of humanity is repulsive. Why yes, yes it is:

“Here’s a provocative thought,” Rieder says. “Maybe we should protect our kids by not having them.” This is provocative in the way a stoner wondering why airplanes don’t run on hemp is provocative. That’s because the entire case for capping the number of children rests on assumptions entirely devoid of scientific or historical basis.

Culinary, Education, General Science, Health, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Mindless Eating

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…and mindless research:

Problems with p-hacking are by no means exclusive to Wansink. Many scientists receive only cursory training in statistics, and even that training is sometimes dubious. This is disconcerting, because statistics provide the backbone of pretty much any research looking at humans, as well as a lot of research that doesn’t. If a researcher is trying to tell whether changing something (like the story someone reads in a psychology experiment, or the drug someone takes in a pharmaceutical trial) causes different outcomes, they need statistics. If they want to detect a difference between groups, they need statistics. And if they want to tease out whether one thing could cause another, they need statistics.

The replication crisis in psychology has been drawing attention to this and other problems in the field. But problems with statistics extends far beyond just psychology, and the conversation about open science hasn’t reached everyone yet. Nicholas Brown, one of the researchers scrutinizing Wansink’s research output, told Ars that “people who work in fields that are kind of on the periphery of social psychology, like sports psychology, business studies, consumer psychology… have told me that most of their colleagues aren’t even aware there’s a problem yet.”

I think the hockey stick episode shows that this is a problem with climate research as well.

The point of peer review has always been for fellow scientists to judge whether a paper is of reasonable quality; reviewers aren’t expected to perform an independent analysis of the data.

“Historically, we have not asked peer reviewers to check the statistics,” Brown says. “Perhaps if they were [expected to], they’d be asking for the data set more often.” In fact, without open data—something that’s historically been hit-or-miss—it would be impossible for peer reviewers to validate any numbers.

Peer review is often taken to be a seal of approval on research, but it’s actually more like a small or large quality boost, depending on the reviewers and scientific journal in question. “In general, it still has a good influence on the quality of the literature,” van der Zee said to Ars. But “it’s a wildly human process, and it is extremely capricious,” Heathers points out.

There’s also the question of what’s actually feasible for people. Peer review is unpaid work, Kirschner emphasizes, usually done by researchers on top of their existing heavy workloads, often outside of work hours. That often makes devoting the time and effort needed to catch dodgy statistics impossible. But Heathers and van der Zee both point to a possible generational difference: with better tools and a new wave of scientists who aren’t being asked to change long-held habits, better peer reviews could conceivably start to emerge. Although if change is going to happen, it’s going to be slow; as Heathers points out, “academia can be glacial.”

“Peer review” is worse than useless at this point, I think. And it’s often wielded as a cudgel against dissidents of the climate religion.

Business, Economics, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Rick Perry’s Memo

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…and Bill Nye’s optimism:

I see “science fans” applauding and promoting Bill Nye’s call for 100% renewable generation by 2050. One might think if one endorsed Mr. Nye’s plan it would also be prudent to encourage studies such as the one advocated by the Secretary of Energy. Certainly Mr. Nye is not a power systems expert, nor have I seen him reference any when he is explain how such a transition can be accomplished. We should all be at least somewhat skeptical about the potential consequences of such a significant endeavor.

What I may be missing is the role of “optimism” which Mr. Nye assures us is a necessary ingredient for this transition. I’d seen hints of this before and perhaps what is happening is that far too many people obstinately reject any criticism regarding renewables because they believe that optimism is crucial if the planet is to be saved. Consequently no one should utter a disparaging word about any of the potential “preferred” renewable solutions. The view seems to be that we must get started now and we will work out the distracting details as we go along.

Perhaps this explains why those who view climate with extreme alarm often show no tolerance for criticism of renewable energy? Otherwise, why are grid experts not trusted? Grid experts have academic credentials, share a common body of knowledge, and continually build and alter their understandings based upon empirical evidence. Individually and collectively they work to be innovative and develop new approaches and challenge older perspectives. Grid experts have a proven track record of success. As I’ve argued before grid experts do not for the most part have a strong vested personal interest in the status quo. An ambitious, aggressive transfer to greater renewables would increase the demand and likely compensation for most all existing grid experts.

It’s almost as though it’s religious, not scientific.

Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

North Korea

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Assessing its war plans:

Recognizing that in war nothing ever goes entirely as expected, and that there are some major unknowns, this is based on what we do know about North Korea’s force structure, its comparative strengths, and terrain and other considerations—along with my own assessment of how Korean War II would initially unfold. But regardless of how it played out, one thing is near certain: It would entail horrific destruction and suffering. Tens or hundreds of thousands could become casualties. In defeat, North Korea would become a 25-million strong humanitarian catastrophe. And that is just with conventional weapons: The possible consequences of attacking Seoul with WMD are almost too awful to contemplate. There is a role for force here—a strong ROK/US posture has certainly constrained North Korean aggression for decades—and in no way should DPRK threats be simply acceded to. But under current conditions, and given the scale of likely destruction, planners should strongly question whether each DPRK provocation—even the imminent development of a ICBM—justifies risking such a war.

As a general once said, war consists of sh***y options, and this is probably the worst problem currently on the global state.

Education, General Science, Mathematics, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Science And Society, Social Commentary, Technology and Society

Science As Religion

8 Comments

Nice to see things like this at Slate. Everyone who “marched” yesterday should read it. Didn’t like the “science deniers” reference in last graf, though.

[Tuesday-morning update]

The “March For Science” failed, as demonstrated by its own signs:

Time to brush up on your social science, Science Guy. You too, Astrophysicist Dr. DeGrasse Tyson. You too, all ye faithful March for Science marchers, all ye believers in Truth, Science, and the Objective Way. Beware your own version of science denial. The idea has not developed “somehow”, “along the way”, that belief is informed by more than just what science says. Modern humans have always interpreted the facts based on deep values and meanings, affective filters imbuing the facts with an emotional valence that plays a huge part in determining what ultimately arises as our view of THE TRUTH.

Tyson and others are profoundly (and willfully) ignorant of philosophy. Belief in an objective reality is a critical element of the scientific method, but it’s just a belief, not the “truth.”

Business, Economics, History, Technology and Society

John D. Rockefeller

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I usually hate stories with headlines that use the “y” word, but you are richer than he was:

You could neither listen to radio (the first commercial radio broadcast occurred in 1920) nor watch television. You could, however, afford the state-of-the-art phonograph of the era. (It wasn’t stereo, though. And – I feel certain – even today’s vinylphiles would prefer listening to music played off of a modern compact disc to listening to music played off of a 1916 phonograph record.) Obviously, you could not download music.

There really wasn’t very much in the way of movies for you to watch, even though you could afford to build your own home movie theater.

Your telephone was attached to a wall. You could not use it to Skype.

Your luxury limo was far more likely to break down while you were being chauffeured about town than is your car today to break down while you are driving yourself to your yoga class. While broken down and waiting patiently in the back seat for your chauffeur to finish fixing your limo, you could not telephone anyone to inform that person that you’ll be late for your meeting.

People take too many things for granted.