DominionSeraph
Diamond Member
- Jul 22, 2009
- 8,386
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It's not bad, but I do have an issue with her apparent overconcentration on the packaging of science. (I'll continue with this in a bit.)
Why is it news that science is uncertain? Is the state of science education in this country so bad that we are no longer teaching kids what science really is?
You ever see Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader? Those kids are full of random facts, like the size of a blue whale's heart, because at that age that's what we feed them. They're not ready to grasp the whole scientific process, so we just give them a bunch of information that comes from science. But that's not what "science" is -- just a bunch of analytical conclusions that magically appear when a man in a white labcoat with a clipboard enters the room. By high school you should be learning that science is a process, and you should be learning why it is set up the way it is.
Science is set up in a very specific way because natural human evaluation is full of flaws. Natural evaluation will come up with a working set of behaviors when the effect directly follows the cause or there's a good trail of breadcrumbs, but much beyond that and it starts leading to crazy-town as it tries to blindly jump gaps without a good, objective source of information as to what a straight jump even looks like. Its self-check procedure basically boils down to:
"Is anybody dead or bleeding?"
If "yes" then
If "no" then :thumbsup:
I mean, that works from an evolutionary point of view; but it's really not very good if your goal is to filter out as much nonsense is possible so you can end up with a good exploitable understanding of the fundamental aspects of the universe. So that is where science comes in. It concentrates on the distribution of the breadcrumbs. And it does not limit itself to, "Do the breadcrumbs appear to lead in this direction," as that is not conclusive due to Confirmation Bias; but instead casts its net far wider with, "Can we find any breadcrumbs off the hypothesized path that are solidly inconsistent with this being the correct direction?" And then it has someone else check the work. And then it is always open to somebody finding breadcrumbs that are solidly inconsistent with the accepted explanation because the case is never closed due to the limitations of human knowledge always leaving the possibility open that the data was misinterpreted. Even if your science is so good that you can harness the fundamental forces of the universe to instantly teleport, fly unaided, and enlarge your penis by 6" in 6 weeks, that doesn't mean your science's conclusions are right -- it only means that they happen to be pretty darned effective.
Now, as to the packaging:
The problem here is that decisive action has to be binary, and that's what climate scientists are saying -- based on the best available data, decisive action is needed.
If NASA detects a 100 mile (+-5%) diameter asteroid they can say with 95% confidence will hit the Earth in two years, the action should not to be to construct 90.25% of a solution at 90.25% of the speed required. You have to construct 100% of a solution, and you can't put it off until you have 100% certainty because you don't even have 100% certainty after the asteroid has impacted.
Scientists are citizens of Earth, too, with just as much to lose as anyone else if the Earth goes to shit, so if, with the best data available to humanity sitting right in front of them, they conclude that decisive action is needed, why should they be "above" using their First Amendment right to fully express what they believe the best course of action to be?
"Please build a rocket. Oh my God we need to do this and FAST. No, we can't wait for the next budget hearings in 10 months time -- the difference in delta v required would be astronomical and place it far beyond what we can accomplish with the technology available. Newtonian physics and orbital positioning are against us here -- days, hours, minutes even are of the essence even two years out."
To do nothing but take out a sheet of paper, write, "NEA 2535 Victor tentatively projected to impact largest terrestrial planet in Sol system on 21 Dec 2012," and then filing it away for the quarterly review does not make it "more scientific."
That's the problem: Her proposed "solution" ends up saying: "No knowledgable person may push a course of action;" for she has them philosophically constrained to merely presenting the baseline argument all in the name of "image". That puts the full weight of the decision in the hands of the unknowledgable by default. In what universe is that a good idea?
Here:
THE LEARNED BASING A DECISION ON SCIENCE DOES NOT MAKE THE SCIENCE NOT-SCIENCE.
While opinion may totally color a stupid conservative's mindset, the intelligent can differentiate between conclusion and basis of conclusion. Just because a conclusion is reached and it is strongly held that action must be taken does not mean that the scientifically-minded would be emotionally attached to belief in that conclusion.
I strongly believe that all of you morons will remain morons and that somebody will utter some stupidity that will demand a response. That doesn't mean that, faced with every Denier abruptly changing his mind after being struck by how Godlike my insight is, I wouldn't reconsider.
The likely future being the likely future places no obligation for it to be the necessary future. Anything less than a certainty is subject to change, and nothing a posteriori is certain.
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