A feature of the internet has been the growth of networked zealotry; where intensely held attitudes are expressed in overheated rhetoric and ad hominem abuse, not as solitary aberrations (though that also happens), but in self-reinforcing internet coteries.
This has fed off, and possibly intensified, the bitter “culture wars” of the US; the intensification of political rhetoric and a more intense partisanship in politics. The last, particularly in Federal politics, has likely been fed by a change in living arrangements among Senators and Congresspersons whereby they spend much less time socialising with people of the other political Party.
There is some penchant–depending on political preferences–for blaming one side of politics for the culture wars more than the other. Since the phenomena in question occur across the political spectrum, this is not likely to be an analytically fruitful exercise, as distinct from another manifestation of the same patterns.
Drowning not waving
Looking at deeper structural changes, we are living in information-saturated societies. A natural response to such an assault of information is to retreat into simplifying and emotionally satisfying narratives. And what is more simplifying and emotionally satisfying than a Manichean story of good and evil, where you and those who think like you are the “good guys” and them over there are there are the bad guys, who clearly only believe what they do because they are evil, wicked, malicious and stupid (while you and yours believe as you do because you are moral, clever, smart and informed).
The dramatic drop in communication costs, and explosion in ability to connect, that the information technology revolution represents means that the like-minded can associate together far more easily. This can be liberating and reassuring. It can also lead to intensification of beliefs as people reinforce each other and divergent information is excluded or discredited. An ironic effect of massively increased access to information is to make the crippled epistemology (pdf) which is so much a part of zealotry and fanaticism easier to maintain.
Established groupthink
The established information institutions have (more than) done their bit to create the basis for these patterns. While critical thinking is allegedly an ideal of post-Enlightenment education (particularly universities), what education systems have generally actually been teaching and practising (particularly universities) has been groupthink. (Scott Sumner, for example, regularly bewails the current groupthink among macroeconomists–all the more remarkable since it fails to conform to previous accepted analysis.)
Moreover, teachers and academics may have been better at teaching the habits of groupthink than their specific groupthinking. Particularly if alienation from the offered groupthink leads, not to open-mindedness, but the search for more congenial groupthink. A sense of status, worthiness and morally-charged meaning are powerful passions; and if the real “lessons” have been that that is what information and analysis is “for”, then people will go off and search for it. And, thanks to the information technology revolution, very easily find it.
Where, in past times, information was filtered through interaction with a diverse local community, now the internet provides congenial filtering and mutual support at one’s fingertips. As transport costs have fallen, local communities themselves become sorting devices, so counteract such trends less than they previously might. Particularly when use of land-rationing to drive up local (housing) land prices adds to the sorting effect. Even within local communities, easy transportation encourages like-minded friendship networks.
The selling of groupthink leading to some frustrated alienation from particular groupthinking has also been a feature of much mainstream media. The issue here is not bias in media, it is biassed media; journalists practising groupthink. Hiring in one’s own image and likeness (something public broadcasters and university departments are particularly prone to) reinforces the effect.
The lazy newspaper monopolies of the US have perhaps been particularly prone to groupthink, whereas the national newspaper market of the UK allows a wider range of choices. In the US, journalistic groupthink has not only led to media operations targeting the alienated (FoxNews, Breitbart), it has also energised the already well-established policy-advocacy industry, some of which very much panders to groupthinking up to and including conspiracy theories; a particularly intense manifestation of emotionally resonant Manichean narrative. After all, if events do not turn out as they are “supposed” to, powerful malign hidden forces are a very emotionally satisfying “explanation”. (The existence of both truthers and birthers point to the not-ideologically specific nature of conspiracy thinking in particular and networked zealotry more generally.)
Reinforcing refuge
The internet also allows people to tap into ready-made articulation of their alienation from educational, academic or media groupthink. Or even participate in such articulation themselves. In undermining the role of the traditional information “gate-keepers” by providing alternative information sources, the information super-highway also makes it easier to identify the failings of such “gate-keepers”.
If anything in your own experience reacts against the offered groupthink, then alternative viewpoints are now much easier to find. My own scepticism regarding certainty about anthropogenic effects on climate partly came from how much it reminded me of previous enthusiasm for eugenics (also a cause of the great and the good based on “cutting edge” science) but also going to a Bureau of Meteorology seminar and being horrified at the appalling quality of what was being passed off as climate “modeling”. I was not a great fan of econometrics–being partial to to economist David Clark’s dictum that, if the data is sufficiently tortured, it will confess. (There is also the small matter that a model simply tells you the consequences of your factual and other premises.) But I knew more than enough to realise what was being passed off would have been laughed out of court if someone had been silly enough to offer it as economic modeling (given that it failed to capture what we knew had happened). I gather the quality of climate modeling has improved (it well and truly needed to), but it was not reassuring. Later work by Ian Castles (former ABS Chief Statistician) and David Henderson (former OECD Chief Economist) on problems with (pdf) the economic modeling underlying IPCC estimates just gave further grounds for scepticism about the rampant certainty. (The linked interview includes evidence of groupthink within the IPCC; this paper [pdf] provides a useful discussion of the issue of using market exchange rates or Purchasing Power Parity comparisons.)
But if allegedly scientific questions about climate dynamics become markers of status, of moral and intellectual worthiness–and so gist for networked zealotry–then any hope of civility is lost. But so is any chance of rational debate in any space dominated by such passions. You cannot have a factual debate if disagreement is evil.
The notion that it is all about righteousness also leads into what I call the ‘homeopathic’ approach to intellectual and artistic life, where any failure to follow the correct line then taints everything else you have said or done, because it is now all the product of someone unclean and unrighteous. A particularly nasty instance of this being this attack on Jodie Foster’s life and work because she refused to abandon Mel Gibson, a friend. But your own views don’t give you positive moral standing, don’t display your cognitive worthiness, unless contradictory views do the opposite.
None of which means that zealotry and congenial groupthink shopping is the only option. The internet is also a marvelous tool for genuine enquiry. The wealth of genuine scholarship available at one’s fingertips is immense. But even that can make the search for emotionally reassuring narratives powerful; a way of dealing and sorting and not being overwhelmed.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This is not a post about global warming, but about debate and zealotry. Given past unhappy experiences with comment threads of doom (which, of course, just illustrate the above), any comment which attempts to turn it into a debate about the extent of anthropogenic climate change will be ruthlessly binned.
73 Comments
This is why I have a no-censorship policy on my blog. Disagreement will be argued with, but never silenced.
See http://aebrain.blogspot.com.au/2011/03/todays-battles-theory-behind-them.html for an article on Asch Conformity Experiments, Pluralistic Ignorance etc.
Zealotry or Zealot seems always to be used in a derogatory manner, but also tends to define the position of the user. I think it’s possible to have ‘good’ zealots as well as bad – or is that again simply defining my own views as much as I would define those of others?
For instance, Lorenzo, verges on zealotry with his continual references to land-rationing, and I guess if his arguments were stridently opposed then he might think of those opponents as zealots. And JC, with his sometimes emotive descriptions of The Greens would/could be seen by them as a zealot, just as he possibly/probably sees them as zealots.
Then I went looking for an antonym of zealot, but the only thing I could come up with was ‘moderate’, which seems inappropriate in some circumstances – and how is the opposite of fervent belief in and support of one’s cause the ‘moderate’ belief in and support for one’s cause?.
And if one’s belief/cause is objectively ‘right’ then why should enthusiastic support for same be termed zealotry? I think I’ll stick with “wi-fi zealotry” – as in (hopefully) wisdom and fidelity zealotry. And I’ll accept no argument
kvd@1 Zealotry and enthusiasm are not synonyms. Read about the original Zealots and you can see the difference.
On David Clark’s dictum: I don’t know when he dictumed, but when I heard the quip in 1965, it was about factor analysis, ‘which is that form of enquiry where the analyst seizes the data by the throat, and screams.”Speak to me!”‘
And, dear moderator, those who would like to enquire further about AGW can always go to my site, where it one of many threads of enduring interest (modest cough)…
L@2 I do appreciate that, and I do know the story of the original Zealots. Would you have been happier with “over-enthusiastic, irrational support irregardless of the truth of the matter’ instead of ‘enthusiastic’? But your comment itself is indicative of my difficulty with providing a useful alternative word for zealotry. Such as are provided seem again mostly to be value-based judgements.
That aside, my further (minor) contribution is to simply note that whereas you seem to indicate that ‘networked zealotry’ is ‘bad’, I’d suggest that the ability to shout one’s feelings into the ethernet is possibly quite a good thing in terms of society’s need always to provide a pressure-relief valve for those so inclined.
DA@3 He dictummed while he was writing for the AFR, during the 1980s. (A nice appreciation is here.) Good lines tend to get repeated.
I am reminded of the anecdote of Oscar Wilde exclaiming, after someone offered a particularly good bon mot, “I wish I had said that!”, to which the rejoinder was “Don’t worry dear Oscar, you will”.
kvd@4 Zealotry has a connotation of blind enthusiasm, enthusiasm without regard for others (or, for that matter, evidence). So, there are negative implications but not made up ones.
Catharsis is fine. I am all for catharsis. There are, however, other relevant considerations.
I am fine with disagreement, but am ruthless with incivility. If I were not, it would be the end of this blog.
I wonder how much of the ‘each to his own’ characteristic of the Internet has come about thanks to laws that force people who don’t like each other to work and socialise together. In days gone by, men and women interacted with each other far less than they do now: now, thanks to the modern office, the statistically significant views of one’s sex held by members of the other sex are known and also known to be largely immutable (although controllable by means of various in-house policies, of course, along with the law).
And that is only sex, to which most people have adapted fairly well. What of race or religion or culture (and the latter two can sometimes interact with sex again, disturbing the fine balance already achieved)?
Maybe people retreat to Internet communities where all are alike because they feel besieged elsewhere. In which case, kvd’s point about allowing a safety valve becomes salient.
L@6 I didn’t suggest negatives were ‘made up’; more that sometimes they are simply ‘opposite views’ and hence disparaged as zealotry. And ‘catharsis’ implies some sort of relief; I definitely don’t think the present internet gathering of ghouls (on whatever subject) provides that. More what you indicated as reinforcement and/or validation.
I put the right male obesession with every aspect of Obama’s life down to Mandingo Syndrome. Over at the Cat, Steve Kates has an especially nasty case. I still remember the mildly psychotic Christian activist Saint writing endless babble about Obama’s pectorals, FFS. Gee that was embarrassing, but he wasn’t the only one. Obama’s pecs were all over the right blogosphere.
Networked zealotry is weird. In groups people tend to reinforce their views and get more radical. The more people self-reinforce, the less likely dissenters are to voice their view, the more likely the self-reinforcing is to go on, and the less likely…yaddah yaddah.
I wouldn’t like a world where I only interacted with people like me. How boring would that be? I like to have people very different to myself around me, in order to remind myself that my own world-view is not the only one.
So how do you determine if a group is indulging in group think or has a legitimate basis for holding their views? Conversely, how do you know if you have a reasonable view or have unwittingly become a victim of group think through casual association choices?
D @11:
You can’t.
Mel, agreed. All one can do is to take one’s views out and shake them in the wind from time to time (particularly in front of people who might be likely to disagree).
The debates we have on Facebook are quite civilised. I suspect because anything you say or do on Facebook is done in full view of genuine friends.
Here is the wiki definition of groupthink:
“Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints.”
In many circumstances a non-caricatured version of the above is actually desirable. Also, accusations of groupthink are nearly always part of a polemic constructed by someone who subscribes to some other opposing groupthink. Lorenzo unwittingly falls into this trap here:
“Hiring in one’s own image and likeness (something public broadcasters and university departments are particularly prone to) reinforces the effect.”
Sorry old swan but private companies and right wing think tanks and media do the same thing in equal measure. As an example, the new editor of the AFR Michael Stutchbury boned John Quiggin because Quiggin has been highly critical of the types of ideas that dominate the pages of business newspapers from a left perspective.
Then there are all those businesses that, like lemmings, made NINJA style loans and in the process contributed to the GFC etc etc etc …
Mel@12/LE@13, would attempting to understand, rather than rebut, those who disagree with you provide some protection against group think?
Does a collection of conflicting groups, each with their own group think, protect society as a whole against group think?
D @16:
“Does a collection of conflicting groups, each with their own group think, protect society as a whole against group think?”
Huh? I think you may be thinkin’ too much. Next you’ll be asking us what is the sound of a one-handed clap. Why not have a break and look at amusing animal clips on youtube … It works for me !!
M@15 The Herald-Sun, for example, has a distinctly wider range of opinion than the ABC, so I don’t think your claim quite works.
I wasn’t trying to claim public broadcasters and university departments are the only places it happens. It is just that
(1) their funding does not mitigate against it in any noticeable way
(2) their putative role is such that it shouldn’t happen, but it clearly does and quite strongly.
Mel, it’s more that if you’ve got conflict in society then there’s incentive to discover flaws in the arguments of the ‘other side’, which would to a certain extent mitigate the incentive to just agree.
And I’m not sure I know how to stop thinking. Usually the shallower the entertainment the more deep in thought I am
M@15 Also, I was at some pains to point out the online phenomenon occurs across the ideological spectrum. Including, and I specifically mentioned this, advocacy organisations. Which would include think tanks across the ideological spectrum.
M@15
Actually, no. Common purposes are fine, it is cutting of flows of relevant information which is the problem. There is quite a lot of social science evidence which suggests strongly that promoting diversity of perspectives actually improves decision-making. Particularly, to go back to your example, for firms making investment decisions.
Perspectives here meaning cognitive perspectives; having one or more person from each approved group who all have the same outlook may well work less well than having people from basically the same background but with quite different perspectives. (Though being from different groups provides some diversity of perspective in itself.)
Lorenzo @18:
“M@15 The Herald-Sun, for example, has a distinctly wider range of opinion than the ABC, so I don’t think your claim quite works.”
Evidence?
I believe it depends on the extent of group think. I mean I disagree with a lot of the foundations of the school of Austrian economics, but a school of thought is an example of group think and in small enough doses is a positive thing.
There is a tendency in our politicians when they don’t have a policy on an issue to seek out 2 opposing stakeholders and sit between them, since everyone is moaning then the policy must be fair.
What schools of thought do/group think is allow stakes to be put in the sand, so rather than just talking to unions and employer groups, it allows politicians (and those others so inclined) to evaluate their demands against (hopefully) well thought out principles.
When groupthink becomes a problem is when large portions of the population employ it to make up their minds. For example preferring a policy because it is the policy of your affiliated party… this is bad news for everyone.
On AGW, if you think the climate modelling is bad for the case of climate change, you should (and I’m sure you have a lot more than me) consider the data thrown up by the sceptics. If something stood up I would reconsider my position, at least I hope I would… what do you think?
Climate change is a poor example of group think given the multiple lines of evidence. This evidence has been expressed authoritatively by the gamut of meta studies assessing all peer-reviewed evidence. You would need to establish that the entire peer review system and all the major peak scientific bodies who’ve looked at this far more closely than you are guilty of a kind of conspiratorial group think. I think that’s preposterous.
There may certainly be some valid quibbles about the popularisation of the science from highly caveated probabilistic statements to alarmist media copy – but the science is not groupthink. But nonetheless it’s good to have smart people looking with a contrarian bent. If you have a valid insight into what’s wrong with the existing science you’ll no doubt be able to get it published in a journal of note and we’ll have a significant revision of the public communication. Until then excuse me if we’re not bowled over by this handwaving opinion.
The Herald Sun is a tabloid and it reflects segmented populist concerns as any profit-making mass market product. It’s not the sort of paper I’d read, but I respect that it’s a proper business that’s at least minimally responsive and accountable to the discerning consumer.
It is subsidised propaganda entities like The Australian that I find highly problematic. They only exist because they exert political influence and act as a staging ground for framing federal political and the culture wars in ways sympathetic to Murdoch.
Group think certainly exists in places like the ABC, but at least they are accountable through executive appointments to the board, a system of journalistic ethics and a charter and complaints system that eclipses anything in the private sector.
M@22 Look at the range of opinion in the Herald-Sun opinion pages over the course of any given week. Most of the mainstream political spectrum is covered.
Now, consider whether a right of centre person will ever be allowed to run Media Watch. Consider the regulars on Radio National; absent Counterpoint, which is the token “right wing” show, everything else is centre-left.
ABC in Oz, CBC in Canada, BBC in the UK, PBS in the US; public broadcasting is left-of-centre in its orientation across the Anglosphere. (Though I have noted signs of some broadening in the BBC; not sure why.)
The longtime Liberal Party view of the ABC that “it is our enemies talking to our friends” continues to be about right. When the ALP is given a hard time on the ABC, it is almost always from a progressivist/left perspective.
W@24 The ABC is far more subsidised than the Australian. And the ABC’s accountability procedures are not nearly as effective as you seem to think; though I agree they provide excellent cover.
As for climate change, it is actually not the science I was referring to regarding groupthink but the highly polarised public debate–the overdone certainty bothers me–and some problems with the way the IPCC operates which were very much shown up in the Henderson-Castles critique and response. Problems which made its later embarrassments much less surprising.
The BBC has a different funding model – it’s user-pays, through licence fees. I suspect that’s why you don’t get a dialogue of the deaf the way you do with Media Watch or the ABC. Also, British people tell me there was a degree of support for Labour – until the Blair government turned out to be pretty much the worst in living memory, what with war, chronic economic mismanagement, law and order, class politics. The Beeb was burnt badly by that, and if anything is more skeptical of Labour than the Tories ATM.
The exception to all this, of course, is Israel-Palestine, where neither the BBC nor the great British public will be shifted. The issue is covered with a sneering evenhandedness that baffles outsiders; it took me nearly a year of living here first time around to figure out why.
To many Brits, Israel was founded on terrorism, and the target of the terrorism was British squaddies (and, even worse, officers). So when Israelis complain about Palestinian terrorism, the response tends to be ‘don’t like it when it’s done to you, do you?’
[There is a separate issue in the Tory Party over the use of the Parliament Acts 1911 & 1949 to force the War Crimes Act through, but that only applies to one party; Labour has its own issues, with which I am less familiar, but which also produce equivocation on the Israel point.]
The above is a potted version of what I had to explain to visiting Republicans in Oxford who were to a man and woman stunned when Tories had views all over the place on Israel. If nothing else it showed that a British Conservative is very different from an American conservative.
The BBC reflects British views on Israel, and I have suggested to Jewish friends over here that they put their energies into something more achievable than changing the public broadcaster on this point.
Seriously, ending famine in Africa is more likely right now.
Right Wing bias on ABC’s The Drum?
M@28 The right-of-centre think tanks have long been more effective than left-of-centre think tanks in this country. Partly because right-wing talent has much fewer outlets, so the average quality is better.
So, that they have more share of think tank guests surprises me not at all. It would be much more interesting to have a cross-selection of all guests.
I guess another reason why Righties dislike the ABC is because it rates an order of magnitude above nearly all the commercial TV and radio competitors per unit of funding. This isn’t supposed to be possible according to free market mantra.
I mean, just like G4S showed the superiority of private security provision over public provision (snort), for-profit superannuation funds outperform the not-for-profits with union board members (giggle) and private sector healthcare systems outperform systems with Government at the centre (ROFL), the private for-profit alternative is always best and anyone who disagrees is a poopy pants socialist (fit of hysterics, spittle on keyboard).
[SL@27 re: Israel/Palistine] –
If this is the view you’ve formed while in the UK, you need to expand the circle of Brits you have interaction with.
I’ve alot more respect for the British to think thats a widely held view. In my experience the wider British public abhor terrorism fullstop.
Lorenzo @26, what exactly is your point about Henderson-Castles?
L@26 – I don’t get what you’re saying either
You know, everyone is so complacent on Africa. Everyone says pretty much the same thing. Think of Africa and you immediately conjure up famine and ref camps.
It’s not all like that and there are countries there that are really kicking serious arse in growth rates and rises in living standards.
I invested a 7% of my retirement account (not trading account) in Africa closed end mutual funds as I think they will be the next big thing over the the nest 20 years.
No kidding, did anyone know this for instance:
You hear of a place like Botswana and you think a starving kid with a fat stomach. But it’s untrue for a good part of that continent.
Forget China and India relatively speaking. Serious undervaluation and under-appreciation is Africa.
You can’t buy individual stocks though. you just buy a mutual fund and let the dude managing the fund hunt out good situations.
Nanue, I have no idea what you’re trying to say.
M@30
Que? I have never seen any claim like that, so I doubt it figures in any one’s take on the issue.
There is a great deal of evidence that private provision works better than government in what might be called normal commercial production.
Once you get into security, funding health care coverage and similar, the questions get much more complicated.
M@32, N@33 Henderson-Castles was not about the science of how the climate works, it was about how the IPCC works and problems thereof; that holding up the IPCC as some paragon of science policy has been overdone.
Most Lefties simply don’t understand markets. It’s beyond their capacity. To them, the only market they think works are carbons credits, which is really nothing other than a made up one.
Fairfax is going into a death spiral not just because they do a truly shocking product to the point where its unreadable, but also because the ABC is cannibalizing their readership (receiving $1 billion a year). Seriously, if you want to see dementia in all it’s glory, then immerse yourself in the Drum and Unleashed. It’s free, so you don’t need to pay for Fairfax to offer the same service.
ABC programing is dreadful. Their political shows are well done but always slanted to the left of the ALP. The private stations won’t/cant compete because they would be on a hiding to nothing with all that money being spent. However, having said that if people think the private stations wouldn’t cater to that segment, they really have to believe no one sees demand to service the two million pair of eyeballs who watch ” newsy ” programs. That’s just bull.
As far as I’m concerned the best , the very best by far in original drama programing etc. is American HBO. They produce the best quality stuff ever shown on the small screen. And this is a Cable channel I might add!….Not even free to air, which is a disadvantage when aiming for a wide audience. HBO are so good, so excellent in what they produce they have been materially responsible for high cable take up in the US. So much government filling market failure.
L@36:
“M@32, N@33 Henderson-Castles was not about the science of how the climate works, it was about how the IPCC works and problems thereof; that holding up the IPCC as some paragon of science policy has been overdone.”
What specifically did you agree with in Henderson-Castles.
M@38 Part of the issue with Henderson-Castles was the poor IPCC response.
Henderson-Castles had two (related) lines of criticism. One was the problems with using exchange rate GDP comparisons rather than PPP comparisons. The paper I linked to in the post covers that issue quite well.
The other was that the IPCC economic model implied some pretty strange economic relativities between countries,
Lorenzo, you may be interested in this.
I also take issue with your claims about the quality of the CIS and IPA think tanks. Can you name any important works produced by these groups? As far as I can tell these guys are pretty much shills for the big end of town and for corporate interests. What do you think of the link between Big Tobacco and the CIS and IPA, for instance?
M@40 Quiggin’s post indicates that there was a substantive issue in question. The much bigger worry was the IPCC response: if they have been a bit more self-reflective, perhaps they would have avoided some later embarrassments.
Both the CIS and IPA go for broad-based funding; I am unmoved by complaints about evil corporate money, since such concerns always seem to be highly selective and the funding is attracted to the advocacy, rather than the other way around.
As for quality: the issue is how effective and active they are in their advocacy. Any content I point to you will just deny has any quality because you disagree with their ideas. Their overall media profile is a reasonable indicator and I don’t think it would be any smaller a proportion of total think tank activity in the wider media than on The Drum.
“Both the CIS and IPA go for broad-based funding; I am unmoved by complaints about evil corporate money, since such concerns always seem to be highly selective and the funding is attracted to the advocacy, rather than the other way around.”
Evil is you word not mine. I’d call it fee for service. Money talks. The link between Big Tobacco and right wing think tanks and the tendency of the latter to utilise people like Richard Lindzen to muddy the science on the link between tobacco and illness is the subject of literally dozens of books that go into exquisite detail, some of them by former insiders, but you are of course entitled to deny the link and subscribe to the myth of the brave and heroic, disinterested think tanker who fearlessly pursues the Truth if you wish.
“Any content I point to you will just deny has any quality because you disagree with their ideas. ”
Oh please. If my mind was any more open my brain would fall out
M@42 Apart from raising issues about second hand smoke, can you point to any publication by either the CIS or the IPA which has cast doubt on the link between smoking and respiratory or other illnesses among smokers?
More broadly, of course companies which sell products subject to ever-greater regulation are going to donate to advocacy groups which generally oppose regulation. What else would one expect? But, to repeat my previous point, it is the known outlook which attracts the funding, not the other way around. Indeed, continuity in outlook aids funding; folk know what they are supporting.
L @43:
” Apart from raising issues about second hand smoke, can you point to any publication by either the CIS or the IPA which … ”
I’ll take that as your concession of defeat.
So far you’ve cited banking conspiracy theorists, a JFK nutter and a “smoking may not cause lung cancer” gun for hire as Gentle Macchia experts while also providing a hagiography of an anorexic-bulimic who promotes himself as a diet and weight loss guru.
I can’t wait to see your next contribution to that wonderful thing called libertarian science
L@43 Having listened to an actual doctor and medical researcher with specific expertise talk on the issue (because he was annoyed at the over-hyping of the dangers), second-hand smoke is hardly the same issue as smoking risk for smokers.
As I have noted before, people can have very weird ideas in one area and be quite sensible in others. It is the human condition.
And Taubes may not be entirely correct, but I was able to adapt what he had to say quite successfully in achieving some persistent weight loss.
L @45:
Other people have lost weight after prayer. So fucking what? Even the dimmest bulb can work out that once someone is sufficiently motivated to do X in order to lose weight, X will act much like a placebo irrespective of whether X itself is some kind of magic bullet. Gary Taubes, like every single other Science Hero you’ve identified on this blog, is two parts truth, three parts show pony and five parts horse-shit.
In every single area of science I have discussed with you on this blog, I’ve taken the traditional, conservative approach, irrespective of whether I find it ideologically convenient. That goes for issues like GMO and organic agriculture, for instance.
Conversely, on each and every topic from second-hand smoke to Gentle Macchia, you’ve promptly dismissed the mainstream science and adopted the position that best suits your ideological agenda.
The irony in all of this is that those who adopt a conservative position on science (like me and most other moderate lefties) are often deemed radical whilst those who seek the sooth saying of assorted con artists and conspiracy theorists (like you and most other right wing populists) are often deemed conservative.
We live in weird times …
Mel@46:
Why don’t you go to Matt Ridley’s ‘Apocalypse Not’ at Wired? You’ll see there an examination of a dozen or so scares since the 1950s, all of them based on ‘science’.
I’ll have a post on it on my blog in an hour or so. Good reading for those who ‘adopt a conservative position on science’.
M@46 “Science Hero?” Do you realise how sad your attempt to turn people into goodies and baddies really is? Folk say something I find interesting, which I may use in a post. That implies absolutely nothing about their views on other matters or their “worth” as a human being.
As for Taubes, his point about food content mattering, that fat per se is not the issue and that what specifically you eat can affect your energy levels were all extremely helpful to me–and I suspect others.
DA @47:
“Why don’t you go to Matt Ridley’s ‘Apocalypse Not’ at Wired? You’ll see there an examination of a dozen or so scares since the 1950s, all of them based on ‘science’.”
Yes, we’ve already done the Ridley dance. I’ve also read the critiques of Ridley, something I suggest you also do. As an aside, Ridley’s incompetent handle on reality and rational optimist outlook prompted the first depositer stampede on a British bank (Northern Rock) in over 100 years and necessitated a 27 billion pound bank bailout. Here’s Matt in action.
MY position has always been that, as an ordinary person with an ordinary intellect, I have no way of knowing if AGW and the associated ocean acidification will follow the scenarios outlined by the IPCC however, given the near scientific consensus on the matter, a prudential preventative approach is warranted.
I’ve also noted the works in environmental economics (see Eban Goodstein etc) that demonstrate that prevention nearly always costs less than a post facto clean up whilst estimates of the costs of the former tend to be overestimated while the costs of the latter tend to be underestimated.
I’ll revisit the issue when/if up and coming young scientists buck the consensus.
Mel@50:
‘I’ll revisit the issue when/if up and coming young scientists buck the consensus.’
Fair enough. It’s already happening, but you will need to take your own time, pretty clearly.
I would support Mel@50 in his approach – the last three paras particularly. But I’d probably demote Ridley’s significance in the NR debacle, as he seems to me more an incautious dilettante than a prime mover in what went wrong.
It’s also interesting that Lorenzo feels comfortable taking things of value from any source, yet Mel and DA – from different perspectives – seem to view an individual as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based upon specific reactions to specific areas of (non?) expertise.
kvd@52:
I’m not sure what point you are making about me. With respect to global warming, I am an agnostic, checking new data and new articles as they arrive. I think that any reasonably well educated person can do this. It doesn’t require a PhD. I think that Mel’s perception that there is a ‘near scientific consensus’ on this matter is flawed, but I’ve given up arguing with people who accept consensus doctrines.
DA@53 my perception was that you are a skeptic – in the mildest, most respectful, sense of that word, and I don’t understand where ‘agnostic’ fits. I don’t think Mel’s perception is flawed; I think that is fairly obvious at this point. But if you are suggesting the science itself is flawed, that is a different question, well worth ongoing skeptical review – and I expect most qualified scientists would genuinely welcome any input you might offer.
DA @53:
“With respect to global warming, I am an agnostic, checking new data and new articles as they arrive.”
No you aren’t. You give the game away in the heading to your blog in which you place climate change in scare quotes in a smarmy one liner. I’m not suggesting you are dishonest in calling yourself an agnostic, rather your mislabelling of yourself suggests a lack of self-awareness.
“With respect to global warming, I am an agnostic, checking new data and new articles as they arrive.”
Once again, you do no such thing. I’ve checked some of your blog posts such as this one and found nothing but self-indulgent prose and typical keyboard warrior speculation. There is no evidence in any of your posts that suggests you have even an undergraduate’s grasp of the physics, statistics etc that are the staple of the relevant sciences.
Be honest with yourself, Don. Do you think your grasp of the subject matter is such that you could waltz into an applicable three hour exam and pass with a high distinction? If not, why are you so convinced of your status as a keyboard genius.
kvd @52:
” It’s also interesting that Lorenzo feels comfortable taking things of value [my emphasis] from any source …”
No. Lorenzo takes things that reflect his values from any source. There is a world of difference.
kvd continues ” … , yet Mel and DA – from different perspectives – seem to view an individual as either ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based upon specific reactions to specific areas of (non?) expertise ”
Not sure what your point is. As I’ve said previously, according to my philosophy, science is an inaccessible black box, therefore I must rely on various heuristics and in part that involves an individual’s track record.
kvd@54:
I am a sceptic in the ordinary sense, about every claim that is made, though life is too short to worry about most of them! About whether or not the AGW proposition is true (that is, the world is warming up, humans done it, and the results are dire) I am agnostic, because all these claims are intrinsically measurable, and sooner or later we will know pretty certainly whether or not they are valid claims. I an completely sceptical that the carbon tax will have any effect that is measurable on the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Does that make sense.
I remain of the view that the notion that there is a near scientific consensus on AGW is flawed, though I would have to admit that no one, least of all me, has said what ‘flawed’ actually means. My take is that there is a small number of highly active proponents, and that most in the sciences go along with a version of the IPCC position. But that is all. The science iitself, that is, the thousands of papers that have a bearing on all this, do not agree.
Perhaps you might go to my website and read the two posts on measurement, and then you’ll get some idea of what I am on about. There are other writings there too, at the head of the website, under Writings.
Mel@55: You are extraordinarily confident about what I can and cannot do, and you go too quickly to the ad hominem for my liking.
Well geez, I’d just appreciate some sort of definition of ‘agnostic’ from either Mel or DA which had any relevance whatsoever to this discussion.
In the strict sense, however, agnosticism is the view that humanity does not currently possess the requisite knowledge and/or reason to provide sufficient rational grounds to justify the belief that deities either do or do not exist.
So, as naturally, as night follows day, he is qualified to be in charge of a bank.
Lorenzo @45 says: “Having listened to an actual doctor and medical researcher with specific expertise talk on the issue (because he was annoyed at the over-hyping of the dangers), second-hand smoke is hardly the same issue as smoking risk for smokers.”
The ( near) consensus position as stated by the US CDC says:
“Concentrations of many cancer-causing and toxic chemicals are higher in secondhand smoke than in the smoke inhaled by smokers.”
“There is no risk-free level of exposure to secondhand smoke: even small amounts of secondhand smoke exposure can be harmful to people’s health.”
“Secondhand smoke exposure causes an estimated 46,000 heart disease deaths annually among adult nonsmokers in the United States.”
“Secondhand smoke exposure causes an estimated 3,400 lung cancer deaths annually among adult nonsmokers in the United States.”
“In children aged 18 months or younger, secondhand smoke exposure is responsible for … approximately 7,500–15,000 hospitalizations annually in the United States.”
“Children exposed to secondhand smoke are at an increased risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), acute respiratory infections, ear problems, and more severe asthma. Smoking by parents causes respiratory symptoms and slows lung growth in their children.”
Who should I believe, the US CDC Surgeon General or routine science fantasist, Lorenzo and his favourite tobacco funded think tanks?
DA, ah well, I’m glad I’m not the only one who is an “agnostic” (in the sense that I am not a “believer” or a “non-believer” – as so many people seem to take a quasi-religious stance on the issue, I believe the terms are appropriate). And I note you like Popper too.
That’s all I’m saying – because I hate this debate, and I’m not going to be drawn any further – but I couldn’t stand back and let you think that there’s no one else who doesn’t think similarly.
LE@60 why the need to introduce religion (even in a joking sense) when all that is required is to use a perfectly appropriate term: skeptic?
It’s almost as if a ‘superior’ position is being taken in the absence of an honest “I am unconvinced, but am open to discussion”.
KVD: no superiority intended. My real position is that I retain skepticism in exactly the way you describe, precisely as one ought if one follows Popperian falsifiability.
Since I have made my position public, I have become subject to repeated conversion attempts from both sides of the debate (seriously). This explains my terminology. A while back I drafted a blog post on how I think there is an unpleasant religious aspect to the whole debate, and explained how I reason this. I will never publish it though, because one can’t have a rational discussion on it, and because frankly, I have no interest in attracting more abuse and conversion attempts.
LE@62 well here’s at least one person who respects your right to think for yourself. What a weird world it is that you should be so exceptional.
legal eagle@60 & 62 and kvd @57 and 61:
If it makes kvd happier, I will be a ‘sceptic’ about AGW, but I thought I had made a useful distinction, useful at least to me.
The matter is important enough to look at the data and argument carefully, and I do, every day (almost). I do accept that others draw different conclusions from the data than I do. That is true of most domains. And I have swung toward being a ‘lukewarmer’ over the last five years, the result of reading, study and thinking.
Like LE, I dislike the religious and almost fantastical element that can be seen on both sides of the debate.
Oh, and though this comment pertains to Mel, I used apostrophes around ‘climate change’, because its official meaning is ‘climate change due to human activity’, which seems to me a distortion of the obvious meaning.
Thank you KVD @ 63, and thank you Don.
M@59 The doctor in question was not being paid, he was doing it off his own bat. And, from memory, he agreed about the dangers of living or working with smokers, it was casual contact in public places that he thought the risks were being over-hyped.
M@55 What political values are relevant as to whether fat intake is the key issue in weight control? (And I have no idea what Taube’s politics are.)
I will admit to a penchant for being sceptical about claims that immediately morph into controls on people’s lives. And I really dislike the notion that beliefs track moral character; that becomes “error has no rights” very quickly.
I am also aware that many of those shouting most loudly on climate issues were equally self-righteous on others; not to good effect.
I also note that the IPCC’s various embarrassments do not seem to figure in your calculus.
It does seem likely that there is some human influence on climate, but quantifying how much seems much more problematic.
Don Aitkin @64:
“The matter is important enough to look at the data and argument carefully, and I do, every day (almost).”
No you don’t. You lack the knowledge and expertise necessary to make any sense of the data and arguments, just like everyone else on this thread.
I also cannot help but note that you have 19 blogs on your blog roll, one of which represents the mainstream view on climate change and 15 or so that not only dispute the mainstream position but throw around words like hoax.
You are no more a genuine “skeptic” or an “agnostic” than I am an aardvark.
L@67:
“I also note that the IPCC’s various embarrassments do not seem to figure in your calculus.”
Given the depth and breadth of the IPCC’s work, the number of people involved, the hurried timeframes etc I’m surprised at the triviality and fewness of the errors. Scientists are, believe it or not, fallible human beings.
In addition to the above, the IPCC is inside the black box I mentioned earlier.
L@67:
“I also note that the IPCC’s various embarrassments do not seem to figure in your calculus.”
Another point, the IPCC and wider climate science community hasn’t had an embarrassment that comes to close to Piltdown Man. Would I be right in assuming Piltdown Man is the reason why you reject evolutionary theory in favour of a more traditional, Biblical Creationism?
Mel@68:
Wow! Another omniscient judgment.
I know nothing about you at all, save what I read here. It seems to me that you are in a cleft stick. On the one hand you say that you know nothing about the science, and that you therefore have to accept the consensus view. In this you follow the path of Professors Manne and Hamilton.
That’s fine. But then, again it seems to me, you insist that others must do the same. Unless they are climate scientists themselves, they must accept the consensus. Your decision about yourself is accepted. But it does not offer you a platform for assessing correctly what others have to do. They may, for example, know more about the issue than you think. It may be that you do not need to be a climate scientist (let us pass by what that category means) in order to assess the quality of the data, argument and articles that are relevant to it. It may be that you do not have a sure grip on what actually is relevant. And here you would be in good company with Manne and Hamilton.
In short, you are not in a strong position to insist that others follow your line. And, since you state that you know nothing about the science, you are in a weak position to take issue with others when they make statements about it with which you disagree.
Perhaps I’ve got it wrong. But that is how it appears to me.
Don @70:
I’m a big fan of the Open Society. All I am doing is stating my case just as you are stating yours. No-one should be forced to believe anything.
All the best.
M@69 Actually, Piltdown Man is an excellent example of the fallacy of your “judge the person” approach. Bad behaviour in the actual arena in question said nothing about the truth of the science in question. So, bad behaviour in completely unrelated areas really tells us nothing about an issue.
The notion that one is only permitted to dissent if one is an absolute paragon is a way of policing dissent, it is not a way of conducting open debate.
And why do your excuses for the IPCC not apply to others as well? Besides, one cannot, on one hand, laud the processes of the IPCC as a reliable means of truth finding and then, on the other, say that mistakes are completely understandable given
L @72:
“The notion that one is only permitted to dissent … ”
I clearly said I believe everyone is permitted to dissent. Your problem is that you don’t like it when your favoured dissenters are ridiculed.
Look Lorenzo, my position on the hard sciences is formulaic and I have delineated the formula before and I will do so one last time just in case it’s slipped your memory.
1/ When 95% of scientists in a particular field are in rough agreement, I think it is prudent to act as if they are right (subject to point 4 below), regardless of how it sits with my ideological convictions or gut instincts. Accordingly, as an example, I don’t speak out against GMO food even though my gut and ideological inclinations tell me that something awfully fucked up may eventually happen as an unintended consequence of releasing modified organisms into the environment and eating them.
2/ The hard sciences are a black box. I possess sufficient humility to know that a few hundred hours spent reading books, chatting on the net etc does not make me an expert or even knowledgeable enough to properly assess competing claims.
3/ It is an Iron Law of science that the young scientists innovate whilst the old scientists resist new ideas. There are literally hundreds of well documented examples of this happening compared to, as far as I can tell, no examples of the reverse.
4/ Thus my heuristic in light of point 3 is that I will treat the mainstream view of hard science X as if it were fact until such time as the status quo is challenged by the younger generation of scientists, at which time I will suspend judgement. Furthermore, while the dissenters have grey hair and liver spots, I will entertain myself by treating them as sad clownish old farts.
You on the other hold to the conceit that you may acquire competence in any field of science after no more than a modest amount of dandy dabbling and then proceed to confuse truth in science with the need to constantly protect your ideological convictions. That is to say, you have no formula at all!