Some what offtopic, but I think there will be a limit when human have generated so much knowledge, that our offsprings might in one day never been able to catch up, e.g. having to learn to a very old age to get the cutting edge stuff.
The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
101–110 of 141 posts
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#102I'm not sure where this line of thought is headed. I once had to work with the Hela cell line, coating it in alginate polysaccharide. I thought to myself,"How can I test if the functioning of the cells have been altered by the coating?" A little book research convinced me that any tests would be useless, as a cancer cell has basically shut down all functions except those required for growth. So I just worked on tryin…
> As regards, climate studies. Where have we heard the term "peak" something-or-other before. Ah yes, "peak oil". Well that didn't happen: we found more oil, we substituted gas, ... "Peak CO2": I nearly choked on my morning biscuit. Please tell China and India and Africa to stop developing and remain underdeveloped. Come on man, are you on drugs? Maybe, when a few billion have been displaced from their homes and invaded our comfortable lifestyles, we all might decide to stop driving and generating power with coal, oil and gas.
It's more plausible than it sounds. I had the same initial reaction as you, but it's worth keeping in mind that:
1.) China is quickly moving away from manufacturing. If you look at province-level GDP, manufacturing has been flat, or even fallen, in many/most provinces over the last couple of years.
2.) China and India are oil constrained. Although they have large coal reserves, at current mining rates, those reserves (at least, in China), will be used up in the next 30-40 years, with all of the policy implications that come along with it.
3.) People there, especially now, are far more environmentally conscious than generally given credit for.
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#103Some what offtopic, but I think there will be a limit when human have generated so much knowledge, that our offsprings might in one day never been able to catch up, e.g. having to learn to a very old age to get the cutting edge stuff.
See also: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/
However, our world is not a fable, so there is no reason, a priori, to expect life extension to be a problem that is beyond the asymptotic limit. A more critical issue is that fluid intelligence declines with age. It is for this reason that transhumanists sometimes say that no human has yet reached the boundary of human competence. Once we can accumulate knowledge for a century with no degradation in mental flexibility, we will start to see the true capability of the human neural architecture.
Of course, by that time it's also likely that AI will vastly outpace us...
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#104Note that Roger A. Pielke Jr. is a political science professor not an atmospheric scientist and has, in the past, been involved in a number of climate science controversies. The analogy to outdated breast cancer research feels like a straw man. Anyway, I cannot claim that he is wrong, but I would regard this piece with some skepticism.
Somehow, 'feels like' and 'some skepticism' doesn't add up too much of a critique.
He says Evidence indicates the scenarios of the future to 2100 that are at the focus of much of climate research have already diverged from the real world and thus offer a poor basis for projecting policy-relevant variables like economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions.
The question is: is he right or wrong and if the latter, why? We're spending trillions of dollars & affecting people's lives on a massive scale - on betting he's wrong. The issue at least needs discussion.
One other point: How would atmospheric scientists be especially competent to assess 'key variables in climate scenarios compared with data from the real world'? Would they really want to skip their core science to put economic hats on to study how 'population, economic growth, energy intensity of economic growth and carbon intensity of energy consumption' relate to these key variables? Pielke's competence is in this field and climate policy generally. Some of his publications: https://rogerpielkejr.com/pielkeonclimatechange/
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#105The one that amazes me is the "How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat" stuff (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12480733 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26126183)
I mean it dates back to
>In 1965, Mr. Hickson enlisted the Harvard researchers to write a review that would debunk the anti-sugar studies. He paid them a total of $6,500, the equivalent of $49,000 today.
and before but I think the 50+ year old bad research still refuses to die
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not enough people understand that science is expected to be wrong. The propaganda for making Science the new-religion is far too advanced sadly - even the classic development of heliocentric model is so riddled with misinformation that it's hard to have much hope for much else. The effect of all this is that it brings to the fore all the forgotten protestant templates in the form of the vitriolic "anti-science" and…
> One fringe punishes any criticism of the establishment view viciously (the epidemiologists & medical experts who weren't for lockdowns comes to mind), This is rewriting history. At the start of the pandemic the position of "lockdown is a bad idea" was taken very seriously. Only when it failed to provide results and some people still clung to it they got called out. That's literally the opposite of what the article…
> Only when it failed to provide results
Actually, anti-lockdown worked fine in Sweden, Florida and SF.
So what are you talking about?
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#107This is a good read, although somewhat depressing. When you have a topic that has been weaponized politically, as climate change has, people who use that weapon actively work against information they perceive would make the weapon less effective. The author sums it up as follows: ---- from the article: According to Rayner, in such a context we should expect to see reactions to uncomfortable knowledge that include: de…
Even expecting science to 'converge' to the correct answer is a bit iffy. Don't get me wrong science should definitely be expected to improve and bring forth better theories and models, but accuracy isn't the only performance metric that's relevant here. The words 'converge' and 'correct' are doing a lot of the heavy lifting when you claim science 'converges' upon the 'correct' answer.
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#108This is a good read, although somewhat depressing. When you have a topic that has been weaponized politically, as climate change has, people who use that weapon actively work against information they perceive would make the weapon less effective. The author sums it up as follows: ---- from the article: According to Rayner, in such a context we should expect to see reactions to uncomfortable knowledge that include: de…
I think the problem is that too many people in government and science believe in the "noble lie".
"Yes, we don't actually believe our prediction, but what does it matter if it's exaggerated? We're doing it in the name of XXX which is a great cause."
Sadly, when those predictions fail to materialise, they become the science equivalent of the Boy who Cried Wolf.
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#109This discussion has been going on for a while. Though it's important to understand what exactly this is about.
Based on current trends the most pessimistic climate scenarios (most notably RCP 8.5) seem unlikely, mostly due to its large use of coal and better development of renewables than what was expected. Important to note: These scenarios became unlikely because human behavior and technology have developed in a different direction from what was projected. It's not about physical predictions being wrong.
There is a big caveat in all of this: There is still a lot of uncertainty in the understanding of the climate system and feedback loops. This may very well mean that a) RCP 8.5 is unlikely, because humanity will never use that much coal, but b) it could still be just as bad in terms of warming, because climate effects are worse than we thought.
Re: The Unstoppable Momentum of Outdated Science
#110The emission scenarios were developed decades ago and are proving to be over-estimates. The author interprets that as outdated science which is a rather pessimistic view. I interpret it differently: Scientists make a spread of climate predictions and their potential consequences. Those listening mustered significant market/public/government pressure and ... it worked. We pushed the outcome towards the low end of the…
What exactly was done because of pressure? More solar cells and wind mills? Have those even crossed the point where they produced more energy than what was used in their production yet? In my country, they are shutting down nuclear power plants, relying on coal instead. Electric cars are still a rarity, and global car use seems to be rising still. I find your line of reasoning maddening. While it is possible that pre…
> Have those even crossed the point where they produced more energy than what was used in their production yet?
Yes, and they do so since the 1980s. Pardon the snark, but did you try to illustrate the article's topic?