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Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

newscientist.com

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Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#31

Post by mseebach »

Tichy wrote: post #18
yummyfajitas wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One's policy views might be based on morality, in which case one might not change them based on facts. An example: I oppose torture. You can show me 100 nations which ban torture and then suffer from preventable terrorist attacks, and it won't change my view. I would choose to ban torture even if it stops law enforcement from preventing some terrorist attacks. Some people hold similar views on taxation, redistributio…

I find that hard to believe. Surely there is some limit that would change your mind? Maybe if it would save 1000 lives per month? Or one million lives per month? I suspect you don't have any hard data on the impact of torture. Not saying that torture is good, just saying that even in your example, science might change your mind.

Even with science, you don't get to interrogate a captured terrorist that 100% for sure knows where the bomb is/how to disable it - i.e. the Jack Bauer non-dilemma.

There will always be a probability.. is there a 70% chance he knows where the bomb is, and maybe only 95% chance that the bomb is actually in place, correctly assembled and activated. NOW how many people would you have to theoretically save to make it OK to torture him?

And then there's the human factor. Who wants to be the guy that didn't torture the 70%-terrorist whose bomb subsequently blew up a mall?

What science can answer how many innocents it is OK to accidentally torture to save a number of people?

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#32

Post by mseebach »

rortian wrote: post #30
mynameishere wrote: post #20

There's a pretty strong impulse to call somebody a "denier" in order to categorically denounce what he's saying, as well as everybody similarly skeptical. It's important, when doing this, to paint the person in the simplest "nutshell" terms. Those awful climate "denialists" for instance: In a nutshell: Global warming either (1) isn't real (2) isn't caused by humans or (3) doesn't matter Well, #2 is certainly within t…

It's sad that this is being up-voted as it is incredibly misleading and a conspiracy theory to boot: >#1 mainly intended to achieve a long-standing but tactically-shifting goal of governments to control capital No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus that has emerged from the work of thousands of individuals in many countries. Most mainstream solutions to dealing with global…

> No, global warming is not a government plan.

The proposed solutions to GW are. Politicians will play a significant part in distributing carbon credits. And you said it yourself:

> (even the alternative energy technologies that are being heavily subsidized in R&D and production).

Subsidized by whom? Private companies that only exist because of government money really aren't private.

I disagree with the OP that it's a scheme to control capital, I don't think it's a scheme of any kind. I just think politicians happen to absolutely love an issue with an absolute evil and a very difficult and expensive solution. No matter how much, the other guy will never be able to do enough.

My main beef with GW isn't the science. I think it's highly entertaining to follow stuff like ClimateGate, but my beef is with the politics. "Solutions" to GW invariably includes hugely expensive government programs.

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#33

Post by [deleted] »

msg wrote: post #28
Tichy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that hard to believe. Surely there is some limit that would change your mind? Maybe if it would save 1000 lives per month? Or one million lives per month? I suspect you don't have any hard data on the impact of torture. Not saying that torture is good, just saying that even in your example, science might change your mind.

This is a bullshit argument. Torture does not save shit and it is good for nothing. What if destroying the earth would save the universe? What if Batman wanted you to torture someone? What if cutting off the eyelids of a brown person meant that unicorns would walk the earth? What if I snuck into suburban households and cut up humans for body parts so my nanobots could learn regeneration techniques? What if the nanobo…

[deleted]

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#34

Post by dmm »

rortian wrote: post #30
mynameishere wrote: post #20

There's a pretty strong impulse to call somebody a "denier" in order to categorically denounce what he's saying, as well as everybody similarly skeptical. It's important, when doing this, to paint the person in the simplest "nutshell" terms. Those awful climate "denialists" for instance: In a nutshell: Global warming either (1) isn't real (2) isn't caused by humans or (3) doesn't matter Well, #2 is certainly within t…

It's sad that this is being up-voted as it is incredibly misleading and a conspiracy theory to boot: >#1 mainly intended to achieve a long-standing but tactically-shifting goal of governments to control capital No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus that has emerged from the work of thousands of individuals in many countries. Most mainstream solutions to dealing with global…

> No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus

Science and govt are inseparable now. Federal grants fund huge amounts of research. This distorts science to a degree not widely recognized.

A good example is nutrition. Start with the modern consensus of what constitutes a healthy diet and trace it back to the research that supports it. Gary Taubes did that in "Good Calories, Bad Calories". What he found was a load of shit. Shit that was supported and popularized by (well-meaning) federal entities. A handful of limited observation studies with ambiguous results were blown way out of proportion.

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#35

Post by anamax »

rortian wrote: post #30
mynameishere wrote: post #20

There's a pretty strong impulse to call somebody a "denier" in order to categorically denounce what he's saying, as well as everybody similarly skeptical. It's important, when doing this, to paint the person in the simplest "nutshell" terms. Those awful climate "denialists" for instance: In a nutshell: Global warming either (1) isn't real (2) isn't caused by humans or (3) doesn't matter Well, #2 is certainly within t…

It's sad that this is being up-voted as it is incredibly misleading and a conspiracy theory to boot: >#1 mainly intended to achieve a long-standing but tactically-shifting goal of governments to control capital No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus that has emerged from the work of thousands of individuals in many countries. Most mainstream solutions to dealing with global…

> No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus that has emerged from the work of thousands of individuals in many countries.

"global warming" may not be a govt plan, but the responses all involve greater govt control and the sum total has almost no predicted effect on global warming.

Since the predictions that show no effect come from the same models that are being used to predict global warming....

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#36

Post by DrSprout »

msg wrote: post #28
Tichy wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that hard to believe. Surely there is some limit that would change your mind? Maybe if it would save 1000 lives per month? Or one million lives per month? I suspect you don't have any hard data on the impact of torture. Not saying that torture is good, just saying that even in your example, science might change your mind.

This is a bullshit argument. Torture does not save shit and it is good for nothing. What if destroying the earth would save the universe? What if Batman wanted you to torture someone? What if cutting off the eyelids of a brown person meant that unicorns would walk the earth? What if I snuck into suburban households and cut up humans for body parts so my nanobots could learn regeneration techniques? What if the nanobo…

That's still a fact-based argument. You're saying (and I agree) that data show that the supposition that torture is useful is nonsense. It's only useful as a deterrent tool in morally bankrupt regimes. (But again we come to the moral question of how many innocent people we're willing to harm for deterrence's sake.)

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#37

Post by gyardley »

rortian wrote: post #30
mynameishere wrote: post #20

There's a pretty strong impulse to call somebody a "denier" in order to categorically denounce what he's saying, as well as everybody similarly skeptical. It's important, when doing this, to paint the person in the simplest "nutshell" terms. Those awful climate "denialists" for instance: In a nutshell: Global warming either (1) isn't real (2) isn't caused by humans or (3) doesn't matter Well, #2 is certainly within t…

It's sad that this is being up-voted as it is incredibly misleading and a conspiracy theory to boot: >#1 mainly intended to achieve a long-standing but tactically-shifting goal of governments to control capital No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus that has emerged from the work of thousands of individuals in many countries. Most mainstream solutions to dealing with global…

It's probably getting up-voted because of the first line:

"There's a pretty strong impulse to call somebody a "denier" in order to categorically denounce what he's saying, as well as everybody similarly skeptical."

This statement I'm in complete agreement with.

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#38

Post by anamax »

goodside wrote: post #12

"Either evolution and the big bang happened or they did not; both matters can, in principle, be solved with more data and better theory. But the right form of taxation or government cannot be answered with more data and better theory. They are ideological positions that are established by subjective debate." If you don't adjust your views of taxation and government based on data, nobody should ever listen to what you…

> Either evolution and the big bang happened or they did not; both matters can, in principle, be solved with more data and better theory. But the right form of taxation or government cannot be answered with more data and better theory. They are ideological positions that are established by subjective debate."

> If you don't adjust your views of taxation and government based on data, nobody should ever listen to what you have to say on politics (or anything else).

Wrong. Even if you knew exactly the result of spending $100 more on a given welfare program, that doesn't tell you whether you should spend that $100. There are two reasons (1) knowing the benefit of spending $100 there doesn't tell you whether that $100 is better spent somewhere else (2) reasonable folks can disagree on whether those benefits are worth $100. (I may be willing to spend $0.01 to make your life $1 better, but I'm not willing to spend $0.25. Your numbers are probably different and no amount of data helps us decide between them.)

More data is useful, but it isn't decisive.

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#39

Post by rortian »

dmm wrote: post #34
rortian wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's sad that this is being up-voted as it is incredibly misleading and a conspiracy theory to boot: >#1 mainly intended to achieve a long-standing but tactically-shifting goal of governments to control capital No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus that has emerged from the work of thousands of individuals in many countries. Most mainstream solutions to dealing with global…

> No, global warming is not a government plan. It is an area of scientific consensus Science and govt are inseparable now. Federal grants fund huge amounts of research. This distorts science to a degree not widely recognized. A good example is nutrition. Start with the modern consensus of what constitutes a healthy diet and trace it back to the research that supports it. Gary Taubes did that in "Good Calories, Bad Ca…

LOL?

Yes, virtually all basic research is federally funded. Does it distort science?

Nutrition is not at all easy to do as science because doing research with humans is not considered ethical by society. I think it's something we need to address, and it seems short sighted to me.

Your example is not at all convincing evidence for you rather sweeping thesis.

Re: Living in denial: When a sceptic isn't a sceptic

#40

Post by fnid2 »

mynameishere wrote: post #20

There's a pretty strong impulse to call somebody a "denier" in order to categorically denounce what he's saying, as well as everybody similarly skeptical. It's important, when doing this, to paint the person in the simplest "nutshell" terms. Those awful climate "denialists" for instance: In a nutshell: Global warming either (1) isn't real (2) isn't caused by humans or (3) doesn't matter Well, #2 is certainly within t…

The main supporter of the global warming ... scam really, also charges thousands of dollars to crowds of people who want to give his talk to others. He is the manager of a hedge fund investing billions in "green" technology. He is one of the most powerful people in the world, even almost becoming president once. His talks are full of inaccuracies and in-congruent cause/effect relationships.

If he was serious about his cause, he'd be encouraging people to move away from coasts. Instead, he encourages them to invest in the products and companies he's already holding.

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