Characteristics of Eco-Utopian Science

 
The use and abuse of science by the eco-Utopians has lead to a large amount
of restriction and cost. Vast and costly empires within the US and other
governments have been created and funded based on the interpretation of
this science. The average person on the street, despite having no training
in science whatsoever takes what they predict at face value. The e-U point
of view is part of what has been taught as the only point of view to every
grade school student for decades. This is expensive... it shifts resources
from productive (value-producing) endeavors to pure overhead. Nobody ever
seriously asks, what if they're wrong, yet anyone trained in the hard
sciences or with much experience in making complex decisions ever seems
comfortable with their methodology. The track record of that methodology
has more content that detracts from its creditability than contributes to
it. It screams out to question their assumptions and the basis of their
models and actions, yet it never takes place. This is intended to be a
short list of the things that lead me to reflexively believe the opposite
of any eco-Utopian message, as that has tended toward the most accurate
position over several decades of watching them work.

The basis of virtually all of the restrictive/expensive eco-policy is one
of two forms of evidence: 1. Aesthetic/emotional... a form of evidence that
suggests a definitive feel-good choice not necessarily correlated reasoning
more based in science, and 2. "Scientific", which, unfortunately because
most people are unfamiliar with scientific method or the history of failure
and questionable conduct behind that "science", never really makes into the
public discussion. As eco-policy results from science, another factor that
should be taken into consideration is the regularity with which bureaucrats
to impose new, high costs on business and personal activities, as well
Draconian limits and the building of large, expensive governmental empires
that will never be dismantled once created.

This note will stick to their science.. the Achilles heel of much of what
constitutes eco-Utopian truth. Reasonable people, including many
blind-followers (i.e. those for whom the aesthetic message is enough),
given access to a more complete view of their methods and history, will not
support them. The high points....

1. The complexity and the scope of the problems being addressed by computer
modeling are, bluntly, completely beyond the abilities of the technology
being applied.

2. They cherry-pick data. They have a demonstrated history of admitting
only the data that supports their preconceived notion of what the outcome
should be. In hard science circles, this is considered scientific fraud,
particularly when there is a long-term history of it.

3. When the model fails to predict the necessary preconceived result, the
model is "re-wired" to predict it. Well-known examples include the output
of the Club of Rome model that predicted numerous forces that were to end
civilization by now, and the classic Ice Age of the 1980s. Those models
were unable to predict the recent past (i.e. you know what happened) and
were re-wired to later predict the past. An example of how his is spun is
cited from a report on global warming:

"So despite the steady increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases during the
20th century, there has been significant no warming trend since 1940."

"The IPCC tries to account for this discrepancy by saying an increase in
atmospheric aerosols; dust from volcanic eruptions and sulfates from fossil
fuel that reflect solar radiation; MASKED the post-1940 warming effect of
the greenhouse gases by providing a cooling force in the
atmosphere."

The data doesn't show what they want it to show so they just pull some
invisible force out of their butt and charge ahead anyway.

4. The "scientists" and their agenda-driven supporters, the
eco-organization policy makers who have to bring in new members/$ have a
vested emotional interest in seeing a particular result. I don't know how
they got to be like this but it certainly is how it is. They enter the fray
pre-disposed to see the "science" support a certain conclusion. This is one
of the most massive no-no's in *hard*science*, but when we are dealing with
the historical record of the eco-utopian movement, we are in no way at all
dealing with hard science.

Consider this... who would want to become an ecological scientist? I'm not
looking to insult these people... just asking a question, who would be
drawn to it? Answer: Statistically speaking, the ones I know went in to it
because of a strong (for some, I would certainly apply the word
"irrational") emotional relationship with the radical environmental way of
thought and the social connections to those who espouse it. Anyone who
lives in an academic community knows exactly what I'm talking about here.
Believing ANY scientific-looking work products from this camp has become
for me, over the last several decades, directly analogous to admitting
NAMBLA's way of life into main-stream acceptability on the basis of
whatever "science" they might muster. You don't let the hysterical,
low-credability points of view, and this most certainly includes junk
science, into the formation of any policy that affects society at large...
particularly policy that is extremely restrictive and extremely expensive.

As evidence of the lack of credibility and honesty in these people, the
first item that pops to mind is the request on the Sierra Club web site
asking their members to lie to the government to bolster the statistics of
conflicted use. I think this is called altering the data. I quote from
their site:

"Environmentalists are not suit-happy. We earnestly desire that conflicts
be resolved in an amicable way. But we will not stand idle while the
environment is harmed."

"Next time you're on a hike and a dirt bike roars by, get 40 friends to all
call or write to the Forest Supervisor and say, "We demand immediate
closure of the trail to dirt bikes because user conflicts indicate that
considerable adverse effects are occurring." The effect is to publicize the
"user conflict" aspect of ORMV use on public lands, which the
regulations stipulate shall trigger action from the managing agency."

This kind of thinking is everywhere in eco-Utopian science if you merely
look for it. From spotted owls "migrating" from Oregon to Californian in a
government eco-scientist's VW camper apparently to a create data (create
data should be a term that horrifies anyone reviewing a project's science)
to close 1000's of acres of land to "protect" the thing... to government
"scientists" adding lynx hair to glue traps in the Rockies to substantiate
land closures there, the agenda seems to exert significant under influence
on the science.

5. They default to a decision/policy making process that can be summarized
as "first, assume the absolute worst-case outcome, regardless of whether
the probabilities are microscopic and the conclusions are more
unsupportable by credible science." Then, impose restrictions and costs. .
And do this while ignoring historical use, human impact/cost (regardless of
the extent of that impact/cost), or whether the restrictions are actually
legal.

When I think eco-science, I first think of scientific fraud... it's what
I've seen in their track record. My default estimate of what is mostly
likely the accurate story is the opposite of their conclusions.

--
Mike W.
96 XR400
70 CT70
71 KG 100 (Hodaka-powered)
99 KZ1000P (training)
99 KZ1000P (rider)
00 Beta Rev-3

 
Mike W. wrote in message ...

As per the lynx hair  I recall it was an university researcher who planted
the lynx hair and they were terminated.  The talk was wondering how that
would effect where they got their next job, perhaps with the government but
unless you have a different incident in mind it wasn't a government employee
planting lynx hair.

So much stuff doesn't really make sense as a whole.  If we are going to meet
some carbon production levels from 15 years ago why aren't we attempting to
contain the population instead of allowing illegal high birth rate
immigrants?  If we really care about the world as a whole why are we doing
things to make stuff made in China and imported instead of keeping the
production here where we would have a much better chance of improving
pollution control.   Now we have financing our debt in the equation.

It is pretty easy to see that when there are no clouds at night it gets
colder.  I assume the carbon dioxide remains the same from day to day.

I agree with you as that the feedback loops in the models and what is put
into the models likely isn't worth all of the attention it is getting.
Apparently the sun is really calm right now the calmest in 100 years so the
big warm up is going to happen when the sun gets more active.

There are ice core scientists who see that carbon dioxide levels follow
temperatures not the other way around.
Well I suppose the past is the key to the present isn't the mantra of the
new eco utopian folks you write about.

Personally I can't see how the amount of people and their earth surface
modifications won't effect stuff.  Seems the smoke stack stuff is more
popular to bring to the forefront unfortunately often by folks with many jet
miles and huge residences to heat and cool.




Fran

 
And good science to could answer exactly to what degree (haw haw) we
are having an effect.

Undetectable? Small but noticeable? etc. etc.

But good science means not drawing conclusions until some decent data
is in, which for a climate takes some time to collect and assemble.

We do know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, we do know we are putting a
heluva lot of it into the atmosphere, we do know that many types of
pollution end up reflecting energy from the sun back out into space...
but we also know there's a lot of natural sources for those things
which can put out quite a lot at random intervals.

I figure we'll get it 'all figured out' and then there will be a
titanic undersea landslide, and a few gigatons of methane will boil
into the atmosphere, then we'll get to see what the greenhouse effect
*really* looks like,

Well, probably only megatons of methane.

Dave

 
Interesting thought.  OTOH, limiting those births might screw up my
brilliant plan for solving 3rd world hunger probems...

JayC

 

Most telling sentence in the following article: where a 'colleague'
justifies dishonesty by saying "wolves deceive their prey, don't
they?..."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119258265537661384.html

--
Charles
'99 YZ250