When should voters defer to the views of scientists? - The Washington Post

When should voters defer to the views of scientists? - The Washington Post

I. The Case for Deferring to Scientists.

This raises the question of whether voters should defer to majority scientific opinion on these issues. Given my research on political ignorance, it is tempting for me to conclude that the answer is almost always “yes.” The majority of the public is often ignorant about basic facts about government and politics, and their scientific knowledge is also far from impressive. You don’t have to believe that scientists are always right about scientific issues to conclude that they are on average more likely to be right than generally ignorant voters are. To the extent that this is true, an electorate that defers to majority scientific opinion on these issues would make fewer mistakes than one that does not, even though neither would be completely error free.

The above reasoning has some merit. But it is important to avoid conflating two different kinds of “scientific” issues. Some of the questions addressed in the Pew survey are almost purely technical questions. For example, the issue of whether GMO foods or foods treated with pesticides are safe, or the issue of whether human activity is the main cause of climate change. On these sorts of technical matters, scientists are indeed likely to know much more than most ordinary people, and there is a good case for deferring to them. But some seemingly scientific policy issues actually include major nontechnical components on which scientists are not likely to have specialized knowledge.

II. The Limits of Scientific Expertise.

Some of the questions raised in the Pew study are actually mixed questions of scientific facts and moral values. For example, the issue of whether animals should be used in scientific research partly depends on the scientific benefits using them; a question on which scientists have special expertise. But it also depends on the moral status of the animals in question, and whether it is ethically permissible to inflict certain types of harm on them. On that latter issue, scientists have no special knowledge. If there is a group of experts that does, it is likely to be moral philosophers and political theorists; and these groups are – on average – more sympathetic to animal rights arguments than the general public is.

Other issues on the survey raise questions of political economy rather than pure science. For example, many more scientists (82 percent) than ordinary people (59 percent) believe that growing population will be a “major” problem in the future. Whether it will be or not depends largely on whether the possible costs of population growth (e.g. – environmental externalities) will outweigh the benefits, such as increased innovation and a greater division of labor. On these latter questions, economists are likely to be more expert than natural scientists are, and economists tend to be much more skeptical of Malthusian arguments than either natural scientists or the general population. They like to point out that Malthusian predictions have proven wrong for some two hundred years, which does not prove that they will always be wrong, but does suggest reason for imposing a high burden of proof on them.

In sum, it makes good sense to defer to the views of experts on areas that are actually within their expertise. But not on questions that may seem related, but actually are distinct. Telling the difference isn’t always easy. Here, as elsewhere, being a responsible, well-informed voter turns out to be a lot harder than we might think.

Ideas: Evaluating Controversial Claims

http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2013/12/evaluating-controversial-claims.html

There are at least four different ways in which an interested observer can decide whether or not to believe the claim.

1. Partisanship. If you support the policy, believe the claim. If you don't, don't. This is probably the most common approach.

2. Evaluate the arguments for yourself. This is  the most entertaining and educational approach but no more reliable than the first—and likely to give the same answer. There is always controversy about the claim among people better equipped to evaluate it than the random observer, although one side or both may try to deny it. In the case of global warming, the relevant claim is not merely that temperatures are going up, or that the reason is human activity, or that they can be expected to go up by enough to cause serious net costs, but all of those plus the additional claim that there are ways of reducing the increase that are worth their cost. To evaluate all of that you need a reasonably expert knowledge of climatology, statistics, ecology, economics, and probably two or three other fields I have not thought of. Since you don't have all that, you end up believing whichever arguments you want to believe.

3. The argument from authority. You try to figure out what the consensus of the people who are experts is or what some authoritative source of information says. An outsider trying to figure out what professionals in a field believe is at risk of overvaluing whatever position has the most support from public sources of information, such as the mass media, or has done the best job of getting its supporters onto the committees of scientific organizations that put out public statements. And even if he could figure it out for one field, that isn't sufficient. Again taking the global warming case, it is not enough to know what the consensus of the climatologists is, even if you can separate the facts from the puffery on that subject. Climatologists are not economists, so  could be correct about the expected temperature increase and wrong about the magnitude or even the sign of its consequences. Economists are not ecologists, so might show the costs they are looking at to be insignificant while missing the effects of climate change on other species. I discussed problems with this approach at greater length in an earlier post.

4. Prediction. Once such a controversy has been going for a while, partisans have a track record. If they have made confident predictions that turned out to be wrong, that is good evidence that they are either dishonest or arguing from an incorrect theory. Figuring out whether the arguments for a theory are right or wrong is much harder than finding out what that theory predicted. Sometimes all the latter takes is  a book or article by its supporters written a few years back.

The clearest case is the population hysteria of the 1960's. Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb, published in 1968, confidently predicted mass famine in the third world over the next decade, with hundred of millions of people starving to death. Not only did it not happen, the real world moved in the opposite direction, with calorie consumption per capita in the third world going up, not down. That is very strong evidence that Ehrlich can not be trusted. It is somewhat weaker evidence that the movement of which he was part, whose members generally took him and his arguments seriously, can not be trusted.

Craig’s Five Ways, Part One – EvolutionBlog

http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2013/12/18/craigs-five-ways-part-one/

So let's have a look. After a few paragraphs of chest-thumping, Craig gets down to business. He even helpfully numbers his arguments:

1. God provides the best explanation of the origin of the universe. Given the scientific evidence we have about our universe and its origins, and bolstered by arguments presented by philosophers for centuries, it is highly probable that the universe had an absolute beginning. Since the universe, like everything else, could not have merely popped into being without a cause, there must exist a transcendent reality beyond time and space that brought the universe into existence. This entity must therefore be enormously powerful. Only a transcendent, unembodied mind suitably fits that description.

This is all very muddled. Here are some words and phrases in that argument that need some serious clarification before we can make sense of what Craig is even claiming: "our universe", "absolute beginning", "cause", "transcendent reality" and "beyond time and space."
Science tells us that our universe came into being with a massive explosion called the Big Bang. It tells us almost nothing about what might have caused the Big Bang to occur. For that matter, since our notions of time and space also came into existence with the Big Bang, it is not so clear what it even means to talk about a cause for the universe. In our normal understanding of the terms, causes must come before effects. For that to be meaningful, you must have a notion of time with which to work.
It is one thing to say that our little corner of the universe had a beginning with the Big Bang, but we have little basis at all even for speculating about what might have come before. In some of his public presentations, Craig abuses a theorem due to Borde, Guth and Vilenkin regarding the origins of the universe to add a scientific gloss to his assertions, but he is simply wrong to do so.
...
In short, Craig is just making things up when he says that God is the most likely explanation for the existence of the universe. He has no solid basis at all for making such a claim.

2. God provides the best explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe. Contemporary physics has established that the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of intelligent, interactive life. That is to say, in order for intelligent, interactive life to exist, the fundamental constants and quantities of nature must fall into an incomprehensibly narrow life-permitting range. There are three competing explanations of this remarkable fine-tuning: physical necessity, chance, or design. The first two are highly implausible, given the independence of the fundamental constants and quantities from nature's laws and the desperate maneuvers needed to save the hypothesis of chance. That leaves design as the best explanation.

This is just more groundless assertion. Let us leave aside the question of just how-fine-tuned the universe really is. The fact remains that this is even more of an argument from ignorance than the first. To say the life-permitting range is "incomprehensibly narrow" implies both that we know precisely what the life-permitting range is and that we know the range of possible values of which that is a subset. Moreover, chance is an entirely plausible explanation for fine-tuning if our universe is just one part of a vast multiverse. That's probably what Craig has in mind in referring to "desperate maneuvers," but in doing so he is just replacing argument with rhetoric.
The multiverse idea is speculative, but it receives considerable support from several lines of thought in modern astronomy and is a perfectly mainstream idea among physicists and cosmologists. In this it differs considerably from the invented-from-whole-cloth notion of a God to turn the dials. On what possible basis does Craig decide that the former idea is a desperate maneuver, while the latter is a plausible explanation?

Not to say God's been disproved, merely that the alleged proof isn't a real proof.

When The Civil War Turns Hot [feedly]

When The Civil War Turns Hot
http://accordingtohoyt.com/2013/04/13/when-the-civil-war-turns-hot/?utm_source=feedly

"Which means you have to allow people the right to think freely.  Yes, a lot of them will have stupid ideas.  (What, you think your sh*t don't stink?)  Yes, a lot of them will offend you.  (Communist ideas offend me, but do I come and shut you down?)
"Unless someone actually has the power to send police to your door to enforce their stupid ideas, you can learn to live with it.
"You do not in fact have the right to stop people thinking thoughts you don't like.  No, it's not unfair and bullying if people laugh at you.  Yes, it hurts like hell but there's a reason for the old saying "Sticks and stones may break my bones."   And besides, ladies and gentlemen, you've been aiming ridicule at the other side for years, in the firm belief there was no one here but us chickens.  (Some of us are dragons.  We just also happen to lay eggs.)"

Richard Mourdock, the consistent Christian

Richard Mourdock, the consistent Christian

via Secular Right by Heather Mac Donald on 10/24/12

"I just struggled with it myself for a long time but I came to realize: Life is that gift from God that I think even if life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen."

Ummm . . . what's not theologically accurate about that statement?  Whether we construe Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock's statement generously and limit it to his obvious intentions—that the life that results from a rape is a gift that God intends to happen—or construe it less favorably to what Mourdock meant to say but faithfully to Christian theology—that God intended the rape that impregnates the victim—either interpretation is required by the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent God.  Given the nonstop stream of prayers that believers send God's way every second, seeking favorable dispositions of, inter alia, their home foreclosure, their bypass operation, the election, the aftermath of an earthquake and every other natural disaster (belatedly),  it's clear that believers rightly reason that there is not a single aspect of life invisible to the all-powerful God and over which he fails to exercise utter control (even if he sometimes seems to get a little distracted).  I mean, if he can perform such Iron Age miracles as ventriloquizing through a burning bush , he can sure as heck prevent a rape if he chose to do so.  His will has no option but to be done.

Non-believers are supposed to respect belief as something deeply thought-out.  But it turns out that Christians are actually closet Manicheans, unable to live with the unpalatable consequences of their theology:

"As a pro-life Catholic, I'm stunned and ashamed that Richard Mourdock believes God intended rape," said Dan Parker, chairman of the Indiana Democratic Party.
"Victims of rape are victims of an extremely violent act, and mine is not a violent God."

So if there are aspects of life that God does not control, he is not omnipotent, but just one magical force among many.
The Mourdock faux pas in airing the ineluctable implications of Christian belief will cost the Republican party.  That belief itself, of course, will escape unscathed.  

MercatorNet: Who’s afraid of the slippery slope?

Link: http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/whos_afraid_of_the_slippery_slope (via shareaholic.com)

More than a scare tactic
The problem with this point of view is that it fails to appreciate the many and varied ways in which 'slippery slope' scenarios (as opposed to arguments) actually function. Indeed, an excellent paper by UCLA Professor of Law Eugene Volokh from 2003 undertook the noteworthy task of demonstrating actual mechanisms that underlie the various 'slippery slope' metaphors.
Volokh discussed mechanisms such as 'cost-lowering', 'attitude-altering', 'small change tolerance', 'political power' and 'political momentum' as examples of mechanisms whereby X can in fact lead to Y.
One intriguing example is that gun registration – itself a seemingly innocuous practice – could 'lower the cost' for government control and restriction of gun ownership. A similar example from the world of bioethics is that IVF technology 'lowered the cost' for research on human embryos and human cloning. Not only did IVF 'lower the cost', it was also 'attitude-altering' in terms of public, scientific, and legislative willingness to accept the concept of human life being created (and eventually destroyed) in laboratories.
In ethical issues the journey from X to Y takes place primarily on the level of principle, and for most of us these principles are hidden away behind layers of passion, emotion, culture, and social mores.
Take, for example, the issue of slavery: very few people are in favour of slavery these days. Yet we know for a fact that this was not always the case. Transport the average Anglo-Saxon of anti-slavery orientation back in time by about 200 years and we might find to our shock and horror that his enlightened moral views are out of step with mainstream society.

Political axis systems

Zombie » The Electric Tea Party Acid Test
I've also read a proposal for a third axis, reflecting morality.
And then there are those whose coordinate system doesn't match reality. Off the grid.

Philosophy of science: a philosopher writes

A philosophy professor responds to an attack on the notion of "philosophy of science". Attacks on philosophy by scientists | Whewell's Ghost

I know, I think, why some people seem to think that all that matters is science. I too think science is pretty damned important. But once you stop knowing about things, and start arguing about things you cannot know by science, you are doing philosophy, and so it is a little, dare I say, hypocritical, to argue, philosophically, that philosophy is crap. Not to mention self-contradictory.
Scientists sometimes think that any attempt to be philosophical about science is otiose. Feynman once remarked, although I can’t find the reference, that philosophy of science is about as useful to science as ornithology is to birds. This might very well be true (although in times when the birds are under threat, ornithology can be of very great benefit indeed), but the value of a study is not the things one can sell from it. It is surely true that philosophers like Popper and Hempel and Carnap tried to constrain and prescribe science, and that project failed. But the philosophy of science is about understanding how science is done when it works. Surely that’s not for nothing.
....
Recently, Mark Perakh, a physicist, posted on Panda’s Thumb another attack upon Michael Ruse, the philosopher and historian of science, because Ruse asked this question:
If “God exists” is a religious claim (and it surely is), why then is “God does not exist” not a religious claim? And if Creationism implies God exists and cannot therefore be taught, why then should science which implies God does not exist be taught?
In the context of the US Constitution and legal precedent, this is a sensible question to ask. It doesn’t make much sense outside that sort of context, because in most other educational jurisdictions, what gets taught is decided by educators, not the courts, and, for example, in mine (Australia) religion is regarded as something that should only be taught comparatively or in religious education classes that are voluntary (and even those are hardly widely accepted). So is Ruse leading up to some horrible accommodationist error? No, he merely asks that question. Taking a view he calls “independence” – that science and religious claims are independent of each other – he says
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want science removed from schools. I want an answer to my question, one which comes up because of the dictates of the Constitution. The independence position does not raise this issue, because it argues that science has no implications either way about religious claims. You cannot argue for the independence position because of that, but it is a point in its favor.
Now I think that science, being a human activity that engages many of the same questions traditionally approached through theology, yes, and philosophy, is not entirely independent of religious questions. I have said many times that if a religion makes contrary-to-fact claims, so much the worse for that religion. So I do not agree with Ruse’s position here. But I cannot think that he is merely being stupid or just the sort of entertainment one might get from watching a demented drunk dance, which is the tenor of Perakh’s comment.

Straw-man arguments

Eugene Volokh looks at the use of straw-man arguments:

It's always easy to attribute to your adversaries the most extreme, unlimited version of their arguments, and then argue that they're hypocrites because their positions are inconsistent with your caricature. But it's not actually a sound argument.

I don't know of any people "who support the sanctity of marriage" or who are "pro-traditional family types" whose moral principles actually require them to value spouse's decisions about the other spouse above everything else — either in general, or in the specific context of deciding on whether to disconnect the other spouse's feeding tube. Perhaps there are a few such people, who take those principles that far, and who at the same time took a different view as to Schiavo. But even if there are, I doubt they are representative of the broader movement that the commenter is trying to criticize.

Most of us, whether "pro-traditional family types" or any other "types," have many principles that usually guide our actions but sometimes conflict with other principles. We don't extend our principles to their most extreme possible conclusion, with no regard for countervailing factors, nor do we adopt the most extreme possible version of those principles. We should recognize that our adversaries needn't do that, either.

Now of course if one can actually identify a real inconsistency between the someone's specifically stated general views — not caricatures, and not those views read in isolation with no regard to sensible limiting principles — and that person's specific actions with regard to a particular case, it's certainly fair to point to that inconsistency. If many people in the movement are inconsistent in that way, it's fair to point to that as well. And if you think you can persuade others by appealing to their deeply held views, and explaining how they should point in a particular direction, that can be pretty effective.

But that's pretty far from the sort of caricature that I quote above, and that I've too often seen.

Part of a fair argument is that each side should make a fair attempt to understand and fairly represent their opponent's views.  If you don't (or refuse to) understand the point you're arguing against, your argument will inevitably be against some other point, and will miss the point.

Rights and Health Care

Steven Horowitz at The Freeman draws a distinction between positive and negative rights:

In debates over entitlements many on the left frequently invoke the idea that whichever one happens to be at issue — health care, education, pensions — is a "right," and therefore we should not worry about costs.  After all, they say, did the authors of the Bill of Rights worry about "costs" when they passed the First Amendment?

As seductive as that analogy might be, it's utterly misguided because it ignores the important distinction between negative and positive rights.  Negative rights, such as the right to free speech, limit the State's power to interfere with choices citizens might make. The First Amendment begins, "Congress shall make no law…."  Negative rights do not require other people or entities to provide human or material resources to make that right a reality.  Others are simply required to refrain from doing things that interfere; hence, the term "negative right."

Positive rights, by contrast, require others to provide such resources.   For a "right" to health care or education to have real meaning, it must entail the ability to coerce others into providing health care or educational services as needed.  As philosophers say, rights are trumps.  A right to free speech overrides the utilitarian calculations of particular circumstances.  If you have a right to your property, it doesn't matter how good the thief's reason for stealing it is.

....

I suspect that when leftists say people have a right to health care and education, they mean something different and that they are confusing means and ends.  They seem to think that declaring something a right is an end in itself — simply doing so assures that the object of that right is secured.  As I recently noted, this is the equivalent of the magical thinking of South Park's "Underpants Gnomes," whose business plan was:  "Phase 1:  collect underpants;  Phase 2:   ?????;  Phase 3:  Profit."

Here's the upshot: Declaring things like health care and education rights is an empty gesture unless one specifies what sorts of institutions would actually deliver those things and how those institutions would muster the knowledge and incentives to get the job done.  Phase 2 has to have content to explain how the promised results of Phase 3 will be delivered!  Merely declaring something a (positive) right does nothing to ensure that people will actually get what they allegedly have a right to.

The issue looks different if we think instead about positive rights as means rather than ends.  If those who defend such rights were actually saying, "I think we should declare health care a right so that the largest number of people possible get the best health care possible," at least they would be raising the right question.  In response, libertarians might say, "Is declaring health care a 'right' really the best way to accomplish that goal?"

Here, as is often the case, libertarians might generally agree with leftists on the end: a society in which the largest number of people possible have the best health care possible.  The question is how to make that happen.  In responding to the claim that we need to declare health care a right, we must insist on knowing what particular institutional arrangement will be put in place to make that right real and then we must critically assess whether those institutions would do the job.

AC Grayling - Origin of the specious

AC Grayling looks at a defense of Intelligent Design at Origin of the specious

Fuller describes Intelligent Design (ID) theory as the project of establishing “by the usual scientific appeals to reason and evidence” that the world and life in it were purposefully designed by an intelligent agency competent to the task of creating a universe. Call this Point 1.

Fuller claims that ID is “behind the scientific revolution that has been under way in the West since the 17th century” because the motivating belief behind scientific enquiry is that “nature is so constructed” that it can be understood because – as St Augustine taught us – man is made in the image of God and is therefore capable of understanding the universe. Call this Point 2.

Fuller claims that there is no such thing as a “scientific consensus” anyway, and that it is false that evolutionary theory is the cumulative result of progress in scientific enquiry. Call this Point 3.

Fuller claims that science results from religion, that “no plausible alternative has yet been offered to justify the pursuit of science as a search for the ultimate systematic understanding of reality” other than belief in a divine personal creator, and that “atheism has done precious little for science.” Call this Point 4.

On Point 1: no, ID theory is not a project that proceeds on “the usual scientific appeals to reason and evidence.” It starts from a fixed conclusion, and looks for evidence to support it.
....
On Point 2: from a thousand years before St Augustine, Thales and the Pre-Socratics and Plato and Aristotle and the Stoics and Epicureans were thinking in recognisably scientific and proto-scientific ways about the nature and functioning of the universe, on the assumption that human intelligence is competent to understand the workings of nature, which observation abundantly suggests are regular and ordered – it needs no gods to point out how spring returns after every winter, and the crops grow again as they did before, and so manifestly on. Not only did people emphatically not have to wait for St Augustine to discover that they could enquire thus, without invoking supernaturalistic beliefs of any sort, but it is indeed a mark of the thought of Thales and his successors that they did not start from such beliefs, but began their thinking from observation and reason.
....
Now as to Point 3, about the alleged absence of a “scientific consensus” and the “mistake” of thinking that evolutionary theory is a success story of cumulative enquiry. The latter we can pass over briefly. Let us allow the cumulative confirmation of evolutionary theory to speak for itself, thus leaving Lyell’s geology, Darwin’s observations of the finches of the Galapagos, Mendel’s peas, the combination of genetic theory and understanding of selection both natural and artificial, the fossil record, comparative anatomy and physiology, and a mass of observation, experiment and discovery, to one side (nothing cumulative and progressive about this, eh?), and just remark that Fuller – as with everything else he tries to discuss in this book – must really do a lot more homework.

The “consensus” point requires a bit more attention. Fuller’s claim here is the open-a-gap technique; if scientists disagree about something, if there is no consensus among them, perhaps you can slip an alternative – a god or two? a bit of putative intelligent design? – into the gap. But Fuller really is in a muddle here. He says there is no scientific consensus (in general? or only on a case-by-case basis in regard to some cutting-edge, currently researched problem?) but nevertheless that there is a “scientific orthodoxy” which, if you do not sign up to it, excludes you from access to its structures – presumably, to jobs and funding in science.

Critical Thinking

Proof of God?

Dennis Prager's Ultimate Issue today dealt with the question of what could possibly prove the existence of God to everyone.  His position is, there is nothing God can do that would convince everyone.  Even if God appeared to everyone on the planet and said, "Bruce, I'm God", that would only work for a very short time.  Indeed, even if the stars in the sky moved to spell out the message, "I am God", would that do it?  Probably not.

 

In the works of science fiction, people have endless room to play with ideas.  An author can postulate some weird happening, and ponder the effects if such a happening were to actually take place.  In the story I'm working on, for example, one of the weird happenings is in the middle of a Pagan rite -- all of a suden, the magic circle and the watchtowers at the quarters are plainly visible instead of being seen in the mind's eye.  (I figure the reaction runs the gamut from people finding their faith affirmed to people fleeing in panic to whatever church they were raised in.)  (Another of the weird happenings is communion wine and wafers turning to actual blood and flesh during a Mass.)

 

A number of books have been written in the Star Trek universe. A couple of them postulate that the Vulcans have an innate sense of the presence of God -- they have, in the back of their minds, a constant "signal" of the presence of God.  To them, this existence is an unquestioned and unquestionable fact. 

 

But this is no help.  If anything, it raises more questions than it answers.  The existence of God is beyond question, and so the problem of evil becomes intensified.  The author of these particular stories believes absolute proof of the existence of God would do no more than move the goal posts.  Instead of questioning the existence of God, Vulcans instead question the nature of God, his goodness, his wisdom, his ability to make things happen. 

 

Is God involved with the universe?  Does he care about the intelligent beings that live throughout it?  Or did he wind it up at the beginning and it's now running on its own?

 

Even if absolute proof of God's existence can be had, people will still doubt precisely what it is that exists.

 

Comments?

What is deception?

From Bruce Schneier's "Crypto-Gram" newsletter:

David Livingstone Smith, University of New England, is a philosopher by training, and goes back to basics: "What are we talking about?" A theoretical definition -- "that which something has to have to fall under a term" -- of deception is difficult to define. "Cause to have a false belief," from the Oxford English Dictionary, is inadequate. "To deceive is intentionally have someone to have a false belief" also doesn't work. "Intentionally causing someone to have a false belief that the speaker knows to be false" still isn't good enough. The fundamental problem is that these are anthropocentric definitions. Deception is not unique to humans; it gives organisms an evolutionary edge. For example, the mirror orchid fools a wasp into landing on it by looking like and giving off chemicals that mimic the female wasp. This example shows that we need a broader definition of "purpose."

His formal definition: "For systems A and B, A deceives B iff A possesses some character C with proper function F, and B possesses a mechanism C* with the proper function F* of producing representations, such that the proper function of C is to cause C* to fail to perform F* by causing C* to form false representations, and C does so in virtue of performing F, and B's falsely representing enables some feature of A to perform its proper function."

NB:  "iff" in the definition above is not a misspelling.  "Iff" is logician shorthand for "if and only if".

How do you pick experts?

One writer's answer here.

In response to the question:

"Can I ask how you made the judgment on which scientists to believe? I am interested in climate science and just started reading RealClimate, thanks in part to your post. To be honest, I respect your literary work and was surprised to hear you, as a science fiction author, naysay what I thought was serious and substantial scientific study.

L Neil Smith writes:

...lacking other data, I looked at the character of those pushing the idea of Global Warming. They included leftist politicos I knew to be opportunistic liars in other contexts—particularly gun ownership—along with movie stars and other brain-dead celebrities that flock to any cause that attacks private industrial capitalism and individual liberty. Some may criticize me for ad hominem thinking, but when you don't have reliable scientific information (which I didn't back then), what else can you rely on but your understanding of the personalities involved?

There was also my experience with previous predictions of disaster (some which I listed in the blog entry "The Badguys" that we're discussing ), and of conspiracy theories that seemed to me to have a similar structure. The whole "Paul is dead" thing comes to mind. I know a lot about this because I spent a lot of time in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy "movement".

....

I suppose my perception of precisely who stood to benefit from the spreading fear about Global Warming comes into it. Anyone who hates technology, of course, or the present economic system. Also, hordes who will get rich from all of the asinine proposals to reduce Global Warming—anyone who makes solar panels or water heating systems or nasty little cars that go short distances very slowly, carrying almost nothing.

Most persuasive, I suppose, was an anthropological understanding I have (that being my principle field of interest and study in college) of what constitutes a religion. The planet gets transmogrified into a goddess in the minds of the faithful, and all of the entities upon it, the birds and bees and flowers and trees (to quote an old song)—all of the entities, that is, except humans—become sacred objects. Exhaling carbon dioxide becomes Original Sin. Better that a thousand human babies should die than one single snail darter or a furbish lousewort.

Dictionary of Philosophy

Neat link, for reference...

Words mean things

But what do they mean?
Patterico has some thoughts.

>Who bears the responsibility for clear communication?

I think the answer is clear. Communication is a two-way street. Listeners must try to divine the true intent of the speaker. Speakers must clearly communicate their intent if they wish to be understood.

Speech always must interpret speech. If speech is unclear, people often disagree on the correct interpretation. Some interpretations are reasonable and made in good faith, and some aren’t. When they aren’t, speakers and other listeners should tell the world why they aren’t.

Left, Right, and Wrong

John Ray offers this on Leftism and morality:

I have been writing -- sporadically -- on topics in moral philosophy for many years now (See here) so I think it is time for me to ask if I have learnt anything over the years. I think I have. In particular, I think I have now arrived at a complete answer to what Leftists say about the matter.

To begin with:

The nub of the Leftist argument is that "right" and "wrong" language is incoherent. Saying "X is pink" and "X is right" seem on the surface to be the same sort of statement but we can immediately see that they are not. Pinkness is an objective property that we can point to whereas rightness exists only in the mind of the speaker. "Who says?" is a complete refutation of any claim that something is right. Religious people can say that "God says" but since religious people do differ considerably on moral questions (e.g. abortion) it is immediately obvious that it is only an opinion about what God says that we are dealing with. And how can an opinion have any objective reality? So the Leftist concludes that there is no such thing as right and wrong, just different opinions and value judgements. You cannot find rightness under a rock and you cannot find it anywhere so it does not exist as such.

And indeed, Heinlein has had characters take the position that if you find a semantic referent for a word -- if you can't point to an example of what the word represents -- it has no meaning.  Thus, since you can't point to "justice", "morality", or "right" or "wrong", these words have no meaning.

I did three courses in philosophy in my years as a university student and was always exposed to the above analysis. And up until fairly recently I accepted it as describing at least one sort of moral statement. I was always aware, of course, that nobody ever talks as if they believed it. Leftists are in fact very quick on the draw with moral language. They can say that there is no such thing as right and wrong and then immediately and with a straight face go on to say that "racism" or "intolerance' is wrong. And George Bush is of course EVIL!

So what the heck is going on? I think the first key is, as I have previously argued, that moral language is not used in one way but rather in several ways. And I have SHOWN that usage of moral language differs from person to person by way of psychological research. Philosophers are like physicists: They are always looking for a "unified field" theory of what they study but what if such a unified field does not exist?

After some discussion, he looks at different types of moral formulations:

I have previously set out what I think are the main uses of moral language but I will repeat them here as a preliminary to an important update. It seems to me that statements such as "X is right" (or "X is good" or "You ought to do X") can be unpacked in only four or perhaps five basic ways:

 

1. I like it when people do X

2. Doing X generally leads to widely desired results

3. It is the will of God that you do X

4. X has an inescapable, universal "moral" quality.

5. X is the prevailing rule around here (though if the person was asked why that rule exists he would almost certainly reply by referring to some version of one of the preceding three statements).

Ray spends some time discussing evolutionary morality -- morality and ethics that are "hard-wired" in to human beings.  We do seem to have certain instincts that lead us to consider some behaviors "wrong".  One point he seems to miss is that social codes have also been subject to a form of evolutionary selection.  Communities with moral codes that "work" tend to succeed and prosper; communities with moral codes that don't "work" tend to fail and disappear.  This is one reason why conservatives have the high regard they do for traditional codes -- they've stood the test of time and haven't been eliminated by this selection mechanism.

 

In the end,  Ray concludes:

So we come back in the end to the good Burkean principle that theories are to be distrusted and and continually tested against whether or not they lead to generally desired outcomes. Philosophers judge an argument on its consistency, elegance and comprehensivesness. Conservatives judge it on its practical outcomes. And Leftists judge it on whether they can use it to make themselves look good.

 

A famous objection to any claim that moral statements are at base empirical and hence rationally arguable is the objection by David Hume. David Hume contends that there is an unbridgeable gap between "is" and "ought" statements -- so that you cannot justify "ought" statements by "is" statements. Yet that is precisely what people normally do. An "ought" statement always commends some course of action and when people ask WHY that course of action is commended the reply is often in terms of "is" (empirical) statements (e.g. the commendation of X can be explained as: "X leads to generally desired consequences" or "X leads to consequences that you would like" or "I like X" or "X is the prevailing rule in this culture"). So in my view the fact that an "ought" statement can be explained in that way shows that it is an empirical statement to begin with. Statements in general have all sorts of influences on people (for example, if someone said to me: "Your son has just died", it is clearly an empirical statement but it would also have an enormous influence on me if true. It would cause me to take many actions that I would not otherwise take) and an "ought" statement is an empirical statement with what is expected to be one particular sort of influence -- it is meant to cause you to behave in the way described (Something that R.M. Hare also saw). So an "ought" or "is right" statement is simply a shorthand (compressed) "is" statement that can be expanded in some way if desired. It might be noted however that there seems to be a gradient in "good", "right" and "ought" statements, with "ought" statements being most intended to incite action and "good" statements least so.

 

The problem with "utilitarian" arguments

In my open letter to an interrogator, I point out a serious problem with Terry Karney's "utilitarian" argument against torture: It's only as good as his data. Another blogger makes a similar point:

Consequentialist arguments are very efficient because people are generally willing to change their mind easily on those matters... but what make them successful also makes them weak : they can be replaced with other consequentialist arguments. Moral arguments are much tougher to make because people are more reluctant to accept a new moral philosophy, but they are also much more stable, and will likely be successfully passed onto children. Every consequentialist argument however is a step away from freedom as an end instead of freedom as a means. On the long term, the fate of the new belief is unknown... it may be replaced with an economic fallacy. It's negative effect on morality will always be damaging though.

Karney wants to do away with all torture. He offers the "utilitarian" case: "torture doesn't work". But every example where torture does work undermines this case. In order to preserve it, he has to refute each of these examples. In most cases, he doesn't have the data to refute them, and relies instead on smears against those who report the examples. His repeated use of such ad hominem attacks only weakens his case. Thus, in the long run, his use of a "utilitarian" argument against torture undermines the case he is trying to make.

"911 Truth" and 911 Doubts

The Flat Earth Society 911 "Truth" movement continues to push its case. R.J. Rummel has grave doubts about their case. When chastized about his refusal to view the 911 "Truth" movement's doubtlessly excellently-made videotape, he responds:

That 9/11 was an inside job is beyond ridiculous. I must use words I seldom apply to assertions with which I disagree, like stupid, high level ignorance, or a psychotic disposition to accept what is impossible because of a deep seated bias. And no, I don't read or view that conspiracy material, any more than I read stuff about the earth being flat, that Johnson had Kennedy assassinated, or that a secret organization runs the world, or any other crazy beliefs or conspiracy theories.

And no, I don't need to give my arguments. To ask for them is also preposterous. And, of course, I am closed minded about this. And so I am also about the fact that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in1941, and that it was not a " monumental fraud perpetrated against the United States and the world on that day."

There are always anomalies in any explanation of human behavior, as there are always faces that can be found in clouds, if looked at long and hard enough.

I also refer people to Isaac Asimov's essay, "My Built-in Doubter", where he discusses what he doubts and why he doubts it. It's a variation on the theme that "Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof".