J.D. Trout & Michael Bishop, the protagonists of the previous post, have written a book Epistemology and the Psychology of Human Judgment. Book Description Strategic Reliabilism, claims that epistemic excellence consists in the efficient allocation of cognitive resources to reliable reasoning strategies, applied to significant problems. The last third of the book develops the implications of this view for standard analytic epistemology; for resolving normative disputes in psychology; and for offering practical, concrete advice on how this theory can improve real people's reasoning. This is a truly distinctive and controversial work that spans many disciplines and will speak to an unusually diverse group, including people in epistemology, philosophy of science, decision theory, cognitive and clinical psychology, and ethics and public policy. An Excerpt: It is time for epistemology to take its rightful place alongside ethics as a discipline that offers practical, real-world recommendations for living. In our society, the powerful are at least sometimes asked to provide a moral...

I've been wondering how those who were confident of their expertise would respond to the recent discussion of Philip Tetlock's new book - Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know? - mentioned in Science Class. Bryan Caplan's response: Is my confidence in experts completely misplaced? I think not. Tetlock's sample suffers from severe selection bias. He deliberately asked relatively difficult and controversial questions. As his methodological appendix explains, questions had to "Pass the 'don't bother me too often with dumb questions' test." Dumb according to who? The implicit answer is "Dumb according to the typical expert in the field." What Tetlock really shows is that experts are overconfident if you exclude the questions where they have reached a solid consensus. This is still an important finding. Experts really do make overconfident predictions about controversial questions. We have to stop doing that! However, this does not show that experts are overconfident about their core findings. It's...

Marcelino Fuentes at Biopolitical makes a point that punctuates the previous post on "The risks of faith based science". From the Asian tsunami to Katrina, the message should be obvious: where they still exist, we must protect our coastal ecosystems; where they do not (as in much of our Gulf coast) we must reconstruct them. The message is not obvious because we don't have a quantitative measure of the benefits and the costs, including foregone opportunities, of maintaining and reconstructing all coastal ecosystems. One can advocate the preservation or reconstruction of coastal ecosystems - all of them, and regardless of costs - only by assuming that they have effectively infinite benefits. If protection against disasters has infinite value we should not stop at maintaining and reconstructing coastal ecosystems. We should invest enormous (just a little less of infinite) resources in designing and erecting protections that are even more effective than natural ecosystems. Actually, protection against disasters has, like everything...

I've said all this before, but not as well. The economic, biological and climatological arguments--about global warming, species extinction, pollution, and the like--are sometimes right, sometimes wrong. But the driving force, for a lot of those making those arguments, is the essentially religious belief that natural is good. As evidence, consider how few in the environmental movement are willing to support nuclear power. Nuclear reactors are the one source of power that provides a plausible alternative to fossil fuels—a way of generating electricity almost anywhere without producing CO2 or consuming fossil fuels, and doing it at a cost not wildly higher than the cost of coal fueled generators. They thus provide at least a partial solution to what environmentalists claim are two of the big problems—depletable resources and global warming. A few environmentalists accept that argument—most, by casual observation, don’t. The reason is clear. Nuclear reactors are as unnatural as you can get—a symbol of the evils of high...

Sometimes we see what we want to see, and so miss some interesting things. I hope I'm wrong (I really do), but I fear that too many people who read the following about Frank Perdue will regard such efforts as contemptible, low, mean, almost comical, unworthy of being ranked as great. In fact, such efforts are precisely the sort that makes our prosperity so vast and deep. . . But what was its [a Perdue chicken's] unique selling proposition? To hear Perdue himself tell it, his chickens were just plain better than anybody else's. . . he spent six months on the road, talking to butchers about what qualities they liked to see in their chickens. . . he mated a meaty-breasted Cornish male with a White Plymouth Rock female to create the Perdue pedigree. They didn't want bruised meat, so Perdue set strict protocols for handling live chickens. Ain't it great that someone -- someone who is a...

Politics is stupid. It impedes good governance, effective policy making, and useful thought. It even lowers IQ. I've said all these things in the past year and as time goes on it seems ever truer. Recently in a discussion with Tim Worstall I said: I had a thought today while I was bucking 4 tons of hay into the barn. You tend to think about anything but what you are doing at times like that so that you don't simply quit and do something more rational and less painful. Politics is like a fist fight in the stands between hooligans while the game is being played on the field. The fist fight has a tenuous connection to the game, but it is not the game. It can in extreme cases affect the game, but never in a useful way. It changes the nature of the experience for observers, even sometimes comes to dominate their experience. That's a mistake, though...

I seem to do a bit of review at the end of the year, toting up pluses and minuses, noting trends and patterns - soul searching I suppose though it has more to do with mind than soul for me. I'm hardly unique in this, and the pattern that emerges seems to be that it is the urges of others to do this sort of thing that infects me with something analogous. This year's trigger is Chris Anderson's Q and A - The Probabilistic Age. [via Tyler] Q: Why are people so uncomfortable with Wikipedia? And Google? And, well, that whole blog thing? A: Because these systems operate on the alien logic of probabilistic statistics, which sacrifices perfection at the microscale for optimization at the macroscale. Q: Huh? A: Exactly. Our brains aren't wired to think in terms of statistics and probability. We want to know whether an encyclopedia entry is right or wrong. We want to know that...

Last year about this time Tozier asked What’s in dirt? How much?: Let’s define a “molecular species” in the context of this thought experiment as a particular arrangement of covalently-bonded atoms (I’m ignoring hydrogen bonds, ionic associations and other supramolecular complexes for the sake of sanity). But just to make things challenging, say we count ionization states and radicals as different molecular species, too. So, you have a little pile of dirt? Great. Stop time. I want to look at it instantaneously. Make a list of all the molecular species in that sample. Count how many individual examples there are of each molecule. Got that? Good. Now make a little histogram of the molecular species, sorted in order of decreasing occurrence. So the common stuff like atmospheric gases and common mineral stuff will be over at the left, and weird, rare gunk like bug metabolites and DNA will be over at the right end. Draw it. Show me. Hell,...

The recent WTO agreement to end export subsidies by 2013 needs some unpacking. What's an export subsidy? Who benefits from their elimination? An export subsidy is a payment to a producer when their goods are exported to another nation, just as you would expect from the name. In agriculture they arise due to government efforts to prop up domestic prices or enhance security. When the government sets a price floor they have an obligation to purchase excess production at the floor price. That can be wasteful and expensive since things can spoil and facilities to store them are expensive. A cheaper solution is to dump the excess on the world market at below cost prices. Thus, export subsidies. The US spends about $1 billion on such subsidies and the EU spends 4 times as much. Ending them is a mixed benefit. World prices will rise and make life harder for poor countries that import more than they export, but...

One of the themes here has been the falseness of the great man theory of progress and the falseness of systems of meritocracy and expertise - mandarins, elites and the like - and stratified, exclusionary institutions. Earlier posts about James Surowieki, Scott Page and Lu Hong among others grappled with the deficiencies of expertise as we commonly think of it, suggesting that there are ways to overcome them with group approaches. Another thread is critical of the blunders of supposed experts who seemed unaware of information and relationships that were common knowledge among practitioners, and an intellectually crippling dismissal of the accomplishments of ancient people and native societies. Though not explicitly dicussed there have been allusions to Philip Tetlock’s new book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” It has been discussed on many blogs and I expect that you have already read a few reviews and comments about it. This Louis Menand review has...

One of the less savory aspects of moral posturing about technological issues is that some subjects are taboo. Currently air capture of CO2 is a political third rail of climate policy. Here is why: For most of those people opposed to greenhouse gas regulation advocating air capture would require first admitting that greenhouse gases ought to be reduced in the first place, an admission that most on this side of the debate have avoided. When so-called climate skeptics start advocating air capture (which I have to believe can't be too far off), then you will have a sign that the climate debate is really changing. If such a transformation occurs, then we have the irony of seeing the climate skeptics become the technology advocates and the greenhouse gas regulation advocates become technology skeptics. Why? For most of those people who support greenhouse gas regulations, even admitting the possibility of air capture is anathema, because it would undercut the entire...

As usual Don Boudreaux is that rare, calm, sensible voice speaking at a conversational volume and in pleasant tones about a contentious issue. Let’s assume that global warming is happening and that it’s caused by modern human industry and commerce. Is there a case to be made for the United States government to continue to avoid signing the Kyoto Protocol? More generally, is there a case to be made to shrug our shoulders and say “best not to do anything through government about global warming”? I think so. One legitimate reason for refusing to endorse massive, worldwide government-led efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is that any such effort will inevitably be politicized. Even if the possibility exists for such regulation to make the world a better place, this possibility is remote compared to the likelihood that grandstanding politicians, special-interest groups, arrogant environmentalists who are intolerant of commercial values, and well-meaning but misinformed voters will combine to generate policies that...

The direct benefits of modern agricultural technologies to humanity and the environment in the 20th century have been elucidated in numerous scholarly articles on agriculture by Indur Goklany. For instance: If agricultural-technology development had been frozen in 1961, we estimate, using data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation (see FAOSTAT 2003: apps.fao.org), that cropland would have had to increase from its present 11% to some 25% of the planetary surface to produce the same amount of food now.(Nature, vol 423, p.115) In this way Kendra Okonski defends a Tim Worstall critique of a Zac Goldsmith article in the Times UK. Worstall asserts: THE COST of the food on your table has been falling since Neolithic times. Thanks to the onward march of technology — inventions such as fertiliser, the horse collar or exciting methods of turnip weeding — yields have been increased over the past 10,000 years, so reducing, for example, the price of each extra turnip produced. This...

Nothing is more exciting to a doom monger than a disaster movie. Even a real disaster isn't as good since it can't be safely anticipated, savored and enjoyed repeatedly. Real disasters are so grubby, and they don't lend themselves to ridiculous moralizing and political activism. You might think they would since they are real, but when it's for real the critics out you for your perversions. They point and laugh. A movie sort of keeps it in the closet, gives you plausible deniablility. The fact that you love horror films doesn't mean that you want to become a slasher or a slasher victim or something, and loving disaster films doesn't mean you long for disaster. Or so you can claim. The pervs at worldwhingeing are dreaming of methane hydrate apocalypse. RealClimate explores in some detail today just how the frozen methane could melt, and what the result could be if it does so. The situation, as RealClimate sees it,...

All of the convoluted biofuel hustles and many of the bio-sequestration hustles are just shell games that capture some co2 here and release it there. This fools regulators but not mother nature. For example consider this pataphysical device. [via Green Car Congress] Biological carbon sequestration, in particular engineered photosynthesis systems, offers advantages as a viable near-to-intermediate term solution for reduced carbon emissions in the energy sector. Such systems could provide a viable option for “other-than-ocean” sequestration for smaller fossil generation units located in the midwest. Photosynthetic (or “natural” sequestration) systems produce usable byproducts (biomass). . . An engineered photosynthesis system could be placed at the source of the emissions to allow measurement and verification of the system effects, rather than being far removed from the emissions source, as is the case with forest-based and ocean-based natural sinks. The byproducts of an engineered system, biomass, could be used as a fuel, fertilizer, feedstock, or source of hydrogen. And even though...

. . . as Philip called it, but here in the toolies we call a spade a fucking shovel, and lies are damned lies. the Bush administration, which rejects the emissions cutbacks of the current Kyoto Protocol, accepted only a watered-down proposal to enter an exploratory global "dialogue" on future steps to combat climate change. That proposal specifically rules out "negotiations leading to new commitments." . . The parallel tracks represented a mixed result for the pivotal two-week U.N. conference on global warming, doing little to close the climate gap between Washington on one side, and Europe, Japan and other supporters of the Kyoto Protocol on the other. "These countries are willing to take the leadership," Swiss delegate Bruno Oberle said of the Kyoto nations. "But they are not able to solve the problem. We need the support of the United States -- but also of the big emerging countries," a reference to China and other poorer industrializing nations...

The political posturing and meaningless speeches are drawing to a frenzied close in Montreal. The Bush administration is wary of new commitments. It rejected Kyoto in 2001 saying it would damage the US economy. Former US President Bill Clinton has made a strong plea for acceptance. Addressing the conference at the invitation of the City of Montreal, he said to loud applause that there should be a "serious commitment to a clean-energy future". If existing clean energy and energy conservation technologies were applied in full, Mr Clinton said, the US could "meet and surpass the Kyoto targets easily in a way that would strengthen, not weaken, [its] economy". Clinton had 8 years and a booming economy. He did nothing. His prescription, to conserve energy and apply clean energy technologies in full, might meet Kyoto targets without economic harm, but there would be other things that don't get done. This matters because meeting Kyoto targets would do nothing at all...

It's a break from yellow and fits the Revkin pieces well. Annie Petsonk, a representative of Environmental Defense, a private group, said that without prompt new actions by the United States to ratchet down emissions, the long-lived gases would build in the atmosphere creating a far larger challenge for all countries in a couple of decades. “We need to do more and we need to keep that pace,” she said. “It’s sort of like getting your reading done when you’re in college. You can do a little bit the first night, the second night, and each night after that, or you can do what I did, which is you can wait until the end of the semester.” With greenhouse gases, she said, the enormous buildup in several decades would require extremely deep cuts in emissions to avoid concentrations that would dangerously warm the Earth. “The consequences of even 10 years of delay could be enormous,” she said. mmmm, I...

The dingbat claims by politicized scientists noted previously in Yellow Science aren't rare. Here's an example. Absent any climate policy, scientists have found a 70 percent chance of shutting down the thermohaline circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean over the next 200 years, with a 45 percent probability of this occurring in this century. The likelihood decreases with mitigation, but even the most rigorous immediate climate policy would still leave a 25 percent chance of a thermohaline collapse. Gee, it seems that these folks have a crystal ball that can see the future and confidently pronounce that only a climate policy will prevent doom. What's a climate policy? They then used an extended, but simplified, model to represent the wide range of behavior of the thermohaline circulation. By combining the simple model with an economic model, they could estimate the likelihood of a shutdown between now and 2205, both with and without the policy intervention of a carbon tax...

Revkin is back in his usual rut. Under pressure from other industrialized countries at talks here on global warming, the Bush administration announced on Tuesday that it had signed an agreement with a coalition of energy companies to build a prototype coal-burning power plant with no emissions. Well, no, pressure isn't the issue. The project, called FutureGen, has been in planning stages since 2003. It's no secret and has long been anticipated. What galls the climate nutters is that it is a good example of the sort of things we can do that are effective rather than merely pious. Environmental advocates at the talks criticized the announcement, saying it was intended to distract from continuing efforts by the American delegation to block discussion of new international commitments to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases that scientists link to global warming. "You are watching 163 nations do an elaborate dance to try to make progress when the...

Politicized scientists have the nasty habit of making public claims that are only true for special situations without noting the special situations, or burying them below the fold. Growing more forests in United States could contribute to global warming Planting trees across the United States and Europe to absorb some of the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels may just outweigh the positive effects of sequestering that CO². So, activist scientist Ken Caldeira concludes: . . . in terms of climate change, we should focus our efforts on things that can really make a difference, like improving efficiency and developing new sources of clean energy. But what does the study really show? Using climate models, researchers from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology have found that forests in the mid-latitude regions of the Earth, present a more complicated picture. Trees in these areas tend to warm the Earth in...

This mudge, like the previous one Lost In Space, is about picking apart the fussy little knots folks tie themselves into which prevent them from saying sensible things. The new candidate insight to explain this malfunction is that the self-disabled speaker can't see the problem and doesn't realize they are uttering nonsense. Consider this brief rant of Dave Iverson at Forest Policy - Forest Practice. My local paper ran this FrontPage headline Friday, "And now here's the Grand Canyon, thanks to…" The article was subtitled "National parks seeking corporate sponsorship." No doubt supporters believe they are just looking to honor those they refer to affectionately as 'corporate partners.' But many, including me, think this is yet-another nightmare brought to us by those who have no vision of or desire for 'public use.' This is the same bunch who have no idea of the good that comes from holding some public space apart from the constant drumbeat of corporatism—pounded incessantly...

I regularly take pseudo-environmentalists to task here for advocacy that is destructive to the environment as well as society in general. Their motives for doing so are varied but in general are a confusion of political and cultural desires with sensible environmentalism, a certain mean spirited priggishness, a neurotic tic associated with their authoritarian personalities and the impulsive cringing, whingeing and aggressiveness that's part of that whole package. But their ignorance is more important than their motives since there is a slim possibility that ignorance can be cured. When events conspire to refute them unambiguously their biases can be overcome and in spite of everything they can actually learn. A post from the old Crumb Trail blog, Brain Death, noted the environmentally destructive advocacy of an article in Grist Magazine. Grist is one of the most destructive sites with the stupidest advocacy. One of the most damaging gaffes of environmentalism, right up there with the stupidity of the punitive...

Someone has written a sensible article in the NYT claiming to be Andrew Revkin, but Revkin would never say sensible things like this. Today, in the middle of new global warming talks in Montreal, there is a sense that the whole idea of global agreements to cut greenhouse gases won't work. . . in the years after the protocol was announced, developing countries, including the fast-growing giants China and India, have held firm on their insistence that they would accept no emissions cuts, even though they are likely to be the world's dominant source of greenhouse gases in coming years. Their refusal helped fuel strong opposition to the treaty in the United States Senate and its eventual rejection by President Bush. . . Some veterans of climate diplomacy and science now say that perhaps the entire architecture of the climate treaty process might be flawed. The basic template came out of the first international pact intended to protect the...

There seems to have been an up tick in metaphysical subjects in the news as winter deepens. As the sun sinks lower in the sky, in some northerly places threatening to disappear entirely, a vague uneasiness spreads across the land. Animals scurry about making preparations for a siege, and people do something not all that different. What do they fear? It seems to be more than just cold weather and diminished sunlight. People know that spring will come again in time, that the sun isn't really disappearing never to return, still there is depression that exceeds causes. Seasonal Affective Disorder, SAD it is called by some, an explained in various ways amenable to symptomatic relief with light therapy and such. In God isn't big enough for some people Umberto Eco reaches into the idea bag to fish for older explanations. Father Christmas means one thing to children: presents. He has no connection with the original St Nicholas, who performed...

Jon points to this Jonathan Adler post at The Commons about a story in The New York Times which chronicles the efforts of Republican state representative from southern Utah, Michael E. Noel, a former Bureau of Land Management employee, to stop an Arizona environmental group, Grand Canyon Trust, from buying out local rancher's grazing allotments on the Colorado plateau in Utah. Noel says: . . . the loss of the grazing allotments would hurt ranching, which would in turn deprive the area's young people of the character-building chance to work on the land. "Yes, it's a free market to buy and sell," Mr. Noel said recently. "But if you buy it, you use it." By retiring the lands, he said, the trust is reneging on an implicit agreement, and "if we allow that to occur, we go down the path of eliminating all grazing on public lands." Adler protests: Perhaps so, but this is a change being brought about...