I think of this:
My sons call our modern society a Theoriocracy. We live in a world based upon theories, founded upon theories, derived from theories, centered on theories, and planted on ideas that are often nothing more than wild guesses, dead end suggestions and outright idiocy.
In addition, our experts don't necessarily have to actually, you know, produce anything. There is no accountability. They don't have to fix a problem. Heck, the problems can get worse under their guidance and nobody ever seems to bother asking if we've been listening to the wrong experts give us the wrong advice. Yet this idea of a loftier than Babel expert class that knows better because it always right, is peddled by our media, and not really challenged by - anyone.
This came to my mind as I listen to the endless news stories interviewing experts on what to do about kids going back to school now that it's that time of year. Experts tell us how to dress them. Experts tell us how to get their bedtimes ready for a new year. Experts tell us how to help the kids overcome nerves. Experts tell us how to plan for healthy lunches. Experts tell them how to deal with new kids they meet. Experts tell us how to prepare them for possible mass shootings. Though that last one is fair, since I recall no such concern growing up, therefore there is no wisdom passed down through the ages where school safety in the face of mass shootings is concerned.
But you get the point.
Several years ago climate change was just that: the climate was changing as it had through all of the Earth's geological history. All of a sudden men were responsible for climate change and voila! we had all these "experts" trying to tell us what we are doing wrong and we were the cause of all this BS. It seems everytime something new comes around the bend whether it be climate or Covid we have experts ready in the wings to guide us! Sorry, man made climate changing is a hoax looking to take money from our pockets and control the activities of mankind.
ReplyDeleteDo I deny the climate is changing? Of course not but I do deny that man is responsible. If we are responsible for climate change who changed the climate before we showed up? What is the "normal" Earth temperature suppose to be? How do we know in all of prehistory what is the ideal temperature? No one can tell us but they try to tell us what THEY think it should be for the benefit of man. Again BS. When they tell you that your exhalation of CO2 is killing the planet, the very gas needed by plants to flourish is bad call them out on it. There are way to many self styled "experts" that pretend to know more than you. Follow the money trail. Believe these "experts" all you want but how about moving away from coastlines as the seas rise naturally? Why build under sea level as in New Orleans? Why build on the slopes of volcanoes. Bigger and worse hurricanes? No, its just that people build where the dangers of such weather occurs. This hoax will go away I promise you but be ready for the next hoax to come to deceive mankind.
I think it went over the rails when Al Gore made it a "Only the Democrats can save us" agenda and the press jumped on board. At that point, the difference between climate change and global warming became obvious to everyone except Democrats and the media (and increasingly, some scientists).
DeleteAl Gore should have been denounced as a false prophet years ago for his “the coasts will be under water by 2012 if we don’t act immediately” ridiculousness. But reality doesn’t matter to the “ends justifies the means” class I suppose!
DeleteThere are many who should have been so denounced. Sad part is, they continue on because the institutions that should be calling them out - like our education systems or media - are part of what keeps covering for them.
Delete(Tom New Poster)
ReplyDeleteAs long as the earth has a landlocked ocean over one pole and a continent over the other, we are still in the most recent interglacial of an Ice Age. The first we can document occurred about 750 mya, when nearly all the planetary land mass was centered over the South Pole. We nearly froze permanently, but were saved by volcanic CO2 and plate tectonics. Until the continents move drastically, we are still subject to the effects of changes in the earth's orbit, axial tilt and (relatively short-term) solar cycles. Human-generated CO2 could prolong the interglacial and may have some challenging side effects, but it won't destroy us, if we plan, and I'd rather have warmer summers than the Midwest and Northeast under a mile of ice.
Check out the courses of the Missouri and the Ohio, and the positions of Long Island, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket to see how far the Laurentide Ice Sheet reached.
" Human-generated CO2 could prolong the interglacial and may have some challenging side effects, "
DeleteSorry but I don't believe that at all for CO2 in our world comprises of only approximately % 0.04 of our atmosphere. So what we produce will not make one iota of a difference in this world. I don't care what anyone says God would not create a world for his children where the Earth is so easily destroyed. Look at our geological history and you see tumultuous eras where the climate was at it's worse and animals survived. I think we bend over too easily to these climate activists by adopting some ideas that are not true and use their vocabulary that is ambiguous, which leaves open their meaning to change depending on who uses it. I don't give these activists the time of day. Let them worship Mother Gaia if they want but leave me out of it.
That's interesting, though out of my league. I know about the Ohio, since when we study Ohio history that is always mentioned. It's enough for me that there is obviously room for debate, which is something never allowed today. And not just regarding climate. It's a political move today that the truth is proclaimed, and obedience is demanded, and that's that. The problem is, the institutions that should be challenging such a development are, in many cases, the ones promoting it.
DeleteHere's a non-trivial experiment. Get a statistics textbook and actually learn the definitions and main ideas of the book. Learn exactly what things like p-values are.
ReplyDeleteThen talk to someone who uses those things for a living. Ask them what things like p-values mean, and how they can tell us about reality. Keep your questions simple and concrete, looking for basic definitions and not practical theory.
When I've run this experiment I've hardly ever gotten answers that match the actual definitions. It's never happened when not speaking to physicists or statisticians. (That's not to say that physicists and statisticians always get the answers right.)
P-values are the easiest to ask about (once you know what they really mean) but the experiment works on other things too. For example, what is a line of best fit? Or ask someone who works in disease modeling what it means for a test to be 90% accurate. You will find again and again that the run of the mill "expert" doesn't know the specifics. What they DO know is how to run the numbers in an "acceptable" way (read: in a way that no one will call them on) and how to dress up their results to publish papers and get grant money.
Sadly, I fear much - and I mean most - of what comes out of our 'expert classes' sounds more like your run of the mill expert. It is no longer a case of educating us, as covering their own tales and spinning things in ways they hope we remain too ignorant to notice.
DeleteI think something has changed in how we assign expert status. At one time, expertise was more "market-tested"; people who had a proven record of success in a field were the ones everyone looked to for advice. This is no longer the case. Expertise is assigned on the basis of credentials accumulated. When someone has accumulated sufficient credentials, he becomes to go-to guy. Even if he hasn't actually mastered a field of study or been proven right in the past.
ReplyDeleteThat, and who the media tells us is the experts to listen to. I notice some experts have the same credentials, and yet to listen to the media, they are the last people to trust.
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