Thursday, September 24, 2020

Sabine Hossenfelder - Follow the Science? Nonsense, I say.

The climate change deniers on twitter told me that the sea isn't rising, the land is sinking.


YouTube - Sabine Hossenfelder - Follow the Science? Nonsense, I say.


Today I want to tell you why I had to stop reading news about climate science. Because it pisses me off. Every. Single. Time.

There’s all these left-wing do-gooders who think their readers are too fucking dumb to draw their own conclusions so it’s not enough to tell me what’s the correlation between hurricane intensity and air moisture, no, they also have to tell me that, therefore, I should donate to save the polar bears. There’s this implied link: Science says this, therefore you should do that. Follow the science, stop flying. Follow the science, go vegan. Follow the science and glue yourself to a bus, because certainly that’s the logical conclusion to draw from the observed weakening of the atlantic meridional circulation.

When I was your age, we learned science does not say anything about what we should do. What we should do is a matter of opinion, science is matter of fact.

Science tells us what situation we are in and what consequences our actions are likely to have, but it does not tell us what to do. Science does not say you shouldn’t pee on high voltage lines, it says urine is an excellent conductor. Science does not say you should stop smoking, science says nicotine narrows arteries, so if you smoke you’ll probably die young lacking a few toes. Science does not say we should cut carbondioxide emissions. It says if we don’t, then by the end of the century estimated damages will exceed some Trillion US $. Is that what we should go for? Well, that’s a matter of opinion.

Follow the Science is a complete rubbish idea, because science does not know the direction. We have to decide what way to go.

You’d think it’s bad enough that politicians conflate scientific fact with opinion, but the media actually make it worse. They make it worse by giving their audience the impression that it matters what someone whose job it is to execute the will of the electorate believes about scientific facts. But I couldn’t care less if Donald Trump “believes” in climate change. Look, this is a man who can’t tell herd immunity from herd mentality, he probably thinks winter’s the same as an ice age. It’s not his job to offer opinions about science he clearly doesn’t understand, so why do you keep asking him. His job is to say if the situation is this, we will do that. At least in principle, that’s what he should be doing. Then you look up what science says which situation we are in and act accordingly.

The problem, the problem, you see, is that by conflating the two things – the facts with the opinions – the media give people an excuse to hide opinions behind scientific beliefs. If you don’t give a shit that today’s teenagers will struggle their whole life cleaning up the mess that your generation left behind fine, that’s a totally valid opinion. But please just say it out loud, so we can all hear it. Don’t cover it up by telling us a story about how you weren’t able to reproduce a figure in the IPCC report even though you tried really hard for almost ten seconds, because no one gives a shit whether you have your own “theory.”

If you are more bothered by the prospect of rising gasoline prices than by rising sea levels because you don’t know anyone who lives by the sea anyway, then just say so. If you worry more about the pension for your friend the coal miner than about drought and famine in the developing world because after all there’s only poor people in the developing world, then just say so. If you don’t give a shit about a global recession caused by natural catastrophes that eat up billion after billion because you’re a rich white guy with a big house and think you’re immune to trouble, then just say so. Say it loud, so we can all hear it.

And all the rest of you stop chanting we need to “follow the science”. People who oppose action on climate change are not anti-science, they simply worry more that a wind farm might ruin the view from their summer vacation house, than they worry wild fires will burn down the house. That’s not anti-scientific, that’s just dumb. But then that’s only my opinion.

Blog

https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/09/follow-science-nonsense-i-say.html


16 comments:

Peter Pan said...

Getting upset at a figure of speech. Is this Matt's wife?

Matt Franko said...

Where is the figure of speech?

Matt Franko said...

“ It says if we don’t, then by the end of the century estimated damages will exceed some Trillion US $”

A $trillion over 80 years is zero...

Peter Pan said...

"Follow the science" is a figure of speech.

Matt Franko said...

Oh ok... I see that... right they think the Science is real... and they can “follow it!”....

It’s the same reification error you always see with these people....

lastgreek said...

Science? Deep state nonsense!

Listen to Trump. He knows best.

UV-C light bulbs for bedroom:

This one here comes highly rated by the president's wife. Also notice that it can have a dual purpose if you know what I mean:

https://www.amazon.com/Marvilla-Portable-UV-C-Sanitizing-Wand/dp/B088T8VNVL/ref=sr_1_1_sspa

Peter Pan said...

That term used to apply to science enthusiasts, people who follow developments in scientific fields. They would've had subscriptions to magazines back in the day...

lastgreek said...

"They would've had subscriptions to magazines back in the day..."

Back in the day I was on the Quebec provincial Men's (obviously) 4x100m relay team. Even set a Quebec record :) (Btw, is OK if I were to mention that I was the only white guy on team?)

AXEC / E.K-H said...

The unconditional surrender/sellout of science
Comment on Sabine Hossenfelder on ‘Follow the Science? Nonsense, I say.’

Sabine Hossenfelder gets directly to the heart of the matter: “Today I want to tell you why I had to stop reading news about climate science. Because it pisses me off. Every. Single. Time. There’s all these left-wing do-gooders who think their readers are too fucking dumb to draw their own conclusions so it’s not enough to tell me what’s the correlation between hurricane intensity and air moisture, no, they also have to tell me that, therefore, I should donate to save the polar bears.”

Obviously, science has been captured by political agenda pushers. Scientists have quietly left the realm of science and moved over to the political Circus Maximus with all its funny clowns and useful idiots and breathtaking stunts. The self-conception of science has fundamentally changed in the process.

“When I was your age, we learned science does not say anything about what we should do. What we should do is a matter of opinion, science is matter of fact. Science tells us what situation we are in and what consequences our actions are likely to have, but it does not tell us what to do.”

Indeed, that was exactly what J. S. Mill told his fellow economists: “A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice. His part is only to show that certain consequences follow from certain causes, and that to obtain certain ends, certain means are the most effectual. Whether the ends themselves are such as ought to be pursued, and if so, in what cases and to how great a length, it is no part of his business as a cultivator of science to decide, and science alone will never qualify him for the decision.”

The decision has to be made by the Legitimate Sovereign. It is an entirely different matter to clarify who the Legitimate Sovereign in a given situation is but that much is certain: genuine scientists will refuse to get involved in the issue. The genuine scientist sticks to the principle of the separation of science and politics.

In economics, the principle of the separation of science and politics has been violated from the first day onward. The founding fathers called their subject matter Political Economy. What comes under the label of economics these days is in fact two economixes: political economics and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to successfully push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to successfully explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics, the scientific standards of material and formal consistency are observed.

Theoretical economics (= science) had been hijacked from the very beginning by political economists (= agenda pushers). Political economics has produced NOTHING of scientific value in the last 200+ years. Economics is a failed science.

Most people have not noticed it, but the official capitulation/sellout of science happened on Sep 3, 2020.#1

So, “Follow the Science is a complete rubbish idea, …” for various reasons. The worst of all is, that the prestige of science has been abused and ruined by the most unscientific assholes.

See part 2

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Part 2

“You’d think it’s bad enough that politicians conflate scientific fact with opinion, but the media actually make it worse. They make it worse by giving their audience the impression that it matters what someone whose job it is to execute the will of the electorate believes about scientific facts. But I couldn’t care less if Donald Trump ‘believes’ in climate change. Look, this is a man who can’t tell herd immunity from herd mentality, he probably thinks winter’s the same as an ice age. It’s not his job to offer opinions about science he clearly doesn’t understand, so why do you keep asking him. His job is to say if the situation is this, we will do that. At least in principle, that’s what he should be doing. Then you look up what science says which situation we are in and act accordingly.”

There is no better exemplification of the indispensable separation of science and politics. In economics, in particular, there is no point at all to appeal to science because there has never been an economic science. Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, Austrianism, MMT, Pluralism are mutually contradictory, axiomatically false, materially/ formally inconsistent.#2-#4

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Occasional Tweets No 200903
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2020/09/occasional-tweets-no-200903.html

#2 Trust in science? Yes, but economics is NOT a science
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/12/trust-in-science-yes-but-economics-is.html

#3 Still beyond the reach of economists: The Holy Grail of Science
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/02/still-beyond-reach-of-economists-holy.html

#4 Economics: A failed/fake science for 200+ years
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/01/economics-failedfake-science-for-200.html

Matt Franko said...

“ indispensable separation of science and politics.”

Leave the politics to the Platonist Art degree assholes and keep them out of the science....

S400 said...

Keep Matt and Egmont together and out of science is a good start.

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Matt Franko

I stated above “Most people have not noticed it, but the official capitulation/sellout of science happened on Sep 3, 2020.”

It turns out that there is at least one person who realized the significance of the event: John Derbyshire “They Might As Well Put Bones Through Their Noses”— the Corruption of Scientific America.
https://www.unz.com/jderbyshire/they-might-as-well-put-bones-through-their-noses-the-corruption-of-scientific-america/

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

Peter Pan said...

That is the institution of science. The methodology remains intact.

Time for a dismantling.

Matt Franko said...

Egmont I think you are mis interpreting them ... you keep saying “they are not scientists” or “fake scientists” ... I don’t think they ever claimed to be scientists...

I think the argument should be over which methodology is proper or superior... when dealing with our material systems...

They get ALOT of stuff wrong all the time... AND THEN ... NEVER make an adjustment... so obviously they are not doing science...

So science method would be superior to the method they continue to use...

Consider telling them to instead change out their current method FOR SCIENCE...

AXEC / E.K-H said...

Matt Franko

You said “Egmont I think you are mis interpreting them ... you keep saying “they are not scientists” or “fake scientists” ... I don’t think they ever claimed to be scientists...”

What? Economists never claimed to be scientists?

They claimed it from Adam Smith/Karl Marx (Marxism = “scientific socialism”) onward and repeat the mantra every year, i.e. with the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.#1

SCIENCES! can't you read?

Economists NEVER lived up to the methodological and ethical standards of science. Economists, including MMTers, do not even live up to the standards of elementary algebra.#2, #3

The fact of the matter is that economists claim to be scientists but are merely political cockroaches.

However, there always was the role model of the genuine sciences with high standards and achievements that define every little piece of progress humanity has made over the last 200+ years.

Now, the significance of Sep 3, 2020, is that the genuine sciences have abandoned themselves by officially ending the separation of science and politics and by submitting themselves to political mob rule and the practices of the entertainment industry,#4 thus carrying the ongoing corruption of science one step further.

Egmont Kakarot-Handtke

#1 Links on the Economics Nobel
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2019/08/links-on-economics-nobel.html

#2 MMTers: too stupid for simple math
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2020/02/mmters-too-stupid-for-simple-math.html

#3 See Ch. 13, The indelible scientific disgrace of economics, in Sovereign Economics
https://www.bod.de/buchshop/sovereign-economics-egmont-kakarot-handtke-9783751946490

#4 Occasional Tweets No 200903
https://axecorg.blogspot.com/2020/09/occasional-tweets-no-200903.html