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THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

~ Science, logic, and ethics, from a Whiteheadian Pragmatist perspective (go figure)

THE QUANTUM of EXPLANATION

Category Archives: Global warming

The Myth of Technofix

26 Tuesday Mar 2019

Posted by Gary Herstein in Climate Change, Critical Thinking, Global warming

≈ Leave a comment

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Climate change Denial, Global warming, Technology

On a more or less regular basis, some wild-eyed enthusiast in a lab coat will get his name – and by my account, they’ve all been men, the reasons for which will become evident as we proceed – in the media by proposing some massively destructive campaign of crapping all over the global environment in order to “save” it from AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming). In order to make such a deliberately manufactured catastrophe sound respectable, it is given a fancified, multi-syllabic name: geoengineering. According to these well-paid (male) lab-coats, the way to make things better is to make them unimaginably – and, most terrifyingly – unpredictably, worse. One is reminded of the enthusiastic, lower-level Air Force PR officer who effused to the press how it was necessary to destroy some particular Vietnamese village in order to “save” it. These days this isn’t even recognized as ironic. One is also reminded of the nursery rhyme about the Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly. But getting people to recognize an obvious analogy is almost as distressed a program as getting them to notice irony.Sisyphus

Now, everyone who isn’t intransigently stupid, viciously dishonest, or some combination of both, has long since recognized the reality of AGW. Gee golly willikers, it was cold in some places in North America this Winter. Well, given that we’re talking about less than 1.84% of the entire surface of the Earth, a person might feel justified in asking if there might just possibly be a difference between GLOBAL warming and “your backyard” warming? Or again, the fact that the destabilization of the winter jetstream that leads to the “polar vortex” is itself a consequence of global warming, as unparalleled warmth moves into the Arctic and pushes relatively cold air South, is not one of those arcane secrets that gets hidden away in books, so that the denialists will never find it. So, the question is: What do we do about it? Continue reading →

Nuts and Dolts

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by Gary Herstein in Global warming, Logic, Philosophy of Science, Politics

≈ 5 Comments

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Inquiry, Logic, Politics, Science

So the other day, I made the error of reading the comments section on a post relating to climate change denial manifested by a certain prominent national politician. One individual complained about the (accurate and entirely valid) use of the word “denier” in reference to this politician. The commenter went on to state something to the effect that, “Scientists generally cheerfully embrace differing opinions.” (I have altered the exact wording so as to eliminate any identifiable markers that might lead back to the person and the comment.)Dunce-cap

Now, myself, I find that I tend to look much less stupid than I otherwise might if I resist tossing about terms and concepts in public of which I lack even the barest scintilla of understanding. This is a rule I heartily wish more people would adopt, the above mentioned commenter being a prime example. Anyone with even the littlest, little notion about what science is and how it works – either logically as methodology, or sociologically as practice, to say nothing of both – will instantly recognize such a statement as the childishly fatuous twaddle it obviously happens to be. Yet the doe-eyed naïf who spewed this foolishness was almost certainly being sincere. This got me thinking again about the lunacy that is currently swallowing the federal House of Representatives, and the recent elevation of Paul Ryan to the position of Speaker. You see, the two issues are connected. Continue reading →

Model-Centrism 2: Data Density

24 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Gary Herstein in Climate Change, Global warming, Logic, Philosophy of Science

≈ 17 Comments

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97%, Climate change Denial, Logic, philosophy of science

Within the limits of my own study, the idea of “data density” and its relation to science vs. pseudo-science, is not one that I recall having encountered. (And I freely admit that my studies are limited; the world is large, and human life is short.) I suspect that no small part of the problem is that we have only begun to slam into this wall in earnest in the last few generations. I wish to use this idea of “data density” here to compare two branches of scientific study. It is my thesis that the data in gravitational cosmology is especially “thin” and “patchy,” which makes the general lack of attention to alternative models to the standard one especially inexcusable.

Thin grass

Continue reading →

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