[Vision2020] Warning from Copenhagen

[Jo Campbell]

I don't endorse the fallacy of appeal to authority. Saying. Do is  
certainly putting words in my mouth. Maybe you genuinely don't  
understand the point I'm making but it feels like you're distorting my  
words to your own advantage. Hard to tell but I'll be pragmatic and  
safe and refrain from future dialogue.

Sent from my iPhone

On Jul 1, 2009, at 12:47 PM, Chasuk <chasuk at gmail.com> wrote:

> Joe,
>
> I didn't put words in your mouth, but you have certainly enjoyed
> putting them in mine.
>
> You find a majority opinion relevant, I don't.  Our disagreement can
> be reduced to that.
>
> I trust doctors, lawyers and gardeners for a number of reasons. The
> first reason is pragmatic.  In the case of doctors, I'm not likely to
> choose my carpenter-neighbor to transplant my kidney  when a surgeon
> is available. I have evidence of the doctor's competence (or
> incompetence) by the surgeries that he has performed before. Second,
> perhaps akin to pragmatism, is desperation. I need my kidney replaced,
> and only doctors occupy the niche of reliable kidney-replacers. If
> plumbers had a track record of successfully replacing kidneys, I might
> hire them for the job. Finally, doctors aren't theoreticians. They
> are't postulating about things that are ultimately untestable. They
> put their hands in my guts and pull out organs. Hopefully, I feel
> better when I leave their offices or operating theaters.
>
> Now consider climate scientists. Their expertise exists in  a wide
> variety of disciplines. I never see the fruits of their work, and
> often neither do they, except for in the receipt of a paycheck.  I may
> benefit from their expertise, but only indirectly. Most importantly,
> they are largely theoreticians,  and the confirmation (or not) of
> their theories can only be judged over many, many lifetimes. I have no
> pragmatic or obvious evidentiary reasons for trusting climate
> scientists, whereas I do for doctors, layers, and gardeners.
>
> The keys I drop tomorrow might fall up, yes. I acknowledge this (with
> a bow to David Hume). However, that doesn't mean that I am not going
> to proceed with my life as if causation had been proved. I believe in
> the law of gravity not because I can demonstrate that it has universal
> and eternal spatial and temporal applicability, but because I m not
> clever or motivated enough to develop a better theory.
>
> I claimed that there was "no absolute consensus among scientists
> about...the cause(s) of global warming,” and I still make this clai 
> m.
> Confusingly, you categorically state that "this is false," but in the
> next sentence write " there is near consensus." You can't have it both
> ways, even though you try by equivocating with " I’m not suggesting
> that ALL of them accept it, but a HUGE majority accept it." You are
> rephrasing my words in your defense while objecting to them when they
> appear in their original form. To be plain, " "no absolute consensus"
> and " I’m not suggesting that ALL of them accept it" repeat the same
> thing, unless one is being extraordinarily picayune.
>
> You might find this startling, but I agree 100% that our public policy
> should be formulated according to the worst-case scenario. Simply,
> it's better to be safe than to be sorry, and there are seldom negative
> consequences to caution. Consider it applying Pascal's Wager to
> climate change (although I disagree with Pascal's conclusions
> generally, but that is a different subject). I wear my seat belt
> applying much the same logic.
>
> I insert myself into this debate not because I am opposed to our
> public policy, but because I think it is being conducted dishonestly,
> by people who should know better.
>
> I finish with this: consensus is contagious. I posit that a large
> percentage of the scientists in the humankind-caused-it-camp are there
> because they perceive consensus of their peers, not because they have
> weighed the evidence themselves. Scientists are people, and people are
> sheep.