If you have the time, you should watch the following video of the launch and landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars. It demonstrates the amazing feats that can be accomplished by scientists. You can decide for yourself which feat is the most amazing.
Figuring out how to launch a rocket into space and have it travel into Mars’ orbit is pretty astonishing, but figuring out how to land a rover without damaging it is staggering. It’s all possible because science works. It isn’t about “belief” or “intuition,” as James Taranto argues in today’s Wall Street Journal. Climate scientists have tested their hypotheses in every way they can think to test them.
We don’t ask politicians or journalists or paid flacks or the man on the street to figure out how to land a rover on Mars. We shouldn’t ask them or listen to them when it comes to the causes of climate change.
Taranto tries to play amateur philosophy professor by saying that people who point to the 97% consensus in the climate science community are committing an “appeal to authority” logical fallacy. This is the logical equivalent of arguing that we shouldn’t take NASA astrophysicists’ advice on how to land a rover on Mars because there’s a chance that they might make an error in their calculations that results in a crash landing. While that’s true, you and I would never get the rocket off the launch pad, and certainly couldn’t get it into Mars’ orbit.
Likewise, climate science deniers have no basis for either their doubt nor for their expectation that public policy should be based on their uninformed opinion.
Appeal to authority:
“I believe the Earth revolves around the sun because Galileo said so, and Galileo is really smart and an astronomer.”
Not an appeal to authority:
“I believe the Earth revolves around the sun because Galileo and his respective peers have made observations, calculations, and performed experiments to show that this is a readily observable fact. Galileo also happens to be really smart and is an expert in astronomy.”
Does Taranto know the difference? Probably. I don’t expect readers of the WSJ to know, however.
Also, while it is astonishing and amazing that we are capable of it, figuring out how to launch rockets to some place is pretty easy and basic rocket science; just plug in variables to the equations.
Figuring out how to make sure it lands safely without damaging it? Yeah, that is beyond my comprehension.
Do you know how many variables there are that must be taken into consideration to launch something through millions of miles of space with differential gravity to meet up with a moving target and establish the correct orbit and then the right speed and angle of entry?
It’s not simple in any sense of the word.
Considering I studied it, yes I have a very good idea. Doing it safely in that every part was correctly engineered and built, however, is difficult because something very small can cause things to go very wrong.
But as far as hitting a moving target? Figuring out the launch time, speed, etc…it’s just basic equations, and launching it at the correct time from the correct geographical location (which is why Florida is frequently used, being close to the equator).
And I guess “simple” is also relative. The hardest course I ever studied was orbital mechanics, but that’s mostly because the professor was also the department head and pretty hard on us; no partial credit for tests, etc. The homework was fine, though, which comes back to these basic orbital equations.
Launching rockets safely ain’t so easy either:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/05/16/world/europe/russia-rocket-accident/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
Yeah safety is another thing. Sorry I wasn’t clear on that.
Taranto: “Fox viewers/Limbaugh listeners believe it’s all a scam!”
That’s his “appeal to dumbassery”, which he supposes is ever so much more convincing that “appeal to authority”.
Amusing to me to ask a Fox watcher why they choose that source and oftentimes I hear the reply ‘because it has the highest ratings for viewership…’ Follow that herd right over the cliff mentality has so many perverse pretzel twists of logic.
I think the entire Homeland Security budget should be shifted to reviving the Office of Technology Assessment.
Which I believe was killed in part because of their research on climate change. Thanks Newt.
We don’t ask politicians or journalists or paid flacks or the man on the street to figure out how to land a rover on Mars. We shouldn’t ask them or listen to them when it comes to the causes of climate change.
I don’t quite agree. We all should understand the causes of climate change, and the science is actually pretty accessible. Being able to point to a 97% consensus is nice, but it would be better to point to the actual science.
Because Taranto is kind of right, citing the 97% as proof is, strictly speaking, fallacious. It’s just that it doesn’t matter in this case, because there’s all kinds of other proof that human activity is changing the climate.
If 97 % of all medical doctors agreed that a particular course of treatment would save millions of people during some sort of slowly spreading deadly pandemic, I doubt that anyone would give two hoots about understanding the actual science behind the treatment. There would battles in the streets due to people rushing to get in line.
Suddenly, everyone would be kissing the ass of science.
Sure, but that’s a different situation. Convincing people to get inoculated against a horrible disease is one thing, but any serious effort to deal with climate change is going to involve some pretty drastic changes in people’s lives. Ideally they would understand the reason for these changes, and agree that they’re necessary.
That’s probably a pipe dream, unfortunately. But obviously a lot of people are resisting the science, and it’s fucking up the planet, so I don’t see any harm in looking for new ways to get the point across. And I think one problem with the constant references to the overwhelming scientific consensus is that it’s kind of talking around the science, so it suggests that the science itself is esoteric and incomprehensible. It isn’t.
But, like would happen in the development of a very slow pandemic involving a completely new disease, people are dying every day due to climate change. And like a global disease spreading, it will take a while before people start connecting the dots because the incidents are so dispersed and no one makes the correlation until you reach the a critical point where the avalanche happens. And then, it’s too late to save a huge swath of people. That is where we are right now. We have people, though, who have made the correlation. Yet, a lot of others are simply saying that they don’t want to pay the money required to inoculate themselves. Besides, who knows what’s really in that vaccine, anyway. Probably some mind control drug that will make them turn in their guns to Obama.
Wanker of the day? Give Taranto a lifetime achievement award and forget him.
Here is the core of Taranto’s argument – actually, his only argument:
Of course, what he’s done here is to invert the real sequence of causation. He was first inclined to think global warming was a bill of goods, and because of that he distrusts climate scientists.
He goes further. His distrust smoothly expands to the National Academy of Science, and dozens of other national academies – to the entire scientific establishment – because they assert the trustworthiness of the climate scientists.Though the climate scientists are the best authority there is on climate science, the national academies are far better equipped than any political columnist to evaluate the soundness of the climate scientists’ conclusions.
He is totally disingenuous in asserting the direction of causality driving his distrust. To maintain his logical line, he will now have to declare that he distrusts climate scientists *because* he distrusts all scientists as such.
“Scientific Authoritarians”
That’s just another way of calling us scientists “science bullies”.
“Actually, assuming intelligence is normally distributed, the percentage of Americans who are smarter than average is close to 50%. (To be precise, it’s less than 50% by half of whatever proportion is exactly average.) The proportion who are smarter than average thus would be closer to 55% than the other proportions would be to 34% or 4%.”
As the Brits are prone to say: What is he going on about? Statistics by intuition?
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