Day: January 20, 2009

Academic Freedom Day and A Fair Result

Apparently the creationists at the Discovery Institute are planning an Academic Freedom Day for Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday, February 12, 2009. On their website, the organizers make much use of this quote from Darwin,

A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.

Not surprisingly, this is not quite the full quote, nor does it give the context in which Darwin wrote this. This is from the introduction to the Origin of Species where Darwin apologizes for publishing an “abstract” of his views that leaves many issues for future volumes,

This Abstract, which I now publish, must necessarily be imperfect. I cannot here give references and authorities for my several statements; and I must trust to the reader reposing some confidence in my accuracy. No doubt errors will have crept in, though I hope I have always been cautious in trusting to good authorities alone. I can here give only the general conclusions at which I have arrived, with a few facts in illustration, but which, I hope, in most cases will suffice. No one can feel more sensible than I do of the necessity of hereafter publishing in detail all the facts, with references, on which my conclusions have been grounded; and I hope in a future work to do this. For I am well aware that scarcely a single point is discussed in this volume on which facts cannot be adduced, often apparently leading to conclusions directly opposite to those at which I have arrived. A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.

Of course the problem with the creationists is they constantly ask us to balance the argument of science with the arguments of pseudo-science. Ultimately, as the Discovery Institute laied it out in a 1999 memo, their agenda is the decidedly anti-scientific goal of rejecting materialism due to its “devestating” social consequences (which, of course, is precisely Philip Johnson’s entire argument).

Of course whatever else a non-materialist view of the universe may be, it ain’t science.

Why Nothing Will Be Done to Stop Global Warming

One of the reasons I’ve always liked Stewart Brand is he has a way of cutting through a lot of nonsense and revealing salient points about issues without oversimplifying them. Over at the Long Now Blog, he has a summary — citing engineer Saul Griffith — on what would have to happen in order to make much of a dent in global climate change (emphasis added),

What would it take to level off the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million (ppm)? That level supposedly would keep global warming just barely manageable at an increase of 2 degrees Celsius. There still would be massive loss of species, 100 million climate refugees, and other major stresses. The carbon dioxide level right now is 385 ppm, rising fast. Before industrialization it was 296 ppm. America’s leading climatologist, James Hanson, says we must lower the carbon dioxide level to 350 ppm if we want to keep the world we evolved in.

The world currently runs on about 16 terawatts (trillion watts) of energy, most of it burning fossil fuels. To level off at 450 ppm of carbon dioxide, we will have to reduce the fossil fuel burning to 3 terawatts and produce all the rest with renewable energy, and we have to do it in 25 years or it’s too late. Currently about half a terrawatt comes from clean hydropower and one terrawatt from clean nuclear. That leaves 11.5 terawatts to generate from new clean sources.

. . .

Meanwhile for individuals, to stay at the world’s energy budget at 16 terawatts, while many of the poorest in the world might raise their standard of living to 2,200 watts, everyone now above that level would have to drop down to it. Griffith determined that most of his energy use was coming from air travel, car travel, and the embodied energy of his stuff, along with his diet. Now he drives the speed limit (no one has passed him in six months), seldom flies, eats meat only once a week, bikes a lot, and buys almost nothing. He’s healthier, eats better, has more time with his family, and the stuff he has he cherishes.

So in summary, in order to reach the optimistic scenario where there is still massive species extinctions and hundreds of millions of climate refugees, we have to lop off 11.5 terawatts of fossil fuel generation and Westerners have to become semi-ascetics . . . and all in 25 years to have any chance of making a serious difference.

That will never happen. Just look at the United States — this is a country where people were freaking how just a few months ago because gasoline prices briefly hovered above $4/gallon. There were a few voices that said “hey, lets retool our entire society to reduce fossil fuel consumption,” but most people I suspect agreed with our soon-to-be President Barack Obama who blasted oil companies for not build more gasoline capacity,

They have been in fat city for a long time. They are not necessarily putting that money into refinery capacity, which could potentially relieve some of the bottlenecks in our gasoline supply. And so that is something we have to go after. I think we can go after the windfall profits of some of these companies.

. . .

We should also be investing in new technologies so we can replace the internal combustible engine, which has served us well, but it’s time for us to move on, because we want to get rid of fossil fuels.

That the low gas prices are an enormous disincentive for creation of alternative energy is, of course, far too politicaly sensitive to even brook. And, of course, I don’t think you’ll be hearing a President Obama urging a new American austerity to save the planet (in fact, his stimulus proposal is predicated on getting American consumption back on its pre-recession pace).

If Brand/Griffth’s vision is correct, we would be better off focusing our efforts on ameliorating the effects of global climate change rather than some half-assed attempt to forestall it. There is simply no political will, at least in the United States, for the sorts of changes that would actually be required to achieve the sort of dramatic changes that are really required.

Watch What You Post?

Peter Shankman has an interesting post about the alleged dangers of social media. The specific example is a gentlemen who works for a public relation firms doing business with FedEx. The consultant flies into Memphis, TN, and updates his Twitter account with,

True confession but I’m in one of those towns where I scratch my head and say “I would die if I had to live here!”

Inevitably, someone at FedEx was following the consultant and sent a nasty e-mail up through the FedEx corporate chain and the consultant’s PR firm aghast at the Twitter,

If I interpret your post correctly, these are your comments about Memphis a few hours after arriving in the global headquarters city of one of your key and lucrative clients, and the home of arguably one of the most important entrepreneurs in the history of business, FedEx founder Fred Smith.

Many of my peers and I feel this is inappropriate. We do not know the total millions of dollars FedEx Corporation pays Ketchum annually for the valuable and important work your company does for us around the globe. We are confident however, it is enough to expect a greater level of respect and awareness from someone in your position as a vice president at a major global player in your industry. A hazard of social networking is people will read what you write.

And the e-mail goes on for many paragraphs afterward.

Shankman and most of his commentators seem to agree with the FedEx employee who drafted this, but I tend to agree with the minority — the FedEx employees who are offended by the offhanded Twittering of a negative view of Memphis need to get over themselves.

On the one hand, corporations, governments and consultants spout the “diversity” mantra as if simply repeating it will transform the world. On the other hand, when someone steps outside of being a corporate drone and always having a mask on, idiots like Peter Shankman and the offended folks at FedEx pillory them for being individuals with actual opinions.

Somebody doesn’t like Memphis. OMG make sure all the executives at FedEx know they’re doing business with one of those people.

Too many people seem to want to do nothing but sit back and play social media gotcha, but that’s a game we’ll all lose. Either we’ll constantly be worrie dabout somebody taking offense at something we’ve written or, even worse, we’ll make our Twitter and Facebook and blog posts as timid as possible if not just abandon it altogether.

This is not to say there aren’t limits. A teacher near where I live was fired after she posted an accusation on Facebook that she was certain a student had stolen a valuable piece of equipment and she was tired of the student lying about it. That was completely inappropriate, as it would have been if the PR person had Twitter “sigh, flying in to try to educate these idiots on employee communication.”

But FedEx is going to pillory the man because he doesn’t like Memphis? Seriously? That’s what it’s come to? God forbid he doesn’t share their taste in music or food.

Mark Fraunfelder’s Logical Fallacies On Nut Allergies — And the Helpful Censors at Boing! Boing!

The British Medical Journal recently published a piece arguing that the concern over nut allergies in Western society has gotten to the point where it more closely resembles a mass hysteria rather than a legitimate health concern. The claim is not that there are not people with extremely severe allergies to nuts, but rather that from that point there is a wide ranging exaggeration of the risk of such allergies and a corresponding overreaction in efforts to protect people with those allergies.

Joel Stein wrote an op-ed for the LA Times referencing the BMJ article which has the very unhelpful title, Nut allergies — a Yuppie invention (however, at most newspapers, op-ed columnists do not write headlines, so the headline is probably due to some smart ass editor rather than Stein). The article itself is very clear — echoing the BMJ article, Stein says there are a small number of people who have severe nut allergies but that the absurd overreaction at public schools and elsewhere is really due to a mass hysteria-like condition.

Mark Fraunfelder at Boing! Boing! then chimes in with what is little more than a non-sequitur,

I wonder if he would have written this piece had he witnessed a child go into anaphylactic shock, as my daughter did when she ate a cookie with hidden nuts in it. It was very scary.

If Stein had said there was no such thing as people with severe allergies to nuts, that might be a valid complaint, but that wasn’t Stein’s point at all. This is a bit like someone chiming in every time Boing! Boing! posts about the latest failings of the TSA with “I wonder if they would have written that piece if they’d had a friend who almost died on 9/11. That was very scary.”

And, of course, because this is Boing! Boing!, Mark is free to introduce his daughter as a trump card over science, but commenters on the blog are not free to call him on it.

A poster who claims he is a biologist points out that while he’s sorry to hear about Fraunfelder’s daughters problem, that the issue Stein is raising is a scientific question that you can’t simply dismiss by invoking a single anecdote (and goes on to say the post sounds a little like Jenny McCarthy’s explanation of her anti-vaccination/autism nonsense).

Of course this is what it looks like after the Teresa Nielsen Hayden brigade gets done with it,

Whl ‘m srry bt yr dghtr’s llrgy, Mrk, yr s f hr spcfc cs t nswr Jl’s cs tht sm ppl s thngs tht rn’t thr — wll, t mks y snd lttl lk Jnny McCrthy nd hr ntvccntn/tsm wrrrs. Thr’s scntfc qstn hr tht sn’t ddrssd by th xstnc f spcfc ncdtl css, nd yr drvby n-lnr t th nd f yr pst msss th pnt. Cngrtltn n sng th pwr f lrg nmbrs t mk nc gy’s lf dffclt fr fw wks.

It’s not enough that Mark invoking his daughter in that context is simply a cheap emotional trick to try to shut down debate, but TNH and her minions have to go the rest of the way and censor anyone who calls him out on it.

Well, that’s Boing! Boing! these days.