Truth vs Truthiness: Why Pop-Science is Bunk

[andygates]

Author Howard Friel has published a cite-by-cite takedown of Lomberg's 'skeptical' anti-climate-change books.  He basically followed up every reference and every citation, and quelle surprise most of them are bogus either in fact or interpretation.  If Lomberg was an academic, this would have been picked up in peer review -- which is one of the strengths of the method.

See, references make a thing look academic.  They lend an aura of truthiness to a publication.  Truthiness is a Colbert neologism very apt to pop-sci: truthiness is the feeling of truth, as opposed to the presence of it. 

Hell, I once wrote a parody paper that appeared to support Breatharianism's absurd claims by showing an entirely bogus mechanism for human photosynthesis.  Given an eyeball test by graduate biochemists, it fooled half of them; it fooled everyone non-scientific who wasn't aware of the Breatharians and their dangerous silliness.  Part of the effect of the paper was the liberal splashing of references, some solid and obvious, some utterly made up, some Pythonesque.

Nobody checks.  They see references and grunt "ah, s'academical, all very truthy." 

Which leaves a tricky problem: how can you tell which pop-sci titles are credible, and which are Von Daniken-esqe ravings?  I'm not sure you can, not reliably: the general reader might look for a particular imprint or name (BBC / Attenborough, say) as sound, but that's reputation and reputation is more damn truthiness, just truthiness over time.  Academic credentials for the author?  Not always relevant (see Monckton et al) and not always solid (plenty of academics 'go emeritus'). 

How then to lift the solid science above the dreck?  Especially when policy decisions, and votes, are hinged on perception of that science?  Watching Lomberg influence climate policy is like watching Richard 'face on Mars' Hoagland influence space policy, but climate policy actually matters. 

Comments

[skean.livejournal.com]

Very post modern, using references to prove how ineffectual references are.

Mockton et al? I know the ice floes are melting and the inhabitants are pretty pissed about it, but I have yet to see killer penguins on the rampage.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Post-modern my arse. It's regular logical refutation. There is a thick spread of irony over the fact that most of his readers won't follow up the references, but I can't help that.

Post-modernist takes on this are entirely unhelpful. We're talking about narratives that connect various observations. Some narratives say one thing, others say another, and it would be very post-modern to say that they're all equal merit. It's also utter bullshit.

These narratives serve to connect and describe the facts. A narrative which does not describe the facts is, simply, a bad narrative. It fails to describe the facts: it is at best an error, at worst deliberate fiction.

Of course fiction is compelling - a fun but bogus read is more memorable than a true but dry one. If the general reader has no background in the facts -- as is the case in much pop-sci -- then the author is at liberty to play around as he sees fit. In effect they become fairy tales, with "This is a twue story!" on the frontispiece, and no way of picking wheat from chaff.

I find this profoundly depressing.

[skean.livejournal.com]

Dude, I am with you. It is one of the few things that can drive me to actually expressing an opinion. In a funny paradox, science is what I would come closest to professing a "belief" in. It fundamentally drives my world view. As an aside, it drives my wife, parents, friends, employees and boss nuts some of the time when I demand rigorous proofs for everyday topics and play sceptic (in the good sense). However, in this case, it's justified. The trouble is we are speaking the wrong language. Anyone who gets science isn't opposing it, unless they are in the evil (admittedly vocal) minority. We need to convince non science peeps, and by their very nature, you can't use science to do that. We need ambassadors who can speak vox pop.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

They're there. That bloke from Coast was doing it very well this evening.

Proper, paradigm-shift action won't happen until a big disaster. Which reminds me of a laugh: one of the US science bigwigs said the same thing, and the jawflap classes lambasted him, spinning him as meaning "I want many people to die to promote my arbitrary political agenda" -- rather than his real meaning, "people don't realize they're standing in shit until it's up to their noses".

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Hm, I had a reply but it was anonymous. I don't debate people who don't show their faces, so I've deleted it, but feel free to repost while showing your face.

Anonymous comment

[(Anonymous)]

I posted anonymously for a few reasons:

1. I'm not a LiveJournal or OpenID user.
2. I'm not interested in signing up for either for the sake of commenting on one post.
3. I don't like leaving lots of Google footprints online under my real name. Using a screenname versus being anonymous is really semantics.
4. I'm not a troll or a spammer. I'm just annoyed that Lomborg's interesting work is being subjected to insta-ridicule. From everything I've read, he goes out of his way to encourage spirited debate, based on peer-reviewed sources, and widely respected sources such as the UN. If you believe he is wrong, then say why, rather than resorting to snide remarks about "truthiness."

Thanks for your time. I stumbled across your post, and realize you don't know me from Adam.. If you care enough to have a strong opinion on climate science, though, I hope you care enough to spend half an hour reading Lomborg's rebuttal.

Re: Anonymous comment

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I prefer to read the science. All pop-sci in a heated arena is especially suspect (Lovelock has gone emeritus, for sure). Best to discard the whole flimsy sensational mess and look at the actual work being done by actual experts.

Science

[carldem.livejournal.com]

While some of it (research) is well done I have yet to find a system that will accurately predict the chaos of -evolving- systems.
Getting the measure of that evolution and not starving the beneficial parts of that evolution is a big challenge.


My personal dislike is the politicians, marketeers and sell-out scientists who are jumping on board because they see (in order) new taxes, a new market segment, a new set of speculations or derivatives, and a bunch of new funding opportunities. In my books these sleazes are making it hard to get real corrective action happening (which is the continuing process of reducing resource usage (and also cost), and reducing impact of product and product by-product (notably waste streams). The importance of those items will become more sensitive as demand and consumption density rise, which is inevitable with population growth (thus a self-ordering effect is required for sustainability of any "operational organism")

Re: Science

[carldem.livejournal.com]

Of course crackpot speculators (ahem) of either feather don't help terribly much either :)

Re: Science

[andygates.livejournal.com]

This "whee! new tax opportunity!" politician you describe is a bit like the "whee! new grant opportunity!" scientist: a fiction perpetuated by people who just hate politicians and taxes.

Some research is good, some less good, the mechanism is self-correcting. This is why science beats the torah or UPG: it builds on itself and persists over time.

If a system is truly chaotic then nothing can model it, by definition. You just make the best models you can -- and they're getting better all the time -- and run them with lots of inputs to get a likely spread. It's a denialist trope to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, when the perfect is literally unobtainable and actually unnecessary.

Re: Science

[carldem.livejournal.com]

Well I was talking to the fictional people the day before yesterday. I think they'd be surprised to know they're fictional and the venue and presentation they were doing was real enough and they arranged and paid for it with real resources (time, skills, money etc).

Having the "gee it's better than religion" thing as was pointed out previously to you, is a complete crud and absolutely reduces the value of any other judgement you show. It's on par with those who spout off "Girls can do anything" because "anything" does NOT equate/definedas "stuff what boys can can do". Trying to prove science vs religion is simply a dick waving contest where each side thinks their version of looking at the "truth" is betterer.

When talking chaotic, it does depend on whether we mean chaos (no rules) in which case you're right, or Chaotic (as in the maths/science) in which Evolution is a particular set of feedback conditions. The difficulty with the latter is that the system's behaviour and ground rules are changing (and possibly in a Chaotic manner) as time or observation is proceeding. Thus we can observe results but unable to assert what current (ie starting phase for next step) state the underlying elements are at.
In this case, appart from the feedback Chaos of last cycle, we have implimentation of technology and investment (the latter represeting an ongoing process of localised "improvement" as an ideal or occasionally a mismanaged micro-event). Thus the issue of whether those micro-effects are "butterfly wings" of any significance.

Thus rather than blowing resources on fantasies of the perfect model, it is far more logical to get important and critical issues under control. But that is often avoided because those issues are often politically sensitive! (The problem being that anyone politically opening that can of worms before getting the worm-farm fertile is (a) going to lose their position and worse (b) probably be ineffective (until the political enviromental conditions have reached trigger point, which is more Chaos/Self-Ordering systems)

Re: Science

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Those fictional people, what was the tax involved?

Re: Science

[carldem.livejournal.com]

Rates. increases to Goods and Services Taxes. ("recovery of monitoring costs and setup/enlargement of environmental departments")

Also word on Carbon Tax and Nitrogen Tax, both in the "we don't want to do this ... but if you don't agree to the other system we'll have to use some system to control environmental emissions".

There is also compulsory systems for data gathering and analysis of soil types/area, and water flow and contamination. These costs are all passed back as compulsory "Cconsent Ffees" even if the basic system and animal levels have dropped over the last 20 years.

There is also talk of Environmental Levies from one of our customers (their company is owned by the dairy farmers, and the product sold at auction to the world, but they set the end price they pay for the raw product). It's great that they're environmentally aware, but they're using it as a marketable selling point and getting a bit gung-ho to prove that they are The Best (tm). Which is good when you've got their budget, but sucks when they set the compliance levels and pay less because of their overhead. It's these last guys who run the real risk of strangling the golden goose in their attempts to market.
Unfortunately the councils are being pushed by government and popular opinion to be "one up" and "ahead of the ball" and <#insert buzzword here> on everyone else. And our local councils are in a phase where they realise that as long as the majority don't understand the cost structure they can go for broke and pass on the costs.

There are also interests involved in setting up the carbon credit system. The forestry industry is hoping like mad, but just as worried because they might get pinged at felling time! But they weren't represented at that meeting.

Other farmer types are being hit by the flak, but locally they're being pounded by low market prices and internal "boardroom level" politics so that this is just another straw on the camel (so far).

Re: Science

[andygates.livejournal.com]

So the environmental departments are supposed to come for free? It's fair to spread the cost. If you don't want a net increase, you accept a reduction in something else, and that's local politics. Usually people want everything for free, because people are dumb and selfish.

And all farmers, everywhere, ever, are the biggest moaners of the lot. At least they're not French. ;)

Anyway, this is spectacularly off topic and dull now.

Re: Science

[carldem.livejournal.com]

The environmental types are continually telling me that the bottom line isn't important and that they don't care about my profitablility or breakeven point. This has been brought up with them time and time again.

The problem is that all these environmentalists want fancier and more expensive toys and their wages from said political sources. But all they can do is measure stuff.

To change the actual processes and to develop the technologies and bring them to market where they can be brought and utilised requires the money and resources.

Whats happening is the resources are getting sucked into the measurement and marketing side of the equation, which is penalising the ability for the system to actually improve.

And yes farmers are complaining. Some because they're lazy useless fucks, just like a few industry ditch and run types. But those of us trying to implement improvements end up in the same pay-for-monitoring basket. As always it doesn't help that penal matters usually come down to fines, which reduces everyones ability to build remedies.

The real moaners are the consumers. If we put the costs back where it should be, on to the consumers, then you'll really hear the moaning. And if those costs started eating into their pet projects (libraries, parks, cycleways, arts) then you'd really hear the piggies squealing, all the way to the voting booths....
But most of them are extremely lazy and just want other people to pay and make the problem just go away because it's boring and flashy media grabbing stuff is much more entertaining to them.