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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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By this stage in my Medium career I had acquired a few kindred opponents and thought it time to introduce a more generalised idea of AE. On tippy-toes.
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Now Hear This! March 8, 2024
In Applied Epistemology we specialise in what might be called ‘systematised folly’. Not people doing dumb things — everyone does that, even applied epistemologists — but the same dumb things over and over again.
Applied epistemologists are trained to identify when this is happening, diagnose why it is happening and suggest ways to stop it happening. Unfortunately applied epistemology is a new subject and we are largely ignored.
| I’ll give you a trivial example that happened just half an hour ago — but it has happened multiple times in multiple different places recently. |
I was listening to an interesting little snippet on the World Service about events in France, 1940. French people were telling us all about it. In French. The BBC had thoughtfully provided an English translation over the top. I could make out the English if I concentrated but it was unbelievably hard because the French people were speaking too. Not loudly, just enough to clash. I had to give up in the end, the medium had overcome the message.
* Everything had been finely calibrated.
* The listener had to be reminded constantly these are French people speaking for reasons of authenticity and immediacy.
* They had to be able to make out the English at all times too.
* The balance was brilliantly achieved!
* At the expense of the listener listening.
What makes all this anything more than some old grouser grousing? You don’t need an applied epistemologist to tell you human ears aren’t designed to twin-track.
| You need applied epistemologists to tell you why the BBC and a whole bunch of other content providers make the mistake time and again. |
One reason is that while people who make radio and television programme have ears the same as ours, they tend to be applying them to better apparatuses than ours. This they can do something about. Theoretically.
Another reason is that broadcast professionals have brains that are not the same as ours. They are attuned to tune out dual messages. “Switch to camera one, anchor, roll news feed, trail out voice-over etc etc.”
| This they can’t do anything about. They can’t untrain themselves. |
In applied epistemology it is called ‘the tyranny of knowledge’. If I asked one of them to listen to the piece about 1940 France, they would not be able to hear the problem. Literally.
An amateur having the cheek to lecture a professional about a technical matter wouldn’t get through the door. Remember what I said about applied epistemologists never being listened to.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Over on the Mind & Brain thread people are grappling with the kind of question that requires the higher mind (or whatever). This was the first such question. Nobody got it right when I posed it here, so I'll put up another one on the Sports thread. They are not trick questions, they need out of the box answers.
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You’re starter for one. Don’t get caught out. April 2, 2024
Here’s a simple question that so far, in my experience, nobody has ever got right even though it’s obvious when you hear the answer and why we use it in our “Would I make a good applied epistemologist?” questionnaire (send SAE for yours). It concerns cricket but it has resonance for baseball freaks and women.
| Why does the wicketkeeper drop fewer catches proportionately than slip fielders? |
I’ll give you a moment to write down the answer but while you’re doing that here are answers other people have given whenever I’ve asked them in person. Usually at dinner parties though for some reason I am rarely invited to dinner parties. Why they are wrong is in italics (about the question, I mean, not the dinner party invitations).
N.B. So far, nobody has said, “I don’t know.” Applied epistemology exists because nobody ever says, “I don’t know.”
1. The ’keeper is wearing gloves, slip fielders aren’t.
Would it change if you gave slip fielders gloves? No.
2. The keeper gets more practice catching nicked balls.
What, maybe three times in a day’s play compared to a slip’s one? Hardly.
3. But more practice catching the ball generally.
Would a keeper standing at slip be any better than a regular slip? No.
4. Slip fielders may not know whose ball it is until it’s too late.
Most often between wicketkeeper and first slip.
5. The more pronounced the nick the more uncertain the path of the ball.
Sounds good but is untrue (except as pertaining to where it pitches, so no catch).
6. The keeper is selected for his catching skills, slips aren’t.
Emergency wicketkeepers don’t drop catches either, at least not on a slip’s scale.
The light bulb might flicker next time you and the lads are clustered round the slipper’s cradle for spring training. The ball’s coming towards you fast and at crazy angles just like when a batsman nicks it, right? You catch it practically every time, right? So does everyone else, right? None of you are wicketkeepers except the wicketkeeper, right? So how come?
| You all knew the ball was coming. |
You’re standing round a slipper’s cradle chucking a cricket ball at it for chrissake, what else is going to come, the 12.47 to Orpington? That’s why none of you dropped a catch, wicketkeeper and non-wicketkeepers alike. We can all catch a ball when we know it’s coming.
But once you’re playing cricket for real only two people know the ball is coming, the batsman and the wicketkeeper. Slip fielders don’t know the ball is coming because it never is. Except once in a blue moon which is why they are so often in a purple haze when it does and drop it.
You knew this! In fact you were just about to say it only I didn’t give you the chance. I know, I know. This happens with such frequency we have coined a term for it, ‘old hat syndrome’. That’s the way applied epistemology works. Solutions are so obvious everyone arrives at them before/after we do.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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This is a cri de coeur about a central AE problem: how to convey AE problems.
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Things can only get better August 3, 2024
If only they weren’t getting worse
You have probably noticed — everyone has — that the world is headed for a pretty grim future, climate-wise. Hell, according to the news every day, it’s already arrived.
You have probably noticed — everyone has — that far from getting better, every metric appears to indicate that things are getting worse. The only argument is over how fast.
You have probably noticed — everyone has — that the world keeps holding climate change conferences at which everybody agrees to do stuff and either they don’t or it makes no difference. Or it turns out to have made things worse.
You are probably calling for another conference — everyone is — because things can’t go on like this. The only argument is over where to hold it.
You probably won’t listen to me — nobody ever does — when I say it is essential to stop holding climate change conferences. Right now. Before it is too late.
There is a lot we don’t know about climate change but one thing we have discovered, by statistical iteration over many years, is that holding conferences about climate change not only does not address the problems of climate change but they give the illusion that the problems of climate change are being addressed. This is the worst of all outcomes.
I will turn my mind to what we do instead as soon as the essential pre-condition — no more climate change conferences — is achieved. Hell, I’ll do better than that, I will do so when I observe the first tiny step towards achieving this interim goal. I therefore call on the British government to announce they will not be attending the next one.
So you can see that ain’t never going to happen.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The first in a short series that can be best described as how Applied Epistemology gets played out in the real world.
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You’re not only smart, you can prove it August 17, 2024
When A disagrees with B, B does not say
| “A disagrees with me. That might be because A is smarter than me, so I’d better listen carefully in case A is right and I am wrong. That way I can adjust my thinking.” |
Anyone who followed such a strategy would spend their whole life in a chronic state of cognitive confusion. Every time somebody disagreed with you, you would have to go for a lie down and think it all through from first principles.
The brain does not allow you to rest easy if you suspect you have got something wrong. It uses a series of avoidance procedures to ensure you almost never suspect you have got something wrong. Of which the most important is ‘The Taxi Driver Defence’. When a cabbie says something you disagree with you do not listen carefully because, for all you know, he might be smarter than you. You say to yourself
| “A disagrees with me. That means A is not as smart as me.” |
The Taxi Driver Defence might be completely circular but it takes care of all normal social interactions. It is not though sufficient for when you get home and turn on Newsnight. You will be confronted by people saying things you disagree with who are manifestly not taxi drivers. People who manifestly may be smarter than you.
Then you have to fall back on the ‘What’s Their Angle’ defence
| “A disagrees with me. That means A is in the pay of somebody or other, a mouthpiece for some political party or interest group. Or he’s just some rich bloke protecting his ill-gotten gains. Or a fruitcake they’ve dug up from somewhere.” |
That takes care of a gratifyingly large proportion of things you hear from ‘suits’ but it is still not enough to avoid cognitive confusion. What happens if he or she is not so easy to dismiss? They can be clever bastards that way. But you are cleverer, you have the ‘Either Or’ defence
| “A disagrees with me. I quite respect A but on this particular subject A is wrong because, as it happens, I know rather a lot about it.” |
That is gratifying but just to be on the safe side
| “A disagrees with me. I quite respect A but I don’t know enough about this subject to know whether I should agree with him or not. If he turns out to be right I’ll hear about it soon enough." |
So here you are. Totally free from cognitive confusion. Holding the same opinions, generally speaking, you developed when you did suffer from cognitive confusion, during your adolescence.
Of course you have come a long way since then but you can be confident you have made most of the right decisions because everyone you associate with agrees with you pretty much across the board. Since you do not associate with them because they agree with you — they are a random collection you have acquired over the years — it is hardly likely you would all be wrong together.
| And if you are what can you do about it? |
That normally takes you up to death since over time you constantly either (a) adjust your views along with your social circle or (b) adjust your social circle. But there is one Special Case:
1. There is always the possibility I might change my mind about something quite independently of my social circle.
2. Then I would be A to their B.
3. Obviously they know me well enough not to say that means I am less smart than they are.
4. In fact I will be able to point out that I used to believe what they believed but I have moved on.
5. That would surely show, if anything, I was smarter than they are, at least about whatever it was we were disagreeing about.
6. In fact I am somewhat surprised nobody has thought of doing that.
7. Leastways it has never happened that I can recall.
8. That is worth thinking about though because there might be a reason why nobody has.
9. Maybe I should see what happens when someone else disagrees before taking the plunge myself.
10. Meanwhile I am all right the way I am.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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An AE standby
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Old Hat Syndrome August 30, 2024
We love hearing new things. We add them to our stock of knowledge and give ourselves a pat on the back for still being on the ball, not like some people we know. We then pass these gobbets of information along to the people we do know with an air of casual omniscience.
Except
We do not like to hear new things that may require our brains to be rewired. If that happens there is no knowing where it will end. The amount of rubbish we carry around in our heads means it may never end, such is the network nature of our synapses. ‘If that’s true then that must be true which means etc etc.’ So
How to ensure we can learn new things but not new ‘things’
We have various methods, the most basic of which is to select the people we spend time with, including the media we come into daily contact with, on the basis that they share our own general set of assumptions. Hence none of them is likely to come out with anything that will call our own assumptions into question. Well, when was the last time it happened to you?
But it can happen.
We live in a free society made up of all sorts, and now and again someone says something which sounds both true and disturbing. The first line of defence is the straightforward ad hominem one. ‘Who the hell is this person?’ It turns out he (it generally is) is a looney tune of some sort. Or worse, a Tory. Anyway, he’s not worth listening to and we return to our workaday world undisturbed.
But sometimes he isn’t.
Or at any rate we cannot immediately dismiss him. Our brain recognises this new something has the potentiality to require a re-wire job and, since the idea cannot be excluded as being obviously fruitcake, it will have to be processed. But the act of processing itself carries the potentiality of re-wiring. How do we know ahead of time what will get called into question?
What to do?
We have a variety of defences, which I will tell you about another time, but one of the best is ‘Old Hat Syndrome’. Somebody launches something at you. It’s new, it’s big, it’s dangerous. Your brain immediately — and I mean immediately — tells you it isn’t new at all, you’ve heard it all before. “That argument is so old hat, darling, it’s got wrinkles.” So old you can’t precisely say when you first heard it but, by God, you dealt with it at the time, or anyway somebody did, and you have no intention of going over the ground all over again.
You can try it out yourself here https://medium.com/p/57b3f43f9f05 and remember, you may well be right. But it won’t matter if you’re not.
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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I'll put up the story referred to so you can judge for yourself
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Putting the world to rights. August 1, 2024
As per usual.
| “My acting career was soaring. I was getting job offers left and right. It’s weird when everyone is proud of you, except you.” |
I just read that in a Medium story they sent me today. Guess the gender of the writer? That’s right, it was. So this is the question I’ll be answering for you today
| Why do women suffer from a lack of self-esteem and why do we all suffer because men have too much of it? |
That’s two questions, well spotted, but it’s all part of the same syndrome. Half of you will be pleased to hear it’s not your fault. You’re designed that way by Mother Nature. This is the problem she had to solve:
1. Human beings are intelligent animals.
2. Since this is genetically determined both parents must have intelligence genes.
3. At least one of the parents has to bring up the offspring for an inordinately long time because of this intelligence factor.
4. At least one of the parents has to support both parents and offspring during this inordinately long time.
5. The two roles are completely different so the most efficient way to do this is to specialise, one role/one parent.
6. Since, as with all placental mammals, only women can suckle the very young that is best done: women (3), men (4).
7. Bringing up offspring is a simple job not requiring more than a minimum of intelligence — all placental mammals can do it.
8. Supporting two parents and offspring is also a job any placental mammal can do, but it is less simple and intelligence can be applied to do it better.
9. Left to their own devices women would certainly not spend the best years of their life bringing up children. They are hedonists, why would they?
10. Left to their own devices men would certainly not apply their intelligence to either addressing this situation or improving it. They are hedonists, why would they?
So there you have it: the problem Ma Nature had to solve if she was going to bring intelligent animals into this world. She’s not very nice, she tends to go for brutally effective solutions. In this case
A. She awarded a gene to women that makes them suffer from a chronic lack of self-esteem unless they are rearing children. She didn’t care that women were too intelligent to be satisfied doing this. So long as it tips the balance and they keep doing it, that is sufficient.
B. She awarded a gene to men that makes them chronically over-confident in their abilities and they spend their time doing all sorts proving it and failing. There’s only one person who understands how much they’re trying. Their mothers. Later, the mothers of their children. Later, a whole succession of women.
I don’t make the rules, but they are rules.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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You might all take part in a quick Old Hat experiment by completing this questionnaire
| Were you already aware of this theory? |
If yes, give whatever details you can recall of when you first heard it, in what circumstances, from what media etc.
Did you accept it, reject it, or just note it at the time (and subsequently)?
If no, do you accept it, reject it or just note it?
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Mick Harper
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In: London
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Another AE standby. If I had spelled out 'the reasons' mentioned at the end I would have been kicked off Medium.
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Seeing is not believing. You hope. September 1, 2024
Yesterday I was telling you about Old Hat Syndrome. Today’s topic is ‘careful ignoral’.
When we are confronted with evidence that appears to demonstrate that A is true when we believe, au contraire, B is true, we have a decision to make. We could always ditch B and embrace A, but we may be very attached to B.
| B could be fundamental to who we are. |
It may be better to put A on hold while we explore other possibilities. Or, better still, let people who are paid to do these things explore the possibilities and let us know what they come up with in the fullness of time.
| “I’m quite prepared to ditch B if it proves to be wrong, I’m that kind of person. Only I’m not going to do it right now, just on your say-so.” |
It is often essential we carry on believing something even though there is evidence to the contrary. As it happens, our modern world is based on such an exercise in, as we call it, ‘careful ignoral’. This is what happened…
Science is quite beholden to Isaac Newton and his analysis of how the universe works. It certainly appeared to work the way he said when we observed it through our new-fangled telescopes. Apart from the planet Mercury.
| This had an orbit that almost but didn’t quite conform to Newtonian principles. |
Which was a nuisance because the whole point of this new ‘science’ everyone was talking about was there could be no exceptions. Things were either Universal Laws or they weren’t. Were we going to throw the Newtonian baby out with the Ptolemaic bathwater because of Mercury?
| No, we decided, it was ‘observational error’. |
The damn sun kept getting in the way, Mercury being so close to it. We would wait until better telescopes came along and that would clear up why Mercury wasn’t being Newtonian and everything else was. When better telescopes arrived, they didn’t clear it up. So we waited for even better telescopes.
A six year-old would have pointed out the least likely explanation was ‘observational error’ because telescopes had improved by orders of magnitude but the problem had remained exactly the same. Indeed we were able to examine the ‘perturbations of Mercury’ with greater and greater accuracy.
But small children are kept out of observatories — you wouldn’t want raspberry jam on the lenses — so we had to wait three hundred years until Einstein came up with the correct explanation:
| It wasn’t Mercury behaving badly, the light from Mercury was being bent by the gravitational force of the Sun. [I should say the latest explanation, for reasons I will go into next time.] |
So tell the kid it was observational error after all. And give him a clip round the ear for being so cheeky while you’re about it. But don’t mention the three hundred year hiatus, it might cause him to question his faith in the way grownups run the world.
| Oh, you wanna know how ‘careful ignoral’ effects you? |
Well, all right, but please remember it is better not to know you are carefully ignoring something if you have been carefully ignoring it all this time for some good reason, so on your own head be it. Here is an example I heard on the radio yesterday...
A BBC reporter was in Oakland, California and was describing what a dreadful condition it had got itself into. He was being very graphic, rather over-relishing his task I thought, though in truth it wasn’t that different from all the other rundown cities in America the BBC has been telling us about over the years.
After praising Oakland’s fine radical tradition (true enough, I was there in the sixties) and ‘the resilience of the people’ (translation: they can’t afford to leave and are making the best of it), our man on the spot sought out academic experts to explain the precipitate decline. One thing Oakland is not short of is academic experts. Though near rather than in Oakland.
It turned out to be the fault of either Jerry Brown, an ex-mayor of Oakland, or Ronald Reagan, an ex-governor of California. Both were named as Chief Culprit by our intrepid reporter’s sources and passed along to us without comment. ‘One left one, one right one, and both with a bit of shite on,’ in the best traditions of the BBC.
Now a child of six would tug the BBC man’s sleeve and enquire which of these two men had caused the precipitate decline of all the other rundown cities in America. But the BBC does not employ six year-olds because this would have led to a consideration of what the cities did have in common, which is presumably the cause of the decline and which is presumably being carefully ignored. And presumably for very good reasons.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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That one produced this one. The idea though goes back to my Space lecture and is, I maintain, of stupendous importance.
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Paradigms I Have Loved September 3, 2024
It all goes back to The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
You have all heard of ‘paradigms’, you all vaguely know what they are, you all vaguely worry you might not have got it quite right. Join the club. Join the human race. Paradigm theories have been worrying and propelling human beings ever since Ug discovered the First Law of Thermodynamics, ‘When two sticks are rubbed together, thou shalt get fire’. (I can’t do the accent.)
Paradigms are those fundamental laws, theories, hypotheses, discoveries upon which our detailed knowledge of the way things work are based. It’s no use spotting the sun rises in the east — it might rise in the north tomorrow— without knowing the reason. God ordained that the sun went round the earth in that direction, and He doesn’t mess around when it comes to Creation.
Plate Tectonics is a ‘paradigm theory’. Darwinian Evolution is a paradigm theory (strictly speaking, it is now Neo-Darwinism but we need not go into that). The Laws of Thermodynamics are paradigm theories. You get the drift.
They came into vogue after Thomas Kuhn published his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962. You may not believe it now but they were on everyone’s lips at the smarter dinner parties. So much so that by the nineteen-seventies any mention of them got you jeered at for being so yesterday, darling.
This was a blow for me personally because, after reading Kuhn’s book, I had resolved to make the study of paradigm theories my life’s work but fortunately the vogue for inviting me to dinner parties had passed by then.
So what have I learned? (‘Briefly, Mick.’) Well, I have learned that every society has its paradigm theories which are devoutly believed but which always turn out to be either totally false or so in need of radical revision they might as well be. With one exception. Our own.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Another AE standby, 'the world record'. We discovered it when investigating art and antique fakes but this shows it can be used in more important matters
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World Records Leave Us All at Sea October 4, 2024
Applied Epistemologists use a technique known as ‘world record(s)’. Briefly, whenever we come across a claim that such-and-such is the biggest, oldest, most valuable etc thing around, we take note. It may be something of interest to us. Oftentimes, it is just that. The biggest, the oldest, the most valuable etc thing around and we move on to something else.
If, however, we discover it has been conjoined with another ‘world record’, we’re in business. Anything with two claims to fame is sufficiently unlikely there is a presumption that something bogus is present. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes we can find it, sometimes we can’t.
For instance, there is a manuscript copy of Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People in the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg. Nothing unusual about that, there are lots of manuscript Bede’s around. But this one is ‘a near-contemporary version’ i.e. made in the eighth century. Since there are no actual contemporary versions, this makes the Petersburg Bede the joint world record holder as the oldest extant Bede.
Again, so what? ‘Joint’ means there is nothing particularly special about it, there are other similar manuscripts kicking around. But when we read in Wiki
| Although not heavily illuminated, it is famous for containing the earliest historiated initial (one containing a picture) in European illumination. |
we know we’re onto something. It beggars belief that the oldest surviving Bede would also turn out to be the earliest de dah de dah in European de dah de dah.
Long story short: Catherine the Great wanted to set up the Hermitage Library in a hurry so word was out that early manuscripts of important books were wanted. Of which precisely none were readily available so the European faking industry went into overdrive. Somebody put together a Bede manuscript and, in case other people were producing Bede manuscripts, made sure this one had a USP.
Long story long: practically everything in the Hermitage is fake, all manuscript histories of Bede are fake, Bede’s history is a fake, early English history is a fake de dah de dah de dah. But you are not being asked to believe that, you need only accept for the moment that ‘double world records’ are maybe worth a second look.
Thus we arrive at the sinking of the superyacht, Bayesian, which happened back in August off the Sicilian coast for causes yet to be determined. This event holds a world record of sorts: superyachts just don’t sink. Doubtless a few do but not in seconds, not practically in harbour, not with a professional crew on board, not on summer nights in the central Mediterranean.
Unless, possibly, a ‘downburst’ occurs. These are rare — though increasing — weather phenomena akin to water spouts and are caused by intense thunderstorms which can arise out of a clear dark Mediterranean sky and can overwhelm anything afloat in seconds. Case closed?
Not quite. This one didn’t overwhelm any of the other yachts moored nearby. They don’t sink any well-designed, professionally-crewed boat because ‘downbursts’ are well-known, just one more hazard at sea that, however rare, must be catered for. That is what makes the Bayesian sinking a world record.
So maybe the Bayesian was not well designed, maybe the crew did not act professionally, the sorts of things an official enquiry enquires into. An Applied Epistemologist would enquire: is there another world record around? There was. The Bayesian had the biggest mast ever attached to a superyacht. To any yacht apparently.
* So it was the mast that did for the Bayesian. If so, it was bad design.
* Unless the biggest keel in a superyacht put in by the designers to cope with having the biggest mast in a superyacht was not fully extended at the time. If so, it was bad seamanship.
* Or it was a combination of both. I wouldn’t personally sail on any yacht that requires the crew to be constantly on the qui vive for rare things that haven’t yet sunk rare yachts, just on the offchance it will happen tonight. I’d rather they got a good kip.
But all this will come out (eventually) in the official enquiry (one hopes) so why am I telling you? Because of another world record
| This year the Mediterranean sea has been warmer than at any other time in recorded history. (TV documentary on the sinking I watched last night.) |
Global warming has been increasing sea temperatures which in turn have led to more frequent downbursts which, said the voice-over, means ship-designers and professional mariners must up their game, or words to that stentorian effect.
And you can bet the official enquiry will say just that. These solemn bodies always produce long lists of recommendations that are vaguely appropriate. It is their job to make recommendations, not decide whether they should be implemented. And official enquiries are never short of jobsworths.
‘Do no such thing,’ any applied epistemologist worth his job would say.
* There are all kinds of reasons for being concerned about global warming but the increase in downbursts is not one of them.
* There is no reason for anybody, designers or sailors, to do anything they are not already doing because of the increased possibility of downbursts. They are still incredibly rare and they don’t sink ships when they happen.
* But big masts on small ships should be outlawed.
That would be our sole recommendation.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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A timely follow-on from the above
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Counting Hurricanes October 9, 2024
Today’s the day Hurricane Milton hits Florida
Last week I told you about the significance of ‘world records’ to applied epistemologists. The presence of two of them attached to a single event always has our antennae twanging.
| Hurricane Milton has three |
* The first time there have been two hurricanes in a month
* The biggest for a hundred years
* Produced by the warmest seas on record
As you can see, ‘world record’ is just our jargon term for it. What we mean is
| anything that makes a relatively common event singular in some way |
None of these singularities are significant in themselves — Bayesian statistics ensure that all three will occur at some time or other — but
| when they all all happen at the same time they should have everybody’s antennae twanging. |
Hurricane Milton might have three distinctive characteristics but nobody’s antennae are twanging because it has been widely agreed a fourth factor is present that makes Hurricane Milton unexceptionable (in a perverse sort of way)
| Global warming. A hotter earth makes for warmer seas makes for more and bigger hurricanes. |
True, this has strengthened the case, if it were needed, for paying a great deal of attention to global warming. However, applied epistemologists do not (precisely) agree on where that attention should be directed. Climatologists do not factor in either warm seas or hurricanes when exploring the causes of, and how to deal with, global warming. For them it is all a matter of the greenhouse effect of surplus carbon dioxide produced by human activity.
In this respect applied epistemologists are content to point out that our knowledge of how the atmosphere works is so basic that relying on (a) the atmosphere (b) the greenhouse effect and (c) reducing carbon dioxide to (d) explain and (e) deal with global warming is (f) the height of folly. But understandable because
1. It was vital, when the main fight was against climate-deniers, to present a united front.
2. Hence a unanimous claim ‘it’s the greenhouse effect’ was a very sensible policy to adopt at that time.
3. Now the fight has been won it would be sensible to direct some resources to explore the possibilities that it may not be the greenhouse effect.
4. Unfortunately this has not proved possible because climate scientists are so used to claiming the greenhouse effect is proven beyond all possibility of doubt, they have forgotten it is global warming that has been proved beyond all possibility of doubt, the greenhouse effect remains the back-of-an-envelope hypothesis it always was.
Meanwhile, in another corner of the intellectual firmament, applied epistemologists were investigating the Hydrological Cycle in their endless quest to make good their claim
| Every paradigm theory is proven to be wrong sooner or later. |
They discovered (to their satisfaction though nobody else’s) that the Hydrological Cycle was wrong.
| It is not evaporation from the ocean that powers the hydrological cycle, it is transpiration of water vapour from plants. Sea level is the equilibrium point where evaporation no longer takes place, except in local circumstances where that equilibrium has been upset. For example, where the sea is unusually warm, evaporation will take place and will produce hurricanes. |
But applied epistemologists are not in business to assist with hurricane policy, we are in business to save the world from its folly. So, for instance, we would urge the world to carry on reducing atmospheric carbon dioxide on the general grounds that any sudden change to global systems is likely to be disastrous, but to redouble its efforts to save the rainforests.
We cannot tell which factor is the more important when it comes to global warming — the upper atmosphere or the hydrological cycle — but a twin-track approach would be sensible.
Alas, that is not possible because climate scientists are as confident they understand the hydrological cycle as they do the greenhouse effect, so it’s steady as she goes. And we can all see the effect of that.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I can't resist putting this in despite it not being, strictly speaking, AE theory.
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Imagine you’re a Korean socialist. October 28, 2024
Unless you are a Korean socialist.
“I’m a socialist,” you say to yourself. “I believe organising economic activity communally is inherently superior to leaving things to individual endeavour.” Then a small voice reminds you, “Of course this is only a means to an end — i.e. the greatest happiness for the greatest number — I don’t believe in communality for the sake of it.”
Time passes. Let’s say, for the sake of argument, seventy odd years passes. “How is Korean socialism going?” you enquire of yourself. “Let’s see now. In the northern half of Korea, where socialism has been practised for the whole of that time, there is tremendous poverty. They have to export people on the grand scale just to feed themselves. I’ll give that two out of ten. The state and the people have, after all, managed to survive through thick and thin.”
“What about the south where ‘capitalism’, to use a bit of shorthand, has been the dominant ethos? They seem to have produced a society, in fairly short order, that is the wealthiest on earth bar a few special cases. I’d have to give that eight out of ten. They’ve still got a ways to go in various aspects.”
“I’m going to carry on being a socialist. The difference between north and south is entirely down to the machinations of America, the chief capitalistic power in the world. They’ve been non-stop helping one and hindering the other. There is nothing wrong with socialism. As such.”
Please copy this to the friends and relations of M J Harper who are socialistically-inclined and constantly bending his ear about the difference between communism and democratic socialism and why the old Soviet Union (and its satellites), Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Laos etc are special cases and China and Vietnam are special cases in the other direction and there is nothing wrong with socialism. As such.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | I have no doubt in my mind that all the following books are fakes, i.e. not written by the person named on the cover, but who precisely did write them — insofar as that is known to me — I will reveal if anyone shows any interest. On the whole, people prefer things the way they are but there might be some adventurous souls out there.
The Canterbury Tales
Officially written by Geoffrey Chaucer, late 14th century, in England |
Are you kidding me? This was only the subject of years of discussion in this group! Do tell!!
The Pepys Diaries
Officially written by Samuel Pepys, 1660–1669, in London |
I called this one first. Although, through an entirely different line of reasoning. A line of reasoning that is more....tenuous than your own.
The New Testament
Officially written by various hands, 1st century AD, in the Middle East |
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?!
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | What do you do if someone says something you find impossible to believe? The first thing to do is not to assume they are lying or just plain dumb. Although it is a natural thing to do, neither is at all likely: |
Only those of a left-wing bent make this assumption in politics. It is an affectation of the "wise liberal" (of which you have been one so long as I have known you) to assume this sort of thing common to both sides. It simply isn't, and studies have repeatedly borne this out. Conservatives simply have a much better theory-of-mind for their opponents and can even express empathy for the opposing perspective. This phenomenon is virtually unknown to on the Left.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Ishmael wrote: | The Canterbury Tales Officially written by Geoffrey Chaucer, late 14th century, in England
Are you kidding me? This was only the subject of years of discussion in this group! Do tell!! |
You were offered, but declined, a copy of Revisionist Historiography, wherein all is revealed.
The Pepys Diaries Officially written by Samuel Pepys, 1660–1669, in London
I called this one first. Although, through an entirely different line of reasoning. A line of reasoning that is more....tenuous than your own. |
I should like to hear more about this. It is lost in the mists of time.
The New Testament Officially written by various hands, 1st century AD, in the Middle East
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!?! |
Yes, I am satisfied, the actual fuck.
What do you do if someone says something you find impossible to believe? The first thing to do is not to assume they are lying or just plain dumb. Although it is a natural thing to do, neither is at all likely:
Only those of a left-wing bent make this assumption in politics. |
Only those of a right-wing bent say this.
| It is an affectation of the "wise liberal" (of which you have been one so long as I have known you) |
Only right-wing people think I am a liberal of any sort. They make me vomit. Liberals, I mean. Though right-wing people do too.
| to assume this sort of thing common to both sides. It simply isn't, and studies have repeatedly borne this out. |
Yes, the studies. I'd forgotten about those damned studies.
| Conservatives simply have a much better theory-of-mind for their opponents and can even express empathy for the opposing perspective. This phenomenon is virtually unknown to on the Left. |
There is something to this. Left and Right are not mirror images. The problem is, at the moment, the Right is not a traditional Right i.e. embodying the status quo but cautiously looking for improvement, but a radical, insurgent, even successful embodiment of the rejection of the status quo. But I won't go into it here.
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