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The Paris Climate Disagreement (Page 11)
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besson3c
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Aug 31, 2017, 11:23 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I'm arguing it's less strange than it seems.

The U.S. is fundamentally different than the rest of the developed world.

In some ways our differences will help (the rest of the developed world isn't as innovative), in some ways our differences will hinder (the rest of the developed world has compact geography, dense population, new infrastructure, state-run media, and a thousand years of cultural continuity).
Why do you feel that those (or any) differences will hinder in trusting science?
     
subego
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Aug 31, 2017, 02:07 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
The motive at the lower levels is usually more akin to loyalty to party and distrust of the opposition . And you know my stance on politicians: the intelligent ones know it's real they just lie about it. The dumber ones just misunderstand things.
I have a feeling we're going to disagree about the following, but it's important to note whatever disagreement we have isn't really going to be about science anymore.

Is distrust of the opposition unfounded?
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Aug 31, 2017, 02:11 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I have a feeling we're going to disagree about the following, but it's important to note whatever disagreement we have isn't really going to be about science anymore.

Is distrust of the opposition unfounded?
I think it's the result of increasingly polarized politics. If you have examples that come to mind I'm interested.
     
subego
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Aug 31, 2017, 02:12 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Why do you feel that those (or any) differences will hinder in trusting science?
Because the distrust is less about the science, and more about the sacrifice being asked for.

These factors don't have to do with the science, they have to do with the scale of sacrifice involved.

The rest of the developed world doesn't have a similar incentive for skepticism.
     
besson3c
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Aug 31, 2017, 02:34 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Because the distrust is less about the science, and more about the sacrifice being asked for.

These factors don't have to do with the science, they have to do with the scale of sacrifice involved.

The rest of the developed world doesn't have a similar incentive for skepticism.

This makes little sense to me. The whole world is a petro-based world, the sacrifice is global. Sure, the US will face some unique challenges such as replacing its truck lines (as will Canada), but every country will have its unique challenges. For example, outfitting charging stations for vehicles, hyperloop-type technology to replace/supplement air fare, modernizing factories, etc. The US also has a unique advantage in its overall wealth. Change is expensive.

I don't really see comparing sacrifices as a particularly strong argument, sorry.

And regardless, I also don't think the skepticism is based on fear of change. It might be a factor, but humans all over the world generally fear change. It seems based on distrust of the actual science, at least to me.
( Last edited by besson3c; Aug 31, 2017 at 02:56 PM. )
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Aug 31, 2017, 02:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Because the distrust is less about the science, and more about the sacrifice being asked for.

These factors don't have to do with the science, they have to do with the scale of sacrifice involved.

The rest of the developed world doesn't have a similar incentive for skepticism.
What's the sacrifice? Nebulous higher costs? There is concrete downside.
     
reader50
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Aug 31, 2017, 03:29 PM
 
If we got serious about carbon reduction, we'd pull a lot of fossil fuel subsidies, and redirect them to renewables. Plus storage (mostly batteries) and sequestration work.

The practical consequences would be higher gasoline prices. Small impact on other prices, where they're affected by fossil fuels. ie: plastics, or products with significant transportation per item costs (online orders, ebay, etc). The transportation costs would (very) slowly return to normal as electric alternatives replaced the existing fleets. Probably not much impact on electric rates, since renewables are among the cheapest sources today and make up most of the new capacity coming online. Natural gas makes up most of the rest.

I can't speak to coastal issues or changing growing zones - the scientists say existing warming is locked in. Unless we can pull CO2 out of the atmosphere, something we don't have mature solutions for. Yet.
     
Laminar
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Aug 31, 2017, 03:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
What's the sacrifice? Nebulous higher costs? There is concrete downside.
+1

Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
The practical consequences would be higher gasoline prices.
Which conservatives tend to frame as oppressive to the poor. Basically the only time they pretend to care about the needs of poor people.
     
subego
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Aug 31, 2017, 04:14 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
I think it's the result of increasingly polarized politics. If you have examples that come to mind I'm interested.
I set this up poorly.

Allow me to break it up into multiple questions.

1) Should the right trust the left?
2) Do the right trust the left?
3) If not, why?

My answer to the first is yes. The right should trust the left.

To the second, the answer is no. The right does not trust the left.

The third, the meat of the question, the answer is the left's thought process on contentious issues is so alien to them, they ascribe it sinister motivation.

So, "unfounded" isn't really the right word. As per number 1, the problem isn't the left are untrustworthy, the problem is a communication gap. Conclusions aren't being arrived at with the benefit of full information. The reasoning is wrong, but not necessarily bad. In that sense, unfounded is the right word. The right has a good reason to distrust the left, even though it's an incorrect reason, and the left are in fact trustworthy.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Aug 31, 2017, 04:23 PM
 
Technically they're not distrusting the left, though. They're distrusting science. This isn't because science speaks a different language it's because right wing partisans have spent decades undermining them.
     
The Final Dakar  (op)
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Aug 31, 2017, 04:25 PM
 
Originally Posted by Laminar View Post
+1.
That was supposed to read 'where is the concrete downside' though I suppose reader gave one example.
     
subego
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Aug 31, 2017, 05:06 PM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Technically they're not distrusting the left, though. They're distrusting science. This isn't because science speaks a different language it's because right wing partisans have spent decades undermining them.
They have, but the mistrust of science is mostly situational. It's more about who's pushing the science than it being science.

Part of the issue is I think there is good reason to be skeptical of science as one gets further and further towards the "soft science" end of the spectrum.
     
besson3c
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Aug 31, 2017, 05:23 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
They have, but the mistrust of science is mostly situational. It's more about who's pushing the science than it being science.
This I can agree with. However, I'm still at a loss as to why this sort of childish refusal to accept reality and facts (regardless of who is pushing them) has been lingering for so long. I mean, many of their arguments are about how down to earth they are.

Part of the issue is I think there is good reason to be skeptical of science as one gets further and further towards the "soft science" end of the spectrum.
What is soft science, and how would you classify global warming?
     
subego
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Aug 31, 2017, 05:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
What is soft science, and how would you classify global warming?
In broad terms, natural sciences are hard, social sciences are soft.

Climate science doesn't fit neatly at one end. The climatology part is hard. The predictive modeling part starts drifting towards soft.
     
subego
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Aug 31, 2017, 05:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
This I can agree with. However, I'm still at a loss as to why this sort of childish refusal to accept reality and facts (regardless of who is pushing them) has been lingering for so long. I mean, many of their arguments are about how down to earth they are.
As I say above in a different post, the right doesn't trust or respect the left.

The left's thought process is alien to them, so they ascribe sinister motivations to the left.

This is how people generally react to alien thought processes. We're designed this way.
     
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Aug 31, 2017, 08:03 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
In broad terms, natural sciences are hard, social sciences are soft.

Climate science doesn't fit neatly at one end. The climatology part is hard. The predictive modeling part starts drifting towards soft.
Climate science is not part of “soft science”, the performance of climate models can be tested quantitatively. Making predictions with even a hypothetical “perfect” model just remains a prediction, because you cannot run the experiment in parallel several times in the future. We just have one earth, one time line. And you need other projections as an input: How does the global or local CO2 output change in the future? By how much does the population increase, and how many of those will be living in cities? What about the rain forest? What about live stock? All of these are variables, but none of this makes climate science a soft science.

Climate science is not alone in this, by the way, most of astrophysics shares these exact same problems: you only have one experiment. That doesn't make astrophysics a soft science. (There are also other experiments where you practically cannot repeat the experiment, the LHC comes to mind.)
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The Final Dakar  (op)
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Aug 31, 2017, 09:15 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
They have, but the mistrust of science is mostly situational. It's more about who's pushing the science than it being science.
Which is a political attack, not a scientific one.

Originally Posted by subego View Post
Part of the issue is I think there is good reason to be skeptical of science as one gets further and further towards the "soft science" end of the spectrum.
Counter-point: I don't think those non-politicians that believe in trickle-down economics grasp that 'soft science.' It's merely the bill of goods they've been sold.

You can find numerous reasons why the right doesn't believe in climate change (we can add religion), but I still think the biggest factor is the GOP has spent decades undermining it and calling it a hoax.
     
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Aug 31, 2017, 09:31 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
As I say above in a different post, the right doesn't trust or respect the left.

The left's thought process is alien to them, so they ascribe sinister motivations to the left.

This is how people generally react to alien thought processes. We're designed this way.
That still presumes that scientific thinking is inherent to the “right”, it is not. In all other industrialized nations this is not the case, only the Republicans stand out.
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besson3c
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Aug 31, 2017, 10:42 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
That still presumes that scientific thinking is inherent to the “right”, it is not. In all other industrialized nations this is not the case, only the Republicans stand out.

Exactly. Maybe my time away from the US has given me a new perspective about how weird some things about it are. Weird bad in some cases (like this one), but in other cases just... weird.
     
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Aug 31, 2017, 11:48 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
As I say above in a different post, the right doesn't trust or respect the left.

The left's thought process is alien to them, so they ascribe sinister motivations to the left.

This is how people generally react to alien thought processes. We're designed this way.
Maybe a part of the problem is that people keep making excuses for them .
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subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 01:01 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
Maybe a part of the problem is that people keep making excuses for them .
Then make an argument for it.
     
subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 01:04 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
That still presumes that scientific thinking is inherent to the “right”, it is not. In all other industrialized nations this is not the case, only the Republicans stand out.
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
Exactly. Maybe my time away from the US has given me a new perspective about how weird some things about it are. Weird bad in some cases (like this one), but in other cases just... weird.
I don't understand the basic comment here "this presumes scientific thinking is inherent to the right".

I'm accusing the right of basing their thinking on lack of trust of their opponent. Scientific thinking doesn't enter into it.
     
subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 01:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
Climate science is not part of “soft science”, the performance of climate models can be tested quantitatively. Making predictions with even a hypothetical “perfect” model just remains a prediction, because you cannot run the experiment in parallel several times in the future. We just have one earth, one time line. And you need other projections as an input: How does the global or local CO2 output change in the future? By how much does the population increase, and how many of those will be living in cities? What about the rain forest? What about live stock? All of these are variables, but none of this makes climate science a soft science.

Climate science is not alone in this, by the way, most of astrophysics shares these exact same problems: you only have one experiment. That doesn't make astrophysics a soft science. (There are also other experiments where you practically cannot repeat the experiment, the LHC comes to mind.)
Answers to a question such as "how will populations migrate over the next 50 years" use soft science. If this gets plugged into the model, the model makes use of soft science.
     
subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 01:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
Which is a political attack, not a scientific one.
Correct, but the thought process isn't "I have politics X therefore I reject science".

The thought process is "I don't trust person Y".

The science isn't entering into the equation, therefore it is not the science being directly rejected. It's the people being rejected.
     
subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 01:31 AM
 
Originally Posted by The Final Dakar View Post
You can find numerous reasons why the right doesn't believe in climate change (we can add religion), but I still think the biggest factor is the GOP has spent decades undermining it and calling it a hoax.
The GOP goes a bunch of ways. Neither Bush, McCain, or Romney call(ed) it a hoax.
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 01:58 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Answers to a question such as "how will populations migrate over the next 50 years" use soft science. If this gets plugged into the model, the model makes use of soft science.
That is a very different statement than the one you made before: climate science is still hard science, and hard science allows you to predict the future climate for a given development of population, emissions and other external parameters that have to be specified for the model. The crucial distinction between hard and soft science is the ability of hard science to be able to make quantitative, testable predictions — and here, climate science delivers.

In truth, all sciences fall on a spectrum, with mathematics on the one end (completely objective but no necessity to describe reality), then physics, chemistry, biology and so forth.


If your argument is that climate science is farther on that spectrum than physics, then yes, you are right. But I think your statement in the present context is nevertheless misleading.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I don't understand the basic comment here "this presumes scientific thinking is inherent to the right".

I'm accusing the right of basing their thinking on lack of trust of their opponent. Scientific thinking doesn't enter into it.
First of all, that should read “This presumes scientific thinking is inherent to the left." (Although I think you autocorrected that.)

Your previous posts were in reference to scientific reasoning and global climate change in particular. In my experience the reason for that is that science and academia are usually (and wrongly!*) associated with “the Left”, and this otherization sows distrust amongst self-identified conservatives. The difference goes much deeper than you think: I'm claiming that there isn't just mistrust in scientific results, but also in the scientific method itself. So if you wanted to make an argument that global climate change is bad science, then the opponents would arrive at this conclusion after scientific inquiry. But they don't base their counter arguments on science.

* I insist on the wrongly, because many people extrapolate from social sciences to other branches — how unscientific
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Sep 1, 2017, 02:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
The GOP goes a bunch of ways. Neither Bush, McCain, or Romney call(ed) it a hoax.
There is nevertheless a strong difference between Republicans and Democrats, with only 26 % of conservative Republicans and 49 % of moderate Republicans thinking that global climate change is caused by human activity (as opposed to 75 % for Democratic voters). It didn't use to be that way, and there was a time when climate change was not a litmus test for party affiliation.
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subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 02:06 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
That is a very different statement than the one you made before: climate science is still hard science, and hard science allows you to predict the future climate for a given development of population, emissions and other external parameters that have to be specified for the model. The crucial distinction between hard and soft science is the ability of hard science to be able to make quantitative, testable predictions — and here, climate science delivers.
I said the climatology is hard, the predictive modeling drifts into the soft. The reason the modeling drifts into the soft is because it needs to make use of variables such as "how will the population migrate over the next 50 years".
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 02:12 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I said the climatology is hard, the predictive modeling drifts into the soft. The reason the modeling drifts into the soft is because it needs to make use of variables such as "how will the population migrate over the next 50 years".
I understood what you wrote the first time.
I still don't think you are correct, at least by the first definition of soft vs. hard science that I gave. If you use another one, state it, and then you state it and we can discuss it. Climate science produces testable, quantitative predictions which can be used to falsify claims. That's hard science.
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subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 02:16 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
First of all, that should read “This presumes scientific thinking is inherent to the left." (Although I think you autocorrected that.)

Your previous posts were in reference to scientific reasoning and global climate change in particular. In my experience the reason for that is that science and academia are usually (and wrongly!*) associated with “the Left”, and this otherization sows distrust amongst self-identified conservatives. The difference goes much deeper than you think: I'm claiming that there isn't just mistrust in scientific results, but also in the scientific method itself. So if you wanted to make an argument that global climate change is bad science, then the opponents would arrive at this conclusion after scientific inquiry. But they don't base their counter arguments on science.

* I insist on the wrongly, because many people extrapolate from social sciences to other branches — how unscientific
Again, the opinion the right has on scientific method is situational. If the problem was the method, when they have a problem and when they don't wouldn't correlate so tightly with politics.

In the context of global warming, I'm not claiming the climatologists are the left, however it is the left using climatology to beat the right about the head and shoulders.

Though it's not the point I'm making, I would predict climatologists skew left.
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 02:27 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
I understood what you wrote the first time.
I still don't think you are correct, at least by the first definition of soft vs. hard science that I gave. If you use another one, state it, and then you state it and we can discuss it. Climate science produces testable, quantitative predictions which can be used to falsify claims. That's hard science.
My definition was intended to be broad, hence the qualifier "broadly".

IMO, the reason soft sciences are soft and hard sciences are hard boils down to the complexity of the systems involved. Soft sciences get into behavior, which is both literally and figuratively squishy in a way particle physics (for example) is not.

An accurate climate prediction involves both the hard science of how the climate behaves, and the soft science of how people behave.
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 03:36 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
In the context of global warming, I'm not claiming the climatologists are the left, however it is the left using climatology to beat the right about the head and shoulders.
That wasn't the point. I'm saying that the mere perception that science skews left has a profound impact on how trustworthy scientific results are thought to be.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Though it's not the point I'm making, I would predict climatologists skew left.
And what do you base this on? Just a vague feeling from your personal meetings with climate scientists? Do you apply American demarkation lines to foreign researchers (and then, of course, most of the world skews what the US considers left.

But this sentence nicely illustrates the point: you already perceive climate scientists as being associated with one (of exactly two! ) political persuasions.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
My definition was intended to be broad, hence the qualifier "broadly".
That's not a definition at all, nor is it a broader one, that's just being vague.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
IMO, the reason soft sciences are soft and hard sciences are hard boils down to the complexity of the systems involved. Soft sciences get into behavior, which is both literally and figuratively squishy in a way particle physics (for example) is not.
That isn't a good definition, the complexity of the system has no bearing on whether you can or cannot understand something quantitatively. For instance, you don't need to understand the intricacies of cities and cultures to verify that many things such as number of gas stations and crime rate follow universal scaling laws and give a rigorous meaning to economy of scales. And your definition would exclude a lot of physics (which should be a hard science) and statistics. That is why we are able to say something quantitative and be predictive when it comes to certain aspects of human behavior.
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Sep 1, 2017, 03:49 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
That wasn't the point. I'm saying that the mere perception that science skews left has a profound impact on how trustworthy scientific results are thought to be.

And what do you base this on? Just a vague feeling from your personal meetings with climate scientists? Do you apply American demarkation lines to foreign researchers (and then, of course, most of the world skews what the US considers left.

But this sentence nicely illustrates the point: you already perceive climate scientists as being associated with one (of exactly two! ) political persuasions.
Again, the right's perception of whether science skews left is situational.

I base my prediction about climate scientists on climate science being a discipline which appeals to environmentalists, who are left more often than not.
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 04:03 AM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
That isn't a good definition, the complexity of the system has no bearing on whether you can or cannot understand something quantitatively. For instance, you don't need to understand the intricacies of cities and cultures to verify that many things such as number of gas stations and crime rate follow universal scaling laws and give a rigorous meaning to economy of scales. And your definition would exclude a lot of physics (which should be a hard science) and statistics. That is why we are able to say something quantitative and be predictive when it comes to certain aspects of human behavior.
Wat

Gas stations follow universal scaling laws therefore all complex systems can be expressed qualitatively?
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 04:44 AM
 
People are lead by politicians and media sources on both sides.

"My politics is X, so I listen to these guys and not those guys because these guys tell me not to listen to them."

The difference is that somewhere up the line, there are people on the left setting LW policy because they have read studies, while on the right the policy makers are being influenced by fossil fuel companies and other wealthy polluters.
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Sep 1, 2017, 05:10 AM
 
Originally Posted by Waragainstsleep View Post
The difference is that somewhere up the line, there are people on the left setting LW policy because they have read studies
If the left has as much respect for science as it claims, then it would be easy to demonstrate such with examples of them embracing science which doesn't happen to mesh perfectly with their agenda.

What's the left's policy on nuclear power?
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 09:03 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
If the left has as much respect for science as it claims, then it would be easy to demonstrate such with examples of them embracing science which doesn't happen to mesh perfectly with their agenda.

What's the left's policy on nuclear power?
In the US? You tell me.

I take your point though, there are plenty on the left who are scared of anything nuclear. They have their share of anti-vaxxers too I'm guessing, but I'm not sure they are being lead by politicians in either of those cases.
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Sep 1, 2017, 09:32 AM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Then make an argument for it.
There is no magic argument. The entire Paris thread has been an attempt to make an argument and it has been met with nonsense about weather satellites, sun spots, and sloppy scientists that are not the scientists that a certain individual has met at NASA.

Why do you feel the need to defend and/or "solve" this problem by attempting to rationalize it? I posit that the deniers are not being rational.
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 02:59 PM
 
Originally Posted by besson3c View Post
There is no magic argument. The entire Paris thread has been an attempt to make an argument and it has been met with nonsense about weather satellites, sun spots, and sloppy scientists that are not the scientists that a certain individual has met at NASA.

Why do you feel the need to defend and/or "solve" this problem by attempting to rationalize it? I posit that the deniers are not being rational.
Few, if any of arguments I've made claim the thought process is based in rationalism. They're all examples of relying on cognitive bias, and reaching incorrect conclusions because of it.
     
Paco500
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Sep 1, 2017, 04:33 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
If the left has as much respect for science as it claims, then it would be easy to demonstrate such with examples of them embracing science which doesn't happen to mesh perfectly with their agenda.

What's the left's policy on nuclear power?
The monolithic left doesn't exist, but I would imagine the majority of people who consider themselves environmentalists are anti-nuclear power for a number of logically consistent reasons.

While the generation of electricity via nuclear power is much cleaner than electricity generated by fossil fuels, the entire process is not much cleaner. The waste generated is flat out deadly and the US has no coherent plan to deal with it.

A Fukushima style disaster and any number of number of facilities in the US could have far greater environmental impacts than any coal based power plant. It would seem, at least politically, we are closer to being able to take to load on the grid via renewables than we are to coming up with a plan to safely and effectively deal with nuclear waste.

I would think that if you could take the massive risk out of the by-products of nuclear energy, more on 'the left' would be ok with it. But that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.

Carbon emissions are a big deal, but not the only environmental concern that exists. Nuclear deals with that and air-quality, but the other by-products are other risks are just too high for most environmentalists to get behind.
     
reader50
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Sep 1, 2017, 06:36 PM
 
A breeder reactor would solve the waste problem. They burn out medium-term waste, which has half-lives of years to centuries. Medium-term waste is what needs internment for up to 10,000 years. Breeders only produce short-term isotopes and long-term waste, while using up waste from regular reactors. Store it a few years until it goes cold, then treat it as normal waste.

Downside: we have no experience operating a breeder reactor.
Major downside: it would be more expensive. New regular reactors are already pricing themselves out of the market. A new type could easily cost double to build, and double to operate until we gained experience. However, it won't produce any more electricity than a regular design. So the extra overhead would have to be subsidized by government.

I like having nuclear in the mix, but it's gotten so incredibly expensive to build. There are proposed designs using a sealed small core; small enough to truck-ship. You buy as many cores as needed for your power plant. When the fuel runs out, you ship the sealed core back to the factory. Nothing radioactive leaves the sealed core, and you get the benefit of mass production in a centralized location.
     
Waragainstsleep
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Sep 1, 2017, 07:15 PM
 
We're all waiting for Mr. Fusion.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 08:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by Paco500 View Post
The monolithic left doesn't exist, but I would imagine the majority of people who consider themselves environmentalists are anti-nuclear power for a number of logically consistent reasons.

While the generation of electricity via nuclear power is much cleaner than electricity generated by fossil fuels, the entire process is not much cleaner. The waste generated is flat out deadly and the US has no coherent plan to deal with it.

A Fukushima style disaster and any number of number of facilities in the US could have far greater environmental impacts than any coal based power plant. It would seem, at least politically, we are closer to being able to take to load on the grid via renewables than we are to coming up with a plan to safely and effectively deal with nuclear waste.

I would think that if you could take the massive risk out of the by-products of nuclear energy, more on 'the left' would be ok with it. But that doesn't seem likely to happen anytime soon.

Carbon emissions are a big deal, but not the only environmental concern that exists. Nuclear deals with that and air-quality, but the other by-products are other risks are just too high for most environmentalists to get behind.
Unless Bush, McCain, and Romney don't count as influential right-wing figures, the right isn't monolithic either.

With nuclear, is the claim the science supports the environmentalist position?
( Last edited by subego; Sep 1, 2017 at 09:40 PM. )
     
OreoCookie
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Sep 1, 2017, 09:58 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Gas stations follow universal scaling laws therefore all complex systems can be expressed qualitatively?
No, that's not how Boolean logic works: I'm saying that some aspects of complex systems can be investigated with hard science. That does not imply that all aspects of all complex systems can be investigated with hard science. Your distinction of hard and soft science does not work here.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
I base my prediction about climate scientists on climate science being a discipline which appeals to environmentalists, who are left more often than not.
… and you assume that environmentalism is particular to the left. It is not (the German Green Party has its roots also in the conservative Christian part of environmental movement, and the first party to put environmentalism in its election program were the libertarian Free Democrats). So in the end you base this on mere conjecture.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
With nuclear, is the claim the science supports the environmentalist position?
That very much depends on what you think science claims on that subject and what you think environmentalists think about it. And whether what you think actually agrees with the actual positions.
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subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 10:28 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
No, that's not how Boolean logic works: I'm saying that some aspects of complex systems can be investigated with hard science. That does not imply that all aspects of all complex systems can be investigated with hard science. Your distinction of hard and soft science does not work here.
That there are exceptions does not invalidate the distinction.

What makes science soft is the need to paste over systems which are too complex to model otherwise.

This happens in both natural and social sciences. It happens more in social sciences, which is why they have the reputation they do.

The aspect of climate science which requires accounting for human behavior to provide accurate results is social science, and will have more need than the climatology to paste-over complex systems it can't model otherwise.
     
subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 10:36 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
… and you assume that environmentalism is particular to the left. It is not (the German Green Party has its roots also in the conservative Christian part of environmental movement, and the first party to put environmentalism in its election program were the libertarian Free Democrats). So in the end you base this on mere conjecture.
Was the observation about most of the world being left-wing in terms of the American political spectrum meant to be a joke? I consider it accurate.
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 10:43 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
That there are exceptions does not invalidate the distinction.

What makes science soft is the need to paste over systems which are too complex to model otherwise.
This is not an exception, it shows that the notion of soft science you hold is simplistic and vague, and designed to fit your preconceived notions. It sounds like a social scientist's definition. And instead of polishing your definition and fleshing it out, you evade. I'm on the hard science part of the spectrum (as a mathematical physicist), so I'm very much a stickler for proper definitions.
Originally Posted by subego View Post
This happens in both natural and social sciences. It happens more in social sciences, which is why they have the reputation they do.
I think the bad rep is undeserved to a large degree, and soft science is used as an insult in the US. And I think this is again a phenomenon that is quite specific to the US, historians, economists, lawyers and sociologists (all of which are soft sciences) don't have such a pronounced negative rep as they do in the US.
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OreoCookie
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Sep 1, 2017, 10:49 PM
 
Originally Posted by subego View Post
Was the observation about most of the world being left-wing in terms of the American political spectrum meant to be a joke? I consider it accurate.
No, but my point was that it just shows that it is not a meaningful way to distinguish political ideologies if Abe, Turnbull, May and Merkel are all supposedly politicians from “the left” just because all of these countries have e. g. universal health care and their party believes the scientific consensus on climate change is accurate.
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subego
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Sep 1, 2017, 11:20 PM
 
Originally Posted by OreoCookie View Post
This is not an exception, it shows that the notion of soft science you hold is simplistic and vague, and designed to fit your preconceived notions. It sounds like a social scientist's definition. And instead of polishing your definition and fleshing it out, you evade. I'm on the hard science part of the spectrum (as a mathematical physicist), so I'm very much a stickler for proper definitions.

I think the bad rep is undeserved to a large degree, and soft science is used as an insult in the US. And I think this is again a phenomenon that is quite specific to the US, historians, economists, lawyers and sociologists (all of which are soft sciences) don't have such a pronounced negative rep as they do in the US.
I'm using your definition.

Climate science has two parts.

The first part is the climatology. To the extent it's understood, it is for the most part understood quantitatively. This is hard science.

The second part is what data gets plugged into the variables. Our understanding of what to plug in is based on sociology, history, and economics. These are significantly less quantitatively understood than climatology. They are the soft sciences.

I personally don't place value judgements on hard versus soft. I'm more skeptical of one over the other, but I consider this the proper approach to lesser or greater quantitative assurance.

Frankly, the lack of quantitative assurance means soft scientists actually stick their dick out there, and I respect them for it.
     
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Sep 1, 2017, 11:50 PM
 
Nuclear is a really interesting one. Being afraid of it is not irrational, though it is pretty safe. Chernobyl and Fukushima are scary but on the other hand, Chernobyl was probably underfunded by a failing regime and Fukushima was hit by a Tsunami/quake then flooded and didn't do a Chernobyl. To some thats terrifying, to others its rightly reassuring.
Meanwhile in Chernobyl, the wildlife is still there and hasn't mutated into the Toxic Avenger, and despite being told it would be a no go zone for a billion years its safe enough to drive through it for the purposes of car-related light entertainment while many others will be quite intimately familiar with it from Call of Duty.
You've got hippies and Greenpeace members who violently oppose sending nuclear waste into space which is sensible because if it explodes before it gets there it will shower a large area with radioactive death, but many oppose it because they don't want us to pollute space. Really.
Its a really heady mix of fear and ignorance but its not bogged down with the lunatic conspiracy theories that plague the Anti-Vax movement and its more than possible to be wary or in favour of nuclear without having to deny any science at all.
I have plenty of more important things to do, if only I could bring myself to do them....
     
 
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