posted
I'd agree with the assertion that referring to "sceintific consensus" is often used to forestall debate. I do think that that statement is missing a realization that many times the "debate" is going on between someone who knows what they're talking about and someone who doesn't, but insists that they do. Plenty of people who got a D in high school chemistry suprisingly have no reservations about their competence to talk about the holes in extremely complex scientific theories. Even on the arguably more educated realm of Hatrack, people often seem to have little compunction making authoritative statments about things they don't seem to know anything about.
I used to dislike having to write out a research review at the start of a paper. It just seemed pointless. I still don't like it, but I now see the point that (besides forcing you to focus on other possible interpretations of what you're looking at) it helps establish that you do in fact know what you are talking about and points out to others areas and interpretations that you might be lacking.
There's a strong social inertia against any sort of having to deal with the effects of pollution, so you're going to get plenty of people whose objections boil down to "I don't want to believe that this is true". Is forestalling "debate" with them by referring to the reams of scientific literature really something we should be upset about? Shouldn't they actually need to understand the matter before they form a firm opinion on it?
I mean, yeah, there's plenty of extreme environmental activists who are way overselling the case, but that doesn't mean we should be ignoring the facts that 1) the people who actually study this have formed a pretty strong consensus on it and 2) many, many of the people who oppose it don't have the slightest clue what they're actually talking about.
posted
Oh, there's been a thread about it? Haven't been on the `rack much lately, so when I saw the topic, and had just finished the book, I posted. I'll go take a look at the thread.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:People have been investigating Global Warming for over a century? Or is that just how long they've been recording the temperatures?
The first person to predict climate change due to the the burning of fossil fuels was Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius in 1896. American geophysicist Roger Revelle is credited for making the first modern high-level prediction of global warming, in 1965. Atmospheric CO2 levels have been monitored continuously since 1958 at Mona Loa. This is not a new theory, it is not the latest fad. Concern over Global Climate Change due green house gas emissions from human activity is a well established since with many decades of research backing it up. There are still many unknowns in this very complex field but it is absolutely not "fad" science.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
In such an extremely complex field, with so many unknowns (and so many things we don't even know we don't know), why is skepticism responded to with at best incredulity and at worst contempt?
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posted
And another thing: the kind of pigeonholing typically applied to people who disagree with (or even have doubts about, like myself) global warming is pretty irritating, especially since it is so rarely tolerated in other arenas.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
I am cynic enough to believe that in any field where money flows freely, the accumulation of that money becomes the primary goal for the majority, while integrity and ideology remain the realm of the minority. I don't mind this happening in the field of ecological science nearly as much as I mind it in the field of medicine. I liked "Coma".
I'm half way through "State of Fear". I'm interested in the ideas, but I'm ready to toss the book out because I'm having trouble accepting a protagonist who is so obtuse. Goodness, not only does he seem to be unable to put together a sense of scepticism regarding his environmental assumptions, but he is whiney and can't put two and two together with regards to what is happening around him.
I get the impression that Crichton is supposed to be Kenner, all knowing but bad at language, while the reader is supposed to be Evans, naive and wimpy and looking to the media to think for him.
IMO, that kind of preaching is just plain boring.
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posted
Well, if you still want to discuss it you haven't responded to my last post that was directly on topic.
Posts: 26071 | Registered: Oct 2003
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posted
"why is skepticism responded to with at best incredulity and at worst contempt?"
And, say, election to the Presidency? Domination of the media and big business? Complete control over the channels through which anything to address the issue must be taken?
It seems that skeptics are running the show, Rak. Why are you complaining, again?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
So in other words, Tom, it's OK for environmentalists to do it because the bad guys do it too?(and clearly, as far as this particular disagreement is concerned, that's what the opposition is)
How idealistic-all I wanted to hear, really Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
How exactly has Crichton done harm to the cause he's trying to advance, Tom?
The only way I can see he's done harm is if you think he didn't properly state his point of view, so people would reach the right conclusions.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
Right after I posted I realized I should've said "except Dag." Anyway, I was hoping someone else would actually see Card's two essays as evidence of a serious change in his philosophy regarding the purpose and art of storytelling.
I will draw your attention to the following:
quote:It's not as if he's ever created a memorable character in his writing career. But that's a moot point: He doesn't try to write the kind of novel that depends on character.
Note how similar this sounds to Card's advice to a beginning writer:
quote:If the story is ABOUT character (i.e., it follows the character story structure), then you absolutely must know the character and all their relationships, and therefore all those other characters and THEIR relationships.
But if, as I suspect is the case with what you're writing, you are writing event or idea stories, then characters do not have to have the same level of depth.
I take this as evidence that Card thinks Chrichton is achieving something he himself has done many a time by minimizing characterization to spend time on another area of the story. His criticism of the characterization in SOF is not a blanket criticism of the story, because he doesn't believe extensive characterization is an essential part of all stories.
Interestingly, near the end he again criticizes the idea of messages in fiction:
quote:I just hate the idea of grand morals and essay-like themes. These things are discovered. How would Bean respond to event X and event Y? Not, how should I make Bean respond in order to show Virtue X and Sin Y?
I guess when the moral is "global warming is a fiction," his standards relax a little bit.
Posts: 4600 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
"So in other words, Tom, it's OK for environmentalists to do it because the bad guys do it too?"
No, not at all. But your objection seems to be that this kind of oppression -- the suppression of alternative thought -- is so widespread that the science itself should be suspect.
I have pointed out, of course, that this oppression simply does not exist in the halls of power; no one of any real importance is suppressing skepticism of global warming.
So what's your complaint? That we aren't being SUFFICIENTLY skeptical, despite the fact that we're so skeptical as a country that we've done nothing?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Yeah, pretty much nothing. We've funded an astonishing amount of research, but have been oddly reticent to actually act on any of the research we've paid for.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
You mean we haven't done things like make automobiles cleaner, factories cleaner, conserved millions of acres of natural landscape, preserved species from extinction, etc.?
The list goes on, Tom. Clearly we've done an enormous amount of environmental work.
Granted, though, there still remains an even more enormous amount of work to be done. I'm of the opinion that we aren't doing enough, myself. But we've hardly done nothing.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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posted
"You mean we haven't done things like make automobiles cleaner, factories cleaner, conserved millions of acres of natural landscape, preserved species from extinction, etc.?"
Ah. I didn't realize that you were saying we should be skeptical of every environmental issue out there, and thus considered any environmental progress to be progress on the specific issue of global warming.
I was saying that, in general, we are as a country very skeptical of global warming and have done little to nothing about it. Were you saying we should be more skeptical about all environmental science in general -- that, perhaps, we've been a bit too quick to make factories cleaner?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
Certainly not, Tom. I misunderstood you to be speaking about environmentalism and its issues entirely, not global warming in particular.
It just seems to me that global warming-while it might be happening, and it might be due to human causes, is a poorer reason for cleaning up the environment than human health, aesthetic, and human health.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
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quote:You mean we haven't done things like make automobiles cleaner, factories cleaner, conserved millions of acres of natural landscape, preserved species from extinction, etc.?
Not one of those items has done anything to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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posted
Dest, I think the fact that Card openly dismisses the quality of Michael Crichton's fiction means that he still feels the same way about messages in stories — they make for really bad stories, though the messages themselves might or might not still be worth hearing. To me, anyway, that seems to be his approach.
Posts: 1539 | Registered: Jul 2004
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