Fallacies Rampant In The Climate Debate
Opinions are like assholes: everybody has one. It doesn't seem to matter how "expert" you are or how much you "respect the Science"; you will likely wallow in fallacy in any discussion. The Climate Issue is just a special case. The fact is, humans (even expert scientists) seldom think clearly or dispute fairly. To stand out, they need to be salesmen.
Confident that their field and expertise must be relevant to the debate, geologists are blind to evidence that it isn't. That's the main theory they seek to confirm. The second is looking for evidence within their "wheelhouse" to say something relevant. Magically, such evidence tends to bolster the economic interests of the industry that hires most of them, the fossil fuel industry.
Another fallacy to point out here is the assumption that the past tells us what the future will hold. This fallacy is popular with financial advisors and economists that always have an "explanation" of the past but systematically fail to predict the future.
The problem with all this is that the current situation is genuinely new. C02 levels are at the highest level in a million years. The concern is that this "must" affect the climate, especially surface temperatures that "must" have knock-on effects of all sorts. This bundle of ideas is another theory in search of confirmation, especially by the IPCC, which was expressly set up to confirm the theory. Magically, evidence is found if you interpret the evidence in a certain way.
We all love computers these days. Surely, computers can tell us the effect of all this C02. It turns out that they are not "fit for purpose." Computer models of climate have not, so far, produced convincing results. There are good reasons to suspect they will not do so for quite a while. There are good arguments that perhaps the task is impossible.
Yet, computer models are employed as if they are helpful. Those who are looking for useful insights coming out of the model magically see it. Interestingly the insights confirm what they think ought to be happening. I remember a debate with a friend over horoscopes. It was hard for her to grasp that the "stars" had nothing to do with human affairs. Daily horoscopes fed her an endless helping of confirmation bias. The spell was broken when she discovered that every horoscope seemed "kinda true," whatever she assumed about her birth date.
Very few participants in this debate are willing to consider the idea that computer models are useless, but those who do find more than enough evidence to prove their point. Experts on the subject who sell books that cast doubt on computer models find adequate evidence to support their view.
This is all "motivated reasoning," especially "reasoning" to persuade. The more people publicly adopt any position, claiming a special insight that others don't share, the more they stake their reputation in that position. That switches people into self-defense mode, attacking those who disagree (or merely ask questions or claim not to know). In that mode, nobody is thinking clearly. Confirmation bias is just one of the truckload of fallacies that are brought to bear once self-defense takes the place of reason.
The fallacy of Composition / Decomposition
Both sides use this. A big package of "evidence" is presented, such as Gore's famous movie and book or Wrightsone's "Inconvenient Facts." The fallacy is then employed like this:- I prove one or two of your bits of evidence wrong, so the whole argument must be wrong;
- One or two of my arguments is right; therefore, the whole argument is right.
The Genetic Fallacy
Bad Math
- Failure to understand exponential growth;
- Assuming that the "uphill" part of a resource-linked curve (such as C02 emissions) is exponential;
- Failure to recognize that the "uphill" part of a curve is logarithmic, not exponential. This is true of C02 climate "forcing," for example;
- "Coupling" failures, for example, not linking population models to resource availability curves, resulting in the illusion that per-capita resource use can follow population rather than availability of resources.
- Failure to link any external model to the phenomenon of inflation. Rising prices are treated as an "independent variable" that can be dialed back by the right fiscal or monetary policy. Price signals coming from resource depletion or stresses on the "supply chain" are ignored.
Would You Buy A Used Car From a Politician?
Fallacy is the heart and soul of political rhetoric. It is tiresome to point out each one as if any other type of rhetoric would be possible in political debate. Yet I will attempt to point out a few especially rancid examples below. I have already commented on the flights of fancy coming from the IPCC. In this post, I want to zero in on how a few well-known politicians use fallacy to rouse the crowd in favour of their agenda.
Being Wrong
Everyone would be well served if people started asking why they are so damned sure of everything while many otherwise reasonable people disagree. Personally, I find myself to be wrong quite frequently. It turns out that people who disagree with me are not the only ones who are wrong but are absolutely sure they are right.
This is the classic book on the subject, which anyone who has ever been right or wrong needs to read.
(More later)
Comments
Post a Comment