What do they have in common?
When Dr. Christine Ford's accusation against now Justice Kavanaugh arrived with all the subtlety of the stricken Hindenburg, there was one thing that near as dammit to certain: the correlation between political proclivity and assault assessment.
Which is, or should be, beyond odd.
After all, in as much as they occupy entirely different realms, judicial philosophy and inclination towards coerced sex don't have any obvious correlation.
Yet when Dr. Ford's accusation came to light, the correlation between attitude towards constitutional originalism and Dr. Ford's credibility was nearly one. Progressives almost without exception found Dr. Ford credible; conservatives, incredible.
Same goes for Anthropogenic Global Warming. Conservative ≅ disdainful. Progressive ≅ dainful. Yet AGW, as an objective fact, just as Dr. Ford's accusation, is completely independent of judicial philosophy or political priors. These strong relationships shouldn't exist, yet there they are, nonetheless.
Welcome to motivated reasoning.
Clearly, a great many people simply do not think things through independently of their desire for a preferred outcome. Kavanaugh is to be resisted, therefore any impeachment of his character is true, and to heck with that bothersome evidence nonsense.
And just as clearly, should one have settled on individualistic free markets as the sine qua non of human flourishing, then AGW cannot, must not, be true.
Of course, as should be transparently obvious to even the most casual observer of reality, I am uniquely immune to motivated reasoning.
No matter that I agree with constitutional originalism, I am certain that Dr. Ford is a moral cretin.
And completely disregard the fact I am an individualist, AGW is nothing more than scientistic catechisms.
My reasoning is entirely unmotivated.
Now you know.
38 comments:
Skipper,
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Of course, as should be transparently obvious to even the most casual observer of reality, I am uniquely immune to motivated reasoning.
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I suppose this is sarcasm, right?
My trajectory of thought of socio-economic-political musings took an abrupt change when one day I woke up and realized that I'm mostly only interested in "motivated" or biased reasoning. In other words, I came to realize that I don't much care about reality and rational thought. Oh sure, when I'm doing engineering or bookkeeping or whatever, then I tend to stick to logic and try to observe reality as best I can. But outside that? Nope. Not only do I not care, I find I don't particularly like reality so I do my best to ignore it and live in my own fantasy. And I find I pretty much get away with living in my fantasy all of the time (that I'm not engineering, etc.).
As Hey Skipper points out with this post, it seems a whole lotta people also live in a fantasy world and have little choice but to use motivated reasoning that's consistent with their fantasy. I'm not gonna weigh in on which sides of these various topics (Kavanaugh, climate change, etc.) are the more fantastical sides except that it looks to me like an awful lot of arguments on both sides are based on motivated reasoning. I have my sides as well and I'm perfectly willing to admit they're totally based on motivated reasoning.
I do wonder about something though. When I spew forth fantastical bull based on motivated reasoning, while I do try to self deceive as best possible (so I'm not actually lying to anyone but myself), and I imagine I probably seem sincere to those observing my spewage, I tend to have at least a little bit of awareness of what I'm doing and realize that people would be gullible and perhaps even stupid to take what I say seriously. I wonder if everybody has at least some awareness that they're ignoring reality and using motivated reasoning or if many folks buy their own crap hook, line and sinker? In other words, Hey Skipper is being sarcastic when he says he's "uniquely immune" but how many people actually believe what they say and have no awareness that what they're saying has limited connection to reality?
[Clovis:] I suppose this is sarcasm, right?
In part. Actually, not at all. Irony.
Take the Kavanaugh kerfuffle first, as it is easiest. I must plead guilty to including some misdirection, posing a contradiction that doesn't really exist, because the premises are so utterly different.
Progressives almost without exception found Dr. Ford credible; conservatives, incredible.
Progressives found Dr. Ford credible for an entirely different reason than conservatives found her ... let me save that for a bit.
And that reason is ...? Dr. Ford belongs to a victim group that because it is uniquely oppressed, is also completely credible: #BelieveAllWomen. In other words, her apparent victim status trumps objective reality. She is believable because she is a woman, completely independent of objective reality. And that — hello misdirection — is actual motivated reasoning, because her intersectionality and objective reality are not inextricably bound.
As for conservatives, no doubt for many of them hated opposition to Kavanaugh so much that, well, what?
The supposition is that conservatives would have disbelieved Dr. Ford regardless. But we were never presented with that test, were we? Instead, what Dr. Ford presented was an accusation completely lacking any verifiable fact.
I'm not letting conservatives off the hook, entirely, because for many I suspect anything other than 1040p video would have been insufficient proof.
But even for them, the most difficult to convince, there is at least a glimmering of a limiting principle. In contrast with progressives — from certain groups, all accusations are in and of themselves proof.
With regard to Justice Kavanaugh, my reasoning looked for a limiting principle: what applies regardless of how I may view the competing parties? If my conclusion would change because the charge was against a Pres. Clinton nomination, then I must view the process to reaching that conclusion as being nothing more than a conclusion absent process.
So here is the limiting principle: accusations absent evidence must always be discarded, because there is no way to distinguish reality from show trial. Dr. Ford is a moral cretin because — granting her the truth of her accusation — she waited until it could no longer be challenged.
Which is how you can decide whether your reasoning is objective, or motivated — if it would apply equally as well to an outcome you would not prefer.
Bret,
Though I get your point, I fear you went to a worst place than the one inhabited by those far too sure of their views.
One thing is to realize ultimate truth may not be achieved, the other is to give up on ever trying.
Difficult as it is, more often than not we get successively closer to it, even if it takes millennia to do so. It is the overarching history of mankind.
Skipper,
I guess my view is more cynical than yours.
Most people who took Ford's word for granted, did so not because she is a woman, but because it caused damage to the enemy. I mean, deep in their heart they all know they are only waging their favorite war, and the reason they won't confess so is, well, it would take away half of the meaning they attribute to their lives.
It applies equally well to all sides of every debate you mentioned.
Clovis wrote: "...more often than not we get successively closer to [ultimate truth]..."
I have a few comments on that.
1. As I noted, when doing engineering, etc., I do generally attempt to understand and take reality into account. For example, I haven't tried to design a robot that depends on antigravity or string theory or anything like that.
2. I have no problem that you have a subjective preference to striving for more knowledge that may bring us closer to ultimate truth. After all, that's kinda sorta your chosen field. But is there any objective advantage to the average human for getting closer to ultimate truth from here? And since we don't know what ultimate truth is at this point, how do you know that there is an objective advantage? For example, a potential aspect of ultimate truth is that we're random pieces of meat created by evolutionary struggles of genetic and memetic components and that our lives are objectively meaningless. Given those sorts of ultimate truths, is it really better to know such things, or are they better to not know or at least ignore and live with the fantasy that our lives do have meaning (for whatever fantastical reason you make up)?
3. I believe that reality is so complicated and there is so much knowledge that humans have either hit a wall or will soon hit a wall that will make it impossible to ever get significantly closer to ultimate truth. I believe that ultimate truth itself is likely quantum-like or statistical or whatever such that truth is always moving and changing basically as each cell in each individual on this planet changes and as the configuration of the universe and certainly the biosphere evolves. Not necessarily laws of physics (but maybe that too!), but definitely what it means to be alive and part of the world. I turn 60 in two weeks and I'm absolutely certain that what was ultimate truth 50 years ago is much, much different than ultimate truth today. Anyway, for me, truth is moving far faster than I can personally track it and any attempt to do so is just as likely to move me away from truth as towards it. I believe that's true for just about everybody (you may or may not be an exception).
Bret,
Would you ellaborate why your point 1 does not deny your points 2 and 3?
IOW, why would you "attempt to understand and take reality into account" in your job, but gave up on it for everything else?
Reality has always been what it is, i.e. "so complicated", and yet we have thus far tried to deal with it. Now we have "so much knowledge" we ought to abandon the effort?
Questions like the ones posed by Skipper here -- Dr. Ford's accusations, or Global Warming -- aren't so metaphysical we ought to deny the pursuit of truth and settle down to our 'motivated reasonings'. And that's true for most of the trivial content of politics and daily life. Nor they qualify to such existential angst in order to promote it to the levels of deep questions like the one you made:
"Given those sorts of ultimate truths, is it really better to know such things, or are they better to not know or at least ignore and live with the fantasy that our lives do have meaning (for whatever fantastical reason you make up)?"
None of what you mentioned in order to arrive to this point are indeed proved as 'ultimate truth'. They are one possible fantastical answer -- in a world where cause and effect rules everything, to conclude the ultimate 'cause and effect' relationship is nonexistent is indeed quite a step -- and as likely as many other fantastical answers mankind thought of so far.
I have little to offer as advice on how to deal with the frustration in the face of the great unknowns. Yet, I tell you this: you betray yourself by settling as a fatalist, a determinist whose fate is already decided by the universe. If you are to take seriously your doubts, your lack of knowledge and answers, you ought to make true room for the possibilities beyond your present reach. A gleam of hope also must be part of your recognition that ultimate truth is beyond reason so far.
[Clovis:] Most people who took Ford's word for granted, did so not because she is a woman, but because it caused damage to the enemy. I mean, deep in their heart they all know they are only waging their favorite war, and the reason they won't confess so is, well, it would take away half of the meaning they attribute to their lives.
It applies equally well to all sides of every debate you mentioned.
Some people I know reasonably well sincerely took the position that Dr. Ford's accusation was completely true. From the various discussions, I came away convinced that motivated reasoning — which is really to say "motivated conclusion in the absence of reasoning" — explains a great deal.
And, as you say, all sides of every debate are equally prone.
So the real question is to look for means to reduce the scope of motivated reasoning by looking for general principles beyond the kerfuffle at hand, that are viewpoint independent.
My position from the outset of the Kavanaugh horror show was exactly that: viewpoint independent.
So, in that regard, I claim that I was immune to motivated reasoning.
AGW aligns just as surely with political proclivity. So, how can I be sure that my skeptical attitude towards AGW isn't merely a motivated conclusion absent reasoning? Unlike Bret, if reality turns around and bites, I'd sure like to have something better than successful self deception to fall back on.
Back to Kavanaugh for a second. Assume that verifiable evidence came out tomorrow that demonstrated he had lied about his relationship with Ford. I'm still in the clear — my conclusion was that, under the circumstances, a conclusion was impossible. Similarly, I never accused Ford of committing perjury, either, because that conclusion was also impossible. Accusations without evidence, either way, are nothing more than denunciations.
With AGW, is a conclusion impossible? After all, there is evidence to be had.
1. Climate change projections show the climate change that is now apparently occurring mean that the Southeastern and Midwestern sections of the United States will be subject to frequent episodes of very high temperatures and drought in the next decade and beyond.
2. If the current pace of the buildup of these gases continues, the effect is likely to be a warming of 3 to 9 degrees Fahrenheit from the year 2050-2075, according to these projections. This rise in temperature is not expected to be uniform around the globe but to be greater in the higher latitudes, reaching as much as 20 degrees, and lower at the Equator.
3. Sea levels will rise by one to four feet by 2050.
4. At the same time, inland heat will cause inland waters to evaporate more rapidly, thus lowering the level of bodies of water such as the Great Lakes.
5. NASA climate scientists affirm that global warming has reached a level such that we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming.
Do you agree with those predictions?
[Bret:] Anyway, for me, truth is moving far faster than I can personally track it and any attempt to do so is just as likely to move me away from truth as towards it.
Then civilization should be a random walk.
It isn't.
Hey Skipper wrote "It isn't."
Umm. I think civilization depends more on whether or not "I can personally track [truth]..."
For a moment, let's assume civilization hasn't been a "random walk" in the past (though I'm not even totally convinced of that). That doesn't mean that it won't be pretty random going forward (past results are not indicative of future returns and all that). While I don't know whether or not it's so, my guess is that both biological evolution towards complexity and the evolution of human civilization towards complexity have now hit their maximum average complexity. Oh sure, technology will probably continue to advance. But human interactions have maxed out complexity-wise, in my opinion, and are more likely to go backwards than forwards.
Perhaps one day a more complex species will come to dominate the planet and that species might be able to handle a higher degree of average civilizational complexity, but if it happens, it won't be anytime soon for obvious reasons. In the meantime, I'm guessing will see continuing reversion to tribalism leading to violent conflicts, genocide, politicide and civilizational collapse such that this period (from the fall of the berlin wall to some time in the not terribly distant future) will be viewed as the pinnacle of human civilization for the next many thousand years.
Clovis asks: "...why would you "attempt to understand and take reality into account" in your job, but gave up on it for everything else?"
Because not taking reality into account in my job leads to failure and I don't like failure. Ignoring reality in most other parts of my life seems to have no downside and pursuing objective truth makes me less happy and so I'm motivated not to do it. In other words, I pick and choose where it's beneficial to me to take reality into account and where it's beneficial to me to ignore it.
I don't really see how what I do is much different than a scientist who's also religious, for example.
Clovis wrote: "A gleam of hope..."
That's the thing, I find I feel far more hopeful when I ignore reality most of the time.
Bret,
Apparently, you include in the realm of objective reality things you actually don't know. There is a subtle difference between acknowledging ignorance and ignoring reality.
Skipper,
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Do you agree with those predictions?
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Your point 5, unlike the previous ones, is not a prediction. The affirmation that earth is getting warmer due to greenhouse gas emission by humans may well be right, even if those predictions miss their targets.
The paradox to be explained is the contrary one: how come massive release of greenhouse gases would not change climate?
[Clovis:] Your point 5, unlike the previous ones, is not a prediction.
You are, of course, right. It did feel a bit awkward putting it there. It is rather an assertion: climate scientists understand the roll of CO2 well enough to give very firm predictions of magnitude and time.
An assertion with which I presume you agree.
The paradox to be explained is the contrary one: how come massive release of greenhouse gases would not change climate?
Leave aside for the moment what constitutes "massive"; after all, I don't think it has been so massive as to change standard day sea level pressure at all.
And it isn't so much the paradox that needs explaining; rather, what will need explaining, say, by around 2050, whether the roll of CO2 in the climate as scientists have it will explain the climate in 2050 better than the null hypothesis: CO2, within forecast concentrations, will have either little, or no, impact on climate.
If we fast forward to 2050, I presume you believe the climate we will find will be much as climate scientists insist will be true.
But what if it turns out otherwise; what if it is little changed from today? What would your conclusion be if the null hypothesis explained that climate better than AGW does?
Why wait?
The predictions and assertion I listed are virtually direct quotations from Global Warming has Begun, Expert Tells Senate. It was written in 1988.
Of course, I changed dates and tense to make it appear as if it was a climate assessment that will likely get restated thousands of times a day, a third of them in the very same NYT.
Comparing what Dr. Hansen insisted should be true by now, or in the very near future, the odds of any of those predictions coming to fruition are on the low side of zero.
Which means the null hypothesis, the thing get people labeled deniers, comes far closer to actual reality than climate scientist's predictions.
Trying to leave the realm of motivated reasoning behind, what should I conclude from that? What should AGW adherents conclude?
[Bret:] Ignoring reality in most other parts of my life seems to have no downside and pursuing objective truth makes me less happy and so I'm motivated not to do it. In other words, I pick and choose where it's beneficial to me to take reality into account and where it's beneficial to me to ignore it.
What that amounts to is a justification for "rational ignorance".
Skipper,
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If we fast forward to 2050, I presume you believe the climate we will find will be much as climate scientists insist will be true.
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You presume wrongly. I won't abide by projections I did no calculate myself, and which have been delivering poor concordance with data for the last decade.
The numerical models, that's clear, have been overhyped. It is only surprising to those not paying attention to Science for the last 30 years. Almost every area of Science I look at, works by hyping up its results - so they get published, they get attention, they get their household names stellar academic careers.
But now, if you care for reality - physical reality in this case, not much metaphysics involved - the physical principles behind such models aren't so much complicated, the real difficulty is of scale and non-linear interactions among many layers of the system, rendering its modelling a true challange. Yet, the basic principle behind it all is simple thermodynamics, whose naive application leads you to naturally question: why the system would not heat?
Climate science is not a separate theory requiring separate validation of its principles, in order to be compared to naive a null hypothesis. It is based upon a tried and true science, and macroscopic thermodynamics is validated beyond doubt.
All that is to say, either you explain where the energy and heat flux is going to, or you don't. The numerical models were ignoring, among other things, the capacity of the seas to absorb and store part of this heat. How long can it go? What is the mechanism?
There are thousands of valid questions to be made, until they update and upgrade numerical models, and at some point truth will come. Independent of political bias, and even independent of the traps of the academic production machine. Just wait and see.
[Bret:] For a moment, let's assume civilization hasn't been a "random walk" in the past ...
I don't think there is anything random about the Enlightenment, nor that it should come as any surprise that Enlightenment derived societies differ markedly from the rest.
But human interactions have maxed out complexity-wise, in my opinion, and are more likely to go backwards than forwards.
Of course, that's an open question. But what if they have maxed out in terms of complexity? That certainly isn't the case everywhere; probably ⅔ of the planet has some serious catching up to do.
And what if they have maxed-out?
After all, it is likely that human interactions are no more complex now then they ever have been, just spatially different.
… the physical principles behind such models aren't so much complicated, the real difficulty is of scale and non-linear interactions among many layers of the system, rendering its modeling a true challenge.
A fact to which modelers don't draw any particular attention.
Up until not too long ago, aerodynamic models — based upon well known and established physical principles — proved bumblebees can't fly.
Of course, that is nonsense. Yet it stood as an established modeled fact for, I dunno, at least twenty years.
The problem was that models relied upon laminar air flow, because all the models knew that you can't get lift out of turbulent airflow.
Except that bumblebees can.
In this case, no one was doubting the models were completely wrong, because there was no motivated thinking involved.
Yet, the basic principle behind it all is simple thermodynamics, whose naive application leads you to naturally question: why the system would not heat?
How do bumblebees fly if models say they can't?
It seems clear that the atmospheric part of the climate system is not heating at anywhere near the predicted rate.
One way to explain that discrepancy is to rely on the ocean to do the heavy lifting; after all, it is entirely possible that is true.
However, another way to explain the discrepancy is that there are unknown mechanisms that greatly reduce CO2 feedback
Climate science is not a separate theory requiring separate validation of its principles, in order to be compared to naive a null hypothesis. It is based upon a tried and true science, and macroscopic thermodynamics is validated beyond doubt.
You are comparing two things that aren't even remotely the same. Climate Science is indeed a distinct discipline which consists of a bound set of observations and theories.
That climate is singularly dependent upon CO2 is one of many CS theories. For that theory to have any explanatory value whatsoever, it needs to explain reality better than its null. It does not, not even close. Moreover, considering how badly it has performed with respect to its null, wouldn't it be better to term AGW as hypothesis, instead of a theory?
Yes, macroscopic thermodynamics is validated beyond doubt. Yet without exception, so far as I have been able to determine, every AGW prediction that should have become true by now, or in the near future, has completely failed. This rather suggests that there is more going on in the climate than macroscopic thermodynamics can explain.
The numerical models, that's clear, have been overhyped. It is only surprising to those not paying attention to Science for the last 30 years.
And this is where we get back to motivated reasoning.
The numerical models have, so far, failed. Yet despite this failure, people who claim they are paying attention to The Science™, keep touting the results of these numeric models. It took only a few words to change the NYT article from 1988 to be essentially identical to something they published at least 75 times in 2018, and continue that rate unabated. And they do so without any regard for how badly their ascertainable predictions have done.
This is motivated thinking, and it is widely replicated amongst most of the MSM not just here in the US, but worldwide.
And I think it affects most Climate Scientists, too. After all, if the entering argument is that increases in CO2 must drive substantial warming, then the problem doesn't lie with the theory, but rather the observations, and the timelines.
Every time the NYT prints climate catastrophism, it is engaged in portraying as fact that for which there is little or no evidence.
Just like Kavanaugh, the Covington high school kids, and now that actor, Jussie Smollett, who faked a hate crime.
Clearly, motivated reasoning exists, and it can have real, and very negative, consequences.
Why does it seem so much more prominent among progressives?
Or is that just my motivated reasoning at work?
Good discussion, but I'm struggling with this sharp delineation between "ultimate truth" and what you gents are calling motivational reasoning. I know you are all sensitive to the perils of scientism, but to the extent that by motivational reasoning you mean flawed or biased analyses that ignore objective evidence and the rules of scientific inquiry in favour of some less reliable experiential, mystical or instinctive criteria, that seems to me to be question-begging about scientific authority and how non-scientists should judge it.
I consider myself to be a climate change skeptic, but it has little to do with critiquing what climate science orthodoxy tells me almost weekly. How could it, I'm not qualified and wouldn't know where to start? I know there are articulate dissenting voices like Skipper's who jump into the analyses and try to challenge climate scientists on their own terms, but if I were honest, I would have to say I'm no more capable of judging what they say no matter how impressive and comforting I find it. The source of my skepticism is not that climate scientists have got their sums wrong, it's that after thirty years of listening to alarmed climate scientists who seem to become more alarmed with each passing day (they must be exhausted), I don't detect any significant change in the climate where I live and it seems to overwhelming majority of the world's population feels the same. None of the apocalyptic predictions have come to pass despite repeated warnings we are on the cusp of them. Almost weekly I am told of alarming temperature variations in remote and inaccessible places, but nothing seems to have changed in my garden. Year after year, the four seasons come and go with familiar variations, the same vegetation grows in pretty much the same quantities, the wind bloweth where it listeth, etc, etc. Plus if AGW is accurate, it makes no sense to me that all the effects would be negative. If it's happening, it's clearly happening over time and the effects will be different in different regions and they won't all be catastrophic. So why are we Canadians not seeing bumper crops?
Science, or the scientific orthodoxy, doesn't have a particularly impressive record at predicting the future, particularly in the age of dystopia that has infected it since the late sixties. The neo-Malthusians continue to be dead wrong about almost everything and continue to make good livings in the academy. Nothing the Club of Rome predicted panned out. Remember peak oil? Hey, those were the days, weren't they?
So, is this "motivational reasoning" and if it is, is it less authoritative that what the science is telling me in ever-shriller voices? Is it unreasonable in the formal sense? When they pat me on the head or condemn me as a science-denier, should I defer humbly? Am I on a par with the fundamentalist who thinks it's all explained in Genesis?
Bret: You should read your Scripture more:
I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.
And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.
For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
Ecclesiastes 1: 16-18
Peter wrote: "...but to the extent that by motivational reasoning you mean flawed or biased analyses that ignore objective evidence and the rules of scientific inquiry in favour of some less reliable experiential, mystical or instinctive criteria, that seems to me to be question-begging about scientific authority and how non-scientists should judge it."
Hmmm. Interesting.
I just spent the last half-hour staring out the window and trying to think of one of my fantastical narratives that not only ignores "objective evidence and the rules of scientific inquiry" but also ignores "experiential, mystical or instinctive criteria" and much to my surprise I couldn't do it. Maybe it's not even possible to ignore experiential and other non-scientific criteria in constructing narratives. After all, even a schizophrenic generally only makes stuff up based on experiential, mystical and instinctive criteria. However, the schizophrenic is still insane.
Peter wrote: "You should read your Scripture more..."
I don't have a scripture (nor Scripture) but I'm always happy to borrow bits of wisdom from others.
[Peter:] ... I'm struggling with this sharp delineation between "ultimate truth" and what you gents are calling motivational reasoning. I know you are all sensitive to the perils of scientism, but to the extent that by motivational reasoning you mean flawed or biased analyses that ignore objective evidence and the rules of scientific inquiry in favour of some less reliable experiential, mystical or instinctive criteria, that seems to me to be question-begging about scientific authority and how non-scientists should judge it.
My take on motivated reasoning covers much more territory than ultimate truth or scientific authority.
It is something to which we are all prone, and for that reason should be, but rarely are, on guard against.
In the post, I said, tongue only halfway in cheek, that my reasoning is entirely unmotivated. Of course I'd say that, just as everyone would. On what bases can I make that claim?
First off, by employing actual reasoning, as opposed to the motivated kind. Allegations absent evidence, no matter against whom they are directed, are always to be ignored, because the alternative is awful.
Why? Because there is no limiting principle. In contrast, requiring corroborating evidence limits the reach of allegations. Dr. Ford is therefore, regardless of how objectively true her allegations are, a moral cretin. And everyone who finds her either credible or incredible is also wading in cretinism: in all instances of this type, agnosticism is the only reasoned response.
Dr. Ford, Covington, Smollett: these are all binary and simple. Our civic culture would have been far better served in every case had journalists — those who are supposed to be uniquely skilled and trained in avoiding motivated reasoning — had simply provided the facts that were known, while firmly withholding judgment. Yet in every case (and many others I haven't listed), they completely failed to do so.
I consider myself to be a climate change skeptic, but it has little to do with critiquing what climate science orthodoxy tells me almost weekly. How could it, I'm not qualified and wouldn't know where to start?
The bit before the comma is a sure sign of motivated reasoning. Heck, that describes me to a skeptical T.
This highlights the matter of "priors". By that I mean inborn, and resistant to change, entering attitudes. If one of my priors is to value, say, individual autonomy over communitarian norms, then I will, by definition, be more willing to tolerate downsides of that prior than someone whose prior includes valuing collective action.
Collectivists value equality over freedom, because they are less willing to tolerate the consequences of inequality. That is a prior value that is relatively immune to contradictory facts because those facts don't matter as much as their alternatives. Vice versa for individualists.
This is what makes AGW such an enduring issue. IF greenhouse gasses exert a singular, and deleterious, effect on the climate, then collective action — to the point of global governance — is the only answer. There are no degrees of tolerating alternatives.
Thirty years ago, I was a skeptic because I didn't want to believe the alternative was true.
But with several decades of apocalyptic predictions come and disappeared, and their successors further into the future, and more qualified, why is, for instance, the NYT flogging the hell out of AGW?
Motivated reasoning, of course.
Which I can get from a pawn-shop ranter for free, anytime I want.
But doesn't the NYT have a professional obligation to not be that ranter?
[Peter:] Bret: You should read your Scripture more:
Unfortunately, forced retirement is looming.
I should take your advice to heart; Lord knows I'll have the time for it.
[Bret:] After all, even a schizophrenic generally only makes stuff up based on experiential, mystical and instinctive criteria. However, the schizophrenic is still insane.
I had a step-brother who was schizophrenic. Near as I can tell, he wasn't making stuff up on any of that criteria.
Rather, he lived his dreams while awake.
Insane doesn't begin to say it.
Hey Skipper wrote: "..he lived his dreams while awake."
Aren't dreams and fantasy experiential? We experience them, don't we?
Interesting question.
My mother was in her 90's when she started to become agitated and disoriented. Then one day, she started to talk to people who weren't there. In her mind, she was on a cruise with relatives and friends she had when she was young.
I had never seen her so happy. This lasted a few months before she fell and had to be taken to a nursing faciliy where she died a short time later peacefully with a smile on her face.
What is reality? I still think our universe is a computer game played by adolescent school boys in some other dimension.
[Bret:] Aren't dreams and fantasy experiential? We experience them, don't we?
Not according to my dictionary: experiential: involving or based on experience and observation
experience: practical contact with and observation of facts or events
Hey Skipper,
That's interesting. Our dictionaries have completely different definitions for experience. Here's the definition from dictionary.com:
noun
1. a particular instance of personally encountering or undergoing something.
2. the process or fact of personally observing, encountering, or undergoing something
3. the observing, encountering, or undergoing of things generally as they occur in the course of time.
4. knowledge or practical wisdom gained from what one has observed, encountered, or undergone.
It seems to me dreaming and/or hallucinating fits well with 1, 2, and 3 (dreaming is "undergoing something" and we "encounter" dreams "as they occur in the course of time." It isn't until (4) that "practical" is even introduced.
It seems to me dreaming and/or hallucinating fits well with 1, 2, and 3 ...
I disagree.
In order for the term "experience" to have a useful meaning, it must be of something that others can also experience.
You and I can both experience the same sunset. We can't experience the same hallucination.
Well, we simply experience the word "experience" differently then. :-)
Skipper: So, experiencing my wife as the most lovable woman in the world is not really an experience unless shared by others (which I wouldn't be too keen on)? My dreams aren't experiences because no one can share them? The sheer terror and despair I might feel at my child's diagnosis of a fatal disease isn't an experience? You're writing your own dictionary again.
[Peter:] Skipper: So, experiencing my wife as the most lovable woman in the world is not really an experience unless shared by others ...
No: In order for the term "experience" to have a useful meaning, it must be of something that others can also experience.
If I was to meet your wife, I could experience her objective reality, and no doubt very quickly come to understand, through experience, that she is, indeed, a very lovable woman.
My dreams aren't experiences because no one can share them?
If they are, then there is no need for the words "fantasy", "delusion", or "dream", for that matter.
We often learn through experience, right? Nobody has learned a damn thing through a fantasy, delusion, or dream.
The sheer terror and despair I might feel at my child's diagnosis of a fatal disease isn't an experience?
Of course it is — I could be in the same room, or, heck, just read about it, and feel some of the terror and despair when faced with the objective reality of such a diagnosis.
But if you told me you dreamt about a diagnosis that didn't exist in reality — a diagnosis your child wouldn't experience — not so much.
I have had my life enriched by following a link to your blog. I wish schools of today would instill a tenth of the reasoning on exhibit here. And I have only read a couple threads.
Thanks gentlemen.
Mr. James,
You are welcomed. Though if you stay time enough, you'll come to regret those compliments :-)
Clovis, where's your southern (hemisphere) hospitality?
Don't be fooled Erp, we are all feral animals down here. Why would you want The Wall otherwise?
We don't need a wall and I don't want a wall, I want the border patrolled and invaders turned back and if crimes are committed, jailed and then sent back. We drove a good bit of the border and spent a month driving around Mexico.
On the way back, we entered through Brownsville. The drive north was through the face-of-the-moon landscape, across the bridge, the exact same landscape looked the garden of Eden with Harvester irrigation machines plying the fields, towns with people driving around and eating at McDonald's. Typical U.S. scene.
Stop all tax payer foreign aid, except for natural disasters and that must be managed by the military -- not dropped off at the dock for the unions to leave rotting ala Puerto Rico or handed over to dictators to use against their people ala Haiti and so many others.
If private charities want to conspire with foreign governments in the name of disaster relief, it's none of my business, but if the recipients of that "aid" claim to be refugees and want to come here illegally, it is my business and I want it stopped.
Any other questions?
Well then, Mrs. Erp, it looks like to me you do need that Wall.
A couple of days ago my own President, while visiting you guys, said so. He told Fox News the vast majority of immigrants have no good intention towards the US. Being the President of a country that often sends thousands of illegals per year to yours, he must know what he is talking about.
I, for one, had always this almost unbearable urge to rape and murder, not to mention cheating the welfare system for food coupons, every time I touched US ground. I can't explain it, but were I not a God fearing person (thanks to all those rapist Jesuit catholic priests, per what I've been told), only Jesus knows what I could have done to America.
But fear not, Erp, that Wall is coming!
A couple corrections:
I never said Jesuits were advocating rape, only that they advocate submission to the church for their reward in heaven thereby negating any reason to make life here on earth any better.
Until lefties realized they could stay in power by allowing non-citizens to vote, there was no need to encourage invasions to our shores, nor a reason to do so. Ditto encouraging racial and ethnic divisions.
If I were a betting woman, I'd bet no wall, but no illegals either.
I probably won't be around to gloat when life gets much better "all over the world," but I want full credit anyway. A nice contribution to the Donald Trump Library in my name would do it.
:-)
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