Wretchard has a couple of posts up here and here, about a case being made by a fellow named Hulme (resemblance to "Hume" is purely ironic), in support of the Global Warming thesis. It involves something called "post-normal science", a term that appears to be a bastardization (or perhaps an ambitious extension) of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Kuhn's notion, as you might recall, was that "normal science" is interrupted by paradigm shifts. However Kuhn did have the sense to claim that these shifts were the result of an inability of the conventional theory to deal convincingly with "anomalies". So, basically, we're still within the realm of searching for a truth that isn't simply a social construction (although Kuhn wasn't clear about this until some time after his book was published).
The argument of the "post-normalists" in the field of Global Warming, is therefore that we need to accept its reality even if we can't prove it. As Wretchard points out, this turns a scientific question into a political one. While I agree with that, I think that we're also now confronted with a political dilemma that isn't easily resolved, unless "the people" simply become much wiser than our class of political elites is currently willing to assume. The conventional political wisdom is that no one ever lost an election by underestimating the electorate. But you can judge for yourself how true, or how reassuring, that is.
From a scientific standpoint there is no need to appeal to something called "post normal science" in order to deal effectively with this kind of situation since both global warming and, ironically perhaps, the existence of a WMD program on the part of Iraq or Iran, are "Type II" situations, rather than the more typical "Type I" phenomenon. (In some disciplines they call these Alpha and Beta conditions or hypotheses, but the sense is the same.)
There's nothing abnormal, post-normal, or radical about adopting a Type II approach to an hypothesis test. It's simply dictated by the consequences of assuming the null, when it's actually false. If those consequences are totally unacceptable then you assume instead that the null is false (that WMD exist, or that global warming is real), set a confidence threshold, and then proceed to gather evidence that falsifies that assumption. If you can't pass the threshold then the hypothesis stands. (Technically you make global warming or WMD the null, instead of assuming they don't exist, but you get the idea.)
Another situation where such a process would be appropriate involves the presumption of guilt for a mass terrorist, a situation with which our court system has yet to come to grips. The presumption of innocence, in other words, is not appropriate if the consequence of a presumption of innocence is that thousands, or tens of thousands, of people die. In that sense the criminal justice system that evolved through the common law hasn't evolved to the point of an appropriate method. We're still struggling with it.
The only thing even remotely "non-normal" about Type II situations is that they're relatively scarce, so we're not familiar with them in everyday life. In addition, they're a political nightmare, because if you proceed to gather evidence that your assumption of guilt is false while most people are still making the assumption of innocence, you appear to be helping the defense by undermining your own case rather than proving it. Both our court system and our political systems are adversarial. I suspect this is why politicians, such as the Bush administration in the run up to the Iraq War and Al Gore's "inconvenient truth" are incapable of following a Type II methodology to the letter.
And that's the real dilemma: How to make following a Type II method politically and legally feasible. As a general rule what we tend to do instead is to mix the two approaches (Hans Blix), which ends up as the worst of all possible approaches, because it virtually guarantees that you can't optimize for desirable outcomes.
"Post-normal Science" is another term for "superstition", but understanding that doesn't necessarily resolve the dilemmas for us.
Update: I wasn't sure it still existed, but Rusty Shackleford has a pretty good discussion of Type I and Type II Errors. Some of the internal links to illustrations are broken because it's on his old blogspot archive. I've discussed this issue before in The Alpha and Beta of Threat.
It's like "Intelligent" Design for the environmental zealots.
And people say that radical environmentalism isn't a religion.
In order to assess whether a situation favors one or the other strategy, you have to isolate the problem in some sense, which runs the risk of sub-optimization. As we have seen with Iraq, any choice that seems necessary at the time to avoid a projected consequence can have further consequences that were not predicted by the original choice. You have to question how much you are still taking for granted in any assessment of the problem and its solution.
David:
I probably overstated the case, in the sense that there are probably situations where it might not make much difference which type of error we try to minimize, since there's some overlap in the solution space. However there are some conditions where it matters a great deal. As for the "law of unintended consequences" that's a rather different matter. There were lots of consequences predicted regarding our entry into Iraq, from both sides of the debate, but the fundamental nature of the problem still dictates that we try to minimize Type II rather than Type I errors, with respect to WMD and the spread of Islamofascism. Generally situations where the overlap allows us to minimize both at the same time aren't critical anyway, nor do we face the same kinds of political dilemmas.
I also didn't emphasize the fact that different groups will place the confidence threshold at a different place, but provided we're willing follow the method rigorously that's an acceptable political difference that the process can deal with.
I think that there is another political thought embedded in here that we ought to tease out, that "natural" weather is superior to weather influenced by man. You could have a JFK "go to the moon" moment by simply committing to figuring out what the optimum temperature (range, curve, what have you) is for the planet and developing the capability to create a planetary thermostat to adjust nature to that norm.
It wouldn't matter then that humans are creating heating via industry because we're blocking infrared from orbit sufficient to balance it out. And it wouldn't matter then when the earth enters its next glacial phase because we would have a lens and mirror system that would warm us up. You observe, you adjust, just like a thermostat does for your HVAC system in any modern building.
Try and propose such a system and watch the greens reverse their advocacy of science in a spluttering, luddite rage. I think that if we're sufficiently far off the optimum (which I predict is probably somewhat higher that we are at today) we would even make a net profit on the project as well as providing some measure of disaster insurance (we'd just launch extra lens/mirrors to counteract the cooling in case of certain sized comet strikes). As a project of civilizational prowess, it's worth doing.
Political events cannot be simulated in a Laboratory, unlike GW, according to the "scientists" that support it.
In that sense the criminal justice system that evolved through the common law hasn't evolved to the point of an appropriate method. We're still struggling with it.
Of course, and Democracy, a quite imperfect method of government (evidently, just see Bush as president) has to evolve into a new appropriate method, hasn't it? Maybe the dictatorship of the proletariate?
You know, a "truth" without evidence supporting it is a dogma, and their followers, believers of a religion. Period.
T.M. Lutas:
Great point! Do I know you?
J. Aguilar:
From what you said above I get the impression that I'm not being clear enough. Simply put, we don't have a criminal justice policy that covers mass terrorism, period. It's not a matter of perfecting the policy, it's a matter of inappropriately applying a policy intended for one-off (or even serial) murderers to someone with the capacity to kill a city. If you don't think that needs correction you're not paying attention.
Semicolon. :-^
As noted on Wretchard's blog, the whole point of post-normal science is watermelons. Green on the outside, Stalinist Red on the inside.
It's about exerting control through a new, unaccountable priesthood. Control over every aspect of people's lives.
Jim:
Well I sort of agree, although I don't think it's necessarily a conscious intent on the part of proponents of Global Warming. After all, I think there's come logic in the presumption that the phenomenon exists. What bothers me is that the proponents don't see things that way. They're not satisfied with accepting their story as the null. They insist they've proved it beyond a shadow of doubt... which is just not the case. Some of what's going on is just plain old garden variety confusion. Almost no one understands the distinction between Type I and Type II error, so if one makes the trip only halfway one ends up with something like the "post-normal science" paradigm.
Also, I think it's useful to recognize that there's something like a totalitarian impulse in humans that's related to the survival instinct. I've said before that although their courage is admirable, the stand of the Spartans under Leonidas at Thermopylae is evidence of Totalitarianism 1.0. We exhibit a kind of hive mentality sometimes. (I'm going to see "The 300" tomorrow, so will let you know if the movie short-schriffts this aspect of the story.)
But what I'm saying is that it's not so much a matter of conspiracies, as of becoming ensnared in a classic human pitfall. What we have is a genuine human dilemma, created by the human condition. The only way out it to slog through it with some coherent idea of method.
But I also want to observe that the totalitarian impulse has never won out over the the pull of liberalism (classical, I mean) for more than a relatively short period. As tragic as those situations are, they're not the real story.
As noted on Wretchard's blog, the whole point of post-normal science is watermelons. Green on the outside, Stalinist Red on the inside.
It's about exerting control through a new, unaccountable priesthood. Control over every aspect of people's lives.
Demos --
Leonidas at Thermopylae would not be IMHO an example of totalitarianism since the men (300 Spartans, 700 Thespians) were there of their own free will and the Thespians certainly were not under Leonidas's authority. That most of the Spartan army was elsewhere was illustrative IMHO. Xerxes on the other hand as God's regent on earth was quite a contrast.
The whole idea of post-normal science and "extended facts" is that Scientific proof is never going to be offered, instead ala Lysenko we must get in line. The money quotes are that the policy aims for "collective instead of individual action" and control over every aspect of people's lives.
I would not classify this as Fascism rather control by the new Priesthood. What we are seeing now IMHO is the inapplicability of the term fascism and how rare and fascism really was. In contrast to the age-old desire for priesthood to control people.
The idea that the men of Sparta did very much of "their own free will" is, well... fantasy. They were raised from infancy to behave a certain way... socialized into a mode of behavior that has most in common with the so-called "suicide/warrior cults" that have existed in just about every example of totalist society from the Stalinists, to the Nazis, to the Imperial Japanese of the 1940s. This is so obvious I'm not sure why I even need to state it "out loud".
Hannah Arendt made a cogent comparison between Totalitarianism and garden variety Tyranny. The two are often confused. The Persians under Xerxes were an example of a classic tyranny, but the lives of individuals under such a system often had considerable freedom, within limits dictated by the extent of control available to the tyrant. The men of Sparta were privileged, especially over the Helots, but they were by no means free men in our sense of the term. Their minds were "controlled" by as viscous a regimentation as has ever existed in any society, and even the masters in Sparta were less free than the average citizen of Persia. Arendt likened the difference between Tyranny and Totalitarianism to the difference between a desert, and a violent sandstorm in the desert (where you can't even perceive the person standing next to you). The genuine freedom available to the person in the latter situation is far less than the former.
Which doesn't mean I don't admire the Spartans or their example. Nor do I doubt that their commitment was critical to preserving the very idea of liberal society in the classical world. But let's call a spade a spade, OK?
More evidence of Arendt's inability to comprehend the past then.
When Xerxes collected the tribute of slave soldiers from Ionia, one of the Greek Subject kings there had the temerity to suggest some course of action as being advantageous. Xerxes had him summarily executed. Law and History and everything else was whatever Xerxes said it was. There was no restraint on the power of the regent of God on earth.
Meanwhile Leonidas couldn't simply order the entire Spartan Army to follow him. He didn't have the power. He was only a King not God's regent on earth. And his hoplites could under circumstances approach him and suggest courses of action to maximize effectiveness. Xerxes sat on a throne and watched the battle. Leonidas fought by the side of his men and depended on them to survive as long as he did.
Even the most extreme examples (Spartans, Cortez) were completely different than their non-Western enemies in the way they fought and operated mentally. I agree that the Spartans were not people I'd like to have dinner with, and most of their practices were appalling. But within their ancient context in the Classical world they hardly compare to say fascist empires of the modern world. Leonidas did not die with his entire army. Merely the few he could persuade (which wasn't that many) to come along with him. More Thespians (1,000 to start, 700 stayed) fought than Spartans. So much for total control.
Were either Spartans or Persians "free" in the modern sense? No. But Xerxes had no check but enemy Greeks on his actions. While Leonidas had many. Persians might have been free to live their lives while Xerxes or any other monarch had their gaze momentarily averted, but that system could not advance them in the way that the Greeks with more social control but limits on their monarchs did.
Why was it that Philip and later Alexander saw the critical military advantage of small numbers of professional, disciplined pikemen with screening cavalry and no Persian could see it and counter it?
And of course "extended facts" and post-normal science is more of the Western fascination with and admiration for Eastern absolute rule. Heck Plato would agree with extended facts, post-normal science, and the need for the absolute philosopher king which fuels the Left. Part of that I would argue is the desire to preserve society in amber, frozen forever, in the Eastern way. Instead of the rapid change that characterizes the west with it's seemingly strong social controls (historically) but weaker leadership.
"Their minds were "controlled" by as viscous a regimentation as has ever existed in any society"
Perhaps, but than again i've been told the same thing about my own life any number of times by jobless hippies in our own culture.
I kid, but seriously, people can, and do, make that argument in every society. Am i a slave because i was raised from birth with the assumption that i would work for a living drilled into me?
Demosophist (#6)
From what you said above I get the impression that I'm not being clear enough. Simply put, we don't have a criminal justice policy that covers mass terrorism, period. It's not a matter of perfecting the policy, it's a matter of inappropriately applying a policy intended for one-off (or even serial) murderers to someone with the capacity to kill a city. If you don't think that needs correction you're not paying attention.
And to someone capable of killing a country? Do we need a Reichstag Fire Decree , as Hitler did?
There is no more Justice that the one that consideres someone innocent until proven guilty, there is no more science that consideres an opinion not backed with facts, a theory. A "truth" without facts is a dogma and their followers, the believers of a religion. A response against someone without trial has always been called retaliation, which is one step below Justice. Our world is so imperfect that in foreign relations retaliatory responses are the costum and Justice the exception, but that does not mean that the evolution of civilization created the last to avoid the first, which usually triggers further conflicts.
Things are pretty clear if the meaning of words is not changed, as Doctor Goebbels, Hitler's propaganda minister, did.
Which officially Godwins the thread.
Jim:
Perhaps, but you've just defined a tyrant. As Arendt observed the relative freedom under a tyrant comes from the fact that he's the source of power, and he can't be everywhere at once. The power of totalitarianism comes from the fact that not only are people terrorized, but they're conditioned by a pervasive and completely demanding ideology so that even when they're "free" and nonminally out of reach of the tyrant they're still under control, and all men might well be "agents" of the regime... I think Arendt had this right.
J:
You're imputing a scale of response that I didn't imply. What I said was that a presumption of innocence wasn't appropriate in the prosecution of a mass terrorist. People are so unfamiliar with Type II situaions that they fail to recognize that it's possible to conduct a fair trial that starts with a presumption of guilt, as long as you don't dilute the method.
Where did I say there wouldn't be a trial? I'm not sure you understand what I'm saying. In the process we presume guilt and then set a threshold of proof of innocence. How is that like what you describe above? Doesn't the critical element lie in the rules of evidence, and the fairness of the jury, rather than the presumption of guilt? Of course, you could set the threshold impossibly high, but there's nothing in the method that necessitates that.
I agree with David. You're not actually engaging the issue, or even trying to comprehend it.
Doesn't the critical element lie in the rules of evidence, and the fairness of the jury, rather than the presumption of guilt?
Absolutely not. The critical element is that you are free because God has endowed you with such unalienable right and no one can change that unless they prove you have misused that right.
By definition, anyone's per se freedom cannot be legislated, and you want to change that, you want to make exemptions, to change that sacred rule, as did the Germans because they feared a Communist revolution.
Demosophist, I suffered 3/11 and I know what I am talking about. For instance, my comments have been deleted in a thread belonging to this website (see here ) probably applying some kind of "presumption of guiltiness", a presumption that did not hold a check with facts.
You don't have to go very far to see fascism hidding behind that rule, just some threads back. If the world is so imperfect, build a Guantanamo, as long as the Supreme Court allows it (but when they it is over, it is).
Now as a Catholic I am going to fullfil my religious obligations and let, freely, brewery companies earn some euros from my pocket.
Demosophist, I'll have to go reread "On Revolution", but I'm thinking that you're cutting the line between 'community' and 'tyranny' awfully fine. I have a had time seeing Sparta as a tyranny; it was a community that rigidly enforced community standards...
A.L.
J Aguilar -
I think the issue as to the reach of law is twofold; one goes to citizenship and one to circumstance.
I have no problem with US law treating nonresidents (where resident included illegal immigrants who have homes here) as enemy combatants - recall that German saboteurs who landed here in WWII were tried before a military tribunal and summarily executed. So for the total process of civilian law to apply, there has to be some element of citizenship (note that I thought Padilla should have been tried for treason).
Circumstance also matters. The legal process of arrest, collection of evidence, etc. relies on a stable civil society whoch just isn't present in wartime - even in an insurgency - and which is breaking down around the edges in US civil society (see the great Atlantic article on snitches ). So to expect a full and robust legal process, as we have come to expect it in the US, for combatants captured in iraq or Afghanistan is ludicrous.
Are they owed some process? Absolutely. But I think that the expectation of participation in our full legal system is one that is silly and damaging.
A.L.
J:
I understand the principle, but I have no idea how it's relevant to the presumption of guilt or innocence. The "right" is to a fair and impartial trial. The core issue is human error, and whether you attempt to minimize Type I (convicting an innocent person) or Type II (acquitting a guilty person). For most "normal crimes" the first strategy is more than adequate. But for the kinds of exceptional crimes we're discussing the first strategy is a recipe for civilizational suicide, in which case no one would get the benefit of a presumption of innocence.
Why do you not understand that?
A.L.:
On Revolution was about "councillary (Jeffersonian) governance". The book with which we're concerned here is On Totalitarianism. The reference to the "sandstorm in the desert" is toward the end of the book.
I don't think there's any doubt that the Spartan system qualifies as at least an early form of totalitarianism, and the ability to exert the control was occasioned by the absolute need to control the Helots. In order to facilitate that they not only socialized their youth to an extreme form of culture centered around virtue (making them, essentially equivalent to an ummah) but they instituted required death squads to kill "uppity" Helots in the middle of the night. This was not a benign culture. Indeed the Theban strategy for defeating the Spartans was simply to free the Helots, destroying the pillar of slavery upon which the entire culture rested.
(Plato called the Spartan form of governance a "timocracy" meaning that it was founded on a concept of "honor". This comports fairly well with Ernest Gellner's notion of an ummah, as a society centered on virtue rather than legal/rational principles.
I think I'm on pretty secure ground here.
Not that I don't admire the virtue of the Spartans, or the ability of the Athenians to take the best and leave the rest from their example. But again, the Spartans defeated the Athenians in the Peloponnesian War. It took the pragmatism of the Thebans to defeat the Spartans. The idealism of the Athenians didn't cut it.
Demo, I think you're making a critical mistake in looking at Hellenic societies, which is to apply the modern lens and looking across everyone in society, rather than just at the "citizens" as self-understood.
Clearly, if you look at the whole of Spartan or Athenian society, they were tyrannies in which a small group of the population ruled the larger group absolutely and arbitrarily - helots, by definition had no freedom and limited (if any) participation in civic life.
But within the class of citizens, a rich political life grew up, and it's appropriate to talk about political freedom - even, to some extent, in Sparta (although obviously less there than Athens at its peak).
Now I'm talking some 30 years after reading this stuff intensely, so time may have screwed with my recollection - and this does sound like a good excuse to go back and do some reading, doesn't it?
But that political life and the concepts thereof were the 'seed stock' for what we enjoy today...
A.L.
A.L.:
I don't actually disagree with any of that. My purpose may be significantly different from yours. I'm trying to understand the relationship between liberalism (as a historical development) and totalitarianism. The first time we see any direct rivalry between those two visions of a "community" (one based on abstract virtue and the other an a system of impartial rules) is in the rivalry between Athens and Sparta. I see that rivalry as archetypal, as does Victor Davis Hanson.
No, I don't think mere "tyranny" covers it. If a society is "virtue centered" it's theoretically possible that the virtues upon which they are centered are "right" or "correct". The issue involves the thought/behavior-control that they utilize to propagate those virtues.
Moreover, it's also entirely possible to value the virtues without valuing the means by which the virtues are propagated. There is a certain loss to societies that advance procedure over virtue, but they (by which I mean liberal societies) do so in order to optimize sovereignty in the long run.
I think it's somewhat amazing that the two primary rivals for the human collective heart, represented by Athens and Sparta, were allies for most of their history. Agreed that means things are not so simple. However I also think it's inevitable that they'd eventually become bitter opponents... and the legacy of that rivalry in a fully developed form defines the dramaturge of the Twentieth Century(and so-far the Twentyfirst). The rivalry encapsulates our dilemma.
I think it's better that we learn from it than deny it.
I'm going to see "The 300" with some friends tonight. They tend to be on your side, because they value citizenship (which is understandable given the current political conditions). But they also understand my position. Sparta is the first sign of real trouble with our conception of civilization. And there's a pretty hefty dose of the Spartan perspective in the American Identity. It has served us well, which doesn't mean we haven't an obligation to keep it under control.
Indeed. Which doesn't guarantee that the pillow is soft, does it?
Demo - I think you're parsing the problem incorrectly (and if tis is based on VDH, point me at the work so I can read it...it'll be interesting since we both studied with the same profs...he obviously did a little more with it...).
Tyranny as seen by the Greeks was exactly the rule of the tyrannos, of the single man in whom all laws were embodied, and who ruled a society where right was, literally, whatever he said it was. Hellenic politics, OTOH were almost always bound by custom and law (Alexander broke that model, and the Macedonians were considered quite backward by the other Hellenes), and Sparta would have stood as a model of a republic, in which politics were more complex - a mix of hereditary, geriatric, and democratic (two hereditary kings, a council of elders, and elected Ephors). As noted above, the Founders looked to Sparta as an example of an early Republic.
So I think you're misstating things a bit when you call Sparta a tyranny. And I'd love to get pointed to the VDH piece...
A.L.
Is this the "Post-Normal Science and Global Warming" thread
or
"300"
Just askin'.
This is all dealing with the wrong question.
Why is global warming politically hot?
Great Global Warming Swindle or as I prefer Climate Alchemy - Turning Hot Air Into Gold
It is just another tactic of socialism.
How did they get "scientists" on their side: bribery with Government funds.
It is a power gram disguised as environmentalism.
BTW at least 80% of GW can be accounted for by the sun.
Look at the movie linked in "Global Warming Swindle".
#26 M Simon
Power policy shift may be closer to the truth than power grab.
I have watched the movie, and read some of the refutation and discussion at RealClimate.org. You might be interested in a debate held on Mar-14 in NYC by I2-US with these notables:
Motion: Global warming is not a crisis
Speaking for the motion: Michael Crichton, Richard S. Lindzen, Philip Stott
Speaking against the motion: Brenda Ekwurzel, Gavin Schmidt, Richard C.J. Somerville
Moderator: Brian Lehrer
Transcript and some pictures available at
Event Link
Very notable from the event is the shift in the audience pool from before the debate to after.
General Audience Audience
Online Before After
Poll Debate Debate
For 54.8 30.0 46.2
Not 42.0 57.3 42.2
Und 3.3 12.8 11.6
A very significant shift of 16.2% to becoming favor of the motion. The audience was literally won over. This was no heavy science debate, but was illuminating for the underlying beliefs of the debaters and some of the political implications that were addressed.
As an aside - Gavin Schmidt is one of the better (more scientific, more patient with newbies, and usually more reasonable with contrarians) AGW proponents at realclimate.org and I must say I was disappointed in his performance at the debate. I felt he took a CSI analogy and muddled it by taking it too far and for too long and then murking it up more by mixing in a swipe at creationism. I don't generally agree with Gavin, but as a reasonable voice from AGW side, I wanted him to make his case well.
Far stronger in the debate was Philip Stott, whose summation I share here from the transcript:
Hmmm. Hemp underpants. May add a new dimension to the phrase "blowing smoke out of his a$$".
I think Stott nails it when he points out the 'boy who cries wolf' risk that politicians are taking by using climate change hysteria to mask energy policy changes. There will be a big adjustment to be made as we traverse through Peak Oil (which some believe is actually now) to a new energy economy of the future.
Demosophist (#20)
Why do you not understand that?
I understand that, but I cannot accept it because I've seen democracy failing, and the way it fails is firstly targeting individual rights.
we're discussing the first strategy is a recipe for civilizational suicide, in which case no one would get the benefit of a presumption of innocence.
I don't think so at all. In my opinion, it is far more dangerous and far more damaging to have half the politicians of the country claiming that the war in Iraq is lost than freeing a single terrorist. The Second World War was won despite Leon Degrelle fled to Spain, and other Nazis to Latin America. That is not the point. And if because our stupidity this civilization ends, the ideas enclosed in it will pervive, including the presumption of innocence as it has happened before.
A.L. (#19)
Are they owed some process? Absolutely. But I think that the expectation of participation in our full legal system is one that is silly and damaging.
I agree. For that reason I think Guantanamo was such a good idea.
#26 M Simon
I just finished reading your
Climate Alchemy
post at Classical Values and wanted to say that it is outstanding.
I have been reading Nir Shaviv and ClimateAudit for a while and you post did a fine job if introducing the Nir's GCR work and describing some of the problems of uncertainty the IPCC modelers face for a lay person.