Sunday, October 11, 2015

Fantasyland


Ethon reports that one Oliver Geden has taken up the cudgels dropped by Roger Pielke Jr.  Geden, at root, does not believe that knowledge has any role in forming policy.  He tweeted so himself

Eli, is not very happy with this.  A moments thought brought to mind the pithy differentiation between weather and climate to mind, that weather is an initial value problem, and climate a boundary value problem.  IEHO, knowledge should set the boundaries for policy
But, as Ethon saw in the past with Roger Jr., the chain link fence of science is a dangerous thing for someone trying to influence policy.  Fantasy is much more convenient.

4 comments:

Fernando Leanme said...

You have too much focus on science, and neglect other fields. I've given up hope on governments developing rational policies. They lack sufficient skills in areas such as system dynamics.

By the way, yesterday the Castro family dictatorship arrested the UNPACU leader, but a tweeter storm seems to have influenced regime behavior. I sent a message to Bill and Hillary Clinton congratulating them on their 40th wedding anniversary, and asking them to help us make noise about the wave of arrests taking place in Cuba, and I'll be darned they released a couple of them within the hour.

Maybe if you picked items where you are on really solid ground, forget complaining about Mauritius and Sandy, you will get traction with a very focused use of Twitter? For example why not propose higher gasoline and diesel taxes, with the tax collected used to reduce the national debt? That ought to go over very well.

Brian said...

Geden is wrong. Policy-making focuses much more on scientific medicine, NASA, and meteorologists than they do on shamans, astrologers, and farmers' almanacs.

It's the speed of response by policy to evidence that's an issue. Would be nice if he helped instead of hindering that response.

Anonymous said...

I think Geden is essentially fighting a strawman. "Evidence-based" - to most people - is essentially the same as "evidence informs". I think Geden takes it to mean that evidence tells us precisely what to do, not that it informs the decision making process. Given that noone thinks otherwise, he's basically shadow boxing.

EliRabett said...


Both Geden and Evans are fighting strawmen of their own devising. Which is a useful tictac because they always win and get published in high places