Sensible advice for no matter what side of a policy debate you’re on: Against Mathiness, Part 2
Policy research is more useful and relevant when it focuses on real-world variables. It is very easy for us researchers to study proxies for real-world variables or dimensionless indices in search of statistical or scientific significance. However, translating the practical meaning of those variables back to the real-world may not be particularly straightforward or even possible. .
Consider how the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confused itself over a study of measurements of hurricanes, mistakenly converting trends in measurements of hurricanes to making claims about trends in hurricanes (which I documented here and here). The urge to use proxies for the thing-we-really-want-to-say-something-about often arises because the real-world variable does not give the results we want or expect. If you want to study hurricanes, study hurricanes. If hurricanes don’t give the results you want, that says something important — say it and don’t go looking for work-arounds.
For those who missed it, Part One.
Policy Based Evidence Manufacturing.
Obvious to everyone.
Except those whose paychecks depend on not seeing.
Government at its finest.
Steal Waste and Destroy.
C.A.G.W is an intelligence test.
One our “helpers” fail.
With “Friends like these” we need no enemies.
And they have loudly and proudly self identified as our enemies.
When shall we believe them?
Banishment,on pain of a gruesome death,seems a just and proper response to people this willfully stupid and destructive.
Prove me wrong.
When the parasites of an ecosystem start demanding that they shall rule,that system is collapsing.
Welcome to Can Ahh Duh.
Confederated Kleptocracy of the Frozen North.
As a wise man once told me, “You have lies, damned lies, and statistics “
This, from #8 in the linked article
The practical significance of a result is inversely proportional to the complexity required to reach the result
A good example is the so-called “social cost of carbon” which employs mind-numbingly complex methods to arrive at results that can really be whatever you’d like them to be, simply by tinkering with assumptions and methods. [emphasis is mine]
As an undergrad, I had an interest in the topics and a professor let me take two of his graduate level courses, Statistics for Experimenters and Experimental Design and Empirical Modeling and Response Surface Methodologies, both courses relying heavily on the work of George E. P. Box.
The professor hammered home those two points emphasized above. Anything, quiz, test, or homework had to state explicitly the assumptions made and analysis chosen. The professor had a sense of humor and didn’t mind if an assignment used some absurd assumptions which produced a mathematically correct but logically or physically impossible solution. You got good marks if, given the method and assumptions, the fairly complex math was kept straight and the answer was “correct “. You always had to state your assumptions or your grade got dinged.
I did that a couple of times. I can’t recall the specifics anymore, but for a made-up example, “Assume the cheese is Stilton” and the method included “using only data drawn from a population of men 6’8″ or taller”. The math would be correct, but the assumptions were nonsense, the method was *ahem* not rigorous, and the conclusion, something silly, was not possible in the real world.
Anyone who took that professor’s classes learned, if nothing else, to always examine and question the assumptions underlying any analysis. It served me well in my career, particularly when some new piece of equipment was projected to produce some “wonderful, magical, incredible” savings based on incomplete, pie-in-the-sky assumptions. Ummm… no.
The Honest Broker knows whereof he speaks, at least in #8. I assume the other 9 points are also correct ;o)
OMG.. now I have a headache.
The UN is a Utopian organization. They are a solution looking for a problem. If they can’t claim to solve anything, then their reason for existence is moot. So there must always be a solution, however unrealistic and unpalatable to justify their continued mandate. And in not looking at reality, they never solve anything, but they certainly take in a lot of money, and focus a lot of power in their quest for a problem that they can solve.
The UN is a Dystopian organization. Ask Rwandans. The planes hit the wrong building on 9/11
Pielke Jr. is always worth reading.
He was drummed out of the main stream Climate science liars’ community in a highly organized manner.
The story came out in Hillary’s campaign manager John Podesta’s leaked emails.
“Wikileaks reveals how activists orchestrated a campaign to silence climate researcher Roger Pielke Jr.” An entertaining read that demonstrates the depth of corruption in “climate science.”
https://reason.com/2016/12/05/the-successful-progressive-conspiracy-to/
I find that academic types tend to forget about basic truths as they dive deep into the minutiae of their subject. In climate change, they’ve forgotten about the importance of people and their basic needs – food, energy, shelter (I’d also include autonomy and dignity)
Affordable and reliable basics are essential. If saving the planet through mitigation (net zero) requires making the basics unaffordable then a different game plan must be designed. Financially and psychologically impoverishing people through inhumane edicts to achieve an arbitrary goal (1.5C of warming) is not just ruthless, it’s barbaric.
Ask yourself…has the human condition gotten better or worse as climate change policy has gotten increasingly fanatical and obsessive? I see a life with less freedom, less choice, less enjoyable/less meaning, less democracy, more divisiveness, more anger, more poverty. Everything we value is being taken away from us with political policies that have improved nothing.
In climate change, they
’ve forgotten aboutintentionally ignore the importance of people and their basic needs – food, energy, shelter…FTFY…
I was giving academics the benefit of the doubt because they often seem oblivious to any reality outside of their research. Politicians, otoh, are deliberately malicious in my opinion.
Never give academics the benefit of the doubt.
Some are definitely rotten. A good way to tell the difference would be to force those who advocate for a specific climate change policy to be the first ones to face the consequences of that policy (academics, politicians, journalists and activists)
If you advocate for no gas cars, just EVs…then you must not be allowed to ride in any gas powered vehicle (including airplanes).
Advocate for heat pumps…your house must be converted to a heat pump only at your expense.
Advocate for replacing meat with bugs and fake meat…no more meat for you.
If you get caught not practicing what you preach then the policy is null and void
LC, they all need to be judged by what they espouse. Their rules, not ours.
And, I would advocate a far harsher punishment for the hypocrites. We could start w/ hangings…
…. “it may be all right in practice, but it will never work in theory” (Buffet, 1984, n.p.)….
A patent definition of the AGW scientology.