By Jeff Harding.
I have all this vitriol stored up from not being able to publish for two weeks and it needs to be spewed. I just read Foreign Policy magazine’s “The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers,” and it is worthy of my bile. Of all the crap I have to read every day to get to ideas of real value, this article is the most pompous fluff piece that I have seen in, well, quite a while.
Now I am not saying that the magazine is crap; I don’t read it so it wouldn’t be a fair comment. I’m not saying that all their articles are crap, for the same reason. And I understand their foreign affairs focus. But their ”100 Greatest” stuff just brims with a lack of intellectual rigor, reason, and good scholarship. It is a kind of Parade magazine feel-good fluff that we see in many of these types of lists. At least the Forbes 400 has some measurable quantifier: money. I can imagine the FP editors going home feeling smug about the “Brainies” (you know, like the Grammies). “Hey Honey, I got to pick No. 7, 13, and 67 today!”
I am also not saying that these people on the list are not well meaning individuals, or that all their accomplishments are fake or meaningless. In fact, some of these people I greatly admire. I think I am being more critical of the editors for coming up with a meaningless list based on such little comprehension of economics, for example.
Here are the top 25 winners of the Brainies with their tag line for each person. Comments are mine. If you’ve got the stomach for it, go to their site and to read the entire list.
1. Ben Bernanke: for staving off creating a new Great Depression.
I guess you could say that he staved off the collapse of certain large financial institutions which collapse certainly would have led to worse short-term consequences for the worlds’ economies. But, it was the Fed (during Alan Greenspan’s reign) which largely caused the financial collapse in the first place by flooding the economy with money and credit. The consequences of Chairman Bernanke’s short-term policies will not only lead to a drawn out recession, but may lead to much greater negative long-term consequences to the U.S. (See, “The Japanese Disease,” and “The Smartest Guys in the Room.”) The editors of FP have no clue what caused the crash or what he’s done to “cure” it, but, gosh, everyone’s saying it, so it has to be true.
2. Barack Obama: for reimagining America’s role in the world.
I say the jury is still out on this. Like many of his predecessors, I don’t think he has a firm concept of what our national interests are or how American power should and can be used. I am listening to his Afghanistan speech right now. I hope he can live up to his rhetoric and I want to be fair to him and see the results before I dismiss him as a failure on foreign policy. Yes, I do think his domestic policies are disastrous.
I thought Afghanistan was the good war. I believe that Iraq was a huge mistake, and, despite our mistakes in Iraq we “won” in a sense. I have the greatest respect and awe of the men and women who have served and now serve in our armed forces, and what we’ve achieved in Iraq is due to their bravery, intelligence, and sacrifice.
But, I don’t see how we can just pull out of Afghanistan. I don’t think it can be a war of counter-terrorism, but rather one of regional, if not global, implications for our security. I don’t see how our national interests are served by letting the Taliban re-establish themselves and threaten Pakistan and it’s nuclear weapons. A new fundamentalist beachhead in that area is something we can’t afford. But we can’t stop them by pressing a button from 30,000 feet in the air. So we need to reset our goals. I think we should get back to Real Politik (that Cold War policy of making friends with any Devil to defeat a common enemy), and just devise a policy that says, let’s do whatever it takes to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda. We should get rid of ideas of converting them to a western style democracy; we will just be denting our pick.
3. Zahra Rahnavard: for being the brains behind Iran’s Green Revolution and the campaign of her husband, opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
Uh, OK, I guess. Number 3 though?
4. Nouriel Roubini: for accurately forecasting the global financial pandemic.
Dr. Doom! I like this playboy-economist. I rarely agree with his prescriptions for solving the economic crisis, but he did put himself out there by saying we were in for a big fall. And the guy has built a substantial business as an economics consultant. Professor Roubini did attend the Mises Institute as a scholar, and got many of his ideas on the risks of the economy there, but it is as if he didn’t attend Austrian Economics 102, so his solutions are basically Keynesian. Too bad. But is there anyone who has a gloomier visage than Nouriel?
By the way, lots of Austrian school economists got it right as well. And what about David Rosenberg? He was Merrill’s chief economist and he called it correctly. But they are ignored.
5. Rajendra Pachauri: for ending the debate over whether climate change matters.
This one makes me a bit ill. If there ever was a debate over this issue it’s with the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which he formerly chaired. Don’t the FP editors read the news about the information that was withheld from their reports which has been a huge recent controversy? The science here stinks. It is my opinion that the global warming issue is just a stalking horse for socialists to attack capitalism. There is, of course evidence of global warming, but it has been going on long before human industrial activity. Global cooling too. For many millennia. Actually we have been experiencing global cooling lately but that doesn’t fit in their science ideology.
6. Bill Clinton: for redefining philanthropy in the modern era.
6. Hillary Rodham Clinton: for giving “smart power” a star turn at the State Department.
I have to smile a bit here. I kind of miss Bill. And Monica. We had the perfect system when he was president. The Democrats controlled the presidency and the Republicans, led by Newt Gingrich, controlled Congress. The Contract with America actually resulted in some good legislation (repealing many welfare and regulatory laws).
Hillary I think is an empty suit. This whole SmartPower® thing is just an vapid political phrase created to denigrate the Bush Administration who obviously demonstrated DumbPower. What the hell is smart power?
7. Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler: for taking behavioralism from niche to necessary.
I don’t follow Thaler’s behavioral work so I can’t really speak to it. He was an adviser to the Obama campaign. Sunstein is in the Obama Administration. Their recent book, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, advocates a so-called libertarian paternalism to direct people to what the authors think are better decisions about their life. I haven’t read the book, but I can point you to an excellent critique of the concept (“Libertarian Paternalism“).
8. David Petraeus: for reshaping the way the U.S. military goes to war.
Scholar, intellectual, warrior. He was right on Iraq. But the armed services have a nasty habit of fighting the previous war over again. I hope he’s right in Afghanistan.
9. Zhou Xiaochuan: for reminding the world that we can’t take the dollar for granted.
The head of China’s central bank understands full well the importance of our debt financed fiscal stimulus and he knows he’s grabbing his ankles, but he also knows he can’t do much about it without creating a disaster. That is, if he rejects the dollar for some other currency(ies), he will immediately devalue China’s holdings of our debt and revalue the yuan. And the cost of financing our deficit will go up, causing increased taxes and less consumer spending here. And general chaos.
But what the hell does the FP comment mean? Everyone knows the dollar is screwed, so why does China need to remind the world? Yes, I know they are one of the top three holders of our federal debt.
11. Fernando Henrique Cardoso: for calling the war on drugs what it is: a disaster.
Here’s a guy who actually makes sense. Brazil and other countries are punished because buying, selling, and using drugs here is a crime. I’m all for legalizing “illegal” drugs. What good has prohibition done anyway? Besides causing the rise of powerful international gangs, buying and corrupting whole countries, and being completely useless in preventing the drug business.
12. Bill Gates: for taking the efficiency of Microsoft to the poorest of the poor.
I have no idea what this means. Bill gives away billions. Thank you Bill.
13. Dick Cheney: for his full-throated defense of American power.
I have no idea what this means either. Cheney was one of the perpetrators of Iraq. He was wrong. He was one of the perpetrators of the invasion of our civil liberties. He was wrong. He advised W. W was wrong on most things.
14. Larry Summers: for being the brains behind Obama’s economic policy.
Now this is a true statement. But Larry has no idea what he is doing. Why give the keys of the economic truck back to the same drunks who got us into this crash? Please see, “John Maynard Summers,” “The Washington-Wall Street Complex,” and “The Smartest Guys in the Room.” By the way, does anyone know if he’s narcoleptic? He always looks like he’s falling asleep.
15. Martin Wolf: for being the dean of financial columnists.
Mr. Wolf is a very bright guy and an excellent observer and writer, but … mostly Keynesian and therefore mostly wrong. If you wish, please check out my conversation with him.
16. Mohamed El-Erian: for his unparalleled knowledge of global finance.
Well, OK. Thanks Mohamed. Keep up the good work at Pimco. Umm, John Paulson, Jim Rogers, David Rosenberg?
17. Benedict XVI: for showing that even the supposedly infallible can change.
He is The Pope, so why not throw him in too. But the former Grand Inquisitor doesn’t seem to be changing much from my viewpoint. How do you reconcile reason with faith?
18. Richard Dawkins: for his unceasing advocacy on behalf of science.
Here’s a guy I like. He doesn’t believe in evolution, he actually presents reason and logic to prove it and to defend science in general. Did I mention he’s an atheist.
19. Malcolm Gladwell: for rethinking how we think about thinkers.
I thought his first book on behavioral research, Blink was interesting. But, Tipping Point, didn’t hold together for me. Haven’t read Outliers yet.
20. Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart: for having the courage to call out failed states — and then try to fix them.
No comment. Never heard of them.
21. Thomas Friedman: for his genius at popularizing complex ideas.
I thought his defense of free trade and globalism in The World is Flat was done very well. You don’t have to agree with everything he says, and I don’t. But he’s a good writer. I think his discussions about climate change are incorrect. I haven’t read The World is Hot Flat and Crowded, and probably won’t.
22. Robert Shiller: for warning us — over and over — about dangerous bubbles.
Yes, he did talk about the housing bubble and was right. Never got the big picture though. A good economist and co-author of the Case-Shiller Housing Index, but basically a Keynesian econometrician.
23. Vaclav Havel: for four decades of speaking truth to power.
Here’s a man who really accomplished something and should be enshrined in our pantheon of heroes. The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia helped lead to the fall of the Soviet Union.
24. Chris Anderson: for bleeding-edge thinking on how the Internet’s marketplace of ideas should work.
He’s the editor of Wired magazine. Don’t know him. For some reason they started sending me their magazine gratis. By the way, what does “bleeding-edge thinking” mean? Is it more leading edge than “leading edge”?
25. Joseph Stiglitz: for relentlessly questioning creating economic dogma.
He’s one of the economists I least respect. Yes, Paul Krugman is on the list too, No. 29. At least Krugman comes after No. 28, Elinor Ostrom, the fine U.S. economist who just won the Nobel Prize. Stiglitz is just another Keynesian technocrat type.
Pretty sad.
Hi Jeff, like your work very much. Don’t always agree, but even so you dig up very worthwhile data and thats what is missing in a lot of economic discussion. I am a physcicist and have recently waded into the area of economic discussion and as an aside I am appalled at what is passed of as in depth analysis. But thats another issue.
I am amused at how the recent furor over the East Anglia climate emails has gone. Especially in the economic blogsphere. There is a distinct conspiratorial flavour in the economic blogs and I can see how it comes about from looking at how the world of economics operates. Applying this thinking to climate science is however inappropriate as the field of science is in the end data driven (of course there is the occasional temporary deviation from this, but it never lasts very long). So conspiracies rarely happen and people presenting untenable ideas do not usually get away with it for to long before the wait of evidence is brought to bear.
So the released emails have to be interpreted in the scientific context (not the conspiratorial context) and a good discussion of the issues that arise in the emails can be found at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/. It is all a pretty trivial side show compared to the main game, where the evidence for climate change is many and varied and becoming more overwhelming as time goes on.
Herbert,
Thanks for signing up and reading The Daily Capitalist. And thank you for your reference to the Real Climate site. I don’t think anyone denies climate change. The issues are: has man’s activity contributed to it, and, if so, how much. It is clear that weather changes throughout history. It is not known if the current situation is a longitudinal phenomenon or a short-term phenomenon. I believe that there is evidence to show that man’s recent industrial activity may have contributed a 0.5 degree change. But we seem to be experiencing global cooling, according to the charts on Real Climate. The problem of modeling such a phenomenon as climate makes one question whether the analysts have enough data or the right data or the correct assumptions. I fear much of the data is driven by a desire to prove man as the causative factor in climate change and that much of it is driven by those hostile to capitalism.
Hi Jeff, the Real Climate web site is a wonderful insight into the nitty gritty of the world of science and how it tackles these issues, if only there were this transparency in the economics hierarchy!
You are correct about the modelling, in that it is still a work in progress and will be for quite a while yet. What is clear at this stage is that gross effects like the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere are very convincingly modeled. Then there are heaps of smaller effects that are being added in as time goes by. It would appear that the recent atmospheric “cooling” is partly due to the La Nina phenomenon and if that is added to the modelling it explains the source of the recent atmospheric cooling. Unlike economics, this process is largely data driven and as we collect more data and throw more brain power at it the models will become more capable of reflecting the data.
I would suggest also that there is a trap (made by many) in concentrating entirely on atmospheric temperatures for saying there is a cooling going on. There is the issue that there are many different ways of measuring the earth’s temperature and the atmospheric measure is volatile. In fact atmospheric temperatures can be measured in different ways as well, just to indicate the complexities in a general sense. A measure I like, because it is far less volatile and it is at the base of the atmosphere, is ocean temperatures/amount of heat stored in the oceans. Its not a pretty sight, its trending upwards quite convincingly. Considering that a lot of energy is needed to heat water, the trend is pretty real and scary and reflects the amount of additional heat energy being dumped into the oceans.
Keep trawling through the Real Climate web site, there’s heaps of good information there and you will find that a lot of the arguments that are propagated in the blogsphere were sorted out by the scientists many years ago and are not considered to be controversial anymore. The scientists have moved on to where they see the issues are, which is well ahead of the blogsphere.
Jeff, I overlooked your last sentence, which really needs addressing. I fear that you have been in the economics area to long and have been contaminated (LOL)! I mean that in the nicest possible way. In coming from the field of sciences (rigorous ones) into the economics area it strikes me how ideology riddled economic arguments usually are. I have found in science there is an inverse relationship between ideology and good data. The less good data you have the more ideology you need to give the feeling of making intellectual progress! My point is, the sort of ideologically driven culture in economics is not the culture in climate sciences (or other rigorous sciences). In fact most scientists have good BS meters and are very quick to root out blatant ideology. So the threat you perceive (to capitalism) is more the threat that the data is to capitalism.
If you look at the logic/data chain the following steps are very solidly established -
1. Humanity is adding significantly to CO2 levels. This can be very convincingly demonstrated using isotope studies.
2. CO2 blocks outgoing heat radiation from the earth. Very easy to demonstrate with laboratory measurements and has been known for a very long time.
3. Extra CO2 in the atmosphere will cause a temperature rise at the earths surface due to the blocking of outgoing heat radiation. Relies on point 2 above and the size of the effect can be easily calculated using well established physics.
4. This leads you very directly to the association between human CO2 generation and temperature rises at the earths surface.
I bet you wish economic arguments could be put on such a solid footing, where each step of the argument is very clearly proven! I certainly do. And its largely a cultural thing. Economics has never had this rigorous culture. I think its very possible for it to adopt this culture, there is a lot of good data out there and it would benefit hugely from this cultural change.
Herbert:
Thank you for your thoughtful response. I guess I would disagree with your assumptions on the impartiality of science and scientists. History is filled with bad examples of how “science” conforms with ideology. While I can appreciate your pride in science, and I feel the same way about the scientific method, I think your trust is misplaced.
Now, to be fair, I am not a scientist (although I loved the sciences as a student), so I am not claiming expertise. But I am widely read and, contrary to what you argue, there is strong disagreement among climatologists about the very things you speak of. So, I would ask you to indulge me, since I may not have the tools to make a judgement, and visit those sites that provide me with opposing views on the topic.
The first is: Cato Institute, a free market research group.
And, Competitive Enterprise Institute.
And, The Reason Foundation.
Then I would like to hear your thoughts.
Love the list, great to do a side-by-side comparison with the FP site. As far as the climate change debate goes, it doesn’t seem like all science and scientists are together on man’s contribution. It does seem like the popular (media/politics) scientific response is that man has a devastating contribution, but that certainly doesn’t make it a scientific truth.
Also, as far as Dawkins goes, I’m a huge fan. I highly recommend his talk on “Militant Atheism” at TED: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html
Hi Jeff. Where do I start! There is a lot on those sites. At random I chose http://www.cato.org/event.php?eventid=5764 and thought it was an interesting presentation. I would have to agree with a lot of it. Specifically on issues where the current effects of climate change are overstated. It really confuses the situation when people/commentators make claims that aren’t supported by the facts. There are lots of easy pickings for people who want to make an anti-case. The confusion is made worse by having the underlying global temperature changing slowly while all the normal atmospheric processes that create all the shorter term variability, adding a bigger signal on top. In the long term its the increasing underlying average temperature that is going to be the problem.
It becomes necessary to find the core issues and wether they stand up to scrutiny and not worry about a lot of the peripheral arguing that is going on. I am trying to do this in the economics area and I must say its a work in progress! If you can be confident about the fundamentals then all the other details will start to make more sense. To make it clear – it is less important to understand wether more wild fires in Autralia and California are due to global warming or not, and much more important to determine wether the earths temperature is rising and if it is what are the causes. Once you are confident about that, then you can move on and start to look at the fine detail, like increases in wild fires.
So on the rising temperature front, the summary is that different effects that could lead to a rising surface temperature, have been carefully considered (and are still being considered) by the scientific community and the size of the contribution from them seems to be pretty well understood. On this basis, cosmic radiation and solar variability do not make a very credible cause and effect case (effects are far to small). On the other hand CO2 increase fits the bill nicely. If a good case can be made that there is something other than CO2 that gives similar effects, then that will certainly need to be considered, at this stage there is no obvious alternative and the scientific community is certainly looking for it as it would amount to a lot of scientific kudos for the person that proves it.
I’ll check out Real Climate more thoroughly.
I recommend you read Hayek’s Nobel acceptance speech on epistemology with regard to the social sciences: The Pretense of Science.
Have a look at this most recent contribution http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/12/unsettled-science/#more-2187. It summarises the issues very nicely and is quite short.
Have had a quick look at The Pretense of Science web page. Will read it more thoroughly later. Looks interesting. The bit that stuck out was the claim that economics is too complicated to be handled like the physical sciences. Sorry, but I think that is a cop out. There are some areas of physical science that deal with apparently very complicated phenomena yet can do a remarkably good job at explaining the phenomena. I think the same can apply to economics. This throwing your hands up in the air at the complexity, seems to be a cultural problem in economics. It is probably a matter of identifying key concepts/theories that make the most sense of what is happening and building on this. Its always happened in the physical sciences, stuff doesn’t make sense until the key concepts are identified and then it quickly becomes amazing how much can be understood.
In economics its going to be hard work, but its got to be possible. It really is necessary to get away from all the big concepts that have not been validated with real life data or experiments. I get the strong feeling they act as blinkers.
Herbert-
I have no doubt that human activity has some effect on the environment. This is an idea that is proven to my satisfaction every time I look out the window. I try to maintain a skepticism about most things, but I accept that the AGW hypothesis as a general principle seems reasonable enough to probably be true. The question that the hacked CRU e-mails has raised for me is: Even accepting the hypothesis, how bad are things really going to get, assuming mankind does nothing to change the course it’s on? That some climate experts felt compelled to fudge the data to make things look worse than they really are suggests to me that the super-dire forecasts one hears ad nauseum might be a tad bit exaggerated.
Even accepting that the scientific community is mostly honest and interested only in furthering knowledge, how good are scientists at formulating government policy? Scientists tend to become enthused with technical feasibility. Any money they can get that furthers the pursuit of scientific knowledge is good. Whether the broader social good is served, well, who knows? Take for example photovoltaic cell technology: A PV cell array can turn sunlight into electricity, and that is pretty neat, but does it make sense for the gov’t to subsidize these things? A California homeowner can get 60% of his PV solar project paid for with state and federal subsidies. My reading of the ROI calculations I’ve seen tells me that PV technology is not ready for large scale deployment, but spurred by ‘Green’ fever and an economic notion that spending a lot of money on anything is what’s needed right now, a ton of money is going to be spent soon on PV solar technology.
Another thing that has to be said: There are a lot of non-scientists who have made ‘global warming’ theory their life’s passion. Some are plainly nuts — the ‘Gaia’ cultists, for example. Then there are the people who have a large financial stake in the worst case scenarios being held as common belief — the most famous of these: Al Gore. Mr. Gore has positioned himself to become a billionaire by trading in carbon credits. I understand that Mr. Gore first got the idea for carbon credits by talking with Enron’s Ken Lay. It used to be that people who stood to make a lot of money by some government policy’s being enacted had the grace to declare themselves conflicted and not involve themselves in the specifics of policy debate. Not so with Mr. Gore.
As much as one might want to frame ‘global warming’ theory as a question of purely scientific interest, that just ain’t so.
Jeff-
Speaking of Krugman and ClimateGate, here’s Krugman’s latest distillation of genius:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/climate-rage/#comment-265059
Condensed version: Anyone who does not think like Krugman is a hateful dunce.
Herbert,
Before you criticize Hayek, I suggest you read it carefully and then comment. Then we can have a conversation.
Lloyd,
Thanks you for your excellent comment.
Herbert,
I am trying to be nice when I say this, but my perception is that you have a certain confirmation bias in your opinions about global warming. I believe you are sincere, but you throw around the mantle of your profession as a “scientist” with some certitude. I understand that you are a physicist, but you aren’t a climatologist but it is my impression that you tend to dismiss opinions you feel are “unsophisticated.”
So, that being said I would appreciate it if you would go back to Cato and read this: Cato Policy Handbook, Chapter 45. Before you dismiss it, I am reprinting the resume of Pat Michaels of Cato who wrote it. After that, then I would be interested in hearing your opinion on the related political and economic issues.
For what it’s worth, here are some physicists petitioning the American Physical Society to drop its endorsement of the AGW hypothesis:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/post.aspx?bid=354&bpid=24483
Here is a very interesting movie, well worth 80 minutes. If you sat through ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ you owe it to yourself to watch this:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5576670191369613647&hl=en#
Lloyd, thanks for this stuff. I’ll check them out.
Hi Lloyd,
interested to see your comments. I would say you started of on the wrong foot though, with “This is an idea that is proven to my satisfaction every time I look out the window.” by setting a very low standard for what is required as prove of something ;=}. Not having a go at you, just highlighting how it is easy to have elastic “proof” requirements. But lets stick to the core issues (sorry I digressed!).
The “fudged data” needs to be kept in context. Have a look at the Real Climate blog I referenced above and also “http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18238-why-theres-no-sign-of-a-climate-conspiracy-in-hacked-emails.html”. There really is no significant issue. Its not like its the only data set that is being used. The warming case is made using many different data sets, representing different aspects of the earth’s response. You see the same hyper-ventilation by people over volatile atmospheric data that shows a “cooling” in recent years, when that data set is only one of many ways of measuring gloabl temperatures. These speficic aspects are a case of cherry picking by the inexperienced. What is not realised is that scientists are usually paranoid about cherry picking data, as it makes them look like dills in the end. So if you want to throw cold water (pun) on global warming, you have to be prepared to tackle and invalidate a whole stack of different data that show a clear warming trend.
“How bad are things going to get…”, well thats a work in progress but so far the comparisons between modelling in the IPCC reports and where reality is actually going, is scary. The models on average have been underestimating the effects. Not a good sign for us and the models clearly need more work.
Your discussion on PV’s I will steer clear of, there’s lots of detail I wouldn’t be across. I do note that many countries have very expensive nuclear power reactors supplying electricity and have heard that PV’s could supply power at substantially lower cost, so rationality in decision making doesn’t always exist and there is a lot of work to be done to sort out the good and bad ideas. Which energy supply alternatives we will use is also a work in progress.
In regard to your final big paragraph, I am more interested in making sure the science is correct. All the people running around in different directions with their own take on it all, is a great source of confusion and distraction (which wastes time and resources). The only way to sort the good ideas from the bad ideas is get the science right. Once you can do that then the decision making becomes clearer and better.
Hi Jeff,
Thank you for trying to be nice, I do assume that of you in the first instance, as its that sort of blog. On your statement, ” you tend to dismiss opinions you feel are “unsophisticated.””, have a look at “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning-Kruger_effect”(there are also some nice presentations of it on YouTube), its a very real effect and you can see it around you so often. Its very easy for “unsophisticated” people to get it wrong and think they are really right (of course that doesn’t happen in the movies). Just look at our politicians! You would also see this in the economics discussions. The other thing you need to keep in mind is that there is a clear cultural difference between economics and the physical sciences. There is far, far less ideology and BS (please don’t confuse this statement with saying there is none).
I have read through the Hayek article and you puzzle me. I like your work because it is sensible and largely data driven as opposed to idealogy driven. You make your case with data that makes sense and also using differing types of data/sources. So clearly you see a role for using data and letting it make the case. Just remember it was the many, many economic idealogues that never saw the GFC coming, because they were blind to the real data/events because of their views. So that being the case, I can’t see where Hayek fits in all this. If a theory cannot be tested, then we have a problem. In the cosmological sciences this is currently the case for string theory and dark matter/dark energy theories. This situation is tolerated for a time especially if there is nothing better. However it is recognised that these theories are very provisional no matter how good they sound. A few key data points can trash them very quickly.
It should be the same in economics. If you have a “good” theory that you cannot test, how do you know you haven’t got a straight out bad theory? Very important distinction, as you don’t want to build on a bad theory. And how do you know its a “good” theory? If you’ve come to it by observation (as opposed to by ideology) then it is highly likely that it is testable, otherwise it wouldn’t be apparent from observation.
As an interesting aside, in quantum theory there are “hidden” variables that cannot be oberved, but can be manipulated mathematically and the results still produce predictions that can be tested! Pretty wierd! So I say its got to be possible for economics to do a better job than it has been.
Will have to get back to you on the Cato issue.
Hi Lloyd,
had a look at the APS info and get the impression they have been hiding under a rock. They mention the CRU emails and suggest it is bad science. Well that is yet to be properly determined, have a look at Real Climate on this issue. Even so if you write off the CRU material, there is a heap of other material that makes the case very convincingly. Attacking CRU does not automatically invalidate all the other work by other parties, no matter how hard you hyperventilate. Your going to have to invalidate it on a case by case basis and that will be very hard work.
The other funny (in both meanings of the word) comment is on a linked APS web site with an open letter where they make the case that scientists need to understand the causes of temperature change better. They seem to have missed that this is what is happening and in terms of causes, CO2 fits the bill, and we don’t have any better alternative candidate at this stage.
If you want to take CO2 of the hook, it is really a matter of coming up with a proposal along the lines of “Hey its not CO2 trapping extra energy that is making the earth warm, its because of …(detail to be added in here)… and here is the theory why …(more detail to be added here)… and here is the data that supports this theory…(more detail to be added here)…”.
Also statements (seen on the APS site), like the earth’s temperature has always changed is a statement of a historical fact, but does not address the issue of why it is changing currently. There is a reason, it is not magic that is making it happen, and we are pretty sure we know the reason.
Hi Lloyd,
had a bit of a look at “The Great Global Warming Swindle”. It presents well and sounds great. However, have a look at “http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/” and “http://www.realclimate.org/wiki/index.php?title=The_Great_Global_Warming_Swindle” for some detailed analysis of key issues that the program brings up.
The summary – for real information don’t rely on the film. Use it as a starting point but look closely at what they say, you’ll find there are some real problems. It all comes down to – if you don’t understand what you are talking about, its easy to mis-represent the information. This can be countered by looking closely at the arguments made by both sides on each issue and understanding the science, it’ll take time but is a good excercise in critical thinking. If you follow that process you will probably see that they didn’t do to well.
Herbert-
Thanks for your comments. I see you like the Real Climate web site. For balance, I offer this: http://wattsupwiththat.com/ Like I wrote above, I am inclined to accept that there is some merit to AGW theory. I just question how serious the problem really is/might become. Of more concern to me is what our government and other governments might do about global warming — especially since the agenda is being pushed by a weird alliance of anti-capitalism/ anti-technology environmentalist ‘activists’ (who romanticize pre-industrial peasant life), corporations hawking ‘green’ technology/energy (including the oil majors, ironically) and Wall Street investment bankers and hedge funds (who expect to make a ton of money trading in gov’t-mandated carbon credits).
For those who might be enthused at the thought of our government’s “doing something” to fight CO2, I would ask them to review how successful the gov’t has been in waging its almost 50 year-old war on poverty, or its almost 40 year-old war on drugs, or its almost 10 year-old war on terrorism. That history lesson should give even the most ardent ‘warmist’ pause.
You say that the CRU climate scientists’ work is insignificant — even if we discard the CRU’s work, there are many other data sets that support AGW theory. One of the things that the CRU’s leaked e-mails show is how closely climate scientists around the world keep in touch with each other. CRU scientists did not work in isolation. In fact, some of the e-mails hint at (I hesitate to use the term) collusion between climate scientists at different schools /institutions. Not that even what the CRU researchers did was necessarily conscious fraud. Never underestimate the power of groupthink and bias. These are very powerful psychological/institutional ‘vectors’, to borrow a physics term.
You laugh at the scientific pretensions of economists. I can understand how someone trained in a ‘hard science’ might think this. Physicist Scott Locklin calls economics “ideology combined with bad math.” (Locklin’s entertaining blog is here: http://scottlocklin.wordpress.com/ ) Much of what economists put out is useless, even dangerous if enacted as policy (think: Paul Krugman). But the fact that the discipline exists provides jobs for a lot of academics. I ask that you be sensitive. Economists tend to take themselves very seriously.
I do not wish to offend, but when I hear physicists talking about black holes, dark matter, string theory, etc. the thought that occurs to me is that these people are somewhat disconnected from reality, almost in an autistic way. I suppose it helps to be somewhat autistic to be able to spend a career focusing all of one’s mental energy on some very narrow area of study, like neurtrinos. The problem is, such very focused minds tend to be blind to things outside of their area of interest. ‘Solutions’ suggested by scientists for social problems can be extemely impractical. Here, for example, NASA climate scientist James Hansen offers his solution to global warming: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07hansen.html I’m sure that Dr. Hansen honestly believes that his “fee and dividend” scheme is a good idea. I would argue that a more likely outcome would be permanent economic depression, maybe even blood in the streets.
Just for laughs — I am reminded that some of the physicists involved in the Manhattan Project were afraid that testing the A-bomb might actually ignite the earth’s atmosphere, turning the planet into a mini star. But, “in the interest of science …” More recently some scientists expressed fears that the CERN collider could create a black hole that might consume the planet. The CERN director assuaged these fears, saying that this was a “very, very remote” possibility — that the potential benefits to mankind of what might be learned outweighed the risk of extinction.
Herbert,
I think Lloyd makes some excellent points. I am still under the impression that you have made choices to believe what you believe is good science and dismiss others as bad science. RealClimate is run by 4 guys whom despite your protestations, all have ideological outlooks and make choices when they pick certain articles or data over others. When I ask you to review Cato’s work, it don’t get much of a response other than to argue they are wrong and RealClimate is right.
I strongly disagree with your basic take that science is impartial and non-ideological. One of the things I am interested in as a social scientist is herd mentality and the “madness of crowds.” Behavioral economists and others have done excellent work in this area. Scientists have always been biased.
But let me go back to Hayek. You seem to have missed his point. What Hayek and Mises have done is say that empirical research in the social sciences, such as economics, is useless without good theory. After all, in the economic realm, the data consists of millions of actors and how can you know if you are choosing the right data in your study. Hayek says you can get broad trends from data, but the rest is garbage, which is what Keynesians give us.
So, you have to understand theory, a priori thinking, first before you go off and try to understand data. Social sciences are not hard science as with physical phenomenon where it’s clear the data can be tested and consistently reproduced to be proved valid. It all comes down to the science of epistemology, or, how we know what we know.
When you say my work is data driven, it is true I back up my statements with data. But which data? I can choose any data I want to prove my point, which is the problem. Paul Krugman can pick the data he wishes in order to prove his point. It all comes down to one’s theory of economics, and that’s where the Austrian school shines. I have clearly revealed my free market bias on the “about” page of my site.
Without belaboring this point any more, it is well known that scientists can choose data they want to prove their point, as you well point out. So, who to believe in this so-called hard science climate change debate? I choose the scientists who have equal credentials and who can’t be accused of skewing the data in favor of draconian restrictions on my liberty, and who have convinced me that we aren’t in any great peril thus far in the debate. If there were great peril, they would have no stake in denying it.
Welcome to the world of economics. Read Hayek. Go to Mises.org and read Mises. Read Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson.” Enough said.