AHHHH! I am too confused to think, let alone write cohesively. One thing is just absolutely killing me right now is that I could have attended a public talk by Waxman on his recent book, and I was in Kansas... albeit for PhD purposes and it was highly productive, but all the same... why did Waxman have to schedule his talk when I was off in Kansas?... :P
Okay, so now I'm back, and again justifying it as a quest of my organising a climate change seminar (I have taken a truly scientific approach to this problem by deciding to gather experimental data), I attended a talk which touched on climate change and also the public's perseption of science, what is wrong with it, and how we can make it right.
Hmmm... just writing this I came to realise that when I was asked 'what is the purpose' of the seminar, I had no answer, and I guess what I have just thought of, is, what would be the 'right' scientific perception? Okay, that's for later, and I think the brief blanket answer would be an exasperated plea for everyone to think a bit more, and feel a bit less.
An interesting point brought up, and I've heard this many times now when working among scientists is this push to 'reach out' to the public (frankly I am a bit cautious of this statement as it necessarily puts up a wall between scientists and the 'public', it has a scent of the horrible 'sheep' sentiment, which we all love exploring, as we all want to consider ourselves wolves).
Anyway, yes, reaching out to the public, how to talk about what you do, and how much fun it is.
I wonder where this push is coming from? Why does the general public need to understand what 'scientist' do? Possibly because people under the label of science have started to tap into peoples emotions and it is starting to get political momentum (climate change being prime example), and money is there to be made. The reason I ask this is not because I think people shouldn't marvel at the wonders of nature, and be exposed to generalised (or watered down) scientific messages, it's just that science isn't always fun, it's a job (a means of making money, and that is all it is for most people).
Well, just imagine an athlete asked to talk about how much 'fun' his training program is, putting in 8hrs a day of exhausting labour, or a concert pianist to try to engage the public's imagination on the 8hrs of practice in front of the piano, when the weather is perfect outside, and all you want to do is play in the sunshine, but no, you must sit on your behind and play that damn Chopin (I love Chopin btw), again and again and again.... Thrilling really. Same with science, for every bright star that 'makes it' there are millions of people who 'do' science 9-5 and it's actually repetitive, numbing and boring, but it pays the bills.
And this push to get science into the public arena can be argued of course to stem from the fact that it is becoming relevant to peoples lives (specifically with climate change and evolution (perhaps). But is it because of this new found relevance or again because of political momentum? I would argue for political momentum, and I hope you agree, it's kinda obvious, but I wanted to illustrate this, or support it with two examples, namely cooking and medicine. Both of these professions are integral and very relevant to our lives. I guess not surprisingly I am terrible at cooking, I used to think this was cool, back in the day I was all about being a tomboy, but then I realised what a handicap it has become, and I wanted to get better, I even tried reasoning with myself that it was just like writing a program (declaring variables, and writing functions, making calls, which is fine, except there's no debugging feature in cooking, once it's done it's done, and as most programmers know, there's always a bug...). Okay, so I've solved this by having simple tastes, and when people come over, we 'all' cook pizza :D.
Anyway, big off topic rant, point is cooking is quite relevant, and well, we aren't all very good at it, and yet, we don't petition cooks to 'reach out' to us the public, and teach us how much fun it is. Or maybe they do? Hahaha, wait... actually come to think of it there's Jamie Oliver, and actually probably bad example, as I said I'm not good at cooking, I don't (should?) watch those shows. Actually just got a hilarious picture of the union of cooks gathering to discuss how to make cooking well more accessible to the general public - "how not to burn water" or "the art of debugging your roast". Okay, so perhaps a weak point?
The other is medicine, it's very relevant, and yet, I definitely don't see doctors reaching out to the public (yes they have their TV shows where doctors, surgeons specifically) are idolized, but in no way is there a message that is it for everone, (...that's homeopathy, and you're a tree hugging hippy if you think that'll make you better [tone of sarcasm]). But I guess I can't stress enough, and again obvious point, how relevant it is! Why are we not pushing this in schools, say, making all high school students pass a comprehensive first aid course, and some basic knowledge of common illnesses and how they may be prevented and treated? Because there is money to be made in not educating people?
A point to be made is that the niche of the scientific profession is that scientist are/truly/really those people that are anti-social and anal (really they are...). This is what science is about, it's about being tediously focused on the 'obvious' when others had moved on to bigger and better things. Okay, Einstein makes his appearance here, consider if he was just like everyone else and accepted ether as the 'truth'? He would never have made his discovery, and you know during the time he was thinking about this, he would have most probably been the most tedious person to talk to... Scientists are the ones that question the obvious, by no means are they (we) generalists, we are specialists, and this is the only method by which scientific progress can be made.
If you're acting as a scientist, you'll find people generally don't enjoy talking to you (unless its in your professional setting) as you're constantly needing to define/outline/establish a common framework, what is obvious for others is not obvious for you, and for that conversation with you is tedious and boring to most.
The reason for this is that so many people love lossy compression (and not just for your 'jpegs'!) What I mean is: How is it possible to learn to compress 100 pages of text (which some reasonable person wrote) into a number of bullet points.... without allowing the possibility of missing something? (In most cases, there are always exceptions, I very aware I'm contributing to this right now, but practice makes perfect!) This is what lossy compression is, you necessarily loose information when you present it succintly, and it fails to be reflection of the truth, just a distant artifact, but important point is that it's an irreversable loss, you can't get the 'true' picture back from your lossly artifact. And the same in science, you just cannot present the 'facts'/truth to a person who doesn't share your 'context'/framework without loosing information and necessarily compromising the integrity of the message. This compression is not science, it's not a scientific message, it's a lie (or less categorically, it is a message with a hint/flavor of truth).
I was thinking about this, because at this talk we were presented with an 'astonishing' statistical 'fact' that only 7% of PhD graduates go on to tenured positions. I started thinking - 'how many tenured positions were actually available?', this would present the figure in a more realistic light. And then I started thinking whether it was honest of the person to state this figure, after all, I'm sure there's a paper out there somewhere which was published in a peer reviewed journal, with that number in it. So is it the truth or not? Well, my conclusion for now is that it is not a fact, that it is actually a lie (which implies an intent to deceive, which may not have existed, but it is at least an error made in neglect and lack of conscientiousness), yes this is where I am tedious and boring. The data should have been presented in a context, in order to judge how closely the figure is a representation of nature, I need to know the context which was not presented. The context was assumed, it was a shorthand statement, and hence leads to misinterpretation. So I guess this example illustrates how tedious science is, and provides an idea of how science is used to 'send a message'. A little note on the side, I'm about to start reading a book on this very topic 'How to lie with statistics' :) (Ah, a fascinating statement - correlation does not imply causation.)
Oh, and one last thing, this is scattered I know, but I wanted to finish on by exploring again this disturbing trend in humanity to... categorise, class, classify, and subtly to differentiate with the necessary implication of heirarchy. We all do it. And this is especially relevant now as well: journalists/evolutionists/creationists/scientists/public (whoever they are?) etc.... this classification takes away common ground, and this is not conducive to either engaging people or changing their point of view (if you so desire). It was sad for me to hear ideas supported at the talk such as - evolution is the right (implication of universal thruth here) theory, climate change is fact, and etc, and the difficulty in 'converting' creationists and making them see the light. You know it dawned on me this idea that perhaps the reason it is hard to convince people or reason with them is that when we do it, we are for ourselves convinced 100% that it is us that are right. We hold the truth, the answer, and for whatever reason: ignorance, stupidity, lack of time, the people we are arguing with hold the 'wrong' opinion. Their opinion is inferior, not just different, again we are heirarchialy classifying. Our disagreement most of the time may arise because we have different context/frameworks with the people we are arguing/convicing. Blinded however, by our personal truth and apparent ignorance of our opponent we do not address the relevant points, and hence fail to achieve our aim. It's like watching people fight sometimes, they seem to just talk at each other, and answer each others questions without addressing the question... it's the weirdest thing... (I do this too, it's just easier to observe in others).
Ultimately I come back to Kant's great words, presented here without context, as with a context they would loose their magic/supernatural/ephemeral and insightful quality and become so darn obvious it would be a waste of time to read: "we do no see things as they are, but as we are".
Underlying case is we are all human, and most of the time we are all wrong.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Monday, July 27, 2009
Cool off
So, now after that rant... I had wanted to share this cool photo of ancient tracks of some ancient animal/creature whose fossil remains have not been found, and cannot be explained. The fascinating thing of course is that they look like golf buggy tracks! :)
What is wrong with people?
I have now finished Lomborg's book, and am impressed enough that I decided to get his first book, but from a brief look at it in the book shop it is a much more comprehensive coverage of the facts he presents, and hence, I need to leave it for a while.
But I have also briefly just recently read some criticisms of these books and it appears people either just don't get it, or a criticising for the sake of criticising. Perhaps it is not clear in the book, perhaps I have misunderstood his message, but in my opinion this is what I got out of Lomborg's book: it is very simple, the world has a lot of problems, we have limited resources to solve them, let's sit down and make a list of priorities and get on with it. Climate change is a problem, but only one of many, and his only argument against it is that if people are preferring to address climate change on the basis of avoiding increased flooding, hurricane effects, people dying from starvation/malaria... then it is not the most cost-effective way of going about it.
Why are people even refuting his arguments? It would be much more productive to address and argue flaws in his logic, but of course that would be more difficult, and perhaps even impossible.
Wow, and you know... ultimately we have to face reality and understand that there are many reputable scientists who are opposed to this idea that we have human caused/induced climate change, and that we have not knocked nature out of equilibrium. But I doubt you will find scientist or layman, who will deny that we have extreme poverty in the world, famines, genocide! And that it is not a problem worth solving.
But yes, I think Lomborg is right, caring for nature appeals to our righteousness, morals which we have bought having the luxury to exist in a developed world. It is elegant and chi chi to buy 'green' sparkling bottled water, and 'organic' home grown ( ) <--- insert whatever..... As I alluded to earlier, we are becoming consumers of this 'green' movement, it's easy and oh so fashionable.
It just doesn't warm your heart when you send money to a charity for mosquito nets, because how do you know that the money is actually helping the people and not being spent on administrative costs?.... you don't... and maybe this is what we should be addressing.
But I have also briefly just recently read some criticisms of these books and it appears people either just don't get it, or a criticising for the sake of criticising. Perhaps it is not clear in the book, perhaps I have misunderstood his message, but in my opinion this is what I got out of Lomborg's book: it is very simple, the world has a lot of problems, we have limited resources to solve them, let's sit down and make a list of priorities and get on with it. Climate change is a problem, but only one of many, and his only argument against it is that if people are preferring to address climate change on the basis of avoiding increased flooding, hurricane effects, people dying from starvation/malaria... then it is not the most cost-effective way of going about it.
Why are people even refuting his arguments? It would be much more productive to address and argue flaws in his logic, but of course that would be more difficult, and perhaps even impossible.
Wow, and you know... ultimately we have to face reality and understand that there are many reputable scientists who are opposed to this idea that we have human caused/induced climate change, and that we have not knocked nature out of equilibrium. But I doubt you will find scientist or layman, who will deny that we have extreme poverty in the world, famines, genocide! And that it is not a problem worth solving.
But yes, I think Lomborg is right, caring for nature appeals to our righteousness, morals which we have bought having the luxury to exist in a developed world. It is elegant and chi chi to buy 'green' sparkling bottled water, and 'organic' home grown ( ) <--- insert whatever..... As I alluded to earlier, we are becoming consumers of this 'green' movement, it's easy and oh so fashionable.
It just doesn't warm your heart when you send money to a charity for mosquito nets, because how do you know that the money is actually helping the people and not being spent on administrative costs?.... you don't... and maybe this is what we should be addressing.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Opinion vs Belief
So after having decided that people must try harder to think about issues they previously did not think about and avoid blind belief, I find myself at a point of contradiction...
On my slow path towards understanding the issue of climate change, what it is and how it relates to all facets of our society, I have been recommended "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg. So, of course I've put aside my other books for a while, and started reading this. Seeing his TED talk also is quite curious (it's actually the weirdest thing to hear a Danish person speak with a British accent! Hahaha!)... I like his approach to the 'issue' of climate change, and his arguments while not so cohesive (I image however that he is much more eloquent in his native language), are sound and rational (oh, forever that word will remind me of the brilliance of Dan Ariely!). Yes given a finite amount of resources, we must prioritise our actions, neither scientists, environmentalists can or have the place to make that decision.
But you know the questions is, what is our aim? He talks about the 'most good' but what does that mean? Will most good be most lives saved on a given day, even though the day after those same people due to increased scarcity of resources start riots? He mentions that increase in temperatures as the IPCC predicts won't be so bad as it will actually decrease the total number of deaths (due to less people dying from the cold). Also, I read in another document assessing the impacts of climate change on the US, that while it may adversely affect the skiing industry, it may benefit the beach side resorts..... I find that argument particularly distasteful....perhaps because I find myself personally incredibly averse to change to the point of being autistic. To me, the Earth should always be as it is, and the less we affect it the better. We are like a virus on the planet (brilliant Matrix idea), and we've infected Earth.
Reading his book, I find myself presented with many arguments as to why the Kyoto protocol (as an example), isn't such a good idea, for example, p22 of the book: "The temperature by 2050 would be an immeasurable 0.1F lower and even by 2100 only 0.3F lower. This means that the expected temperature increase of 4.7F would be postponed just five years from 2100 to 2105."
I follow the numbers, but of course I have no idea whether the premise is correct: "The temperature by 2050 would be an immeasurable 0.1F lower..." I am sure that he has a very good source for this statement, and this is the point where I make the decision to believe or not... Hmmm... how important the opening lines of a book must be... he knows that he cannot possibly in the framework of the book (which is surprisingly written in an almost colloquial language) supply all the detailed economic treatment and study that has gone into deriving these numbers, even if he had the time and space to write it all out, I do not share his background, and hence I will probably need to study as many years of economics to begin to understand where he got that from.... so in the first few pages of the book he must provide the reader with the easiest, same framework/context argument which will irrefutably setup a firm foundation and create a solid first impression, everything else will be easy. My logic will then follow as: he was right in the first argument, which implies that he must be right in the following as well....
So this is my dilema... I had just written about how we must all start to think more about these issues, but I find myself constanstly going around and believing people. I like Lomborg's first argument, it is convincing and hence I find myself wanting to believe the rest of the contents of the book, but I find myself reading argument upon argument, where I must trust in the validity of a premise, which is just a bit tiring.
His argument is infallible, yes, we must prioritise, as we have scarce resources. But what is 'our' aim? Not ours I guess, of those people holding the purse strings... what is it that they are trying to achieve? Perhaps with all this media directed to climate change our attention is being redirected away from more pressing issues... I find I am always so ignorant of the 'real' global issues.
On my slow path towards understanding the issue of climate change, what it is and how it relates to all facets of our society, I have been recommended "Cool It" by Bjorn Lomborg. So, of course I've put aside my other books for a while, and started reading this. Seeing his TED talk also is quite curious (it's actually the weirdest thing to hear a Danish person speak with a British accent! Hahaha!)... I like his approach to the 'issue' of climate change, and his arguments while not so cohesive (I image however that he is much more eloquent in his native language), are sound and rational (oh, forever that word will remind me of the brilliance of Dan Ariely!). Yes given a finite amount of resources, we must prioritise our actions, neither scientists, environmentalists can or have the place to make that decision.
But you know the questions is, what is our aim? He talks about the 'most good' but what does that mean? Will most good be most lives saved on a given day, even though the day after those same people due to increased scarcity of resources start riots? He mentions that increase in temperatures as the IPCC predicts won't be so bad as it will actually decrease the total number of deaths (due to less people dying from the cold). Also, I read in another document assessing the impacts of climate change on the US, that while it may adversely affect the skiing industry, it may benefit the beach side resorts..... I find that argument particularly distasteful....perhaps because I find myself personally incredibly averse to change to the point of being autistic. To me, the Earth should always be as it is, and the less we affect it the better. We are like a virus on the planet (brilliant Matrix idea), and we've infected Earth.
Reading his book, I find myself presented with many arguments as to why the Kyoto protocol (as an example), isn't such a good idea, for example, p22 of the book: "The temperature by 2050 would be an immeasurable 0.1F lower and even by 2100 only 0.3F lower. This means that the expected temperature increase of 4.7F would be postponed just five years from 2100 to 2105."
I follow the numbers, but of course I have no idea whether the premise is correct: "The temperature by 2050 would be an immeasurable 0.1F lower..." I am sure that he has a very good source for this statement, and this is the point where I make the decision to believe or not... Hmmm... how important the opening lines of a book must be... he knows that he cannot possibly in the framework of the book (which is surprisingly written in an almost colloquial language) supply all the detailed economic treatment and study that has gone into deriving these numbers, even if he had the time and space to write it all out, I do not share his background, and hence I will probably need to study as many years of economics to begin to understand where he got that from.... so in the first few pages of the book he must provide the reader with the easiest, same framework/context argument which will irrefutably setup a firm foundation and create a solid first impression, everything else will be easy. My logic will then follow as: he was right in the first argument, which implies that he must be right in the following as well....
So this is my dilema... I had just written about how we must all start to think more about these issues, but I find myself constanstly going around and believing people. I like Lomborg's first argument, it is convincing and hence I find myself wanting to believe the rest of the contents of the book, but I find myself reading argument upon argument, where I must trust in the validity of a premise, which is just a bit tiring.
His argument is infallible, yes, we must prioritise, as we have scarce resources. But what is 'our' aim? Not ours I guess, of those people holding the purse strings... what is it that they are trying to achieve? Perhaps with all this media directed to climate change our attention is being redirected away from more pressing issues... I find I am always so ignorant of the 'real' global issues.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Rational vs Rash, or Utopian Society
Hmmm.... so time for another break....The world is fascinating, and today it's also ridiculously hot! Such a pleasure :) Just beautiful to run down streets where the air stands still and heavy with the warm perfume of flowers. And there are lightning bugs here :) so pretty, and makes running interesting as you try to avoid bumping into them.
Okay, so now, to the point, and the latest thing that I've been thinking about is climate change, and how it relates to our society. I am by no means as well informed on the issue as I would like to be, even though my PhD is in some way related, but mainly from an observational point of view. In addition, fortunately as a student I have the luxury of sitting on the fence which I will exploit to full capacity for now.
I was saddened recently to hear an ad on the radio - 'to decrease climate change in your area, be the number X caller after song Y to go in the draw to win an electrical lawn mower'... WTF?! (so now I listen to classical radio; fewer ads, mostly they want you to donate your car...)
The ad was wrong in so many ways.... yet, I'm sure people buy into this stuff... So how to prevent this? People generally speaking have their hearts in the right place and want to do the right thing, and of course when they are told of polar bears drowning, ice caps melting... (i'm going the way of: 'end of the world' flash... check it out) it pulls at heart strings and if all they have to do is call a radio station to 'decrease it in their area' well then what's the harm?
It was sad for me to hear climate change cheapened in such a way, used as a marketing tactic. And leads to the question of why are not people more informed?
Well, people are also generally lazy, thinking takes energy, and thinking is frustrating because we aren't that good at it. When you think and form an opinion, you immediately expose yourself to being 'wrong'. Which of course we feel as an attack on our ego and it smarts. It's so much easier to believe, because well frankly if you believe the wrong thing, it's not you that is 'wrong' it's that your trust was betrayed... you're a victim... or whatever...
Anyway, I'm scattered, this whole debate on climate change, right or wrong, do or don't and what to do and when makes my head spin...
But trying to get back on track. I want to blurt this out, because I even after talking this over with a few people I still don't think I've formulated my opinion in a concise enough way, and writing always helps, and the story goes like this:
Once upon a time, in a cave far far away there lived people that did not think at all... Times were tough, the land was harsh and unforgiving, animals where savage, summers blistering hot, and winters numbingly cold. There communication consisted of grunts, and where mainly expressions of desires and instincts.
One day a huge lightning storm raged for days and days on end, and struck fear into the souls of the cave dwellers. There was among them one cave person known as Lazyone, a particularly poetic soul, that one night over a fire weaved a story about how this was the anger of the sky gods. This caugh the imagination of the cave dwellers and hence started belief on a primitive level.
The older generations when they could no longer pull their weight in the small tribes became the elders and where the story tellers. Religion grew from such gathering, and gave people a cause outside of themselves to fight and die for. Particularly useful if you're trying to mobilize a group of people to fight a war against a neighbouring tribe to tell them that they may die today, but live on forever in the after life. Anyway, that's nothing new, I'm getting carried away (hahah, I'm definitely the "Lazyone")...
As societies grew, the belief system became more elaborate, a documentation system developed, and a few where chosen in the soceities to record this knowledge. Now, most people didn't have time to think, and so on their 'off days' they went in large numbers to hear the readings and teachings of this select few who told them what was wrong and what was right.
The main point I'm trying to make is that morality back in the day was externalized, it was impressed on the majority of people from outside, by the chosen few.
Then we skip ahead some time, to the agricultural revolution when the majority of people found themselves with the time on their hands to 'think'. What where their thoughts turned to? Morality, philosophy, natural sciences. And with time, morality became internalized to some extent... (or you could fairly argue so entrenched in the makeup/web of society, that it was now almost absorbed by osmosis? maybe... but that's not helping my point too much :))
However, these societies where still largely 'imperial' (is that the right word?...no)... 'monarchial' (is that spelt right?...). There was a single person who ruled over the people, and they had little say and choice of who or what they did... With time, people started thinking about this, seeing that perhaps it wasn't exactly fair... (wouldn't blame them after Nero for example)... Whatever the reasons people felt that they had to have a voice and a voice that had to be heard...What gave them such crazy ideas?... too much time on their hands :)... point is that more internalization occured, people 'thought' they had a right to decide their form of government...
Democracy arose, at least for me, who is lucky to be Australian, currently residing in the US, which as to be the most liberal, to the point of being ridiculous, (but I say this with grave admiration, and respect), democratic society. So, although we like to repeat Churchills famous phrase: "the best argument agaist democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter" (Churchill is my hero :)) it's the best we got right now, so don't knock it...
From a young age, since primary school for me, we had it drilled into us that every vote counts! With this we choose our ruling party, we choose our form of government. We have internalized again, we all at least feel we have a voice in our society now. Some of us even read political ideology, and follow the politics of our times, and most of us definitely love arguing about it.
Today for the first time in history, science is no longer just discovering cool gadgets, force fields and observing links in nature which for all their elegance and ingenuity leave most people impassionate. Science today (some science of today to be PC) is actually doing what science is all about in the first place (the whole point), it is 'predicting' and it's predicting something big is about to happen... it is shouting 'dooms day'. Climate change with all it's worst ramifications is the scary unknown, a pushing of our lovely home mother Earth whom we should all love and treasure, into disequilibrium and who knows, a hell so to speak?
What should we do? How should we act? When should we act? What is right and what is wrong? ... Well, I think it's time to internalize again, stop looking at science for facts to 'believe'. "Think, it's patriotic."(from a bumper sticker, oh, God Bless America :)) and we should all think about the fact that we assert our democracy once every three/four years? and we are 'okay' with that, things are going swimmingly... we vote, we poll, we lobby, but not every day.... but every day we assert ourselves on the environment, every day we impact the environment. If we can find the time to think about whether to vote democrat or republican, labor or liberal in the next election, let's hope we find the time to at least 'think' about what we are doing to the environment, and how to best look after the only home we will ever know.
I hope that we all start to think the world is our problem, and we must form an opinion and not a belief.
Okay, so now, to the point, and the latest thing that I've been thinking about is climate change, and how it relates to our society. I am by no means as well informed on the issue as I would like to be, even though my PhD is in some way related, but mainly from an observational point of view. In addition, fortunately as a student I have the luxury of sitting on the fence which I will exploit to full capacity for now.
I was saddened recently to hear an ad on the radio - 'to decrease climate change in your area, be the number X caller after song Y to go in the draw to win an electrical lawn mower'... WTF?! (so now I listen to classical radio; fewer ads, mostly they want you to donate your car...)
The ad was wrong in so many ways.... yet, I'm sure people buy into this stuff... So how to prevent this? People generally speaking have their hearts in the right place and want to do the right thing, and of course when they are told of polar bears drowning, ice caps melting... (i'm going the way of: 'end of the world' flash... check it out) it pulls at heart strings and if all they have to do is call a radio station to 'decrease it in their area' well then what's the harm?
It was sad for me to hear climate change cheapened in such a way, used as a marketing tactic. And leads to the question of why are not people more informed?
Well, people are also generally lazy, thinking takes energy, and thinking is frustrating because we aren't that good at it. When you think and form an opinion, you immediately expose yourself to being 'wrong'. Which of course we feel as an attack on our ego and it smarts. It's so much easier to believe, because well frankly if you believe the wrong thing, it's not you that is 'wrong' it's that your trust was betrayed... you're a victim... or whatever...
Anyway, I'm scattered, this whole debate on climate change, right or wrong, do or don't and what to do and when makes my head spin...
But trying to get back on track. I want to blurt this out, because I even after talking this over with a few people I still don't think I've formulated my opinion in a concise enough way, and writing always helps, and the story goes like this:
Once upon a time, in a cave far far away there lived people that did not think at all... Times were tough, the land was harsh and unforgiving, animals where savage, summers blistering hot, and winters numbingly cold. There communication consisted of grunts, and where mainly expressions of desires and instincts.
One day a huge lightning storm raged for days and days on end, and struck fear into the souls of the cave dwellers. There was among them one cave person known as Lazyone, a particularly poetic soul, that one night over a fire weaved a story about how this was the anger of the sky gods. This caugh the imagination of the cave dwellers and hence started belief on a primitive level.
The older generations when they could no longer pull their weight in the small tribes became the elders and where the story tellers. Religion grew from such gathering, and gave people a cause outside of themselves to fight and die for. Particularly useful if you're trying to mobilize a group of people to fight a war against a neighbouring tribe to tell them that they may die today, but live on forever in the after life. Anyway, that's nothing new, I'm getting carried away (hahah, I'm definitely the "Lazyone")...
As societies grew, the belief system became more elaborate, a documentation system developed, and a few where chosen in the soceities to record this knowledge. Now, most people didn't have time to think, and so on their 'off days' they went in large numbers to hear the readings and teachings of this select few who told them what was wrong and what was right.
The main point I'm trying to make is that morality back in the day was externalized, it was impressed on the majority of people from outside, by the chosen few.
Then we skip ahead some time, to the agricultural revolution when the majority of people found themselves with the time on their hands to 'think'. What where their thoughts turned to? Morality, philosophy, natural sciences. And with time, morality became internalized to some extent... (or you could fairly argue so entrenched in the makeup/web of society, that it was now almost absorbed by osmosis? maybe... but that's not helping my point too much :))
However, these societies where still largely 'imperial' (is that the right word?...no)... 'monarchial' (is that spelt right?...). There was a single person who ruled over the people, and they had little say and choice of who or what they did... With time, people started thinking about this, seeing that perhaps it wasn't exactly fair... (wouldn't blame them after Nero for example)... Whatever the reasons people felt that they had to have a voice and a voice that had to be heard...What gave them such crazy ideas?... too much time on their hands :)... point is that more internalization occured, people 'thought' they had a right to decide their form of government...
Democracy arose, at least for me, who is lucky to be Australian, currently residing in the US, which as to be the most liberal, to the point of being ridiculous, (but I say this with grave admiration, and respect), democratic society. So, although we like to repeat Churchills famous phrase: "the best argument agaist democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter" (Churchill is my hero :)) it's the best we got right now, so don't knock it...
From a young age, since primary school for me, we had it drilled into us that every vote counts! With this we choose our ruling party, we choose our form of government. We have internalized again, we all at least feel we have a voice in our society now. Some of us even read political ideology, and follow the politics of our times, and most of us definitely love arguing about it.
Today for the first time in history, science is no longer just discovering cool gadgets, force fields and observing links in nature which for all their elegance and ingenuity leave most people impassionate. Science today (some science of today to be PC) is actually doing what science is all about in the first place (the whole point), it is 'predicting' and it's predicting something big is about to happen... it is shouting 'dooms day'. Climate change with all it's worst ramifications is the scary unknown, a pushing of our lovely home mother Earth whom we should all love and treasure, into disequilibrium and who knows, a hell so to speak?
What should we do? How should we act? When should we act? What is right and what is wrong? ... Well, I think it's time to internalize again, stop looking at science for facts to 'believe'. "Think, it's patriotic."(from a bumper sticker, oh, God Bless America :)) and we should all think about the fact that we assert our democracy once every three/four years? and we are 'okay' with that, things are going swimmingly... we vote, we poll, we lobby, but not every day.... but every day we assert ourselves on the environment, every day we impact the environment. If we can find the time to think about whether to vote democrat or republican, labor or liberal in the next election, let's hope we find the time to at least 'think' about what we are doing to the environment, and how to best look after the only home we will ever know.
I hope that we all start to think the world is our problem, and we must form an opinion and not a belief.
Monday, July 13, 2009
1 in a million! but it's a chance!
Hello!
'There's a chance!' exclaimed Jim Carrey's character in the brilliant and ridiculously funny movie "Dumb and Dumber" Hahaha :) I still laugh about it... come to think of it, I should watch it again sometime... anyway, this was his response to his love interest in the movie rejecting his advances with the familiar '1 in a million' that she would be interested.... Hmmm... here's to hoping, obviously the eternal optimist...
It sounds funny, and we laugh, and cry (the movie is that good!) exactly because of the ridiculous response he makes in thinking that 1/1,000,000 is actually a possibility. And yet, when I think about it, most of us believe that yes, that is a chance worth noting... Let me explain briefly what I mean, the way I understand basic (and I mean basic) statistics is that you can actually calculate the probability of tossing a coin, and getting 'heads' every time. This is a small number, but it's a 'calculatable' probability and well, most of us would say yes it is a 'possibility'. Why?
Why do we laugh at Jim Carry's character, and not at ourselves?
Do we realize that we could spend our lives tossing that coin, and never ever observe it land heads every time we toss it? And hence, as observation doesn't match theory, perhaps we should say that there are certain probabilities that are actually so improbably as to be impossible?
Hmmm.... well, what about if we had 1,000,000 people toss a coin each, what would be the chance that one of them would always get heads? The chances of consequitive heads 'intuitively' sounds now (at least to me), to be more likely.... so what is going on here...? (Aside note, I read somewhere this amazing quote, which is quite pertinent: Intuition is the product of thousands of years of not thinking, so with this in mind, let's continue.)
Perhaps there should be a statitics which takes into account not only the probability of an event occuring but also the number of tests done? Maybe there already is such a statistical framework?... talking with a bio friend of mine, seems like Baysian stats is something along these lines. As soon as I get a chance I will take a look at this... and we'll see where we go...
But right now, I'm trying hard to write up my PhD... it's hard and soul destroying, and just impossibly difficult, because especially when I am most pressed for time do I find myself branching into other sciences and discovering the most amazingly interesting books and theories. For example, recently walking around the Natural History Museum (again... I have been to that place so many times now :)) I stumbled upon the creatures from the Burgess Shale... Wow :) I love the little note that is attached to their drawings... "Relationship to living organisms unknown." So from this I stumbled upon Stephen Jay Gould and his book (I am reading...) "Wonderful Life"... and then I can't wait to finish that one and read Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained"... and then .... oh, I can go on and on! and on and on!!! ....
But when I wake up in the morning... I feel great and elated for the few minutes it takes to download my life back into my brain... and then all the pressures and stresses of the new day weight heavy... so this is why I am writing in my blog!!! ....
Okay, seriously, back to it! :)
'There's a chance!' exclaimed Jim Carrey's character in the brilliant and ridiculously funny movie "Dumb and Dumber" Hahaha :) I still laugh about it... come to think of it, I should watch it again sometime... anyway, this was his response to his love interest in the movie rejecting his advances with the familiar '1 in a million' that she would be interested.... Hmmm... here's to hoping, obviously the eternal optimist...
It sounds funny, and we laugh, and cry (the movie is that good!) exactly because of the ridiculous response he makes in thinking that 1/1,000,000 is actually a possibility. And yet, when I think about it, most of us believe that yes, that is a chance worth noting... Let me explain briefly what I mean, the way I understand basic (and I mean basic) statistics is that you can actually calculate the probability of tossing a coin, and getting 'heads' every time. This is a small number, but it's a 'calculatable' probability and well, most of us would say yes it is a 'possibility'. Why?
Why do we laugh at Jim Carry's character, and not at ourselves?
Do we realize that we could spend our lives tossing that coin, and never ever observe it land heads every time we toss it? And hence, as observation doesn't match theory, perhaps we should say that there are certain probabilities that are actually so improbably as to be impossible?
Hmmm.... well, what about if we had 1,000,000 people toss a coin each, what would be the chance that one of them would always get heads? The chances of consequitive heads 'intuitively' sounds now (at least to me), to be more likely.... so what is going on here...? (Aside note, I read somewhere this amazing quote, which is quite pertinent: Intuition is the product of thousands of years of not thinking, so with this in mind, let's continue.)
Perhaps there should be a statitics which takes into account not only the probability of an event occuring but also the number of tests done? Maybe there already is such a statistical framework?... talking with a bio friend of mine, seems like Baysian stats is something along these lines. As soon as I get a chance I will take a look at this... and we'll see where we go...
But right now, I'm trying hard to write up my PhD... it's hard and soul destroying, and just impossibly difficult, because especially when I am most pressed for time do I find myself branching into other sciences and discovering the most amazingly interesting books and theories. For example, recently walking around the Natural History Museum (again... I have been to that place so many times now :)) I stumbled upon the creatures from the Burgess Shale... Wow :) I love the little note that is attached to their drawings... "Relationship to living organisms unknown." So from this I stumbled upon Stephen Jay Gould and his book (I am reading...) "Wonderful Life"... and then I can't wait to finish that one and read Daniel Dennett's "Consciousness Explained"... and then .... oh, I can go on and on! and on and on!!! ....
But when I wake up in the morning... I feel great and elated for the few minutes it takes to download my life back into my brain... and then all the pressures and stresses of the new day weight heavy... so this is why I am writing in my blog!!! ....
Okay, seriously, back to it! :)
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Bayesian Stats
Feel like I'm onto something interesting here....
(http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html)
okay, probably, quite obviously :)
(http://www-biba.inrialpes.fr/Jaynes/prob.html)
okay, probably, quite obviously :)
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