Pascal's Wager and Climate Change

O Bloody Hell • 5 years ago

> In my talks I've argued that climate change provides us with a modern version of Pascal's wager: if catastrophic global warming turns out not to happen, the steps we'd take to address it are still worthwhile.
And the flaw to this is much the same as with Pascal's Wager (you really might want to actually look into it -- no one but a die-hard Xtian actually argues it, as it's very easily demolished)
It ignores not only the opportunity costs of the alternative decisions (trillions!), but the rather blatant risks associated with the wager being the wrong decision entirely.
In the AGW case the long-term evidence is clear -- if we are actually at the edge of an Ice Age -- and there is plenty of evidence to support this argument -- then any efforts regarding AGW will only aggravate that.
I'm not saying that either is happening, I'm saying that The Wager cannot be made in the vacuum it is usually (including above) presented in. It's an inherently defective argument, and anyone who attempts to make it is dodging the whole picture. And it's only with a substantial part of the whole picture -- which we aren't even close to having -- that we can make a rational, informed decision.
One thing ClimateGate is revealing is that the cadre associated with AGW is at least as biased and goal-oriented (as opposed to "Science Oriented") as the skeptical camp is claimed to be.
They have just as much to gain by selling -- yes, selling -- their point of view as "correct" regardless of facts as anyone "in the pocket of some cabal of oil companies". They have just as much of their careers and reputations on the line as the opposition, and have distorted the science -- indeed, openly expressed fraud and suppressed dissent -- in the name of promoting policy for which there is inadequate data.
The raw data needs to be opened up and readily available. The techniques used to "polish" the data to tease out claimed information need to be open and readily available for all to see and examine for bias and distortion.
And this is certainly true for the people on BOTH sides of the argument.
That's how SCIENCE works. Not by fiat, not by consensus -- Ether Physics was "the consensus" in 1890. By 1900, one single, solitary experiment, reproduced a half dozen times in a half dozen places, had demolished the concept utterly and completely. That was because the technique was open and readily available for all to see and concur as to what it said.
Current AGW "theory" isn't even justifying that moniker. It's raw supposition because no one is allowed to see the data used to make the arguments made and to examine the techniques used to manipulate that raw data to produce the claimed information.
That's NOT Science.
Science is about open access to the data and methodology used to make a claim.
It's not about high priests in charge of The Theory making pronouncements on high based on the Revealed Word of Gaia, revealed only to their eyes, their visions, their judgments.
'Nuff said.