We should all be confident in understanding that Michael Mann and the CRUgaters, the UN and the IPCCers, the climatists of government-subsidized Western science, the Eurocommies, have been all to eager to put politics before methodology when looking at the world around us.
Comment on We are all confident idiots by Wagathon
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by nottawa rafter
If one has been paying attention to claims by scientists over 50 years in various fields and remember how many “findings ” are reversed decades later and then that “finding” is reversed itself, and so on and on, one becomes a little skeptical about each new “finding”.
The immediate response to confident scientific studies is to say “Ya ya, I have heard it all before.”
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by Bad Andrew
“We are all confident idiots”
This headline is lame. And that being the case, I can’t read any further. It’s not true. This kind of generalization doesn’t help anyone, whether they be idiots or non.
Andrew
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by JeffN
For more fun on this, recall that science recently discovered the social sciences are loaded with unreplicated (and unreplicable) papers. Social scientists responded that it is “bullying” to check their work:
For even more fun recall the dustup in anthropology. There the urge to purge anything that challenges political orthodoxy became so strong that anthropologists decided they needed to drop the word “science” from the description of what they do. You see, if anthropology is a “science,” there are some crazy people out there who actually check your work and expect your assertions to have some sort of verifiable validity.
When Chris Mooney talks about the GOP “War on Science,” we all know what definition of “science” he’s using.
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Comment on Challenges to understanding the role of the ocean in climate science by KenW
Channeling Timothy Leary perhaps?
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by curryja
I have a post on underdetermination coming soon, i got sidetracked with the overconfidence piece.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by Tom C
Lewandowsky is Exhibit A for the comment regarding progressive education by Charles the Moderator which you dismissed.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by nickels
There is (to me) an interesting analogue in learning a musical instrument. It is basically impossible to know how well you are playing (especially with regard to feel and timing) while playing. Which is why the pro educators insist one must record oneself, which is the only way to know how you are actually doing. It can be brutal. But, in time, one can develop a more tuthful ear.
How do we record the climate scientists, and the question is “Will they listen”?
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by beththeserf
The Whorl of the Words.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by nickels
Oh, and as far as the idiocy of the whole confidence game, just look no further than the wonderful world of dating….
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by kim
Given the Accumulated Cyclone Energy lately, I’ve directly asked Chris Mooney when he is going to write ‘Calm World’. I can call spirits but he do not answer when I do call.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by kim
Yeah, Dutch? Or not?
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by Joshua
Tom C -
==> “Lewandowsky is Exhibit A for the comment regarding progressive education by Charles the Moderator which you dismissed.”
If a “skeptic” wants to make claim about an incredibly broad cultural/societal phenomenon, then it seems to me that they might start by:
Defining and quantifying the phenomenon, systematically looking for evidence of the hypothesized results, and controlling or variables to help establish cause-and-effect.
Please, do show evidence of ” progressive influence on the entire school system, K through PhD” for “two generations.”
Show evidence of a “destroy[ed] ability to think logically and critically analyze.” How would you measure that across society? Would you document a loss of products from logical thinking and critical analysis? Less technological output, for example?
Do you see that some segments of our educational environment that display larger “progressive influence” relative to others, and which show a more marked reduction in logical thinking or critical analysis? Perhaps comparative trends in school and college performance in Montana as opposed to Berkeley, for example, or better trends in school performance in Texas as compared to “socialist” countries in Scandinavia?
How have you controlled for variables such as poverty or class size or %’s of special needs students or %’s of speakers of English as a 2nd language?
How have you controlled for “progressive influence” relative to non-progressive? influence in a country whgere higher #’s identify as conservatives rather than liberals?
Tell me, Tom – is your highlighting Lewendowsky’s work as “exhibit A” for a broad scale social and cultural phenomenon an example of logical thinking and critical analysis?
Too freakin’ funny.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by Joshua
Forgot an important part –
After you’ve quantified this trend of growth in “progressive influence on the entire school system, K through PhD” in the last “two generations,” please show differentially and proportionally, the relationship to “logical thinking” and “critical analysis” in prior generations.
That shouldn’t be hard, eh? I’m sure you can whip that up in no time.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by kim
Dunno lead on to more dunnoes,
So curious, the funnoes.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by kim
A child of the enlightenment, she must have been more scientific than some of the recent specimens in climate science.
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Comment on Challenges to understanding the role of the ocean in climate science by nickels
I guess thats where the whole citizen scientist thing is actually useful. They are the only ones who can call anyone. Anyone in the system faces the burden of potential pariah’hood.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by Rob Starkey
But we have no data regarding your grandmother–she might have been the greatest scientist in human history
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by Craig Loehle
The Dunning-Kruger effect is often misconstrued. If you ask the average person what they know about ancient Greece, they will say they know nothing, which is true. Often people rely on those they trust, such as climate experts or newspaper statements about inflation or unemployment. This externalization of knowledge is efficient because it saves us from all the work of learning everything about everything. The problem arises when the experts present a distorted picture of what they know to achieve some goal of their own. When pundits and Nobel Prize winners get an exaggerated sense of their own genius, Dunning-Kruger comes into full force. Thus older individuals become more cynical because they have discovered that the pundits lie or spin.
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Comment on We are all confident idiots by Rud Istvan
Jim D, I disagree to a large extent (qualification follows). The only skill needed to approach ‘right answers’ is critical thinking. That, plus time/willingness to dig into primary research and data, now much easier thanks to the internet. Wrote a whole book on that topic, The Arts of Truth, using lots of examples from public health, public education, energy, and climate.
The qualification has to do with advanced mathematics/statistics, which may be necessary for precise answers, the only way to produce accurate ‘rocket science’. But when for most purposes I run up against such difficulties, I am reminded of a profound anecdote taught by one of my economics professors (I degreed in econometrics). John Kenneth Galbraith taught himself how to eyeball a column of numbers and estimate the sum to within 10%. He also headed the OPA during WW2. When asked how he could be making so many momentous decisions without closer study, he said: ‘I have found that when a question requires more precision than an estimate to within 10%, it is the wrong question.’
Much food for thought.
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