I like it here.
Nope, but it does make your typos look distinctly nordic.
What you mean is much more clear than it was previously. I will happily accept this restated definition of your usage of consensus as what you meant.
I hope that you can see by it’s variance with your previous definition why I would fairly characterize that as synonymous with unanimity, thus ending the semantic hijack with everybody’s feelings and dignity intact, you and I having achieved consensus.
Rush Limbaugh invented velcro.
“Allows” was probably a poor word for me to use. Maybe “encourages” is a little better (still not perfect, but oh well).
My point is that without the consensus, the engineer may feel the need to reproduce past experiments in order to be sure that they weren’t conducted in a flawed manner.
A better example would probably have been a peer-reviewed journal. A growing consensus helps to reinforce the legitimacy of an experiment, simply because it’s been exposed to a large number of scientists. Ideally, as the number of reviewers increases, the number of errors/flaws decreases. (And repeating part of the argument you’re making, since the number of potential errors/flaws will never be 0, it certainly makes sense to keep discussion on the matter open.)
Does that better describe where I’m coming from?
LilShieste
I’ve always experienced it as exactly the opposite.
Liberals don’t generally think conservatives are bad people, at least not the rank and file. We just think they’re stupid. Five minutes of talk radio tells me that righties think liberals are traitors, God-haters and perverts. Just a glance at any random page of Free Republic shows me how many conservatives think I’m evil.
I also think that lefties tend to attack leadership while righties attack the rank and file themselves.
[QUOTE=LilShieste
Does that better describe where I’m coming from?
[/QUOTE]
Sure. I still don’t think the analogy is very useful, because of the huge disparity between designing a circuit board and analyzing the effect man is having on the global climate.
I actually think you actually might draw a better analogy from economics rather than from experimental science.
For example, trying to analyze the effect of a single factor in a large economy would be a good analogy for trying to analyze the effect of man’s actions on the global environment.
The utility of such an analysis will depend upon modelling. How much one’s model diverges from actuality over a given time period (both with historical back testing) and during real time and how often it needs corrective adjustment will determine it’s potential utility for predicting change.
That’s it. Consensus has nothing to do with it. Everybody deciding a given model isn’t good doesn’t make it good. The consensus in market theory is that Modern Portfolio Theory is a useful predictice tool for performance when coupled with the Capitol Markets Model.
Sadly this consensus is false. Modern Portfolio depends upon Beta as a measurement of risk. It’s not. It simply does not work at all. Everybody uses it though because everybody uses it, and we have nothing else to replace it with.
Similarly, the time value of money equations use a discunt factor to adjust the answers to market conditions, it’s a built in fudge factor. We all get the same answers because we all agree to use the same fudge factor and we all build our models based upon these assumptions.
A couple of times a decade we have a major disaster because our assumptions are not accurate reflections of reality as reflected in our model and we are creating inefficiencies which then collide with reality, like Long Term Capitol in '98.
Most experts generally agree the weak or semi-efficient form of the Efficient Market Hypothesis is correct. It’s not. We agree though because it’s useful in our models.
I know a fair amount about predictive modelling, and regression analysis because of my background in economics and portfolio management.
I am not an expert in geophysics or weather modelling or climate modelling. However, I think that some of what I know bears directly. I would guess that modelling the climate of the entire world is a lot more complex and difficult than modelling a couple of capital markets. I would guess that those models are built on assumptions and fudge factors of various utility and accuracy.
I would examine the utility of climate modelling to some degree by measuring the ability of meteorological models to predict the weather. The models appear to be useful in the short term but diverge dramatically over time. You have a good chance of predicting the weather 3 days from now, but less of a chance 3 weeks from now because of divergence.
I would imagine that divergence in climate models over decades and centuries would be exceedingly problematic.
A few decades ago it wasn’t the greenhouse effect but global cooling and nuclear winter that we were worried about. The models and our understanding are still immature.
I would guess that we are probably acquiring knowledge and expertise fast in this area, and we are beginning to get a good handle on what some of the prime effects on climate change but that out knowledge is far from complete.
Based on these guesses, expertise and experience of mine, I would not put much stock in consensus among experts.
The consensus of experts does not provide utility for your predictive model, it’s accuracy does.
In my business a statement such as “everybody agrees this is a great model,” is the sort of thing that immediately reach for your checkbook to place a large bet against it. It is a dead giveaway that the model sucks.
The fact is that if you had a good model you would be bragging about its success and predictive power. Since you can’t you argue that everybody likes it.
We all understand this conceit. If you were set up with a blind date people told you “everybody likes this person and thinks they’re nice,” you immediately know you are going on a date with an unattractive person.
I don’t have much faith in the long term modelling of complex chaotic systems or in the utility of their predictive output as a matter of both conceit and personal experience.
Arguing the utility of such because of a consensus seems to me like a pretty safe contra-indicator, and is quite the opposite from being a point in its favor.
beleiving something to be true doesn’t make it so, no matter how many people beleive or how many initials they have after their name.
When all is said and done I beleive that manmade global warming is a real effect, but nothing about that beleif of mine has anything to do with how many other people also beleive it.
That would, if true, make you utterly irrelevant.
Please assure me it is not true.
Nobody except you appears to be confusing them, and your confusion is so great that I’m having trouble asking the questions that might get you to see where your confusion lies.
Let’s try this again.
Let’s say that the world encounters a problem (avian bird flu, for example). The scientific community comes up with a model of the problem (via epidemiology, for example). Virtually all scientists agree on the validity of this model, and say that we need mass chicken slaughters to prevent an epidemic. Chik-Fil-A’s scientists, however, disagree, and deny that any such slaughter should occur.
The president, in charge of the FDA, needs to make a decision. Should he:
a) Give no weight to any scientist’s opinion, instead deciding the issue on purely political grounds without scientific input?
b) Give equal weight to the opinions of all scientists, almost treating it like a vote?
c) Give equal weight to all opinions of scientists, treating it as a hoice between equally plausible theories?
d) Obtain a doctorate in epidemiology before being able to make a decision?
e) Other?
Daniel
Pre-emptive apology: Mods, on re-reading the above I realize it is way too close to a flame if not over the line. Please don’t spank me.
I’m game.
e) other
The President in charge of the FDA does not need to be a practicing scientist, he does however need to be able to evaluate science and needs to perform due diligence consonant with the prudent man rule to evaluate the science.
When faced with two contradictory theories and the need to choose between them, he needs to evaluate those theories blindly as regards their source or popularity and decide based on the merits alone.
I will go a step further. Let us say the President of the FDA is only presented with the one theory which has seemingly overwhelming support from the scientific community. To exercise prudence and diligence he should go out of his way to seek and solicit competing and contradictory theories.
For the sake of argument let’s pretend that scientific community theory is correct and good science, and the Chick Fil-A theory is a bunch of crap.
By comparing the two diligently the good science of the first will be highlighted by the bad science of the second, and the correct theory will be more readily apparent.
The entire process of science is dependant upon adversity and competition among ideas. Without adversity in review evaluation is much more difficult.
In this case, the consensus of the scientific community is a negative and the existance of the competing view from Chick Fil-A is a positive. Fortunately, the Chick Fil-A report will be trying very hard to poke holes in the other report. They should. They may find some.
Having reviewed both The FDA President may find that the scientific community report has some real problems and may be loathe to proceed with it. Conversely, he may find that it has held up very well under attack and may then implement it with confidence.
The way you find out which of two things is better is by competition. Letting these two reports attack and beat each other up shows their strengths and weaknesses and enables evaluation.
Such conflict is highly desirable for scientific evaluation.
I think this is the way it should be done. A theory without competition or dissent is one that should be eyed suspiciously. A theory that looks good under encouraged continuous assault is probably pretty good.
We agree that there should be this competition. The question, however, is who should be doing the evaluation. Some of us believe that experts competent to evaluate the science should be (at least primarily) the ones doing the evaluation. Otherwise, what the competition tends to do is allow the better salespeople to prevail. This is very clear in the evolution / creationism debates. Do you really think that politicians and the public have been very good at evaluating the relative merits of the scientific arguments on each side?
You really can take the idea of democracy too far. Democracy does not mean that one doesn’t rely on expert opinion…i.e., that anyone is as qualified to evaluate a complex scientific field as anyone else!
I am not saying that policymakers shouldn’t hear any dissenting views…However, they should understand the context for these views, i.e., that they represent a small minority of the scientific community, especially in terms of representation in the peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Well that’s a first! 
Yes. I agree. That’s why I said the President of the FDA (who you posed as the decision-maker) would need to exercise standards of prudence and due diligence.
I think you are pointing to a very slippery slope. The politicians are the elected leaders of the public. It is their actual job to evaluate things like this and implement the will of the people. That is our system of government. If you wish to overthrow it and replace it with something better, I’m all ears. Failing that though, that’s the system we are stuck with and must operate within.
The alternative is that we create a society that is ruled by consensus of scientists, and intellectual elite. I’m uncomfortable with that.
There’s an interesting concept for this kind of conundrum in the legal world. It’s called a “fiduciary.” The best definition I head of this is that when you become a ficuciary you are giving somebody else the legal right to trust you.
Regardless of what you do as a fiduciary you can, after the fact be held to three standards: 1. Did you follow the “Prudent Man Rule” this means did you act as a prudent and competant person would have acted? 2. Did you do your “due diligence” this means did you take the time and effort to examine the issue adequately and with enough depth to follow rule #1. 3. Did you act in the best interests of the person(s) to whom you had fiduciary responsibility?
I would say that in your example, the President of the FDA is a fiduciary, and he needs to examine the output and recommendations of the experts and scientists in a manner consonant with that capacity.
In that capacity, I also think politicians are elected fiduciaries.
But you really asked who was qualified, didn’t you?
Well, clearly it’s not the scientists themselves who put forth the proposal or theory. We need to have a disinterested party with no stock in the proposal to evaluate it.
Well, no. The fact that a view is a minority view has absolutely zero bearing on its level of correctness. At one time or another most majority views were minority views that gained acceptance as they demonstrated utility versus competing views. Eventually they will tend to be replaced by newer more useful views that will begin as a minority viewpoint.
You can’t tell how true it is based on how many people like it. You yourself said you can take Democracy too far.
Scientific theories need to be examined by disinterested third parties who will view them skeptically based on their merits not their popularity.
I didn’t get it, so your safe from me.
Like I said before, the alternative is worse, and in any case it was not an absolute even when our government took attention (not rules) from scientists and intellectuals.
I think just the whole Terry Schiavo case, and the disregard of the best information by the politicians back then, is a big monkey wrench in the latest **Scylla ** constructs here. (And many other anti-science moves by the current administration and congress)
It is damming IMHO that it was the conservative elements in congress in 1995 (not long after the Republicans took over congress) that closed an office that would have presented other timely opinions that would have saved the huge pie in the face the conservatives and even the President got in their faces.
After seeing how science was pushed aside in many other policy decisions, it is clear that they made it so with the idea to not ever be bothered about facts that could change their political preconceptions.
http://www.wws.princeton.edu/ota/ns20/nyt95_n.html
Disinterested parties? Now that is really the biggest joke of the thread surpassing the OP, specially when one considers all the money contributed by the industries that can be the most affected by the changes that would come if some disinterested parties had been elected in the first place.
As jshore pointed out, you’re having the decision made by someone who is not qualified to make the decision. You say the President doesn’t need to be a practicing scientist–but then you say the President needs to be the one who evaluates extremely complex scientific theories that are outside his area of expertise.
That just doesn’t make sense. That’s why presidents have advisors: no one person can be an expert in every area, so they need to have people who ARE experts who can give them advice.
Science is a great area for getting advice, because all the possible advisors talk publicly through peer-related journals to one another, share their data and their conclusions with one another, and engage in a vicious, ongoing, and thoroughly public debate about the issues.
Why ignore this process?
Daniel
That’s one Great Plains of an excluded middle.
We’re talking about how politicians should make use of the state of scientific knowledge. It’s still politicians occasionally asking scientists for advice, and then deciding what to do with it; it’s not scientists telling the politicians how to run the world.
Take zoning, for instance. I bet scientists have some pretty strong opinions about the effects of sprawl on ecosystems, CO2 generation, resource consumption, and a whole bunch of other issues.
But until politicians bring scientists into the discussion, their opinions carry negligible weight. And the pols rarely if ever ask the scientists what they think about zoning.
So even if politicians, when they choose to ask about the state of scientific knowledge, take note of the scientific consensus, when there is one, rather than taking your fiduciary approach, that hardly exposes us to rule by scientific elites.
The scientists are still effectively sitting in a box, and the pols get to decide when to pull them out and listen to them. No matter how they listen to them when they pull them out of the box, it doesn’t amount to rule by scientific elites.
The problem is that the only persons who are able to examine them in any meaningful way are other scientists in the same field or subfield. There’s really no way for a nonexpert to evaluate the validity of a scientific consensus, other than verify that it’s the scientific consensus. Your due diligence process depends on the fiduciary being able to distinguish between real science, and scientific-sounding crap. It’s a challenge that’s a stretch for even a very intelligent layman.
If it is not the role of the President of the FDA to evaluate science and issue policies and recommendations based on those evaluations, than what is his job?
In a word “yes.” Exactly. That is a what you need to do at that level. The CEO of Dupont doesn’t need to be able to replicate or understand every last detail of one his scientists in order to make a decision. This is the role of management.
Who said anything against advisors?
Why indeed?
I think this has been pretty much covered now. Perhaps we can move on to “Ann Coulter - unbiased and non partisan political observer”.
Indeed.
For my part, to explain where I was coming from, James Burke in the old classic documentary Connections explains it better than I could (with footnotes to why I think this is applicable):
*Yesterday, tomorrow and you *
Connections episode 10:
And so is Rush, scientific knowledge removes the crutches of opinion and ideology, and leaves only what it is demonstratively true about the world. But the results are hard to take, and so we get people that become rich by telling many what they want to hear, never mind if their say so is turning the same as destroying our modern tools. With no opinion or ideology Rush is nothing, irrelevant, and so the misleading show must go on.
- the current data behind the Global Warming consensus
** James Burke was Opal’s worst nightmare!
*** From voting to dissolve more independent scientific offices at the congressional level to Stem cell research.
**** Hi, Scylla! 