Partisan-Based "Evidence"

I'll be brief today. Krugman is off on yet another partisan rant and because I have no interest in defending the Republican Party, I'll let others offer whatever defense they might choose.

However, I will point out that the column itself involves the usual kind of snobbery one would expect from a college professor who truly sees himself as being an example of brilliance and reason. I do find it strange, thought, that he chooses Hillary Clinton and the Benghazi attacks as an example of GOP malfeasance.

After all, the Obama administration from Hillary Clinton to President Obama himself lied about the attacks, what happened, and why they happened. We were supposed to believe that an obscure video was the cause of all this carnage and that the attacks occurred spontaneously.

The "evidence-based" world told a different story, but Clinton, Obama, and Krugman are moving on and then falsely accusing anyone who does not go with the administration's latest story as being part of an "ignorance-based" caucus.

As for Krugman and the claims that anyone who might disagree with his view of global warming is subject to intense persecution, he might want to look at the facts and make an "evidence-based" assessment. He wants us to believe that oil companies and crazy conservatives dominate the media conversation and the policy prescriptions, not to mention the research funding. Single government-funded research projects receive more than the entirety of Exxon-Mobile grants, but to Krugman, any questioning at all of the government's paradigm is tantamount to murderous treason.

Evidence-based, indeed.

Science or just opinion?

In a recent column, Paul Krugman repeated the usual canard that Republicans are "anti-science," which is another way of saying that Only Stupid People Believe in God or Disagree with Krugman. Given that the Republicans are known as the Stupid Party, perhaps there is some truth to Krugman's view that Republicans (or at least a lot of Republicans) really are stupid.

Whether or not some Republicans are stupid, I contend that Krugman still did not make the case, and that is because he confuses science with opinion. Thus, if someone disagrees with him -- and everyone knows that Krugman claims to base his opinions solely on science -- then that person is an ignorant know-nothing.

I will go further. Krugman is not speaking so much of science here, but rather opinions from people who are employed as scientists. What he is claiming is a non sequitur: if one disagrees with his views, then one rejects the ENTIRETY of the Scientific Method.

The two subjects he identifies are the Theory of Evolution and whether or not humans are destroying the planet by causing global warming. It is Krugman's belief that if one does not hold to exactly the same viewpoints he holds, then one is beyond reproach and is utterly ignorant and should be banished from polite or at least intelligent company. He writes:

Mr. Perry, the governor of Texas, recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as “just a theory,” one that has “got some gaps in it” — an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists. But what really got peoples’ attention was what he said about climate change: “I think there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects. And I think we are seeing almost weekly, or even daily, scientists are coming forward and questioning the original idea that man-made global warming is what is causing the climate to change.”

That’s a remarkable statement — or maybe the right adjective is “vile.”

Now, I don't want to get into the deeper arguments on evolution or climate change, but want to point out that when Krugman speaks of evolution, he is saying that all present and complex life forms all evolved from a simple form of life, the amoebae. (Krugman does not tell us how the amoebae found its way to existence, and since there can't possibly be a God -- such thoughts are not permissible at places like Princeton -- well, the cell just must have appeared on its own.)

There is plenty of scientific debate on the evolution of cells, but what Krugman is saying is that one must accept EVERYTHING on one side, proven or not, or one is an ignorant know-nothing. And God help any scientist who might use something like probabilities in the discussion, as the use of the scientific method is acceptable ONLY if one first accepts the view that all things complex evolved out of things simple.

As for global warming, Krugman is saying that unless one believes that a trace gas (carbon dioxide occupies about 0.037 percent of the atmosphere) is responsible for all changes in climage, one is an ignorant know-nothing. Furthermore, Krugman does not argue the science, but rather says that because the National Academy of Sciences is on the CO2 bandwagon, we should be, too.

You will have to excuse my skepticism here, as I wrote part of my doctoral dissertation on acid rain, including the predictions and what actually happened. Yes, the National Academy of Science in the early 1980s made a wild prediction (there would be a ten-fold increase in the number of acidified lakes in the USA because of acid rain) which did not come true, not even close.

In fact, it turned out that as the scientific theories of lake acidification evolved, so-called acid rain played no role at all. The composition of the watersheds and land-use patterns turned out to be the key predictor, something the Environmental Protection Agency tried to suppress by threatening scientists who came up with conclusions the EPA didn't like.

However, the politically-correct viewpoint (one that I am sure Krugman would defend to the death) was that acid rain was doing a number of terrible things, and if a scientist, after engaging in legitimate research, found out things that veered from the politically-acceptable view, then that person was not engaging in real science. Like it or not, with most scientific research on climate and the environment funded by governments, the political pressures are going to be there for people to reach conclusions of the Krugmans of this world.

Keep in mind that climate change has occurred for millenia. Interestingly, the so-called hockey stick managed to eliminate both the Medieval Warming Period and the Little Ice Age through mathematical manipulation. (But, if one's manipulations fit the politically-correct zeitgeist, then that is OK.) Of course, any view that the sun might play a role cannot be accepted because not even Paul Krugman is going to advocate that Congress pass laws to deal with the sun.

A world-class soil scientist once told me that the heart of the scientific method is "skepticism." Unfortunately, skepticism no longer is allowed once politics becomes the norm, and anyone who might employ the scientific method and reach conclusions that disagree with viewpoints that Krugman holds is "anti-science."

Can Krugman Give Us Better Weather?

One of the criticisms I have had with Paul Krugman's columns has been his use of logical fallacies, like post hoc ergo propter hoc and the non sequitur. In his column today, he manages to use both of them, all the while slashing and burning anyone who might disagree with the Great Nobel Laureate.

Turning from advocating his mechanistic and circular Keynesian economic views (we eat breakfast so we can go to work and we go to work so we can eat breakfast), today he goes after those evil people who want to "cook" the earth. He begins by using yet another post hoc fallacy:

Never say that the gods lack a sense of humor. I bet they’re still chuckling on Olympus over the decision to make the first half of 2010 — the year in which all hope of action to limit climate change died — the hottest such stretch on record.

Of course, you can’t infer trends in global temperatures from one year’s experience. But ignoring that fact has long been one of the favorite tricks of climate-change deniers: they point to an unusually warm year in the past, and say “See, the planet has been cooling, not warming, since 1998!” Actually, 2005, not 1998, was the warmest year to date — but the point is that the record-breaking temperatures we’re currently experiencing have made a nonsense argument even more nonsensical; at this point it doesn’t work even on its own terms.

But will any of the deniers say “O.K., I guess I was wrong,” and support climate action? No. And the planet will continue to cook.

So, let us see. Krugman says that the temperatures for the first half of this year are the hottest on record (that is, the records begun in the late 1800s), yet that is not proof of global warming. However, in the next paragraph, he basically says this is proof of global warming.

But, this one gets better. He then claims that there really was nothing to all of those emails between the noisiest climate scientists, called "Climategate," and that everyone was exonerated:

You’ve probably heard about the accusations leveled against climate researchers — allegations of fabricated data, the supposedly damning e-mail messages of “Climategate,” and so on. What you may not have heard, because it has received much less publicity, is that every one of these supposed scandals was eventually unmasked as a fraud concocted by opponents of climate action, then bought into by many in the news media. You don’t believe such things can happen? Think Shirley Sherrod.

First, the "investigation" was carried out by the very people who have a vested interest in receiving the government and foundation grants to promote their own version of climate science. The institutions were East Anglia University in Great Britain and Penn State University, and both of them stood to lose millions of dollars in grants if it could have been demonstrated the scientists either committed fraud or abused the system.

Second, I doubt seriously that Paul Krugman would endorse an in-house investigation in which the "investigators" had a vested interest in the outcome, and then declared that their own scientists had acted properly, if it involved people with whom he disagreed. In fact, he then claims that anyone else who might have a contrary view has that view ONLY because of the funding source of his or her research. He writes:

Look at the scientists who question the consensus on climate change; look at the organizations pushing fake scandals; look at the think tanks claiming that any effort to limit emissions would cripple the economy. Again and again, you’ll find that they’re on the receiving end of a pipeline of funding that starts with big energy companies, like Exxon Mobil, which has spent tens of millions of dollars promoting climate-change denial, or Koch Industries, which has been sponsoring anti-environmental organizations for two decades.

First, I am not sure that all of the so-called skeptics fall into that category, but when Krugman is smearing someone he considers to be evil and dishonest (that is, anyone who might have the audacity to disagree with him), he will use evil and dishonest means. Second, Krugman is saying that if someone is privately funded by certain entities, then their work automatically is a lie; however, he then seems to be making the counter-claim that those funded by leftist governments speak only the truth and always practice the most honest and capable science.

So, an in-house "investigation" by people who have a financial stake in the outcome is an "honest" investigation. Oh, no, Paul Krugman never engages in "political science."

There is one more point: the people Krugman supports have made sure that science journals publish papers with which they (and Krugman) are in agreement, shutting out any other discourse. I remember nearly 20 years ago when the Environmental Protection Agency destroyed the career of a scientist who developed the now-accepted theory of how lakes become acidic. (Hint: "acid rain" was not the culprit, which, while true, nonetheless was not the politically-correct answer.)

One of the truisms of scientific research is that we always should be skeptical of the herd mentality. Time and again, we have seen situations in which things people "knew" to be true were not, from spontaneous generation to continental drift, where the established views were challenged successfully.

True, there always are vested interests in any point of view, and a vested interest in and of itself does not mean something is false. However, when we see Krugman claiming that leftist government funding of science does not create its own sets of conflicts of interest, I am going to object.