{"id":224,"date":"2023-07-25T18:39:09","date_gmt":"2023-07-25T17:39:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/?p=224"},"modified":"2023-07-31T18:38:10","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T17:38:10","slug":"when-truth-is-given-second-place-to-morality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/2023\/07\/25\/when-truth-is-given-second-place-to-morality\/","title":{"rendered":"When truth is given second place to morality"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I wish climate scientists would concentrate on the baleful effects of climate change instead of dishonestly cranking up their certainty that these effects will occur. It\u2019s a discredit to anyone\u2019s epistemic judgement to act out Pascal\u2019s wager like that. Take the following example from today\u2019s World at One<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC: \u201cIt used to be said at least that individual<\/em> weather events shouldn\u2019t be blamed on climate change, I think. You\u2019re now able to show pretty definitively that climate change has heightened this year\u2019s heat. Is that correct?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friederike Otto: \u201cThat is correct, yes. It is absolutely not true any more that you cannot attribute individual events to climate change, and especially for heatwaves. Basically, every heatwave now is hotter than it would have been without climate change. And in this particular case we found that while this heat wave is actually not a rare event any more in today\u2019s climate, in the Mediterranean it\u2019s about a one-in-ten-year event, so has a ten percent chance to occur in any given year, it would have been impossible to occur without human-induced climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC: \u201cThat is a very \u2014 as I\u2019m sure you know, you\u2019re a scientist \u2014 very, very strong statement: impossible<\/em>. You are absolutely sure<\/em> of that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Friederike Otto: \u201cYes. [There is really\u2026 this is something\u2026] the influence of climate change on heat waves is something that we know with the same kind of certainty that we know that the earth is not flat<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This exchange \u2014 peppered with words like \u2018absolutely\u2019, \u2018impossible\u2019, \u2018absolutely sure\u2019, \u2018certainty\u2019, \u2018know\u2019, etc. \u2014 reveals how desperately misguided scientists can be in epistemological matters. However wise<\/em> or rational<\/em> or morally right<\/em> it may be to fight climate change, the simple fact remains that we never have certainty about theoretical matters. We can have near<\/em>-certainty when making observational judgements, but non-scientists can make observational judgements with just as much confidence as scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Observational judgements are claims like \u201clook, it\u2019s turned blue\u201d and \u201cthe needle points to the five\u201d which we can all make as long as our sense organs are working and we understand the language. They also include claims like \u201cthe earth is not flat\u201d (because we have photographs and we can\u2019t see over the horizon). And, yes, they include claims like \u201cboy, it\u2019s hot out there\u201d \u2014 as long as it\u2019s spoken of a single locality at a particular time. But claims like \u201cthe average temperature of the earth is 1.5\u00b0C hotter than it was 100 years ago\u201d is a highly theoretical claim, not just because it depends on the calibration <\/em>of measuring instruments, but because it crucially depends on the practical use <\/em>of those instruments \u2014 the time of day, the proximity of built-up areas, the height above ground level, and so on \u2014 practices performed amid innumerable particular circumstances, all of which inevitably drift over the course of time. As Kuhn and many others observed, observation is theory-laden, and theories change as history unfolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many climate scientists think that we are in the midst of a climate catastrophe. They see themselves as being on a moral crusade to get everyone else on board. Moral crusades are dangerous things, at least as far as truth is concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it gets worse. Let\u2019s agree that it is wise and rational and morally right to fight climate change. When truth is given second-place to morality, courses of action<\/em> \u2014 however well-intentioned \u2014 are also sent astray. By insisting that we have certainty when we don\u2019t have certainty \u2014 and can\u2019t have certainty \u2014 climate scientists like Friederike Otto make their own case \u201cbrittle\u201d. That endangers the crusade itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wish climate scientists would concentrate on the baleful effects of climate change instead of dishonestly cranking up their certainty that these effects will occur. It\u2019s a discredit to anyone\u2019s epistemic judgement to act out Pascal\u2019s wager like that. Take the following example from today\u2019s World at One: BBC: \u201cIt used to be said at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bowmangraphics.ie\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}