Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Hmm …

… Michael Crichton on science and storytelling — Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)



"… Crichton near the end of his life became notorious as a sensationalist climate change denier."
Well, I interviewed Michael Crichton myself, and here is what he had to say regarding climate change in that interview:

MC Climate is always changing. In what ways are the changes being altered or exaggerated by human influences? (No one disputes that human beings are affecting climate.) But which human influences are important to address? And what should our response be?
I believe we should continue climate research at the same level that we have funded it in recent years. I myself am fascinated by the multi-generational effort to make effective climate models. I think it is a remarkable and audacious undertaking and I am not in the least disturbed that the models do not work very well yet. I think it is breathtaking that anyone thinks they can model our global climate. I’m all for the attempt.
At the same time, it is important that we keep research in perspective. I argue we should not base real-world policies on the present state of climate science and the present state of computer prediction. It is simply not good enough right now. When you get right down to it, the conversion from fossil fuels to other sources is a giant construction project. Climate models vary by 400 percent. With that degree of uncertainty, no one in the real world breaks ground on any project. Ever.
Imagine you asked a contractor to bid on plans for your house, and he came back and said, “It will cost somewhere between $150,000 and $600,000, I can’t be sure.” Would you proceed? Of course not. You expect a contractor to estimate within a few percentage points.
If you were going on vacation and told your boss, “I’ll be gone somewhere between 15 and 60 days,” he would answer, “No, you won’t. Tell me the exact day you will return.”
Climate estimates for the year 2100 range from 1.5 and 6 degrees—that same amount of uncertainty—and yet we are urged to go forward on a huge construction project anyway.
In addition, since the project is technological (solar, wind, etc) we are best advised to proceed as everyone does when buying technology---to postpone the purchase as late as possible.
Nobody buys a computer today because they will need one in the year 2100.They delay the purchase as long as they can. With good reason.
If I suggest to people that waiting gives us access to new technology, they roll their eyes as if I am making some predictable evasion. But it is they who are evading reality. It is sensible to expect major technological change, including unanticipated change. Technological changes since 1900 have been stupefying and we know the pace of change will increase in the future. In 1900, nobody could have imagined that horses—costly, ubiquitous, dangerous and polluting—would vanish from urban streets in just a few years. Or that within a hundred years, France would derive 80 percent of its electricity from a power source unknown to them.
So it is quite reasonable to imagine that significant advances may be just ahead, and that we might sensibly wait as long as possible in order to incorporate them in our plans. Wind power, for example, has improved dramatically in the last decade, but it still has many significant drawbacks. If we could choose fusion instead, we would do so. Fusion hasn’t arrived yet. But arguably we should wait.
There is plenty for us to do with our money in the meantime. Ten to twenty thousand people die of waterborne disease every day. We could prevent that. We could provide everybody on the planet with clean water and a decent diet. We could take care of our fellow human beings now, and not chase after technological phantoms.
I frankly think it is disgraceful that the discussion is almost never couched in such human terms.


Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

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