My dear friend G believes that NASA and NOAA have the last word on climate research.
"But, but, they are agencies run by political appointees," I said, "Does this not matter?"
A question that went unanswered. But G closed with the gem that if they put a man on the moon, they must be right about climate issues.
Fantastic! Imagine the following playette, where two friends meet in early April.
Joe: Frank, how are you? Looking good, my man? How's work?
Frank: Joe, good to see you! Not much happening. Just getting the taxes done and then the wife and I are going to take some vacation.
J: Oh, who's doing your taxes?
F: Right here, at the transmission shop. Sam is doing them.
J: What does Sam know about taxes?
F: I don't know, but he put a rebuilt transmission in my car and did a great job. No need to think about it beyond that. You're not a tax man and neither am I, so I'm using Sam.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Confirmation Bias
FB and my dear friend G strike again. We crossed swords with the sea level rise as G had posted the blurb about the rate of increase being the highest in 2800 years.
Why look so short term? I posted a graph of the last 20,000 years. That didn't go over well and I was accused of not seeing the obvious because of my political views. (The rate of change in the last 8000 years is pretty much nothing and it's orders of magnitude less than other periods post glacial.)
Since G has never asked what they were, this is kind of frightening. :-)
And that leads us to this question: Can one's political view bias a question that can be enumerated?
Well, G thinks it can and does -- at least in my case.
Let's assume that he is correct. But does this apply generally? Is G blinded by his views? G has yet to answer that and to be open here, I didn't push it as a question, just a closing comment about how he might be also a victim of such a bias.
But that might be obvious to G, who doesn't like graphs and numbers seem to be not easily at his command. But obvious anecdotal stuff sure is.
No, I'm guessing the G was through with the discussion - he's avoided some in the past - and likes to limit discussion in various ways and I think this was one of them. Was he through due to being busy or a feeling of discomfort or feeling the discussion wasn't going his way? So he tossed about 5 strawmen on the fire and dropped the topic. Pity.
Why look so short term? I posted a graph of the last 20,000 years. That didn't go over well and I was accused of not seeing the obvious because of my political views. (The rate of change in the last 8000 years is pretty much nothing and it's orders of magnitude less than other periods post glacial.)
Since G has never asked what they were, this is kind of frightening. :-)
And that leads us to this question: Can one's political view bias a question that can be enumerated?
Well, G thinks it can and does -- at least in my case.
Let's assume that he is correct. But does this apply generally? Is G blinded by his views? G has yet to answer that and to be open here, I didn't push it as a question, just a closing comment about how he might be also a victim of such a bias.
But that might be obvious to G, who doesn't like graphs and numbers seem to be not easily at his command. But obvious anecdotal stuff sure is.
No, I'm guessing the G was through with the discussion - he's avoided some in the past - and likes to limit discussion in various ways and I think this was one of them. Was he through due to being busy or a feeling of discomfort or feeling the discussion wasn't going his way? So he tossed about 5 strawmen on the fire and dropped the topic. Pity.
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