
'Cancel Culture' Comes to Science? - dmagee
https://www.wsj.com/articles/cancel-culture-comes-to-science-11578867753
======
jacobmoe
What appears to have happened here was that a climate denialist group that
deliberately use "NAS" to confuse people into thinking they are receiving an
invitation to speak at a conference by the National Academy of Sciences, was
called out by an open science advocate who himself felt mislead. Then the Wall
Street Journal was snookered into publishing an editorial because they'll
publish pretty much anything that claims to be about "cancel culture". And now
we're here debating how some tweets mean science has been ruined by cancel
culture warriors or whatever. The irony is that the person being "canceled" is
exactly the person being accused of it.

~~~
nl
Wow, I hadn't realized. How insidiously dangerous. Funded by the Charles Koch
Foundation.

 _Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist at MIT and former member of NAS, says he
was initially drawn to the organization because he was worried about what he
saw as a growing relativism in the academy, evident in the work of
deconstructionist philosophers like Jacques Derrida. NAS seemed to be taking a
stand against those intellectual currents, Emanuel said — though he adds that
he eventually became concerned about the organization’s stances on climate
change, especially during a much-publicized incident in which hackers stole
thousands of emails from a group of climate scientists and accused them of
misusing data.

In a 2010 article published on the NAS website, Emanuel described the event as
“a scandal” — but he didn’t see it as a challenge to the scientific consensus
on climate change. The National Association of Scholars, on the other hand,
sought to extrapolate the Climategate incident “into a universal condemnation
of the field,” Emanuel told me. “It was just patently disingenuous.”

He left the organization soon afterward.

“It sort of revealed them not to be what they claimed to be — people who stood
for scientific truth and scientific integrity. It was just another
organization that used that as a front,” Emanuel said. “They’re basically a
political organization posing as an organization dedicated to free inquiry,”
he added._

[https://undark.org/2018/04/18/national-association-of-
schola...](https://undark.org/2018/04/18/national-association-of-scholars-
reproducibility/)

------
mayniac
> " By Peter W. Wood"

> " Mr. Wood is president of the National Association of Scholars. "

Of course the person being "cancelled" would write an opinion piece on "cancel
culture".

One person criticised his event on twitter and he wrote an opinion piece on
WSJ about how he's being persecuted. This seems incredibly childish to me.
Especially considering the original tweet* got under 100 retweets and about
130 likes.

Honestly, I feel like this is more likely to be advertising for the conference
than an actual complaint about "cancel culture". Nothing here is noteworthy in
any way.

*[https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1215380405597065216](https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1215380405597065216)

~~~
ilikehurdles
Opinion piece author, an anthropology PhD holder, has been pushing climate
change denialism and attacking individual scientists via his NAS organization
since 2009. He did the same thing to another scientist in 2011[1]. The
publications he lists on the Federalist Society make his other agendas very
clear. And yes, this is plain as day advertising and deception.

[1]:[https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/b...](https://www.desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/bottling.nonsense.pdf)

~~~
mayniac
His articles on the Federalist for anyone who's interested
[https://thefederalist.com/author/peterwood/](https://thefederalist.com/author/peterwood/)

The paper, along with some really basic googling, raises a big red flag over
NAS's impartiality. Namely that:

* NAS was founded by a conservative

* Its president is conservative

* Its funders are conservative

* Its board is full of conservatives

* It frequently uses conservative (arguably far-right) catchphrases like "defending western civilization"

* Often pushes conservative viewpoints such as climate scepticism

* Other conservative organisations call NAS conservative

Yet despite all that NAS, or at least Peter W Wood, consistently claim they
are not a conservative organisation.

This is completely absurd. Definitely an advert and no sane person should
trust anything that Wood is saying here.

~~~
toomim
Are you insinuating that conservative voices should not be listened to?

------
alevskaya
Some relevant context here contesting this view:
[https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1216770668475252738](https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1216770668475252738)

~~~
beaner
This guy's Twitter thread doesn't seem like a great defense, because he
doesn't make any specific scientific claims. It's all just ad-hominem that
this org are "climate deniers."

More troubling is his claim that they are "weaponizing" reproducibility
against climate change. Doesn't that raise a red flag? If you're worried that
reproducibility poses a problem for something, doesn't that mean you might
just a little bit probably have beliefs not based on reproducible science, but
on faith? And that the irreproducible science has a chance of being wrong?

I'm not trying to deny climate science, I think it's real. But it seems like
there's a real problem with this person's stance and how they're trying to
argue and obstruct.

I'm kind of a believer that people can think for themselves. Let anybody
attend anything - if it's a science convention that isn't promoting science it
seems like it's not going to get very far, no protesting required.

Who are these people who feel that simply listening to someone speak is
equivalent to endorsing them?

~~~
triceratops
> Who are these people who feel that simply listening to someone speak is
> equivalent to endorsing them?

There are certain topics that are so settled, that to engage with anyone with
a contrary view is tantamount to giving them credibility and a platform to
reach the uninformed. Some topics simply don't have "both sides" in any
meaningful sense. Flat eartherism, Holocaust denial, and antivaxxerism are
ones that immediately come to mind. Anyone who denies the mainstream consensus
on those subjects is either a moron, a dishonest person with selfish or
malicious motives, or both.

Denial of human-caused climate change is close to being in that bucket by this
point (the next 2 decades will determine the truth of it). From the
perspective of those advocating for action against climate change, deniers
have blocked any sort of meaningful action for nearly 30 years. Their actions
have led to unprecedented, potential economic, humanitarian, and ecological
crises.

~~~
beaner
Yeah but climate science is complicated by the fact that it is overwhelmingly
political.

You could say the same thing about geocentrism, germs [1], fat vs sugars, etc.
- which all turned out to be false, given time and scrutiny.

Scientists have to learn the science to understand it, and that means
encountering it from all perspectives. As new generations of people learn,
they all have to go through it all again.

To not do so is to promote faith, not science.

Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about
anyway. Assuming scientists are scientific, they will consider it, consider
other evidence, and come to the correct conclusion.

[1] [https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/532074/how-promoting-
han...](https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/532074/how-promoting-handwashing-
got-one-19th-century-doctor-institutionalized)

~~~
triceratops
> Plus if denialism is wrong, then there should be nothing to worry about
> anyway.

I don't follow the logic of that. If denialism is wrong, but it's influencing
society and policy, how is that not something to worry about?

~~~
overgard
If your side is failing to convince people, the solution shouldn’t be “shut up
the other side”, no matter how right you may be. It’s intellectually
dishonest.

By engaging in cancel culture, it gives the silenced side _way more_
credibility, because they can say “why are they afraid to let us speak?” It’s
not just that cancel culture is morally bad, its also ineffective.

~~~
triceratops
When the "other side" is arguing in bad faith, you're damned if you let them
speak and damned if you don't. Someone like that isn't going to play by the
rules of logical, rational discourse - such as sticking to the facts - so
there isn't much to be gained by letting them speak versus not giving them a
platform. I point you to Holocaust denialism, which has a long, rich tradition
of ignoring, obfuscating, or concocting elaborate alternative explanations for
any truths that run counter to their dogma. Or for something more benign, the
flat earth movement or the Apollo landing conspiracy theorists.

It's easy for a bullshitter to make up more bullshit, and people love to
believe "contrarian" bullshit so they can appear smarter than the next guy.
Refuting bullshit takes time, energy, and effort that could be spent on more
productive activities.

It's absolutely a worry that legitimate contrarian speech (I get that that's
an oxymoron to some people) might be suppressed. But that's not what's
currently happening.

~~~
jdauriemma
An analogous historic example can be found in lead toxicity denial and denial
of the harmful effects of tobacco. It took generations to chase away the bad-
faith actors in the scientific and medical communities.

------
waylandsmithers
A point I've heard Neil deGrasse Tyson make a few times is that despite the
fact that Edwin Hubble was a heinous racist, that should have no bearing on
the validity of his scientific contributions.

I have a feeling that with sufficient rabble rousing a twitter mob could
figure out how to get the name of the space telescope and constant changed.

------
downerending
One of my guilty pleasures is finding someone on the web saying something
foolish and engaging them in debate. Rather than cancel these guys, wouldn't
it be better to have a few well-prepared opponents attend and do the same?
(Isn't that how science is _supposed_ to work?)

~~~
qqqwerty
Debates can make for great entertainment, but are a poor forum for
establishing truth and fact. Case in point, the 'cancel culture' argument is
designed to shift the debate away from the science and instead focuses the
debate on the 'character' of the scientists. So instead of arguing about the
facts of climate change (which at this point are hard to refute), we are
arguing about whether its okay for scientists to try and boycott right wing
conferences. That debate is a little more complicated and nuanced, enough so
that the right leaning audience can walk away feeling like they have some
ground to stand on. The point isn't to prove that climate change doesn't
exist. It is to merely sow enough doubt in the minds of enough people to keep
climate change action out of reach for the politicians.

~~~
downerending
It's not the kind of evidence I prefer, but people who concentrate on _ad
hominem_ attacks do effectively provide evidence in favor of their targets'
position.

------
vajrabum
The term cancel culture like political correctness is a PR term and an
effective one. For global warming 1st year college physics is enough to tell
that global warming is in fact real and pretty much all the cranks are on the
well funded fossil fuel side. And then there's the likelihood that man created
global warming will put an end to the human race.

Like the tabacco industry, maybe dissing these folks and giving them a hard
time is in fact a good idea and also like tobacco pushback comes from older
folks and the industry. In the former case it's a conservative form of
ignorance. I've been smoking my whole life and it hasn't killed me yet or in
this case I've been driving my whole life and it never caused any harm. In the
latter case, it's psychopathic opportunism.

Meanwhile Australia and California (in season) are burning.

------
LennyTeytelman
I'm Lenny Teytelman, the target of this article. I'm the CEO and cofounder of
protocols.io, an open access platform to improve reproducibility of published
research. Accelerating science has been my mission for the past eight years.

The claims in this piece of "cancel culture" and fear of disagreement on my
part are utter nonsense.

This National Association of Scholars is a group using the legitimate
reproducibility discussion to undermine the EPA and climate research.

I've warned people not to attend this conference because 7/21 total speakers
are climate change deniers and 0 are climate experts. My full response is
here:
[https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1216770668475252738](https://twitter.com/lteytelman/status/1216770668475252738).

Lenny Teytelman, Ph.D. CEO, protocols.io

------
dmode
Interesting complain by the author. I checked out the Twitter account of
National Association of Scholars (the organization the author belongs to) and
it is just straight up propaganda with a false veneer of science. No wonder
people are warning others

------
neonate
[http://archive.md/I8yLE](http://archive.md/I8yLE)

------
zaarn
There is a fairly good piece from the youtuber Contra, it's about 2 hours and
goes fairly well into the details of Cancel Culture and how the author was
herself cancelled after showing a <10 second clip of a specific person in a +1
hour video. I can certainly recommend it.

------
michalf6
Herbert Marcuse's essay "Repressive Tolerance" is required reading when
discussing these issues, it's where it all started:

[https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repr...](https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-
tolerance-fulltext.html)

------
StanDavis
non-paywall:

[https://usf.news/the-americas/northern-america/united-
states...](https://usf.news/the-americas/northern-america/united-
states/cancel-culture-comes-to-science/)

------
allovernow
While this explicit cancel culture has been slow to arrive, this is exactly
the kind of traditionally left leaning activism which has gradually come to
infest almost all of academia (and to a lesser but growing extent, industry).
The result is an extremely strong, emergent cultural pressure against certain
results and certain questions, which has been holding back a wide range of
fields and ensuring pursuit of severely one sided science for decades. Our
understandings of intelligence, social dynamics, genetic influences on
behavior, sexually dimorphic psychology and performance, climate change, et
al. are mired by unspoken taboos, not because certain lines of inquiry are
logically unsound, but because they may uncover results which run contrary to
socially acceptable, but ultimately poorly or un- justified assumptions about
reality and human nature. More importantly, a subset of results may justify
certain traditionally right leaning beliefs, and so certain necessary research
topics are effectively forbidden. Please understand, I'm not suggesting
choosing between left and right, only pointing out that the bias is pervasive
and undeniable.

The results are less effective social and economic policy, and poorer research
in general, as incentives are no longer aligned with classical goals of
objective knowledge discovery.

~~~
alasdair_
>I'm not suggesting choosing between left and right, only pointing out that
the bias is pervasive and undeniable.

Can you point to specific examples of this where the science is actually
robust and well documented but has somehow been blocked from being published
or otherwise stopped due to this pervasive bias?

~~~
ratsmack
How about a correlation between IQ and race. It seems that no one will touch
the subject out of fear the it would end their career.

~~~
dtoma
What's the use about a study on _correlation_ between these two things? You
could also have a study on correlation between IQ and poverty, IQ and access
to education...

Not to mention, what's the point of IQ anyway?

Maybe no one is picking up the subject because it would be a waste of time?

~~~
barry-cotter
If we’re not going to find research because it’s useless that’s the humanities
gone. All of the topics you mentioned have been done and are being done.

The point of IQ research is that it effects real life outcomes that we care
about, like health, education, social status, criminal behavior, STI status,
having children outside marriage, many others.

If two groups are assumed to be identical but they have different outcomes one
possible reason is discrimination. If they are not actually identical the
difference can be real and not due to discrimination. East Africans are
crushingly dominant in marathon running. This is not due to discrimination
against non East Africans. If similar differences exist between different
ancestry groups in intelligence you’ll see dramatic differences in outcomes.
If they’re due to discrimination we can fix that. If not pretending they’re
due to discrimination will just lead to a great deal of wasted effort.

~~~
spicymaki
Funny how environment is continually dropped from the conversation of race in
favor of heritability. You note that there is now East African dominance in
marathon running. That has not always been the case however. As East Africans
were provided opportunity to compete on a level playing field their talents
whether inherited, conditioned by demand, and/or environmental were
demonstrated. Now there is intense competition and selection pressure for the
fastest East African runners. West Africans and East African are of the same
race, but differ in the case of marathon outcomes. Why can’t this be true for
intellect?

Discrimination is not some leftist fantasy. Black Americans have been
systematically deprived of quality environments for over 400 years. I am
talking about truly horrific intellectual deprivation from making it illegal
to read during slavery to living in highly polluted sections of segregated
cities today.

When we talk about intellectual disparities history needs to be part of the
conversation.

~~~
BurningFrog
> _West Africans and East African are of the same race_

They have similar skin color, but that doesn't mean they're particularly
closely related.

Black Africans have the by far biggest genetic diversity of any population.
This is because our species evolved there, and has had the longest to develop
variations. By contrast, the rest of humanity comes from relatively small
populations of Africa emigrants.

As it happens the best long distance runners come from an region in East
Africa, while the best sprinters come from a region in West Africa. This
includes US sprinters.

[https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/wh...](https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/why-
kenyans-make-such-great-runners-a-story-of-genes-and-cultures/256015/)

------
neekleer
One problem is that tenure and standing for established scientists no longer
afford any of the expected protections. James Watson was not discredited but
promptly fired and "disgraced" for stating a well-supported scientific finding
in abrupt layman's terms for an interview. The minds of cancel culture would
probably say they gave this dinosaur enough chances to fade away, but he
wouldn't. If they do want scientists to be free to investigate the genetic and
other bases of IQ further in order to find better answers, then it seems like
they want scientists to first find a way to talk about it publicly without
specifying the categories or where members of a category tend to fall on the
scale.

There is a chilling effect on various lines of inquiry. For now, you can claim
the information is out there, but any further writings could become more
esoteric or limited. In the case of IQ, I don't think certain people want
scientific answers as to why. They would rather assume IQ is highly malleable
while they run social and economic experiments to find ways to equalize it and
other factors that predict success.

~~~
stenl
James Watson - who was as close to royalty as you can get in science - worked
very long and hard to get himself fired. It wasn’t just ”an interview”, but a
lifetime of racism and sexism. Lior Pachter has a handy collection of quotes
with links to sources: [https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/james-
watson-in...](https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/james-watson-in-
his-own-words/)

~~~
l0000p
But you're just assuming that he is wrong based on your own presumptions
without any actual knowledge about the subject.

The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D.
specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years at
Harvard etc, etc....or you.

This is exactly the problem of cancel culture.

Just because he points out something you don't like you're suddenly an expert
and somehow think he is now wrong.

What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too? Based on what? Why don't
you have an opinion about that? Because you don't care? Even though your
ability to judge the correctness of this research is the same as the race-
related studies.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The question is who is most likely to be right, a nobel prize winning Ph.D.
> specialized in molecular biology, genetics and zoology, who worked 20 years
> at Harvard etc, etc....or you.

Or we could, instead of argument to authority, look at the actual research in
the field, which doesn't support Watson's conclusions. (Neither does it
strongly support their negation.)

And Watson's expertise is in the low-level mechanics of heredity; it's less
relevant to broad population psychometry and the analysis of heredity of
traits measured through such psychometry than is, say, a bachelor's degree in
any of the social sciences.

> What about double helix? Is he wrong about that too?

By “he” do you mean Rosalind Franklin? But, no, of course that's not wrong,
it's been extensively confirmed.

~~~
l0000p
What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you
disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on. It sounds like
your emotions are deciding which results you find 'correct'. This is the exact
problem we're discussing.

~~~
dragonwriter
> What is interesting here is that you disregard authority for results you
> disagree with and quotes authority for results you agree on.

What is interesting here is that you have an obviously pre-conceived argument
and simply invent false facts (such as the appeal to authority I did not make
anywhere) to fit it when reality doesn't supply them for you.

~~~
l0000p
You're showing a curious case of projection. I'm not presenting any arguments
in favor of Mr Watson's research, I'm pointing out that you are not basing
your opinion on all available facts since you're arguing for censorship of
research you disagree with for emotional reasons. And in turn, you accuse me
of inventing facts that you're not willing to examine yourself. How curious.

------
robomartin
Not saying for a moment that this conference is authoritative at all. Let's
get that out of the way first.

Is it possible for both sides of this matter to be right and wrong?

Absolutely, and that is mostly the case.

This, because of how f'd-up this climate change thing has become. It's a mess
of indescribable proportions.

Why are deniers right?

Well, they are not. There's no denying this. Where they are right is in the
outcome they are helping create: Taking action to "save the planet" is going
nowhere.

How are deniers wrong?

Well, their belief system is completely skewed and devoid of scientific
support. They believe in a fantasy they have woven over time.

OK, then.

Why are proponents right?

Well, because climate change is real. We have irrefutable data going back
800,000 years to show how things used to be on earth and how we influenced
things in the last, say, 200 years. One look at atmospheric CO2 concentration
and it is impossible to argue against it. And that's just the start.

How are proponents wrong then?

Well, because they have turned this thing into an ugly combination of politics
and religion. It's as irrational as can be and EVERYONE is lying through their
teeth.

The greatest lie is that we can actually "save the planet". It's an absolute
pile of manure.

Politicians are the worst. They are using climate change as a battering ram to
drive votes. And 100% of what they say are lies. And 100% of what they want to
do is pointless and maybe even dangerous.

OK, you might say: That's crazy! What proof do you have to support this?

Easy: Exactly the same proof we have to show climate change is real. That is
800,000 years of atmospheric CO2 data resulting from ice core sampling.

This is the point where people don't bother to do the work and either dismiss
or attack the messenger (rather than to think, follow the argument and
actually apply a bit of critical thinking).

Step 1: Check out the graph for the last 800,000 years of CO2 fluctuation.
Here it is:

[https://cdiac.ess-
dive.lbl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical...](https://cdiac.ess-
dive.lbl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical.jpg)

Here's the source:

[https://cdiac.ess-
dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html](https://cdiac.ess-
dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html)

Step 2: Print that graph or open it in Photoshop and fit lines to the up and
down cycles.

Step 3: Measure the slopes for up and down cycles of approximately 100 ppm of
CO2 change

Step 4: Average the ups and average the downs.

What I get, in rough strokes, is (roughly):

25,000 years for a 100 ppm increase

50,000 years for a 100 ppm decrease

Step 5: Stop and think about this:

That, what you just calculated, is the NATURAL RATE OF CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERIC
CO2 WITHOUT HUMANITY AND OUR TECHNOLOGY ON THE PLANET.

That is crucial, absolutely crucial, in understanding just how ridiculous this
has become.

It means the following: IF WE LEAVE THE PLANET IT WILL TAKE 50,000 YEAS FOR
ATMOSPHERIC CO2 TO DECREASE BY 100ppm

What does that mean?

It means you are not going to fix it by:

    
    
        - Switching to renewable energy sources everywhere on the planet
        - Eliminating all fossil fuel-based transportation
        - Switching the entire planet to electric cars
        - Carbon tax credits
        - Eliminating all plastic
        - Taking humanity --all 7 billion of us-- back to medieval times
        - Destroying the economies of every developed and developing nations
    

You are not going to fix it even if you do all of the above and more.

Why?

BECAUSE, EVEN IF YOU DO ALL OF THE ABOVE AND MORE, IT DOES NOT EQUAL ALL OF
HUMANITY LEAVING THE PLANET.

Please think about this for more than a moment so you can start pushing for
real conversations based on the truth rather than the ridiculous fantasies
being pushed by both sides. This is beyond silly now. It's tragic.

We know that the natural down-slope rate of change is in the order of 50,000
years for 100 ppm without humanity, factories, cars, planes, etc.

What politicians and zealots are talking about is achieving somewhere in the
order of 1000x better performance while all 7 billion people, our cities,
factories, technology, etc. remains on the planet. I mean, you don't need to
do any math to understand how silly this is.

All you have to do is look at these graphs, look at the rate of change and
ask: How are we going to do 1,000 times better? How are we going to do that
without using unimaginable amounts of energy and resources to the point that
we are far more likely to kill everything on the planet than fix it.

These are planetary scale problems that require beyond planetary scale energy
and resources to "fix". The sooner we start talking about the realities of
climate change --that we can't fix it or "save the planet"\-- and stop being
hysterical about it, the sooner we can start talking about how to live with it
and improve things to the extent possible. Which also means both sides will
meet somewhere in the middle.

BTW, this does not mean we should not clean-up our act at all. We should. All
we have to do is stop lying about the reasons for it. There are plenty of
legitimate reasons to live in cleaner cities with renewable power sources,
climate change and saving the planet just happen to not be among them, not if
we want to talk about reality vs. fantasy.

BTW, don't take my word for it. Read this for an insight into how futile some
of these crazy ideas actually are. This is from Google Research:

[https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-
publication-...](https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-
data/pdf/43326.pdf)

Prediction: Nobody is going to take the time to consider the above, much less
do the work and understand. And by that I mean not one person from either side
of the argument. Nobody seems to care about the truth, particularly not
scientists who depend on bullshit grants and don't dare bring up the fact that
we are wasting valuable time and resources focusing on nonsense. There's big
money and great power to be had by riding the gravy train of lies on both
sides. Sad. Truly sad.

~~~
magduf
Warning: I am not a climate scientist.

However, I have to disagree that humanity has to leave the planet, or that
it's impossible to fix. I will agree that it's very unlikely to be fixed or
mitigated to a decent amount before disaster happens, but that's because of
politics and human stupidity, not because it's not possible.

More CO2 in the atmosphere doesn't have to equal higher average global
temperatures. CO2 holds in energy from the Sun. So the answer is simple:
decrease the amount of sunlight. There's already ideas of how to do this, such
as "solar shades". Basically, put a bunch of things in orbit that block some
of the Sun's light, so less of it strikes the atmosphere. Now, even with the
higher levels of CO2, less energy is entering the system that will be retained
by the greenhouse effect. Of course, planetary engineering ideas like this are
megaprojects and would require huge amounts of money to do, and probably
international coordination, which seems unlikely given the terrible state of
world politics at the moment.

~~~
robomartin
You misunderstood. I didn't say we have to leave the planet. What I am
exposing in the data is that we know how atmospheric CO2 would decrease if we
did (and took all of our toys with us).

The answer is simple: We cannot fix this. Because any attempt would require
energy and resources beyond planetary scale. Which means we are far more
likely to kill everything on this planet than to fix it.

I am not a climate scientist either. I am, however, an engineer, and I have a
pretty solid handle on Physics. Conservation of Energy alone says we cannot
fix this.

BTW, by "fix this" I mean, any faster than the natural rate of about 50,000
years for a reduction of 100ppm.

If you take the time to read the Google paper I linked you'll find the
statement that sent me on a path to truly try to understand this many years
ago. They said, paraphrasing:

"Even if we convert all energy generation on the entire planet to the most
optimal forms of renewable energy, not only will we not see atmospheric CO2
levels decline or level-off, they will continue to rise exponentially".

This was a conclusion exactly opposite what the researchers went into this
"knowing". I appreciate they were honest enough to publish this and actually
expose just how confused we've become about this concept of saving the planet.
It simply isn't going to happen. Not in a generation, not in a hundred, not
even in a thousand.

You see, it's that pesky bit of data: 50,000 years for a reduction of 100 ppm.
Without humanity.

This means that if humans stay on the planet, even if population growth
stopped, and we magically --because it would require magic-- became carbon
neutral, it would still take at least 50,000 years to drop 100 ppm, or, more
than likely, 100,000 or 200,000, pick a number.

This is equivalent to trying to remove smoke from your kitchen with a small
fan while you continue to burn the food you are cooking on the frying pan. You
just can't do it. You have to stop cooking and then wait for the small fan do
do the job over a couple of hours. If you want it done faster you have to stop
cooking and use a much larger fan (more energy). If you, on the other hand,
continue to burn your food and install a bigger fan, you may or may not clear
the smoke. If you do, it will likely take just as long or longer.

This isn't difficult stuff to understand. It's actually the most common sense
science I've seen in a long time. The graphs tell a story. All we have to do
is see it, read it and understand it.

~~~
magduf
The entire problem with your logic is that you're assuming that humans will
not and cannot do anything at all to change carbon levels, aside from relying
on natural processes. That's completely ridiculous. Any attempt to fix the
problem has to involve artificial actions: carbon sequestration, solar shades,
etc.

Your entire mentality is "it took X years for nature to do this, so it'll take
X years to undo it by natural processes, and oh yeah, we have to actually
_undo_ it so everything goes back exactly the way it was, instead of just
making the end result satisfactory". This isn't helpful at all. As I pointed
out before, we can reduce the amount of sunlight using solar shades; we don't
actually need CO2 levels to go back to pre-industrial levels. We just need to
prevent the temperature from rising so much, while we figure out how to deal
with the CO2.

>This is equivalent to trying to remove smoke from your kitchen with a small
fan while you continue to burn the food you are cooking on the frying pan. You
just can't do it.

Yes, you really can. With a fan powerful enough, and a vent hood, you
absolutely can. It really doesn't take that much, and it depends on how much
smoke you're producing, but you seem to think you need a turbojet engine to
clear the air in a small kitchen from a small cooking fire, and you really
don't.

>If you want it done faster you have to stop cooking and use a much larger fan
(more energy).

Here's the part you're not getting. The amount of energy you need to run a
vent fan isn't anywhere near the amount of energy unleashed by your cooking
fire. Even better, if you constrain the air supply, the fire burns itself out
quickly, or at least is prevented from producing as much smoke.

>It's actually the most common sense science I've seen in a long time.

I've noticed that people who throw around the term "common sense" a lot do so
because they really don't understand things very well, and think their
intuitive understanding suffices, when in fact it doesn't.

~~~
robomartin
Thanks for the personal attack at the end. Class act.

Don't take the kitchen analogy literally, that's not what an analogy is for. I
won't discuss it, because it is purely a tool not a precise model of
planetary-scale dynamics.

You also misunderstood my point entirely. And, BTW, don't tell people things
like "that's completely ridiculous" unless you are in a position to
irrefutably prove what you are saying. Also, it's rude.

Anyhow, my point is very, very simple:

If it takes in the range of 50,000 years for atmospheric CO2 to come down by
100 ppm without humanity around, any solution that claims to be able to do
this a thousand times faster has a massive burden or proof equivalent to magic
and divine intervention, combined.

Politicians toss around all kinds of proposals and plans that are equivalent
of the famous "and then a miracle occurs" cartoon. They want to destroy entire
economies just because they say so. And all of it is nonsense.

Now, let's think about what it means that it took 50,000 years for a 100 ppm
drop (which is about what we need).

Well, it involved massive amounts of rain, hurricanes, cyclones as well as
massive amounts of trees and vegetation growth. Please stop and think about
the energy it took for, year after, year, for 50,000 years to drop so much
water and grow so many trees and vegetation to capture the CO2 and drop it by
100 ppm. The scale is almost inconceivable.

Can we find a more efficient way to do it? OK, let's assume we can (which I
think is a fair assumption). A thousand times more efficient? I don't have to
do the math to know that even if we were 1,000x more efficient it would still
require an astronomical amount of energy and resources. I would not be
surprised if an improvement in efficient CO2 capture in the order of a million
times better than the natural process still required so much in terms of
resources and energy that it would be just about impossible.

And yet we are missing the forest for the trees. What I am talking about
mostly is what the zealots and politicians are parading around. With the
reality I presented, which is irrefutable --unless someone wants to challenge
ice core data-- it is easy to prove how ridiculous their proposals actually
are:

Switch to renewable energy sources: Nope, CO2 levels will still continue to
rise exponentially. This has already been studied.

Stop coal plants: Nope, even if we left the planet it would take 50,000 years.

Outlaw all forms of petroleum-powered transportation: Nope, even if we left
the planet it would take 50,000 years.

On, and on, and on.

What you are saying about blocking the sun is another one of those ideas.
First of all, anyone who has spent a reasonable amount of time in aerospace
and gotten into the physics of the matter understands the unbelievable amount
of energy it would require to launch millions of solar shades and put them
into orbit. I mean, it takes energy to create the fuel and oxidant to put into
a rocket. And these processes are not clean. On top of that, that many rocket
launches would only add to the problem. And then we are talking about meddling
with a planetary scale ecological system that is the result of billions of
years of adaptation under existing solar conditions. There is no way
whatsoever to predict what could happen. Again, we could succeed at killing
absolutely everything on this planet. The only people who believe simulations
are those who wrote the code, for the most part we have no clue what <doing x>
will produce 10 years from now, much less 50 or 100.

It's hubris to think we can actually do this when everything we touch is far
more likely to cause more pollution and require hyper-planetary scales of
energy and materials.

I know lots of people --politicians!-- have a lot of sunk costs and interest
in not challenging --even a little-- the status quo. And so I fear we are
going to do a whole bunch of really stupid things. And I can't do a thing
about it. Nobody can, because that train is already on the tracks in more ways
than one. In that sense and more this conversation is a complete waste of
everyone's time.

------
elfexec
Aren't a lot of topics already taboo in science/academia? I'd say cancel
culture has been in science for a while now. Afterall it is part of academia.

Didn't a female brown university professor's study on transgenders get
"canceled" because it offended some people not too long ago?

Didn't Bret Weinstein, a biology professor, at some college in oregon get
"canceled" not too long ago?

Didn't Jordan Peterson get "canceled" not too long ago?

Academia and journalists have been canceling people for a while now. Was WSJ
asleep for the past decade?

~~~
n4r9
Not sure about the first example, but Bret Weinstein was fired because his
behaviour didn't reflect his employer's values, not because of the science he
was doing. I also don't think Peterson is having particular difficulty doing
scientific work, nor is the actual research he does "taboo".

~~~
elfexec
> Not sure about the first example

If you are that well versed in the lives of weinstein and peterson, you most
definitely are aware the first. But being as woke as you are, you probably
can't admit it to yourself.

> but Bret Weinstein was fired because his behaviour didn't reflect his
> employer's values, not because of the science he was doing

Weinstein wasn't fired, he resigned after getting a settlement from his
university since the university couldn't provide for his safety from racist
mobs.

> I also don't think Peterson is having particular difficulty doing scientific
> work, nor is the actual research he does "taboo".

You don't think? I suspect Peterson would disagree. You sure his research into
political correctness, authoritarianism, identity politics, evils of
postmodernism, etc aren't "taboo"? If it wasn't taboo, jordan peterson
wouldn't be so well known. He'd be just another no-name professor somewhere in
canada.

Instead of saying racism, hate and cancel culture is bad, you are defending
racism, hate and cancel culture. Which may get support and upvotes in echo
chambers online, but is laughed at in the real world. Reality will ultimately
trump fantasy.

~~~
n4r9
(That's a pretty condescending and presumptuous post.)

I wouldn't say I'm "well-versed" in this but I have read around the case of
Weinstein and have looked into what Peterson has to say about things here and
there.

The question, it seems to me, is whether particular avenues of science are
being stifled, or whether scientists are being stifled because of the nature
of their scientific research.

Weinstein was pressured out because of his opinions on a matter separate to
his scientific research. This sort of thing has happened before and it will
happen again. I'm not defending it, I'm just saying it's not a case of science
itself being stifled.

Jordan Peterson's diatribes on things like political correctness and
postmodernism might be informed by his knowledge of psychology but unless I'm
mistaken they don't in themselves constitute scientific research.

He has an extensive record of published papers that you can find on google
scholar. As far as I can tell he doesn't have major issues getting funding,
publishing papers or obtaining academic positions in pursuit of his actual
scientific research, but I'm happy to be shown wrong here.

------
tkyjonathan
Where has this been since 2015?

~~~
sandoooo
Cancelled, I suppose.

------
tawm
'Culture War' Comes to HN?

------
roenxi
The line between genius and madness is famously thin and there is no way to
distinguish a room full of cranks from a room full of enlightened scholars
without listening carefully and weighing up what gets said. And of course one
side straight up lying is a fairly useful indicator.

So I suppose as long as these people are trying to tell the truth as they see
it good luck to them. But articles like this are fundamentally a cross between
advertising and propaganda so aren't much use to the general public. There is
a dire need for some political balance in academia as it is a sheltered
institution that by and large doesn't have to deal with the cost of things in
the same way as broader society does; so it is good to see someone pushing the
right wing as long as they are playing by the rules of honesty and citation
which is what academics is about.

------
erland
It's funny that this is posted on HN since places on which you cannot speak
any controversial opinions are the main way in which CC spreads. HN being one
of those places by design.

------
wedn3sday
> Our list of speakers includes no women. (All declined our invitations.)

The fact that every woman they invited declined to give a talk is a huge red
flag.

~~~
mayniac
Could be a red flag but it's not possible to know unless you can find out the
number of women who were invited, the number of men who were invited, and the
ratio of men/women in the field. Maybe they invited a reasonable number of
women but they all had scheduling conflicts. Depends on the numbers.

