tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post6632237450217299342..comments2024-03-08T06:18:28.125+11:00Comments on Bronte Capital: A call to sensible conservatives who still think the enlightenment was a good ideaJohn Hemptonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-5697508371869133822009-01-09T08:50:00.000+11:002009-01-09T08:50:00.000+11:00Its funny - I started the post with a pretty indis...Its funny - I started the post with a pretty indisputable dig at the loopy left. The Sokal hoax was accurate and funny.<BR/><BR/>The loopy right is pretty easy to take targets at.<BR/><BR/>But the right wing of my youth started with a fairly accurate appraisal of the human condition (utopian visions be damned) and a fairly defensible view that most things that governments try to do they stuff up. <BR/><BR/>The right wing of recent years believed that they could remake the middle east as a democracy by force - a view which makes anything that FDR did look modest - and were champions of "creation science". <BR/><BR/>I wish a sensible right would emerge so that we can have a sensible debate. The debate has been stupid for years now.<BR/><BR/>JJohn Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-3756474957482183282009-01-09T08:19:00.000+11:002009-01-09T08:19:00.000+11:00Case in point concerning the intellectual capaciti...Case in point concerning the intellectual capacities of the modern right...<BR/><BR/><I>If the right turned away from the enlightenment ideal of science, the left turned away from the enlightenment ideal of liberty and freedom. All freedoms are now subject to indefinable constraints - e.g. free speech is fine, as long as it offends no one.</I><BR/><BR/>Aside from the fact that you managed to define the indefinable in two short phrases, if memory serves, the yet-to-be-Republican-president Richard Nixon was a HUAC lawyer. Looks like cherry picking of right wing data points to me. <BR/><BR/>As an aside, I find it a touch offensive that you would use the first person plural to express your displeasure with the contents of this blog. In fact, this component of the 'grand we' would prefer that John continue to write about whatever the fuck he pleases.Charles Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00486529931043507880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-177467117283124122009-01-09T03:37:00.000+11:002009-01-09T03:37:00.000+11:00Sir - I get the impression that your mind is so fi...Sir - <BR/><BR/>I get the impression that your mind is so fixed on these positions that you will not countenance the possibility that someone disagrees with you for legitimate reasons. Surely, all of us who do not agree with you are irrational or evil.<BR/><BR/>Nonetheless, I'll bite on a response.<BR/><BR/>I look at financial models for a living and I have had the opportunity to review some climate models. Given the recent financial crisis, I've become a model skeptic.<BR/><BR/>In The Black Swan, Taleb cites an example from the mathematician Michael Berry to illustrate how complex a complete model can be, even for seemingly simple problems. Here’s Taleb:<BR/><BR/>"If you know a set of basic parameters concerning the ball at rest, can compute the resistance of the table (quite elementary), and can gauge the strength of the impact, then it is rather easy to predict what would happen at the first hit. The second impact becomes more complicated, but possible; you need to be more careful about your knowledge of the initial states, and more precision is called for. The problem is that to correctly compute the ninth impact, you need to take into account the gravitational pull of someone standing next to the table (modestly, Berry’s computations use a weight of less than 150 pounds). And to compute the fifty-sixth impact, every single elementary particle of the universe, separated from us by 10 billion light-years, must figure in the calculations, since it exerts a meaningful effect on the outcome. Now, consider the additional burden of having to incorporate predictions about where the variables will be in the future. Forecasting the motion of a billiard ball on a pool table requires knowledge of the dynamics of the entire universe, down to every single atom."<BR/><BR/>The point is that modeling complex phenomenon is, for all intents and purposes, impossible. You'd expect to get an outcome with uncertainties so high as to be worthless. Apparently, that is what you find (see figure 4 here http://www.skeptic.com/the_magazine/featured_articles/v14n01_climate_of_belief.html)<BR/><BR/>You also brought up evolution. Unfortunately, both the right and the left are clueless about evolution. You've dealt with the right, so I'll address the left.<BR/><BR/>Leftism/Liberalism depend on the notion of an un-fixed human nature that is improvable. Unfortunately, evolutionary studies find 0 evidence to support this fundamental principle of liberalism. Further, in order to cling to equality, the left has embraced evolution only from the neck down. Since our cognitive abilities have to be equal, something must have stopped evolution in above the neck, according to the leftist theory of evolution.<BR/><BR/>Finally, you bring up the enlightenment. I hope to have briefly stated that it is possible to legitimately disagree about the science. Further, neither left nor right, which are ideologies will ever embrace pure, unadulterated science, since they are ideologies. If the right turned away from the enlightenment ideal of science, the left turned away from the enlightenment ideal of liberty and freedom. All freedoms are now subject to indefinable constraints - e.g. free speech is fine, as long as it offends no one.<BR/><BR/>Do us all a favor and stick to the financial blogging.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-78828477648032252062009-01-09T02:39:00.000+11:002009-01-09T02:39:00.000+11:00This is just a magazine, not a scholarly journal.This is just a magazine, not a scholarly journal.JoshKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17028441526311718240noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-73151398692939147842009-01-08T22:06:00.000+11:002009-01-08T22:06:00.000+11:00The problem that the right has is that the only de...The problem that the right has is that the only definition it has of itself, beyond that pertaining to provincial issues, is that it is anti-left (perhaps there being some universality with respect to certain sexual activities). The opposition, however, can at least claim some sort of coherence across cultural lines.<BR/><BR/>A very obvious example would be that the American right would be a champion of states' rights, whereas the Spanish version is wholly centred on maintaining strong central government at the expense of the regions. Similarly, the ideology behind universal health care is a non-issue for the right outside of the U.S., but core within.<BR/><BR/>One can't expect any sort of intellectual integrity to issue from a 'movement' whose only commonality is the existence of a shared enemy.<BR/><BR/>This all, of course, with reference to an economically predominant industrialized west - which may be less of a given going forward in any regard.<BR/><BR/>Happy New YearCharles Butlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00486529931043507880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-51358261402909133552009-01-08T17:17:00.000+11:002009-01-08T17:17:00.000+11:00I agree that the Quadrant hoax is not of the same ...I agree that the Quadrant hoax is not of the same caliber as the Sokal hoax.<BR/><BR/>But the idea that a short article arguing that the insertion of human genes into a wide variety of crops would solve many problems did not strike Windshuttle as worthy of at least question is odd.<BR/><BR/>Sure the idea that mathematics should be subordinated to politics and that politics should be progressive is more absurd - and more a challenge to the enlightenment - but don't think for a moment that Windshuttle isn't guilty of ideology over facts too.<BR/><BR/>And this exposed it.<BR/><BR/>JJohn Hemptonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03766274392122783128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4815867514277794362.post-18993238120455313682009-01-08T16:58:00.000+11:002009-01-08T16:58:00.000+11:00I have to disagree, this is very different from th...I have to disagree, this is very different from the Sokal Affair. That came from a true scholar whose aim was to expose trendy gibberish masquerading as science. Mr. Sokal succeeded brilliantly as it showed that the Social Text editors didn’t care what was being said as long as it hit the right political notes.<BR/><BR/>The Windschuttle Hoax isn’t formally a hoax at all. It’s simply false journalism and that fails to prove any larger point at all.<BR/><BR/>Anyway, love the blog. Keep up the great work.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com