Readers who venture into the Comments section of my previous post will notice that the first voice to jump in exemplifies my point perfectly. Unable to answer the facts, the commenter claims that the author of the article cited has been bought by special interests. Of course, being bought by special interests would not necessarily make Joel Schwartz's statements incorrect, but it is interesting further to note that the commenter does not even offer any evidence whatever that Schwartz has distorted the facts, instead simply assserting that Schwartz is a shill and a liar.
It's important also to remember that the Left gets a mountain of money from foundations and from businesses who hope to benefit from government regulation of their competititors. Their thumbs may be green, but so are their souls, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.
16 comments:
All of this is a pure diversion from the fact that the health consequences of ozone have been exaggerated far beyond all reality, once again proving my point. Talk about hitting a raw nerve!
Even if we accept your premise, based on one person's meta-analysis, that the ozone-related effects of health are out of proportion, it is still hugely dishonest to generalize that to air pollution in general, as both you and Schwartz do.
Once again confirming my point about the bankruptcy of the Left's arguments.
Mr. Elliott, please note that my post never once went beyond discussion of ozone and ozone policy, so you are entirely incorrect to accuse me of saying that the foolishness of our ozone policy means that all air pollution control efforts are wrong. See also my response to this point on my comment on the original post.
As I read the post, and the article, "ozone" and "air pollution" appeared interchangeable. So, I'll accept that such was not the intent, and retract the statement, with apologies.
However, not only does Schwartz misrepresent the CHS, your end conclusion, "So, when commenters jump on this site and cite "evidence" showing that ozone does indeed have deleterious health effects, and when you hear "experts" on television telling us about how dangerous atmospheric ozone is to us all, you shall know exactly how to respond: BUNK!!" is not warranted by the single refutation of one study.
Such a conclusion reminds me of the brilliant new movie and novel, "Thank You For Smoking," in which the main character states that cigarette smoking is beneficial to fighting Parkinson's Disease. You draw a broad conclusion based on a single meta-analysis of one study, and that's as flawed as science commentary gets.
Schwartz's article did not just refute a single study. He pointed out the flaws in the very (single!) study that was originally used to create an ozone health scare, and also refuted other claims and arguments subsequently made to support belief in a danger of ozone to human health.
It is interesting that it appears to be all right to create a huge, intrusive government policy based on a single study that doesn't even say what its researchers claim it does, but it is not all right to point out the that study and its follow-ups have been refuted and draw the conclusion that policies based on such false claims should be set aside. As I pointed out, real environmentalism goes hand in hand with economic growth and technological advance; it does not try to suppress economic activity when there is no need to do so.
"As I pointed out, real environmentalism goes hand in hand with economic growth and technological advance; it does not try to suppress economic activity when there is no need to do so."
I absolutely agree with that idea. Been saying it about nuclear energy for years. And, if Schwarz's refutation holds true, all the better. I'm just pointing out that you're putting the cart before the horse, so to speak.
Of course, "pro-" environmental scientists have their self-serving agenda, too: If they can't find something to warn about, the grants and the prestige dry up, not to mention the dinner invitations.
(Why is Paul Erlich not working at a car wash by now?)
In this face of this epistemological conundrum, as a last resort, we may have to actually try to penetrate the facts.
S.T., thank you for bringing out the all too rarely understood or even heard of problem of businesses actually building the regulatory state as a hedge against competition. People usually think all businesses do is fight regulation, but they often seek it as a weapon against legitimate competition that would benefit the consumer.
This isn't a very different debate from the one about "independent" studies paid for by corporations selling the product rather one done by a fully independent firm (in so far as we restrict this debate to think-tanks).
I don't know what kind of inside access corporations expect when paying, what kind of an agreement is made beforehand, or what kind of access they actually get but when they pay, the results more often than not come out biased in their favor. Such is the case with microsoft 'studies' against linux (the debate i'm familiar with). When the US government chooses, it almost always chooses linux.
With think-tanks there are essentially no rules, they're somehow paid (the money is hard to track) to (obviously) further the corporate interest, not much else, and if they can get their favored debate before hand, all the better, it's like disease prevention for corporations
If there was a trial on this subject, there is enough proof around to put away all corporations for lacking this sort of independence... alas, most americans can't seperate capitalism from democracy, so, run along, the clean air act wasn't recently challenged successfully in court :)
PS: Anybody looking to hire a electrical engineering intern for the summer? I promise I'll go away afterwards :)
OK, first, when an appeal to authority is made it is not ad hominem to discredit that authority. It's answering the argument that one's interlocutor has put forward.
"It's important also to remember that the Left gets a mountain of money from foundations and from businesses who hope to benefit from government regulation of their competititors."
Do you have any actual figures to support that generalization? In particular, can you show that the intellectual left is more driven by such contributions than their ideological opponents? Most of the prominent stink tanks out there - e.g. Cato, Heritage, AEI - seem to be distinctly anti-left.
"Their thumbs may be green, but so are their souls, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise."
I was roundly condemned recently for characterizing libertarians in much the same way. "Poisoning the wells" they screamed on QandO, completely failing to address the actual points I'd gone on to raise. Of course, I said what I said because I constantly see this kind of crap from libertarians directed at me and people like me, and had come to regard it as normal for the blogosphere. If you want civility, be civil. Don't demand the highest standard of debate from people you routinely accuse of "green souls" and dishonesty.
If you want a more direct response to Schwartz's points, maybe you should wait more than the 19 days since the article was published. Investigating some of his claims might take time. However, even a non-scientist like me can see at least two problems. One is treating a purported ozone/asthma connection as the only reason for ozone-control regulation, as though refuting that connection justifies doing away with all such regulation. Nonsense. Another problem with Schwartz's argument is that it's disproof by fallacy - show that one argument toward a conclusion is invalid, and decide that the conclusion itself is incorrect. So there are bad studies? Don't throw out all studies as a result. Better yet, counter with good studies. Has Schwartz done a scientific study himself, that shows opposite results? Of course not. Does he even cite one? Does he even cite anything to support his claims about regulatory costs? No, and no.
What Schwartz has presented is not a real argument. Why should it require any kind of response, other than to note that fact?
Could it be because conservatives-Right wingers are routinely shut out of the good ol boy liberal-Left wing network that constitutes 80-90% of the faculty and administrators in American academia these days?
I knew that would be the answer, but it's a big red herring. No matter how biased you think they are, institutions of education and scientific research are not directly comparable to institutions that have no students, perform no experiments, share office space and staff with overt PR organizations, etc. Compare apples to apples, or don't bother.
Schwartz simply deconstructed the following syllogism and showed it to be devoid of logic:
Even if that were an honest paraphrase of opponents' arguments, which it's not, it doesn't make Schwartz's own argument valid. He hasn't actually shown that ozone does not contribute to asthma, only that one particular study does not prove the connection. Then he compounds the error by suggesting that air-quality regulation is overly burdensome, without either giving a credible estimate of the burden or considering other reasons besides asthma for such regulation. Along the way, he engages in exactly the same kind of character assassination and appeals to motive that you find so odious when the same behavior is reflected back at him or you.
Saying that Schwartz does not present a reasonable argument is not just opinion. I've shown, in detail, how it fails to meet that standard. Are you going to refute points already made to that effect, or toss in a few more red herrings?
Lindzen is debunked thoroughly here
If you knew about Lindzen then you probably knew about realclimate.org though.
Let's try this, if it is all about economic growth, and alternate ways we could spend tax-payer money, according to this:
1) Bunker busters will likely never be able to destroy any well built/protected bunker out of the approx. 10,000 around the world. They will either shatter at high speeds, or not penetrate deep enough at low speeds.
2) Even low-yield bunker busters will likely spread and cause much radiation, and the chances of there being a radiation-contained explosion are close to nil.
3) Despite the DOD's own studies saying this, bunker busters have been held on to as if they're proven weapons.
so, millions spent on junk weapons programs with weapons likely never to be used, despite violating the NPT, hundreds of millions spent on that requiem-for-a-dream cause is still ok?
What you're saying is, show me the data, I don't care if it's misrepresented. Britannica has 10-20% fewer errors per article than Wikipedia, well, not quite since the average Wikipedia article is 3-4 times as long. Windows has less critical vulnerabilities than Linux, well, yes because Microsoft doesn't make certain vulnerabilities public and Linux use varies wildly from development to critical operations.
I'm not a respiratory disease expert, but according to this, and what you cited, ozone is a known respiratory irritant, and as far as the rest is debatable, note: debatable (I really agree with tlaloc, it's muddying the conversation, really, but I can step back a bit..), Schwartz specifically calls for less regulation and even tries to rationalize the outcome he's advocating for using spin, going too far. Given the orwellian use of the clean air act by the epa, excuse me if I'm a bit skeptical of right-wing think-tanks. The whole picture, including who is funding whom, is critically important to me, and given the choice, I'm not choosing nukes over less environmental regulation.
I like the way a recent foreign affairs article sought to use, and publicly sell (atleast they're honest) the missile defense system as protection againt any retaliation to an offensive attack. Any retaliation being very small, since the offensive would be devastating.
I'll even mention the blatantly obvious conflict of interest with Cheney's wife working on Lockheed's board.
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