Scientific American review of Lomborg's book

[Buzz Clik]

Here's a link to the Scientific American review of The Skeptical Environmentalist. Happy reading!

click here

[papau]

1. Nice"Misleading Math about the Earth"- but GOP will use to help rich

Misleading Math about the Earth

Critical thinking and hard data are cornerstones of all good science. Because environmental sciences are so keenly important to both our biological and economic survival--causes that are often seen to be in conflict--they deserve full scrutiny. With that in mind, the book The Skeptical Environmentalist (Cambridge University Press), by Bjørn Lomborg, a statistician and political scientist at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, should be a welcome audit. And yet it isn't.

<snip>
The problem with Lomborg's conclusion is that the scientists themselves disavow it. Many spoke to us at Scientific American about their frustration at what they described as Lomborg's misrepresentation of their fields. His seemingly dispassionate outsider's view, they told us, is often marred by an incomplete use of the data or a misunderstanding of the underlying science. Even where his statistical analyses are valid, his interpretations are frequently off the mark--literally not seeing the state of the forests for the number of the trees, for example. And it is hard not to be struck by Lomborg's presumption that he has seen into the heart of the science more faithfully than have investigators who have devoted their lives to it; it is equally curious that he finds the same contrarian good news lurking in every diverse area of environmental science.

We asked four leading experts to critique Lomborg's treatments of their areas--global warming, energy, population and biodiversity--so readers could understand why the book provokes so much disagreement. Lomborg's assessment that conditions on earth are generally improving for human welfare may hold some truth. The errors described here, however, show that in its purpose of describing the real state of the world, the book is a failure.

AND THEN IT CONTINUES WITH A GREAT READ BY 4 EXPERTS ON WHY THE HERO OF FOX CABLE NEWS AND RUSH AND SAVAGE IS A LYING SPINNING FOR THE GOP NUT.

[Cannikin]

2. I've noticed Rush and his callers seem completely ignorant

of the sciences. As soon as a report comes out, he slaps a 'wacko' label on it and discredits it, somehow, without ever using any facts...sticking to the 'the earth takes care of itself' nonsense.

[milliner]

3. That whole math thing is a problem

for people that use math to forward their own agendas can usually be proven wrong. You do not rebut the math. These are numbers that the earth is dying camp uses to scare the less adept at science and math.

My son and I play a game while watching TV, When numbers are quoted we each sit very quietly and run numbers in our head and attempt to disprove them. Most often we are right. In our game the winner is the one that proves a stated number to be false. An example was a year ago when the commentator on TV stated that the number of people along the Macy's day parade was X and the route was Y. After doing the MATH it turned out that the number used represented 1 person for every square foot along the parade route and that the people would have to occupy an area the would be 30 yards deep on both sides of the street. This is an example of what the earthis dying crowd does everyday. when Lomborg used the numbers used by environmentalist he did not so much prove them wrong so much as put a serious dent in their credibility

[On the Road]

4. The Article Shows Something Quite Different

I applaud the reality testing you do. More people need to do this to evaluate whether statistics presented in the media are reasonable.

There have been a lot of exaggerated claims in the environmental area. Often them come from back-of-the-envelope calculations that are done in the early stages of analyzing a problem. They are not representative of the state of the art in environmental science.

Lomborgh can dismiss all the silly overblown scare tactics of environmental supporters. What he needed to have done is to address the huge amount of good science that's going on.

[Buzz Clik]

5. It's your opinion that the math cannot lie?

Particularly when it comes to statistics, it is a trivial issue to massage the data to make it sing any song you choose.

[milliner]

6. Math is pure

That doesn't mean that statistics can always be trusted. They are must usually are an attempt to prove or sway discussion. In reference to the Lomborg debate what he did is dissect the statistics and turn the argument in a different direction by 180 degrees. For example is a person says that 150,000 people die every year in North Dakota from eating apples the are treated with APPLE PROOF, any one can run the numbers and realize that more than 1/2 of all deaths are caused by APPLE PROOF and then you know maybe some one is lying, and trying to get an emotional response from the public instead of a reasoned scientific approach to a product that may or may not cause problems.

(warning, above example fabricated for illustration)

Remember the ALAR scare. The whole thing was fabricated by an environmental group that used the whole thing to create public opinion.
Everyone that knew the numbers and talked to the media were suspect even though the numbers quoted could not have been true and 10 minutes with a calculator proved it

[Rich Hunt]

7. fantastic

I saw this dude on Penn & Teller, and they were praising him and implying that environmentalists knew nothing about science. Now we see that this guy is a social "scientist".

The whole libertarian line on this guy has been condescending, misleading and one-sided. Nature magazine took this guy to task about a year ago - now the US is doing it. Wonder what the libertarians will have to say in response?

Defenders like to point out that this Lomborg is a socialist of some kind - that implies nothing, as many dogmatic Marxists are often on the same page as the "free market" capitalists when it comes to sustainability issues - i.e., they conveniently ignore them.