Where it goes wrong – by guest blogger Danny Lemieux
Bookworm on Jun 07 2010 at 7:46 am | Filed under: Climate change, Education
I spoke with a fellow parishioner today about our children. This well-meaning, socially aware good fellow (an attorney) was extolling how well his son was progressing in his Ivy League undergraduate education. And, I asked, what was he studying? Environmental sciences. Ah, I said…that’s an interesting and certainly timely field of study: had he been of a technical or scientific bent in high school? Not really. Did he enjoy studying the sciences? Not really. Was he taking any scientific courses, like physics, biology or chemistry? Not really. In fact, he really wasn’t very interested in “hard” sciences at all and did not plan on studying any of them. So…what did he plan to do with an “environmental sciences” degree? Go to law school. He wanted to make policy, you understand. He was going to make the world a better place.
So, in an age where everything involving the environment demands a basic scientific knowledge, whether it be understanding the engineering challenges of alternative energy; the underlying geophysics, chemistry and biology of climate change; or the physics, engineering and biology needed to address the Gulf oil spill disaster, the term “environmental sciences” has now been degraded at the Ivy League level to a hack policy-making discipline where know-nothings can expound their ideologies free from the tyranny of facts. It is, in fact, the divorce of science and reason from sound environmental management. There was a time when “environmental science” was a noble field…an applied science that drew from many hard disciplines. No more, apparently.
If we are left to wonder why the government is so absolutely inept at dealing with real-life disasters, perhaps it is because “policy” has become politics divorced from material reality. It has become lazy: it’s so much easy to huff and puff utopian ideals and solutions when one need not trifle with facts and consequences. Solutions appear so much simpler when distilled down to simplistic “just plug that d*mn hole!” rhetoric and blithe “solar and wind power” propositions. We live in a hyper-complex age that demands the breadth and depth of Renaissance thinkers and solution providers. Instead, we are left to draw upon the talents of shallow social policy makers and academic rent seekers. It was Sir Isaac Newton who observed with humility that “I was able to see further because I was standing on the shoulder of giants”. Today’s crop of philosopher-king wannabes suffer no such humility: they slouch on the shoulders of dwarves. And they will lead us to disaster.
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There is a meme that floats around the internet. Someone tells a politician his new scheme violates the laws of physics. He replies, “We can always repeal those laws.”
I’m starting to think it’s not satire.
Today’s America in a nutshell. You just have to feel and do “good”. It does mater if you know a damn thing!
The Stupidification of America: Addendum…
Just as a reminder, it is worth pointing out that the Stupidification of America is taking place on our college campuses as well as in our grade schools. A guest blogger at Bookworm Room describes a rather dispiriting conversation she……
Danny, you have described one of the things that drives me absolutely nuts. Just yesterday I saw a piece on the German Yahoo News about a great scandal: Greenpeace is reporting that about 3000 hectares has been planted with corn contaminated by genetically modified (except they use manipulated for the M in GM) seeds. There is no evidence that the GM corn is harmful; I haven’t noticed any wild corn growing here that could be affected by cross pollination; and the percentage of GM seeds in the planted corn was not given. But the reporters are going along with the spin that this is a huge environmental scandal, and I’m sure anxious mothers will be reading food labels carefully to ensure that their little ones ingest not a drop of corn products.
So now the Ivies are turning out lawyers to scare and intimidate even more people. Wasn’t there a time when character building was supposed to be part of a liberal education? And these are the people who see themselves as morally enlightened. All they can do is run extortion scams.
This is why so few people could/can see what absolute nonsense the idea that CO2 is a pollutant is. It’s why they could buy for more than 1 nanosecond the notion that an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere could possibly warm the oceans, when it’s precisely the opposite. It’s why they didn’t immediately catch the lies in Gore’s movie — like moving the increase in CO2 by 600 years so that it looked like a cause of warming seas, instead the result.
Wanna have some “fun?” Ask a teenager, or a college student to point to where North is from where you two are talking. Ask them to point to where the sun rises and name that direction N, E, S, or W. Name the nearest large city and ask them in which direction it lies from where they live. Ask them what clouds in the sky are composed of and how they get up there. Ask what two elements make water. Ask what the liquid is that forms on the side of a cold can of soda on a summer day, and how it got there. Ask what 6% of $1.50 is. Hand them a battery, a one foot piece of stripped wire, a flashlight bulb of suitable voltage, and ask them to make the light bulb light up. Ask them to point out the subject and verb in this sentence: “I am educated.”
I note that the woman who ran the agency responsible for the regulation of offshore drilling was a lawyer. I don’t know if her forced resignation was justified or if she was just a scapegoat…but I do wonder: if the agency had been run by someone with a background in the *operational* side of drilling, might the risks have been better detected and better action plans been put in place?
That is very sad. As Danny points out, you need knowledge of the hard sciences to truly understand the environment. Moreover, the thinking processes entailed in the hard sciences are essential in making good logical decisions. Those trained in “environmental sciences” without knowledge of the hard sciences will be more likely to make decisions based on what they want to be , not on what is.
Such as the data-fudging that resulted in Climategate. I will not say that data fudging is impossible for someone trained in the hard sciences, but as data-fudging goes against the basic tenets of science, someone trained in the hard sciences will be more likely to recognize data-fudging as a transgression. Someone not so trained can more easily rationalize data-fudging as something done “for the greater good.”
I am reminded of the spoof about the pollutant “dihydrogen oxide.”
they slouch on the shoulders of slaves
“I am reminded of the spoof about the pollutant ‘dihydrogen oxide.’”
This gets me to thinking: Why don’t we conservatives tell the media that we have abandoned any support we’ve ever had for waterboarding in favor of the more humane dihydrogen oxideboarding?
How long would it take our moral/intellectual superiors to get the snark?
This is the how we get legislators who think they can mandate police shoot people in the hand. And presidents who think James Cameron can seal a blown out well when oil men can’t. He filmed a movie underwater so he’s brilliant and all.
> It was Sir Isaac Newton who observed with humility that “I was able to see further because I was standing on the shoulder of giants”. Today’s crop of philosopher-king wannabes suffer no such humility: they slouch on the shoulders of dwarves. And they will lead us to disaster.
What a great post, Danny! And that’s a killer closing statement that I just had to repeat above. Brilliant!
It’s as if today’s best and brightest have the fortitude and drive of Pauly Shore. And I am reminded of a movie title: “Slackers”.
Lawyers, man, lawyers. Welcome to the brave new world. They’ve twisted all the rest of society to fit and enrich them – why exempt the sciences?
Greetings:
The best lecture on the environment that I ever sat through as an undergrad was given by my Calculus professor. He used the theory of limits to explain the how in cases of remediation, initial investments can return great gains but as the situation improves greater and greater investments, which result in smaller and smaller actual improvements, will be required. I have never heard any environmentalist, scientist or otherwise, speak about this aspect of improving our environment.
Myself, I’m more of a literary bent. I would want to introduce your young man and perhaps his parents, as well as liberals in general, to the fables of “Chicken Little” and “The Princess and the Pea”. As to the former, I would want them to understand that just because something has a negative impact on you, it doesn’t mean that the world is about to end. As to the latter, there has to be some rational point where we stop adding more mattresses and accept that things are much better even if they’re not the way you would want them.
Danny -
I know I shouldn’t be surprised but I am. I can’t believe that! I just assumed (and yes, shame on me!) that one had to study the sciences, at least somewhat, in order to get a degree in environmental sciences.
You hit the nail on the head. If policy is divorced from the facts, we will have a dark future, indeed.
Deana
Related only by a stretch of the imagination, but this was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and the comments made it even more so:
http://chicagoboyz.net/archives/13357.html
[...] Bookworm Room – Where it goes wrong – by guest blogger Danny Lemieux [...]
Danny posted,
> the term “environmental sciences” has now been degraded at the Ivy League level to a hack policy-making discipline where know-nothings can expound their ideologies free from the tyranny of facts. It is, in fact, the divorce of science and reason from sound environmental management. There was a time when “environmental science” was a noble field…an applied science that drew from many hard disciplines. No more, apparently.
I emailed this post to a very liberal friend of mine, with whom I have discussions about the left being “anti-science”. He scoffed at this, claiming it was just an “internet myth” pushed by people on the right. I said Danny’s been around for years and doesn’t invent myths.
Then I decided to take a run at an Ivy League school’s environmental curriculum, to see what would happen if I tried to avoid the hard sciences. Since Danny’s post didn’t mention a school, I chose one at random: Harvard.
Here’s my result that I emailed back to my friend. I think I showed that he wouldn’t be able to COMPLETELY avoid the hard sciences, but he certainly could avoid a lot of them by having an environmental science degree with a “FOCUS” on public policy. That “public policy focus” does make the curriculim a LOT easier.
The email text:
—–
So as a thought experiment, I thought I’d try Harvard. I found
their website for their “Environmental Science and Public Policy”
degree program:
http://www.espp.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do
From there you can navigate to the degree REQUIREMENTS:
http://www.espp.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k65738&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup95871
And you’d also need from there to also navigate the course list:
http://www.espp.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k65738&pageid=icb.page301765
The coursework COULD be difficult, as you said, looking at the
course list…
So, based on the requirements, which allow a selection among the
coursework, if I were in fact this son, here is my best shot at
avoiding scientific rigor:
Required courses
1. Environmental Science and Public Policy 10.
[Looks light to me]
2. Two half-courses in biology: one chosen from:
OEB 10,
OEB 53,
Life Sciences 1a or Life Sciences 1b.
AND OEB 55.
[The best shot here is OEB 10, and Life Sciences 1a. They both
look far less rigorous.]
3. Two half-courses in mathematics or statistics to be chosen from
Mathematics 1a and 1b; or
Mathematics 1b plus Mathematics 19a, 20 or 21a; or
Mathematics 1b plus Statistics 100 or 102; or
Mathematics 1b plus Applied Mathematics 21a; or
Mathematics 19a plus Statistics 100 or 102; or
Mathematics 19a and 19b; or
Applied Mathematics 21a and 21b; or
Mathematics 21a and 21b.
[Trouble here. 1a and 1b are "Calc 1 and 2".
19a might be an introductory course with an easy teacher.
God knows my Diff-EQ professor was easy. Very easy, so a
judicious choice of instructor here, along with Stats 100, may be the way
to go. Can you find a math professor that likes political activism that
will go easy on you in the 19a class? That's the key to survival here.]
4. Physical Sciences 1.
[Looks introductory to me]
5. An advanced course in the physical sciences, one chosen from
Chemistry 17,
Chemistry 20 or
Engineering Sciences 164, or
Physics 11a plus Physics 11b.
[Chem 17 is PRINCIPLES of Organic Chem. Chem 20 is Organic Chem.
Clearly Chem 20 is the hard one. Find out if Chem 17 is
sufficiently lite. Else, ES 164 (Aqueous and Environmental Chemistry) might
be way to go. But "engineering science" sounds pretty tough to me,
so the best bet is that PRINCIPLES of Organic Chem class. Sure
hope it's a lot easier than "Organic Chem"!]
6. Two half-courses in Environmental Science/Engineering:
EPS 5, and
EPS 7, EPS 8 or ES 6.
[EPS 5 is the intro, gotta take. EPS 8 is "History of the Earth".
That's a likely candidate to have limited rigor.]
7. Two half-courses in economics:
one half-course in microeconomics and
Economics 1661.
(Students may satisfy the microeconomics requirement by
taking Social Analysis 10, a full course. The course may
be divided with credit, in which case students may use
the first term to satisfy the requirement.
The second term of Social Analysis 10 may count as an
elective within ESPP.)
[Harvard's got loads of Marxist profs who are gonna love me.
Economics 1661. Environmental and Resource Economics and Policy
well, get the right professor with the focus on the Policy part,
and I'm good to go! YAY, ME!
Or "Social Analysis 10" is the alternative. That sounds like pure Marxist
economics to me! Another easy Marxist professor If I butter em up right.
YAY, ME! Piece of cake.]
8. Environmental Science and Public Policy (ESPP) 78.
[Here's my public policy class, YAY, ME! Ha Ha!]
9. One half-course junior seminar, ESPP 90.
[Find myself an activist professor for my seminar. YAY, ME!]
10. Additional half-courses approved by the concentration to
reach a total of sixteen half-courses (see items 5a and 5b).
[Probably can get all of these in Env Sci and Public Policy.
Totally staffed with Greenpeace activist professors and their
likes, dude. I just need to hitch my wagon to my favorite two.
Piece of cake. Harvard is STUFFED with liberal profs that
will coast me.]
So, yes, there are a few potential trouble spots up there, but not
many. Looks do-able with a minimal amount of rigor. Depends on
the quality of the professors, and from what I hear about Higher Ed
these days, half the students get A’s automatically in many programs.
And Harvard may even be more rigorous than this son’s actual
school. But the “Public Policy” part of this program sure does seem to
allow for some possibly very cushy paths. I don’t know if the son would
succeed in avoiding all rigor, but I don’t think you should
dismiss this conversation out of hand.
—–