Scott Adams' Blog

How to Convince Skeptics that Climate Change is a Problem

Posted March 8th, 2017 @ 1:32pm in #climate science

I don’t know much about science, and even less about climate science. So as a practical matter, I like to side with the majority of scientists until they change their collective minds. They might be wrong, but their guess is probably better than mine.

That said, it is mind-boggling to me that the scientific community can’t make a case for climate science that sounds convincing, even to some of the people on their side, such as me. In other words, I think scientists are right (because I play the odds), but I am puzzled by why they can’t put together a convincing argument, whereas the skeptics can, and easily do. Shouldn’t it be the other way around?

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Wiretapping Word-Thinking

Posted March 7th, 2017 @ 8:55am in #president trump #China #wiretapping #North Korea

The other day, President Trump declared that “President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”

Then the world went nuts. 

Former CIA Director James Clapper denied that Trump was wiretapped, saying, "There was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate, or against his campaign,“

Yet we know General Flynn was in Trump Tower when his conversation with the Russian diplomat were recorded.

Does that mean Flynn was “wiretapped”? 

No. But it might mean the person on the other end was. And we already know he was.

Does it mean Trump Tower was “wiretapped”?

No. But it might mean that the person on the other end was. And we already know he was.

And what does “wiretapping” even mean in a world in which all communications are recorded routinely? if the government records you routinely, and then it decides to look at some of those records, with a court order or without, has any “wiretapping” happened? I don’t think so.

And what does it mean to say “Obama was tapping”? Does it mean he directly ordered it, or does he just have to wonder aloud how awesome it would be if someone did it? We expect presidents to have deniability about the spooky stuff because we watch television shows and that makes us smart.

I don’t have an opinion about what happened, or didn’t happen, with the wiretapping. But this story did make me laugh when I realized we find ourselves in the following fun situation:

1. President Trump is the world’s biggest liar (according to his foes).

And…

2. President Trump now has direct access to more national secrets than any other living human being.

And that means fun. 

This wiretapping situation shows us how much fun it will be. Six months ago, if Trump made a hard-to-believe claim about something that is also hard to verify, the country would assume he was lying, incorrect, or negotiating. Now, if he says something hard-to-believe, such as the recent wiretapping claim, you have to wonder if the President knows something you don’t. Because he knows a lot of somethings you don’t. 

If history is our guide, this odd situation, in which the most famous “liar” in the world also has access to the world’s best secrets, will be more entertaining than dangerous. We’re seeing that entertainment now. Trump can make any claim about hard-to-verify situations and we’ll all have to wonder if he knows something we don’t.

I feel sorry for the people watching the other movie – the one in which President Trump is essentially Hitler. In my movie, he’s having a bumpy transition ride but generally doing the people’s work. My movie is more of a comedy. And you could not write a better comedy than one in which the biggest “liar” in the world is in charge of the biggest secrets in the world.

Mmm, popcorn. 

About North Korea

In other news, watch President Trump force China to put the clamps on North Korea’s missile program by making it clear we’ll handle it for them if they can’t take care of their own backyard. If the United States has to take care of China’s problem for them, it sure would be embarrassing for China. And persuasive.

I base my North Korea prediction on the assumption that by now President Trump has burrowed so far into the brains of the Chinese leadership that he’s already got functional control, Master Persuader style. They just don’t realize it.

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My $1 Million Climate Model Bet

Posted March 6th, 2017 @ 9:19am in #climate science #whenhub

I will bet anyone $1 million dollars that I can come up with a climate forecast model that ignores C02 and still predicts the temperature 30 years from now to within half a degree. Does anyone want to take that bet?

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Am I Predicting or Influencing?

Posted March 4th, 2017 @ 11:51am in #cognitive dissonance #whenhub

People keep asking me whether I predicted the Trump presidency or influenced it. There’s no way to know. 

Or is there?

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Free College (online)

Posted March 3rd, 2017 @ 10:57am in #education #online education #online classe #Whenhub

At the moment, the in-person college experience is superior to taking classes online. Today, online teaching is mostly simple videos of people talking and pointing at things. But that advantage of in-person college over online classes won’t last forever. The in-person experience will stay largely as it is, but online lessons will evolve indefinitely toward better techniques, more content, and more scientifically-proven methods. Best practices will propagate quickly online.

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Dopamine Puppets

Posted March 2nd, 2017 @ 8:58am in #Trump Whenhub

Note: Twitter is hiding my tweets about politics from my followers, so I use the code word “kittens” in those tweets to beat their censorship bot.

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Here’s a funny article by David Wong of Cracked that talks about the dopamine high we sometimes get from outrage. The gist of it is that the brain gets some sort of chemical payoff from outrage, and we seek it when we’re otherwise bored with life. Politics serves up lots of outrage opportunities. That’s why we are drawn to it – for the high.

We rationalize that we are fighting the good fight and making the world better. But mostly it just feels good to get worked up about issues and share the experience with like-minded dopamine addicts.

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I Talk about President Trump’s Speech on YouTube

Posted March 1st, 2017 @ 2:33pm in #Trump #whenhub

I’m still in beta mode for my YouTube channel. But improving. Here’s this morning’s chat, mostly about President Trump’s speech.

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President Trump’s Speech Last Night

Posted March 1st, 2017 @ 9:51am in #Trump #WhenHub

I didn’t see President Trump’s entire speech last night. I’m catching up this morning. Looks to me as if it was a base-clearing home run. Even Democrats are having trouble criticizing it. Surveys are positive. Stock market is up. CNN’s most credible anti-Trumper, Van Jones, said Trump was presidential, in a good way. Don Lemon got triggered into cognitive dissonance, hypothesizing that Trump’s presidential words don’t match his off-stage personality. In other words, it was a speech.

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Nothing to See Here, Folks

Posted February 28th, 2017 @ 11:05am

I recently tweeted a link to my blog post that is unflattering to the proponents of climate science. I have 138,000 Twitter followers. My traffic from Twitter to my blog in a recent minute was only 14 people, while overall traffic from other sources was its usual robust self. For non-controversial topics, my Twitter-driven traffic for a tweet to my blog would be 200-300 per minute in the half-hour after a tweet. On this topic, it hovered between 10-14.

As many others have documented, Twitter throttles back the tweets of people who hold political views they don’t like.

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Tucker Carlson Induces Cognitive Dissonance in Bill Nye the Science Guy over Climate Change

Posted February 28th, 2017 @ 9:26am in #climate science #tucker carlson #Whenhub

Here is the best (and weirdest) example of cognitive dissonance you will ever see. The set-up is that Bill Nye, an engineer by training, and a proponent of science, is defending climate science on Tucker’s show. 

The first weird thing is that Bill Nye starts by talking about cognitive dissonance being the only reason that anyone would be skeptical of global warming. But he seems to not understand the concept of cognitive dissonance because he believes only the other side could be experiencing it. The nature of cognitive dissonance is that you don’t know you’re in it when you’re in it. It is only obvious to observers. If Nye had been objective, he would have noted two equal possibilities: Either the skeptics are experiencing cognitive dissonance or the proponents of climate science are experiencing it. But whoever is in it can’t know. It is only obvious to the other side. That’s how it works.

Yes, I do the same thing all the time. I call out my critics for being in cognitive dissonance and act as if the problem couldn’t be on my end. But in my case, the context is usually that I’m teaching you how to spot it. And I also talk about the specific triggers and “tells” so you can check my work. This video has a clear trigger and an enormous tell. Best example you will ever see. 

The set-up for the trigger is that Nye’s self-image is that of a rational supporter of science with a command of the facts about climate science. He has made a career recently of defending science, and climate science in particular. Nye’s ego depends on being consistent with his pro-science, rational stance. That’s who he is.

Tucker then asked Nye a simple question about climate science. He asked how much of the warming is caused by human activity. Nye’s entire ego depended on knowing whether human activity is contributing to climate change in a big way, a medium way, or a small way. Tucker wanted some details. How much difference do humans make? After all, Nye had said this was settled science. Tucker just wanted to know what that settled science said.

Nye didn’t know. And by not knowing that simple answer about the percentage of human contribution to warming – the only issue that really mattered to the topic – he proved in public that his opinions on science are not based on facts or knowledge. Nye tried and tried to dodge the question, but Tucker was relentless. That was the trigger. Nye could plainly see, thanks to Tucker’s simple question, that his belief in science was just a belief, because he didn’t actually know the science. When your self-image and ego get annihilated on live television, you can’t simply admit you have been ridiculous all along. Your brain can’t let you do that to yourself. So instead, it concocts weird hallucinations to force-glue your observations into some sort of semi-coherent movie in which you are not totally and thoroughly wrong. That semi-coherent movie will look like a form of insanity to observers.

Look for Nye to go totally mental in the last minute of the clip, changing the topic to political leaks for no apparent reason. That’s your tell. His brain just sort of broke right in front of you.

People do and say dumb things all the time, and it isn’t always cognitive dissonance. That’s why you look for the trigger to make sure the “tell” was what you thought it was. 

To be fair, spotting cognitive dissonance is more like bird-watching than science. Sometimes you misidentify a bird. But this example is like an ostrich sitting on your lap. Hard to miss. Enjoy.

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