Environmentally Friendly? Think Again. Part I

The Environment

How a certain narrow-mindedness within the environmental movement could lead to policies that, if applied on a broad scale, would result in net environmental harm:

Anti-nuclear bias. Electricity generation is the biggest source of GHGs. Expansion of nuclear energy would save lives and protect habitat now and greatly reduce CO2 emissions from power plants. When nuclear power plants fail, they do so dramatically. But the technology keeps improving and the risks keep decreasing. Even with the old technology, the cumulative damage done to people and the environment throughout the history of nuclear power has been much less than what is wrought by coal and natural gas every year (mainly through air pollution). Of course, renewables like wind and solar should play a part in the battle against global warming but only nuclear energy has the potential to deliver reliable power at the scale the global economy requires while greatly reducing the carbon emissions that so endanger our planet. As Obama’s Council of Advisers on Science and Technology put it “achieving low-carbon goals without a substantial contribution from nuclear power is possible, but extremely difficult..”

Organic agriculture. Organic agriculture is less productive overall and so organic farms require more land than those that use conventional methods. See, for instance http://www.nature.com/news/organic-farming-is-rarely-enough-1.10519 :” Crop yields from organic farming are as much as 34% lower than those from comparable conventional farming practices, the analysis finds. Organic agriculture performs particularly poorly for vegetables and some cereal crops such as wheat, which make up the lion’s share of the food consumed around the world.” Both to expand habitat for endangered species and to have more of the planet forested, we need to make agriculture more productive, not less. Conventional farmers are already getting better and better at reducing the environmental impact of farming, e.g., large expansion of no-till farming in the last decade, use of cover crops, less burning of crop residue, measures to reduce fertilizer run-off, plus less and more targeted use of pesticides and fertilizer.

Localism. This is the idea that our food should be locally produced for a variety of reasons, from romantic ideas about community to reducing CO2 from long-haul transport. Problem is, any specific locality is only appropriate for a few types of crops so locally-sourced produce and cereals are simply not feasible on any significant scale.  Localizing would also mean forsaking comparative advantage in agriculture and require more inputs to grow a given quantity of food, including more land and more chemicals—all of which come at a cost of carbon emissions. Also, for more people to reap the “benefits” of locally sourced foods, the population would have to spread out and “de-urbanize” – requiring that they commute longer distances to work and increase cultivated and developed lands overall. Plus, smaller trucks with less storage space often emit more CO2 per unit transported than those big-ass long-hauls, because the latter transport so much more stuff per haul. Efficiency matters. For more on this, see: http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local-food/ or read the wonderful book, “The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000 mile Diet”.

The Spirit of Science and the Case of Climate Change

Scientific Encounters

I’ll put this out first: I’m not a Climate Skeptic! Say it again: I’m not a Climate Skeptic! That said (twice), I am fine with people questioning the so-called “consensus”. This doesn’t mean that I think their opinions are always logical or backed up by high quality science. It just means there should be room for disagreement. As a principle. And those who disagree with this or that aspect of the Climate Change Consensus shouldn’t be implicitly compared to Holocaust deniers.

We all rely on heuristics. My heuristics include: 1) be wary of arguments based on authority; 2) focus on the details of the case; and, 3) look for Red Flags.

In considering scientific evidence or arguments, Red Flags are clear violations of the scientific spirit (see prior post). The various principles that comprise the scientific spirit I call the Virtues of Science. One of the Virtues is the recognition that a lot of things are Matters of Degree. When I see arguments based on Categorical Thinking (e.g., you’re either in this Camp or that Camp), I see Red. This applies to all sides in the Climate Change debate.

 

Gun Control and the Second Amendment

Politics and Economics

In the relatively recent Supreme Court decision  McDonald v. Chicago (2010), the Court ruled that general bans on gun ownership were unconstitutional – or laws that had the effect of general bans, like in Chicago, which had a law that said all handguns had to be registered but then provided no mechanism to register guns. This case came up because an old man who lived in a dangerous neighborhood wanted to buy a handgun for self-protection for when his house was broken into – his perfectly legal rifle was just too unwieldy for the purpose. Interestingly, after the ruling, there appears to have been no effect on the homicide rate in Chicago, which is following the country-wide trend of continuing decline – less than half the homicide rate in 2014 than it was in 1974. Question: would you have supported the (effective) city-wide ban on handguns for all Chicago residents?

In a different decision, the Court also said the 2nd Amendment does not preclude gun control laws. Per Scalia in District of Columbia v. Heller: “Like most rights, the 2nd Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld…[and] the Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places…or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.” So when we speak of gun control, we need to be more specific. If we’re talking about tighter controls on gun ownership in line of what Scalia was ok with, it doesn’t seem the 2nd Amendment is relevant (despite its symbolic value for both the gun lobby and gun control advocates). If we’re talking about community-wide bans, then it is relevant.

 

 

Mindfulness and the New Age

Observing Mindfulness

Mindfulness enthusiasts may reject the comparison of mindfulness with New Age movements. Perhaps this has to do in part to the common association of New Age with being light-weight and faddish, whereas mindfulness is deep and steeped in ancient wisdom. But check out how “New Age Movement” is described in Wikipedia:

The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as “drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational psychology”.*

The movement …holds to “a holistic worldview”, emphasising that the Mind, Body, and Spirit are interrelated and that there is a form of monism and unity throughout the universe. It attempts to create “a worldview that includes both science and spirituality” and embraces a number of forms of mainstream science as well as other forms of science that are considered fringe.

This sounds a lot like the world of mindfulness to me. Disregarding the negative connotations associated with New Age (e.g.,  anything “Western”) and just looking at the meat of the description, in what way would Mindfulness movement not be considered a type of New Age movement?

*Quote from: Drury, Nevill (2004). The New Age: Searching for the Spiritual Self. London: Thames and Hudson. ISBN 978-0-500-28516-9.

Mindfulness, Belief, and the Truth

Observing Mindfulness

In the last post, I provided a very general and rough definition of mindfulness as “a more or less cohesive set of propositions about what is and what matters, along with various practices associated with those propositions.”

I initially wrote “beliefs” instead of “propositions” but changed to the latter after remembering  that “belief” is one of those words that has the power to offend. Which leads me to  a not-that-short digression about the word “belief” and how it relates to “the truth”.

Dictionary.com defines “belief” as confidence in the truth or existence of something.  Some people object to labeling something they hold to be true as a “belief”, because “belief” connotes a leap of faith rather than a true statement. Seen this way, a belief is not the result of an encounter with reality but is merely “in the head”.

Prefacing a statement with “I believe” is usually an acknowledgement of some uncertainty. “I believe you are wrong” is softer than “You are wrong”. It’s curious that “belief” is defined in terms of confidence but “to believe” reveals an element of doubt.

If we feel sure about something that is important to us, we probably don’t like to hear our conviction described as a belief. It feels invalidating and belittling. I know for myself, if someone characterizes something I just said as a “belief”, my first impulse is likely to be defensive: “No, that’s not just a belief – it’s true!”

When we hear the word “belief” the focus seems to be on the believer and not on the reality they are upholding. To call a conviction a belief is to highlight that it is subjective and not necessarily an objective statement about reality. I still remember one of the schizophrenics in The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach (1964), who had a standard response to anyone  attempting to puncture his delusions: “That’s your belief, sir”. The implication being that belief qua belief is not reality.

People who follow the teachings of The Buddha are not immune to a certain prickliness when their understanding of reality is described as “beliefs”.   This from Master Chin Kung (http://www.amtb.org.tw/e-bud/buddhism_education.html):

“The Buddha wants us to know, not merely believe. The Buddha’s teachings flow from his own experience of the way to understand the true face of life and the universe, and show us a path of our own to taste the truth for ourselves…. The Buddha uses a perfectly scientific way of showing us reality in its true form.”

Such sensitivity may also be the case for some who embrace the mindfulness movement. I acknowledge this sensitivity but will occasionally  use the word “belief” and its variations throughout this commentary.  However, it’s not my opinion that characterizing something as a belief necessarily invalidates it as a true statement. And I do believe in the possibility of true statements!

Climate Change and A Question of Attitude

The Environment

Note: I am not a climate change skeptic. From what I’ve read, the general climate change consensus seems reasonable. In a few months, Exploring the Problem Space will have a special issue about the climate change debate. This piece does not deal with the particulars of that debate.

A few years ago, I read a magazine editorial titled “Climate Science Under Attack: Who Speaks and Why?” In this piece, the author echoes the advice of Rachel Carson (of ‘Silent Spring’ fame) that we “look behind the curtains” of those who disagree with the current scientific consensus about global warming to ascertain their true motives for opposing the dominant view that human activity is causing climate change that will be disastrous for earth and humanity. Such individuals are not just innocents naively begging to differ with majority opinion, based on their own understanding of the evidence – no, they are a “horrid little population” that squirms and scatters when their “true motives” are revealed, “hired critics” protecting of interests of “profit peddling” concerns.

Ad hominem  attacks like these are common in the national debate on climate change.   The other side consists of scoundrels and idiots.  Problem is, focusing on the personal qualities of those with whom we disagree gets in the way of determining whether their case has any merit.  Sometimes we can learn a thing or two from people we dislike. I don’t assume that simply because someone is affiliated or used to be affiliated with some industry, religion, or ideology that I am now absolved from ever considering what they have to say. And I don’t consider purity of motive an important criterion for assessing the soundness of any particular scientific claim.

When encountering opinion pieces and articles that touch on scientific matters, instead of focusing on “who speaks and why”, I’d ask questions such as:

What is the evidence? What is the quality of the evidence? What were the methods used to collect data? What data were excluded and why? If projections are involved, what assumptions are the projections based on? Are these assumptions reasonable? Were the statistical analyses sound? Was there a peer-review process to review and critique the research? Are the data and methods for collecting the data available for others to review? What conclusions does the evidence support? What are the limitations of the evidence? What questions remain unanswered? What further research is needed to address these limitations and unanswered questions?

The scientific method is a self-corrective form of inquiry that accepts its own fallibility. Scientific ‘truth’ is not based on authority, so statements like “this is the truth because the scientific community says so” would be pretty hard to find in a serious peer-reviewed scientific publication.   “Truth” in science is provisional, based on the evidence to date, and even if there is a consensus, that fact alone doesn’t grant immunity from revision or criticism. It’s a good thing that young scientists often advance in their disciplines by taking on their elders – this is how knowledge grows.

No one is pure of motive; everyone is advancing some agenda and everyone is biased in some way – this applies to scientists as well as capitalists. In any scientific project there exists a certain tension between desire, bias and principles. Scientists are people too – they have egos, get overly invested in pet theories, and seek fame and glory (or, at least, career advancement). All these feelings and motivations can influence how scientific evidence is pursued, presented and interpreted. That doesn’t mean the result is necessarily without value.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying that bias is harmless or that we should ignore it in opinion pieces or scientific articles. Bias can lead to all sorts of sins: excluding relevant data, including questionable data, overstating results, ignoring alternative explanations. When we detect obvious bias, we should be on the look-out for these sins. But (forgive the double negative here) just because a writer or scientist wants it to be so doesn’t make it not so.

Other people’s biases can make us think about something we never considered. Biases can open up new avenues of research. Biases can lead to better understanding and predictions. Biases can lead us astray and biases can get us closer to the truth.

Of course, time and mental energy are scarce resources with alternate uses, so we have to choose how these resources are allocated. We can’t pay attention to everything. We still need heuristics to help us decide how to spend our time and how deeply we want to process whatever comes our way. But if we find ourselves reading, or listening to, only what we agree with, I’d say our heuristics need some tweaking.

In relation to global warming, my plea for a certain intellectual charity may be considered self-indulgent and beside the point. Activists might argue that we are living in dangerous times and the looming catastrophe of climate change calls for swift condemnation of skeptics. According to this perspective, the most important thing now is to get humanity to act, unconstrained by notions of scientific humility, caution and open-mindedness.

This reminds me of one of my old anthropology professors who defended Marx’s more ridiculous proclamations (say, in Das Kapital) by saying their purpose was rhetorical and not analytical and we shouldn’t hold Marx’s rhetorical tracts to the same standards as his serious works. Science may be about the search for truth but rhetoric (and its cousin, politics) is about getting people to do something.

The problem is that sometimes the rhetoric is so over the top (in the aforementioned editorial, the author compares global warming skeptics to Galileo’s tormenters) it discourages free-spirited debate. Freedom to disagree is the lifeblood of democracy and science alike. Responding to climate change requires a clear and accurate understanding of the processes and consequences of global warming. Demonizing dissenters discourages independent inquiry and chills debate, which can only undermine an effective response to the changes that lie ahead.

 

 

Debate 1: Should drugs be legalized in the US?

Politics and Economics

Setting the Tone:

“He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that…Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they   state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. That is not the way to do  justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be  able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and  persuasive form….” From: “On Liberty”, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Vol. XVII:   Essays on Politics and Society.

These brief debate summaries will have the general structure: an intro to the issue, then one or two “Yes” paragraphs, followed by one or two “No” paragraphs. Snark-free comments are welcome. There will be a new debate topic every month.

Debate 1: Should drugs be legalized in the US?

The United States openly declared a war on drugs about 40 years ago. Unfortunately, the war on drugs is not going well. Despite huge sums spent on enforcement of drug laws and incarceration of drug offenders, Americans haven’t lost their taste for a whole smorgasbord of soft and hard drugs. Every year almost half a trillion dollars’ worth of illegal drugs is imported, exported, bought and sold in the US. Heroin use has shot up, claiming four times as many deaths in 2013 as in 2002. Drug violence in the US continues to claim lives: from 2006-2010, 5,700 lives were cut short due to drug-related conflicts. Illegal drug use also leads people to commit crimes. In the US alone, most of those arrested for violent crimes test positive for drugs at time of arrest, as do a substantial number of those arrested for property crimes. And American consumption of illegal drugs fuels violence around the world: in 2013 alone, Mexican drug cartels murdered more than 16,000 people. Finally, let’s not forget that terrorist organizations like ISIS fund many of their operations through the drug trade.

What a mess. All those lives ruined; all that money spent. Surely, there must be a better way.

For some, the better way is clear: legalize drugs. All drugs. Why stop at pot? And why stop at consumption? Legalize cultivation, manufacture, transport, and sales. Of course, there needs to be regulations, like labeling, purity and dose requirements, no sales to minors or near schools, and no driving or operating machinery under the influence. That’s just common sense. Manufacturers and vendors would be licensed and taxed, with tax revenues used for rehabilitation and ways to reduce the harm of drug use, such as the provision of safe houses with supervision by counselors who can monitor for and respond to overdoses as well as provide referrals for help.

Advocates of legalization argue that the fact that drug use can be harmful is not a reason to make such use illegal. After all, many legal goods cause serious harm, including death. This includes alcohol, responsible for about 38,000 overdose deaths in the US every year. However, the criminal status of drugs actually contributes to their harm, by promoting dangerously tainted products and transmission of disease through dirty needles and unhygienic environments. Legalization would also cut the wind out of the sails of drug gangs, cartels and terrorist organizations, who would be less able to rely on the drug trade to fund their nefarious activities. There would be environmental benefits as well: cultivation and manufacturing would have to be in compliance with EPA regulations and there’d be no more aerial spraying of drug crops. What’s not to like?

Lots, say the critics of legalization. Colorado is a good case study of what is likely to happen following legalization: increases in overall drug consumption (including among children and teens), drugged-driving incidents, fatal crashes, emergency room visits, school expulsions, and gang-related crime, not to mention a decrease in workplace productivity and an exploding homeless population. And pot is often associated with rather innocuous behavioral changes – imagine the effect of legalizing harder drugs, especially those associated with violence. Do we really want to legalize rage-inducing methamphetamines?

Just because some harmful activities are legal is not an argument to legalize all harmful activities. Legalization will lead to more drug use and more drug use will mean more damaged brains and bodies, creating a greater burden on our healthcare system and safety net. Greater use will mean more addiction and compromised decision-making, resulting in higher crime rates and destroyed families. None of this is to say that the war on drugs is perfect. There is already a growing consensus that more needs to be spent on rehabilitation, that use alone shouldn’t merit incarceration, and that past drug offenses shouldn’t mean disqualification from student financial aid. We still need to become better at helping people who abuse drugs, but legalization would only make that job harder.

So, what do you think? Would legalization of drugs in the US create more good than harm? Or vice versa?

 

The Spirit of Science

Scientific Encounters

Enthusiasts and amateurs are welcome. Academics are welcome. Observations and questions from the whole spectrum of expertise and opinion are appreciated. Feel free to comment – no need to make sure you understand the whole of something before putting in your two bits worth. Initial impressions can be insightful, partly because they are not weighed down by extensive knowledge. And of course expert knowledge and understanding are also valuable!

A Couple Quotes:

“Science is a method, remember – not a body of fact.”

– Reader’s comment on The Economist’s “Unreliable research: Trouble at the lab – Scientists like to think of science as self-correcting. To an alarming degree, it is not.” (October 13, 2013)

“We used to say “question authority” – should we change that to “question authority only if we don’t like what authority says – and then call it ‘orthodoxy’?”

– Miriam Paisley

 Confession:  I am totally enamored of the Scientific Method and the Spirit of Science, speaking of which:

The Spirit of Science

From the Rational Enquirer, Vol 3, No. 3, Jan 90.(taken from The Kansas School Naturalist, Vol. 35, No. 4, April 1989), EO Wilson, “The Social Conquest of Earth” (2013), and W. Jay Wood, “How Might Intellectual Humility Lead to Scientific Insight?” December 10, 2012

Skepticism: Nearly all statements make assumptions of prior conditions. A scientist often reaches a dead end in research and has to go back and determine if all the assumptions made are true to how the world operates.

Suspended judgment: Diederich* describes: “A scientist tries hard not to form an opinion on a given issue until he has investigated it, because it is so hard to give up opinion already formed, and they tend to make us find facts that support the opinions… There must be however, a willingness to act on the best hypothesis that one has time or opportunity to form.”

Willingness to change opinion: When Harold Urey, author of one textbook theory on the origin of the moon’s surface, examined the moon rocks brought back from the Apollo mission, he immediately recognized this theory did not fit the hard facts laying before him. “I’ve been wrong!” he proclaimed without any thought of defending the theory he had supported for decades.

Awareness of assumptions: Diederich describes how a good scientist starts by defining terms, making all assumptions very clear, and reducing necessary assumptions to the smallest number possible. Often we want scientists to make broad statements about a complex world. But usually scientists are very specific about what they “know” or will say with certainty: “When these conditions hold true, the usual outcome is such-and-such.”

Respect for quantification and appreciation of mathematics as a language of science: Many of nature’s relationships are best revealed by patterns and mathematical relationships when reality is counted or measured; and this beauty often remains hidden without this tool.

An appreciation of probability and statistics: Correlations do not prove cause-and-effect, but some pseudoscience arises when a chance occurrence is taken as “proof.” Individuals who insist on an all-or-none world and who have little experience with statistics will have difficulty understanding the concept of an event occurring by chance.

An appreciation for the concept of the continuum: Scientists tend to consider phenomena in terms of values along a continuum – think gradients like temperature, velocity, mass, or wave length. From this perspective, much of what is typically perceived categorically, like “toxins”, is more a matter of degree or “dose”, which changes the research question, e.g., from “Is this substance toxic?” to “At what dose does this substance have toxic effects?”

An understanding that all knowledge has tolerance limits: All careful analyses of the world reveal values that scatter at least slightly around the average point; a human’s core body temperature is about so many degrees and objects fall with a certain rate of acceleration, but there is some variation. There is no absolute certainty.

Intellectual Humility: W. Jay Wood: “It is integral to science, as a self-correcting discipline, to receive criticism, and to be prepared to admit that some particular theory or practice is incomplete or incorrect. Suitably humble scientists are alive to the possibility that their expectations about how nature should behave may be wrong. Philosopher of science Israel Scheffler dubs this openness to correction “a capacity for surprise,” to which intellectual humility surely contributes.”

*Diederich, Paul B. “Components of the Scientific Attitude,” Science Teacher, February, 1967, pp. 23-24

That said, scientists are imperfect vessels for channeling the Spirit of Science.

So make sure your critical faculty is turned on when reading claims made in the name of science.  A Few Links to help fine-tune your ability to separate the wheat from the chaff:

Why Most Published Research Findings Are False (John P. A. Ioannidis,2005)

Problems with scientific research: How science goes wrong (The Economist – October 19, 2013)

Unreliable research: Trouble at the lab (The Economist – October 19, 2013)

Note: New stuff – reviews, quotes, commentaries – will be posted at least weekly.

Mindfulness as Discourse, Mindfulness as Cultural Object

Observing Mindfulness

Throughout these posts, I will be exploring themes and narratives commonly found in mindfulness discourse.   My focus will be what is written or said in the name of mindfulness, regardless of whether what is written or said reflects a “correct” understanding. My approach will be somewhat like that of an anthropologist studying the system of meaning shared by members of a community – the culture of that community.

Cultural analysis can be applied to any collectivity that shares common practices, beliefs, values and points of reference, such as the mindfulness community. This doesn’t mean that every member of the group feels and thinks the same way – only that one can find patterns within the mosaic of their discursive acts.

Cultural analysis may also involve looking at outside influences that contribute to a belief system or ideology. For instance, the mindfulness movement stems in part from ancient Eastern traditions, but it has also borrowed and expanded upon themes present in contemporary Western societies (e.g. cognitivism, self-esteem, positive psychology, New Age movements).

This project will also include “interrogations” of texts written to promote mindfulness practice. Here I’m appropriating the sense of “interrogate” used in literary criticism, that of reading closely and critically, and especially looking for:

  •  The way language is chosen, used, or positioned as an indication of what an author considers crucial and what he expects you to glean from his argument.
  • Possible ideological positions, hidden agendas or biases.
  • Recurring images
  • Repeated words, phrases, types of examples, or illustrations
  • Consistent ways of characterizing people, events, or issues

Regarding mindfulness as a discursive and cultural object is not to say mindfulness is without positive qualities: mindfulness practice has much to recommend it.

So, what is mindfulness? To me, it is part skill-building regimen, part worldview, part self-help movement, part religion, and part ideology. (These “parts” will be elaborated later, often in considerable detail.)   Some practitioners may object to my descriptors and say that, more than anything, mindfulness is a “way of being”, one that involves a non-judgmental state of “present-centered awareness” (Bishop et al, 2004:232).  But here I’m assuming an etic position as an outside observer, not as a committed adherent.   I am less concerned about what mindfulness “really” is than in how it is talked about and in the allusions, assumptions and implications of the words spoken in its name.  Hence I’m hesitant to provide a strict definition.

Still, to the extent that mindfulness is a discussable thing, albeit a thing with shifting and fuzzy boundaries, it would be useful to have a rough idea of what type of thing mindfulness is.  So here goes:

Mindfulness is a more or less cohesive set of propositions about what is and what  matters, along with various practices associated with those propositions.

Note: New commentaries will be posted at least weekly.