Comments on: Not What a Sensible Person Should Do http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=5532 Wed, 29 Jul 2009 22:36:51 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 hourly 1 By: Maurice Garoutte http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=5532&cpage=1#comment-14117 Maurice Garoutte Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:40:42 +0000 http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=5532#comment-14117 What’s wrong with a good old “I don’t know” answer? The human urge to understand encourages the search for knowledge, that’s the good part. The bad part is once we know something the urge to learn more goes away. For example, people who know the truth about AGW no longer need to research the developing science. Personally, I’m an eternal skeptic and so never stop searching. I don’t know if that’s good or bad. What’s wrong with a good old “I don’t know” answer? The human urge to understand encourages the search for knowledge, that’s the good part. The bad part is once we know something the urge to learn more goes away. For example, people who know the truth about AGW no longer need to research the developing science.

Personally, I’m an eternal skeptic and so never stop searching. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.

]]> By: dean http://cstpr.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=5532&cpage=1#comment-14112 dean Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:53:51 +0000 http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/?p=5532#comment-14112 As you seem to have a habit of doing, you're presenting this as black and white - using a lot of absolute words like "irreducible" and "impossible" when "difficult" and "uncertain" would be more accurate. Because we don't know for sure, you think we shouldn't try. As said before, public policy is usually developed with imperfect information. It's important that they be honest about the precision and accuracy of the information they use, and I know that they aren't always. And that they have alternate plans as a backup. When you criticize them for treating partial and circumstantial information as absolute, that's a good service. But in all likelihood we will only know things for sure after the fact, when it will be too late to do anything about them. I think that most people would prefer that they try, even if they get it wrong sometimes, to just sitting on their hands until some unrealistic level of certainty is reached. As you seem to have a habit of doing, you’re presenting this as black and white – using a lot of absolute words like “irreducible” and “impossible” when “difficult” and “uncertain” would be more accurate. Because we don’t know for sure, you think we shouldn’t try. As said before, public policy is usually developed with imperfect information.

It’s important that they be honest about the precision and accuracy of the information they use, and I know that they aren’t always. And that they have alternate plans as a backup. When you criticize them for treating partial and circumstantial information as absolute, that’s a good service.

But in all likelihood we will only know things for sure after the fact, when it will be too late to do anything about them. I think that most people would prefer that they try, even if they get it wrong sometimes, to just sitting on their hands until some unrealistic level of certainty is reached.

]]>