Fall

Why we sometimes refer to Autumn as "Fall."

(We have two VERY large maple trees in our back yard.)

Russell's Teapot and Climate Change

In 1952, Bertrand Russell wrote that when a claim is made that is not supported by science, the person making the claim has the burden to prove it. Those denying the claim do not have the the burden disprove it.

Russell was writing in the context of religion, i.e. about people believing in God even though science can neither prove or disprove whether God exists, but I have been thinking recently about how this principle works in other settings, like climate change.

Russell said that if he asserts that a teapot orbits the sun between Earth and Mars, too small to observe by any telescope, we would NOT believe him, even though there is no way to disprove that it exists.

Russell held that just because a claim has NOT BEEN disproved does not mean that it IS factual. In fact, if there is no existing way to DISPROVE an assertion, then for all practical purposes, it is NOT true, or so goes Russell's argument.

We have LOTS deniers in America today. Because a scientific finding contradicts their world view, they struggle to undermine the science, in effect to disprove the scientific assertion. Often they use logical fallacies or inductive logic (reaching general conclusions from limited small amounts of data).  They contend that there is a controversy, when there really is not.  However, THEIR assertion that there is doubt is disproved by the preponderance of evidence.

The assertion on the other side of the question is that humans are emitting the greenhouse gases that are changing the climate. Every time the assertion has been tested by a fair scientific evaluation, it turns out to be correct (within small tolerances of error).  So the only avenue available to disprove the science...has not produced evidence of disproof.

The assertion that humans are causing climate change is proved.  The assertion that the science is invalid is disproved.

Ergo, according to Russell's framework we must ACCEPT the scientific conclusion that humans are affecting the climate, and that this affect is undesirable.

Could VALID disproof be discovered in the future?  Scientists are open to new evidence that changes our understanding, but it needs to be powerful to shake the broad and persuasive current evidence, not logical fallacies.

Red-Tailed Hawk

This little Red-tailed Hawk was perched on a power pole as I drove home the other day, down my rural Nebraska highways.

What do the election polls REALLY say?

If you are not watching this site:

http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com

........you probably should be.

The editor in chief, statistician Nate Silver, successfully called the outcomes in 49 of the 50 states in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election and in 2012, correctly predicted the winner of all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Hawk

Autumn is a time when I often see hawks perched along the highway on my daily commute, particularly in the afternoon. This one posed nicely for me a while back. Nikon D5000, 300mm, F5.6, 1/1500th, 200 ISO.

Words that Persuade, and Words that Don't

I see very few words in my social media feeds that support Donald Trump. Some of this just reflects who my friends are, but I also think that many people planning to vote for Trump are reluctant to have it be known they will vote for him.

I have been a registered independent (not affiliated with a party) for almost all of my adult life.  My choice of candidates is based on who I think is best able to perform critical thinking, which is one of my own skills.  I find that candidates who are critical thinkers are likely to share my views on individual policies.

But there are a lot of political words out there that do not come from critical thinking. They are based on rampant logical fallacies or convenience.  "Doctrine", which people in a given party are told they must support, almost always has big logical gaps.

So right now, almost all am seeing are words of ridicule against Trump, which he well deserves.  I am also seeing quite a bit of negativity aimed at Clinton.  In her case, much of it is based on decades of attacks by conservatives, drawing on faulty logic.  In Trump's case, the liberal attacks are mostly based on facts.

So why aren't people planning to vote for Trump coming out and saying they support him?

Some have "drunk the Kool-aid" and insist on voting against Clinton.

But I have concluded that in many cases it is it is because every day, they are experiencing a sort of anonymous criticism because how they plan to vote contradicts the overwhelming majority of factual stories floating around about the candidates.

When we are bluntly criticized, we tend to clam up and get defensive.  We tend to insulate ourselves against such criticism, in this case by simply not talking about it.

Do you have someone in particular you want to persuade?  Do it in person, not via distance technology.  Avoid criticizing the current views of the person.  Begin with areas in which you know you agree and gently move into the grey policy areas between you.  Words have power, but they must be the right words, at the right time, delivered in the right way.