On his first day as president, Joe Biden, flanked by a portrait of Ben Franklin, called on the federal government to “advance environmental justice” and “be guided by the best science.”
In many ways, Biden’s words came as no surprise.
Throughout the 2020 campaign and after, Biden had often repeated the phrases “listen to the science” and “I believe in science,” presumably to contrast himself with his opponent.
Biden didn’t stop there, however. He included the mantra in one of the first executive orders he signed, noting that it would be his administration’s official policy to “listen to the science.”
The phrase seems harmless enough. The scientific method is highly trusted, and for good reason. It has been a boon to humanity and helped bring about many of the marvels of our modern world.
Yet distinguished thinkers new and old have warned us to proceed with caution when confronted with pleas to “listen to the science.”
Mises: There’s No Ought in Science
The economist Ludwig von Mises once observed the problem with using scientific claims to shape the modern world. He suggested that in many cases people invoke science simply to tell people what they must do.
“The planners pretend that their plans are scientific and that there cannot be disagreement with regard to them among well-intentioned and decent people,” Mises wrote in his 1947 essay “Planned Chaos.”
Most people agree that science is a useful tool, and Mises was certainly one of them. The problem Mises was getting at was that science can’t actually tell us what we should do, which is the realm of subjective value judgments. Science can only tell us what is.
“[T]here is no such thing as a scientific ought,” Mises wrote, echoing a famous argument by David Hume. “Science is competent to establish what is.” (For a deeper dive on the is-ought problem, read Hume’s celebrated 1729 work, A Treatise on Human Nature.)
The economist continued:
“[Science] can never dictate what ought to be and what ends people should aim at. It is a fact that men disagree in their value judgments. It is insolent to arrogate to oneself the right to overrule the plans of other people and to force them to submit to the plan of the planner.”
The Science of Lockdowns and Climate Change
As Mises correctly saw, oftentimes when people say “follow the science,” they’re really saying “follow our plan.”
When teen activist Greta Thunberg exhorts us to follow the science on climate change, she’s not saying we should acknowledge that the planet is warming and that humans play a role in the Earth’s climate.
She’s saying people should adopt her plan and that of other climate activists, which includes transitioning off meat, giving up flying (something to be achieved either through shame or coercion), taxing fossil fuels, and myriad other proposals.
Billionaire climate activist Bill Gates explained in February why changes like moving off meat should be done, and how.
“I do think all rich countries should move to 100% synthetic beef,” Gates remarked in an interview with Technology Review, noting that emissions per pound of beef are not quite optimal.
“You can get used to the taste difference, and the claim is they’re going to make it taste even better over time. Eventually, that green premium is modest enough that you can sort of change the [behavior of] people or use regulation to totally shift the demand.”
The proposals offered by Thunberg and Gates—who also said the government should just listen to the scientists—may be good ones; they may be bad. The key is to understand that their proposals entail value judgments, not just science.
Similarly, in 2020 we repeatedly saw pleas for Americans to “listen to the science.” But the fundamental disagreement over COVID-19 was not over science (though there was certainly some, evidenced by the CDC’s flip-flops, modeling disasters, and widespread confusion over the lethality of COVID-19 ).
Nearly everyone understood the overarching science: a new and deadly virus had emerged from Asia and was spreading across continents.
The primary disagreement arose over what actions should be taken to limit the spread, who should execute them (individuals or the state), and whether people should be coerced into action.
Many of the questions Americans faced were complicated.
If social distancing saves lives, should businesses be ordered closed? If so, which ones? What should be done if people aren’t socially distancing in public? Should sick people be physically confined in their homes? What about healthy people? Assuming that face coverings limit the spread, should they be recommended or forced? What happens when people refuse?
These are important questions. But again, they are ethical ones, not scientific ones. Sound science is merely a tool that can help us reach decisions on these matters.
The point is that Americans should heed Mises’s warning and beware of planners who say we must listen to them because their plans are scientific.
Complex ethical problems demand solutions, and, as journalist H.L. Mencken pointed out, “for every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
Outsourcing our complex ethical problems to people with prestigious degrees may be simple, but it’s also wrong. Ethical questions are about what we ought to do, and, as Mises saw, there is no ought in science.
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“No energy system can produce sum useful energy in excess of the total energy put into constructing it.
This universal truth applies to all energy systems.
Energy, like time, flows from past to future”.
Chaamjamal – there is no linkage between atmospheric CO2 concentrations and prevailing surface temperatures. There are many other factors on this planet and the influences from space (like the sun) to consider when trying to draw cause-and-effect relationships between trace amounts of a chemically inert gas and the wildly dynamic forces that comprise the climate. Just look at the cases presented by the planets Mars and Venus, both of which have CO2 concentrations of about 95%, but their surface conditions can hardly be more diverse from each other.
We can look at the atmospheric chemical composition from a different angle and ask the same questions: Perhaps, as CO2 concentrations slowly increase over decades, we must examine the effect that is being wrought by the corresponding reduction in overall concentration of nitrogen in the atmosphere, assuming the proportions of other gases remain constant, which seems likely. If climate is changing, by whatever cause, might we make a case that it is due to slowly lowering amounts of nitrogen in the air? How can that reasoning be any more incorrect or unfounded that that made by the climate nut-cases who claim that human-generated carbon dioxide is to blame?
If the time has come to use science, twist it around, and beat our opponents in thought over the head with crazy schemes, we should consider the hazards presented by water. Water – the great evil ingredient on this world, compared to no other I can think of, not even fire. Water from storms, sea surges, rogue waves, over-flowing rivers, blizzards, snow avalanches, broken plumbing and even vapor damage to home interiors make the case clear that we must ban water immediately, once-and-for-all. Nobody can possibly disagree with this campaign to save humanity from a planet that seeks to destroy us all!
Once carbon ( dioxide) taxes reach maximum economic damage, the Socialists will figure out a way to own and tax water, in its various states.
I do listen to the science but am I allowed to ask questions? For example is the temperature a logarithmic function of atmospheric CO2 concentration or is it a linear function of atmospheric CO2 concentration?
Or is it both?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/26/a-mathematical-inconsistency/
Bill Gates and Microsoft needs to go and i mean GO clean out of America his ownership of al that Farmland sounds like Monopoly to me
If Bill Gates wants to grow veggie burgers, he has a head start on us mere mortals. Bill and Melinda own more American farmland than anyone else.
Yes, Gates. And THIS is what the science says… CO2 IS the GREEN IN THE ENVIRONMENT, through the photosynthetic green pigmented enzyme chlorophyll. CO2 IS the source of all carbon in the carbon-based lifeforms that make up life on earth. CO2 is ESSENTIAL to life on earth – it is not an option. It is not just a fertilizer – it is, along with water, the basic essential ingredient of life on earth. ALL LIFE DIES WITHOUT CO2! Life began in life luxuriant levels of 9,000ppm. And CO2 has been naturally and dangerously declining towards a LACK OF CO2 oblivion ever since. Declining to within 30ppm of nominal lethal lows during glacial phases of today’s ongoing Pleistocene Ice Age. The simple fact is that 41% more CO2, in its current dangerously low level – starvation level lows – has been an unquestionable boon to life on earth. And remember how LOW LIFE ESSENTIAL CO2 LEVELS ARE – doubling near nothing is still uncomfortably close to nothing. More CO2 has been a Godsend. But CO2 levels remain far too low to be ideal. A 41% increase is only 120ppm of the trace gas of life. That boon has been contributed by fossil fuels. Because when coal, oil, and gas are burned, the two basic molecular products of that consumption are the two basic ingredients of life on earth – CO2 and H2O! Bill Gates should follow his own advice. The science is very clear – CO2 is the basic ingredient of life on earth. And CO2 has been dangerously DECLINING from CO2 concentrations of 9,000ppm at life’s beginnings 3.8 billion years ago. Gates appears either entirely ignorant or intentionally deceptive regarding these two-hundred-year-old scientific facts. Empirical facts perfectly understood in the sciences of biology and crop science. Bill Gates, in his late in life radical rush to triple energy costs and abandon 85% of the world’s energy, really should follow his own advice. With the radical and harmful advice, Gates is giving, he should actually examine the science of how CO2 relates to temperature – in the environment – and in the lab. The overwhelming and universally accepted evidence is that CO2 levels FOLLOW temperature levels – they do not cause them. This happens because CO2 solubility in water varies with temperature. As 70% of the earth’s surface water temperatures rise, CO2 outgasses. As water temperatures fall, more CO2 dissolves, removing it from the atmosphere. Eight hundred thousand years of ice core empirical data confirm this – CO2 levels LAG temperatures – they do not cause them. Thus, our Milankovitch Eccentricity driven climate follows its natural one hundred thousand year natural, normal and DANGEROUS cycles. And as temperatures cycle, CO2 levels cycle, and follow a corresponding cycle of from 180ppm to 280ppm starvation level lows of CO2. MEANING WITHOUT QUESTION THE SCIENCE THAT JOURNALISM AND POLITICS IGNORE – THE BIOLOGY OF CO2 – CLEARLY DEMONSTRATES THAT ABANDONING FOSSIL FUELS WILL HAVE ZERO EFFECT ON CLIMATE. BUT AN UNQUESTIONABLY DAMAGING EFFECT – ON THE ENVIRONMENT – AND ON HUMANITY. Here are the numbers: 12,000,000 people die EVERY YEAR from a LACK OF ENERGY! Compare that to the only 56,000 who die from weather-related causes. Yet except for the rising ratings of conservative television, the Main Stream falling ratings television outlets simply ignore the science of CO2. How far will they have to fall before they do their homework?