Tuesday, October 12, 2010

CEASE Pollution

Matt Archbold, over at the National Catholic Register, wrote an article "Anti Baby Science" about a Scientific American article "Will Birth Control Solve Climate Change?". This brings up a topic I've been meaning to blog about for a long time, population control. As I pointed out in "When you're holding a hammer", the solution to all problems is CEASE - my acronym for "Contraception, Euthanasia, Abortion, Sterilization and Eugenics".

First off, let me say I disagree with Mat ton one important point. This is not science. If you read the article, the "work" is funded by science grants, and is done by "scientists", but it is not science. They run population simulations based on their assumptions of what people will do, and come up with resulting levels of greenhouse gas emissions. That is not science, that is speculation.

It calls to mind the work of an earlier "scientist", Thomas Malthus. With just as little data and just as few facts, he produced a simulation that showed the world's population running out of food in the next generation. The problem is Malthus made his prediction in 1798. Needless to say it didn't happen, because his assumptions were flawed.

Likewise, the models these "scientists" are using for their "science" is flawed. I don't have space here for (nor are you probably interested in reading) a blow-by-blow critique of the article, but let's look at a couple of major flaws.

The first flaw is the assumption is that global warming is caused by people. You can read "Science? I think not!" for my take on that. The second is the assumption is that technology will not change, and no scientific advances can be made. It boggles the mind that the same people who make predictions about future societies based on applying Moore's Law to information technology fail to be able to admit any progress can be made in agricultural or industrial technology.

Ultimately though, the purpose of this "science" is not to advance human knowledge (how can it? As the saying goes "garbage in, garbage out"), but to justify a political socioeconomic agenda of CEASE. In that regard, they are doing a fine job. More on this as time permits.

[NB I apologize for using so many Wikipedia references. I have found Wikipedia to be biased, incomplete and downright wrong on just about every subject on which I have enough knowledge to intelligently critique it.* For that reason, I generally try to reference original sources rather than Wikipedia's. However, time did not permit finding better references for this post.

* For those of you who think I am just a crank, the subjects I am referring to are things like photography, physics, optics, astronomy, and computer science.]

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