Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

TokyoTom — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 02:00:40 GMT

Nir, thanks for commenting, but I actually love Prof. Block's choice of topic; it's been calling out for productive engagement from Austrians for years, but what we usually get is ad homs and poo flinging.

BTW, did you actually look at Block's post? It has no substance, but is simply a straight post of someone else commenting on the weather.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

nirgrahamUK — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:59:50 GMT

well, did the books and the journal articles discuss environmentalism from an austrian viewpoint?. if so, you are just criticising his choice of topic on the particular day block wrote the article; in which he didnt cover the same ground that he had covered elsewhere. no offence but i think that might be a little rough.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

TokyoTom — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 02:48:58 GMT

Nir, thanks for your comments. Yes, I'm familiar with Prof. Block's works, having cited him a number of times: mises.org/.../search.aspx.

Am I being a little rough on Block? Little ol' me? Don't think so. It's perfectly fair to observe that he has posted on a topic while declining completely to discuss it from an Austrian viewpoint, and to speculate on the reasons why.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

nirgrahamUK — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 23:54:14 GMT

arent you being a bit rough on Block ,you cite some good works - Sheldon Richman, - Gene Callahan,- Edwin Dolan,

who you seem to appreciate. where you aware that block is fenitely a supporter of free market environmentalism, and has written a book on the subject and many papers. of course he is opposed to stasist environmentalism and what passes as the Environmentalist mainstream movement... but with good reason.....

Nick Kristof on politics: why we conclude that I'm right, and you're evil

TT's Samurai Stumblings — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 13:05:46 GMT

Here's a very interesting piece by Kristof at the New York Times about the reactions of Obama and

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

TokyoTom — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 04:13:10 GMT

Donny, I appreciate the comment here, but good observations like these would engage more people if you'd also make them over on the main comment thread.

However, I wish that you wouldn't try to twist yourself intoa pretzel by trying to be even-handed with those whose own attempts to appear even-handed are easily dtermined to be disingenuous.

Gunter has consistently tried to cast doubt on the main conclusions coming from science and on the motives of others, rather than being frank about the science and focussing on policy. He has an agenda of persuading Canadians to do nothing (and perhaps to assist those similarly inclined here), and this consistent with it.

Likewise, Block's intentions can be judged from his complete lack of commentary on structural problems/policy from a Misesean viewpoint and from the reactions he elicited on the main thread.

It's extremly disappointing.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

Donny with an A — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 09:17:52 GMT

Actually, I thought Gunter's article was reasonably fair, as long as it was intended as satire the way he implied at the end. He specifically said that evidence he presented didn't entail anything about the long-term state of the comment, and his purpose seemed to be to call attention to the sort of reporting which can legitimately be considered alarmist is nature; screaming about droughts, heat waves, and floods really is unfair and unrepresentative of the current state of the science.

However, it's worth noting that none of the events he cites are particular problematic for the mainstream view. Just as individual warm years don't prove anything, neither do individual cold years. A quick glance at a temperature record spanning over the past century does seem to reveal a trend, with considerable year-to-year variability. Last year was a departure from the trend which doesn't seem outside of the range of the normal variability we've seen over the past century. It isn't that these things fall short of being conclusive evidence against the mainstream view; they aren't convincing evidence against it at all.

In short, if Block were citing the article to try to dispute the mainstream view, his argument would miss its mark. Gunter's article doesn't really make any trouble for anyone. But if he's just taking a shot at the mainstream media, then I personally don't think he's being unfair.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

Juan — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 22:37:32 GMT

Here's one more proof...

Buenos Aires has first snow since 1918

www.guardian.co.uk/.../argentina.weather

Only fanaticals can't admit that more snow proves GW. And so does less snow.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

Geoffrey Allan Plauche — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:16:42 GMT

Well, doesn't confirmation bias work the other way round too? The global warming activists who are so thoroughly convinced disaster is looming on the horizon and CO2, and only CO2, is the primary cause, are just as apt to fall prey to this.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

jtucker — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:09:01 GMT

Actually, TT, you could more readily assure that your comments will be published right away, and not be tagged as spam, if you would put fewer URLs in them, remember that people do have Google, and that it is always better to make a concise and compelling argument than to refer people to twenty things that they should read.

re: Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases

jtucker — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 13:58:08 GMT

TT, I'm so sorry your comment was snagged by the software as spam. Because of your blog here, I looked through the spam comments and found yours. Probably the number of URLs caused this. I'm approved it. Thank you also for not jumping to the conclusion, as some people do, that you are somehow being censored.