Null prophets
Found an interesting snippet from a speech by George Romney in 1959, showing that his prophetic vision was larger than just the auto industry:

As a country we may be in for some tough sledding, based on my survey of the domestic situation. We have to recognize that since World War II, the enemy has been licking the pants off us.

Started thinking. Prophets can make profits in business, but prophets are NOT WANTED in politics. When he got into politics, he correctly predicted that the Vietnam war was not worth fighting. That was a 'gaffe', and eliminated him from the race.

Started thinking again. No, it's not that prophets are unwanted; it's more specific.

Here's the real distinction:

We understand prophets who warn us of things that will happen, telling us to take big steps to prepare. We may or may not listen and act quickly enough, but we tend to respect them afterward.

We can't understand prophets who warn us that nothing special is happening, and nothing special needs to be done. When everyone is stocking up on food against the 2K Millenium Bug, we can't listen to a prophet who says it's no big deal. When everyone is getting scanned and scoped and tested for all sorts of cancer every hour on the hour, we can't listen to a medical authority who says the testing and scanning is worse than the cancer. When everyone is panicking about Bird Flu, we can't listen to plain logic that tells us Bird Flu won't happen.

We have to DO SOMETHING even if the DOING is deadly. We can't hear common sense when it tells us to look at history, observe facts, trust Nature, trust our own bodies, ignore bullies, let fools be fools.

It's directly parallel to the problem in science. We respect a result that seems to show something new, or disprove the null hypothesis. We pay for those results and give tenure to people who work toward those results. But we completely ignore a result that shows nothing unusual is happening, or proves the null hypothesis.

In science as in life, those null results are usually more important than the 'positive' results. The brake pedal matters more than the gas pedal.

Knowing that the Carbon Cult is leading us to disaster is crucially important, but we didn't listen to Art Robinson and Willie Soon when they tried to tell us that Weather isn't worth doing anything special. We only listened to the Cool Crowd who said we NEEDED TO ACT URGENTLY AND TOTALLY!

Knowing that the Neocon Cult is leading us to disaster is crucially important, but we didn't listen to George Romney when he tried to tell us that Vietnam wasn't worth doing anything special. Later we didn't listen to Pat Buchanan when he tried to tell us the same thing about Iraq and Afghanistan. We only listened to the Cool Crowd who said we NEEDED TO ACT URGENTLY AND TOTALLY!

= = = = =

Footnote for clarity: I'm emphatically not trying to praise George's son by extension. I've frequently noted the son's total reversal of George's talents. Mitt is just another part of the Cool Crowd, incapable of thinking for himself.

Labels: Blinded by Stats, Carbon Cult

  ¶ 5:16 PM