Losing trust in science

The net result isn't great, but I find it often both unsurprising and completely justified that people lose trust in science.

Random links

Jake Anbinder on Twitter
"From my dissertation: 'While in 1972 a member of SF's planning commission had complained that a 12-page impact statement in his inbox was intolerably verbose, just 4 years later a plan by the Univ of California to build two new dorms resulted in an EIS that ran 950 pages long.'"
Grid-Scale Gaslighting
"whenever a grid nears disaster due to resource adequacy, or is forecasted to approach disaster, a plethora of “experts” emerge declaring one of two conclusions. If variable renewable energy sources (VREs), which are wind and solar, are strongly producing, then these VRE sources “saved” the grid. If VRE output is low, it is concluded that thermal sources, such as natural gas, coal, and nuclear, are not dependable." On some of the issues with this ...
She's (Not) Having a Baby
"We find that few women in Canada have “excess” (undesired) births but that a considerable share of Canadian women will end their reproductive years with “missing” children, that is, reporting that they desire more children that they will not likely have."

Failing to think sufficiently about the costs

This notion of not thinking through all the consequences IMO applies all the more to his earlier statements advocating gain-of-function research.

More random links

Oregon again says students don’t need to prove mastery of reading, writing or math to graduate, citing harm to students of color / Kids’ reading scores have soared in Mississippi ‘miracle’
Two stories this year, one in a Democrat-controlled state and the other in a Republican-controlled state (albeit with bipartisan support).
Morality justifies motivated reasoning in the folk ethics of belief
"many people will infer that a surgeon is more likely to be male than female, which is consistent with Bayesian reasoning given unequal base rates favoring men. However, when told that another person believes the same thing, people will condemn that person’s belief"
A Climate Hawk’s Issues With Electric Vehicles
On the use of certain scarce resources: "the amount ... needed for one long-range electric vehicle would be enough for either six plug-in hybrids or 90 of the type of hybrid that can’t be plugged in for a recharge. ... “The overall carbon reduction of those 90 hybrids over their lifetimes is 37 times as much as a single battery electric vehicle,” Toyota argues. That’s a stunning statistic if true."

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