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Environmentalists are the biggest science deniers of all #EarthDay
24 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: antimarket bias, antiscience left, green rent seeking, Greenpeace, nuclear power, pessimism bias, rational irrationality, wind power
More reasons to loathe anti-GMO activists
25 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: agricultural economics, antiscience left, GMOs
Behind on bashing the anti-science left on #GMOs
21 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, health economics Tags: antiscience left, GMOs, precautionary principle
HT: Stephen Berry.
Fruits and vegetables, wild vs. domesticated
12 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of information, economics of media and culture, economics of regulation, environmental economics, health economics Tags: agricultural economics, antiscience left, food snobs, GMOs, organic food
Solution aversion and the anti-science Left
11 Mar 2016 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, health economics, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice Tags: antiscience left, climate alarmism, geo-engineering, GMOs, growth of knowledge, gun control, motivated reasoning, nuclear power, political persuasion, solar power, solution aversion, wind power
Climate science is the latest manifestation of solution aversion: denying a problem because it has a costly solution. The Right does this on climate science, the Left does it on gun control, GMOs, and plenty more. Cass Sunstein explains:
It is often said that people who don’t want to solve the problem of climate change reject the underlying science, and hence don’t think there’s any problem to solve.
But consider a different possibility: Because they reject the proposed solution, they dismiss the science. If this is right, our whole picture of the politics of climate change is off.
Some psychologists wasted grant money on lab experiments to show that people that think the solution to a problem is costly tend to rubbish every aspect of the argument. Any politician will tell you you do not concede anything. Sunstein again:
Campbell and Kay asked the participants whether they agreed with the IPCC. And in both, about 80 percent of Democrats did agree; the policy solutions made no difference.
Republicans, in contrast, were far more likely to agree with the IPCC when the proposed solution didn’t involve regulatory restrictions…
Here, then, is powerful evidence that many people (of course not all) who purport to be skeptical about climate science are motivated by their hostility to costly regulation.
The Left is equally prone to motivated readings. For example, it was found that those on the left are much more concerned about home invasions when gun control can reduce them rather than increase them.
The Left picks and chooses which scientific consensus as it accepts. The overwhelming consensus among researchers is biotech crops are safe for humans and the environment. This is a conclusion that is rejected by the very environmentalist organisations that loudly insist on the policy relevance of the scientific consensus on global warming.
Previously the precautionary principle was used to introduce doubt when there was no doubt. But when climate science turned in their favour, environmentalists wanted public policy to be based on the latest science.
The Right is welcoming of the science of nuclear energy or geo-engineering. The Left rejects it point-blank. Their refusal to consider nuclear energy as a solution to global warming is a classic example of solution aversion. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
How to deal with science denialists
03 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of information, economics of media and culture, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, health economics Tags: antiscience left, climate alarmism, growth of knowledge, philosophy of science, quackery, Quacks
Most climate alarmists do not separate the policy issues, the economic issues, from the science of global warming as suggested in this flowchart. Specifically, they do not ask what is the economic and social cost of global warming.
What does it mean to oppose #GMOs and #goldenrice?
21 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, health economics Tags: antiscience left, cranks, GMOs, Greenpeace, New Zealand Greens, precautionary principle, Quacks
Science denier bingo
11 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, health economics Tags: antiscience left, philosophy of science, quackery, Quacks, sociology of science
The six principles of natural medicine
03 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: antiscience left, quackery, Quacks, rational irrationality, that will medicine
Basic household cleaning agents have many uses
08 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, health economics Tags: antiscience left
Beware the dangers of dioxygen
07 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: antiscience left
Vaccines by the numbers
08 Dec 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - Australia, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, antiscience left, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, cranks, Leftover Left, New Zealand Greens, quackery, vaccinations, vaccines
The Antiscience Left and GMOs
05 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: agricultural economics, antiscience left, conjecture and refutation, conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, creative destruction, GMOs, infotopia, risk risk trade-offs
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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