A deftly worded set of considerations, Greg. I always have a wry grin at the gulf between the observation of a condition and the policy response to it. The cobra-effect named after the ill-fated policy used in Delhi speaks to this.
To use an analogy: 99.9% of economists and sociologists acknowledge that poverty exists. However, the proposed "cures" for that condition range from totalitarian socialism to laissez-faire capitalism. Acknowledging the "settled science" of poverty's existence does not mandate a singular political response: especially since history teaches us that certain responses can result in the deaths of hundreds of millions.
Your point about the classroom is vital. Too often, "teaching the truth" is used as a euphemism for "teaching my cultural and political values," while "critical thinking" is solely reserved for the task of helping students "unlearn" the falsehoods of our political and social opponents.
Much of what gets classified as "Net Zero" is indeed a grab-bag of ad hoc, well-intentioned policies that risk misappropriating funds and ultimately being counter-productive imo.
Thank you, Greg. It is, indeed, important to discriminate between arguments that follow directly from evidence and those that require one or more zigs and zags to reach the conclusion. Sticking close to the evidence is terrifically important, as you have shown in many posts about education (though I might quibble that some of your conclusions about cognition represent at least one or more zig or zag).
I hope your readers (I am a usually happy one!) remember that simply wrapping oneself in the flag may give the impression that one is patriotic, but the test should not be the "look"; the test should be whether implementing the recommendations actually make a difference.
It is unclear why CSIRO has moved into economics (note the absence of 'E' in CSIRO), an area where it has nowhere near the authority that it does in science. GenCost makes a series of assumptions about nuclear build and life times, and system costs associated with high levels of intermittent renewables generation, all of which err against nuclear.
A deftly worded set of considerations, Greg. I always have a wry grin at the gulf between the observation of a condition and the policy response to it. The cobra-effect named after the ill-fated policy used in Delhi speaks to this.
To use an analogy: 99.9% of economists and sociologists acknowledge that poverty exists. However, the proposed "cures" for that condition range from totalitarian socialism to laissez-faire capitalism. Acknowledging the "settled science" of poverty's existence does not mandate a singular political response: especially since history teaches us that certain responses can result in the deaths of hundreds of millions.
Your point about the classroom is vital. Too often, "teaching the truth" is used as a euphemism for "teaching my cultural and political values," while "critical thinking" is solely reserved for the task of helping students "unlearn" the falsehoods of our political and social opponents.
Much of what gets classified as "Net Zero" is indeed a grab-bag of ad hoc, well-intentioned policies that risk misappropriating funds and ultimately being counter-productive imo.
Thank you, Greg. It is, indeed, important to discriminate between arguments that follow directly from evidence and those that require one or more zigs and zags to reach the conclusion. Sticking close to the evidence is terrifically important, as you have shown in many posts about education (though I might quibble that some of your conclusions about cognition represent at least one or more zig or zag).
I hope your readers (I am a usually happy one!) remember that simply wrapping oneself in the flag may give the impression that one is patriotic, but the test should not be the "look"; the test should be whether implementing the recommendations actually make a difference.
Thanks, John, and please quibble away. I know I am going to be wrong about lots of things.
Some of us (I for one) have made mistakes. Your effort here to clarify the basis for reasoning is, in my view, not one of your mistakes.
Quibbles? I'm just not as enamored of the pop-psych stuff that's getting so much play in the edusphere these days.
If you believe nuclear power is a good way to reduce Australia's carbon emissions you disagree with the CSIRO:
https://www.csiro.au/en/news/all/articles/2024/december/nuclear-explainer
It is unclear why this substack has moved into energy policy discussions.
Yes, I do disagree with the CSIRO modelling on this.
It is unclear why CSIRO has moved into economics (note the absence of 'E' in CSIRO), an area where it has nowhere near the authority that it does in science. GenCost makes a series of assumptions about nuclear build and life times, and system costs associated with high levels of intermittent renewables generation, all of which err against nuclear.
Yes. A particularly egregious example is ignoring the infrastructure costs of renewables because this infrastructure was already planned to be built.