Mark Hertsgaard visited campus to speak about global warming and his book: The Eagle's Shadow. Myself and several of my colleagues were invited to a lunch-time discussion with him the following day. Most of this time consisted of Q&A. Students asked several questions mostly related to environmental awareness in the community through civic engagement. I asked him who he saw most fit to be elected, and why. He seemed quite fond of John Edwards especially due to his environmental policies, but did not seem to be particularly against Paul or Kucinich when I brought up their names. Hertsgaard, however, made pretty sure to be an "objective journalist," and remained considerably neutral on such topics. Toward the end of our chat he began to mention his next book dedicated primarily to global warming activism. His beliefs on global warming are fairly congruent with Gore's - to give you an idea. In response to his enthusiasm, I proceeded to probe for his awareness of data that supports the idea of naturally occurring global warming. I tried my best to keep the conversation away from the "this source is better than that one" argument, and move toward the specifics of data and the positivity of projections. This was the turning point that my Socratic probing made me the bad guy - I was one of the many "brainwashed" sheeple of the media; I was questioning Gore's good will and the impeccable record of the IPCC! It was my strategy to ease him into my partial skepticism so I could eventually ask: Don't you think we should be making these changes to our policies and technologies regardless of global warming's true cause? Indeed I was in for a surprise; the author of open minded ideas became visibly disturbed at my questioning of the popular opinion. Since I seemed to be less frightened of his frame than the other students - probably due to the fact that I respect him for being so right on most topics, but understand that this does not make him the final word on new scientific theories - I let him vent on me without further debate. I don't need to share all of the details, but I did thoroughly enjoyed this experience - even though most would probably have been too uncomfortable to sit in Hertsgaard's hot seat. He did apologize for losing his temper, but no worries (if you end up seeing this Mr. Hertsgaard) - I understand your good intentions. Unfortunately as you may know, especially in the political arena, we can't be too sure of intent.
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Visited by Mark Hertsgaard
Mark Hertsgaard visited campus to speak about global warming and his book: The Eagle's Shadow. Myself and several of my colleagues were invited to a lunch-time discussion with him the following day. Most of this time consisted of Q&A. Students asked several questions mostly related to environmental awareness in the community through civic engagement. I asked him who he saw most fit to be elected, and why. He seemed quite fond of John Edwards especially due to his environmental policies, but did not seem to be particularly against Paul or Kucinich when I brought up their names. Hertsgaard, however, made pretty sure to be an "objective journalist," and remained considerably neutral on such topics. Toward the end of our chat he began to mention his next book dedicated primarily to global warming activism. His beliefs on global warming are fairly congruent with Gore's - to give you an idea. In response to his enthusiasm, I proceeded to probe for his awareness of data that supports the idea of naturally occurring global warming. I tried my best to keep the conversation away from the "this source is better than that one" argument, and move toward the specifics of data and the positivity of projections. This was the turning point that my Socratic probing made me the bad guy - I was one of the many "brainwashed" sheeple of the media; I was questioning Gore's good will and the impeccable record of the IPCC! It was my strategy to ease him into my partial skepticism so I could eventually ask: Don't you think we should be making these changes to our policies and technologies regardless of global warming's true cause? Indeed I was in for a surprise; the author of open minded ideas became visibly disturbed at my questioning of the popular opinion. Since I seemed to be less frightened of his frame than the other students - probably due to the fact that I respect him for being so right on most topics, but understand that this does not make him the final word on new scientific theories - I let him vent on me without further debate. I don't need to share all of the details, but I did thoroughly enjoyed this experience - even though most would probably have been too uncomfortable to sit in Hertsgaard's hot seat. He did apologize for losing his temper, but no worries (if you end up seeing this Mr. Hertsgaard) - I understand your good intentions. Unfortunately as you may know, especially in the political arena, we can't be too sure of intent.
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Apples to Oranges: Wikipedia and Britannica
There are many ways to approach this comparison. I could, of course, show you the endless corrections of Wikipedia that are yet to be found in Encyclopedia Britannica. Even if Britannica published new Encyclopedias everyday, and hired teams of developers to keep their online encyclopedia up to date, they could never keep as cutting edge and as current as Wikipedia. By writing this entry and elegantly integrating links from Wikipedia - I have demonstrated Wikipedia's strength as a web tool. Wikipedia is a masterful demonstration of the capabilities of new Internet generations - facilitating the ever increasing speed at which information can be shared and merged between users for the creation of even more involved collaboration and information technologies.
It is of course true that Britannica and Wikipedia have similarities. They both definitely have errors and other problems, but many times for different reasons. While Wikipedia often has a "wisdom of the mob," Britannica is commonly shown to be outdated or lacking in detail. In many cases, the wisdom of the masses is better than the wisdom of the wisdom of the “experts” because more controversy is included, but this isn't always the case. Communities of Wikipedian's even demonstrate self-censorship in many cases by excluding unpopular information. The global warming page on Wikipedia shows very little controversy, but it includes significantly more references and material (not to mention there is a specific Wikipedia page for global warming controversy) than Britannica's global warming page. Even topics like Columbus's discovery of America which still challenge popular opinion are subject to censorship – only recently has anything about Christopher Columbus's affinity for slavery been mentioned on his Wikipedia page, but Britannica's Encyclopedia doesn't mention this at all.
After all of the fuss in academics about copying from Wikipedia - when all that is really needed is to enforce Wikipedia's own rules of information and citation usage. (Anything is potentially inaccurate when you copy or skip over the original sources.) The culture of information accuracy is helped not hurt by the wikipedian who is humorously portrayed by as protester in my favorite cartoon xkcd. Wikipedia is both a static and dynamic source which can itself cite Britannica, and for this reason sources like Britannica are certainly still useful. As Jimmy Wales has spoken about himself: Wikipedia has the technology to document culture in a way that can give the people of the future a realistic view of what it was like to live in our culture today.
It is of course true that Britannica and Wikipedia have similarities. They both definitely have errors and other problems, but many times for different reasons. While Wikipedia often has a "wisdom of the mob," Britannica is commonly shown to be outdated or lacking in detail. In many cases, the wisdom of the masses is better than the wisdom of the wisdom of the “experts” because more controversy is included, but this isn't always the case. Communities of Wikipedian's even demonstrate self-censorship in many cases by excluding unpopular information. The global warming page on Wikipedia shows very little controversy, but it includes significantly more references and material (not to mention there is a specific Wikipedia page for global warming controversy) than Britannica's global warming page. Even topics like Columbus's discovery of America which still challenge popular opinion are subject to censorship – only recently has anything about Christopher Columbus's affinity for slavery been mentioned on his Wikipedia page, but Britannica's Encyclopedia doesn't mention this at all.
After all of the fuss in academics about copying from Wikipedia - when all that is really needed is to enforce Wikipedia's own rules of information and citation usage. (Anything is potentially inaccurate when you copy or skip over the original sources.) The culture of information accuracy is helped not hurt by the wikipedian who is humorously portrayed by as protester in my favorite cartoon xkcd. Wikipedia is both a static and dynamic source which can itself cite Britannica, and for this reason sources like Britannica are certainly still useful. As Jimmy Wales has spoken about himself: Wikipedia has the technology to document culture in a way that can give the people of the future a realistic view of what it was like to live in our culture today.
Monday, September 10, 2007
The Importance of Information Ethics
Information ethics are especially important to consider in the context of climate issues. These issues hold a political and scientific controversy that can easily be tainted by the absence of "good" information ethics. Without integrity and thorough peer review our waters will be exceedingly fogged by junk information. It has been this absence of good information ethics which has led to such a confusing infosphere of global climate change speculation.
Information that can lead to incorrect conclusions is harmful. A subject as politically charged as global climate change requires the careful reasoning of science — not the information warfare we have seen in recent days. Administrative decisions that effect us directly are already resulting from a smattering of climate predictions. Shouldn't we be worrying whether or not they are correct?
The solution — the "good" information ethics — is our participation as globally effected and affecting peer reviewers. Information has been falsified — dishonest observations have resulted from honest data and visa versa. It is in my belief that common rationality can be utilized to make sense of this mass of global climate change information.
Research, fact checking, referencing, and refining will begin to take hold and we may still not be able to predict the future very accurately, but we can certainly conceptualize the possibilities in a reasonable manner. The evolutionary responsibility to understand a topic that effects our long term survival should be on everyone's shoulders. If the media is pushing incorrect climate change information, then it is our ethical responsibility to call them on it. If a scientist is presenting contradicting — or even complementing — data on climate change, then it is our ethical responsibility to do some fact checking. And if the government makes decisions based on media, polls, and science, then is was our ethical responsibility to have made sure these things were in everyone's interest.
Information that can lead to incorrect conclusions is harmful. A subject as politically charged as global climate change requires the careful reasoning of science — not the information warfare we have seen in recent days. Administrative decisions that effect us directly are already resulting from a smattering of climate predictions. Shouldn't we be worrying whether or not they are correct?
The solution — the "good" information ethics — is our participation as globally effected and affecting peer reviewers. Information has been falsified — dishonest observations have resulted from honest data and visa versa. It is in my belief that common rationality can be utilized to make sense of this mass of global climate change information.
Research, fact checking, referencing, and refining will begin to take hold and we may still not be able to predict the future very accurately, but we can certainly conceptualize the possibilities in a reasonable manner. The evolutionary responsibility to understand a topic that effects our long term survival should be on everyone's shoulders. If the media is pushing incorrect climate change information, then it is our ethical responsibility to call them on it. If a scientist is presenting contradicting — or even complementing — data on climate change, then it is our ethical responsibility to do some fact checking. And if the government makes decisions based on media, polls, and science, then is was our ethical responsibility to have made sure these things were in everyone's interest.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
New Blog
As implied by the title, I dedicate this blog to informational correctness and to my journey through bias and mudslinging - to the true global climate change theories, data, and information.
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