Reality-based conservatism

[nancylebov]

David Frum concludes that same sex marriage doesn't damage heterosexual marriage.

Is there anything else in American politics which is dependent on as weak an argument as opposition to same sex marriage? The war on drugs is based on a wild over-estimation of government power, but it doesn't quite have that weird "I'll make up a definition and insist that it's realer than what can be observed" quality.

Link thanks to nwhyte.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

There are two obvious ones that are also conservative bastions and also provably incorrect:

Global climate change is not real &/or is not caused by human activity

Private healthcare is more efficient, cheaper, and more effective than state-sponsored or controlled healthcare.

A wealth of hard data exists about both, and the conclusions are quite clear.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Can you point to a document that sets out the scientific evidence for global warming, fair and square with no contradictions, in a rigorous manner? I haven't been convinced by it, but what I've seen is popularizations and appeals to the Authority of Science; that's not a proper basis for judging whether the science makes sense.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised and puzzled, there's a rather impressive wealth of evidence out there.

Hmm, as for solid data, have you looked at the information about worldwide losses to glaciers? Here's one useful site (of many) for this info. If the fact that glaciers have been retreating worldwide since around 1980s and this retreat is increasing doesn't seem reasonable to you, then we're operating from sufficiently different perspectives that I'm not at all certain that we have any basis for useful communication.

However, if this seems reasonable (not the cause, merely the fact that glaciers are retreating and that this is increasing), then I recommend the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report. I have only read excerpts (both directly from the report and in various articles), but everything I've seen looks rigorous and solid and is the most comprehensive survey of the data and analysis of the data that I've seen.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Well, a big part of it is that I'm not looking to read a lot of empirical data in a mass of scattered reports. I'm not a skilled enough statistician to do a meaningful analysis. And I don't know that literature enough to pick a good comprehensive study, especially one that actually discusses the theoretical and methodological questions. I had a book on the subject assigned to me for editing not long ago, but it was all just "scientists have found X," and I'm not prepared to accept that as conclusive; there are too many cases of scientists supporting politically motivated ideas that turned out to be false, from the necessity of legally compulsory eugenics to the denial of hereditary factors in personality. So I'd like to see at least a serious textbook treatment.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

If you find the IPCC report intimidating--I do, and I've been doing intensive reading in this area--you might prefer Climate Change: Science and Policy. The first section brings together the many converging lines of evidence on anthropogenic climate change, in a way I found fairly straightforward. (I'm an experimental psychologist interested in how public opinion develops around major policy issues, so I'm familiar with the area but not a trained climate scientist.)

I also found this summary of the history of climate change science to be helpful for context.

There are many cases of scientists supporting politically motivated ideas, but few with the level of agreement among in-area researchers, or the diversity of evidence, that attend climate change. Eugenic claims, for example, were opposed by a large number of credible researchers--notably behavioral psychologists, who were well aware of the degree to which environment shapes capability.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Any recommendations for information about opposition to eugenics when it was popular? The only thing I've read is GK Chesterton's Eugenics and Other Evils, he was a journalist rather than a scientist, and I don't remember his arguments.

[ashnistrike.livejournal.com]

Steven J. Gould's The Mismeasure of Man includes excellent coverage of the intelligence-related research around eugenics. Fact from this book that has stuck in my head for years: back when skull volume was assumed to be related to intelligence, "researchers" measured it by filling skulls from different races with grain. They stuffed the Caucasian skulls to the bursting point, but the African-American skulls very loosely... Good scientists questioned these methods even at the time, although much of the general populace was very willing to go along with the "findings" that supported their assumptions.

Watson (of the infamous Little Albert experiment) spent a lot of time arguing with eugenicists as well--some of his writings may relate to that. They may also demonstrate the degree to which he was a complete asshole, but support for eugenics was not one of his flaws. His quote about "Give me a dozen well-formed infants..." is from a debate on the topic.

That's what I can think of off the top of my head. I'm afraid all my literature on the topic is currently packed and in another state, and will be till August.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

There is a recent study that reports that Gould's evidence is historically unsound; a new investigation actually got out all of those skulls, remeasured their volumes, and found that the error was minimal, and that to the extent that there was bias, it was toward reporting slightly higher volumes for African-American skull than the new measurements indicated. The Wikipedia article on Gould's book sums it up as "In another study, published in 2011, Jason E. Lewis and colleagues remeasured Morton's skulls and reexamined both Morton's and Gould's analyses, concluding that, contrary to Gould's claims, Morton did not manipulate his results to support his preconceptions. To the extent that Morton's measurements were erroneous, they were in the direction opposite of his supposed bias."

The actual paper, if you want to read it (it has open access), concludes that Morton did have racist biases, but that his published data were not affected by them: "Science does not rely on investigators being unbiased “automatons.” Instead, it relies on methods that limit the ability of the investigator's admittedly inevitable biases to skew the results. Morton's methods were sound, and our analysis shows that they prevented Morton's biases from significantly impacting his results. The Morton case, rather than illustrating the ubiquity of bias, instead shows the ability of science to escape the bounds and blinders of cultural contexts."

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Footnote: It was actually 308 skulls out of a sample of over 600; so not "all of those skulls."

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

Just as a minor note, by the way, there cannot possibly be hard data about free market health care, because there is no developed country with free market health care. The United States has a huge share of health care provided through Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA, and most of the rest is provided through prepaid group care places that receive massive government subsidies through tax expenditures, and that are also sheltered from competition by state-level regulation of health insurance. That's not remotely what libertarians like me want; we're in favor of changes in American health care roughly as radical as going over to the Canadian approach would be. I understand that this is not what you would want, but if we were going to debate it (which I don't propose to do here), it would have to be on theoretical grounds, because there simply are no observational data on free market systems for you to appeal to.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Two points:

1) Given that we're talking about hard facts and not speculation, what we know for certain is that the more privatized US system is both more expensive (by at least a factor of 2), less effective (in coverage of the populace, effectiveness per insured individual) and less popular and satisfying to users than the state-run healthcare systems of Western Europe. That's data that is exactly as solid as the data on marriage equality. Thus it's clear that if the US adopted a model like the UK healthcare system, costs would drop, while effectiveness and patient satisfaction would increase.

2) In terms of evaluating what we do know about free-market healthcare, the existence of Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA should all actually make other healthcare less expensive in the US, since what is happening is that most of the people in the poorest health (the old, the poor, and many people with serious injuries) are not driving up the cost of more privatized healthcare. Instead, what we have is a system where the rest of US healthcare is only responsible for the people who are in the best health and thus on average require less healthcare.

While it's true that the remainder of US healthcare isn't a complete free market, if you ignore Medicare, Medicaid, and the VA (which as I mentioned above does not either drive up costs or reduce efficiency for the rest of healthcare in the US and in fact should serve to do the reverse), then we have the closest thing to free market healthcare that exists in the first world, and it's utterly dismal (in terms of costs per capita, effectiveness per insured individual, & patient satisfaction) compared to all comparable (ie other first world) alternatives. Given that this is by far the best data we have, that's hardly a glowing argument for free-market healthcare. Combine this with the fact that it's equally clear that it's possible to provide excellent healthcare that is both relatively inexpensive, highly effective, and very well-regarded by users via the Western European model (which slightly is different from the Canadian model), and any argument that purely free-market healthcare would be better than the current US system and at least as good as the various systems in use in Western Europe demands extraordinary proof. I see a remarkable lack of evidence of such proof.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

The point is that what we have is as far away from a free market in health care as it is from a single payer system like the UK or Canada. Therefore making inferences about the failure of free market health care from what the United States has is exactly as intellectually sound as making inferences about the failure of socialist health care from what the United States has.

I don't propose to argue the substantive points, or the broader questions of economic theory they raise. Let it stand that we flatly disagree. And I don't really care if you share my views or not; I'm simply pointing out that your conclusions are not based on anything within miles of proper empirical evidence.

Years ago, I read a book on experimental archaeology that discussed the massive inferiority of bronze to iron and steel as material for armor and shields, based on testing a bronze shield. But then I read carefully and saw that the experimenter had not been able to obtain bronze for some reason, and had substituted copper! Because, well, copper was sort of like bronze and was the closest thing to it he could find.

[subnumine.livejournal.com]

There is plenty of evidence about the non-existence of general healthcare in developed countries circa 1925.