I just finished reading Michael Crichton’s Complexity, & Environmental Management in the 21st Century. It’s a long read, but well worth it. Crichton was a true Renaissance Man.
I first learned of the existence of complex systems in about 1975, when I observed that the world did not operate in a linear manner. The next thing I learned was that, while many people considered themselves clever by defining crazy as “Doing the same thing and expecting different results,” that was more cleverness than truth. Anyone who is married will understand this. It is possible to do exactly what you did earlier, and your spouse will react in a completely different manner. With teenagers, it’s more probable than possible.
Everywhere I looked I found complex systems, and began to do some self-study. The first thing I learned is that complex systems are highly sensitive to initial conditions and we are foolish to believe we know all of them. In the “spouse” example, above, the second interaction is not a precise duplicate of the first. Your spouse weighs 2.4 grams less than yesterday. She talked with your mother-in-law in the intervening period and got a massage. All of these things affected your spouse and you’re now interacting with a different person.
Chichton’s lecture is about fear, complexity and environmental management. Crichton set out to write a book about a global catastrophe in the late 1990s, so he looked at the Chernobyl meltdown. He read the predictions of up to 3.5M or more eventual deaths and the destruction of ecosystems. Articles about the event were heavily sprinkled with fear-inducing words such as cancer and catastrophe, and there were calls for urgent immediate action to save the planet. Then he looked at reality: 56 people died. The health issues with residents near Chernobyl were largely a reaction to bad information about direness, certainty of destruction, urgency, cancer, catastrophe, etc.
He winds his way through a series of predicted civilization-ending imminent catastrophes with calls to set aside all normal rules and turn over resources to “experts'” control, none of which actually came to pass. He concluded that the planet is far more resilient than doomsayers understand. And the pattern is too obvious to ignore. We are controlled through fear, created by bad information from authorities. Today’s existential crisis is decarbonization, but Crichton notes that is already underway without surrendering control to authority. That appears typical of the successes claimed by authorities due to their actions. They urged action that was already underway, and he uses Y2K as an example. Governments’ contribution to solving the real problem was negligible, not to mention unnecessary, since banks, heavily dependent on old mainframe systems, had already identified the problem and were working to fix it.
We’re told many things by authorities, who are rarely held accountable for prior bad information, to maintain a State of Fear, the title of one of one of his last books. About global warming, we’re assured that the earth will end in 12 or 50 or 100 years, and this time we’re smarter because we’ve got all the information. That is exactly what we were told about Global Cooling in the 1970s. “But, this time is different.” Right.
Bill, I enjoyed Crichton’s article and agree with many of his points. He offers many vivid examples and they are instructive.
When we try to understand and control complex systems, we often are WAY over our heads. It seems to me, however, that there is an additional factor (above and beyond mere understanding), for instance, when it comes to climate or child-raising. Sometimes the stakes are potentially so very high that we should do the best we can, even with extremely limited knowledge. Sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes we make things worse. I really enjoyed the example of a child. Yes, a child is complex adaptive system. So are we! Yet we push each others buttons and levers as best we can, mostly instinctively, often fucking things up. With many complex systems, our choice is to A) act in massive ignorance or B) Don’t do anything.
I read Ehrlich back in the day and he had me convinced. As Crichton mentions, time proved that Ehrlich’s predictions were far off. Nonetheless Ehrlich’s concerns still seem valid to me. It sometimes seems that a big problem is that the confidence levels of our state of knowledge are low while the purported confidence levels of public policy are high. Should our public policy ignore potentially important issues merely because we are driving mostly in the dark? After all, the hockey stick graph should be noted carefully and Greenland is melting. For me, some complex systems can’t be ignored even when we don’t know enough about them to know what we should be doing. That puts us in a terrible spot. If only we were better at knowing our confidence levels when we are struggling with complex systems. When do we know enough to try to intervene. Lots of heuristics and illusions exacerbate things. For instance it always feels better to do SOMETHING than do nothing when we are nervous, even when it is better to do nothing. Vietnam in the 60s was a complex system and U.S. leaders treated it as if it were a simple cause and effect machine. A few other cognitive challenges come to mind: The illusion of explanatory understanding, in which we assume we know a lot when we know only enough to scratch the surface. Maybe that’s the close cousin of the Dunning-Kruger effect, where the people who know the least have the most confidence because they don’t know enough to know that they don’t know much. Gad!
So this seems like the trillion dollar question: How do we determine whether we know enough have a decent change of making things better rather than worse in the cases of complex systems? Such an important question, especially (as you can see when you look around and think a bit) MOST interesting things in the world are complex systems.
I think Crichton properly injects the need for humility. “An important feature of complex systems is that we don’t know how they work. We don’t understand them except in a general way; we simply interact with them. Whenever we think we understand them, we learn we don’t. Sometimes spectacularly.”
Another important question: What should we do when it is apparent that we are over our heads regarding a complex system, but the stakes are extremely high such that people are very concerned? Are we back to that concept attributed to Hippocrates: Do no harm? Or should we be considering concepts from my field (law)? Things such as burden of proof (how much evidence is enough?) and burden of persuasion (what should be our default setting when our confidence level is lackluster?).
“What should we do when it is apparent that we are over our heads regarding a complex system, but the stakes are extremely high such that people are very concerned?” IMHO, this is how I feel we should proceed. The leading voices that are dealing with complex systems need to understand that it is up to them to not muddy the waters from the outset with hyperbole and go the extra mile to use the heuristic approach to instill a comparable confidence level in their target audience to what they have themselves. This will have multiple benefits, like objectifying their own understanding because of a more rigorous instruction process. One of the things I took away from Scott Peck’s book, The Road Less Traveled is that people are lazy thinkers. If you really want others to believe what you are saying, you have to be the one putting in the hard work. We are, after all, a species that evolved to put in the least amount of effort to get to a level of satiation, confidence (read illusion, in the case of complexity), etc. I’ll skip the other benefits, that should be obvious. I’ve tackled enough difficult tasks to develop the skill of assessing a problem, figuring out the best path to proceed (like picking the low hanging fruit first, which builds confidence), Of course, get input and buy in from the opposition and other key players from the onset in shared areas. Maybe I am naive, but the carbon industry IS doing some work in renewables and should be approached. Approaching with the end in mind, which is selling it to the non progressive. Doing an end run around the “fly overs” is a bad idea, I know because I am one. Just a few quick thoughts.
Bill, are you acquainted with the writings of Environmental activist Mike Shellenberger? He’s done an about-face on many issues over the years. He is an “eco-modernist,” promoting nuclear energy as “clean energy,” to the consternation of many traditional environmentalists. Many of his suggestions on preserving the environment are counter-intuitive. I have just ordered a copy of his 2020 book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All (2020). I will be reporting on that after I have read it.
https://quillette.com/2020/07/08/why-i-believe-climate-change-is-not-the-end-of-the-world/
Awesome article Erich, really enjoyed reading this. I learned this lesson early in life after reading the book, The Biological Time Bomb back in the 70’s. It was the, “if present trends continue” kind of book and made me contemplate much longer than I should have about whether or not to have a third child. Thank God I went with my gut and had that third child. I also read all the futurist books by Alvin Toffler and saw how limited our vision of the future is. Disruptive ideas, tech, etc. I have also come to a new appreciation of how well informed common sense and anecdotal information can protect us from fear triggering, well intentioned EXPERTS. I have learned that not all scientists are talking hard science, when in reality, they are giving expert opinions that we should give serious heedance to but let simmer a while if possible.
Richard, I can’t take credit. This is an article by another writer for this site, Bill Heath. I’m sure Bill will enjoy reading your comment. Agreed, that just because one is an expert, even an extremely careful and highly trained expert, this doesn’t guarantee precise predictions. Some subjects, including many of those involving complexity (e.g., raising children) are difficult to measure with precision and “have distinct properties that arise from these relationships, such as nonlinearity, emergence, spontaneous order, adaptation, and feedback loops, among others.”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_system
Richard, I did enjoy your comment. I’m on something of a crusade here. I’m an eclectic who at one point knew a great deal about a large number of domains. Recognizing my ignorance, I continued exploring and the next stage was knowing a little bit about an incredibly wide swath of domains.I remain ignorant, I explore daily, and have finally reached the eclectic’s Nirvana: I now know virtually nothing about virtually everything.
This attribute has few practical uses. The only area in which I am an expert is defining the real business issue(s) and developing a remediation recommendation. Most people who can do this are working for McKinsey, Bain and BCG They’re inaccessible to the common man. Otherwise, I’m not an expert. And, I doubt the value of subject matter expertise. A case in point is evidence-based medicine. It’s all well and good so long as we are correct about being confident that we have all the necessary evidence. But, if we don’t have the necessary evidence, we’re certain to do harm, usually more harm than good.
“Sometimes the stakes are potentially so very high that we should do the best we can, even with extremely limited knowledge.” I agree. Where I depart from the experts is when their pronouncements reflect hubris rather than humility. A case in point is COVID19, Politicians say, “I’m going to listen to the scientists,” without realizing that the science is in flux and too many “scientists” have sold their souls. And, even if you decide you’re .going to follow World Health Organization guidance, the question is which version? WHO relied on Chinese claims that the virus could not spread from person to person. Were that true, China would not have tried locking down cities, and Taiwan would not have closed its borders on January 1. I argued, but the standard in social media is “If it disagrees with WHO it’s disinformation.”
I do simple mathematical models and used a combination of the Black Death and the Spanish Flu to establish general values for where outliers begin. I looked at the virus, and it’s a common cold virus, just highly contagious. As with all respiratory viruses, the elderly and those with certain comorbidities (heart, lung, kidney problems) are most vulnerable. I looked at prior pandemics and developed a synthesized model, which predicted a case fatality rate of 0.35%. The “scientists” (not all) were generating panic, predicting cfr of 3.5%, a full order of magnitude higher. I disagreed, but not owning my own newspaper, had to rely on social media. Again, I didn’t agree with WHO so I was spreading disinformation. WHO revised figures downward, but continued spreading fear. It’s in the interest of governments to induce fear, it makes populations easier to control. So politicians ordered everyone to stay indoors at home, and ordered selective business shutdowns. The message was “Obey or face Mass Death.”
Hooey, I say. There’s never been a risk of mass death. Even those over 85 are more likely to survive than not. The orders were unconstitutional on their face, but I was willing to give elected leaders the benefit of the doubt, assuming they would allow scrutiny of the underlying science quickly. Nope. We shut down the economy and brought most transport to a halt. Nancy Pelosi claimed a lockdown was an inconvenience. That’s hardly how a day worker without papers would describe it. Every day he faced a choice: Go out and work or let my children starve. The big problems wouldn’t arise in North America, Europe or China and Japan. They would arise in Africa, South America and south Asia. The political reaction to the virus is worse than the disease; we can expect 150M deaths from starvation globally.
Richard, thank you for the excellent thinking behind your new post. `I want to offer some observations.
First, I believe the goal is wrong. The end isn’t “selling it to the non-progressives,” because that gains you nothing except the satisfaction of being “proved right.” Isn’t the goal to reduce carbon load in the atmosphere? Simply adopting that as the goal opens one’s eyes. It is child’s play to construct a compelling argument for immediate reduction in use of fossil fuels and eventually eliminate their use without ever mentioning anthropogenic global warming. Now, you don’t have to sell anything. That raises the question, “Why hasn’t this been done?” Why, indeed?
There are few advantages to old age, but having seen most things at least twice is one. I have been carbon-dated to the early Triassic Period, and have seen this twice in my lifetime. First it was DDT. It is true that birds which ate mosquitoes killed by DDT laid eggs with thinner shells. “Only we care about the earth. If you disagree you are selfish and ignorant.” We banned DDT, and egg shells got thicker. That ways easy! The price was negligible, just half a million additional small brown people dying needlessly every year since from malaria.
The next was nuclear power.Chernobyl proved how dangerous it is. “Only we care about the earth. If you disagree you are selfish and ignorant” We addressed the issue by making nuclear power prohibitively expensive to build and generate. The cost of regulatory compliance was so high that money had to be taken from other areas, such as safety measures to deal with unlikely events. Thus, there was no money to raise the Fukushima Daiichi plant by three to five meters to deal with tsunamis or rogue waves. That time the cost was lower, only a few thousand lives lost, but the wrong lesson was learned. We learned that the virtue signalers were correct about the danger, instead of learning that listening to the virtue signalers actually caused danger.
Third verse, same as the first. “Man-made global warming will destroy the earth.” Only we care about the earth. If you disagree you are selfish and ignorant. It’s time to examine basic principles and assumptions. Greenhouse gas load in the atmosphere raises global temperatures. So what? That leads to increased crop yields and some melting of glacier ice. The world’s leading experts on glaciers are where you would expect them to be: in Iceland. They report that glaciers shrinking are offset by glaciers growing. Except, you don’t read that in newspapers. It doesn’t contribute to the narrative that leads to the funding of studies. Follow the money. There are billions available to study global warming and man’s role in it, and nothing to fund studying whether the problem is real.
In 1986 I had the wholly-unearned privilege of working with one of the scientific giants of the 20th century for two weeks. He told me that a scientist spends far more time and resources trying to disprove his hypothesis than trying to prove it. That is consistent with the scientific method. We are told to listen to the scientists. Doesn’t that include those following the scientific method, and exclude those not following it?