I don't claim any special expertise in economics. I treat it like I do any highly technical field that still requires a citizen to develop an informed opinion about because of the political decisions it affects. I read a lot and try to evaluate the credibility of the various expert opinions out there.
Now, it's always possible some outlier opinion will prove to be correct, but those outliers still need to make a reasoned and reasonable argument that fits the facts. There's no shortage of crackpots in any technical field, but time has a way of weeding them out. Sooner of later there has to be something proved out. This was the problem with cold fusion, for example. To a lay person it all sounded reasonable enough, but after all this time they've never actually managed to do it.
A counter example is the warm-blooded dinosaur theory. At first this was a real outlier, although the scientists making the argument seemed to have a good point. As time passed more evidence supporting the theory mounted. It made predictions that subsequent research verified and it's now reached the status of conventional wisdom.
Presently the government is floating some ideas that will supposedly mitigate the housing crisis. The problem is that there have been some critics warning for several years that the housing bubble was becoming a real problem and predicting dire consequences. The bubble's defenders pooh-poohed the problems, saying things have changed and the old rules no longer apply. As a reasonably-informed citizen this line of argument actually concerned me, because it seems to be a common refrain among the misguided in any field involving human actors -- things are different this time.
Of course, they rarely are different, because people are the same. Whether it's military strategy, political truths or economic fundamentals, one can rest assured that the more things change the more they stay the same. So anyone arguing that an activity that revolves largely around the human element has undergone some fundamental shift that means that time-tested rules of thumb no longer apply should be immediately suspect. Science and engineering may find entirely new ways of doing things that invalidate prior experience -- but war, politics and economics don't.
The housing bubble critics say that the government interventions that are being considered are too little, too late and will probably just make things worse. So who is more credible? The critics who said there was a bubble, or the bubble deniers who said everything was just fine?
Regarding cold fusion, you wrote:
ReplyDelete"To a lay person it all sounded reasonable enough, but after all this time they've never actually managed to do it."
That is incorrect. Cold fusion was replicated by hundreds of world-class laboratories such as Los Alamos, and over a thousand papers describing these replications have been published in mainstream journals. Also, a lay person would be completely unqualified to judge whether cold fusion possible or not.
For more information on cold fusion, see:
http://lenr-canr.org
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
I don't mean to go off on a tangent about cold fusion. I know less about physics than I do about economics. As a lay person, however, I can easily observe that nuclear reactions, coal-buring, waterfalls, windmills and diesel plants all actually produce useful amounts of energy, far in excess of the energy needed to produce the energy in the first place. This appears not to be true in the case of cold fusion, which has not earned acceptance as a process from mainstream science. It's certainly possible that cold fusion can happen and reliable ways to achieve it will be discovered with further research, but people have been working on it for some time now without apparent success. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, and from a lay person's perspective the process is unproven.
ReplyDeleteI do recommend anyone interested in the debate to checkout your site, so long as they also checkout sites devoted to alternative viewpoints. See: http://www.physicstoday.org/vol-57/iss-4/p27.html
You wrote:
ReplyDelete"I don't mean to go off on a tangent about cold fusion."
Of course. It was just a passing remark, and you can hardly be expected to know about papers published in the Journal of Electroanalytical Chemistry. But Google brought me news of it so I though I would mention our web site.
"I know less about physics than I do about economics."
And I know zip about economics.
"As a lay person, however, I can easily observe that nuclear reactions, coal-buring, waterfalls, windmills and diesel plants all actually produce useful amounts of energy, far in excess of the energy needed to produce the energy in the first place. This appears not to be true in the case of cold fusion . . ."
That is incorrect. Some cold fusion cells have produced temperature and power density equivalent to a fission reactor core, and they have produced between 50 to 300 MJ, equivalent to about 2 gallons of gas, from a device the size of a coin. Some cells require electrolysis input, but others produce only output, with no input power.
". . . which has not earned acceptance as a process from mainstream science."
It has earned acceptance at many prestigious peer-reviewed journals, universities, corporations and military organizations. Wider acceptance is blocked by academic politics.
"It's certainly possible that cold fusion can happen and reliable ways to achieve it will be discovered with further research, but people have been working on it for some time now without apparent success."
They have achieved remarkable experimental success at many labs, such as SRI, Mitsubishi, the National Synchrotron Lab, Toyota, China Lake, the Italian National Nuc. Labs and elsewhere. Overall, the effect has been replicated at about 200 well-known university and corporate labs. Roughly 2,500 researchers have reported replicating the effect, and they have published 3,000 papers in English, and quite a few more in Japanese, Chinese and other languages. (I have an EndNote database of authors and papers, since I am the librarian.) But these successes have not been reported in the popular press. You have to read journals of electrochemistry and physics, and the papers are not easy to understand.
By "experimental success" I mean they can transmute elements or produce small reaction reliably, but that is still far from any practical success. The problem is that the reaction cannot be controlled or scaled up safely. Larger cells tend to explode violently. However, in the past 8 months, remarkable progress has been made in controlling the reaction.
"The proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say, and from a lay person's perspective the process is unproven."
As I said, a layperson has no way to judge the issues. Scientists and laymen alike must first read the literature carefully before reaching a conclusion. By the time you wade through a few dozen technical papers, and you can judge the issues, you are no longer a layperson.
I did not think much of the DoE panel described by physics today. Most of the panelists read a few papers and jumped to invalid conclusions. You can read my views and the full text of the panel member's comments here:
http://lenr-canr.orghttp://lenr-canr.org/Collections/DoeReview.htm
- Jed Rothwell
Librarian, LENR-CANR.org
Well, I'm rather doubtful that academic politics could hold back something with economic profit potential. Be that as it may, and without passing judgment on its scientific feasibility, it certainly would be a nice thing if it turns out to be practical. Anything that could lessen our dependence on oil-profit-fueled foreign powers would be a very welcome development indeed.
ReplyDelete