Other example: doomseday-ee predictions. Overpopulation, peak oil, overfishing: in each case, the science in the prediction was pretty right.
This is not what they were about. What they predicted was massive suffering in each case. Overpopulation doomsdayers predicted food and resource shortages, wars for land and water and such; peak oilers predicted total collapse of economy, death of over half of humanity, and such. Other than for their supposedly massive consequences peak oil is as interesting as peak typewriters, that is not at all unless you work in oil/typewriter industry.
By the way false predictions of underlying process were false in all three cases you mention—population growth is sublinear for quite some time, peak oil reliably doesn’t take place on any of predicted dates, and total fish production is increasing via aquaculture—or true in only the most restricted way, far more restricted than what was claimed—population did increase at all, old oil fields are depleting, wild fish production is not increasing—but this is irrelevant—the core of doomsdayer predictions is the doom part, which almost invariably doesn’t happen.
or true in only the most restricted way, far more restricted than what was claimed
That’s exactly my position. Doomesday predictions are combinations of reasonable science and unwaranted conclusions. They’re like the mirror image of homeopathy, which has wild craziness leading to a partially correct conculsion: “take this pill, and you’ll feel better”.
This is not what they were about. What they predicted was massive suffering in each case. Overpopulation doomsdayers predicted food and resource shortages, wars for land and water and such; peak oilers predicted total collapse of economy, death of over half of humanity, and such. Other than for their supposedly massive consequences peak oil is as interesting as peak typewriters, that is not at all unless you work in oil/typewriter industry.
By the way false predictions of underlying process were false in all three cases you mention—population growth is sublinear for quite some time, peak oil reliably doesn’t take place on any of predicted dates, and total fish production is increasing via aquaculture—or true in only the most restricted way, far more restricted than what was claimed—population did increase at all, old oil fields are depleting, wild fish production is not increasing—but this is irrelevant—the core of doomsdayer predictions is the doom part, which almost invariably doesn’t happen.
That’s exactly my position. Doomesday predictions are combinations of reasonable science and unwaranted conclusions. They’re like the mirror image of homeopathy, which has wild craziness leading to a partially correct conculsion: “take this pill, and you’ll feel better”.