I was reminded of the problem of attributing causality by “Did Major League Baseball Really Have a ‘Steroid Era‘”, which throws cold water on the belief that the barrage of home runs for about a decade from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s was mainly attributable to the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). I also threw cold water on that hypothesis several years ago in “Steroids in Baseball: A Counterproductive Side show or an Offensive Boom?“.
The attribution of changes in a particular statistic (e.g., home runs) to one or a few causal factors is scientism (see number 2). There is also a tendency to allow preconceptions to dictate the selection of causal factors (see “Climate Change” and “Can America Be Saved?“).
Baseball, like life and many of the phenomena addressed by science, is too complex for simple explanatory models. I was reminded of this when I read Alan Longhurst’s Doubt and Certainty in Climate Science. It is a masterful review of what is known and unknown about the myriad phenomena that influence climate. Uncertainties and lacunae abound, as Longhurst shows in his examination of the findings related to dozens of climate-influencing phenomena. Longhurst’s analysis of the findings (and lack thereof) makes a mockery of the pseudo-precision of temperature forecasts made by global climate models — models that can’t even replicate the past accurately (see “Climate Change” and “Climate Change: A Bibliography“).
In that regard, I must emphasize that modeling is not science. It is, rather, reductionism: the practice of oversimplifying a complex idea or issue (see “The Enlightenment’s Fatal Flaw“).
Scientism and reductionism are nowhere more rampant (and destructive) than in governmental actions authorized by legislation and regulation. A “problem” is perceived, usually as the result of a massive media campaign triggered by an incident, “scientific finding”, or interest-group pressure. The result is a clamor for “somebody” to do “something” about the “problem”. The response that has become habitual since the onset of the Progressive Era is to invoke the power of the central government. (In almost all cases, the power invoked can be found in the Constitution only by contorting it beyond recognition by its Framers.)
Thus are born, nourished, and defended various powers and “rights” that have unforeseen (or willfully ignored) consequences for the general welfare of Americans. Why? Because executives, legislators, regulators, and judges are ignorant of (or don’t care about) the fact the most “problems” have myriad causes — causes that aren’t (and usually can’t be) addressed by executive orders, laws, regulations, or judicial decrees. The usual suspects are also ignorant of (or don’t care about) the ramifications of efforts to fix “problems” through the aforementioned means.
Politics and Prosperity 