“… humans … are bogged down by their unique ability to rationalize and reason.”
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Raghu Murtugudden, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Forecasting System at the University of Maryland Earth System Science Interdisciplinary Center (ESSIC), and a professor in the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Science, believes that the ability of humans to think is a disadvantage, when responding to climate change.
According to Professor Murtugudden (comparing our response to climate change to finding cheese in a maze);
“… mice can sense the coming change. Before it’s too late, they run through the maze and find new cheese. The men, however, fail to notice the subtle collapse in the cheese supply until it’s nearly too late. Haw, the more proactive of the little men, realizes that the cheese has all but disappeared and sets out in the maze to find new cheese. He learns a number of lessons along the way and does manage to both find new cheese and enjoy it as much as the old. Hem, however, remains unconvinced that the cheese will disappear. He also concludes that even if the cheese were to disappear, he wouldn’t like the new cheese anyway.
The moral of the story is that even creatures like mice — with their simple brains — are biologically tuned to notice and rapidly respond to change, whereas humans — the most evolved life form — are bogged down by their unique ability to rationalize and reason. Some members of the species even resort to wholesale denial that change is well underway, even when said change is caused by their own actions.
The parallels to humans and climate change are rather obvious. Humans are constantly seeking more and more comforts, even at the cost of irreversibly damaging the planet.
Less fortunate humans may, in fact, be more in tune with environmental changes and quicker to adapt, even when the changes result from over-consumption by the rich. Some humans are more sensitive to changes, even if they are late in responding to them. Others may resort to complete denial of the change itself or deny the need for action to avert change, especially when the thermostat is being discreetly adjusted.”
http://news.yahoo.com/human-nature-may-seal-planets-warming-fate-op-183943535.html
Its difficult to know how to respond to that – I always thought our ability to reason is the asset which has facilitated our greatest achievements, a gift which has allowed humans to adapt to and thrive in an extraordinary range of climatic conditions.
Perhaps Professor Murtugudden should be more careful in future, about checking the use-by date on his cheese.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I think what the good prof is trying to tell us is that anyone believing in CAGW has to be dumber than a sack of hammers. :-0)
This is the sort of BS pedalled by the USSR to keep the population in control. Don’t think, just sacrifice, trust the intellectual elite. It’s why Socialism always fails.
If you disagree with his marriage of faux science and logical fallacy, squeak up or forever hold your peace.
I think what the learned proffessor is trying to say is that warmists have a difficulty with those who have the faculty of thought and reason.
If you dont think about what you are told about so called Climate Change then its easier to accept it. If you do think about what we are told then you quickly see through the hoax. Now tell me which thimble the pea is under…., I will make it easier if I use smoke and mirrors to help you mindlessly accept what comrade Obama says.
Ah, yes, folks… Step right up and forget the Scientific Method, avoid logic, toss away all reason and abandon common sense.
Just be good little mindless lab rats and follow the magical CAGW tune of the leftist pied pipers as they lead humanity over a cliff…
Jeez… The loony leftists’ desperation is becoming palpable.
And yet this guy likely obeys all traffic norms such as driving on the correct side of the road and stopping at stop signs. To do otherwise is to risk life and limb. His inability to grasp that example simply means he shouldn’t be making such silly pronouncements for they obviously contradict nature’s laws. The term “idiot” immediately comes to mind.
Interesting. On the upside, Professor Murtugudden does say that only relatively thick people are attuned to climate change.
It would be good if Professor Murtugudden read Dr Yuval Noah Harari’s “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind.” This says that Sapiens can co-operate effectively in groups of up to about 150 members, based on shared understanding and requirements. Larger groups, however, require myths, fictions, social constructs and imagined realities in order to maintain cohesion and growth. Such constructs don’t need to be beneficial, so long as they help to maintain and promote the prevailing order: ‘Telling effective stories is not easy … Much of history revolves around this question: how does one convince millions of people to believe particular stories about gods, or nations, or limited liability companies?’
Unfortunately, the book mentions modern ‘Climate Change’ as a real and pressing problem, rather than as just another of the stories it has taken pains to demolish. Is it more trouble than it’s worth to rock the boat of academia at present? Maybe Dr Harari gives away his own thoughts earlier in the book. He flags up the modern academic urge to rewrite history and blame mass extinctions on ‘climate change’. A bit like Marxist interpretation of history? Dr Harari has no truck with this – for him, Sapiens are guilty as charged.
For me, the urgency and deceit inherent in the ‘fight against climate change’ fit Dr Harari’s thesis to a ‘T’: ‘Co-operation networks [are usually] geared towards oppression and exploitation.’
Richard
Actually, both the name and the logic system of this teacher is straight out of Hogwarts School of Magick.
He has missed the point. The mouse realizes that there is no cheese and stops looking. The cheese here is CAGW. There has been no cheese here for over 18 years. Yet the Global Warming establishment keep looking because they think there ought to be cheese there. Anyone who disagrees with them is a “cheese denier”.
Is it just my imagination, or are the acronyms breeding?
This is just such a contorted twisted view of how the human mind a and reason operate. Mice and human brains are similarly organised below the level of the neocortex and Prefrontal Cortex (known as the executive brain and seat of rational behaviour). Like mice we have emotional responses and gut reactions to dangerous situations, and all most all our decision making are instigated by our fast emotional responses to things that happen in the outside world.
There is the interesting story of fire fighters who were fighting a fire in a valley. The wind unexpected changed direction and the fire came towards them trapping them between the steep sides of the valley. Their immediate reaction was to run away from the fire, which is what they all did. One fire fighter stopped running away and lit a fire in front downwind, the fire burnt a big patch of dried vegetation in front of where he was about to run, and he then stepped into the safety this burnt patch where he survived. His friend’s were all killed.
This story illustrates a basic point about how reason works, it suppresses our fast acting gut responses with reasoned responses. Most of the time the gut reactions are the correct responses, they keep us fast and safe. Reason is an afterthought mechanism that stops us from being foolish.
Interestingly climate change is promoted by alarmism. The proponents of AGW try to take over our emotional minds and suppress rational debate.
So which fire killed his buddies?
The first fire or the one he lit.
Once the fire fighters started to run away the outcome was inevitable. Each and everyone of them could have done the same thing.
Julian is retelling the story of the Mann Gulch fire of 1949. To add a few more details, the “escape fire” was set by foreman Wagner Dodge. The brush fire he created was quite small, especially compared to the wildfire that they were all running from. That wildfire, for comparison, burned some 3000 acres in 10 minutes and generated updrafts and oxygen depletions which killed some of the other firefighters before they had a chance to burn. It swept up the 76 degree slope far faster than a man could run. Even among the four who did reach the top of the ridge, only two survived, the other two getting trapped int he rocks. While a few of the parents of the burned firefighters did try to sue the government, claiming in part that the escape fire caused their deaths, there was no evidence to support their claims.
The story of the Mann Gulch fire has been retold in “Young Men and Fire” (Norman Maclean), folksongs such as “Cold Missouri Waters” (James Keelaghan) and the movie “Red Skies of Montana”.
Oh sorry,
I thought the story was apocryphal and was being sarcastic for levity.
My apologies for the poor taste.
It seems the professor is frustrated at his inability to manipulate mankind to his liking, so he creates a fantasy to blame the subject.
Shocking anti-intellectualism from an academic. Are reason, honest scepticism, and vigorous inquiry to be sidelined? Is this not a device of the totalitarian?
Oh dear – another academic faking his thought experiments!
Question for the Dr,? How do you move a hockey stick through the maze? Ah I get you cut it into smaller pieces and discard them you can eat your cheese and have it too.(not so much the hockey stick it is made out of maple).
Actually you cut the hockey stick into pieces so you can make them fit your cheese Dr.
ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha.
We white mice are watching.
The way I read this , is that he is saying that only those with a brain the size of a mouse think we should believe in CO2 forced global warming/climate change/climate dis–whatever.. and panic into doing anything about this imaginary non-problem.
From most of the alarmists I have met, I tend to agree with him.
So naivete and ignorance are now a virtue according to a climate scientist. How unexpected.
I found his cheese!!
http://essic.umd.edu/~ragu/Funded-Proposals.pdf
Darn… there must be more… THERE MUST BE MORE!
I think Dr Murtugudden has lost “it”. I think he needs a long vacation a long rest. By the way the Book Who moved my cheese? Its for people such as the good Doctor, who lost perspective and need a change. Its a Management book to help people adjust to career change. To get them out of a rut. It was meant for people in his situation.
On the lighter side reading the article reminded me Uh! I forgot to take my “meds” this evening. (Had surgery a few months back)
michael
Some seem to be saying that they think the professor forgot to take his meds, too.
Thanks for reminding me…
This Professor should be laughed out of Academia, he has everyting backwards, very much like Climate Scientists.
“Less fortunate humans may, in fact, be more in tune with environmental changes and quicker to adapt, even when the changes result from over-consumption by the rich. ”
A bit of class warfare as well?
Anthony
Slightly off topic, but read SoDs recent excellent post.
It could easily be reposted here for bigger circulation.
Looks like he’s a climate scientist, trying to be a psychologist! Heaven help us whatever next! Perhaps the good professor is doing a tad too much thinking himself?
Some cheese is not any good until after the “use-by” date.
What a friend we have in cheeses.
Some cheeses are not any good until after the use by date.
What a friend we have in cheeses.