<And the world gets 4mbpd from these guys The Oil Drum One must expect dissent . . . .>

72 comments on Midweek Open Thread

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mikeB on October 27, 2005 - 7:40pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This matter of belief is irritating.

If Peak Oil requires belief, then I want no part of it.

I "accept" it pretty firmly; I don't believe in it.

Belief is something you accept either in spite of or in the absence of evidence.

Belief requires faith, an evolutionarily designed mental error, I believe... Oops.

See? There's the colloquial sense, "Well, I believe what you're saying is not true," meaning "I think," and the psychological sense: "I believe because I believe."

This guy is so much more articulate about it:

http://www.nobeliefs.com/beliefs.htm

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Rick on October 28, 2005 - 12:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Sorry to offend, but we are accepting peak oil in spite of an absence of good evidence. Nobody knows what the OPEC reserves really are. We don't even know good production figures. Matt Simmons puts fixing bad data as a major top-priority problem. Even Colin Campbell won't show his data.

I have no problem accepting peak oil as a near-term reality. But I also know the data to date only partially supports that, and it is far from irrefutable. We in the peak oil community are assembling scraps of information, and putting it together in a qualitative, value-laden way that reflects our outlook. I happen to agree with most of it it. But don't think that this is rational, unbiased inquiry. We're partisans, and we are constructing our world view to fit our partisan leanings.

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MikeTor on October 28, 2005 - 2:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Peak Oil doesn't need good data to be proven. It is a fact for a finite resource that there will be peak extraction. Period.

You probably meant "we are accepting Peak Oil in the 2005-2010 timeframe despite not knowing what the OPEC reserves really are".

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mikeB on October 28, 2005 - 6:15am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
No offense at all.

You're saying exactly what I'm saying, in a sense.

"Belief" is irrefutable; peak oil, on the other hand, being subject to crappy data, is provisional, changing, irritatingly difficult to pin down.

It's that word, "belief," getting thrown around a lot that I don't like. See the crappy blob "Debunking Peak Oil," and you'll see what I mean. It's the idea of peak oil being a belief system that critics are seizing upon.

Again: peak oil does not require faith, which is what belief is all about.

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GreyZone on October 28, 2005 - 12:54pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What you are objecting to are irrational beliefs. Many of our beliefs are based on past facts as baseline data and then extrapolated into the future and which have various probabilities assigned to them by us.

When I encounter cornucopians, I tend to think of these as people with data sets less complete than my own. Their extrapolations are valid and have been valid historically yet they are lacking the additional data that transforms the expectation of continued oil availability into oil depletion.

The problem that occurs in human beings is that many, perhaps most, of us strive to not change beliefs even when the data set is expanded to include new data (or correct erroneous old data) that yields a different conclusion.

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Gloomy on October 28, 2005 - 2:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This question is quite philosophical.

If you dig into any statement you can find underlying assumptions which ar emore a less a matter of belief. Some of the assumptions are "widely accepted" and you can bet pretty much on them but some are indeed a matter of belief.

For Peak Oil we generally assume that oil is a finite non-renewable resource, though nobody can be absolutely sure on that. Another assumption is that the world has been thoroughly searched already and nothing substantial is left to be found. Well we have the evidence for that but nobody knows for sure, right? We simply extrapolate or deduce in uncharted territories and these deductions are potentially flawed. That's why it is better to say "I think" or "I believe" than "I know".

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72 comments on Midweek Open Thread

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