The Oil Drum

I agree 100% with VIN biodiesel. It seems too ridiculous of a purpose to measure completely subjective phenomenons, as in the social implications of such and such in the realms of energy EROEI. But while ridiculous, so many people have tried similar things, like measuring the intelligence of man, for instance, which created the most abhorrent science "facts" not many decades ago, declaring that the so-called existent "QI" was inherited by parents and predetermined at birth. These were science "facts", generated by mathematical analysis of societal and individual capacities. This had tremendous implications in politics (for instance, in Britain there was the QI test that denied 80% of students the entrance to university). Today, these "facts" are taken as bullshit by all the scientists who haven't a fascist political agenda.

The problem is that when dealing with nubelous things, "science" can only cope with it in terms of factorial analysis, and this only deals with correlation, which by the way, is way different from causation, and has the tendency to "reificate" (misrepresent a mathematical coincidence as a real concrete phenomenon/object). All the social sciences that dealt with this maths always went into grave errors, and had political implications of a too much big of a proportion.

Or, like a religious truism, all is connected with all. Likewise, financial globalism is so damn complicated that few people realise the true natures of its complex network, and it is really hard to make assumptions on a non-linear environment. If it is so damn complicated in a subject where so many people went through, what makes you think you can just go over it and make a economical theory out of energy that somehow will explain it "all" and deal with every little subject in our life? One must be insane or blind to make such assumptions.

And in the end, scientists are also humans. They aren't calculators. There's this myth that scientists are "unbiased" and somehow their findings are "objective". Well, compared to the rest of us, probably, but when they reckon "patterns" aren't they only making interpretations, assumptions, based on their previous knowledge and experience? I urge you to rest the thought that scientists are calculators who are only present to say numb things like

A "scientist" would say that no theory reducing social phenomenon to quantifiable energy inputs has yet been proposed and generally accepted by the scientific community.

Nonsense. A scientist is mostly a human being. And, like a human, he knows how to detect bullshit, given his own scientific experience and knowledge. And that's what he has done.

Sorry Jeff, I guess I missed the link that would direct me to your credentials. Did I need to register a copy of my transcript with the thought police before I made a comment here? To satisfy your venom soaked curiosity I’ll indulge you in that I am merely in possession of a MA in applied anthropology and seven subsequent years of work in community development, organizing and public health. Seems weird, though, that I should have to post my cred just because I had the audacity to contest your overly positivistic approach.

However, thanks to your vitriolic reply I think I can safely rest my case that you are inept at social science, or perhaps even science, since you seem to believe in the mid twentieth century idea that science is all about counting things. Where anthropology excels, and most other disciplines retard, is in understanding the world in a non-linear, i.e. uncountable fashion. We call it qualitative research. Ever heard of it? Anyone who has studied the history of scientific thought should agree with the statement that all science is qualitative in the beginning because only through qualitative methods can we define the units we are trying to count. But more importantly we find that to count is not the sin qua non of understanding, in direct counter valence to your reply, if I read it right. I would encourage you and readers to strive for a more sophisticated epistemology than merely running up lists of things we can count. What really cheesed me off was the overreaching, the attempt to count things that we at present cannot count, and the attendant ignorance of my discipline that has been rather under-rated by you quantitative types. Again I’m sorry you thought I meant social phenomenon will remain unquantifiable for ever and ever ahmen.

It is you Jeff who are blinded by faith in this case. A deeper understanding of science also leads to the inevitable conclusion that science, especially the positivistic branch you appear to be swinging from, is by sociologic definition, a religion. The enlightenment did many great things but it also lead us down a narrow path of understanding that has helped to extinguish many other useful epistemologies. Some of those are now being resurrected for example through the dialogue between quantum physicists and Native American spiritualists, but I digress.

A true scientist, in my book, is a devout agnostic, continually entertaining new ideas and new evidence even if it challenges the current paradigm. You, my friend, are badly in need of a paradigm adjustment.

But rather than continuing to defend myself against your ill-tempered character assassination let me see if as a social scientist I can offer something of substance to this dialogue. Part of what my training helps me do is focus on the big picture through holism. Why not start with Lindsay Lohan? Although we might be able to quantify Lindsay’s movements or even cognitions in calorific terms, we will not, at present be able to quantify her influence on “the market” any better than we can calculate the butterfly effect. We can guess, estimate, guestimate and masturbate but will it help us make a better decision about future courses of action in time to avert total catastrophe? Need I remind anyone on this list that we are not just whistling Dixie in our armchairs. None of knows exactly how much time is left before the spigot runs dry, but we would be safer to bet that we do not have time to invent methods for ascertaining the butterfly effect any more than we have time to completely rebuild our infrastructure to run on electrolysised hydrogen from windmills and solar panels. Its also a fair bet the “business as usual” will probably not get us out of this mess since it is what got us into this mess. Other epistemologies will be necessary. In other words, let’s get back to issue at hand, which is, I have always thought, to avert disaster. That’s the “applied” part of my degree. It rests on the theory that our actions as individuals do matter (I’ll spare you the Margaret Mead quote but I’ll remind you that she was an anthropologist and not a theologian) and we have an ethical responsibility to leverage our talents—whether they be in science, engineering or basket weaving—to the task at hand, which is at present the preservation of what can be qualified as good about humanity and “civilization” as it stands now. If I wax too philosophic for the data wonks, I might apologize, but by now you’ve probably stopped reading.

Let me see if I can do a little better on Odum even if I fail to see where I failed accept that I believed momentarily that brevity is the soul of wit (cause this will take a while). Humans, all mammals, have to keep moving, i.e. expend energy, in order to survive. In the U.S. our trend toward the sedentary is widely credited with our corollary trend toward the fat, heart disease… death. My reading of Odum is that he gave no points in his calculations to this fact. Among other errors, it caused him to gravely miscalculate the emergy of a photovoltaic facility in Austin, Tx. He included the ridiculous variable of the human energy required to clean and otherwise maintain the solar panels (which anybody who has solar panels knows is BS), and because he had inflated human energy through his exponential scale, (along with several other grave errors) it knocked the EROEI into the negative. It’s hard to understand why the human energy involved in maintaining and decommissioning a nuclear power plant didn’t factor in but I digress again. Because we have to keep moving anyway, rather than spend an hour at the gym why don’t we do something productive the way our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have done: Stay fit through the work that is necessary to prolong life. I understand that this is anathema for many westerners who have been anxiously looking forward to the star-trek future where we are relieved of all physical labor. An evolutionary as opposed to a science fiction understanding of humanity acknowledges that we evolved to consume and burn energy and we are healthiest (i.e. have best life chances) when we do both a lot, in balance. I reiterate, we are not reptiles with big heads and our contributions to life on earth should not be confined to our ability to reason, especially if we think that means think linearly and “logically” as an economist.