[Stumbling upon this a year late and sharing a low-confidence hot take, based mostly on Wikipedia]
I think Carl Sagan’s research and advocacy on nuclear winter is definitely an interesting example to consider, but I’m not sure it’s one we should aim to emulate (at least not in its entirety). And I currently have the impression that he probably did not have good epistemics when doing this work.
My impression is that:
Scientists seem quite divided on how likely nuclear winter would be, and what its consequences would be, given various possible nuclear exchanges
Some people seem to think the early study Sagan was involved with deliberately erred towards alarmism in order to advance the cause of disarmament
Evidence from Kuwait oil well fires seems to have not matched the predictions of that study
(I’m hoping to learn more about nuclear winter in the coming months, and would probably have more substantive things to say at that point.)
One reason the Sagan example may be interesting is that it could help us think about how to make—or find ways to avoid having to make—tradeoffs between maintaining good epistemics and influencing things in high-profile, sensitive political areas.
Good points! I broadly agree with your assessment Michael! I’m not at all sure how to judge whether Sagan’s alarmism was intentionally exaggerated or the result of unintentional poor methodology. And then, I think we need to admit that he was making the argument in a (supposedly) pretty impoverished research landscape on topics such as this. It’s only expected that researchers in a new field make mistakes that seem naive once the field is further developed.
I stand by my original point to celebrate Sagan > Petrov though. I’d rather celebrate (and learn from) someone who acted pretty effectively even though it was flawed in a complex situation, than someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. I’m sill incredibly impressed by Petrov though! It’s just.. hard to replicate his impact.
[Stumbling upon this a year late and sharing a low-confidence hot take, based mostly on Wikipedia]
I think Carl Sagan’s research and advocacy on nuclear winter is definitely an interesting example to consider, but I’m not sure it’s one we should aim to emulate (at least not in its entirety). And I currently have the impression that he probably did not have good epistemics when doing this work.
My impression is that:
Scientists seem quite divided on how likely nuclear winter would be, and what its consequences would be, given various possible nuclear exchanges
Some people seem to think the early study Sagan was involved with deliberately erred towards alarmism in order to advance the cause of disarmament
Evidence from Kuwait oil well fires seems to have not matched the predictions of that study
(I’m hoping to learn more about nuclear winter in the coming months, and would probably have more substantive things to say at that point.)
One reason the Sagan example may be interesting is that it could help us think about how to make—or find ways to avoid having to make—tradeoffs between maintaining good epistemics and influencing things in high-profile, sensitive political areas.
Good points! I broadly agree with your assessment Michael! I’m not at all sure how to judge whether Sagan’s alarmism was intentionally exaggerated or the result of unintentional poor methodology. And then, I think we need to admit that he was making the argument in a (supposedly) pretty impoverished research landscape on topics such as this. It’s only expected that researchers in a new field make mistakes that seem naive once the field is further developed.
I stand by my original point to celebrate Sagan > Petrov though. I’d rather celebrate (and learn from) someone who acted pretty effectively even though it was flawed in a complex situation, than someone who happened to be in the right place at the right time. I’m sill incredibly impressed by Petrov though! It’s just.. hard to replicate his impact.