8 replies to this topic

[EntropyModel]

Did everyone see the film speed where your given a nightmare scenario then asked 'what do you do'? OK, good, here's your scenario. Congratulations. You are now President of the USA. Your advisors inform you that some space observatories around the world are concerned about the risk of a asteroid collision with earth. You ask for a risk assessment, here is what you are told - 1. A survey of scientists in all fields of expertise lacks consensus.The top scientists in the fields on both sides cannot convince each other. The only thing they agree on, is the time window for a potential collision is 50 years in the future. 2. the rate of agreement/disagreement amongst scientist is fairly constant, and there is little likihood of large shift in viewpoint until the asteroid is about 10-20 years away, which is too close to earth to avoid a collision via an intercept project. Even then, its likely there will be experts who remain skeptics. 3. The most recent survey of impact risk from all scientists, both collision skeptics and believers shows the following: - 5% of all scientists assess an impact is certain. - 15% assess an impact is above 1 in 10 - 30% assess an impact is only about 1 in 100. - 50% assess no risk of impact. Note. the results were the same when restricting the survey to recognized experts only, or government science agencies. There was never consensus amongst any group. 4. A risk assessment of death toll of an impact on the United States IF the asteroid hit - Majority 84% assess death toll <0.1%, average projection 100,000 lives lost, cost to economy 1Trillion$. - 10% assess around 0.5% death toll, cost to economy 10Trillion$ - 5% assess > 5% death toll, cost to economy 100Trillion$ and destruction of system. - <1% of scientists assess an impact would be greater than 50% and be totally catestrophic. 5. Intercept Project The cost estimates for avoiding the collision by creation of an intercept project range from 1 to 2Trillion$ if started now. The longer it takes to start the project the cost will rise. Mr President, What do you do and why? Oh and please Mr President, restrict your answer to this question only, were burning tax payer dollars here. Mark.

Edited by entropy, 29 January 2007 - 04:15 PM.

[maineman]

I guess I'd finally go have that sex change operation. I've always wanted to be a woman.

[EntropyModel]

No takers? What if i'd made the title of the thread ' A question for Global Warming Skeptics'. In terms of decision making, you could substitute the problem of global warming in there with very little change, and just as challenging. If a person can't coherently answer the question above, they have no credibility in criticising our decision makers on global warming, who have to wrestle with these complex trade off problems with all these unknowns. Mark.

Edited by entropy, 30 January 2007 - 08:46 PM.

[endisnear]

Did everyone see the film speed where your given a nightmare scenario then asked 'what do you do'? OK, good, here's your scenario.

Congratulations. You are now President of the USA.

Your advisors inform you that some space observatories around the world are concerned about the risk of a asteroid collision with earth. You ask for a risk assessment, here is what you are told -

1. A survey of scientists in all fields of expertise lacks consensus.The top scientists
in the fields on both sides cannot convince each other.

The only thing they agree on, is the time window for a potential collision is 50 years in the future.

2. the rate of agreement/disagreement amongst scientist is fairly constant, and there is little likihood of large shift in viewpoint until the asteroid is about 10-20 years away, which is too close to earth to avoid a collision via an intercept project.

Even then, its likely there will be experts who remain skeptics.


3. The most recent survey of impact risk from all scientists, both collision skeptics and believers shows the following:
- 5% of all scientists assess an impact is certain.
- 15% assess an impact is above 1 in 10
- 30% assess an impact is only about 1 in 100.
- 50% assess no risk of impact.

Note. the results were the same when restricting the survey to recognized experts only, or government science agencies. There was never consensus amongst any group.

4. A risk assessment of death toll of an impact on the United States IF the asteroid hit
- Majority 84% assess death toll <0.1%, average projection 100,000 lives lost, cost to economy 1Trillion$.
- 10% assess around 0.5% death toll, cost to economy 10Trillion$
- 5% assess > 5% death toll, cost to economy 100Trillion$ and destruction of system.
- <1% of scientists assess an impact would be greater than 50% and be totally catestrophic.

5. Intercept Project
The cost estimates for avoiding the collision by creation of an intercept project range from 1 to 2Trillion$ if started now. The longer it takes to start the project the cost will rise.

Mr President, What do you do and why?

Oh and please Mr President, restrict your answer to this question only, were burning tax payer dollars here.

Mark.

2 trillion...is that all....sheesh...just add it to the balance of 8....I'd call up Helo Ben and tell him to fire up that printing press baby.....

[OEXCHAOS]

I immediately saw this as a reference to global warming. Of course, the comparison is less than ideal...and improperly alarmist, since global warming is inexorable, unavoidable, and above all gradual, while a meteor is a dramtic, one time, punctuated event (or not, as the case may be). In the former, adjustments MUST and WILL be made to deal with climate change. Attempts at prevention, however, seems to be a far lower priority, when dealing with the situation rationally. A meteor, however, really only presents you with two options, prevent or pray. You're key will be in assessing the technology today, versus a guess on where it's going to be in a few years. You can waste a lot of money on the wrong technology if you start too much of a project too soon. Mark

[EntropyModel]

I immediately saw this as a reference to global warming. Of course, the comparison is less than ideal...and improperly alarmist, since global warming is inexorable, unavoidable, and above all gradual, while a meteor is a dramtic, one time, punctuated event (or not, as the case may be).

In the former, adjustments MUST and WILL be made to deal with climate change. Attempts at prevention, however, seems to be a far lower priority, when dealing with the situation rationally. A meteor, however, really only presents you with two options, prevent or pray. You're key will be in assessing the technology today, versus a guess on where it's going to be in a few years. You can waste a lot of money on the wrong technology if you start too much of a project too soon

The intension here is to discuss the meteor problem so as to understand the process of using science to make difficult decisons. Difficult because, there are so many unknowns and yet so much at stake. This would give us a decision making process for similar problems of which as I mentioned global warming is another that people can't wait to talk about.

I wasn't trying to make a literal direct comparison, and didn't deliberately chose a 'punctuated event versus gradualism to be improperly alarmist'., and I don't agree that is correct. Your making a false assumption stating global warming will be gradual/linear. Most scientists consider the climate to have 'tipping points' where a runaway effect occurs, equivalent to a punctuated event. Of course, other some scientists will disagree, so its another unknown.

This just adds complexity to an already complex problem, but we can add this 'unknown' to make a more direct comparsion -
6. 50% of scientists believe meteor will break up and its effect be gradual, whilst 50% believe it will remain whole [tipping point] or break up into large multi peaces[multiple smaller tipping points]


I've tried to construct a question that shows the complexity of a real world problem which deals in problabilities and risk. So there are no right/wrong answers, just risk/rewards. Its an attempt to move away from finger pointing to producing solutions. I know its far easier and more gratifying to just shreik 'you right wing nut' or 'you liberal wacko' and I grant its very hard to answer this, but I thought I'd throw it out here with my idealist hat on.

Mark

[OEXCHAOS]

I guess I got at the point, then. I think it's key to plan on the worst happening to the extent prudent, and spending a lot of time evalating the economic efficiency of your prevention options. I.e. look at the problem holistically with a bias toward opportunity costs as economic impacts. Mark

[EntropyModel]

I guess I got at the point, then. I think it's key to plan on the worst happening to the extent prudent, and spending a lot of time evalating the economic efficiency of your prevention options. I.e. look at the problem holistically with a bias toward opportunity costs as economic impacts.

Mark

Thank you Mark for clearly and simply answering the question.
Since this is essentially my answer as well, I'm not going to argue with you
I'm going to label this approach the 'pragmatic approach', because I need to refer to it below.


I'm still really looking forward to hearing from anyone else with strong views on using science to making decisions. Since its remarkably silent on that front, I will play devils advocate and present what I consider two extreme views on using science in decision making process that I frequently see/read.

One extreme - The Purveyors of Catastrophe
Reasoning - You can't trust most scientists, and science isn't about how many agree, its about truth. The best scientists are the 5% who show we are certain to have a catastrophe.
Solution - we must dismantle the capitalist system and restructure it to put all resources into avoiding any chance of a meteor collision.

Other Extreme - The purveyors of Do Nothing
Reasoning - You can't trust most scientists, and science isn't about how many agree, its about truth. The best scientists are the 50% who show there is no problem here.
Solution - do nothing.

Note. the reasoning of both extremes is identical, they select the scientists they 'believe know the truth'. They completely disagee, but use the same logic.

In the 'pragmatic approach' Mark gave above, the decision maker recognizes they are unable to determine 'the truth', and instead focusses on mitigating risk with economically beneficial solutions.


Which of the 3 approaches is 'right'? That won't be clear until AFTER the meteor hits/or doesn't hit. There is a big difference between the 3 approaches though -
- Both extreme positions are attempting to be 'totally right', and so can also be 'totally wrong' - they are an extreme risk/reward approach.
- Whereas the pragmatists gave up trying to be 'totally right', and just tried to hedge risk, so they won't be fully right or fully wrong.



As an asside, pure opinion here, but Its very interesting to me to compare the decisions making approach of scientists versus the general public.

When I read scientists the majority appear to be pragmatists, with perhaps 5-10% extremists. This is true on just about any scientific issue with a large unkowns.
When I read public opinion via message board, journalists, popular press etc its seems to be the opposite, 90% extremist and only 5-10% pragmatists.

I believes its because scientists deal in probabilities and unknowns. They are used to having to evaluate evidence,and made decisions based on it.

Whereas, the general public rely on the media/books/internet for their viewpoints, they have no choice because they are not scientists themselves.
Those 'sources' parade the few extremist scientists as nothing gets ratings/sells books like extreme positions and people yelling at each other, lots of righteousness, and there's nothing so boring as middle of road pragmatic reasonableness.


Mark.

[mss]

[quote] entropy
Today, 02:35 PM

Those 'sources' parade the few extremist scientists as nothing gets ratings/sells books like extreme positions and people yelling at each other, lots of righteousness, and there's nothing so boring as middle of road pragmatic reasonableness.
[/qoute]

True, true, .....the problem very few will understand the real meaning and still go for the "hipe".
It is called "crowd craze" or "herd mentality".
Nice post, thanks, well thought out.
mss

Edited by mss, 02 February 2007 - 05:03 PM.