--- Brian M Czech <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I didn’t want to get dragged into a discussion on this list because
> I
> know how they can go on forever, but Tantillo won!  I have to
> respond.
> 
> Not only is Lomborg’s Skeptical Environmentalist a regurgitation of
> Julian Simon, it is the biggest pile of Simon regurgitant since,
> well,
> Simon himself.  It’s too bad Bissell got talked into investing his
> time
> in reading this whole boorish blot on bookmanship.  Well, I did my
> part
> to save people their time, as Tantillo noted.  And it cost me a lot
> of
> time to do it, too, because I did read the whole boorish blot.  

Well, well isn't that nice.  Everybody who discussed the notion of
opportunity cost was engaging in boorish blotism.  Gee thanks Brian. 



> Tantillo would probably get away with a classic act of hypocrisy
> here if
> I didn’t point it out.  He complains about critics reading little
> parts
> of the S.E. and then committing the fallacy of composition.  He

Technically Jim is correct.  If you look at a piece of a machine and
say, the piece is light in weight therefore the entire machine is
light you'd clearly be wrong if we are talking about a 747 jet liner.


> phases
> directly into my review (published in Conservation Biology a few
> months
> ago), and hacks at a single point I made; i.e., about Lomborg’s
> illogical
> critique of island biogeography, a point I’ll gladly stand by.  The
> only
> reason I even cited Lomborg’s hapless section on biodiversity is
> because
> I was writing the review for Conservation Biology.  Yet, anyone who
> reads
> the WHOLE review will see that I took a holistic, "big picture"
> approach.
>  In other words, Tantillo is commiting the fallacy of composition
> as he
> cries fallacy of composition!  This is especially annoying since I
> have
> been one of the few published reviewers to credit Lomborg with a
> making
> some good points.

Hmmm, congratulations Brian you have now moved onto the fallacy known
as Tu Quoque

http://gncurtis.home.texas.net/tuquoque.html

I don't know if you are a parent Brian, but parents can spot it in a
second.  It basically boils down to the defense:

"But Mom, he started it fiiiirrrrrssssttttt!"

In other words, whether or not Jim is guilty of the fallacy of
composition in his review of your review is irrelevant to the truth. 
The question is, did you judge Lomborg solely on the merits of one
section?

In my opinion I am not sure you have supported your case that you
have taken a broad view of Lomborg's book (this is hard to say since
I haven't actually read it).  You claim it is basically warmed of
Simon, but you provide only one real example...the one Jim cited. 
Otherwise, everything else appears to me to just be simple claims.


> But now that Tantillo has drawn attention to it, I’m posting my
> review
> one more time.  Notice how it is aimed straight at Lomborg’s
> central
> thesis, which is a regurgitation of Simon’s self-christened “grand
> theory”.  And note that it has the answer to Bissell’s earlier

Yes it is, but with only one example to support the attack, or so it
appears to me.  As such, Jim's characterization does appear correct.

Steve


> question
> of how the S.E. has garnered so much attention (second-from-last
> paragraph).  I’ll be talking about the phenomenon at The Wildlife
> Society
> conference in a few weeks.  It’s called the iron triangle.  
> 
> I urge all observers to get away from this Simon – oops, I mean
> Lomborg –
> analysis kick and get back to some proactive environmental ethics. 
> Time’s a wasting.  
> 
> Brian Czech 
> 
> Lomborg, B.  (2001)  The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the
> Real
> State of the World.  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.  
> xxiii +
> 515pp., figs, index.  Paperback: Price US$27.95. ISBN
> 0-521-01068-3.
> 
> Bjorn Lomborg tells us The Skeptical Environmentalist was inspired
> by the
> late Julian Simon.  It shows, and it is a dubious distinction. 
> Julian
> Simon's capstone, Ultimate Resource 2 (Simon 1996) was so
> fallacious and
> shoddily documented that I devoted a full chapter to refuting it in
> Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train (Czech 2000a).
> 
> The best to be said for The Skeptical Environmentalist is that it
> contains a lot of statistical information about the environment,
> most of
> which is documented better than Ultimate Resource 2.  Lomborg also
> did a
> fairly convincing job of revealing statistical liberties taken by
> some
> environmental organizations and authors, probably enough to keep
> them on
> their toes in future endeavors.  On the other hand, one wonders how
> many
> pages could be filled with liberties taken by
> anti-environmentalists in
> pursuit of profit.  Lomborg documented virtually none of these,
> suggesting perhaps the taking of a different kind of liberty. 
> 
> Numerous others have identified problems with Lomborg's statistical
> analyses (http://www.urban75.com/Action/news138.html).  I
> appreciate
> these largely empirical efforts, for they free me to focus on
> glaring
> theoretical shortcomings.  Lomborg prefaced, "I am not myself an
> expert
> as regards environmental problems " (xx), yet proceeded to
> interpret his
> copious time-series data with the self assurance of Ross Perot
> interpreting the macroeconomic implications of housing starts. 
> Lomborg's
> thesis is identical to Simon's self-christened "grand theory",
> which
> simplistically states that, as limits to economic growth are
> approached,
> human ingenuity prevails and we find a way to increase economic
> carrying
> capacity.  Therefore, why worry about limits?  
> 
> Such a thesis is circular at best and hypocritical at worst.  The
> kind of
> ingenuity that helps us protect the environment (and therefore the
> economy) is largely motivated by worries about carrying capacity! 
> Lomborg must sense the weakness of this thesis, for in his
> conclusion he
> quibbles that worry is not the same as productive concern.  
> 
> Lomborg covers most of the major environmental issues: forests,
> energy,
> minerals, water, pollution, global warming, etc. Conservation
> biologists
> will find it interesting that one of the shortest and weakest
> chapters is
> on biodiversity.  For example, Lomborg refers to the theory of
> island
> biogeography as "appealingly intuitive", yet discredits the
> application
> of the theory to larger land masses.  His rationale?  “If islands
> get
> smaller, there is nowhere to escape.  If, on the other hand, one
> tract of
> rainforest is cut down, many animals and plants can go on living in
> the
> surrounding areas.”  For a statistician who clearly prides himself
> in his
> grasp of logic, such a logical last resort is but one more
> indication of
> Lomborg's bias.
> 
> Lomborg disregards the trophic structure of the human economy, the
> foundation of which is agriculture and the extractive sectors
> (logging,
> mining, ranching, etc.), upon which are perched the manufacturing
> and
> services sectors.  He thinks the entire economic enterprise can
> expand
> without concomitant liquidation of natural capital (timber,
> minerals,
> grasses, etc.), in violation of the thermodynamic underpinnings of
> trophic theory.  He seems oblivious to the fact that, due to the
> tremendous breadth of the human niche, the human economy grows at
> the
> competitive exclusion of wildlife in the aggregate.  The absence of
> ecological savvy explains his poor performance with the
> biodiversity
> chapter and strongly suggests that conservation biologists have a
> unique
> role to play in refuting the ecologically ignorant implications of
> neoclassical economic growth theory (Czech 2000b).
> 
> Lomborg’s disregard of trophic levels helps to explain his cure-all
> prescription of generating more money to throw at more problems. 
> He
> fails to recognize that agricultural surplus is what frees the
> hands for
> the division of labor, thus making money a meaningful concept
> (Czech
> 2000a).  It’s as if he thinks money grows on trees whether you chop
> them
> down or not.
> 
> Lomborg appears equally as naive about the political economy of
> environmental protection.  Nowhere does he acknowledge the iron
> triangle
> of corporations, politicians beholden to corporations, and
> neoclassical
> economists (whose research is funded largely by the corporations,
> and who
> advise the politicians) that girds the economic policy arena.  This
> oversight is bound to produce skepticism, even cynicism among
> conservation biologists, because this iron triangle is virtually
> all that
> is necessary to explain why Lomborg will take the place of Simon as
> the
> darling of economic growth advocates.  
> 
> For those who have read Ultimate Resource 2, I recommend skipping
> The
> Skeptical Environmentalist, because you’ve heard it all before. 
> Even if
> you are unfamiliar with the Simon/Lomborg type of argument, I
> wouldn’t
> invest the time in it unless you plan to debate Lomborg onstage, in
> which
> case you should also watch out for poorly thrown pies
> (http://www.urban75.com/Action/news138.html).
> 
> Literature Cited
> 
> Simon, J. L.  1996.  The ultimate resource 2.  Princeton University
> Press, Princeton, New Jersey.  
> Czech, B.  2000a.  Shoveling fuel for a runaway train: errant
> economists,
> shameful spenders, and a plan to stop them all.  University of
> California
> Press, Berkeley, California.  
> Czech, B.  2000b.  Economic growth as the limiting factor for
> wildlife
> conservation.  Wildlife Society Bulletin 28(1):4-14.  
> 
> 
> On Mon, 9 Sep 2002 16:12:22 -0500 Jim Tantillo <[log in to unmask]>
> writes:
> > Steve B. wrote,
> > 
> > >Bissell here:
> > >[snip]
> > >I guess if I'm going to continue to rant about Lomborg's book
> I'll
> > >have to read the damn thing. I blame Tantillo for this. A pox on
> 
> > his
> > >house.
> > >
> > 
> > I'm just impressed by how many of the negative reviews of the
> book
> > seem to be written by people who take pride in not having read
> the
> > whole thing.  Look at the blurb from Graeme Pearman that Patrick
> > posted ("I must admit I haven't read the whole book, but I have
> read
> > several chapters . . . ")--that seems to be the standard refrain.
> > I've taken a fair amount of time to read a number of these
> reviews,
> > and while some are better than others, most are pretty thin (a
> good
> > collection of these is at http://info-pollution.com/lomborg.htm
> ).
> > 
> > For example, a large number of the reviews that I've read tend to
> > isolate small errors (and some not-so-small errors, to be sure)
> in
> > individual sections of Lomborg's book, and then use those errors
> to
> > condemn the work as a whole.  That's the classic "fallacy of
> > composition," or mistaking the properties of parts for properties
> of
> > the whole: e.g., "New Zealand's basketball team consists of five
> > excellent players; therefore, it must be an excellent team." 
> Wrong.
> > Lots of basketball teams may be composed of excellent individual
> > players but they are still lousy teams.  (sorry Perley).  <grin>
> > Lomborg's book may include many flawed sections, but it does not
> > follow from that fact *alone* that his overall argument is flawed
> or
> > that it is a flawed book on the whole.
> > 
> > And just look at some of the reviews.  For example, Brian Czech
> > posted his own published review of the book here on this list.  
> > Let's
> > look at what he has to say, e.g., about Lomborg's biodiversity
> > chapter.
> > 
> > Among other things Czech writes:
> > >
> > >Lomborg covers most of the major environmental issues: forests, 
> > energy,
> > >minerals, water, pollution, global warming, etc. Conservation 
> > biologists
> > >will find it interesting that one of the shortest and weakest 
> > chapters is
> > >on biodiversity.  For example, Lomborg refers to the theory of 
> > island
> > >biogeography as "appealingly intuitive", yet discredits the 
> > application
> > >of the theory to larger land masses.  His rationale?  "If
> islands 
> > get
> > >smaller, there is nowhere to escape.  If, on the other hand, one
> 
> > tract of
> > >rainforest is cut down, many animals and plants can go on living
> in 
> > the
> > >surrounding areas."  For a statistician who clearly prides
> himself 
> > in his
> > >grasp of logic, such a logical last resort is but one more 
> > indication of
> > >Lomborg's bias.
> > >
> > 
> > This is hardly a fair treatment of Lomborg's discussion of Norman
> > Myers's 1979 (repeated in 1999) estimate that we are losing
> "40,000
> > species per year."  Island biogeography comes up in that chapter
> > because Lomborg also criticizes E.O. Wilson's more radical claim 
> > that
> > we are losing "100,000 species per year," a claim that supposedly
> is
> > grounded in island biogeography.
> > 
> > Lomborg doesn't need to "discredit the application of the theory
> to
> > larger land masses," as Czech suggests: other evolutionary 
> > biologists
> > have already done that.  (We've been over a LOT of this ground 
> > before
> > on this list; see e.g. the list archives at
> >
>
<http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A2=ind0005&L=enviroethics&P=R22
> 148&I=-3>.
> > I won't repeat it here.)
> > 
> > Thus Czech's paraphrase of Lomborg's "rationale" ("If islands get
> > smaller, there is nowhere to escape.  If, on the other hand, one
> > tract of rainforest is cut down, many animals and plants can go
> on
> > living in the surrounding areas," which appears on p. 253 of the
> > book) is hardly Lomborg's "rationale" at all. It is rather one of
> 
> > the
> > standard explanations given in the scientific literature as to
> *WHY*
> > the empirical studies that have been done to *test* the theory of
> > island biogegraphy have not held up under scrutiny--e.g., Puerto
> > Rico's deforestation, and the deforestation of the Brazil's
> Atlantic
> > coastline forests.
> > 
> > Again, lots and lots of people have gone over this ground before,
> so
> > there's no need for me to repeat it here.  A philosophically 
> > informed
> > account is found in Shrader-Frechette's and McCoy's METHOD IN 
> > ECOLOGY
> > (Cambridge 1993), see especially chapter 3, "Ecological theory is
> > problematic" and particularly sections 3.1 "The theory of island
> > biogeography" and 3.2 "Applying the theory of island biogeography
> to
> > conservation."  Among other things, Shrader-Frechette and McCoy
> > conclude, "Apart from whether island biogeography is good or bad
> > science . . . it is clearly inadequate foundation for applying
> > ecology to environmental problems" (79).  If Lomborg is being
> > illogical, then I'd say he is in good company.
> > 
> > All of this is to say that I find Czech's statement, "For a
> > statistician who clearly prides himself in his grasp of logic,
> such 
> > a
> > logical last resort is but one more indication of Lomborg's
> bias,"
> > utterly unconvincing.  Lomborg's treatment of the species
> extinction
> > issue is rather conventional and ultimately uncontroversial. 
> People
> > may disagree with his *conclusions*, but that's fine.  That is
> how 
> > it
> > should be.  But the argument shouldn't be parodied,
> misrepresented,
> > dismissed out of hand as illogical, or ignored. It should
> examined
> > and evaluated fairly on its merits.
> > 
> > And I don't think Lomborg is merely a "regurgitation" of Julian
> > Simon, either.  Telling people "I recommend skipping The
> Skeptical
> > Environmentalist, because you've heard it all before" is imho
> simply
> > taking the lazy way out of preaching to the converted.
> > 
> > Jim T.
> > 
> > p.s. And a pox right back on you, sb.  Enjoy the book.   :-)
> 
> Brian Czech
> Arlington, VA
> USA


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