{"id":6312,"date":"2013-11-10T13:12:47","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T21:12:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/?p=6312"},"modified":"2013-11-10T13:12:47","modified_gmt":"2013-11-10T21:12:47","slug":"friends-let-us-build-a-list-of-historical-cases-of-scientistic-sucker-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/2013\/11\/friends-let-us-build-a-list-of-historical-cases-of-scientistic-sucker-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Friends, let us build a list of historical cases of &#8220;scientistic sucker problems&#8221;&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote>\n<p>Friends, let us build a list of historical cases of &#8220;scientistic sucker problems&#8221; (similar to, say, transfat, thalidomide) that satisfy the following:<br \/>A &#8211; DENIAL OF COMPLEXITY: Something foreign to the human body or nature-as-a-complex-system was introduced (in the sense of not being part of the long term history of the process),<br \/>B &#8211; Benefits (though small) were visible and trumpeted,<br \/>C -MISTAKING ABSENCE OF EVIDENCE FOR EVIDENCE OF ABSENCE: &#8220;Scientific&#8221; *evidence of absence* of harm was presented. (Consider tobacco).<br \/>D &#8211; SCIENTISM: Arguments against skeptics were presented a la Michael Shermer as being &#8220;against science&#8221;.<br \/>E &#8211; MORAL HAZARD: consider tobacco&#8217;s lobbying to show safety on &#8220;scientific&#8221; grounds.<br \/>These cases of small visible benefits and large hidden harm (particularly delayed) are prime cases of fragility (thick left tail, thin right tail).<br \/>The aim is to integrate these human sucker problems into the general *precautionary principle*. In the complex domain, one cannot predict adverse consequences beyond small steps, hence the idea of countering history (Bar Yam).<br \/>Please do not stray from the topic, which is to build a historical list, in the physical\/health (not socioeconomic) domain. This is not a debate: rather a catalogue.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid=10151830273883375&amp;id=13012333374\">Friends, let us build a list of historical cases&#8230; &#8211; Nassim Nicholas Taleb<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Friends, let us build a list of historical cases of &#8220;scientistic sucker problems&#8221; (similar to, say, transfat, thalidomide) that satisfy the following:A &#8211; DENIAL OF COMPLEXITY: Something foreign to the human body or nature-as-a-complex-system was introduced (in the sense of not being part of the long term history of the process),B &#8211; Benefits (though small) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facebook"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6314,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6312\/revisions\/6314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blackswanreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}