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It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, in

It was designed to show that if official U.N. delegates could be duped by college students into banning water, that they could essentially fall for anything, including pseudo-scientific studies which claim to show that global warming is man-caused. I can't decide whether this is naive or deliberately misleading. First of all, UN delegates were not duped by college students into banning water. They were duped into signing a petition to ban water. It might have been irresponsible of them to leave their signature on a piece of paper without thinking it through, but it's a far cry from being "duped into banning water". That leads me to my second point: they are UN delegates. They're not geeks, they're more like managers. They'll have experts whom they'll consult. They won't stop to try and puzzle out "dihydrogen monoxide" when approached by obviously unofficial and (within the context) unimportant people. As a matter of fact, given their job, they're probably used to being approached by people ranging from genuine, serious activists to plain loonies. Like I said, if you're an official decision maker, it's not very responsible to appear to endorse someone else's idea without researching it properly, but that's as far as this whole issue goes.

cabalamat 16y ago
> They won't stop to try and puzzle out "dihydrogen monoxide" If someone has basic scientific literacy, they won't need to stop to puzzle it out, it'll be immediately obvious. If someone doesn't have basic scientific literacy, they shouldn't be in a management position in an organisation dealing with scientific matters.
- CodeMage 16y ago
  If someone doesn't have basic scientific literacy, they shouldn't be in a management position in an organisation dealing with scientific matters. Yet we see that happen on a regular basis and not only when it comes to science. We have corporations with managers who lack basic technical understanding of what their reports are telling them. We have politicians who lack the basic capacity to express themselves properly and coherently. Is it really that surprising at this point? The world has somehow become convinced that management is something that need not rely on the specific problem domain. It might irk us or mystify us to no end, but it works. I suspect that it works because it really is possible to be a good manager even if you don't have the basic understanding of your problem domain; you just have to be able to surround yourself with trustworthy people who do know the stuff and organize them properly. Sadly, most of managers who lack the basic understanding of the technical stuff also happen to be bad at management.
  - cabalamat 16y ago
    > We have corporations with managers who lack basic technical understanding of what their reports are telling them. That's because the managers' managers also lack that understanding. > We have politicians who lack the basic capacity to express themselves properly and coherently. That's because a lot of their bosses -- the voters -- are stupid. > I suspect that it works because it really is possible to be a good manager even if you don't have the basic understanding of your problem domain I agree; but you do need to be wise enough to surround yourself with people who do.

cabalamat 16y ago

> They won't stop to try and puzzle out "dihydrogen monoxide" If someone has basic scientific literacy, they won't need to stop to puzzle it out, it'll be immediately obvious. If someone doesn't have basic scientific literacy, they shouldn't be in a management position in an organisation dealing with scientific matters.

CodeMage 16y ago
If someone doesn't have basic scientific literacy, they shouldn't be in a management position in an organisation dealing with scientific matters. Yet we see that happen on a regular basis and not only when it comes to science. We have corporations with managers who lack basic technical understanding of what their reports are telling them. We have politicians who lack the basic capacity to express themselves properly and coherently. Is it really that surprising at this point? The world has somehow become convinced that management is something that need not rely on the specific problem domain. It might irk us or mystify us to no end, but it works. I suspect that it works because it really is possible to be a good manager even if you don't have the basic understanding of your problem domain; you just have to be able to surround yourself with trustworthy people who do know the stuff and organize them properly. Sadly, most of managers who lack the basic understanding of the technical stuff also happen to be bad at management.
- cabalamat 16y ago
  > We have corporations with managers who lack basic technical understanding of what their reports are telling them. That's because the managers' managers also lack that understanding. > We have politicians who lack the basic capacity to express themselves properly and coherently. That's because a lot of their bosses -- the voters -- are stupid. > I suspect that it works because it really is possible to be a good manager even if you don't have the basic understanding of your problem domain I agree; but you do need to be wise enough to surround yourself with people who do.