Freetoken posted a great rebuttle to Freakanomics in the science links.

realclimate.org

The good professor, now being painted as a hero of the denier crowd, a professor of economics made some very terrible, and silly mathematical errors in his book - as in the kind that basic arithmetic would show false.

I am once again convinced that if an economist says something in relation to science, I should default assume (s)he is wrong.

I was trying to explain that seeding SO2 would cause acid rain recently. Seeding SO2 is another thing devout followers of this book think is just too clever.

There wold have been a simple chemistry thought there to apply as well. Having not read the book though, I was not aware of the tragic failures in basic arithmetic that are even worse.

It reminds me of an exercise we gave some students in a science for the very uninterested course. It was simply, convert the speed of light into miles per hour. The idea was o get them to see it in units they knew and get the idea it is really quite fast.

One kid reported it was 27 mph.

I asked him if that made any sense at all before he handed it in.

He said that’s what he got on the calculator.

I asked him if he noticed blue shifts when riding a bike on campus.

I asked him if he ever noticed anything funny when he drove a car on the freeway.

Again, the way that people do not get the idea that science always has to relate to the real world is astonishing and disappointing.