Quote:
Originally Posted by AC_Hacker
AlanE,
Although I put a couple of links to the Hirsch Report inside a response to Xringer, it was actually meant for you to read, as I know that Xringer won't read anything difficult.
I really think that you need to update the base of information you are using. Your thinking was dated, even in 1950's... things are much more serious now.
The Hirsch Report is a good place to start.
Your tax dollars paid for the report, so you might as well read it.
-AC_Hacker
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I'm a big advocate of the scientific method, so you'll understand, I hope, that GIGO reports don't really float my boat. Hirsh made a prediction - peak oil will arrive before 2015, that is, aggregate oil production will peak in that year and thereafter decline. That's a testable prediction.
What Hirsch is doing is replaying the famous Simon-Ehrlich bet from the 80s.
Julian L. Simon and Paul Ehrlich entered in a famous wager in 1980, betting on a mutually agreed-upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990. Simon had Ehrlich choose five commodity metals. Copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten were chosen and Simon bet that their prices would decrease, while Ehrlich bet they would increase.[note 1] Ehrlich ultimately lost the bet, and all five commodities that were selected as the basis for the wager continued to trend downward during the wager period.
Simon allowed Ehrlich to choose the commodities, he gave him free license to stack the bet in his favor and yet Simon prevailed.
Hirsch suffers from the same limitations on mental modeling that afflicted Ehrlich. Garbage-In ---> Garbage-Out reports do not carry any authoritative voice, they're just opinions. I can walk up to any drunk hobo on the street and ask him his opinion on subjects and they'd carry just as much authority as Hirsch's opinion on the future.
Now if Hirsch has accurately predicted a peak oil scenario for 2015, then his report gains some credibility and I'll give it attention because it has satisfied a key measure of the scientific method, it made a prediction based on a hypothesis and the prediction was tested and validated.