4mo ago

Global land use for agriculture across different diets

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I can see how politicians and bureaucrats would prefer statistics, but I don't believe that's a good source for public policy myself, no.
- And priests prefer faith. How do you think it should work?
  If you're against science as a concept maybe I shouldn't even bother.
  
  I'm not against science. this paper is scientific malpractice.
  
  I don't particularly have a comment on this specific piece of research (which is why I asked for a good alternative). What does science mean to you exactly?
  
  this is literally the final for a 400-level philosophy course. i'm not going to be writing a 5-page essay here. i can characterize my own beliefs as an approximation of other's though. i tend toward karl popper and other critical rationalists.
  i think this question is too much to ask outside of a purely academic environment, and honestly don't want to deal with it here. is there another question you think you could ask that would actually be answerable in a succinct way and tell you what you want to know about my perspective?
  
  It is a big question. For myself, somewhere in those five pages, it has to relate to things that are measurable. If you're against measurement, you're against science.
  
  It is a big question. For myself, somewhere in those five pages, it has to relate to things that are measurable. If you’re against measurement, you’re against science.
  oh, of course, yes. testability. disprovability. this is the crux of critical rationalist critiques.
  
  Cool. I never took a 400-level philosophy course. A quick look on Wikipedia suggests it's not against measurement or theory, just certainty. That's fine, I don't believe in certainty. Maybe a black swan comes along, but until then, it's not bad to say swans are white.
  If you're not a postmodernist or something I'm not sure why, rationally, you would object to measuring the land footprint of animal husbandry as a concept.
  
  measure it all you want. what is your hypothesis?
  
  Animal husbandry uses comparatively more land than the equivalent caloric output from plant crops would, which seems inevitable just by force of physics. Beyond that, I have no special information.
  You said this study was flawed, I asked if you had a better one. I was honestly expecting "Sure! Here's a great one that shows something slightly different, as I follow this closely enough to have an opinion...", and then I would have said "Thanks! I can see how that's slightly different".
  
  I thought I explained my objections to the methodology pretty clearly. I have no dog in the fight regarding the conclusion: the paper speaks for itself. another study using the same methodology would likely reach the same conclusion, necessarily relying on the same source material. that does not mean the methodology is correct.
  edit: I said "correct" but what I should have said was "useful for determining a correct policy for agriculture".
  
  I already said
  
  I suppose you did, but I find "no policy, no what-if, lets businesses decide" to be a pretty poor answer.
  
  that's not what I said
  
  but it's what i heard, so you said it, period.

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