State Legislatures on Global Warming: Dumb and Dumberer

You may have heard the tale about how the Indiana legislature once declared the value of pi to be exactly 3. They did this, in the version I first read many years ago, in order to respect a verse in the Bible (II Chronicles 4:2) that describes a great tub in such way as to seem to yield that value for the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its radius.

In fact, it did not happen that way. It originated with a physician and amateur mathematician from a village called Solitude, away down near Evansville. The solitude must have gotten to the poor fellow, for one day he evidently concluded that he had succeeded in solving one of the great posers of geometry, the quadrature, or squaring, of the circle. This problem calls for the construction of a square equal in area to a given circle; in true Euclidean fashion, the construction must be done with compass and straightedge only. Unfortunately for the good doctor, the German mathematician Ferdinand von Lindemann had proved that the problem was insoluble some 15 years earlier, but the news had not yet penetrated into the Indiana back country.

So sublime was the amateur’s ignorance of the world that he imagined, too, that he could patent his discovery, which included a new, true value of pi, and collect royalties from all who would use or teach it. But in a flush of Hoosier pride he decided to offer it to the schools of his home state gratis, and to that end he prevailed upon a member of the legislature to introduce a bill incorporating both his discovery and his munificent offer.

The bill was read before the House of Representatives on January 18, 1897, and referred first to the Committee on Canals and then to that on Education. After a third reading it was passed by the House on February 5 by a vote of 67-0. (I base my account here on a brief history of the affair posted at Purdue University.)

It is worth considering some of the language of the bill while contemplating the mental state of those citizen lawmakers who voted for it (at least a few of whom confessed they had no idea what it was all about). From Section 1:

It has been found that a circular area is to the square on a line equal to the quadrant of the circumference, as the area of an equilateral rectangle is to the square on one side. The diameter employed as the linear unit according to the present rule in computing the circle’s area is entirely wrong, as it represents the circle’s area one and one-fifth times the area of a square whose perimeter is equal to the circumference of the circle.

And from Section 2, the crux of the matter:


This leads to a value for pi of 3.2, although other portions of the discussion in the bill imply different values, none of them either 3 exactly or the correct value.

In the state Senate the bill was reported out favorably from committee but failed on second reading and was shelved, largely through the intervention of a professor of mathematics at Purdue who happened to be present and undertook some remedial instruction. There is a suspicion that a few of the senators may have seen through the pretensions of the proposal, for it is noted that the committee to which it was referred was that on Temperance. However it came about, the bill died on February 12, 1897.

In the century and more since then that episode has often been exhibited as a prime example of the fatuousness of which legislators are capable, especially at the state level. Imagine trying to legislate a matter of fact! Those Indiana solons may have to move over, though, for their cousins in South Dakota have lately given them some fierce competition.

The House in Pierre last week adopted a resolution urging the schools of the state to teach about the phenomenon of global warming in what it chose to describe as a “balanced” way. This would be done by beginning with the premise that “global warming is a scientific theory rather than a proven fact.” How many ways can eleven words be wrong?

Let’s begin with this: Facts are not proved or disproved, any more than they are legislated. They are supported by observation – by data – or they are not facts. Global warming is either a fact or it is not; its facticity is to be inferred from the mass of data on temperatures at various places at various times. There is debate about the reliability of some data and about some methods used for normalizing different sorts of data.

Global warming is also not a scientific theory. The role of a scientific theory would be to offer an explanatory mechanism by which global warming might occur. It would be a good theory if and only if it accounted for all known relevant observations and permitted predictions of effects that had not yet been observed but could be. It would be a true theory if…but that’s the domain of philosophy, not science.

Anyway, back to South Dakota. How do the Hon. Reps. propose that the desired balance be achieved? You could hardly guess. It will be achieved by taking into account


Astrological, mind you. As in “Hey, what’s your sign?” And thermological. (Look that one up; it doesn’t mean what you might think.) And don’t you agree that that word “effect” has a nice, well, effect? The effect is to put us right back in ninth-grade English.

As I have written before, if you seek idiocy in all its many delightful varieties, just keep an eye on your state legislature; it seldom disappoints.

O tempora! O inanes!

UPDATE: Virginia is coming up fast on the outside. Here’s a fellow so bloated with self-righteousness that he’s willing to drag God down to his own level of small-minded vindictiveness.

UPDATE 2: A 1951 South Carolina law comes to light. Want to overthrow the government? Five bucks, please.

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