Average oil price: $76.56 (though 2 June 2010)
Threshold needed for Simmons to win: $223.26 ($200 in 2005 dollars)
This means that oil prices would have to average $329.13 for the rest of the year in order to Simmons to win. Looks like he’ll have lots of time to decide how he’ll handle his loss.
One can always fight rearguard actions by arguing that “if we’d had our bet over this other time frame I’d have won,” or “the principle still stands, I just misapplied it here,” or “of course I never expected to win; I just wanted to gain attention for the issue.” That last argument is the debating equivalent of a teenager saying “I never wanted that stupid prize anyway” and an artist saying “the point of the artwork was to provoke thought.” But if we’re trying to improve our understanding of the world, then we need to be willing to change our views based upon new information. I hope that the peak oil crowd’s loss causes some people to reconsider the sufficiency of the Hubbert model for making macro policy decisions. But given how much reputation some people have invested in the issue, I am not optimistic about the likelihood of many people actually reconsidering their position.
Threshold needed for Simmons to win: $223.26 ($200 in 2005 dollars)
This means that oil prices would have to average $329.13 for the rest of the year in order to Simmons to win. Looks like he’ll have lots of time to decide how he’ll handle his loss.
One can always fight rearguard actions by arguing that “if we’d had our bet over this other time frame I’d have won,” or “the principle still stands, I just misapplied it here,” or “of course I never expected to win; I just wanted to gain attention for the issue.” That last argument is the debating equivalent of a teenager saying “I never wanted that stupid prize anyway” and an artist saying “the point of the artwork was to provoke thought.” But if we’re trying to improve our understanding of the world, then we need to be willing to change our views based upon new information. I hope that the peak oil crowd’s loss causes some people to reconsider the sufficiency of the Hubbert model for making macro policy decisions. But given how much reputation some people have invested in the issue, I am not optimistic about the likelihood of many people actually reconsidering their position.
