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Given that plan to decimate the economy of America's 4th largest and most racially diverse city (Houston, TX), I am quite keen to know if these issues also affe
by afarrell 10y ago
Given that plan to decimate the economy of America's 4th largest and most racially diverse city (Houston, TX), I am quite keen to know if these issues also affect climate science.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty convinced that anthropogenic global warming is happening. But if there is a change that it isn't and we can avoid all of the murders and suicides that come with throwing large numbers of people in one area out of work, we should investigate the possibility.
- lmm 10y agoThese issues affect all science. That's not an argument for ignoring science when it's politically convenient. (At least not any more than you already were based on the results. Whatever your all-in number for how often science is right or wrong is, that number already incorporates all these issues). If anything I would expect standards to be much higher in climate science than less controversial areas. There are a lot of people who would stand to gain (or, equivalently, avoid losing) huge amounts of money if the climate science was wrong, they will be going over papers with a fine-tooth comb in a way that doesn't happen to most papers.
- afarrell 10y ago> ignoring science when it's politically convenient And I'm not making an argument for it. I'm making the argument that "getting this wrong is personally costly for a lot of people, therefore we should be examining these results with a fine-toothed comb before basing massive social change on them." But you're right, there would already be monetary incentive to do that.