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> There is very little way of me understanding climate change science myself, but I'm willing to believe climate scientists, but this is actually an act of fait
by ysavir 10y ago
> There is very little way of me understanding climate change science myself, but I'm willing to believe climate scientists, but this is actually an act of faith, I can't independently confirm that climate change is caused by humans, just say that it's very likely.
That's exactly how I feel. I tend to roll my eyes at people that deny global warming is happening, but I equally roll them at people that talk about it happening as if they've done the calculations themselves. It's refreshing to see this sort of humility on HN. Thanks.
- yodsanklai 10y ago> I equally roll them at people that talk about it happening as if they've done the calculations themselves The two positions are very different though. There is an overwhelming consensus among specialists that climate change is happening (https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/ https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/). Why would you roll your eyes at someone that base their understanding of the world on the current scientific knowledge?
- michaelt 10y agoI think ysavir is making a different distinction. Imagine you talk to three people. Person 1 says "I don't believe in global warming, because it was unusually cold in my home town this winter" Person 2 says "I believe in global warming, because it was unusually hot in my home town this summer" Person 3 says "I believe in global warming, because it is the consensus of climate scientists" Assume we agree that person 1 is wrong, and person 3 is right. But is person 2 right because they reach the same conclusion as person 3, or wrong because they use the same reasoning as person 1?
- coldpie 10y agoI guess you could read ysavir's post that way, but I don't see anything in there that implies your reading. All they said was: > I equally roll them at people that talk about [climate change] happening as if they've done the calculations themselves. Which I think is a strawman.
- ysavir 10y agoThat quote says it all: I have no disrespect for people that, as the OP did, acknowledge that they are putting their trust and faith in modern science. The people at whom my eyes roll are those that skip over the trust and preach global warming as a gospel. It's the difference between saying "I don't know what's going on, but I trust those that specialize in this field" and saying "Oh, I know what's going on (even though I never touched science since high school)." As I said in the previous post, it comes down to intellectual humility.
- coldpie 10y agoI don't think those people exist in sufficient quantity or have sufficient political power to validly equate to climate science deniers.
- coldpie 10y agoI don't roll my eyes at people who tell me carrots are healthier than potato chips, even though I don't really understand nutrition or digestion. There's nothing wrong with trusting experts. If you would like to have at least a conversant base of knowledge, read the IPCC report Summary for Policymakers[1]. People who do know what they're talking about have done a great job summarizing the state of research, evidence, and probability of outcomes given different projection scenarios. It's not a particularly long or difficult read and you'll come out the other side far more informed than you were before. [1] http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_FINAL.pdf http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_SPM_...
- ysavir 10y ago> There's nothing wrong with trusting experts. I completely agree. As I said, it's those that recognize that it's a matter of trust that I respect. My complaint was on those who skip that aspect and put the observations on a standard. Think, for example, of all the times nutritional science has gone back and forth on the healthiness of eggs. If someone were to say that their eating habits are simply following the currently accepted scientific standard, great! But it is less great when considering those that go forward with claims of "Eggs are bad for you, end of story" as an absolute law, with no regard for the context around how they came to know that "law".
- gus_massa 10y ago> I don't roll my eyes at people who tell me carrots are healthier than potato chips, even though I don't really understand nutrition or digestion. There's nothing wrong with trusting experts. Nutrition is a specially bad example. There are plenty of studies that are overhyped and make crazy claims about why some food is good or bad for you, but the are not reproducible, have a small sample number, barely reach p=0.05 using p hacking. And a few weeks later you can read a equally bad study with the opposing conclusions. For example "I Fooled Millions Into Thinking Chocolate Helps Weight Loss. Here's How." http://io9.gizmodo.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-chocolate-helps-weight-1707251800 http://io9.gizmodo.com/i-fooled-millions-into-thinking-choco... It's a bad study made on purpose, but the problem is that many studies have the same bad methodologies. Are eggs good for you? The food pyramid? Nutrition is a good example of a field were you have a very complex system and you can´t make very controlled experiments, so it's very difficult to make reliable measurements.
- verroq 10y ago>That's exactly how I feel. I tend to roll my eyes at people that deny gravity is real, but I equally roll them at people that talk about it happening as if they've done the calculations themselves. It's refreshing to see this sort of humility on HN. Thanks.
- afarrell 10y agoThis analogy fails because many people on HN have actually taken measurements to approximate the fact that stuff accelerates toward the earth at 9.81m/s^2. I know I did in High School. Those who haven't seen evidence for the statistical claim of anthropogenic climate change have directly observed stuff fall downward [citation needed].