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It would have been a nice quip 20 years ago, but we have amassed so many evidences that this is now more or less a meaningless thought exercise. I might as wel

It would have been a nice quip 20 years ago, but we have amassed so many evidences that this is now more or less a meaningless thought exercise. I might as well ask "But what if hurricanes aren't real and we end up building a better sewage system for nothing?"

mikeash 9y ago
The difference is that half of the American electorate doesn’t deny the existence of hurricanes. If they did, that hypothetical could be useful.
- dmix 9y ago
  Half? That's a bit of a broad generalisation. I doubt 90% of voters have an informed opinion on the matter worthy of critiquing their position. Nor is indifference from voters equal to active denial. People love to extrapolate every position of Trumps and apply it to half the country, and usually well beyond that to all 'conservatives' globally'.
  - mikeash 9y ago
    Climate change denial was a core Republican value long before Trump. I don't see why having an informed opinion would be a requirement here. Climate change denial is uninformed almost by definition, but as long as the opinion is strongly held (which it is by a huge number on the American right) that doesn't really matter.
    - notyourday 9y ago
      No, denial of humans as the source of global warming has been a core value of lots of people, including of scientists that as late as 1970s were claiming that all their data indicated that humans were causing global cooling. The science was settled at that time as well.
      - mikeash 9y ago
        That's a myth. There was a brief media craze over global cooling in the 70s, but the science never pointed that way. Some scientists proposed global cooling, but it was never the most common view. See: https://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-abo... In any case, thinking the planet was cooling in the 1970s, when there was much less data, much less understanding of how the climate works, and much less of a warming trend to examine, should not be considered equivalent to thinking the planet is cooling now.
        notyourday 9y ago
        Yes, of course. The line of "heresy" is before the current data and it would never never never be changed. Because, you know, science!
        mikeash 9y ago
        Sorry, I can't understand this at all. Could you restate it?
        notyourday 9y ago
        t0 = science dataset S1 => claim "cooling!" -> everyone disagreeing is heretic! There will not be a dataset S1+S2 contradicting implication of S1! Our science is correct 4 evah! t1 = science dataset S1+S2 => claim "warming!" -> everyone disagreeing is heretic. There will be no t2 with a dataset of S1+S2+S3 that would contradict S1+S2! Our Science(tm) is correct 4 eveh!
        mikeash 9y ago
        Ok, now I get it, but I’m not really interested in continuing the conversation with such weapons-grade sarcasm.
        yongjik 9y ago
        http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm > [W]hen people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.

mikeash 9y ago

The difference is that half of the American electorate doesn’t deny the existence of hurricanes. If they did, that hypothetical could be useful.

dmix 9y ago
Half? That's a bit of a broad generalisation. I doubt 90% of voters have an informed opinion on the matter worthy of critiquing their position. Nor is indifference from voters equal to active denial. People love to extrapolate every position of Trumps and apply it to half the country, and usually well beyond that to all 'conservatives' globally'.
- mikeash 9y ago
  Climate change denial was a core Republican value long before Trump. I don't see why having an informed opinion would be a requirement here. Climate change denial is uninformed almost by definition, but as long as the opinion is strongly held (which it is by a huge number on the American right) that doesn't really matter.
  - notyourday 9y ago
    No, denial of humans as the source of global warming has been a core value of lots of people, including of scientists that as late as 1970s were claiming that all their data indicated that humans were causing global cooling. The science was settled at that time as well.
    - mikeash 9y ago
      That's a myth. There was a brief media craze over global cooling in the 70s, but the science never pointed that way. Some scientists proposed global cooling, but it was never the most common view. See: https://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-about-global-cooling.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/What-1970s-science-said-abo... In any case, thinking the planet was cooling in the 1970s, when there was much less data, much less understanding of how the climate works, and much less of a warming trend to examine, should not be considered equivalent to thinking the planet is cooling now.
      - notyourday 9y ago
        Yes, of course. The line of "heresy" is before the current data and it would never never never be changed. Because, you know, science!
        mikeash 9y ago
        Sorry, I can't understand this at all. Could you restate it?
        notyourday 9y ago
        t0 = science dataset S1 => claim "cooling!" -> everyone disagreeing is heretic! There will not be a dataset S1+S2 contradicting implication of S1! Our science is correct 4 evah! t1 = science dataset S1+S2 => claim "warming!" -> everyone disagreeing is heretic. There will be no t2 with a dataset of S1+S2+S3 that would contradict S1+S2! Our Science(tm) is correct 4 eveh!
        mikeash 9y ago
        Ok, now I get it, but I’m not really interested in continuing the conversation with such weapons-grade sarcasm.
        yongjik 9y ago
        http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm http://chem.tufts.edu/answersinscience/relativityofwrong.htm > [W]hen people thought the earth was flat, they were wrong. When people thought the earth was spherical, they were wrong. But if you think that thinking the earth is spherical is just as wrong as thinking the earth is flat, then your view is wronger than both of them put together.