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Indeed I agree that there exist a gradient of trust. But it is this that seems to be so difficult for the non-scientific literate to understand. In part I think
by nanairo 16y ago
Indeed I agree that there exist a gradient of trust. But it is this that seems to be so difficult for the non-scientific literate to understand. In part I think it's a problem that society seem to use "shown scientifically" for "it's true". If there is one thing that people should learn at school is statistics and the scientific method: a LOT more useful than trigonometry nowadays!
However my point is that it's not enough to have consistent predictions to show you are right. The examples of alternative medicine or even evolution are a good case. In the former we can do new tests, and we have: a lot of money has been spent trying and trying again different studies on homeopathy and friends. However the alternative practitioners always come up with an excuse why the scientist is wrong, or his result not meaningful. Their answers are not scientific in any way, but they can muddy the water enough that the audience feels they can't know either way.
As for climatology, I agree with you that it's hard to call those predictions. Partially I think the very clear statements of the scientists get lost and simplified through different layers of repetitions so that when you read it in the mainstream newspaper you get a very partial version.
There is also a problem that part of IPCC was _not_ strictly science. The IPCC has 3 panels from what I remember: the scientific stuff, the effect these will have on society, and ways to prevent them. The former gives proper scientific assessment but the later two less so. One of the problem of the IPCC is that many of its complains came from mistakes in the latter two groups, but they cast a shadow of doubt to the first one (the scientific one) despite the three groups have little connection to each other. (the stuff about the Himalaya melting, for example was something added by the second group, not the first one).
I am not sure how easy it is to predict climate. We do better than random guesses, so I guess there's some help there, but it's not great so it shouldn't be reported as such. (of course if people knew what error bars and standard deviation were it wouldn't be so difficult).
One problem though with chaotic systems is how difficult is to "fix" them. Maybe you can increase a variable (say pollution) up to 1000 (in an arbitrary scale) without any effect. Then if you take it that extra 10 points the whole system goes bad. People seem to think that in that case we can simply fix it by lowering the variable again, but that's not how it works. If your system moved from one attractor to another (in state space) it may be extremely hard to move back. This is why I think our best bet by far is to keep things as they are: better to err on the side of caution. (of course those are just my opinions: scientist should make predictions, but then it's society that decide what to do with them ^_^).
- zeteo 16y agoI agree with most of your points, and the info about the IPCC's inner workings is particularly interesting. And yes, we can't expect the larger part of the public to become sufficiently informed to properly evaluate even the bases of scientific discourse (at least until, as you point out, the educational system changes considerably). My point was directed more at the _intellectually curious_ laypersons (which is, I believe, a superset of HN's readership). It's practically impossible, in this age of extremely specialized science, for outsiders to understand exactly how various scientific conclusions are arrived at. Fortunately, the task of verification is much easier, and with a small amount of self-training it is possible, I believe, to judge whether or not a certain set of scientists consistently make verifiable predictions that come true.
- nanairo 16y agoIf you are interested to know more about the IPCC inner workings and exactly what was wrong, here it's an article from a British newspaper (Guardian) from one of its members: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/ipcc-errors-facts-spin http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/feb/15/ipcc-error... The crucial bit: "The IPCC does not carry out primary research, and hence any mistakes in the IPCC reports do not imply that any climate research itself is wrong. A reference to a poor report or an editorial lapse by IPCC authors obviously does not undermine climate science. Doubting basic results of climate science based on the recent claims against the IPCC is particularly ironic since none of the real or supposed errors being discussed are even in the Working Group 1 report, where the climate science basis is laid out." and about the Himilayan glaciars mistake: "This is of course not the proper IPCC projection of future glacier decline, which is found in Volume 1 of the report. There we find a 45-page, perfectly valid chapter on glaciers, snow and ice (Chapter 4), with the authors including leading glacier experts"
- joe_the_user 16y agoMy point was directed more at the _intellectually curious_ laypersons (which is, I believe, a superset of HN's readership). It's practically impossible, in this age of extremely specialized science, for outsiders to understand exactly how various scientific conclusions are arrived at. Fortunately, the task of verification is much easier, and with a small amount of self-training it is possible, I believe, to judge whether or not a certain set of scientists consistently make verifiable predictions that come true. An excellent point. I would further add that this means there's a great societal benefit to educating a large number of people up to the level of general mathematical and logical understanding and there's concomitant societal cost for failing to have such an educated public. When enough people are willing to believe nonsense, even those who don't believe it suffer.