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Let me explain a little about why you're being downvoted, instead of just piling on. In short, the tone, dismissiveness, and belligerence of your comment is not

by titzer 8y ago

Let me explain a little about why you're being downvoted, instead of just piling on. In short, the tone, dismissiveness, and belligerence of your comment is not up to community standards. It is not a positive contribution to discussion here, and from the downvoting I think the rest of the community would appreciate it if you would take a different approach to posting in the future so that we can hopefully preserve a tiny bubble of courteous discourse. > So apparently there's not really that much "common sense" out there at all, from what I gather. At least not on the part of scientists, anyway. You're painting with an incredibly broad brush here. There are literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of scientists out there. There are thousands of climate scientists alone! Scientists are a diverse bunch. They come from every country in the world, every religion in the world, every gender, height, weight, and sexual orientation. They don't speak with one voice, they don't operate with one voice, and they don't all share the same worldview. Science is an imperfect process but at least it's a shared commitment to open debate and following the facts where they lead. Tarring whole communities with perjoratives like "lacking common sense" is not useful to the discussion. Stop that. > Dude, unlike you (I'm pretty sure) back in the day I used to actually _read_ various scientific studies on a regular basis; these were often in top journals, too. And after some years of this I got to where I routinely threw aside those studies, asking myself "How does this kind of crap get published, anyway?" The situation has only gotten worse since then, as far as I can tell. This part of your comment starts with an insult, then transitions quickly into braggadocio, and then crescendos with derisive dismissiveness. Not helpful. > As far as common sense and such goes, I'm getting pretty tired right now of people complaining about plastic pollution in the oceans which "lasts forever", but then in the next breath complaining about the breakdown products of that very plastic being a danger to wildlife. So which is it - "lasts forever" or "breaks down"? It can't be both. Much of this wildlife would probably be far better off if that plastic did indeed last forever; it would be unsightly, of course, but not all that dangerous. Well, you brag about reading all these studies and then when it comes to arguing you don't actually refer to studies but instead into some kind of Catch 22 which you concocted on your own. Read some actual studies (like this one https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-16510-3_12 https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-16510-3_...) and maybe debate their merits instead of trying to catch everybody in some kind of oversimplified "common sense" logic.

southern_cross 8y ago
Yeah, I don't worry too much about downvotes. In fact, I usually take them as an indicator that I've probably hit a nerve with someone and made them start thinking about something that maybe they've never thought about much before. Concerning scientists, you claim there's a wide diversity of backgrounds and opinions and such, which is no doubt true. But when it comes to climate science, at least, there's the frankly ridiculous (and fraudulent, IMO) claim of 97% or higher consensus. And if anyone dares raise any objections to that - even if it's just a rather tepid "Well, maybe things aren't really as bad as first believed" - then they're usually met with hostility and derision. (Maybe even with a "No, in fact things are even worse than we thought!") Those aren't acts of science at all; rather they are acts of dogma, and they should be actively discouraged, not defended! Along the even worse line, lately I've seen a lot of claims that various climate models have been pretty much spot on in their predictions. (Other folks who've looked more closely into the matter might disagree with such an assessment.) But then this may be followed with a statement that in reality things are actually much worse than even the models being referenced predicted! So which part are they lying about, then? The part about "spot on" or the part about "even worse"? This is kind of a common sense question to ask, don't you think? I'm often amazed that the reporters who write about this stuff don't jump all over things like that, but I guess maybe they lack common sense also. BTW, the “lying” part of that isn’t actually an insult, as you probably would at first believe. Rather it’s an acknowledgement of what is actually going on behind the scenes - a certain amount of professional dissembling in one direction or the other. This being justified as being in order to help fulfill an urgent need to help save the planet while not causing widespread panic, or whatever. And yes, most academic types, having spent way too much time in educational institutions and libraries and labs and such, very often do lack a lot of common sense. I've rubbed elbows enough with them in academia and out in industry to know that firsthand. But what was often fun was talking to their spouses. I got a lot of "OMG, you won't believe what my husband/wife just did! How can somebody be so smart and still do such dumb things?" And the answer to that is pretty simple - a lack of common sense. As far as braggadocio or whatever goes, everything I said there is true - including, I’m pretty sure, the “I’m pretty sure” part of it. If the person I was responding to had a problem with that then he could have said so directly. But the situation I referred to there happened decades ago. I no longer usually have the time or the patience or the access to read studies in depth; rather I will scan a summary of them and maybe read someone else’s thoughtful (or perhaps critical) analysis. And then if I feel the need to I will try and go back and check them out in more depth, which can be kind of hard work these days since so much of that stuff is paywalled. I will try to read the link you provided soon, but don’t be surprised if I come back with some critical analysis of it myself. BTW, superficially the discourse here on HN is somewhat better than what you might find on reddit or wherever. But I’ve already run into a few of the same problems, including a remarkable level of intolerance and censorship. For example, in one thread around here fully half of the comments just up and disappeared in short order. (Only a handful of those were mine, in case you’re wondering.) So either someone censored those, or the software which runs this place is remarkably unreliable.

by titzer 8y ago

southern_cross 8y ago

Yeah, I don't worry too much about downvotes. In fact, I usually take them as an indicator that I've probably hit a nerve with someone and made them start thinking about something that maybe they've never thought about much before. Concerning scientists, you claim there's a wide diversity of backgrounds and opinions and such, which is no doubt true. But when it comes to climate science, at least, there's the frankly ridiculous (and fraudulent, IMO) claim of 97% or higher consensus. And if anyone dares raise any objections to that - even if it's just a rather tepid "Well, maybe things aren't really as bad as first believed" - then they're usually met with hostility and derision. (Maybe even with a "No, in fact things are even worse than we thought!") Those aren't acts of science at all; rather they are acts of dogma, and they should be actively discouraged, not defended! Along the even worse line, lately I've seen a lot of claims that various climate models have been pretty much spot on in their predictions. (Other folks who've looked more closely into the matter might disagree with such an assessment.) But then this may be followed with a statement that in reality things are actually much worse than even the models being referenced predicted! So which part are they lying about, then? The part about "spot on" or the part about "even worse"? This is kind of a common sense question to ask, don't you think? I'm often amazed that the reporters who write about this stuff don't jump all over things like that, but I guess maybe they lack common sense also. BTW, the “lying” part of that isn’t actually an insult, as you probably would at first believe. Rather it’s an acknowledgement of what is actually going on behind the scenes - a certain amount of professional dissembling in one direction or the other. This being justified as being in order to help fulfill an urgent need to help save the planet while not causing widespread panic, or whatever. And yes, most academic types, having spent way too much time in educational institutions and libraries and labs and such, very often do lack a lot of common sense. I've rubbed elbows enough with them in academia and out in industry to know that firsthand. But what was often fun was talking to their spouses. I got a lot of "OMG, you won't believe what my husband/wife just did! How can somebody be so smart and still do such dumb things?" And the answer to that is pretty simple - a lack of common sense. As far as braggadocio or whatever goes, everything I said there is true - including, I’m pretty sure, the “I’m pretty sure” part of it. If the person I was responding to had a problem with that then he could have said so directly. But the situation I referred to there happened decades ago. I no longer usually have the time or the patience or the access to read studies in depth; rather I will scan a summary of them and maybe read someone else’s thoughtful (or perhaps critical) analysis. And then if I feel the need to I will try and go back and check them out in more depth, which can be kind of hard work these days since so much of that stuff is paywalled. I will try to read the link you provided soon, but don’t be surprised if I come back with some critical analysis of it myself. BTW, superficially the discourse here on HN is somewhat better than what you might find on reddit or wherever. But I’ve already run into a few of the same problems, including a remarkable level of intolerance and censorship. For example, in one thread around here fully half of the comments just up and disappeared in short order. (Only a handful of those were mine, in case you’re wondering.) So either someone censored those, or the software which runs this place is remarkably unreliable.