6 ms·

The "X% of scientists agree" point is of course not a scientific argument, and I understand how it could be taken the wrong way, either as an appeal to authorit

by svara 7y ago

The "X% of scientists agree" point is of course not a scientific argument, and I understand how it could be taken the wrong way, either as an appeal to authority or as a cheap regurgitation of canned talking points. But go ahead and read the full discussion here. I think a lack of patience with the dishonest discussion tactics used by poorly informed people arguing against the scientific state of the art is totally understandable. On an emotional level I can totally understand why you would like to just say "shut up and listen to 97% of the scientists". I've been told repeatedly in this discussion section to listen properly to people holding alternative points of view, instead of just assuming that they're uninformed. Yet as soon as you dig, the "scientific arguments" evaporate. For a beautiful example of this, see the comment I just wrote at <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21820189> https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21820189>.

mistermann 7y ago
> The "X% of scientists agree" point is of course not a scientific argument But it's presented as such. Is this, and similar examples, a "big deal"? Another way of asking that is: is trust a big deal? And the answer is: we do not know - but guessing at such things doesn't seem like a terribly prudent strategy when the stakes are this high. > and I understand how it could be taken the wrong way Can, and is, regularly....and as a representation of the degree of ignorance of those who "don't buy into" (or so it is perceived) climate change. "97% percent of scientists agree, but these denier idiots think they're smarter than 97% of scientists!!! lolololllll". The problem is, that 97% meme isn't factual. I'm not sure how many "deniers" actually know it isn't, but I know it isn't, and the complete lack of concern for actual facts (as opposed to factoids) by the pro camp in this debate kind of disgusts me, and leaves me with an illogical urge for non-cooperative-behavior. I wonder if I'm the only one that feels this way. I also wonder if I'm the only one that thinks about the significance of how people's feelings affects their behavior, because it sure seems that way. > I think a lack of patience with the dishonest discussion tactics used by poorly informed people arguing against the scientific state of the art is totally understandable. I wonder though, how often "dishonest discussion tactics used by poorly informed people..." is actually a less-than-entirely accurate characterization of what's really going on. I've been accused of all sorts of horrible beliefs and intentions, all without a shred of supporting evidence in my actual words. People are arguing with their imagination of me, not the actual me. I point this out, and no one cares. Their interest evaporates. Never underestimate the power of the imagination within the human mind, or the unwillingness of it to allow self-inspection. > Yet as soon as you dig, the "scientific arguments" evaporate. Agreed, sometimes if not usually, this is indeed the case. However, this phenomenon sometimes works in the other direction as well, you being a pleasant exception obviously.
- adventskalender 7y ago
  "is trust a big deal? And the answer is: we do not know" Trust is a very big deal. The biggest deal. As long as you are not a specialist on climate science yourself, all you can do is trust. That is true for all scientific endeavors. We pick people we trust and more or less believe in their stance on things.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > Trust is a very big deal. The biggest deal. 100% agree. And yet, observe the lack of concern in the "pro" camp (some of it on display here) where there is clear evidence for reasonable lack of trust. I'm not asking that you adopt my beliefs, but if you stop and think about this discrete (lack of concern over at least partially justified distrust) point, does it not seem to be potentially a big deal as well (in that it might actually be driving human behavior)? > As long as you are not a specialist on climate science yourself, all you can do is trust. I disagree. Just two of many alternative actions: - do your own research, to try to get a feel for how trustworthy the message is (for example, are there any clear mistruths being peddled) - do not assume the message is necessarily correct, and repeat it as if it is absolute fact. History has taught us this lesson. > We pick people we trust and more or less believe in their stance on things. Some people do, others do not. Considering a political consensus needs to be reached, it seems to me that it might be worthwhile expending some additional mental horsepower on the lower level details of why we seem to be incapable of achieving this, rather than just guessing at why people won't get on board. It's rather disappointing that this notion seems to be considered dumb in a normally rational community such as HN, and that it does seem to be considered dumb among the intelligent is to me an extremely interesting and counter-intuitive phenomenon in itself, that also may warrant some investigation.
adventskalender 7y ago
"Yet as soon as you dig, the "scientific arguments" evaporate. For a beautiful example of this, see the comment I just wrote at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21820189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21820189 . " The opposing side has just the same experience with the arguments and papers from your side - there are many articles and papers questioning and criticizing papers from the doomsday side. You are just cherry picking and practicing confirmation bias (see, another paper refuted, so my side must be right). In fact the "95% of scientists agree" is just such an example - if you look into it, the number becomes very questionable. And once people see one of your arguments is shoddy, why should they give your other arguments the benefit of the doubt? And your answer, as well as the comment you were replying to: it might as well all just be gibberish, for someone who isn't a climate scientist. And in the end your refutation boils down to "we know that CO2 traps heat and warms the earth" - which is presumably true, but people don't seem to agree on the extent of it. And other factors seem to affect it, too. Why do you even believe the "CO2 traps heat" thing? I tend to believe it, too. But that is because I was taught it does back in high school, 35 years ago. Maybe it actually was bullshit already back then, but as a teenager, I didn't know that what teachers said could be questioned. I don't think any of us has done an actual experiment trapping heat with CO2...
- WA 7y ago
  > there are many articles and papers questioning and criticizing papers from the doomsday side Name a few please. > Why do you even believe the "CO2 traps heat" thing? Same reason why we believe radiation is bad for people. Nobody of us has done any actual experiments on splitting atoms. But some people do. They published the results. They can be verified and reproduced. It's called science.
  - adventskalender 7y ago
    "Name a few please." I already mentioned the Cook paper that gave us the "97% consensus" number. (Edit: for completeness sake, here is an article debunking the number. I haven't read it and don't know if it has any merit, it is just the first Google result. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/debunking_the_97_consensus_on_global_warming.html https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/debunking_the_9... - the point stands, though, that you can find articles refuting pretty much anything you want, these days). Other than that, I didn't keep track, and I only encounter such discussions randomly every now and then. I would wager a guess, that you could find a counter reaction for most important climate science papers. Just google for them. "But some people do. They published the results. They can be verified and reproduced. It's called science. " In principle, yes, but your idea of science is highly idealized. In reality, most things are not as established and as verified as you believe them to be. Politics, egos, all sorts of things play a part. If you look back in history, there are many cases where people believed wrong things until their main representatives died, for example. Also one problem with climate science is presumably that you can not simply do experiments to verify its claims. That might a huge part of the problem. Again it mostly boils down to trust - trusting the scientists who do the verifying, trusting the institutions who employ and endorse the scientists. What you and climate doomsayers don't seem to understand is that a lot of people don't trust the institutions anymore. And rightfully so. I suspect a lot of the rage is actually about this: people who can't stand the thought that the institutions they trust can't be trusted, so fighting any challenges to their world view with tooth and nails. And people who feel betrayed by the institutions they used to trust. That doesn't mean all science is false. But it makes it harder to find the truth.
moosey 7y ago
Pointing out that 95% (or more) climate scientists say that climate change is happening is not appeal to authority, but appeal to expertise. The former is a logical fallacy. The latter is not.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > Pointing out that 95% (or more) climate scientists say that climate change is happening is not appeal to authority, but appeal to expertise. If the statistic was actually true it would. Not sure if there's a formal logical fallacy to refer to this situation, but I think it would be useful to have one.
- adventskalender 7y ago
  What do you mean? Authority is a synonym on expertise, in that context. You claim certain people or institutions have the expertise on the subject to make the right call, so you appeal to their authority on the subject.

by svara 7y ago

mistermann 7y ago

> The "X% of scientists agree" point is of course not a scientific argument But it's presented as such. Is this, and similar examples, a "big deal"? Another way of asking that is: is trust a big deal? And the answer is: we do not know - but guessing at such things doesn't seem like a terribly prudent strategy when the stakes are this high. > and I understand how it could be taken the wrong way Can, and is, regularly....and as a representation of the degree of ignorance of those who "don't buy into" (or so it is perceived) climate change. "97% percent of scientists agree, but these denier idiots think they're smarter than 97% of scientists!!! lolololllll". The problem is, that 97% meme isn't factual. I'm not sure how many "deniers" actually know it isn't, but I know it isn't, and the complete lack of concern for actual facts (as opposed to factoids) by the pro camp in this debate kind of disgusts me, and leaves me with an illogical urge for non-cooperative-behavior. I wonder if I'm the only one that feels this way. I also wonder if I'm the only one that thinks about the significance of how people's feelings affects their behavior, because it sure seems that way. > I think a lack of patience with the dishonest discussion tactics used by poorly informed people arguing against the scientific state of the art is totally understandable. I wonder though, how often "dishonest discussion tactics used by poorly informed people..." is actually a less-than-entirely accurate characterization of what's really going on. I've been accused of all sorts of horrible beliefs and intentions, all without a shred of supporting evidence in my actual words. People are arguing with their imagination of me, not the actual me. I point this out, and no one cares. Their interest evaporates. Never underestimate the power of the imagination within the human mind, or the unwillingness of it to allow self-inspection. > Yet as soon as you dig, the "scientific arguments" evaporate. Agreed, sometimes if not usually, this is indeed the case. However, this phenomenon sometimes works in the other direction as well, you being a pleasant exception obviously.

adventskalender 7y ago
"is trust a big deal? And the answer is: we do not know" Trust is a very big deal. The biggest deal. As long as you are not a specialist on climate science yourself, all you can do is trust. That is true for all scientific endeavors. We pick people we trust and more or less believe in their stance on things.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > Trust is a very big deal. The biggest deal. 100% agree. And yet, observe the lack of concern in the "pro" camp (some of it on display here) where there is clear evidence for reasonable lack of trust. I'm not asking that you adopt my beliefs, but if you stop and think about this discrete (lack of concern over at least partially justified distrust) point, does it not seem to be potentially a big deal as well (in that it might actually be driving human behavior)? > As long as you are not a specialist on climate science yourself, all you can do is trust. I disagree. Just two of many alternative actions: - do your own research, to try to get a feel for how trustworthy the message is (for example, are there any clear mistruths being peddled) - do not assume the message is necessarily correct, and repeat it as if it is absolute fact. History has taught us this lesson. > We pick people we trust and more or less believe in their stance on things. Some people do, others do not. Considering a political consensus needs to be reached, it seems to me that it might be worthwhile expending some additional mental horsepower on the lower level details of why we seem to be incapable of achieving this, rather than just guessing at why people won't get on board. It's rather disappointing that this notion seems to be considered dumb in a normally rational community such as HN, and that it does seem to be considered dumb among the intelligent is to me an extremely interesting and counter-intuitive phenomenon in itself, that also may warrant some investigation.

adventskalender 7y ago

"Yet as soon as you dig, the "scientific arguments" evaporate. For a beautiful example of this, see the comment I just wrote at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21820189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21820189 . " The opposing side has just the same experience with the arguments and papers from your side - there are many articles and papers questioning and criticizing papers from the doomsday side. You are just cherry picking and practicing confirmation bias (see, another paper refuted, so my side must be right). In fact the "95% of scientists agree" is just such an example - if you look into it, the number becomes very questionable. And once people see one of your arguments is shoddy, why should they give your other arguments the benefit of the doubt? And your answer, as well as the comment you were replying to: it might as well all just be gibberish, for someone who isn't a climate scientist. And in the end your refutation boils down to "we know that CO2 traps heat and warms the earth" - which is presumably true, but people don't seem to agree on the extent of it. And other factors seem to affect it, too. Why do you even believe the "CO2 traps heat" thing? I tend to believe it, too. But that is because I was taught it does back in high school, 35 years ago. Maybe it actually was bullshit already back then, but as a teenager, I didn't know that what teachers said could be questioned. I don't think any of us has done an actual experiment trapping heat with CO2...

WA 7y ago
> there are many articles and papers questioning and criticizing papers from the doomsday side Name a few please. > Why do you even believe the "CO2 traps heat" thing? Same reason why we believe radiation is bad for people. Nobody of us has done any actual experiments on splitting atoms. But some people do. They published the results. They can be verified and reproduced. It's called science.
- adventskalender 7y ago
  "Name a few please." I already mentioned the Cook paper that gave us the "97% consensus" number. (Edit: for completeness sake, here is an article debunking the number. I haven't read it and don't know if it has any merit, it is just the first Google result. https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/debunking_the_97_consensus_on_global_warming.html https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2014/02/debunking_the_9... - the point stands, though, that you can find articles refuting pretty much anything you want, these days). Other than that, I didn't keep track, and I only encounter such discussions randomly every now and then. I would wager a guess, that you could find a counter reaction for most important climate science papers. Just google for them. "But some people do. They published the results. They can be verified and reproduced. It's called science. " In principle, yes, but your idea of science is highly idealized. In reality, most things are not as established and as verified as you believe them to be. Politics, egos, all sorts of things play a part. If you look back in history, there are many cases where people believed wrong things until their main representatives died, for example. Also one problem with climate science is presumably that you can not simply do experiments to verify its claims. That might a huge part of the problem. Again it mostly boils down to trust - trusting the scientists who do the verifying, trusting the institutions who employ and endorse the scientists. What you and climate doomsayers don't seem to understand is that a lot of people don't trust the institutions anymore. And rightfully so. I suspect a lot of the rage is actually about this: people who can't stand the thought that the institutions they trust can't be trusted, so fighting any challenges to their world view with tooth and nails. And people who feel betrayed by the institutions they used to trust. That doesn't mean all science is false. But it makes it harder to find the truth.

moosey 7y ago

Pointing out that 95% (or more) climate scientists say that climate change is happening is not appeal to authority, but appeal to expertise. The former is a logical fallacy. The latter is not.

mistermann 7y ago
> Pointing out that 95% (or more) climate scientists say that climate change is happening is not appeal to authority, but appeal to expertise. If the statistic was actually true it would. Not sure if there's a formal logical fallacy to refer to this situation, but I think it would be useful to have one.
adventskalender 7y ago
What do you mean? Authority is a synonym on expertise, in that context. You claim certain people or institutions have the expertise on the subject to make the right call, so you appeal to their authority on the subject.