5 ms·

Because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, abstracts expressing no position can not be included in the 97% number. Finding many abstracts that fall

by svara 7y ago

Because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, abstracts expressing no position can not be included in the 97% number. Finding many abstracts that fall into this category is expected and does not detract from the 97% finding, because there are so many aspects of climate science that you can study that have no direct bearing on the question of whether anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is real or not. You phrase it as ... > Within the subset of these abstracts that expressed an opinion on AGW, 97.2% endorsed AGW ... which is a misleading way of framing this, because opinion does not play a role in this. Expressing an opinion in a scientific abstract would be highly frowned upon. The question is whether the abstract contains information relevant to the question of whether AGW is happening or not. These are the only abstracts that you want to consider when the question is whether the science agrees or disagrees with AGW. Your point that going from "97% of abstracts" to "97% of scientists" is not strictly correct is fine (and this is not done in the Cook et al. paper), but this simplification in the media is not worrying to me at all, since you'd expect those to be very highly correlated. > might you willingly concede that there very much is a propaganda war going on in parallel to the actual science? Well, based on this comments section that seems rather self-evident. The scientists, however, are not fighting a propaganda war. That's a political or media phenomenon. Everything written in this comments section so far for me has reinforced the picture that this "war" is very one sided, since the anti-science arguments either just disappear or boil down to inconsequential pedantry as soon as you shine some light on them.

mistermann 7y ago
(NOTE: This discussion is getting a bit long in the tooth, I'm happy to argue indefinitely because this topic happens to be my hobby horse, but I'm more than happy to declare a truce of sorts so you can gracefully exit and get on with more interesting things. I very much thank you for arguing though, I've found it helpful in clarifying my thinking on some items.) > Because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, abstracts expressing no position can not be included in the 97% number. This seems reasonable, but once again you're overlooking the actual claim that's being made: "97% of climate scientists...." Now of course, from a pure scientific perspective, it's a moot point, and our entire argument is a waste of time. But this particular discussion, and the comprehensive issue of climate change itself, is not purely a scientific issue. > You phrase it as ... >> Within the subset of these abstracts that expressed an opinion on AGW, 97.2% endorsed AGW > ... which is a misleading way of framing this, because opinion does not play a role in this. At first glance, this seems rather surreal. I am stating it accurately (this wording more accurately resembles what was actually studied), but your mind perceives this more accurate statement as "a misleading way of framing this". So what's going on here? Well, there are (at least) two differences here that I can see: - we are using two different verbs: stating, and framing - we are evaluating the truthiness of the different ways of stating it from (at least) two different/composite perspectives: I am looking at it from the perspectives of pedantic accuracy (how closely the description of the study matches the actual study) and with respect to vulnerability to propagandic exploitation (full disclosure: I imagine there's some motivated reasoning going on), whereas you are looking at it more from the perspective of ~"what is the most concise way these results can be stated in order to communicate the scientific facts" So if we look at it this way, it seems to me we're both right. I don't disagree with your framing, as it relates to the science only, and I suspect (based on your prior comments) that you don't disagree with my framing, but only as it relates to pedantic accuracy of describing what the study actually did, with the intention of minimizing the attack surface to propagandists. (Do I suspect correctly?) > but this simplification in the media is not worrying to me at all, since you'd expect those to be very highly correlated > The scientists, however, are not fighting a propaganda war. That's a political or media phenomenon. Everything written in this comments section so far for me has reinforced the picture that this "war" is very one sided, since the anti-science arguments either just disappear or boil down to inconsequential pedantry as soon as you shine some light on them. And here is where I wish you could try (I don't think you are) to understand what I am trying to get through to you: your focus on only the pure science aspect of the issue, and your side "winning" that war in the online culture war, is detrimental to your cause. You can have the science and technical solutions all figured out (and it is, well enough), but if you are unable to assemble adequate public consensus & support, the entire initiative may fail, not unlike a typical IT project with strong technical people but terrible analysts and project managers. If the topic of the original article was running successful IT projects, I can't imagine what I am saying right now (bad management team >> strong technical team) would receive noteworthy resistance on HN, because we've all seen it many times. But change the topic to something in the culture war category, and people's thinking changes.
- svara 7y ago
  >> ... which is a misleading way of framing this, because opinion does not play a role in this. >At first glance, this seems rather surreal. I am stating it accurately You may have slightly misunderstood what I was trying to say here, I was referring only to your use of "no opinion" versus the paper's "no position." It's not a hugely important point so I'm only going to comment on the following ... > You can have the science and technical solutions all figured out (and it is, well enough), but if you are unable to assemble adequate public consensus & support, the entire initiative may fail, [...] If this was all you'd been saying, we'd be in full agreement. I agree there's room for improvement in popular science reporting. I disagree that there is anything majorly wrong with it, though. [0] If you have any specific recommendations for improvements that could be interesting. However, I feel you are holding popular science journalism to an unrealistic standard here - a standard that is applied to no other subject. If journalists were forced to use the highly technical, precise and nuanced language of peer-reviewed scientific publications in their popular reporting, that just wouldn't work for the vast majority of their readers. It would leave the field wide open to dishonest sound-bite style reporting by people unconstrained by truth. Therefore, simplifications are to some degree necessary, as long as they don't deform the underlying science. People are still free to dig deeper into the literature if they are that interested, just as we've been doing here. I don't think that's too much to ask - or, put differently, if this is too much to ask, then the problem is a much deeper one: a lack of critical thinking, a lack of curiosity, a pathological preoccupation with just the most superficial aspects of a topic. Or, putting this a bit more practically: I feel like I have done a fine job of showing why quoting the 97% number is not particularly misleading. What form could this argument take that would fit in less than a couple of paragraphs? Because there aren't very many places outside of HN where that would fly... [0] I don't know if this applies to places where people people mostly argue in meme format. It may not, but that would be a general cultural problem and not one of scientists and / or science journalists.
  - mistermann 7y ago
    > I disagree that there is anything majorly wrong with it, though. From each of the two distinct perspectives I mentioned? > However, I feel you are holding popular science journalism to an unrealistic standard here - a standard that is applied to no other subject. Telling the truth? Although you have a fair point, hardly anyone bothers themself with the truth nowadays. Personally, if I was a scientist, I'd get a bit upset with the media misrepresenting things I say, especially if I believed there was chance that it could cause harm. But then, I seem to be about the only person concerned about throwing fat pitches to anti-AGW propagandists, so maybe I'm wrong. > Or, putting this a bit more practically: I feel like I have done a fine job of showing why quoting the 97% number is not particularly misleading. You also did a fine job at completely overlooking the two perspectives part I pointed out, that explained fairly precisely what my concern was. Just as an experiment, I am going to copy paste that part in here to see if you will ignore it again. While this is disrespectful, I've performed this experiment many times on reddit and people will continue to pretend they don't see a point being made. Sometimes I even add over the top bolding and all sorts of other nonsense to make the spectacle as absurd as possible, to see to what lengths people will go. But I digress.....here is the point I am curious whether you are able to address: (HOWEVER: I already said in my prior comment for you to feel free to not respond, so I will not consider a lack of response to this comment as any kind of an internet victory. That said, I really would like to hear your response, because I'm not joking, I really do consider this perspective important, and if you truly find it (the propagandic exploitation angle) utterly unconcerning, I would very much like to know that.) My prior point, on multiple perspectives: ----------------------------- So what's going on here? Well, there are (at least) two differences here that I can see: - we are using two different verbs: stating, and framing - we are evaluating the truthiness of the different ways of stating it from (at least) two different/composite perspectives: I am looking at it from the perspectives of pedantic accuracy (how closely the description of the study matches the actual study) and with respect to vulnerability to propagandic exploitation (full disclosure: I imagine there's some motivated reasoning going on), whereas you are looking at it more from the perspective of ~"what is the most concise way these results can be stated in order to communicate the scientific facts" So if we look at it this way, it seems to me we're both right. I don't disagree with your framing, as it relates to the science only, and I suspect (based on your prior comments) that you don't disagree with my framing, but only as it relates to pedantic accuracy of describing what the study actually did, with the intention of minimizing the attack surface to propagandists. (Do I suspect correctly?)

by svara 7y ago

mistermann 7y ago

(NOTE: This discussion is getting a bit long in the tooth, I'm happy to argue indefinitely because this topic happens to be my hobby horse, but I'm more than happy to declare a truce of sorts so you can gracefully exit and get on with more interesting things. I very much thank you for arguing though, I've found it helpful in clarifying my thinking on some items.) > Because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, abstracts expressing no position can not be included in the 97% number. This seems reasonable, but once again you're overlooking the actual claim that's being made: "97% of climate scientists...." Now of course, from a pure scientific perspective, it's a moot point, and our entire argument is a waste of time. But this particular discussion, and the comprehensive issue of climate change itself, is not purely a scientific issue. > You phrase it as ... >> Within the subset of these abstracts that expressed an opinion on AGW, 97.2% endorsed AGW > ... which is a misleading way of framing this, because opinion does not play a role in this. At first glance, this seems rather surreal. I am stating it accurately (this wording more accurately resembles what was actually studied), but your mind perceives this more accurate statement as "a misleading way of framing this". So what's going on here? Well, there are (at least) two differences here that I can see: - we are using two different verbs: stating, and framing - we are evaluating the truthiness of the different ways of stating it from (at least) two different/composite perspectives: I am looking at it from the perspectives of pedantic accuracy (how closely the description of the study matches the actual study) and with respect to vulnerability to propagandic exploitation (full disclosure: I imagine there's some motivated reasoning going on), whereas you are looking at it more from the perspective of ~"what is the most concise way these results can be stated in order to communicate the scientific facts" So if we look at it this way, it seems to me we're both right. I don't disagree with your framing, as it relates to the science only, and I suspect (based on your prior comments) that you don't disagree with my framing, but only as it relates to pedantic accuracy of describing what the study actually did, with the intention of minimizing the attack surface to propagandists. (Do I suspect correctly?) > but this simplification in the media is not worrying to me at all, since you'd expect those to be very highly correlated > The scientists, however, are not fighting a propaganda war. That's a political or media phenomenon. Everything written in this comments section so far for me has reinforced the picture that this "war" is very one sided, since the anti-science arguments either just disappear or boil down to inconsequential pedantry as soon as you shine some light on them. And here is where I wish you could try (I don't think you are) to understand what I am trying to get through to you: your focus on only the pure science aspect of the issue, and your side "winning" that war in the online culture war, is detrimental to your cause. You can have the science and technical solutions all figured out (and it is, well enough), but if you are unable to assemble adequate public consensus & support, the entire initiative may fail, not unlike a typical IT project with strong technical people but terrible analysts and project managers. If the topic of the original article was running successful IT projects, I can't imagine what I am saying right now (bad management team >> strong technical team) would receive noteworthy resistance on HN, because we've all seen it many times. But change the topic to something in the culture war category, and people's thinking changes.

svara 7y ago
>> ... which is a misleading way of framing this, because opinion does not play a role in this. >At first glance, this seems rather surreal. I am stating it accurately You may have slightly misunderstood what I was trying to say here, I was referring only to your use of "no opinion" versus the paper's "no position." It's not a hugely important point so I'm only going to comment on the following ... > You can have the science and technical solutions all figured out (and it is, well enough), but if you are unable to assemble adequate public consensus & support, the entire initiative may fail, [...] If this was all you'd been saying, we'd be in full agreement. I agree there's room for improvement in popular science reporting. I disagree that there is anything majorly wrong with it, though. [0] If you have any specific recommendations for improvements that could be interesting. However, I feel you are holding popular science journalism to an unrealistic standard here - a standard that is applied to no other subject. If journalists were forced to use the highly technical, precise and nuanced language of peer-reviewed scientific publications in their popular reporting, that just wouldn't work for the vast majority of their readers. It would leave the field wide open to dishonest sound-bite style reporting by people unconstrained by truth. Therefore, simplifications are to some degree necessary, as long as they don't deform the underlying science. People are still free to dig deeper into the literature if they are that interested, just as we've been doing here. I don't think that's too much to ask - or, put differently, if this is too much to ask, then the problem is a much deeper one: a lack of critical thinking, a lack of curiosity, a pathological preoccupation with just the most superficial aspects of a topic. Or, putting this a bit more practically: I feel like I have done a fine job of showing why quoting the 97% number is not particularly misleading. What form could this argument take that would fit in less than a couple of paragraphs? Because there aren't very many places outside of HN where that would fly... [0] I don't know if this applies to places where people people mostly argue in meme format. It may not, but that would be a general cultural problem and not one of scientists and / or science journalists.
- mistermann 7y ago
  > I disagree that there is anything majorly wrong with it, though. From each of the two distinct perspectives I mentioned? > However, I feel you are holding popular science journalism to an unrealistic standard here - a standard that is applied to no other subject. Telling the truth? Although you have a fair point, hardly anyone bothers themself with the truth nowadays. Personally, if I was a scientist, I'd get a bit upset with the media misrepresenting things I say, especially if I believed there was chance that it could cause harm. But then, I seem to be about the only person concerned about throwing fat pitches to anti-AGW propagandists, so maybe I'm wrong. > Or, putting this a bit more practically: I feel like I have done a fine job of showing why quoting the 97% number is not particularly misleading. You also did a fine job at completely overlooking the two perspectives part I pointed out, that explained fairly precisely what my concern was. Just as an experiment, I am going to copy paste that part in here to see if you will ignore it again. While this is disrespectful, I've performed this experiment many times on reddit and people will continue to pretend they don't see a point being made. Sometimes I even add over the top bolding and all sorts of other nonsense to make the spectacle as absurd as possible, to see to what lengths people will go. But I digress.....here is the point I am curious whether you are able to address: (HOWEVER: I already said in my prior comment for you to feel free to not respond, so I will not consider a lack of response to this comment as any kind of an internet victory. That said, I really would like to hear your response, because I'm not joking, I really do consider this perspective important, and if you truly find it (the propagandic exploitation angle) utterly unconcerning, I would very much like to know that.) My prior point, on multiple perspectives: ----------------------------- So what's going on here? Well, there are (at least) two differences here that I can see: - we are using two different verbs: stating, and framing - we are evaluating the truthiness of the different ways of stating it from (at least) two different/composite perspectives: I am looking at it from the perspectives of pedantic accuracy (how closely the description of the study matches the actual study) and with respect to vulnerability to propagandic exploitation (full disclosure: I imagine there's some motivated reasoning going on), whereas you are looking at it more from the perspective of ~"what is the most concise way these results can be stated in order to communicate the scientific facts" So if we look at it this way, it seems to me we're both right. I don't disagree with your framing, as it relates to the science only, and I suspect (based on your prior comments) that you don't disagree with my framing, but only as it relates to pedantic accuracy of describing what the study actually did, with the intention of minimizing the attack surface to propagandists. (Do I suspect correctly?)