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>This kind of black or white thinking is absurd. Why would disproving some random comment on HN automatically mean disproving all climate science? It's extremel

by tw04 7y ago

>This kind of black or white thinking is absurd. Why would disproving some random comment on HN automatically mean disproving all climate science? It's extremely irritating when someone uses disapproval of a weak claim to as proof that a much stronger claim is also wrong. So if someone trying to convince you that there's life on Mars starts from the premise that the earth is flat, are you going to give credence to the rest of their talking points or brush them off? You can be "irritated" all you want, the fact of the matter is people like OP do nothing but hurt the cause and discussion around climate change when they start from a position that's both demonstrably false and so outlandish as to ruin any further discussion. It HURTS the cause because someone who was on the fence would likely be driven off the wrong side.

ceejayoz 7y ago
> So if someone trying to convince you that there's life on Mars starts from the premise that the earth is flat, are you going to give credence to the rest of their talking points or brush them off? The problem being described is folks using that dumb flat Earther as a reason not to listen to anyone else on the same side of the debate with much better arguments. "Someone claimed climate change will make the world 180 degrees by 2021, which is silly, therefore climate change is debunked."
- guscost 7y ago
  Or “this national park put up signs saying the glaciers would be gone in 2020, then had to take them down”: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-2020-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-202... Tying every observable short-term climate anomaly to CO2 will continue to backfire as often as not, because the truth is nobody can predict whether one year will be snowier than the next, or whether the next major natural disaster will be a hurricane, a flood, or a fire. The overall claim will actually become harder to sell - if that’s your goal.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    See, that's a perfect example of this tactic. They got the date wrong by a few years, and the new expected date is 2030. This is now being portrayed as if a major error was made and climate change is debunked, but it's really just an example of how most science includes a margin of error.
    - guscost 7y ago
      Would you stake your house on a bet that these glaciers will be gone by 2030? Because if there really is a long-term risk of disaster, you’re basically doing exactly that by crying wolf with flaky short-term claims.
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        That standard never seems to be applied in the other direction, oddly enough. Climate deniers pull a Gish Gallop of trivially debunked claims (far beyond a mere "we got the timeline a little wrong"), and still somehow manage to demand to be taken seriously. No, I wouldn't stake my house on it, but I wouldn't bet my house for a 99% chance of winning a million bucks, either.
scarejunba 7y ago
If some idiot made claim X with poor evidence and I used that to conclude claim "not X", I think I might question if I'd been repeatedly concussed. That would be a truly idiotic mode of knowledge acquisition.

by tw04 7y ago

ceejayoz 7y ago

> So if someone trying to convince you that there's life on Mars starts from the premise that the earth is flat, are you going to give credence to the rest of their talking points or brush them off? The problem being described is folks using that dumb flat Earther as a reason not to listen to anyone else on the same side of the debate with much better arguments. "Someone claimed climate change will make the world 180 degrees by 2021, which is silly, therefore climate change is debunked."

guscost 7y ago
Or “this national park put up signs saying the glaciers would be gone in 2020, then had to take them down”: https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-2020-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/08/us/glaciers-national-park-202... Tying every observable short-term climate anomaly to CO2 will continue to backfire as often as not, because the truth is nobody can predict whether one year will be snowier than the next, or whether the next major natural disaster will be a hurricane, a flood, or a fire. The overall claim will actually become harder to sell - if that’s your goal.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  See, that's a perfect example of this tactic. They got the date wrong by a few years, and the new expected date is 2030. This is now being portrayed as if a major error was made and climate change is debunked, but it's really just an example of how most science includes a margin of error.
  - guscost 7y ago
    Would you stake your house on a bet that these glaciers will be gone by 2030? Because if there really is a long-term risk of disaster, you’re basically doing exactly that by crying wolf with flaky short-term claims.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      That standard never seems to be applied in the other direction, oddly enough. Climate deniers pull a Gish Gallop of trivially debunked claims (far beyond a mere "we got the timeline a little wrong"), and still somehow manage to demand to be taken seriously. No, I wouldn't stake my house on it, but I wouldn't bet my house for a 99% chance of winning a million bucks, either.

scarejunba 7y ago

If some idiot made claim X with poor evidence and I used that to conclude claim "not X", I think I might question if I'd been repeatedly concussed. That would be a truly idiotic mode of knowledge acquisition.