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I'm not sure you'd like to continue this discussion. I'm kinda interested in your point of view, but ... I don't want to impose on you, so feel free to quit.

by __d 7y ago

I'm not sure you'd like to continue this discussion. I'm kinda interested in your point of view, but ... I don't want to impose on you, so feel free to quit. While you say: "I responded that based on my assessment, this is not good evidence to support a claim that climate change (e.g. global warming) is 'real' and is human caused, and I specifically laid out why. That's it. That was the point." I don't dispute that this particular piece of "evidence" might be problematic. I'm not prepared to invest the time to make an independent determination one way or the other, frankly. You have, and I have no reason to doubt that you've raised valid issues. I do have some issues with your apparent dismissal of expert consensus. I think "an argumentum ad populum" is mislabeling. When the people who hold the opinion are experts in the field, and the overwhelming majority of them say the same thing, choosing to dismiss that as some sort of mob delusion seems wrong. The vast majority of experts tell me the Earth is an oblate sphere. There are some people who claim it's flat. Do I dismiss those experts? Or, perhaps more to my point, do you? As I said: there are times in history, both recent and not so recent, when the consensus of experts has been incorrect. Groupthink is real, political pressure is real, lazy thinking is real, and even fallacious understanding of reality is real. That said, I do not believe that I, while perhaps a skilled technologist, have the expertise to form a judgement contrary to that of literally thousands of experts here. Do you? Or are you simply attempting to ensure that when evidence is presented, it is immaculate? You then say "As for the consequences being dire, we'll see". That also suggests to me that you do doubt the expert consensus? Of course, literally, you're right: the predicted outcomes are only predictions, and the climate is a massive complex system. The only way to be sure is to wait and see what happens. The Michael Crichton link is 3:32 long. Would you be willing to summarize his point before I wade through that?

meretext 7y ago
If you're not prepared to invest the time to make an independent determination one way or the other, and you want to rely on the consensus view of experts, that's fine, there is nothing inherently wrong in that. Just understand that your belief that they're right doesn't mean they're right, and consensus is not evidence. That's all. Using "most experts agree" as an argument is an argumentum ad populum by definition. It's a fallacious argument to make, because you're saying that the number of people (experts or otherwise) who believe something to be true, means that it must be true. Using that argument to try and convince someone of a position to take is a fallacious argument. If you say I don't know the truth of it, but I'm going to side with the consensus, that's at least being clear. You don't have to have the expertise to form a judgement contrary to that of literally thousands of experts here for them to be actually incorrect. Note how you're using language to make it seem more 'true' and 'weighty': "judgement contrary to that of literally thousands of experts" -- again, implying that the vast number of experts that believe something to be true makes it more true than if fewer experts believed it. That's precisely the fallacy I'm talking about. You just made an argumentum ad populum, when you're fully made aware of what that is and understand what that is, you still couldn't help it. The more experts that believe something to be true, the more that will jump on the bandwagon because that many already think it true. That may be part of what's happening, because I don't think anyone actually knows what is happening and why yet. There are plenty of examples in history, even recent history, of that type of groupthink happening, and the Ancel Keys Dietary fat theory of coronary heart disease is one of them. Once he said that was the cause, then others believed him, took his study as showing causation, rather than correlation, and the overwhelming consensus was that saturated fat and cholesterol caused heart disease. And they were all wrong, the consensus was wrong, his evidence was inaccurate. Here's how it seems to me right now, and I'll use an analogy: if you had a consensus of financial experts saying that Apple stock was going to go to $600 a share, and it does, were they 'right' or were they 'lucky'? Because there is no way, no matter how much 'evidence' they have, that they can know that Apple will reach $600. They don't know what will happen, they are speculating. Go read up on counterfactuals. Yeah, I'm beating a dead horse here, repeating myself so I'll stop now and close. Because I poke holes in evidence that supports the theory of climate change does not mean I'm against that theory -- it doesn't mean I'm for it either. I can take the position of, "I don't know", and that is my position. But I can still poke holes in evidence from both sides of that debate, while still holding the position that I don't know whether the theory is accurate or not. I can't poke holes in a 'consensus', because a consensus is not evidence. Belief in something is not evidence. Evidence is evidence, and our interpretation and understanding of such complex systems is poor at best. Climate change may be happening, and it may be due to us, and it may have dire consequences. Or it may not, and we'll be fine, the climate will start to cool, and we'll see maybe we don't know all the mechanisms at play or how they interact. Watch the first 20 mins of the Crichton talk. You'll know if you want to watch more by then. We think we know things, but we really don't when it comes to things as complicated as climate. /s.

by __d 7y ago

meretext 7y ago

If you're not prepared to invest the time to make an independent determination one way or the other, and you want to rely on the consensus view of experts, that's fine, there is nothing inherently wrong in that. Just understand that your belief that they're right doesn't mean they're right, and consensus is not evidence. That's all. Using "most experts agree" as an argument is an argumentum ad populum by definition. It's a fallacious argument to make, because you're saying that the number of people (experts or otherwise) who believe something to be true, means that it must be true. Using that argument to try and convince someone of a position to take is a fallacious argument. If you say I don't know the truth of it, but I'm going to side with the consensus, that's at least being clear. You don't have to have the expertise to form a judgement contrary to that of literally thousands of experts here for them to be actually incorrect. Note how you're using language to make it seem more 'true' and 'weighty': "judgement contrary to that of literally thousands of experts" -- again, implying that the vast number of experts that believe something to be true makes it more true than if fewer experts believed it. That's precisely the fallacy I'm talking about. You just made an argumentum ad populum, when you're fully made aware of what that is and understand what that is, you still couldn't help it. The more experts that believe something to be true, the more that will jump on the bandwagon because that many already think it true. That may be part of what's happening, because I don't think anyone actually knows what is happening and why yet. There are plenty of examples in history, even recent history, of that type of groupthink happening, and the Ancel Keys Dietary fat theory of coronary heart disease is one of them. Once he said that was the cause, then others believed him, took his study as showing causation, rather than correlation, and the overwhelming consensus was that saturated fat and cholesterol caused heart disease. And they were all wrong, the consensus was wrong, his evidence was inaccurate. Here's how it seems to me right now, and I'll use an analogy: if you had a consensus of financial experts saying that Apple stock was going to go to $600 a share, and it does, were they 'right' or were they 'lucky'? Because there is no way, no matter how much 'evidence' they have, that they can know that Apple will reach $600. They don't know what will happen, they are speculating. Go read up on counterfactuals. Yeah, I'm beating a dead horse here, repeating myself so I'll stop now and close. Because I poke holes in evidence that supports the theory of climate change does not mean I'm against that theory -- it doesn't mean I'm for it either. I can take the position of, "I don't know", and that is my position. But I can still poke holes in evidence from both sides of that debate, while still holding the position that I don't know whether the theory is accurate or not. I can't poke holes in a 'consensus', because a consensus is not evidence. Belief in something is not evidence. Evidence is evidence, and our interpretation and understanding of such complex systems is poor at best. Climate change may be happening, and it may be due to us, and it may have dire consequences. Or it may not, and we'll be fine, the climate will start to cool, and we'll see maybe we don't know all the mechanisms at play or how they interact. Watch the first 20 mins of the Crichton talk. You'll know if you want to watch more by then. We think we know things, but we really don't when it comes to things as complicated as climate. /s.