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> I used to believe in climate change, then I studied feminism in depth. I don’t believe in climate change anymore. Wait wait wait, are you actually saying tha

> I used to believe in climate change, then I studied feminism in depth. I don’t believe in climate change anymore. Wait wait wait, are you actually saying that poor quality research in field X convinced you that field Y also has poor quality research? How does this make sense? We all know that a lot of results in the social sciences are garbage, but climate science is based by a completely different methodology. It is backed by concrete measurements, taken over decades all around the world, instead of surveys with N=12. The forecasts are made with simulations based on physical theories, tested and validated independently. And the whole field (not the government, the actual scientists) meet every year to agree on the new state of the art for climate modeling. How is any of this remotely related to gender studies? As a side note, > [...] try becoming expert in a domain that is in the news [...] How long does it take for you to consider yourself an "expert" in a field?

nitrogen 6y ago
How is any of this remotely related to gender studies? The bizarreness of linking feminism to climate change notwithstanding, I think that in the interest of productive discussion on HN, an interesting point can be found within it. A lot of the fuel for the opposition to both feminism and climate change comes from the way both are portrayed in the media. When people are repeatedly brow-beaten with an idea, and anyone who dissents is ostracized and insulted, it causes onlookers to move away from the position that is being shoved in their faces. These techniques are sometimes misapplied in both equal rights and climate change, which ultimately hurts both causes. These techniques might strengthen an already committed base, but they polarize and antagonize everyone not already sold. This comic [0], linked last week in a different thread [1], shows the same thing in visual form, and I think there's merit to the concept that overly vociferous opposition to idea X actually increases support of idea X. [0] https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ -- I don't know anything about the site hosting the comic, but I think the comic stands on its own [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832003
- mcphage 6y ago
  > and I think there's merit to the concept that overly vociferous opposition to idea X actually increases support of idea X. It’s an interesting concept, but I wonder why it applies for some ideas and not others. There are plenty of ideas with vociferous opposition that don’t seem to cause an increase—murder, elder abuse, cannibalism, human trafficking. What would cause some ideas to spread via opposition, and not others?
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    > What would cause some ideas to spread via opposition, and not others? The widespread opposition to cannibalism is not publicized because essentially everyone is agreed and there is nothing to discuss. It isn't the case that Democrats are anti-cannibalism and Republicans are pro-cannibalism. There are no prominent existing supporters of cannibalism to vociferously condemn. Climate change and feminism have factions to fight each other. Oil workers in Texas don't want to lose their livelihood. Homeowners in California don't want extreme fires to claim their homes. Women want more rapists to go to jail. Men don't want to be falsely imprisoned for an alleged rape that didn't really happen. So you can find plenty of people to argue that climate change is over-hyped, and plenty of people willing to believe them because it serves their own interests, and therefore plenty of people on the other team to be unnecessarily vicious to those people to the point of making their own side look bad.
  - jasonv 6y ago
    I can't read the flagged comment, but just the quoted part of the comment in this post seems true to me, even if your "why not these" lists are interesting.. but not a negation of the quoted idea. Also seems to be compatible with the idea, which has gotten a lot of play in the Social Dilemma Netflix movie, that people engage harder with things they disagree with, and not so much at all with positions they do.
    - mcphage 6y ago
      The part of the comment I was responding to was a link to a PBF comic: https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ I do agree it’s an interesting concept, but I think there’s more going on, too.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
> Wait wait wait, are you actually saying that poor quality research in field X convinced you that field Y also has poor quality research? How does this make sense? I'm not sure that was the case being made. It's not the quality of the research, it's the quality of the journalism, which in turn demonstrates that the journalism is of sufficiently low quality as to be incapable of revealing the existence of propaganda-quality research. Then the problem becomes that if you can't trust the media coverage, you would have to go to the primary sources. But what percentage of people have the time and competence to actually do that? > How long does it take for you to consider yourself an "expert" in a field? The poster is clearly referring to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: https://loricism.fandom.com/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect https://loricism.fandom.com/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect
- Udik 6y ago
  > It's not the quality of the research, it's the quality of the journalism It's not only that. At some point you realise that even science with all its safeguards is not indifferent to the dominant, accepted belief systems. People simply align with a group and will blindly repeat anything, even self-contradictory statements, as long as it's expected by their peers. It's quite uncanny when you notice it for the first time.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    That's because the safeguards in science guard against unintentional error. Peer review isn't robust against political alignment because if the author and the reviewers are all making the same false unstated assumption, nobody is looking in the direction of the error. And it gets even worse if people who do see it are penalized for saying so. The scientific method assumes good faith, good skepticism and a willingness to admit mistakes. Without that you're doing politics, not science.
Udik 6y ago
> The forecasts are made with simulations based on physical theories... Note that here you're talking only about the fundamental findings of climate science, but when people talk about the effects and dangers of climate change, they talk about consequences that are often far down a causal chain (local weather patterns, agriculture, social impacts, health, etc.). So without realising it you just attributed to all the research that is connected to climate change the same level of precision of a small subset of it, which is obviously undue.

nitrogen 6y ago

How is any of this remotely related to gender studies? The bizarreness of linking feminism to climate change notwithstanding, I think that in the interest of productive discussion on HN, an interesting point can be found within it. A lot of the fuel for the opposition to both feminism and climate change comes from the way both are portrayed in the media. When people are repeatedly brow-beaten with an idea, and anyone who dissents is ostracized and insulted, it causes onlookers to move away from the position that is being shoved in their faces. These techniques are sometimes misapplied in both equal rights and climate change, which ultimately hurts both causes. These techniques might strengthen an already committed base, but they polarize and antagonize everyone not already sold. This comic [0], linked last week in a different thread [1], shows the same thing in visual form, and I think there's merit to the concept that overly vociferous opposition to idea X actually increases support of idea X. [0] https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ -- I don't know anything about the site hosting the comic, but I think the comic stands on its own [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832003 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24832003

mcphage 6y ago
> and I think there's merit to the concept that overly vociferous opposition to idea X actually increases support of idea X. It’s an interesting concept, but I wonder why it applies for some ideas and not others. There are plenty of ideas with vociferous opposition that don’t seem to cause an increase—murder, elder abuse, cannibalism, human trafficking. What would cause some ideas to spread via opposition, and not others?
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  > What would cause some ideas to spread via opposition, and not others? The widespread opposition to cannibalism is not publicized because essentially everyone is agreed and there is nothing to discuss. It isn't the case that Democrats are anti-cannibalism and Republicans are pro-cannibalism. There are no prominent existing supporters of cannibalism to vociferously condemn. Climate change and feminism have factions to fight each other. Oil workers in Texas don't want to lose their livelihood. Homeowners in California don't want extreme fires to claim their homes. Women want more rapists to go to jail. Men don't want to be falsely imprisoned for an alleged rape that didn't really happen. So you can find plenty of people to argue that climate change is over-hyped, and plenty of people willing to believe them because it serves their own interests, and therefore plenty of people on the other team to be unnecessarily vicious to those people to the point of making their own side look bad.
- jasonv 6y ago
  I can't read the flagged comment, but just the quoted part of the comment in this post seems true to me, even if your "why not these" lists are interesting.. but not a negation of the quoted idea. Also seems to be compatible with the idea, which has gotten a lot of play in the Social Dilemma Netflix movie, that people engage harder with things they disagree with, and not so much at all with positions they do.
  - mcphage 6y ago
    The part of the comment I was responding to was a link to a PBF comic: https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ https://pbfcomics.com/comics/deeply-held-beliefs/ I do agree it’s an interesting concept, but I think there’s more going on, too.

AnthonyMouse 6y ago

> Wait wait wait, are you actually saying that poor quality research in field X convinced you that field Y also has poor quality research? How does this make sense? I'm not sure that was the case being made. It's not the quality of the research, it's the quality of the journalism, which in turn demonstrates that the journalism is of sufficiently low quality as to be incapable of revealing the existence of propaganda-quality research. Then the problem becomes that if you can't trust the media coverage, you would have to go to the primary sources. But what percentage of people have the time and competence to actually do that? > How long does it take for you to consider yourself an "expert" in a field? The poster is clearly referring to the Gell-Mann amnesia effect: https://loricism.fandom.com/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect https://loricism.fandom.com/wiki/Gell-Mann_Amnesia_Effect

Udik 6y ago
> It's not the quality of the research, it's the quality of the journalism It's not only that. At some point you realise that even science with all its safeguards is not indifferent to the dominant, accepted belief systems. People simply align with a group and will blindly repeat anything, even self-contradictory statements, as long as it's expected by their peers. It's quite uncanny when you notice it for the first time.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  That's because the safeguards in science guard against unintentional error. Peer review isn't robust against political alignment because if the author and the reviewers are all making the same false unstated assumption, nobody is looking in the direction of the error. And it gets even worse if people who do see it are penalized for saying so. The scientific method assumes good faith, good skepticism and a willingness to admit mistakes. Without that you're doing politics, not science.

Udik 6y ago

> The forecasts are made with simulations based on physical theories... Note that here you're talking only about the fundamental findings of climate science, but when people talk about the effects and dangers of climate change, they talk about consequences that are often far down a causal chain (local weather patterns, agriculture, social impacts, health, etc.). So without realising it you just attributed to all the research that is connected to climate change the same level of precision of a small subset of it, which is obviously undue.