I think all three of us see this in hindsight. Ultimately, Exxon influenced politics to keep its business model. Politicians then amplified pieces of rhetoric (

I think all three of us see this in hindsight. Ultimately, Exxon influenced politics to keep its business model. Politicians then amplified pieces of rhetoric (eg: the piece I pointed out) for their own gain. I would bet that very few people (especially the general public) read that original report in its entirety. What's more important to me personally in this thread is not “a single person was not always thinking the correct things” but rather, “what lead them to think things counter to established/semi-established science?” All of us are prone to misinformation. By understanding biases we can potentially improve ourselves. I tend to hold the same thumb-in-the-air view that anytime we think we absolutely know something is true, we are probably missing something fundamental. This is just another way of saying that reality (especially political reality) is almost always more nuanced than “x is good” or “y is bad.” Finally, the human condition is quite messy. We all operate on partial knowledge of the world. There is no way for any of us to spend enough time+energy to really focus on or even fully grasp all the large and simultaneous issues in the world. It’s why we have organizations that go out and try to boil the problems down for us based on interviews and primary sources. Various governments also have these same kinds of organizations that operate independently and are tailored to help make policy decisions. My point: it’s possible to quickly analyze our limited sources of information and come to wrong conclusions. api openly accepts that his conclusion changed and speaks about where he thinks he went wrong. In this light, down voting based on his internal experience seems… odd.