5 ms·

What's heretical about asking honest straightforward questions?

MauranKilom 5y ago
The phrasing of the question is odd and hints at rhetoric instead of curiosity as intention. What if it's only 99.99% sure that CO2 is the reason for climate change? What about 90%? No need to act until we bring that up to 100%? What's with the fixation on 0.04% as a number? Things can't have huge impact unless numbers are also big? I don't want to offend, but that's honestly third grade mentality. There's surprise about small things having little impact, and then there's denial hidden as feigned curiosity. Especially when the answers are directly available from much more credible sources than random internet posters. Compare with: "Has it yet been absolutely proven 100% that the lead comprising 0.03% [hypothetically - for reference, this is 100000x the FDA limit] of our food intake is the main culprit/control knob which controls brain development?" No, it actually isn't the "main" control knob. And our bodies are also complex with many feedback loops. And no study will ever reach p = 0. And it's a really small number. And yet we have made "extremely huge decisions" regarding what fuels we allow, what tests food have to undergo etc...
- mr_mitm 5y ago
  The fixation on the 0.04% is particularly confusing, as the other 99.96% of the atmosphere is mostly completely transparent to the relevant frequencies. Going by volume or ppm is wrong when all we care about is the absorption factor. Greenhouse gases don't absorb less infrared radiation by adding transparent nitrogen, even though it would reduce the greenhouse gas concentration.
chriswarbo 5y ago
> What's heretical about asking honest straightforward questions? This is a loaded question ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question ), since it implies that this question-asking is honest and straightforward. On the contrary, it seems like OP is "jaqing off" ( https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions ); unless, of course, they can absolutely prove 100% that they're acting in good faith.
- useragent86 5y ago
  Can you absolutely prove 100% that you're acting in good faith?
  - chriswarbo 5y ago
    Nope, but that's no matter, since whether or not I am acting in good faith is logically independent of whether OP is jaqing off (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque ). In contrast, OP's hunch about the climate emergency either not existing because the concentration of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere is "small" (according to some unspecified criteria), and/or fixing itself due to plant growth, run counter to the consensus position of the world scientific community, and hence the burden of proof is on OP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) It was their choice to raise that burden to the unachievable height of '100% absolute proof' :)

The phrasing of the question is odd and hints at rhetoric instead of curiosity as intention. What if it's only 99.99% sure that CO2 is the reason for climate change? What about 90%? No need to act until we bring that up to 100%? What's with the fixation on 0.04% as a number? Things can't have huge impact unless numbers are also big? I don't want to offend, but that's honestly third grade mentality. There's surprise about small things having little impact, and then there's denial hidden as feigned curiosity. Especially when the answers are directly available from much more credible sources than random internet posters. Compare with: "Has it yet been absolutely proven 100% that the lead comprising 0.03% [hypothetically - for reference, this is 100000x the FDA limit] of our food intake is the main culprit/control knob which controls brain development?" No, it actually isn't the "main" control knob. And our bodies are also complex with many feedback loops. And no study will ever reach p = 0. And it's a really small number. And yet we have made "extremely huge decisions" regarding what fuels we allow, what tests food have to undergo etc...

mr_mitm 5y ago
The fixation on the 0.04% is particularly confusing, as the other 99.96% of the atmosphere is mostly completely transparent to the relevant frequencies. Going by volume or ppm is wrong when all we care about is the absorption factor. Greenhouse gases don't absorb less infrared radiation by adding transparent nitrogen, even though it would reduce the greenhouse gas concentration.

chriswarbo 5y ago

> What's heretical about asking honest straightforward questions? This is a loaded question ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question ), since it implies that this question-asking is honest and straightforward. On the contrary, it seems like OP is "jaqing off" ( https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Just_asking_questions ); unless, of course, they can absolutely prove 100% that they're acting in good faith.

useragent86 5y ago
Can you absolutely prove 100% that you're acting in good faith?
- chriswarbo 5y ago
  Nope, but that's no matter, since whether or not I am acting in good faith is logically independent of whether OP is jaqing off (see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque ). In contrast, OP's hunch about the climate emergency either not existing because the concentration of anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere is "small" (according to some unspecified criteria), and/or fixing itself due to plant growth, run counter to the consensus position of the world scientific community, and hence the burden of proof is on OP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy) It was their choice to raise that burden to the unachievable height of '100% absolute proof' :)