4 ms·

This is basically a good thing, but I'm always annoyed by the use of "science" like this, making it into an institution with a unified voice. If they used the w

This is basically a good thing, but I'm always annoyed by the use of "science" like this, making it into an institution with a unified voice. If they used the word 'consensus' or 'studies' the claim would sound weaker, and they want to give it the weight of a quasi-religious absolute. Which is great for the tactical, rhetorical power of their argument, but plants the seed of their strategic downfall. If you do this enough, "science" is lowered to a political device commanding the same respect as sociology did in the Soviet Union (or even in the US, at this point), ie less than nothing.

RickJWagner 4y ago
The great thing about science is that it can criticize itself, and later even completely change it's position. It's why science is never permanently 'settled', but only settled for the point in time, given the information available. It's probably best to always leave some room for discussion.
elicash 4y ago
Good news for you. Here's a direct quote from their post, which I believe their blog is currently down so don't blame you for not finding it: > To better serve these conversations, misleading advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change are prohibited, in line with our inappropriate content policy.
- dalmo3 4y ago
  > misleading advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus climate change are prohibited I wonder if they still allow non-misleading advertising that contradict the scientific consensus.
- torstenvl 4y ago
  That's more honest, but also more obviously problematic. Thank God publishing platforms didn't prohibit contradicting the scientific consensus on, say, Newtonian physics in the early 20th century.
  - tshaddox 4y ago
    But wasn’t the scientific consensus already that Newtonian physics was unable to explain certain observations, i.e. everyone already knew Newtonian physics was false? It’s not like Einstein just published a paper that said “nuh uh, all the experts are full of shit and here’s why…” and then proceeded to use powerful rhetoric to convince everyone they had been wrong.
    - ss108 4y ago
      "It’s not like Einstein just published a paper that said “nuh uh, all the experts are full of shit and here’s why…” and then proceeded to use powerful rhetoric to convince everyone they had been wrong." Of course not. He made a YouTube video with the title "10 reasons why Newtonian physics is WRONG that the MAINSTREAM MEDIA doesn't want you to know!!!" and appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast.
  - staticassertion 4y ago
    Are you just severely confused? Do you think that Newtonian physics received its scrutiny through media advertising?
  - elicash 4y ago
    I think your point of view is a valid one, but I saw my role with my comment on just correcting facts. They hadn't realized that Twitter had in fact used the word "consensus." I was not offering a view either way. In that spirit, I'd also note for you that this new policy applies specifically to advertising. Not to what you can post. You can still be opposed to this policy, for reasonable reasons, but just to clarify.
  - saalweachter 4y ago
    Yeah, if Einstein hadn't been able to take out those full page ads in the Times relativity might never have gotten off the ground.
- jesushax 4y ago
  Oh I don't fault Twitter in particularly, just whoever decided on the title of that specific article (so I guess the AP people in this case). Like, if an article was titled "Science says you should stretch more!" but then in the article, they just cite a specific study, I would still be slightly annoyed by that. It's just a nitpicky pet peeve that I think reveals some epic underlying truth about the cycle of human civilization (but probably doesn't)
stretchwithme 4y ago
Every generally accepted theory starts out as a theory held by one. And sometimes directly contradicting the consensus. We think independently for a reason. Not submitting to the PERCEIVED consensus is a good thing. It means we can have different deeply committed people investigating different theories at the same time, rather than waiting for a central authority, financed with other people's money, to give up on one and pick up the next when it finally gets over its ego.
- wtallis 4y ago
  It's fine to have competing explanations for the available evidence. But that's not what anti-science political positions usually look like. Rejecting both the evidence and the explanation without justification or alternative is completely different from reasonable scientific dissent.
  - aeternum 4y ago
    Would you consider any of these reasonable scientific dissent: 1) We should not be overly concerned about global warming because near/future technology will likely solve the problem. 2) The weather changes will be gradual enough that people can adapt. People frequently migrate due to weather/climate. 3) There are a lot of climate-related orgs now that fund climate research. Is it possible that the existence of these organizations and continued-funding incentives result in a selective pressure to publish some results and not others?
    - wtallis 4y ago
      Those are all mere suppositions that assume evidence which needs to actually be furnished for a proper debate. But aside from that: 1) is wishful thinking that may end up coming true, but is naturally not currently a position supported by science. I don't think this can be discussed much in a scientific context beyond basic stuff like calculating the magnitude of carbon sequestration needed, what such efforts would cost with current technology, and how many orders of magnitude cheaper future technology would have to be to provide a viable solution for the problem as it will exist by the time such technology is invented. 2) boils down to a question of the precision of climate forecasts, and there's certainly room for reasonable debate when framed that way. But given how many of the historical instances of weather/climate-related migration and adaptation came with immense humanitarian costs, you have to be really sure that global warming will be sufficiently slow-moving to not actually be catastrophic. I suspect the bulk of the evidence is against the proposition that global warming will be too slow to cause large-scale famine, or that rising sea levels will be too slow to cause major disruption to coastal cities. At the very least, it seems unjustified to be confident that climate change effects will never approach the scale of what something like a volcanic winter causes. 3) simply ignores the existence of political and corporate resources that are eager for climate change to be disproven. Opponents of climate change are both directly involved in the search for evidence against climate change, and indirectly pressure mainstream researchers to publish only their strongest, most defensible results. So it's quite hard to imagine how the mechanism of bias you point out could be strong enough to produce the net effect of a scientific consensus that greatly exaggerates the magnitude of climate change. This is a reasonable question to investigate, but the question itself does not provide any grounds for rejecting the available evidence for climate change. (This mechanism was able to preserve the wrong scientific consensus regarding the charge of the electron for only about three decades before it was overcome by new results.) Obviously, none of this discussion is a good fit for Twitter.

RickJWagner 4y ago

The great thing about science is that it can criticize itself, and later even completely change it's position. It's why science is never permanently 'settled', but only settled for the point in time, given the information available. It's probably best to always leave some room for discussion.

elicash 4y ago

Good news for you. Here's a direct quote from their post, which I believe their blog is currently down so don't blame you for not finding it: > To better serve these conversations, misleading advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus on climate change are prohibited, in line with our inappropriate content policy.

dalmo3 4y ago
> misleading advertisements on Twitter that contradict the scientific consensus climate change are prohibited I wonder if they still allow non-misleading advertising that contradict the scientific consensus.
torstenvl 4y ago
That's more honest, but also more obviously problematic. Thank God publishing platforms didn't prohibit contradicting the scientific consensus on, say, Newtonian physics in the early 20th century.
- tshaddox 4y ago
  But wasn’t the scientific consensus already that Newtonian physics was unable to explain certain observations, i.e. everyone already knew Newtonian physics was false? It’s not like Einstein just published a paper that said “nuh uh, all the experts are full of shit and here’s why…” and then proceeded to use powerful rhetoric to convince everyone they had been wrong.
  - ss108 4y ago
    "It’s not like Einstein just published a paper that said “nuh uh, all the experts are full of shit and here’s why…” and then proceeded to use powerful rhetoric to convince everyone they had been wrong." Of course not. He made a YouTube video with the title "10 reasons why Newtonian physics is WRONG that the MAINSTREAM MEDIA doesn't want you to know!!!" and appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast.
- staticassertion 4y ago
  Are you just severely confused? Do you think that Newtonian physics received its scrutiny through media advertising?
- elicash 4y ago
  I think your point of view is a valid one, but I saw my role with my comment on just correcting facts. They hadn't realized that Twitter had in fact used the word "consensus." I was not offering a view either way. In that spirit, I'd also note for you that this new policy applies specifically to advertising. Not to what you can post. You can still be opposed to this policy, for reasonable reasons, but just to clarify.
- saalweachter 4y ago
  Yeah, if Einstein hadn't been able to take out those full page ads in the Times relativity might never have gotten off the ground.
jesushax 4y ago
Oh I don't fault Twitter in particularly, just whoever decided on the title of that specific article (so I guess the AP people in this case). Like, if an article was titled "Science says you should stretch more!" but then in the article, they just cite a specific study, I would still be slightly annoyed by that. It's just a nitpicky pet peeve that I think reveals some epic underlying truth about the cycle of human civilization (but probably doesn't)

stretchwithme 4y ago

Every generally accepted theory starts out as a theory held by one. And sometimes directly contradicting the consensus. We think independently for a reason. Not submitting to the PERCEIVED consensus is a good thing. It means we can have different deeply committed people investigating different theories at the same time, rather than waiting for a central authority, financed with other people's money, to give up on one and pick up the next when it finally gets over its ego.

wtallis 4y ago
It's fine to have competing explanations for the available evidence. But that's not what anti-science political positions usually look like. Rejecting both the evidence and the explanation without justification or alternative is completely different from reasonable scientific dissent.
- aeternum 4y ago
  Would you consider any of these reasonable scientific dissent: 1) We should not be overly concerned about global warming because near/future technology will likely solve the problem. 2) The weather changes will be gradual enough that people can adapt. People frequently migrate due to weather/climate. 3) There are a lot of climate-related orgs now that fund climate research. Is it possible that the existence of these organizations and continued-funding incentives result in a selective pressure to publish some results and not others?
  - wtallis 4y ago
    Those are all mere suppositions that assume evidence which needs to actually be furnished for a proper debate. But aside from that: 1) is wishful thinking that may end up coming true, but is naturally not currently a position supported by science. I don't think this can be discussed much in a scientific context beyond basic stuff like calculating the magnitude of carbon sequestration needed, what such efforts would cost with current technology, and how many orders of magnitude cheaper future technology would have to be to provide a viable solution for the problem as it will exist by the time such technology is invented. 2) boils down to a question of the precision of climate forecasts, and there's certainly room for reasonable debate when framed that way. But given how many of the historical instances of weather/climate-related migration and adaptation came with immense humanitarian costs, you have to be really sure that global warming will be sufficiently slow-moving to not actually be catastrophic. I suspect the bulk of the evidence is against the proposition that global warming will be too slow to cause large-scale famine, or that rising sea levels will be too slow to cause major disruption to coastal cities. At the very least, it seems unjustified to be confident that climate change effects will never approach the scale of what something like a volcanic winter causes. 3) simply ignores the existence of political and corporate resources that are eager for climate change to be disproven. Opponents of climate change are both directly involved in the search for evidence against climate change, and indirectly pressure mainstream researchers to publish only their strongest, most defensible results. So it's quite hard to imagine how the mechanism of bias you point out could be strong enough to produce the net effect of a scientific consensus that greatly exaggerates the magnitude of climate change. This is a reasonable question to investigate, but the question itself does not provide any grounds for rejecting the available evidence for climate change. (This mechanism was able to preserve the wrong scientific consensus regarding the charge of the electron for only about three decades before it was overcome by new results.) Obviously, none of this discussion is a good fit for Twitter.