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Do you have source? What I've heard is the opposite: scientists have consistently made conservative predictions because of the hostile political landscape. Ba
by yongjik 3y ago
Do you have source? What I've heard is the opposite: scientists have consistently made conservative predictions because of the hostile political landscape.
Basically, if you predict bad thing X would happen by year Y, and it doesn't, then you're branded a liar. But if you don't predict X will happen, and it happens, nobody's angry at you. It creates an incentive structure where scientists would tone down their predictions, instead of doing their best to find out the most likely outcome.
E.g., https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists-have-been-underestimating-the-pace-of-climate-change/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/scientists...
- dumpsterdiver 3y agoUnfortunately, I'm having trouble finding the source. It was quite some time ago that I read it. It's certainly possible that it was a public communicator peripheral of the people working on the actual science who made the comment, and not the scientists themselves. I'll poke around a bit more and try to find the source. If I find it I'll add it as a response to this comment.
- dumpsterdiver 3y agoUpdate: I didn't find the source. The closest I found was an article featuring a prominent climate change scientist lamenting about other scientists overstating the issue, on the basis that when people find out it was overblown they would lose trust in whole idea. The scientist herself did not however, overstate the issue - she advocated a conservative approach to communicating with the public.
- sparrish 3y agoYou're forgetting the part where if they predict bad thing X would happen by year Y, they would get Z funding. The monetary incentives in academia and public are stacked towards predicting doom.