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Not too long ago, a creationist would have sarcastically asked "Does this extend to biology too?", and gone away thinking they had made an actual argument.

93po 3y ago
Try challenging climate science, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is on reddit or HN or twitter. Even my above comment now has a negative score which sort of proves my point. note: i don't deny climate science but like any science there are ways to challenge it
- p_j_w 3y ago
  > Even my above comment now has a negative score which sort of proves my point. Tone matters and your tone matches up really well with someone trying to “gotcha” the people around them, which is obnoxious. > i don't deny climate science but like any science there are ways to challenge it Not successfully.
  - parineum 3y ago
    > Not successfully. Never?
- hackerlight 3y ago
  Again, this sounds an awful lot like the creationist rhetoric a few decades ago. > "Try challenging evolutionary biology, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is". All crackpots think they're under siege and that their ideas are unfairly dismissed. Their ideas are "valid" (because they say so), so why are those ideas being dismissed without due consideration? You hear the same rhetoric from anti-vaxxers, creationists and climate change doubters. The problem is a lack of perspective. Crackpots of all stripes don't know that they're crackpots. To them, their distorted thought patterns aren't distorted.
  - zmgsabst 3y ago
    Calling groups “crazy” to dismiss their arguments is a classic ad hominem.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      At the same time, it's a common mistake to believe that any argument that anyone is capable of making is automatically as valid as any other argument. Some arguments are simply more valid than others; there's no use in humoring people just because they think their unfounded opinion is as valid as any other. Or maybe I should just defer to how Isaac Asimov put it: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - hackerlight 3y ago
      I'm not dismissing any particular argument. I'm dismissing the attitude espoused in comments like this: > Try challenging climate science, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is on reddit or HN or twitter. It is an attitude that is a hallmark of cranks of all forms who think they've pierced the veil, but almost inevitably they have fallen for some distorted thinking that they can't see beyond due to the limitations of being trapped in their own head and echo chamber. I would add that logical fallacies like ad hominem are only useful up to a point. In the real world, once a group of people advance N obviously false arguments, they will lose credibility and their N+1th argument will be treated less seriously. I don't think the N+1th argument should ever be entirely ignored, but these people can't expect to be up on a podium presenting to a climatology conference if they have a long history of advancing ludicrous and/or dishonest arguments and have no deep expertise in the domain.
      - zmgsabst 3y ago
        > It is an attitude that is a hallmark of cranks of all forms who think they've pierced the vale And labeling groups who disagree with them as “heretics”, “crazies”, “cranks”, etc is how the orthodoxy censors — as they’ve done for thousands of years. That the orthodoxy seeks to censors dissent rather than address it, particularly when ignoring their own ridiculous members (eg, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg making absurd statements), is why trust in institutions has collapsed. Institutions now routinely engage in obviously dumb ideas because they censor their critics and then run off a metaphorical cliff. In allowing themselves to censor and demean “cranks”, orthodox institutions have rotted badly — both from the perspective of delivering quality results and from the perspective of driving effective policy change.
- rewgs 3y ago
  People are "against" challenging climate science because a) it is extremely mature and the broad strokes as well as most of the fine strokes are overwhelmingly settled and have been for decades, and b) challenge implies a delay, which is not something we can afford; this tactic is often used by people engaging in bad faith, using the guise of "challenge" to discredit the science. People are probably downvoting you because you're coming across as either contrarian at best or bad-faith at worst. Surely you realize this.

93po 3y ago

Try challenging climate science, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is on reddit or HN or twitter. Even my above comment now has a negative score which sort of proves my point. note: i don't deny climate science but like any science there are ways to challenge it

p_j_w 3y ago
> Even my above comment now has a negative score which sort of proves my point. Tone matters and your tone matches up really well with someone trying to “gotcha” the people around them, which is obnoxious. > i don't deny climate science but like any science there are ways to challenge it Not successfully.
- parineum 3y ago
  > Not successfully. Never?
hackerlight 3y ago
Again, this sounds an awful lot like the creationist rhetoric a few decades ago. > "Try challenging evolutionary biology, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is". All crackpots think they're under siege and that their ideas are unfairly dismissed. Their ideas are "valid" (because they say so), so why are those ideas being dismissed without due consideration? You hear the same rhetoric from anti-vaxxers, creationists and climate change doubters. The problem is a lack of perspective. Crackpots of all stripes don't know that they're crackpots. To them, their distorted thought patterns aren't distorted.
- zmgsabst 3y ago
  Calling groups “crazy” to dismiss their arguments is a classic ad hominem.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    At the same time, it's a common mistake to believe that any argument that anyone is capable of making is automatically as valid as any other argument. Some arguments are simply more valid than others; there's no use in humoring people just because they think their unfounded opinion is as valid as any other. Or maybe I should just defer to how Isaac Asimov put it: "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'"
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    I'm not dismissing any particular argument. I'm dismissing the attitude espoused in comments like this: > Try challenging climate science, even in a valid way, and see how popular it is on reddit or HN or twitter. It is an attitude that is a hallmark of cranks of all forms who think they've pierced the veil, but almost inevitably they have fallen for some distorted thinking that they can't see beyond due to the limitations of being trapped in their own head and echo chamber. I would add that logical fallacies like ad hominem are only useful up to a point. In the real world, once a group of people advance N obviously false arguments, they will lose credibility and their N+1th argument will be treated less seriously. I don't think the N+1th argument should ever be entirely ignored, but these people can't expect to be up on a podium presenting to a climatology conference if they have a long history of advancing ludicrous and/or dishonest arguments and have no deep expertise in the domain.
    - zmgsabst 3y ago
      > It is an attitude that is a hallmark of cranks of all forms who think they've pierced the vale And labeling groups who disagree with them as “heretics”, “crazies”, “cranks”, etc is how the orthodoxy censors — as they’ve done for thousands of years. That the orthodoxy seeks to censors dissent rather than address it, particularly when ignoring their own ridiculous members (eg, Al Gore and Greta Thunberg making absurd statements), is why trust in institutions has collapsed. Institutions now routinely engage in obviously dumb ideas because they censor their critics and then run off a metaphorical cliff. In allowing themselves to censor and demean “cranks”, orthodox institutions have rotted badly — both from the perspective of delivering quality results and from the perspective of driving effective policy change.
rewgs 3y ago
People are "against" challenging climate science because a) it is extremely mature and the broad strokes as well as most of the fine strokes are overwhelmingly settled and have been for decades, and b) challenge implies a delay, which is not something we can afford; this tactic is often used by people engaging in bad faith, using the guise of "challenge" to discredit the science. People are probably downvoting you because you're coming across as either contrarian at best or bad-faith at worst. Surely you realize this.