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That’s the beautiful thing about science: You do not have to (and should not) trust any individual. And even if you don’t trust “the consensus” of “the scientif

That’s the beautiful thing about science: You do not have to (and should not) trust any individual. And even if you don’t trust “the consensus” of “the scientific community”, you can empirically verify yourself.

zahlman 8mo ago
Can ordinary civilians feasibly measure, for example, global trends in mean temperature without relying on the data of others?
- fc417fc802 8mo ago
  No, but the literature is open for you to read. Thus you can judge the stated reasoning for yourself. You can also assess how many independent groups are making the same (or closely related) claim. If only one person claims X then it might be fraud. If large numbers of seemingly unrelated people all claim X then you're forced to decide between X and a global conspiracy to misrepresent X. To your example. Importantly, even if you deemed one of the global mean temperature datasets to be untrustworthy there are other related (but different) datasets. There are also other pieces of evidence related to the downstream claims that don't look directly at temperature.
- mike_hearn 8mo ago
  This is a common misconception in discussions about scientific fraud. You don't have to be able to do a thing correctly to detect when it's being done incorrectly. You shouldn't trust any claims by scientists about global trends in mean temperatures. We can say this with confidence, without being able to compute a better timeseries, by just looking to see if the basics of the scientific method are being followed by those who do it. If we do that check we find that they don't follow the scientific method. Specifically, they edit past observations to bring them into line with theory instead of deriving theory from data believed to be robust. https://retractionwatch.com/2021/08/16/will-the-real-hottest-month-on-record-please-stand-up/ https://retractionwatch.com/2021/08/16/will-the-real-hottest...
dekhn 8mo ago
Are you going to build a competitor to CERN? There are many things that cannot be feasibly verified empirically without access to rare resources.
tbrownaw 8mo ago
Once you move from abstract to practical - like say having legislators or regulators make rules based on The Science, or relying personally on more facts than you have time to independently verify - yes you do need to have trustworthy people.

zahlman 8mo ago

Can ordinary civilians feasibly measure, for example, global trends in mean temperature without relying on the data of others?

fc417fc802 8mo ago
No, but the literature is open for you to read. Thus you can judge the stated reasoning for yourself. You can also assess how many independent groups are making the same (or closely related) claim. If only one person claims X then it might be fraud. If large numbers of seemingly unrelated people all claim X then you're forced to decide between X and a global conspiracy to misrepresent X. To your example. Importantly, even if you deemed one of the global mean temperature datasets to be untrustworthy there are other related (but different) datasets. There are also other pieces of evidence related to the downstream claims that don't look directly at temperature.
mike_hearn 8mo ago
This is a common misconception in discussions about scientific fraud. You don't have to be able to do a thing correctly to detect when it's being done incorrectly. You shouldn't trust any claims by scientists about global trends in mean temperatures. We can say this with confidence, without being able to compute a better timeseries, by just looking to see if the basics of the scientific method are being followed by those who do it. If we do that check we find that they don't follow the scientific method. Specifically, they edit past observations to bring them into line with theory instead of deriving theory from data believed to be robust. https://retractionwatch.com/2021/08/16/will-the-real-hottest-month-on-record-please-stand-up/ https://retractionwatch.com/2021/08/16/will-the-real-hottest...

dekhn 8mo ago

Are you going to build a competitor to CERN? There are many things that cannot be feasibly verified empirically without access to rare resources.

tbrownaw 8mo ago

Once you move from abstract to practical - like say having legislators or regulators make rules based on The Science, or relying personally on more facts than you have time to independently verify - yes you do need to have trustworthy people.