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Thank you. I think the biggest red flag I have with the people who question the science behind anthropogenic global warming theory isn't that they are question

by JPKab 14y ago

Thank you. I think the biggest red flag I have with the people who question the science behind anthropogenic global warming theory isn't that they are questioning it, but they are doing so in a clearly non-scientific, selctively biased way. I've seen bad science debunked before (we all have), like ulcers being caused by stress(actually caused by bacteria), cold fusion, etc. The folks cruasading against antrhopogenic global warming have all to often picked a position based on opposition to the most commonly proposed solution to antrho global warming(reducing consumption of fossil fuels), and then sought out science to support their position. The problems are obvious: 1) Let's say there is a legitimate argument about reduction of fossil fuel use vs. a geo-engineering scheme to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. This argument never gets to happen because people who are against fossil fuel usage reduction as a solution never admit the problem even exists. (I have to admit, I think reduction of carbon emissions is unrealistic, because the countries which benefit the most from carbon rich fuel consumption in the short term are the poorest countries with the most people. I don't realistically see India decide to keep its people poor and without electricity/transport when they don't have to. People don't give a shit about saving the planet until they have food in their own and children's bellies, and aren't dying of diseases easily prevented by fossil fuel powered infrastructure) 2) The group of people who are currently arguing that the warming is not caused by human activity heavily, HEAVILY overlap with the group of people who were denying that warming was even happening 8 years ago. This is a huge red flag. Do I discredit scientists if they are proven wrong one time? No. But if a "doctor" says vaccines are bad because they cause autism, and when proven wrong, invents another argument against vaccines, I write him off as a quack who doesn't follow the scientific method. And I'm right. These guys are basically saying "Don't cut carbon! The planet isn't getting warmer." Now they have changed their answer to "Don't cut carbon. It's not the reason the planet is getting warmer. " And frankly, I'm getting sick of people who don't even have a single scientific degree attacking scientists. It all reeks of the same attitude I was innundated with as a kid by my classmates because I believed in evolution and dinosaurs.

jacquesm 14y ago
> And frankly, I'm getting sick of people who don't even have a single scientific degree attacking scientists. What about people without a single scientific degree supporting scientists?
- scarmig 14y ago
  I'm hesitant about building a Chinese Wall between accredited experts and the broader society, and I regret a bit about even mentioning the bloggers' professions in my ancestral comment. Their posts, after all, speak for themselves. But for whatever reason, right now there's a giant gap of approach in how "amateurs" on both sides approach science. I guess what I'd like is amateurs who are actually interested in the science engaging with and contributing to expert discussion. Not merely for the sake of amateurs, but for the sake of the expert scientific discourse itself. Science has no sides except reality; but if you have a situation where one political side vociferously attacks you while another political side defends you, it's psychologically very easy to forget that and your role as a scientist.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    The way to deal with the problem imo is not to appeal to a group of uneducated people for support in the first place, but simply to increase the number of educated people to the point where such politicizing is no longer effective. Manipulative tricks only work when the vast majority of the people have no clue about the inner workings of the pale blue dot that we are stewards of. But I cringe at the way the polarization is worked on both sides of the divide, support by ignoramuses is just as sought after by both sides and just as meaningless. But since we all live in democracies support by the numbers is important even if those supporting you have no clue about the facts or the underlying mechanisms. In the end that support should not matter. What should matter is facts and the way (big) money is distorting the picture is very worrisome. Plenty of scientists (in absolute numbers, not in percentages, the far larger number are as ethical as can be and even some of those critical of the evidence are critical for pure motives, not because of some paycheck) have zero compunction about supporting whatever side pays for their mortgage. A preponderance of evidence (unfortunately) no longer offsets a preponderance of marketing dollars. And that is to me - for the moment, I may revise that statement, living 45' below sea level - far more worrying than climate change in and of itself. Considering the possibilities of a runaway effect and the reality of China/India starting to use far more power and hence emitting far more CO2 this may be a thing that is already too far gone to stop, even if we did act today (Nobody seems to be sure about that one, though the consensus seems to be there will be a mitigating effect, magnitude unknown). But then imagine some real disaster triggered by our carelessness does befall us, what are we going to do to deal with the aftermath if we can't even agree on what to do when it is not yet rearranging our lives with careless abandon? Nature doesn't care, one way or the other whether we're going to agree with each other or not. It'll just let physics run its course, and physics tends to be a pretty good if harsh teacher. Humans are pretty fragile. Maybe we will learn from this, maybe we won't, time will tell. But for now I'm not too hopeful about how this is playing out and both sides are guilty of trying to politicize this instead of letting the facts simply speak for themselves. An inconvenient truth indeed.
pdonis 14y ago
And frankly, I'm getting sick of people who don't even have a single scientific degree attacking scientists. It all reeks of the same attitude I was innundated with as a kid by my classmates because I believed in evolution and dinosaurs. I actually sympathize with this point of view, because I've been in exactly the same position because I accept evolution as a scientific theory. I remember one discussion group (in a Sunday school class at a Unitarian church, of all places) with six kids plus the adult who was leading the group arguing for creationism, and me all by myself arguing for evolution. Not surprisingly, nobody convinced anybody to change their mind. However, I do not accept the implied claim in your statement that climate science is in the same position as the theory of evolution. It isn't. We do not understand the climate well enough for that, but for political reasons it is impossible for "mainstream" climate scientists to admit that. That's not a good situation. As far as reducing our use of fossil fuels, there are good reasons to do that anyway. IMO, we should have made that a national security priority back in the 1970's, when the economic and foreign policy consequences of buying oil from the Middle East became clear enough. But linking the argument for reducing fossil fuels to the argument for reducing CO2 does not help; it hinders, by muddying the waters of what should be a straightforward argument about foreign policy with a highly contentious argument about climate change. These guys are basically saying "Don't cut carbon! The planet isn't getting warmer." Now they have changed their answer to "Don't cut carbon. It's not the reason the planet is getting warmer." This may be a valid criticism of at least one faction in the climate change debate; but showing that that faction is wrong does not show that another faction must be right. The way it looks to me, everybody is both right in part, and wrong in part: the climate is changing, humans are contributing to the change, but cutting CO2 emissions will not fix the problem, because there are too many other factors involved that we don't understand.
- vacri 14y ago
  If you get home in the mid-afternoon and you're really hungry, do you put on the roast for tonight's dinner and wait several hours for it to be ready, or do you have a quick sandwich now while you're preparing the roast? A partial solution is better than sticking to the dogma that no solution be attempted until a wholly-conclusive one is found.
egres 14y ago
Just a quick correction about the cause of ulcers. We now know that 95% of ulcers are caused at least partially by bacteria but it is not clear whether the other 5% (where bacteria is not present in biopsy) are caused by stress, medication, smoking, or combination of these factors. http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/ulcer.html http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/ulcer.html

by JPKab 14y ago

jacquesm 14y ago

> And frankly, I'm getting sick of people who don't even have a single scientific degree attacking scientists. What about people without a single scientific degree supporting scientists?

scarmig 14y ago
I'm hesitant about building a Chinese Wall between accredited experts and the broader society, and I regret a bit about even mentioning the bloggers' professions in my ancestral comment. Their posts, after all, speak for themselves. But for whatever reason, right now there's a giant gap of approach in how "amateurs" on both sides approach science. I guess what I'd like is amateurs who are actually interested in the science engaging with and contributing to expert discussion. Not merely for the sake of amateurs, but for the sake of the expert scientific discourse itself. Science has no sides except reality; but if you have a situation where one political side vociferously attacks you while another political side defends you, it's psychologically very easy to forget that and your role as a scientist.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  The way to deal with the problem imo is not to appeal to a group of uneducated people for support in the first place, but simply to increase the number of educated people to the point where such politicizing is no longer effective. Manipulative tricks only work when the vast majority of the people have no clue about the inner workings of the pale blue dot that we are stewards of. But I cringe at the way the polarization is worked on both sides of the divide, support by ignoramuses is just as sought after by both sides and just as meaningless. But since we all live in democracies support by the numbers is important even if those supporting you have no clue about the facts or the underlying mechanisms. In the end that support should not matter. What should matter is facts and the way (big) money is distorting the picture is very worrisome. Plenty of scientists (in absolute numbers, not in percentages, the far larger number are as ethical as can be and even some of those critical of the evidence are critical for pure motives, not because of some paycheck) have zero compunction about supporting whatever side pays for their mortgage. A preponderance of evidence (unfortunately) no longer offsets a preponderance of marketing dollars. And that is to me - for the moment, I may revise that statement, living 45' below sea level - far more worrying than climate change in and of itself. Considering the possibilities of a runaway effect and the reality of China/India starting to use far more power and hence emitting far more CO2 this may be a thing that is already too far gone to stop, even if we did act today (Nobody seems to be sure about that one, though the consensus seems to be there will be a mitigating effect, magnitude unknown). But then imagine some real disaster triggered by our carelessness does befall us, what are we going to do to deal with the aftermath if we can't even agree on what to do when it is not yet rearranging our lives with careless abandon? Nature doesn't care, one way or the other whether we're going to agree with each other or not. It'll just let physics run its course, and physics tends to be a pretty good if harsh teacher. Humans are pretty fragile. Maybe we will learn from this, maybe we won't, time will tell. But for now I'm not too hopeful about how this is playing out and both sides are guilty of trying to politicize this instead of letting the facts simply speak for themselves. An inconvenient truth indeed.

pdonis 14y ago

And frankly, I'm getting sick of people who don't even have a single scientific degree attacking scientists. It all reeks of the same attitude I was innundated with as a kid by my classmates because I believed in evolution and dinosaurs. I actually sympathize with this point of view, because I've been in exactly the same position because I accept evolution as a scientific theory. I remember one discussion group (in a Sunday school class at a Unitarian church, of all places) with six kids plus the adult who was leading the group arguing for creationism, and me all by myself arguing for evolution. Not surprisingly, nobody convinced anybody to change their mind. However, I do not accept the implied claim in your statement that climate science is in the same position as the theory of evolution. It isn't. We do not understand the climate well enough for that, but for political reasons it is impossible for "mainstream" climate scientists to admit that. That's not a good situation. As far as reducing our use of fossil fuels, there are good reasons to do that anyway. IMO, we should have made that a national security priority back in the 1970's, when the economic and foreign policy consequences of buying oil from the Middle East became clear enough. But linking the argument for reducing fossil fuels to the argument for reducing CO2 does not help; it hinders, by muddying the waters of what should be a straightforward argument about foreign policy with a highly contentious argument about climate change. These guys are basically saying "Don't cut carbon! The planet isn't getting warmer." Now they have changed their answer to "Don't cut carbon. It's not the reason the planet is getting warmer." This may be a valid criticism of at least one faction in the climate change debate; but showing that that faction is wrong does not show that another faction must be right. The way it looks to me, everybody is both right in part, and wrong in part: the climate is changing, humans are contributing to the change, but cutting CO2 emissions will not fix the problem, because there are too many other factors involved that we don't understand.

vacri 14y ago
If you get home in the mid-afternoon and you're really hungry, do you put on the roast for tonight's dinner and wait several hours for it to be ready, or do you have a quick sandwich now while you're preparing the roast? A partial solution is better than sticking to the dogma that no solution be attempted until a wholly-conclusive one is found.

egres 14y ago

Just a quick correction about the cause of ulcers. We now know that 95% of ulcers are caused at least partially by bacteria but it is not clear whether the other 5% (where bacteria is not present in biopsy) are caused by stress, medication, smoking, or combination of these factors. http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/ulcer.html http://people.ku.edu/~jbrown/ulcer.html